TWILIGHT LAND

promise and said nothing concerning what he had beheld,
his wits buzzed in his head like a hive of bees, for he
thought that of all the ugly tricks he had seen, none was
more ugly than this—to bewitch the poor sorrowful
young man into a sleep, and then to rob him of his ruby
ring after he had fed them so well and had treated them
so kindly.

But the next day they jogged on together again until
by-and-by they came to a great forest. There they
wandered up ‘and down till night came upon them and
found them still stumbling onward through the darkness,
while the poor serving-man’s flesh quaked to hear the
wild beasts and the wolves growling and howling around
them. —

But all the while the angel—his travelling companion
—said never a word; he seemed to doubt nothing nor
fear nothing, but trudged straight ahead until, by-and-by,
they saw a light twinkling far away, and, when they came
to it, they found a gloomy stone house, as ugly as eyes
ever looked upon. Up stepped the servant’s comrade
and knocked upon the door—rap! tap! tap! By-and-by
it was opened a crack, and there stood an ugly old
woman, blear-eyed and crooked and gnarled as a winter
twig. But the heart within her was good for all that.
“Alas, poor folk!” she cried, ‘‘why do you come here?
This is a den where lives a band of wicked thieves.
Every day they go out to rob and murder poor travellers
like yourselves. By-and-by they will come back, and
when they find you here they will certainly kill you.”

“No matter for that,” said the travelling companion:
“we can go no farther to-night, so you must let us in and
hide us as best you may.”

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