hands. But the old man shook his head, and looked down in deep
thought.

"Hardly had I well settled myself in my saddle, and got the reins in
my grasp again," Huldbrand pursued, "when a wizard-like dwarf of a
man was already standing at my side, diminutive and ugly beyond
conception, his complexion of a brownish-yellow, and his nose
scarcely smaller than the rest of him together. The fellow's mouth
was slit almost from ear to ear, and he showed his teeth with a
grinning smile of idiot courtesy, while he overwhelmed me with bows
and scrapes innumerable. The farce now becoming excessively irksome,
I thanked him in the fewest words I could well use, turned about my
still trembling charger, and purposed either to seek another
adventure, or, should I meet with none, to take my way back to the
city; for the sun, during my wild chase, had passed the meridian, and
was now hastening toward the west. But this villain of a dwarf
sprang at the same instant, and, with a turn as rapid as lightning,
stood before my horse again. 'Clear the way there!' I cried
fiercely; 'the beast is wild, and will make nothing of running over
you.'

"'Ay, ay,' cried the imp with a snarl, and snorting out a laugh still
more frightfully idiotic; 'pay me, first pay what you owe me. I
stopped your fine little nag for you; without my help, both you and
he would be now sprawling below there in that stony ravine. Hu! from
what a horrible plunge I've saved you!'

"'Well, don't make any more faces,' said I, 'but take your money and
be off, though every word you say is false. It was the brook there,
you miserable thing, and not you, that saved me,' and at the same