28 Matthias the Hunters Stories. fine lassie coming over the bogland on the right hand side of the road. That part of the bog is very full of pits and pools. I recollect her now as plainly as if she were before me this minute, itwasjustaslightasitisnow;shehad on a brownskirt,and a light handkerchief over her head, and she had a knitting in her left hand. She was a pretty creature altogether. But she was walking right across the bog, and didn't seem to mmd the pits or the pools ; she came along as if there were not any there at all. I looked at her now and then, but when I had walked some distance and got to a cutting in the road, which hid her from my view, I thought it was wrong to let the lass go and trudge through the bog, and that I ought to run up on the bank and shout to her that she had gone astray from the road. Well, I did so, but there was nothing to be seen but the moon, which was refiected from every pool on the bog, and then I guessed it must have been the huldre I had seen." Although I thought he had scarcely seen sufficient to satisfy himself that this was the huldre, I kept my doubts to myself, as I could see that any objections on my part would not shake his belief, but only silence him. I asked him, therefore, if he had not seen similar apparitions on other occasions. " Yes, of course I have ; I have seen a great many things, and I have heard many strange noises and sounds in woods and glens," said Matthias ; " I have often heard talking, cursing, and singing ; at other times I have heard such lovely music that I cannot tell you how lovely it was. Well, once I went out bird calling ; it must have been in the end of August, because the bilberries were ripe and the cranberries were just beginning to redden. I was sitting by a path on a tussock between some bushes, whence I could overlook the path and a little valley to which it led down, and where nothing but ling and heather grew. At the foot of the hill you could see the mouths of several dark caverns. I heard a grey hen cackling among the ling ; I called and thought, ' If I could get a sight of you now, it would be your last cackle ; ' just then I heard something moving behind me on the path. I looked round and saw an old man, but strange to say he appeared to have three legs ; one of them hung and svvung backwards and
