24 UNDINE.
' 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 ; ' i)ay me, first ])ay 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 Avhat a horrible plunge I've saved you !'
" 'Well, don't make any more faces,' said I, ' but take your money and be oiF, 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 time 1 dropped a piece of gold into his wizard cap, which he had taken from his head while he was begging before me.
" I then trotted off and left him ; but he screamed after me ; and on a sudden, with inconceivable quickness, he was close by my side. I started my horse into a gallop. He galloped on with me, though it seemed with great dif- ficult j' ; and with a strange movement, half ludicrous and half horrible, forcing at the same time every limb and fea- ture into distortion, he held up the gold piece, and screamed at every leap, 'Counterfeit! false! false coin 1 counterfeit!' and such was the strange sound that issued from his hollow breast, you would have supposed that at every scream he must have tumbled upon the ground dead. All this while, his disgusting red tongue huTig lolling from his mouth.
" I stopped, bewildered, and asked, ' What do you mean by this screaming? Take another piece of gold, — take two, but leave me !'
"He then began again his hideous salutations of cour- tesy, and snarled out as before, ' Not gold, it shall not be gold, my young gentleman ; I have too much of that trash already, as I will shew you in no time.'
"At that moment, and thought itself could not have been more instantaneous, I seemed to have acquired new powers of sight. I could see through the solid green plain,
