shall see nothing till
midnight."

Very soon, however, he fell asleep; but towards morning he awoke, and
in the dim light perceived a figure in white at his bedside. It was a
blacksmith who lived near, and he had run in in his night-shirt
without so much as slippers on his feet.

"The ghost at last!" thought the cobbler, and, remembering his
mother's advice, he turned over and shut his eyes.

"Neighbour! neighbour!" cried the blacksmith, "your house is on fire!"

"An old bird is not to be caught with chaff," chuckled the cobbler to
himself; and he pulled the bed-clothes over his head.

"Neighbour!" roared the blacksmith, snatching at the quilt to drag it
off, "are you mad? The house is burning over your head. Get up for
your life!"

"I have the courage of a general, and more," thought the cobbler; and
holding tightly on to the clothes he pretended to snore.

"If you will burn, bum!" cried the blacksmith angrily, "but I mean to
save my bones"--with which he ran off.

And burnt the cobbler undoubtedly would have been, had not his
mother's cries at last convinced him that the candles had set fire to
his house, which was wrapped in flames. With some difficulty he
escaped with his life, but of all he possessed nothing remained to him
but his tools and a few articles of furniture that the widow had
saved.

As he was now again reduced to poverty, he was obliged to work as
diligently as in former years, and passed the rest of his days in the
same peace and prosperity which he had before enjoyed.

THE LAIRD AND THE MAN OF PEACE.

In the Highlands of Scotland there once lived a Laird of Brockburn,
who would not believe in fairies. Although his sixth cousin on the
mother's side, as he returned one night from a wedding, had seen the
Men of Peace hunting on the sides of Ben Muich Dhui, dressed in green,
and with silver-mounted bridles to their horses which jingled as they
rode; and though Rory the fiddler having gone to play at a christening
did never come home, but crossing a hill near Brockburn in a mist was
seduced into a _Shian_[1] or fairy turret, where, as all decent bodies
well believe, he is playing still--in spite, I say, of the wise saws
and experience of all his neighbours, Brockburn remained obstinately
incredulous.

[Footnote 1: _Shian_, a Gaelic name for fairy towers, which by day are
not to be told from mountain crags.]

Not that he bore any ill-will to the Good People, or spoke uncivilly
of