g of little hammers. If the
Dwarf and his luminous retinue encountered any one, he stood still until
the latter had passed, and then quietly pursued his road. The more
inquisitive who had ventured to steal after the apparition, swore deep
and high that the Dwarf and his lights had gone hissing into the well
that stood upon Twirling-stick Mike's land, and then the ghostly
procession altogether ceased.

"Simon gave himself a deal of trouble to witness some of these
remarkable things; but he met with nothing; and accordingly, seeing that
the ghost of the dead sponsor in no way molested him, he permitted the
people to chatter on as they would. His indifference, indeed, had nearly
reduced all disagreeable rumours to silence, when another very sensible
unpleasantness took rise under his own roof.

"Young Klaus could hardly run alone before he manifested a most
undesirable faculty of seeing spirits. It grew with his years; and at
last it came to pass that no day or night went by upon which he had not
something very extraordinary to relate. The occurrences certainly were
chiefly of that nature that it required a most resolute and unbounded--
an absolute Christianly-simple faith to believe them: and since the
majority of Klaus's auditors were not excessively that way disposed, the
accounts of the boy were held for so much downright swagger; and the
poor ghost-seer acquired, to the no small vexation of his parent, the
unenviable nickname of _Mike's Lying Klaus_. It was very singular,
however, and could not fail to be remarked by every reflecting mind,
that all the stories related by young Nicholas were in close connexion
with the notorious well belonging to his father. There it was that he
saw prodigious flames blazing forth, gold burning, and dances performed
by the most grotesque and strangely-shaped little creatures. Passing
this spot, earth, sand, glass, and even silver-pieces, would strike him
on the head, without doing him the slightest injury. If he led his
waggon by the spring, his good horses had to strain and torture
themselves for a full quarter of an hour before they could draw the
empty wain from the spot. The wheels seemed to have been locked and set
fast, and yet the slightest hindrance could not be detected.

"Even to these incidents the ageing Simon had, by degrees, accustomed
himself; but at length, and all on a sudden, it became his own frightful
lot to perceive that his fine property was diminishing--yes, da