goods had vanished
completely.

In their hurry they had, however, forgotten two things: a bundle of keys
which lay on the table, and the girl whom the pin had pricked, and who
now stood pale and helpless beside the wood stack.

'You will have to make me your wife,' she said at last, 'for you have
drawn my blood, and I belong to you.'

'Why not? I am quite willing,' answered he. 'But how do you suppose we
can manage to live till summer comes round again?'

'Do not be anxious about that,' said the girl; 'if you will only marry
me all will be well. I am very rich, and all my family are rich also.'

Then the young man gave her his promise to make her his wife, and the
girl fulfilled her part of the bargain, and food was plentiful on the
island all through the long winter months, though he never knew how
it got there. And by-and-by it was spring once more, and time for the
fisher-folk to sail from the mainland.

'Where are we to go now?' asked the girl, one day, when the sun seemed
brighter and the wind softer than usual.

'I do not care where I go,' answered the young man; 'what do you think?'

The girl replied that she would like to go somewhere right at the other
end of the island, and build a house, far away from the huts of the
fishing-folk. And he consented, and that very day they set off in search
of a sheltered spot on the banks of a stream, so that it would be easy
to get water.

In a tiny bay, on the opposite side of the island they found the very
thing, which seemed to have been made on purpose for them; and as they
were tired with their long walk, they laid themselves down on a bank of
moss among some birches and prepared to have a good night's rest, so
as to be fresh for work next day. But before she went to sleep the girl
turned to her husband, and said: 'If in your dreams you fancy that you
hear strange noises, be sure you do not stir, or get up to see what it
is.'

'Oh, it is not likely we shall hear any noises in such a quiet place,'
answered he, and fell sound asleep.

Suddenly he was awakened by a great clatter about his ears, as if all
the workmen in the world were sawing and hammering and building close to
him. He was just going to spring up and go to see what it meant, when
he luckily remembered his wife's words and lay still. But the time till
morning seemed very long, and with the first ray of sun they both rose,
and pushed aside the branches of the birch trees. There, in the very
place