th home-sickness in a foreign country. When
you look up, you will see a crooked birch-tree a few steps before you.
Go to this tree, knock on the trunk three times, and say, 'Is the
Humpback at home?' Then the rest will follow." As soon as he had
finished speaking, the stranger hurried away and disappeared in an
instant. The countryman went home too, and soon forgot his meeting with
the sleeper on the road.

Some time afterwards the first part of the prophecy was fulfilled, for
the countryman became a soldier, without his remembering anything of his
adventure in the wood. He had already worn the uniform of a cavalry
regiment for four years, when he was stationed with his regiment in
North Finland. It fell to the turn of our friend to bring home the
horses on a Whitsunday, while his jolly comrades off duty went singing
to enjoy themselves at the inns. Suddenly the solitary groom was seized
with such a fit of home-sickness as he had never known before. Tears
filled his eyes, and charming pictures of home floated before his
vision. Now, too, he remembered his sleeping friend in the wood, and his
speech. Everything came before him as plainly and distinctly as if it
had happened only yesterday. He looked up, and saw before him, oddly
enough, an old crooked birch-tree. More in jest than expecting any
result, he went up to the tree, and did what he had been instructed. But
the question, "Is the Humpback at home?" had scarcely passed his lips,
when the stranger stood before him, and said, "My friend, it is good
that you have come, for I was afraid that you had quite forgotten me.
Isn't it true that you would be glad to be at home?" The cavalry soldier
sobbed out, "Yes." Then the Humpback called into the tree, "Boys, which
of you can run fastest?" A voice answered from the birch, "Father, I can
run as fast as a grouse can fly."--"Very well, I want a quicker
messenger to-day." A second voice answered, "I can run like the
wind."--"I want a quicker messenger still," replied the father. Then a
third voice answered, "I can run as fast as the thoughts of men."--"You
are just to my mind. I want you now. Fill a four-hundredweight sack with
money, and carry it home with my friend and benefactor." Then he seized
hold of the soldier's hat and cried out, "Let the hat become a man, and
let the man and the sack go home!" The soldier felt his hat fly off his
head. He turned round to look for it, and found himself in his own
father's room, dress