the hut, and saw his
face with its brown and yellow features unsteadily lit by the
flickering flames, he thought that this disgusting and to him hateful
monster had never lookt so hideous before: a secret shudder crept over
him when he thought of Rose, and that this was the confident and
bosom friend of a man whom he could not but honour, although his
weaknesses and caprices formed so strong a contrast with his virtues.

The smiths listened to the conversation with great earnestness: they
believed the stranger; yet every one of them brought forward some
superstitious device of his own, in which the speaker himself always
put still greater reliance. Edward, in spite of the disgust this
gossiping excited in him, was almost unconsciously held fast within
the circle. Ghost stories were told; the wild huntsman was talkt of,
and several said they had seen him; others had met with mountain
sprites and goblins; then they got to forebodings and omens; and the
conversation kept on growing livelier, the storytellers more eager,
and the hearers more attentive.

"Goblins," said Michael, "there are assuredly: for I myself ten years
ago was well acquainted with one; and he was a very passable fellow to
have to do with. The urchin foretold too in those days that I should
lose my right eye about this very time."

"What sort of a chap was that?" cried one of his comrades; "and why
have you never told us this story before?"

"When I had got through my apprenticeship," said Michael, "at the
mountain-town twenty miles from here, and was now come to work at old
master Berenger's forge, I used to be plagued at first and quizzed by
the other journeymen, as every younker is when he is fresh. When I
grew tired of laughing and grumbled, we came to blows; I gave and got
my share, as in such cases always must happen. Among the rest there
was a grizzly-bearded journeyman who worried and annoyed me most of
all, a giant of a fellow, and all along with it so cunning, with such
a sharp sting in his tongue, that one could not possibly help being
vext, however stedfastly one might have made up ones mind and
determined with oneself at morning prayers, not to allow the gall to
mount into ones throat. In my distress I often cried with anger; for
in the town I had fancied myself a clever fellow, and my unruly tongue
had made many a one tremble. One night when I was thoroughly harast
and woebegone, I was lying over there on the jutting crag all alone in
a