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268 The next day he kept his word, and dug the garden all over very neatly. The job lasted all day; and in the evening, when his mistress would have sent him away, he said, "I am so tired with my work, that I must beg you will let me stay over the night." The old lady vowed at first she would not do any such thing; but after a great deal of talk Kurt carried his point, on the terms of chopping up a whole cart-load of wood for her the next day.

This task too was duly ended, but not till towards night; and then Kurt found himself so tired, that he begged a third night's rest: which the witch granted, but only on his pledging his word that the next day he would fetch her up the blue light that burned at the bottom of the well.

When morning came she led him to the well's mouth, tied him to a long rope, and let him down. At the bottom sure enough he found the blue light, as she had said; and he at once made a signal for her to draw him up again. But when she had pulled him up so near to the top that she could reach him with her hands, she said, "Give me the light, I will take care of it," meaning to play him a trick, by taking it for herself, and letting him fall down again to the bottom of the well. But Kurt was too old a soldier for that; he saw through her crafty thoughts, and said, "No, no! I shall not give you the light, till I find myself safe and sound out of the well." At this she became very angry, and though the light was what she had longed for many and many a long year, without having before found any one to go down and fetch it for her, her rage and spite so overcame her that she dashed the soldier, and his prize too, down to the bottom. There lay poor Kurt for a while in despair, on