Page:Round the Yule Log.djvu/57

Rh didn't jump up the moment I fired the gun over him, may I never leave this spot alive ! He glared and stared about him so horribly, that we were almost afraid of him. We took him home again, but he was poorly, and was so queer and frightful-looking afterwards you would scarcely believe it He would remain standing in one place, staring right before him, as if his cyts would start out of his head ; he wouldn't eat anything, and he would never speak to anybody unless they spoke to him first. He was bewitched, he was. But it began to wear off by and by, and it was only then he told us how it all happened. " Those are the times I have seen such things," said Matthias. " Have you never seen the brownie ? " I asked. greatest conviction ; ** when I was at home with my parents at Laskerud, where we had one in the house. I have only seen him once. One fine moonlight evening after we youngsters were gone to bed, my father went out to take a turn round the yard, when he saw a lad sitting on the barn-bridge, dangling his legs and looking up at the moon, just as if he did not see the old man. ' You had better go in and go to bed now, Matthias,' said my father, for he thought it was me ; ' and don't sit there and stare at the moon at this time of night ! ' But in the same moment the lad vanished, and when my father came in and asked for me, he found me a-bed, snoring hard." " But it was about the time when I saw him myself, that I was going to tell you. It was just about a year after I had been confirmed, when I one Saturday afternoon had been to town with a cartload of planks. I had had something to drink during the day ; and as soon as I came home I lay down. Towards evening I got up and had something to eat — it wasn't much, because I still felt giddy and queer in my head — when my father said to me : ' You had better give the horse his fodder before you go to bed again. I suppose the others are out running after the lasses." neighing and waiting for his hay, so I went up into the hay-loft for an armful, but as I put out my hands I caught hold of something D
 * ' Yes, of course I have," answered Matthias, speaking with the
 * • I went into the stable first to see to the horse, and found him