the pine-woods. All three, indeed, had one and the same ugly fault,
which won them every man’s hatred--and this was their inhuman avarice
and hard-heartedness towards their debtors and the poor about them; yet
the people of the Black Forest are kind-hearted as a rule. But so it
goes in this world--if they were hated for their meanness, they were
thought much of for their wealth, for who else could throw money about
as though they shook it down from the fir-trees?
“I can’t go on like this,” said Peter sadly to himself one morning--the
day before had been a holiday, and the ale-house full of people--“if
the luck doesn’t turn soon, I shall do myself a harm! If only I were
rich and respected, like fat Ezekiel, or bold and powerful, like the
long Shuffler, or famous, like the king of the dancing-floor, and could
throw the musicians thalers instead of pence, as he does! Where can the
fellow get all his money from?”
He thought over all the means he had heard of, whereby men make money,
but could not seem to hit on any good ones. At last he remembered the
tales about the folk who had been enriched, in old days, by Dutch
Michael and the little Glass-man. In his father’s lifetime their hut
had often been visited by poor people like themselves; then the talk
had always been of rich men, and of how they had come by their riches,
and in these tales the little Glass-man often played a part. When he
thought hard, he could almost remember the verse which had to be spoken
in the “Pine-thicket” in the midst of the forest, to make him appear.
It began thus:--
“O Treasure-keeper in the forest green,
Thine age is many hundred years--this land
Is all thine own, wherever pine-trees stand----”
But however he cudgelled his memory, he could not remember another
line. He was often on the point of asking some old man among the
neighbours how the verse ended; but a certain timidity withheld him
from betraying his thoughts to any one; and besides, he came to the
conclusion that the legend of the little Glass-man could not be widely
known, or the verse either, for there were not many rich people in the
district, and why should not his own father, or any of the other poor
men, have tried their luck? At last he led his mother to speak about
the little man. She began by telling him nothing but what he already
knew; nor could she remember any but the first line of the charm; but
she wound up by saying that the spirit only appeared to persons who
were born on a Sunday between eleven and two o’clock. He himself, she
added, was one of the right people, as he had been born exactly at noon
on a Sunday.
When Coal-Munk Peter heard this, he was beside himself with joy and
eagerness to attempt the adventure. He thought it might, perhaps, be
enough to have been born on a Sunday, and to know part of the charm;
so one day, when he had sold his charcoal, he did not light the kiln
again, but put on his father’s holiday jerkin, his new red stockings
and Sunday hat, took his five-foot staff of blackthorn in his hand,
and bade his mother farewell.
“I must go to the town,” he said, “for they will soon be drawing the
conscription, to see who is to serve his time in the army, and I want
to remind the gentlemen in office that thou art a widow, and I thine
only son.”
His mother let him go, saying it was a wise step to take. But it was
not to the town, but to the “Pine-thicket,” that he took his way. The
part of the woods so called lies on the highest slopes of the Black
Forest hills, and there is not a single house, or even a hut, for the
space of a two hours’ journey all around; for the superstitious people
believe that it is not a safe place, and though the pine-trees there
stand high and splendid, they are very seldom cut down, for mishaps
have often befallen the wood-cutters when they have been working
there. Now it has been an axe that has flown from its handle and cut
deep into a man’s foot; or again, a tree they were felling has fallen
over suddenly, and carried the workmen down with it, wounding, or
even killing them. And one could only have used these fine trees for
fire-wood, in any case; for the raftsmen would never put a trunk from
the “thicket” into their rafts, because of the saying that men and wood
came to grief together, if a “thicket-stem” were with them upon the
water. So it came about that the trees in the “thicket” stood so high
and so close together that even at noontide it was almost as dark as
night there; and Peter Munk felt quite eerie as he entered that deep
shadow, where he heard no voice, no sound of an axe, and no foot-fall
save his own. Even the birds seemed to avoid that thick darkness among
the fir-trees.
Peter had now reached the highest point among the forest hills, and
stood under a tree of mighty girth, for which a Dutch shipbuilder
would have given many hundred guldens. “Surely it will be here the
Treasure-keeper dwells,” he thought, and taking off his broad Sunday
hat, he made his best bow to the tree, cleared his throat, and
said with a trembling voice: “I wish you a right good evening, Mr.
Glass-man.” But there was no answer, and everything around remained as
silent as before. “Perhaps I must say the charm first,” he thought, and
stammered forth the words:
“O Treasure-keeper in the forest green,
Thine age is many hundred years--this land
Is all thine own, wherever pine-trees stand----”
As he spoke these lines, he beheld, with much alarm, a strange, tiny
figure peeping out from behind the tree; it looked just like the
description he had heard of the Glass-man--the little black jerkin, red
stockings, and pointed hat; he even thought he saw the pale, but wise
and shrewd little face he had heard tell of. But, alas! no sooner had
it shown itself than it disappeared again.
“Mr. Glass-man,” called Peter, after some hesitation, “pray do not take
me for a fool! If you think I didn’t see you, you are much mistaken; I
saw you peep from behind the tree, plain enough.”
Still there was no answer; only he fancied he caught the sound of a
faint, hoarse chuckle from behind the tree. At last impatience got the
better of fear. “Wait a bit, thou little man,” he cried, “I’ll have
thee yet!” And he sprang with one bound to the other side of the tree,
but no “Treasure-keeper in the forest green” was there--only a little
squirrel that dashed up the tree as he approached.
Peter Munk shook his head; he saw well enough that he had partly
succeeded with the spell, and that very likely he only lacked the last
line of the verse, to be able to make the little Glass-man appear; but
think as he might, he could not think of that.
The little squirrel ran down to the lower boughs of the tree, and
seemed to look at him encouragingly--or mockingly? It cleaned its paws,
whisked its bushy tail, and peered at him with shrewd eyes, till he
felt quite afraid of being alone with the creature, for one minute it
seemed to have a man’s head, with a pointed hat on it, and the next
it looked just like an ordinary squirrel, except that it wore red
stockings and black shoes on its hind feet. In short, though it seemed
a merry creature, it made Peter’s flesh creep, for he felt there was
something uncanny about it. He hurried away faster than he had come,
for the darkness seemed to be growing deeper and deeper, and the
trees to be standing thicker and thicker about him, so that at last
he grew positively terrified, and broke into a run; nor did he feel
easy until he heard a dog bark, and saw the smoke rising from a hut
among the trees. But as he approached the hut and noticed the dress
of its inmates, he found that, in his fright, he had run in the wrong
direction, and come among the raftsmen instead of the glass-makers. The
people in the hut were wood-cutters--an old man, his son--the master of
the house--and some grandchildren of various ages. When Peter begged
for shelter over night, they welcomed him kindly, without asking his
name or that of his native place, and presently gave him a drink of
cider, and served up for supper a fine grouse, which is the greatest of
dainties among the Black Forest folk.
After supper the family gathered round the great pine-torches, the
women spinning, the men smoking, or carving spoons and forks out of
spare bits of wood. Out in the forest a violent storm was howling and
raging among the pines; and now and then heavy blows were heard, as
though whole trees were being snapped off and hurled to the ground. The
foolhardy youths of the party would have run out into the forest to
witness this splendid and terrible sight, but the grandfather held them
back with stern word and glance.
“I would not advise any one to go out at yon door to-night,” said he.
“By Heaven! he would never return, for Dutch Michael is busy hewing
himself a new raft in the forest.”
The children stared at him; though they had doubtless heard something
of Dutch Michael before, yet they knew too little to satisfy them, and
now begged their grandfather to tell them the whole tale about him for
once. And Peter Munk, too, who had only heard of him vaguely on the
other side of the hills, joined in, and asked the old man what the
truth about him was.
“He is the master of these woods,” returned the grandfather; “and if
you, at your age, do not know this, it proves you must belong to the
other side of the ‘Pine-thicket,’ or to some yet more distant place.
But I will tell you the tale, as it goes in this district, of Dutch
Michael.
“A hundred years ago--so my grandfather used to say--there were no
worthier people on earth than those of the Black Forest. But now,
since so much money has come into the land, men have grown bad and
dishonest. The lads dance and sing on Sundays, and swear so, that ’tis
dreadful to hear! In other days it was not thus; and though Dutch
Michael should look in at the window this very minute, I say, as I
often have already, that all this evil is his fault. A hundred years
ago, then, and more, there was a rich master woodman, who employed
many work-people, and sold his stuff far down the Rhine, and his trade
was blessed with prosperity, for he was a pious man. One evening there
came to his door a man whose like he had never seen before; he wore
the dress of the Black Forest lads, but he was a good head taller
than any of them; no one would have believed that such a giant could
be. He asked the master for work, and the latter, seeing how strong
he was, and fitted for heavy tasks, agreed with him for a price, and
engaged him. Such a workman that master had never had before. For
felling trees, Michael was as good as three men, and when it took six
together to lift one end of a trunk, Michael could raise the other all
by himself. But when he had cut down trees for half a year, he went one
day to the master and said: ‘I have had enough of hewing wood now, and
should like to see whither my tree-trunks go. How would it be if thou
shouldst let me travel with one of the rafts?’
“‘I will not stand in thy way, Michael, if thou art fain to see the
world a bit,’ the woodman answered. ‘To be sure, I need strong fellows
like thee for the tree-felling, and on the rafts it is rather skill
that is needed; but let it be so for once.’
“And so it was. The raft which he was to take down the river had eight
divisions, and the last was made up of the stoutest roof-beams. But see
what happened. The evening before they started, big Michael brought
down eight more beams to the river, the thickest and longest that had
ever been seen, and he bore each on his shoulder as lightly as though
it had been a raftsman’s pole, so that all who saw it were taken aback.
Where he had hewn these beams no one knows to this day. The master
woodman laughed in his heart when he saw them, for he knew what such
beams were worth. But Michael only said: ‘There, these are for me to
stand upon, I could never manage upon yonder little chips.’ His master
would have given him a pair of raftsman’s boots as a reward, but he
threw them aside, and brought out a pair, such as none had ever seen
before; my grandfather swore they were five feet long and weighed over
a hundred pounds.
“The raft started off, and if Michael had astonished the wood-cutters
before, it was the raftsmen’s turn to be amazed now. For the raft,
instead of going more slowly, as they expected, because of the huge
beams, flew along like an arrow as soon as they got into the Neckar;
and when there was a bend in the river, where the men usually had
trouble in keeping their rafts in mid-stream, and away from shoals and
sand-banks, Michael would leap into the river and push them clear of
every hindrance; then, when they reached an open stretch of water, he
would spring on to the foremost raft, and bidding the others put their
poles aside, would give one mighty shove into the gravel with his huge
beam, and away sped the raft, so that trees, banks, and houses seemed
to fly past on either hand. By this means, they came in half their
usual time to Cologne upon the Rhine, where they had always been used
to sell their cargo of wood; but now Michael spoke thus:
“‘A nice set of traders ye are, and well ye understand your own
interests! Do ye think the men of Cologne need all the wood for
themselves that comes out of the Black Forest? Nay, but they buy it
of us half-price, and then sell it for far more to Holland. Let us
sell the small beams here, and go on to Holland with the big ones; and
whatever we get over the usual price, we will pocket for ourselves.’
“So spoke the crafty Michael, and the rest heard him gladly, some
because they wished to see Holland, others because they were greedy
for the money. Only one was honest, and warned his comrades against
risking their master’s goods, or deceiving him about their price; but
they paid no heed to his words, only Dutch Michael did not forget them.
So they went on down the Rhine with their wood, and Michael steered the
raft, and brought it quickly to Rotterdam. There they were soon offered
four times the usual price for the cargo, and Michael’s huge beams, in
particular, were sold for much money.
“When the Black Forest lads saw all that gold, they were beside
themselves with joy. Michael divided it into four parts; one he kept
for the master, and the other three were for the men. And now they went
into the taverns, with sailors and other bad company, and guzzled or
played away their money. But the honest man who had given them good
counsel, Michael sold to a kidnapping shipowner, and nothing more was
ever heard of him.
“From that time forth Holland was the paradise of all the Black Forest
lads, and Dutch Michael their king. It was long before the master
woodman found out the trick; and meanwhile money, swearing, bad
customs, drunkenness and gambling came up into this land from Holland.
When the story leaked out, Dutch Michael was nowhere to be found. Yet
he is not dead. For more than a hundred years he has haunted this
forest, and people say he has helped many men to get rich, but only at
the cost of their own poor souls,--I will say no more. Yet this much
is certain, that on these stormy nights he still picks out the finest
trees from the ‘Pine-thicket,’ where no man may hew wood, and my father
once saw him break off a stem four feet thick as if it had been a reed.
These he gives to the misguided folk who turn away from righteous
dealing, and go to him for help; then they take their raft down to the
water at midnight, and float away with Dutch Michael to Holland. But if
I were king there, I would have him shot to pieces, for all ships that
have a single one of Dutch Michael’s beams in them will go down some
day. That is why we hear of all these shipwrecks; for how else should
a fine, strong ship, as big as a church, come to harm upon the water?
But every time that Dutch Michael hews a fresh tree during a stormy
night in the ‘Pine-thicket,’ one of his old beams cracks, and the ship
springs a leak, and goes to the bottom with all hands. That is the
story of Dutch Michael, and true it is that all the evil in the Black
Forest may be traced to him.”
“Oh, he can make one rich, sure enough,” the old man added in a
mysterious whisper, “but I would not take anything from him for
the world. I would not be in the shoes of fat Ezekiel, or the long
Shuffler--and they say the king of the dancing-floor, too, has sold
himself to him.”
The storm had died away while the old man told his tale, and now the
maidens lit their lamps and went to bed. The men laid a sack full of
leaves upon the bench near the stove, as a pillow for Peter Munk, and
wished him good-night. But Peter had never had such restless dreams as
upon this night. One moment he thought he saw the black-browed giant,
Dutch Michael, tearing open the window and thrusting in his long arm to
offer him a purse full of gold pieces, which he chinked with a pleasant
sound; and the next, it was the kindly-faced little Glass-man who was
riding about the room on a huge green bottle, and then Peter seemed to
hear the same hoarse chuckle again, that he had heard in the forest.
Presently some one muttered in his left ear:
“In Holland there is gold;
Ye can have it, an’ ye will;
For a trifle it is sold--
Gold, gold!”
And again, in his right ear sounded the little song about the
Treasure-keeper in the green woods; and a gentle voice added: “Foolish
Coal-Peter, foolish Peter Munk, canst find no rhyme to ‘green?’ and yet
art born at noon on a Sunday! Rhyme, silly Peter, rhyme!”
He moaned and groaned, and tried to think of a rhyme, but as he had
never in his life made one waking, it was not likely he should find one
in his sleep. But when he awoke at dawn, he could not help thinking his
dream a very strange one, and sitting down at the table, with his head
in his hands, he began to ponder over the whispers he had heard, and
which still rang in his ears.
“Rhyme, foolish Peter, rhyme!” he kept saying to himself, and tapped
his forehead with his finger, yet no rhyme came forth. But as he sat
there, puzzling over a rhyme to “green,” three lads went by the house,
and one was singing:
“I stood upon the hill-top green,
And gazed into the vale below,
For there it was I last had seen
Her----”
Peter Munk waited to hear no more, but springing from his chair and out
at the door like an arrow, he caught the singer roughly by the arm.
“Stay, friend,” he cried; “only tell me! what didst thou rhyme to
‘green’?”
But the other was startled and angered, and shaking himself free,
rejoined: “A plague on thee for a rude fellow! What business is it of
thine? Take that!” And he gave him a stinging box on the ear, which his
comrades followed up with more blows.
Poor Peter sank to his knees, quite stunned. “I pray you to forgive
me,” he moaned; “I meant no harm, and was but over anxious about a
certain matter. But since I have got the blows now, will ye not also
plainly tell me the words of your song?”
At this they began to laugh and mock at him; but at last the singer
consented to repeat the words, after which they went on, laughing and
singing, upon their way.
“‘Seen,’ then,” said poor Peter, as he got up, feeling quite sore,
“‘seen’ with ‘green.’ Now, Mr. Glass-man, we will have another word
together.”
He went back to the hut, fetched his hat and long staff, and bidding
his hosts farewell, took his way homeward towards the “Pine-thicket.”
He went along slowly and thoughtfully, for he still had to compose
his verse; but as he began to enter the “thicket,” and the trees
grew higher and thicker about him, he thought he had found it, and
leapt into the air for joy. At that very moment a gigantic man in a
raftsman’s dress, and with a staff as long as a mast in his hand,
stepped from behind the trees. Peter Munk’s knees shook beneath him
as he saw this apparition walking slowly by his side, for he thought
to himself: “This is no other than Dutch Michael.” The dreadful being
never said a word, and from time to time Peter shot a terrified glance
up at him. He was a good head taller than any one he had ever seen; his
face was no longer young, neither was it old, yet it was deeply seamed
and wrinkled; he wore a linen jerkin, and Peter easily recognised the
huge boots he had heard of in the story, which were drawn up over his
leather breeches.
“Peter Munk,” said the King of the Forest at last, in a deep, hollow
voice, “what art thou doing here in the ‘Pine-thicket’?”
“Good morrow, countryman,” answered Peter, who wished to appear
undismayed, though he was trembling all over; “I am going homewards
through the ‘Pine-thicket.’”
“Peter Munk,” rejoined the other, with a dreadful, piercing glance at
him, “thy way home does not lie through this wood.”
“Well, perhaps not exactly,” stammered the youth, “but it is a hot day,
and I thought it would be cooler here.”
“No lies, thou Coal-Peter!” thundered Dutch Michael, “or I will fell
thee to the earth with my staff. Dost think I did not see thee creep
begging to yon little man?” he added more quietly. “Go to! that was
a silly trick, and it is a good thing thou didst not know the charm.
The little fellow is a niggard, and gives but scantily, and he to whom
he gives is never merry all his life long. Peter, thou art a poor
wight, and from my soul I pity thee; such a fine, jolly lad as thou,
that mightest make something of thy life--and thou art to spend it in
charcoal-burning! Where others can shake heavy thalers and ducats out
of their sleeves, thou canst scarce spare a beggarly sixpence. ’Tis a
wretched life!”
--“Thou art right, it is indeed--a wretched life!”
--“Well, I will not be hard on thee,” the terrible Michael went on; “I
have helped many a good fellow in his need--thou wouldst not be the
first. Tell me, then, how many hundred thalers mightest thou want to
begin with?”
As he spoke, he rattled the money in his huge pockets, so that it
chinked as Peter had heard it in his dream. But the lad’s heart
fluttered painfully as he listened to the tempter’s words, and he grew
hot and cold all at once, for Dutch Michael did not look the sort of
person who would give away money out of sheer kindness of heart and ask
for nothing in return. The mysterious words of the old grandfather,
about the men who had grown suddenly rich, returned to his mind, and
urged by a strange uneasiness and fear, he cried out:
“My best thanks to you, sir; but I would rather have nothing to do with
you, and I know well enough who you are;” and ran off as fast as his
legs could carry him.
But the wood-spirit still kept alongside of him with mighty strides,
muttering in hollow, threatening tones: “Thou wilt yet repent it,
Peter. I see it written on thy brow--I read it in thine eyes--that
thou art not to escape me. Do not run so fast; give heed to one more
sensible word of advice, for yonder is my boundary-line.”
But when Peter heard this, and caught sight of a small ditch not far
off, he hurried faster than ever towards it, so that Michael was
obliged to go faster too, and pursued him with threats and curses.
With a desperate leap Peter cleared the ditch, just as he saw his
enemy raising the great staff to crush him. It fell with a crash, but
Peter was already safe, and the staff broke into splinters, as upon an
invisible wall, so that a long piece of it fell over close to the lad.
He picked it up in triumph, to throw it back to its churlish owner, but
as he did so, he felt it writhe in his hand, and saw, to his horror,
that it had changed into a great snake, which was already shooting out
its forked tongue, and with glittering eyes, prepared to dart up into
his face. He let the creature go, but it had twisted about his arm, and
he could scarcely have escaped being attacked by it, but that a large
hawk suddenly swooped down from above, seized the serpent by the head,
and rose with it into the air.
Dutch Michael, who was looking on from the other side of the ditch,
raged and swore worse than ever, as he beheld his snake carried off
by a more powerful enemy. Exhausted and trembling, Peter went on his
way. The path grew steeper, the landscape wilder, and after a bit he
found himself once more on the mountain-top, under the huge fir-tree.
He again made his bow to the invisible Glass-man, and then began
immediately:
“O Treasure-keeper in the forest green,
Thine age is many hundred years--this land
Is all thine own, wherever pine-trees stand;
By none save Sunday children art thou seen.”
“Thou hast not got it quite right; but since it is thou, Coal-Munk
Peter, I will let it pass,” said a gentle, low voice beside him.