CONTENTS

CHAPTER

  1. [THE UNWELCOME DISCOVERY]
  2. [THE VILLAGE MUSICIAN]
  3. [THE NEW-FASHIONED NURSE]
  4. [THE BIRD-CATCHER]
  5. [THE SINGULAR MEETING]
  6. [THE UNDESERVED PUNISHMENT]
  7. [THE TOWN MUSICIAN]
  8. [THE CORRESPONDENCE]
  9. [THE JOURNEY ON THE ICE]
  10. [THE SICK-BED]
  11. [THE MISTAKE]
  12. [THE UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY]
  13. [THE BAD RECEPTION]
  14. [THE REUNION]

[THE WOOD-GATHERER]

THE

MYSTERIOUS BASKET.

CHAPTER I.

THE UNWELCOME DISCOVERY.

"They are wondrous merry to-night in the upper inn," said Hicup (the landlord of the one lower down the village) to his wife, who was turning over the leaves of the almanac. He sulkily threw his cap off his head, and flung himself into an easy-chair.--"All the windows are lighted up in the principal room, and there is no end to the strumming of fiddles; the beer-room is swarming with customers and strangers, whose conveyances are standing before the door as a show to torment me. Why does no one ever come our way now? Although the wooden arm holding the beer-can stretches itself out ever so far, inviting the travellers to come in, not an individual enters the door, not a turn do we get!--Is it any wonder, then, if the beer in the cellar turns sour, and that the last customer who found his way here by chance, was frightened away by it? But this is always the way in the world,--where pigeons are, there pigeons fly."

"The people must be bewitched," said Dame Hicup, in a stammering voice.