"Yes, screech-owl—that's the laughing spirit."
"The laughing-spirit? Tell me what that is."
"Yes; my mother heard it once in broad daylight, when she was just a little girl. The children were at one time out there in the wood, to get acorns. You perhaps know that they shake down the acorns and place a white cloth under the tree, and catch them in that; it makes the best food for hogs. Well, the children are in the woods on a fine afternoon in autumn, the boys get up into the tree and shake down the acorns, and there is such a rattling! Then they hear, all at once, in the thicket a loud laugh. 'What is that?'—'O,' says my mother, 'that is a spirit.' 'What!' says a saucy fellow there, 'if it's a spirit, then I will just for once take a look at him.' He goes into the thicket, and when he once gets into the thicket, there sits a mighty little dwarf upon a tree-stump; his head is almost bigger than his whole body, he is gray all over, and he has a long gray beard. And the boy asks, 'Is't you that laughed so?' 'Nobody else,' says the dwarf, and laughs once more, exactly as before. 'You have shaken down the acorns, but there is one fallen down under the cloth, deep into the moss, that you will not find, and out of that acorn will grow up a tree, and when it is large enough it will be cut down, and out of one part of the boards a cradle wilt be made, and out of the other part a door, and a child will be laid in the cradle, and when that child shall open that door for the first time, I shall be released. Until that time I must wander about, because I have been a forest-trespasser, and lived on dishonest means.' The little dwarf laughs again, and then vanishes into the tree-stump Since then he's been heard many a time, but nobody's seen him again. Everybody knows the oak-tree in the forest, but no one disturbs it."
Roland shuddered. He did not believe in the story, but he gave attention while the teamster continued to relate to him how hard it was to get rid of possessions dishonestly acquired.
Gradually it began to be twilight. Roland extended his hand to the teamster, and bade him good-bye, as he wished to stay here and wait awhile. The teamster seated himself upon the wagon-shafts, and fixed himself comfortably, as it was now day, and he could doze a little.
The boy sat down upon a pile of stones, gazing into vacancy, and listening to the gradual dying away in the distance of the rattling and creaking wagon. For the first time in his life, he represented to himself in imagination the way in which a human being lives. He saw, as in a dream, the teamster arriving at his place of destination, he saw him lying in the shed upon the bundle of hay which he afterwards threw to his horses.
Roland had never yet been so alone, so without attendance, so conscious that no one could call to him; it seemed that he now saw, for the first time, the world and all that is in it. He followed the path of a little beetle, which crept swiftly along the ground and scrambled up a stalk.
Incomprehensible thoughts were stirring in his youthful spirit. What an infinite fulness of existence is the world! In the hedges of wild roses, just opening their buds by the roadside, sat motionless beetles and insects of all kinds, and a great buzzing and humming came from one open flower-cup to another. Here had beetles, butterflies, flies, and spiders spent the night, and the well-roofed snails were quietly housed upon the twigs.
He saw a field-mouse come out of its hole; first it remained resting upon the edge, listening, looking round, moving its chaps, and finally it slipped out, and quickly disappeared into another hole among the grass. A variegated beetle, in the early morning, ran across the field-path, fearing the public road, and feeling perfectly safe only among the thicket of the grain.
A hare ran out, and Devil sprang after him; Roland involuntarily felt at his side to seize hold of his gun.