“Face,” then said the poor belaboured Peter as he got up slowly; “will rhyme with ‘place,’ now glass-mannikin, I will have another word with you.” He went into the hut, took his hat and long stick, bid farewell to the inmates, and commenced his way back to the Tannenbühl. Being under the necessity of inventing a verse, he proceeded slowly and thoughtfully on his way; at length, when he was already within the precincts of the Tannenbühl, and the trees became higher and closer, he found his verse, and for joy cut a caper in the air. All at once he saw coming from behind the trees a gigantic man dressed like a raftsman, who held in his hand a pole as large as the mast of a ship. Peter Munk’s knees almost gave way under him, when he saw him slowly striding by his side, thinking he was no other than the Dutchman Michel. Still the terrible figure kept silence, and Peter cast a side glance at him from time to time. He was full a head taller than the biggest man Peter had even seen; his face expressed neither youth nor old age, but was full of furrows and wrinkles; he wore a jacket of linen, and the enormous boots being drawn above his leather breeches, were well known to Peter from hearsay.
“What are you doing in the Tannenbühl, Peter Munk?” asked the wood king at length, in a deep, roaring voice.
“Good morning, countryman,” replied Peter, wishing to show himself undaunted, but trembling violently all the while.
“Peter Munk,” replied Michel, casting a piercing, terrible glance at him, “your way does not lie through this grove.”
“True, it does not exactly,” said Peter; “but being a hot day, I thought it would be cooler here.”
“Do not lie, Peter,” cried Michel, in a thundering voice, “or I strike you to the ground with this pole; think you I have not seen you begging of the little one?” he added mildly. “Come, come, confess it was a silly trick, and it is well you did not know the verse; for the little fellow is a skinflint, giving but little; and he to whom he gives is never again cheerful in his life. Peter, you are but a poor fool and I pity you in my soul; you, such a brisk handsome fellow, surely could do something better in the world, than make charcoal. While others lavish big thalers and ducats, you can scarcely spend a few pence; ’tis a wretched life.”
“You are right, it is truly a wretched life.”
“Well,” continued Michel, “I will not stand upon trifles, you would not be the first honest good fellow whom I have assisted at a pinch. Tell me, how many hundred thalers do you want for the present?” shaking the money in his huge pocket, as he said this, so that it jingled just as Peter had heard it in his dream. But Peter’s heart felt a kind of painful convulsion at these words, and he was cold and hot alternately; for Michel did not look as if he would give away money out of charity, without asking any thing in return. The old man’s mysterious words about rich people occurred to him, and urged by an inexplicable anxiety and fear, he cried “Much obliged to you, sir, but I will have nothing to do with you and know you well,” and at the same time he began to run as fast as he could. The wood spirit, however, strode by his side with immense steps, murmuring and threatening “You will yet repent it, Peter, it is written on your forehead and to be read in your eyes that you will not escape me. Do not run so fast, listen only to a single rational word; there is my boundary already.” But Peter, hearing this and seeing at a little distance before him a small ditch, hastened the more to pass this boundary, so that Michel was obliged at length to run faster, cursing and threatening while pursuing him. With a desperate leap Peter cleared the ditch, for he saw that the Wood-spirit was raising his pole to dash it upon him; having fortunately reached the other side, he heard the pole shatter to pieces in the air as if against an invisible wall, and a long piece fell down at his feet.
He picked it up in triumph to throw it at the rude Michel; but in an instant he felt the piece of wood move in his hand, and, to his horror, perceived that he held an enormous serpent, which was raising itself up towards his face with its venomous tongue and glistening eyes. He let go his hold, but it had already twisted itself tight round his arm and came still closer to his face with its vibrating head; at this instant, however, an immense black cock rushed down, seized the head of the serpent with its beak, and carried it up in the air. Michel, who had observed all this from the other side of the ditch, howled, cried, and raved when he saw the serpent carried away by one more powerful than himself.
Exhausted and trembling, Peter continued his way; the path became steeper, the country wilder, and soon he found himself before the large pine. He again made a bow to the invisible glass-mannikin, as he had done the day before, and said,