“Softly, softly, Michael!” cried Peter, and he took a step backwards and held out the cross towards him. “With a morsel of cheese the mouse is caught, and this time it is you who have been caught.” And he at once began to murmur the first prayer that came to his lips.
At once Michael began to dwindle away, fell down on the ground and writhed like a worm, and groaned and sighed, and all the hearts in the glass bottles began to throb and beat until it sounded like the clock-maker’s workshop. But Peter was afraid, and his courage began to fail him, and he turned and ran out of the house and, driven by fear, he climbed the steep face of the rocky ravine, for he could hear Michael raging and stamping and uttering fearful oaths.
“Come in and read all these labels,” said the giant. (P. [270].)
As soon as he reached the top he ran quickly to the clump of black pines. A fearful thunderstorm broke out suddenly, lightning flashed from left to right of him, striking the trees about him, but he reached the domain of the little Glass-man in safety.
His heart was beating with joy, simply because it did beat. But suddenly he saw with horror that his past life had been even as the terrible thunderstorm that had dealt destruction right and left in the beautiful forest. He thought of Lisbeth, his good and beautiful wife, whom he had murdered on account of his avarice, and he saw himself as an outcast of humanity. When he reached the little hill where the Glass-man dwelt he was weeping bitterly.
The Glass man sat beneath the pine-tree and smoked a pipe, and he looked more cheerful than previously. “Why do you weep, Charcoal Peter?” he asked. “Did you not get your heart? Have you still a stone in your breast?”
“Ah! sir!” sighed Peter, “when I had a heart of stone I never wept, my eyes were as dry as the land in July; but now my heart is breaking as I think of all I have done. My debtors I drove out to misery and want, and set my dogs upon the poor and sick, and you know alas! how my whip fell upon that snow-white brow!”
“Peter, you have been a great sinner!” said the little man. “Money and idleness spoilt you; when your heart became as a stone you could feel neither joy, nor sorrow, neither remorse nor pity. But repentance can make amends and if I knew for certain that you were sorry for your past life I would still do something for you.”
“I ask for nothing more,” answered Peter, and let his head sink mournfully upon his breast. “All is over for me, never again can I rejoice, and what can I do alone in the world? My mother will never forgive me for what I have done; even now, maybe, I have brought her to her grave, monster that I am. And Lisbeth, my wife! It were a kindness to strike me dead, Master Glass-man, so that my miserable life were at an end.”