‘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 anything 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 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 Little Glass Man, as he had done the day before, and said—
‘Keeper of wealth in the forest of pine,
Hundreds of years are surely thine,
Thine is the tall pine’s dwelling place,
Those born on Sunday see thy face.’
‘You have not quite hit it,’ said a delicate fine voice near him, ‘but as it is you, Peter, I will not be particular.’ Astonished he looked round, and lo! under a beautiful pine there sat a little old man in a black jacket, red stockings, and a large hat on his head. He had a tiny affable face and a little beard as fine as a spider’s web; and strange to see, he was smoking a pipe of blue glass. Nay, Peter observed to his astonishment, on coming nearer, that the clothes, shoes, and hat of the little man were also of coloured glass, which was as flexible as if it were still hot, bending like cloth to every motion of the little man.
‘You have met the lubber Michel, the Dutchman?’ asked the little man, laughing strangely between each word. ‘He wished to frighten you terribly; but I have got his magic cudgel, which he shall never have again.’
‘Yes, Mr. Schatzhauser,’ replied Peter, with a profound bow, ‘I was terribly frightened. But I suppose the black cock was yourself, and I am much obliged to you for killing the serpent. The object of my visit to you, however, is to ask your advice; I am in very poor circumstances, for charcoal-burning is not a profitable trade; and being still young I should think I might be made something better, seeing so often as I do how other people have thriven in a short time; I need only mention Hezekiel, and the king of the dancing-room, who have money like dirt.’