almost out of breath,
called, "Dutch Michel, Mr. Dutch Michel!" than suddenly the gigantic
raftsman with his pole stood before him.

"Have you come then?" said the latter, laughing. "Were they going to
fleece you and sell you to your creditors? Well, be easy, all your
sorrow comes, as I have always said, from the little glass-mannikin,
the Separatist and Pietist. When one gives, one ought to give right
plentifully and not like that skinflint. But come," he continued,
turning towards the forest, "follow me to my house, there we'll see
whether we can strike a bargain."

"Strike a bargain?" thought Peter. "What can he want of me, what can I
sell to him? Am I perhaps to serve him, or what is it that he can
want?" They went at first up-hill over a steep forest path, when all
at once they stopped at a dark, deep, and almost perpendicular ravine.
Michel leaped down as easily as he would go down marble steps; but
Peter almost fell into a fit when he saw him below, rising up like a
church steeple reaching him an arm as long as a scaffolding pole with a
hand at the end as broad as the table in the ale house, and calling in
a voice which sounded like the deep tones of a death bell, "Set
yourself boldly on my hand, hold fast by the fingers and you will not
fall off." Peter, trembling, did as he was ordered, sat down upon his
hand and held himself fast by the thumb of the giant.

They now went down a long way and very deep, yet, to Peter's
astonishment, it did not grow darker; on the contrary, the daylight
seemed rather to increase in the chasm, and it was sometime before
Peter's eyes could bear it. Michel's stature became smaller as Peter
came lower down, and he stood now in his former size before a house
just like those of the wealthy peasants of the Schwarzwald. The room
into which Peter was led differed in nothing but its appearance of
solitariness from those of other people. The wooden clock, the stove
of Dutch tiles, the broad benches and utensils on the shelves were the
same as anywhere else. Michel told him to sit down at the large table,
then went out of the room and returned with a pitcher of wine and
glasses. Having filled these, they now began a conversation, and Dutch
Michel expatiated on the pleasures of the world, talked of foreign
countries, fine cities and rivers, so that Peter, at length, feeling a
yearning after such sights, candidly told Michel his wish.

"If you had courage and strength in your