e glideth,
And chill water drips from the slimy green stone?"

"Who did?" asked Hulda. "Not the pedlar, surely? Tell me, my pretty
bird." But the bird only chirped a little and fluttered its golden
wings, so Hulda ceased to ask it, and presently fell asleep, but the
bird woke her by pecking her wrist very early, almost before sunrise,
and sang:

"Who dips a brown hand in the chill shaded water,
The water that drips from a slimy green stone?
Who flings his red cap
At the owlets that flap
Their white wings in his face as he sits there alone?"

Hulda, upon hearing this, arose in great haste and dressed herself; then
she went to her father and mother, and entreated that they would come
with her to the old ruin. It was now broad day, so they all three set
out together. It was a very hot morning, the dust lay thick upon the
road, and there was not air enough to stir the thick leaves of the trees
which hung overhead.

They had not gone far before they found themselves in a crowd of people,
all going toward the castle ruin, for there, they told Hulda, the
pedlar, the famous pedlar from the north, who sold such fine wares, was
going to perform some feats of jugglery of most surprising cleverness.

"Child," whispered Hulda's mother, "nothing could be more fortunate for
us; let us mingle with the crowd and get close to the pedlar."

Hulda assented to her mother's wish, but the heat and dust, together
with her own intense desire to rescue the lost wand, made her tremble so
that she had great difficulty in walking. They went among gypsies,
fruit-women, peasant girls, children, travelling musicians, common
soldiers, and laborers; the heat increased, and the dust and the noise,
and at last Hulda and her parents were borne forward into the old ruin
among a rush of people running and huzzaing, and heard the pedlar shout
to them:

"Keep back, good people; leave a space before me; leave a large space
between me and you."

So they pressed back again, jostling and crowding each other, and left
an open space before him from which he looked at them with his cunning
black eyes, and with one hand dabbling in the cold water of the spring.

The place was open to the sky, and the broken arches and walls were
covered with thick ivy and wall flowers. The pedlar sat on a large gray
stone, with his red cap on and his brown fingers adorned with splendid
rings, and he spread them out and waved his