with a speed as if
it were hurrying out of the desert.

Across such a stream rode, one beautiful autumn-day, a young
well-dressed man, towards a small field of rye, which the distant owner
had manured by scraping off the surface, and burning it to ashes. He and
his people were just in the act of reaping it, when the horseman
approached them, and inquired the road to the manor-house of Ansbjerg.
The farmer, having first requited his question with another,--to wit,
where did the traveller come from?--told him what he knew already, that
he had missed his way; and then calling a boy who was binding the
sheaves, ordered him to set the stranger in the right road. Before,
however, the boy could begin to put this order in execution, a sight
presented itself which, for a moment, drew all the attention both of the
traveller and the harvest people. From the nearest heath-covered hill
there came directly towards them, at full speed, a deer with a man on
his back. The latter, a tall stout figure, clad in brown from head to
foot, sat jammed in between the antlers of the crown-deer, which had
cast them back, as these animals are wont to do when running. This
extraordinary rider had apparently lost his hat in his progress, as his
long dark hair flowed back from his head, like the mane of a horse in
full gallop. His hand was in incessant motion, from his attempt to
plunge a knife it held into the neck of the deer, but which the violent
springs of the animal prevented him from hitting. When the deer-rider
approached near enough to the astonished spectators, which was almost
instantaneously, the farmer, at once recognising him, cried, "Hallo,
Mads! where are you going to?"

"That you must ask the deer or the devil!" answered Mads; but before the
answer could be completely uttered, he was already so far away, that the
last words scarcely reached the ears of the inquirer. In a few seconds
both man and deer vanished from the sight of the gazers.

"Who was that?" inquired the stranger, without turning his eyes from the
direction in which the centaur had disappeared.

"It is a wild fellow called Mads Hansen, or Black Mads: he has a little
hut on the other side of the brook. Times are hard with him: he has many
children, I believe, and so he manages as he can. He comes sometimes on
this side and takes a deer; but to-day it would seem that the deer had
taken him: that is," added he, thoughtfully, "if it really be a deer.
God deliver us from