any of the numerous goblins or sprites that were said to infest the place, were about to play any of their gambols with himself or his dearly beloved pipe, and finding his fears groundless, continued his route home.

The murmuring of the wind-a strangely formed tree-a bird of night making its melancholy voyage in seach of prey, all gave terrors to the mind of our hero. At intervals he stopped suddenly, stood aghast, his nether jaw dropt, and his pipe hung down nearly to his breast; but his fears vanishing with their cause, he would replace his pipe firmly between his capacious masticators, and pursue his way. He carefully avoided making any manner of noise except such as his nasal organ from a habit of smoking was wont to emit upon all occasions, and at all times.

Poor Von Donderhead had nearly reached the extremity of the forest nearest his home, and emboldened by his near neighbourhood to the abode of man, was making the best haste in his power to reach the little village of Gaatspragen, when chancing to turn his head, he found to his horror and surprise that a companion was at his elbow. 'Mein Got!' cried Von Donderhead, and took to his heels without waiting for any salutation.

The more haste the less speed,' saith the proverb, and so our hero found, for in his baste to escape from his unwelcome companion, he fell over the lately felled trunk of an old oak, and measured the length and breadth of his ponderous carcase among the brushwood; before he could regain his feet, the stranger stood over him.

bling, he asked what service was required of him.

Draw off my left boot,' said the Gold Demon, (for such he was), and pluck the splinter from my foot; do it without delay: it has forced me to limp about the forest these 500 years, but now you must pluck it out and demand a recompence.'

Von Donderhead knew that to remonstrate would be vain, and therefore set about his task, but did it in such a bungling manner, that the demon roared with pain, and shook the forest with his wailings; the splinter was however out, and our hero demanded with all the assurance of a skilful operator, 500 dollars for his reward.

'Listen,' cried the demon: ' had you extracted the thorn without giving me unnecessary pain, I would have complied with your request ; but as a punishment for your inexpertness, I will not pay the money into your own hands.'

Oh,' roared out the poor Dutchman, you swindling old demon, this the way in which you return a benefit? But mark me, Mr. Demon, if you should come to me with another splinter, if I don't shove it further in, I'll be-'

'Hear me out,' cried the demon, though I will not pay the gold into your own hands, I will put it in the possession of any one you name, for you.'

Well then,' said Donderhead, his eyes twinkling at the idea of possessing such a fortune, cause the 500 dollars to be put into the bedroom of my neighbour Spraaken, and I am satisfied.'

'Be it so,' exclaimed the demon, and immediately disappeared.

Von Donderhead, hurried home, got into bed, and in less than five minutes was by the side of his amiable spouse.

The next morning he rose with the lark, to pay his neighbour a visit to demand his 500 dollars. Now it

so happened, that on the preceding night, about an hour after midnight, Spraaken was awoke from a sound slumber by a noise in his room, and getting up to see what occasioned it, he found on the floor near his bed a dark leather bag, containing a number of dollars, these he counted, and then thanking his stars for the godsend, hid them under the chimneyhearth, resolving that none of his neighbours should know of his quickly acquired wealth, lest they should suspect the means by which he obtained it, and deprive him of it. He returned to his bed scarce able to close his eyes for the thoughts of his good fortune; but scarce had Sol with jocoud visage peered above the horizon, when he was aroused by the repeated knocks and shouts of Von Donderhead.

"Neighbour, neighbour !' cried he, 'get up and let me in.'

In the name of wonder,' asked Spraaken, what can you want with me at this time in the morning?'

"What!' cried our hero in surprize, can you be ignorant that I have come to demand 500 dollars of you, paid into your hands for my use, by the Gold Demon?'

6

Surely neighbour you rave,' replied Spraaken, not a little alarmed for the safety of his treasure, ' I have seen no Gold Demon, nor do I ever wish to see him; I know nothing either of demons or dollars.'

lars. And surely,' he added, he has done so; he never could-nay, I am sure he has not deceived me, but you have received the money, and now unjustly detain it.'

Spraaken looked in his face in dismay, but seeing that his features expressed more of the interrogative than of the positive, he replied,

For shame, neighbour, do you doubt me, who am a true Christian? should you not rather mistrust the faith of your infidel friend, the demon, who is bound to you by no tie save a promise, which, like piecrust, is, you know, made to be broken.'

Poor Donderhead now began to suspect that the demon had tricked him in good earnest, and slily thinking to make the best of a bad bargain, he thus addressed his neighbour- My very good friend, it may be that the demon has not as yet paid you the money, but I have a very urgent demand for 250 dollars, now as I have no doubt but that if he has not paid the money into your hands, he very shortly will, I should feel obliged by your advancing me that sum, and you can deduct it from the 500 dollars, when you receive them, which I doubt not you soon will.'

Why to tell you the truth, neighbour,' replied Spraaken, not a little set at ease by the turn the affair had taken, I have no very great faith in the promises of demons, and therefore could not think of lending my money on so slender a security.'

Poor Donderhead was thus obliged to return to his cottage as poor as he left it; but enraged at the demon's behaviour, he determined to go that very night and upbraid him with his want of faith. Accordingly, at midnight he repaired to the forest, which he had scarcely entered when he perceived the object of his search by his side. His courage now began to fail him, but

the consciousness of having been deceived in so ungrateful a manner, gave him confidence to speak. 'So,' Mr. Demon, is this the way you reward Christain folks for acts of kindness towards you, how have you kept your promise-Spraaken denies having received the 500 dollars you promised to pay him for me.' But he has received them nevertheless,' replied the demon, and if he refuses to pay them to you it is no fault of mine; you named your own banker, and if he be not worthy of the trust, I am not to blame; however, if you think there is any one else in whom you can put more confidence, name him, and I will once more discharge the obligation.'

6

Many thanks to your generosity, sir,' cried Von Donderhead, and as I know nobody but my wife, even pay it to her."

It shall be done,' cried the demon, even before you return home--adieu.'

than either friend or wife, his 500 dollars.

Donder und blixem,' cried he, 'I would rather trust my dog, brute as he is, than another of the human species.'

Accordingly he once more obtained his request that the money should be paid into the hands, or rather into the jaws of his trusty dog Scamper. Satisfied that at last he had appointed a trusty agent, he hastened home; and scarce had he reached his door when he saw his dog dragging towards him something very heavy with joy he flew to relieve his faithful domestic from his charge, which finding to be the promised 500 dollars, his joy knew no bounds: he leapt, laughed, clapped his hands, and caressed his dog, who in silent wonderment sat looking sagaciously in his master's face.

Our hero hastened home, but to his consternation no wife was to be seen; he enquired of the neighbours and learnt that she was seen to enter Spraaken's cottage with something very heavy in her apron, and immediately afterwards they seen to depart together from the village, each with a leathern bag under their arm.

Half frantic with disappointment and rage, he ran to the house of his treacherous friend, who he found had eloped with his rib, and worse than all, his money. Luckily for the fugitives, the village could not boast of a single post-horse, else had Von Donderhead pursued, and perhaps overtaken them. As it was, he consoled himself with some half a dozen 'duivels,'' hey, slapperloots!' his pipe, and the resolution to go once more to the demon, to obtain, if possible, through some safer medium

He kept his word, for retiring into the forest he built himself a snug cottage on the very spot where he extracted the thorn from the demon's foot, and his dear bought experience of the world. Here he lived in comfort, with his dog for his companion, till death summoned him to the last account. The villagers would often meet him in his wanderings with his pipe in his mouth, and Scamper by his side, and exclaim,-' There goes Von Donderhead, the Gold Demon's surgeon.'

J. W. F. BURDEN.

Correspondents will be fully answered in our next.

In a certain northern city, which a flattering Frenchman has nick-named 'the Modern Athens,' there dwelt a sober citizen, by trade a baker. Fortune had long smiled upon his affairs; and finding that the world had used him well,' he wisely determined to use himself still better.Cincinnatus planted turnips; and the hero of our tale, in humble imitation of so great an example, took a snug farm within an easy walk of the seat of Philosophy.Being, however, a prudent as well as a prosperous man, he only rusticated during the day, but returned to set the sponge,' and talk over pies and pastry in the evening. In these morning and evening perambulations he frequently met with a No. 24. N.S.

little cripple body, hobbling along in the 'dot-and-carry-one' style. A few friendly salutations passed between the pedestrians, and at length Master Brownbread came to understand that Master Thimbles was the tailor of the very village in which his own farm was situated. Having obtained this piece of information, he inquired no further; but, like many other profound speculators, conceived he knew all that was to be known on the subject.

It happened that in the same village there resided another tailor, also named Thimbles, and also a cripple; but as Dame Nature had been still more parsimonious in the article of legs to Thimbles Secundus, than she was to Thimbles Pri

mus, he (viz. Secundus) was forced to content himself with sitting always on the board' at home, and keeping in good order the patches and politics of his native village. His utility, however, could not extend his days beyond their allotted span: he sickened, died, was buried; and for some days Mr. Brownbread observed the village had a melancholy look, more black coats than usual were in requisition, and a certain gravity in every countenance indicated that the community had sustained a public loss. The worthy baker, actuated by natural sympathy, inquired who had been taken away from the evil to come,'and was answered with a sad shake of the head-'Poor Thimbles, the cripple tailor.' On hearing this, he thought with an affectionate remembrance on the kind greetings which had passed between him and the (supposed) defunct.

Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them soon. The old consolation came to his mind-Mors omnibus communis (I won't swear that he thought in Latin, but that's all one). He became at last reconciled to the idea that poor Thimbles had gone to that bourne whence no traveller returns.'

Matters were in this state when the baker, one chill December evening, to bar out the biting frost, had stopped an hour or two longer in the village, and had an additional cup of the 'barley bree.' But the best of friends, and more, the best of whiskey, will not make a prudent Scotchman sit too long. Our hero buttoned his coat, shouldered his cudgel, and

'While's holding fast his guid blue bon net,

While's crooning o'er some auld Scotch sonnet.'

had just reached a bottom in the road where he could hear the winds whistling above; but all around was calm as the peace that hallows the heart of the right

eous.

The baker might perhaps have moralized, but stump-stump-he heard, or thought he heard, the well-known sound of the tailor's crutches, as plain as if the green turf had not spread its folds over the frag

ment of his limbs. The baker was no coward he ran not at the first alarm, but calmly fixing his eye on the horizon, he saw the very ghost of the tailor's dandy hat, alternately raised and repressed, keep time to the fast advancing clatter of his spectre crutches-un Fantome Boiteux

The

what mere man could withstand? baker took to his heels, and with ghastly visage, and hair on end, regained the party he had left, just in time for each guest to carry the painful tale, with all appropriate

additions and amendments, to the remotest corners of the parish.

The winter had nearly passed away before any prudent man dared to venture cross the Powburn hallow' under clond of night; and even the Minister's exhortations were never half so efficacious as the fear of the Cripple Ghaist' was, in making frail folks keep good hours; nor was it till the long warnings of summer, that our friend the baker discovered there had been two tailors-the one resting quietly in his tomb, the other all flesh and blood (save his timber leg), still hobbling en 'life's dreary road.'

The Novelist.

MAY-DAY IN THE VILLAGE.

The sun had scarcely risen over Elmwood Village, when nearly all its inhabitants had left their beds and were rambling through the fields and along the hedges, to gather green branches and fresh flowers to deck the May-pole, around which the old and the young were to as semble, when Evening, the friend and patroness of innocent amuse ment, paced in her shadowy mantle over the earth. It was the morning that ushered in the merriest month of all the year,' and in the whole village there was but one aching heart.

Nearly opposite the spot in which time out of mind,' on such festal occasions, the villagers had held their joyous meetings, was the neat but humble cottage in which Mary Edmonds and her children dwelt.— She was a stranger, who had been about three years a resident amongst them, and by her kind and gentle manners, her continual anxiety to lessen all their difficulties, and to administer to all their wants, and above all, by that air of gentility which marked her as evidently superior to the situation she then filled, she had succeeded in gaining not only their esteem, but their affection.

Awakened from sleep that was seldom unbroken, she opened her lattice window, and looked forth