that was a very good sample of the stories most current among the people; and that Mr. Raymond could tell a very good and very characteristic German story that contains a good moral, as almost all German stories do. The two stories were told, accordingly, and they will be found in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VIII.-DUTCH AND GERMAN STORIES.

I.-Jan Shalken's Three Wishes.

1. At a small fishing village in Dutch Flanders, there is still shown the site of a hut, which was an object of much attention whilst it stood, on account of a singular legend that relates to its first inhabitant, a kind-hearted fellow, who depended on his boat for subsistence, and his own. happy disposition for cheerfulness during every hardship and privation. Thus the story goes:

2. One dark and stormy night in winter, as Jan Shalken was sitting with his good-natured buxom wife Madge by the fire, he was awakened from a transient doze by a knocking at the door of his hut. He started up, drew back the bolt, and a stranger entered. He was a tall man; but little could be distinguished of his face or figure, as he wore a large dark cloak, which he had contrived to pull over his head after the fashion of a cowl.

3. "I am a poor traveller," said the stranger, "and want a night's lodging. Will you grant it to me?"-"Ay, to be sure," replied Shalken; "but I am afraid you will find but sorry cheer. Had you come sooner, you might have fared better. Sit down, however, and eat of what is left."

4. The traveller took him at his word, and in a short time retired to his humble sleeping-place. In the morning, as he was about to depart, he advanced toward Shalken, and, giving him his hand, thus addressed him :—

am;

5. "It is needless for you, my good friend, to know who I but of this be assured, that I can and will be grateful; for when the rich and the powerful turned me last night from their doors, you welcomed me as man should welcome man, and looked with an eye of pity on the desolate traveller in the storm. I grant you three wishes. Be they what they may, those wishes shall be gratified."

6. Now, Shalken certainly did not put much faith in these promises; yet he thought it the safest plan to make trial of them; and, accordingly, he began to consider what his wishes should be. Jan was a man who had few or no ambitious views, and was contented with the way of life in which he had been brought up. In fact, he was so well contented with his situation-with some slight changes that he might suggest-that he would like to remain in it as long as he could; and this gave rise to wish the first.

7. Turning to the unknown, he said, "Let my wife and myself live fifty years longer than nature had designed." "It shall be done," said the stranger. Whilst Shalken was puzzling his brain for a second wish, he bethought him that a pear-tree, which was in his little garden, had been frequently despoiled of its fruit, to the no small damage of the tree, and grievous disappointment of its owner. "For my second wish," said Jan, "grant that whoever climbs my pear-tree shall not have power to leave it until my permission be given." This, also, was assented to.

8. Now Shalken was a sober man, and liked to sit down and chat with his wife of an evening; but she was a bustling little body, and often jumped up in the midst of a conversation that she had heard only ten or twelve times, to scrub the table, or set their clay platters in order. Nothing disturbed him so much as this, and he determined, if possible, to put a stop to the nuisance.

9. With this object in view he approached close to the stranger, and in a low whisper told him his third and last wish: that whoever might sit in a particular chair in his

hut, should not be able to move out of it until it should please him so to order. This wish also was agreed to by the traveller, who, after many expressions of kind wishes, departed on his way.

10. Years passed on, and Jan's last two wishes had been fully gratified by often detaining thieves in his tree, and his wife on her chair. The time was approaching when the promise of long life would be falsified, or made good. It happened that the birthdays of the fisherman and his wife were the same. They were sitting together on the evening of the day that made him seventy-nine years of age, and Madge seventy-three, when the moon, that was shining through the window of the hut, seemed suddenly to be extinguished, and the stars rushed down the dark clouds, and lay glaring on the surface of the ocean, over which was spread an unnatural calmness, although the skies appeared to be mastered by the winds, and were heaving onward, with their mighty waves of cloud.. Birds dropped dead from the boughs, and the foliage of the trees turned to a pale red.

11. To the now dim eyes of Jan and his wife, all things seemed to announce the speedy termination of their natural lives, and the near approach of Death; and in a few minutes. afterward, sure enough, he came. He was, however, very different from all that the worthy couple had heard or fancied of him. He was certainly rather thin, and had very little color; but he was well dressed, and his deportment was that of a gentleman. Bowing very politely to the ancient pair, he told them he merely came to give notice that, by right, they should have belonged to him on that day, but a fifty years' respite was granted, and when that period had expired, he should visit them again. He then walked away, and the moon, and the stars, and the waters resumed their natural appearance.

12. For the next fifty years everything passed on as quietly as before for the aged couple; but, as the time

drew near for the appointed arrival of Death, Jan became thoughtful, and he felt no pleasure at the idea of the anticipated visit. The day arrived, and Death came, preceded by the same horrors as on the former occasion. "Well, good folks," said he, "you now can have no objection to accompany me; for, assuredly, you have hitherto been highly privileged, and have lived long enough. I have no doubt you are glad to lay down the cares of life."

13. But the old dame wept, and clung feebly to her husband, as if she feared they were to be separated after passing away from the earth on which they had dwelt so long and so happily together. Poor Shalken also looked very downcast, and moved after Death but slowly. As they passed by Jan's garden, he turned to take a last look at it, when a sudden thought struck him.

14. He called to Death, and said, "Sir, allow me to propose something to you. Our journey is a long one, and we have no provisions; I am too infirm, or I would climb yonder pear-tree, and take a stock of its best fruit with us: you are active and obliging, and will, I am sure, sir, get it for us."

15. Death, with great condescension, complied, and, ascending the tree, gathered a great number of pears, which he threw down to old Shalken and his wife. At length he determined upon descending, but, to his surprise and apparent consternation, discovered that he was immovable ; nor would Jan allow him to leave the tree until he had given them a promise of living another half century.

16. The old couple jogged on in the usual way for fifty years more, and at the very day Death came. He was by no means so polite as he had formerly been, for the trick that Shalken had put upon him offended his dignity, and hurt his pride not a little. "Come, Jan," said he, "you used me scurvily the other day (Death thinks but little of fifty years!), and I am now determined to lose no time— come, let us be moving."

17. Jan was sitting by his little table, busily employed in writing, when Death entered. He raised his head sorrowfully, and the pen trembled in his hand as he thus addressed him ::-"I confess that my former conduct toward you merits blame; but I have done with such knaveries now, and have learnt to know that life is of little worth. Still, before I quit this world, I should like to do all the good I can, and was engaged, when you arrived, in making a will, that a poor lad, who has always been kind to us, may receive this hut and my boat. Suffer me but to finish what I have begun, and I shall cheerfully follow wherever you may lead. Pray sit down: in a few minutes my task

will be ended."

18. Death, thus appealed to, could refuse no longer, and seated himself in a chair, from which he found it as diffi. cult to rise as it had formerly been to descend from the pear tree. His liberation was bought at the expense of an additional fifty years, at the end of which period, and exactly on their birthday, Jan Shalken and his wife, now blind and deaf, and feeble with extreme age, and no longer desiring life, but anxiously awaiting and hoping for the coming of Death, died quietly in their bed. And the moon did not withdraw its light; the stars fell not; and the ocean slept tranquilly before the little village in which Jan and his wife had lived long enough to be considered the father and mother of all its inhabitants.

Then, as Mrs. Raymond had promised, Mr. Raymond told, in the following words, the German story to which she had alluded :

:

II-A Story of Ingratitude.

1. A stranger, on first entering a certain German city, was surprised to see in the market-place a lofty bell-tower, with an open door-way, while a stone statue of a noble