his behalf. "It is a wicked, wicked world," at
last said Kerli; "let us fly from it and dwell
with rocks that are honest in their hardness,
with eternal snows that are God's servants when
they pinch us with their chill." The dead
woman who was naught bound Kerli and the
lad together. Kerli took treasure that they
might not starve, and they fled far from their
own land, until they climbed by night into their
den upon the Death's Head Mountain.

"I will sing," thought the lad, "the cheerful
song that was unfinished when we met, and has
been never finished since, although begun a
thousand times. The faintest echo of that, Kerli will
know. If luck is bad, for once, I shall finish it."

Down, therefore, Ishmael climbed, singing
lustily, and the song made the descent so easy
that he sustained long falls unhurt, and swiftly
passing between glimpses of caged men and
women gnawing, heard presently again, but in a
more joyous note, the cry of "Ishmael!" There
was a fierce blast, as of wind from below, and
the rush upward of the black Giant Glum, whom
the song had unearthed. When he was gone,
there was chattering and chirping in the dens,
of which the cages were all torn open by that
upward blast, and into which a ray or two of
sunshine pierced. Far down in the Dumps, at
the very foot of the gulf, sat Kerli smiling
welcome to his friend.

"Now, Ishmael," he said, "is not this better
than yon peak. It is warmer down here. And
you need never leave me. That sharp air of the
peak gave one an appetite for carrot; but down
in the Dumps no man wants anything to eat
while he can get a bite out of his finger-nails."
And for a whole year the obstinate old man
made Ishmael live with him upon fingernail,
refusing to come up out of the Dumps.
It was pure obstinacy, for Giant Glum being
gone and kept away by Ishmael's carolling, there
was light enough in the pit to show an easy,
circular stair to the top, by which anybody
could walk up and get out if he chose. For a
whole year Kerli did not choose. Everybody
else in the pit had by that time given up
complaints, shaken himself, and gone out, except
one man, who had crept lower and lower down,
taking possession always of the lowest empty
den, and he, who seemed to be always listening
when Ishmael sang, never so much as bit his
nails, or took his two hands from before his face.
He lived upon his sorrow. At last, when all
others were gone, this man descended to Kerli
and Ishmael with his hands not before his face,
but stretched out to them, and Ishmael knew
his father, Kerli his friend."

All three, of course, went up out of the Dumps
together, and the two old men then desired
nothing better than to go with Ishmael to The
Heart's Content, and bless his marriage there
with Greta.

The gaunt black-haired lad with the great
eyes, followed by two aged, largely-bearded men,
came into the inn parlour at noonday, when it
should have been full; but it was empty, and
outside the sign was taken down. Christopher,
entering from the back, knew the lad instantly;
guessed that, as Greta always said he would, he
had brought Kerli home, but who was the other
gentleman? and where was his dame? and what
had become of Greta?

Trouble had come to The Heart's Content.
The singed goose-feathers only improved
business while there remained anybody who had not
smelt them. Nobody cared to smell them twice,
and all who had been to the house said that
there must be evil wrought where the smell of
the fiend had abided for so many weeks.
Therefore, from being sought, the inn came
suddenly to be avoided. The dame had been too
clever, and had burnt away its good name with
its goose-feathers. In despair, Christopher had
taken the sign down, and sought other employment.
Nobody would give him work. Furniture
had been seized for rent. He had no bed for
the guests or even for himself, and wanted food to
put before them. Nobody present had any money.

"Well, yes, Ishmael," said the dame, when she
came in with the apronful of firewood she had
been abroad to glean, "there is a large purse of
your friend's under the hearthstone, no thinner
than when he left it at the Peak for thieves to
quarry. We were not an hour too early in fetching
it down."

"What," said Kerli, "you have been sleeping
on rags and starving, with my great money-
bag under your hearth! Up with it, and give
it to Greta for her marriage-portion."

Kerli danced a fandango at the wedding. He
was an immensely rich man in his own far
country. So was Ishmael's father. But they
gathered together their goods and came and
made merry together for the rest of their days
in a great stone house, built where the inn had
stood. They made it glorious with gardens and
spice-bowers, and still called it The Heart's
Content. There Ishmael and Greta trained their
children, and saw their children's children make
holiday journeys up to Kerli's Peak, where they
knew how to stir the echoes of the very Death's
Head Cavern with their laughter.

NEW WORK
BY SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.
NEXT WEEK
Will be continued (to be completed next March)
A STRANGE STORY, BY THE
AUTHOR OF 'MY NOVEL," "RIENZI," &c. &c.

On THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, will be published,
price Fourpence,
TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND.
FORMING THE
EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER
FOR CHRISTMAS.