XIV.

MRS. VAN BUREN’S CHRISTMAS TALE.

The most beautiful story Mrs. Van Buren had found in her search during the year for a tale to tell her friends around the Good Will tree was one in the German tongue.  She had translated it during the summer, and now called it by a title of her own as she told it.

RED MANTLE, THE HOUSE SPIRIT.

There was a German pedler who traveled from city to city by the name of Berthold.  He grew in wealth, and at last carried portmanteaus of jewels of great value.  He usually traveled only in the daytime, and so as to arrive early in the evening at the town inns between the Hartz Mountains and the Rhine.

But on one journey he was belated.  He found himself in an unknown way in a great fir forest, where the dark pines shut out the lamps of the stars.  He began to fear, for the forests were reputed to be infested with robbers, when suddenly a peculiar light appeared.  It was a fire that fumed with a steady flame; he perceived it was a charcoal pit.

  The colliers are honest people, he reasoned; and with a light step he
  approached the pit.

  Near-by was a long house, two stories high, and the lower windows were
  bright with the candles and fire within.

  He approached the house, and knocked upon the door.

  The door was opened cautiously by a middle-aged woman, with a bent
  form and beautiful, but troubled face.

  “What would thee have, stranger?”

  “Food and lodging, madam.”

  “That can never be—­not here, not here.  It distresses me to say it,
  but it would not be for your comfort to tarry here.”

  “But I am belated, and have lost my way.  I must come in.”

  “I will call my husband.  Herman, come here!”

  She stepped aside, when an elderly man appeared, holding a light shaded
  by his hand, and followed by a group of children.

“I am a belated traveler,” said he to Herman, the collier, “and I have lost my way.  I see that you are an honest man, and I may tell you that I have merchandise of value, and so it is not safe for me to go on.  Give me a shelter and a meal, and I will pay for all.”

  “It is loath I am to turn away a stranger, but this is no place for a
  traveler.  The house is haunted, yet it will not be so always, I hope;
  but it is so now.”

  “But, good man, I am not afraid.”

  “You do not know, stranger.”

  “But I can sleep where you can, and where this good woman can live
  with her innocent children.”

  “You don’t know,” said the woman, “You don’t know.”

  “But I must rest here.  There may be thieves without, wolves.  There
  cannot be worse things within.  I must come in, and I will.”