A RESCUE FROM THE ELVES

YEARS ago in the Scotch Highlands there lived a blacksmith who had an only child, a son. The boy was cheerful, strong and healthy, but when he was about thirteen years old he fell ill. He would mope for whole days together, and at last he took to his bed. No one could tell what was the matter with him, and he continued to waste away, getting thin, wrinkled and yellow; and yet, curiously enough, he always had an enormous appetite. '

Thus things went on until one day as the smith stood idly at his forge with no heart to work, an old man of the neighborhood entered the shop and asked after the boy.

"He gets no better," replied the smith, "and never leaves his bed now."

"I have been studying on his case," said the old man, "and I am satisfied that he is not your son at all. Your boy has been carried off by the elves, and they have left one of their children in his place."

"Alas!" exclaimed the smith, "and what then am I to do? How am I ever to see my own son again?"

"I will tell you," the old man answered. "But first, to make sure that the boy is not yours, take as many empty egg-shells as you can get, go with them into the room where the boy lies, and spread them out carefully before his sight. Then proceed to fill them with water and arrange them when full around the hearth. By the time you are through I am quite certain he will say something to show what he really is."

The old man now departed, and the smith went to his house, gathered as many egg-shells as he could get, and proceeded to obey all the instructions that had been given him. He was busy placing the eggshells full of water along the borders of the hearth, when the supposed boy on the bed gave a hoarse cackle of laughter and exclaimed, "I am over eight hundred years of age, and in all my life I have never seen the like of that before!"

"What!" cried the smith, "then you are not my son, but some wicked elf. Out of the house with you!"

He made a dash toward the bed to seize the creature, but the elf gave an awful yell, sprang across the floor and vanished up the chimney. He had gone back to his people, and the blacksmith saw him no more.

The next day the smith went to the old man who had been his adviser and informed him what had happened, "and now," said he in conclusion, "I hope you can tell me how to recover my son."

"Back of your shop is a round green hill," responded the old man, "and your son is in that hill with the elves. On Hallowe'en Night the hill will be open, and you must go to it carrying with you a Bible, a dagger and a rooster. You will find a doorway in the side of the hill, and you will hear singing, dancing and much merriment going on within. Have no fear. The Bible you carry will safeguard you from all danger. On entering the doorway, stick your dagger in the threshold, and that will prevent the opening from closing on you. Then go on and you will find yourself in a spacious apartment, beautifully clean, and in its midst, working at a forge, you will see your son. When you are questioned say you come to seek him and will not go without him."

. Hallowe'en arrived not long afterward, and the smith sallied forth prepared as the old man had advised. Sure enough, as he approached the hill, he saw a light shining from a doorway where he had never seen light nor doorway before. When he drew nearer, a sound of piping, dancing and joy reached the anxious father on the night wind. Overcoming every impulse to fear, he entered the doorway, thrust his dagger into the threshold and went on. Protected by the Bible he carried, the elves could not harm him. They asked with a good deal of displeasure what he wanted there.

"I have come for my son," he replied. "I see him working at your forge, and I will not go without him."

On hearing this, the whole company around the smith gave a loud laugh. The noise awakened the rooster which was dozing in his arms. It leaped on the smith's shoulder, clapped its wings lustily and crowed loud and long.

The elves were very angry that a rooster should crow in their underground domain, and they seized the smith and his son, and threw them out of the hill. Then they tossed rooster and dagger after them, and in an instant, all was dark. But the smith was well satisfied with his success, and he and his son picked themselves up and walked off home.

For nearly a year the boy never did a turn of work, and hardly spoke a word; but at last, one day as he sat by his father in the shop watching him finishing a sword he was making for some Highland chief, and which he was very particular about, the boy suddenly exclaimed, "That is not the way to do it!"

He jumped to his feet, and taking the tools from his father's hands, set to work himself on the sword and fashioned one the like of which had never before been seen in Scotland. From that day the young man wrought constantly with his father. He had learned while among the elves to make a peculiarly fine and well-tempered weapon, and the manufacture of these swords kept father and son steadily employed, and spread their fame far and wide. They prospered and lived content with all the world and happy one with the other ever after.