FullReads

Once upon a time St. Nicholas came down into the world to take a peep at the old place and see how things looked in the spring-time. On he stepped along the road to the town where he used to live, for he had a notion to find out whether things were going on nowadays as they one time did. By-and-by he came to a cross-road, and who should he see sitting there but Ill-Luck himself. Ill-Luck’s face was as gray as ashes, and his hair as white as snow–for he is as old as Grandfather Adam–and two great wings grew out of his shoulders–for he flies fast and comes quickly to those whom he visits, does Ill-Luck.

Now, St. Nicholas had a pocketful of hazel-nuts, which he kept cracking and eating as he trudged along the road, and just then he came upon one with a worm-hole in it. When he saw Ill-Luck it came into his head to do a good turn to poor sorrowful man.

“Good-morning, Ill-Luck,” says he.

“Good-morning, St. Nicholas,” says Ill-Luck.

“You look as hale and strong as ever,” says St. Nicholas.

“Ah, yes,” says Ill-Luck, “I find plenty to do in this world of woe.”

“They tell me,” says St. Nicholas, “that you can go wherever you choose, even if it be through a key-hole; now, is that so?”

“Yes,” says Ill-Luck, “it is.”

“Well, look now, friend,” says St. Nicholas, “could you go into this hazel-nut if you chose to?”

“Yes,” says Ill-Luck, “I could indeed.”

“I should like to see you,” says St. Nicholas; “for then I should be of a mind to believe what people say of you.”

“Well,” says Ill-Luck, “I have not much time to be pottering and playing upon Jack’s fiddle; but to oblige an old friend”–thereupon he made himself small and smaller, and–phst! he was in the nut before you could wink.

Then what do you think St. Nicholas did? In his hand he held a little plug of wood, and no sooner had Ill-Luck entered the nut than he stuck the plug in the hole, and there was man’s enemy as tight as fly in a bottle.

“So!” says St. Nicholas, “that’s a piece of work well done.” Then he tossed the hazel-nut under the roots of an oak-tree near by, and went his way.

And that is how this story begins.

Well, the hazel-nut lay and lay and lay, and all the time that it lay there nobody met with ill-luck; but, one day, who should come travelling that way but a rogue of a Fiddler, with his fiddle under his arm. The day was warm, and he was tired; so down he sat under the shade of the oak-tree to rest his legs. By-and-by he heard a little shrill voice piping and crying, “Let me out! let me out! let me out!”

The Fiddler looked up and down, but he could see nobody. “Who are you?” says he.

“I am Ill-Luck! Let me out! let me out!”

“Let you out?” says the Fiddler. “Not I; if you are bottled up here it is the better for all of us;” and, so saying, he tucked his fiddle under his arm and off he marched.

But before he had gone six steps he stopped. He was one of your peering, prying sort, and liked more than a little to know all that was to be known about this or that or the other thing that he chanced to see or hear. “I wonder where Ill-Luck can be, to be in such a tight place as he seems to be caught in,” says he to himself; and back he came again. “Where are you, Ill-Luck?” says he.

“Here I am,” says Ill-Luck–“here in this hazel-nut, under the roots of the oak-tree.”

Thereupon the Fiddler laid aside his fiddle and bow, and fell to poking and prying under the roots until he found the nut. Then he began twisting and turning it in his fingers, looking first on one side and then on the other, and all the while Ill-Luck kept crying, “Let me out! let me out!”