As Jerry sat thus, sipping, smoking, or talking occasionally to his saucy jackdaw, which had now perched itself on the point of one of his toes, and was impudently saluting the leg that supported him with repeated dabs of his heavy beak, the figure of a man, half seen amongst the thick heath which covered the ground, appeared at a distance. Sometimes he turned one way, sometimes another, as though winding out a devious path amongst the broken irregularities of the ground; and anon he would stand still, and look around, as though irresolute and doubtful which course to pursue. Jerry watched a long time, but at length lost sight of him, partly owing to the irregularities of the earth, and partly to the near approach of night. As darkness fell upon the solitary world about him, Jerry retired into his hut; and having lighted a small oil lamp, which shed about as much light around as might have been comprised within the circumference of a tolerably-sized round table, and left all the rest of the place in deep spectral shadow, he sat down, with a huge pair of owl-eyed spectacles on, to the perusal of the only book on the premises. Well nigh had he read himself to sleep, when the, to him, extraordinary phenomenon of a civil rap at the door was heard. Were some learned gentleman meditating in his study, and at a time when he believed himself perhaps to be the most alone, suddenly to receive a blow beside the head from an unseen hand, he could not have started from his seat with more instantaneous abruptness than did our old friend, Jerry, on hearing that unusual summons. Throwing the door wide open, in order to obtain a better view of whoever might be outside, he beheld the spare figure of a man standing before him. “Well! what do you want here?” gruffly demanded Jerry. “I'm lost in the forest,” replied the stranger, “though that, to be sure, is my business, and not yours; but if you could either direct me elsewhere not far off, or give me shelter till daylight----” “No!” interrupted Jerry, “I shall have nobody here.”