"I will just run a little farther and try if I can see the light in father's window," said Arndt. "You will not be afraid, Reutha?"
"Not I," said Reutha; and all the while she rubbed her eyes to keep them open, and leaned her head against a branch which seemed to her as soft and inviting as a pillow.
Arndt went a little way, until he saw the light which his father always placed so as to guide the children over the moor. Then he felt quite safe and at home, and went back cheerfully to his sister.
Reutha was not there! Beside the little mound and among the bushes did poor Arndt search in terror, but he could not find his sister. He called her name loudly--there was no answer. Not a single trace of her could be found; and yet he had not been five minutes away.
"Oh! what shall I do?" sobbed the boy; "I dare not go home without Reutha!" And there for a long time did Arndt sit by the hillock, wringing his hands and vainly expecting that his sister would hear him and come back. At last there passed by an old man, who travelled about the country selling ribbons and cloths.
"How you are grown since I saw you last, my little fellow!" said the man. "And where is your sister Reutha?"
Arndt burst into tears, and told his friend of all that had happened that night. The peddler's face grew graver and graver as the boy told him it was on this very spot that he lost his little sister.
"Arndt," whispered he, "did you ever hear of the Hill-men? It is they who have carried little Reutha away."
And then the old man told how in his young days he had heard strange tales of this same moor; for that the little mound was a fairy-hill, where the underground dwarfs lived, and where they often carried off young children to be their servants, taking them under the hill, and only leaving behind their shoes. "For," said the peddler, "the Hill-people are very particular, and will make all their servants wear beautiful glass shoes instead of clumsy leather."
So he and Arndt searched about the hill, and there, sure enough, they found Reutha's tiny shoes hidden under the long grass. At this her brother's tears burst forth afresh.
"Oh! what shall I do to bring back my poor sister? The Hill-men and women will kill her!"