Page:Knight's Quarterly Magazine series 1 volume 1 (June–October 1823).djvu/370

 spectre, and the master and mistress of the house the bed-room of the lady’s maid. The closet was opened, which contained, not exactly what Schroeder pretended to have seen, jewels, gold, and silver, but still several pretty articles of plate, some ornaments, and a few rolls of money. It was now advised to call the pretty inhabitant of the room to an account, both concerning the treasure and the apparitions; but it was soon discovered that both she and the colonel’s game-keeper, had, during the bustle, quietly retreated together.”

“The game-keeper!” repeated poor Barmann, quite thunderstruck, “the game-keeper did you say?”—“Yes, the game-keeper of the manor, Augustus Leisegang,” insisted Wermuth.—“Was the rogue’s name really Augustus?” again interrupted Barmann very earnestly, “are you certain of that?”

“To be sure I am,” answered Wermuth pettishly, “have I not just examined him and his fair one? why does the name strike you as singular?”—“Oh not at all, not in the least singular,” muttered Barmann peevishly, jerking up his cravat, “he is only my namesake, that’s all—but pray go on with your story.”—“Well, the rest you may easily guess,” continued Wermuth; “the moving wainscot, which might in ancient times have been of service to the lords of the mansion, had been forgotten, and was lately discovered by the loving couple. Schroeder, in his sleep must have pressed against the spring, and the slide opening, made the noise which awoke him; the damsel, when instead of the game-keeper she found a stranger in the bed, screamed out and let the slide suddenly drop, and this was the fall which Schroeder had so distinctly heard: thus every thing was explained naturally enough. A description of the pair was sent about the country, and yesterday they were brought in by our police officers, and I have passed this whole morning in attending to their examination. But the highest sport was, that Schroeder came in by accident, and was ready to cut his throat when he saw the pretty, rosy-cheeked, black-eyed girl, against whose beauties he had shut his eyes in the night, believing her to be the ghastly corps of the miser: ‘It shall not happen again to me, however,’ said he, and he endeavoured to make up for one of the kisses which he had lost; but the little black-eyed rogue turned herself about so quickly, that Schroeder’s lips exactly fixed themselves upon the red nose of the magistrate’s clerk. ‘Take care,’ sir,care, sir,’ [sic] said she, ‘the first of April comes back every year, and always has its due.

“The little rogue,” said Barmann, laughing, and who now good-naturedly gave his adventure, for the further amusement of the party—“but,” continued he, when he had finished, and we had ceased our mirth, “if I have given up my black cham-