Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 2.djvu/92

84 “And all has been managed rightly, and according to my Letter of Instructions, at home?” inquired I.

“Yes, truly,” answered she; “only I did not see the Letter; it is lost; thou hast packed it among thy clothes.”

Well, I could not but forgive the blooming brave pedestrian all omissions. Her eye, then her heart, was bringing fresh cool morning air and morning red into my sultry hours. And yet, for this kind soul, looking into life with such love and hope, I must in a little while overcloud the merited Heaven of today, with tidings of my failure in the Catechetical Professorship! I dallied and postponed to the utmost. I asked how she had got in, as the whole chevaux-de-frise barricado of chairs was still standing fast at the door. She laughed heartily, curtseying in village fashion, and said she had planned it with her brother the day before yesterday, knowing my precautions in locking, that he should admit her into my room, that so she might cunningly awaken me. And now bolted the Dragoon with loud laughter into the apartment, and cried: “Slept well, brother?”

In this wise truly the whole ghost-story was now solved and expounded, as if by the pen of a Biester or a Hennings; I instantly saw through the entire ghost-scheme, which our Dragoon had executed. With some bitterness I told him my conjecture, and his sister my story. But he lied and laughed; nay, attempted shamelessly enough to palm spectre-notions on me a second time, in open day. I answered coldly, that in me he had found the wrong man, granting even that I had some similarity with Luther, with Hobbes, with Brutus, all of whom had seen and dreaded ghosts. He replied, tearing the facts away from their originating causes: “All he could say was, that last night he had heard some poor sinner creaking and