Page:The Decameron of the West (1839).djvu/170

 fatigued, and then, as for the ghost, I shall willingly encounter him.”

“Bravo,” said the landlord; “and if you are greatly terrified, call from the window, and help will arrive to you from the inn.”

Francis entered the chamber allotted to him in the old castle, placed his large wax candles, (which mine host assured him were consecrated,) with his potations on the table before him; he carefully bolted the door in the inside, then crept below both mattrass and blankets, and endeavoured, though with some trepidation, to compose himself to sleep. After slumbering for about an hour, at midnight he was aroused by the sound of feet near the door of his chamber. He listened in great fear, and there seemed the tread of a man, who held in his hand a bunch of keys, which Francis thought he tried one after another, in order to find the one that suited the stranger’s apartment.

I question if even Zimmerman himself, who has discoursed so eloquently on the charms of solitude, would not have transferred his eulogy to the pleasures of society, had he now been situated as our hero was, in the lonely castle of Rummelsberg near Rhineberg. Francis, trembling violently with terror, and shrouded amongst the bed-clothes, so that one