v1. ] THE RED BARON. - 325

 

 

in your own house; wherefore I will not seek to
detain you.’

Upon this the little red man got up, pushed back
his chair from the fireside, yawned, stretched his
arms, took one more glass of madeira (which hap-
pened to be the last in the bottle), put his pipe in his
pocket, and after nodding familiarly to his com-
panion, left the room and shut the door after him.
Being very tired and not a little sleepy, our traveller
did not sit up much longer. He found a certain
amount of covering upon the bed, and having thrown
his cloak over him by way of an extra blanket,
managed to compose himself comfortably to sleep, and
never had a better night’s rest in his life. The sun
was shining brightly into his room next morning
when he awoke, and for the first few moments
he could not remember where he was or how he came
there. Gradually, however, he recollected all the
events of the previous evening, and began to wonder
how he could have been on such good terms with the
ghost of an old baron, and to think how lucky he had
been to fall in with so hospitable a spirit. »

There was no doubt at all about the reality of the
thing. There were the two chairs as they were left the
night before; there were the glasses, and there were
the bottles, empty indeed, but still imparting, by their
pleasant fragrance, a knowledge of. what. they had
recently contained. There, too, better than all at that
moment, was a fragment of the mighty pasty, sufficient
for our traveller to break his fast upon, which he did
very shortly after he had completed his toilet ; then he
took a look into one or two of the other rooms, but