326 WHISPERS FROM FAIRYLAND, [v1

 

without seeing: anything particular, and next de-
scended to the banqueting-hall, where he pictured to
himself the scene which the Red Baron had so vividly
described.

Then, having no further occasion to stay there,
and finding that his calling out to the Red Baron
produced no reply whatever, he came to two con-
clusions :—First, that ghosts would not come when
called, especially in broad daylight ; and secondly, that
as he could not possibly stay there until the evening,
he had better set: forth on his travels without further
delay. He did so accordingly, and if I had time to
tell you, and thought you would care to hear, I
could relate many other interesting adventures which
happened to the traveller. However, I will not yield
to the temptation to do so, but hasten on to the only
other event in his journeyings which bears upon the
present story.

It was some ten or a dozen years after the events
which I have been relating, when this self-same
traveller, grown, as you may perhaps think possible,
somewhat older, but still stalwart in frame and fond
of roaming abroad, came in his travels to the identical
village near which stood the castle of the Red Baron.
Things had changed, however, in that locality.
There were plenty of peasants to be seen at the
doors and windows of the cottages which formed the
principal street of the village, and, more than that,
there was a respectable inn at which accommodation
could be found for man and beast.

Our traveller stood even more in need of this than
in the olden days, for he came not alone upon this