Aronach did not say "thou" here, I noticed, and his voice was even courteous, though he still preserved his stateliness. Like a boy, indeed, Seraphael laid hold of my arm and pulled me from the room again. I cannot express the manly indignation of the worthies we left in there at such sportiveness. They all stood firm, and in truth they were all older, both in body and soul, than we. But no sooner were we outside than he began to laugh, and he laughed so that he had to lean against the wall. I laughed too; it was a most contagious spell.
"Now, Carl," he said, "very Carlomein! we will make a tour of discovery. I declare I don't know where I am, and am afraid to find myself in the young ladies' bedrooms. But I want to see how things are carried on here."
We turned this way and that way, he running down all the passages and trying the very doors; but these were all locked.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, vivaciously, "they are, I suppose, too fine;" and then we explored farther. One end of the corridor was screened by a large oaken door from another range of rooms, and not without difficulty we effected an entrance, for the key, although in the lock, was rusty, and no joke to turn. Here, again, were doors, right and left; here also all was hidden under lock and key that they might be supposed to contain; but we did at last discover a curious hole at the end, which we did not take for a room until we came inside,—having opened the door, which was latched, and not especially convenient. However, before we advanced I had ventured, "Sir, perhaps some one is in there, as it is not fastened up."
"I shall not kill them, I suppose," he replied, with a curious eagerness. Then with the old sweetness, "You are very right, I will knock; but I know it will be knocking to nobody."
He had then touched the panel with his delicate knuckles; no voice had answered, and with a mirthful look he lifted the latch and we both entered. It was a sight that surprised me; for a most desolate prison-cell could not have been darker. The window ought not to be so named; for it let in no light, only shade, through its lack-lustrous green glass. There was no furniture at all, except a very narrow bed,—looking harder than Lenhart Davy's, but wearing none of that air of his. There was a closet, as I managed to discover in a niche, but no chest, no stove; in fact, there was nothing suggestive at all, except one solitary picture, and that hung above the bed and looked down into it, as it were, to protect and bless. I felt I know not how when I saw it then and there; for it was—what picture do you think? A copy of the very musical cherub I had met with upon Aronach's wreath-hung walls. It was fresher, newer, in this instance, but it had no gold or carven frame; it was bound at its edge with fair blue ribbon only, beautifully stitched, and suspended by it too. Above the graceful tie was twisted one long branch of lately-gathered linden blossom, which looked itself sufficient to give an air of heaven to the close little cell; it was even as flowers upon a tomb,—those sighs and smiles of immortality where the mortal has passed forever!
"Oh, sir!" I said, and I turned to him,—for I knew his eyes were attracted thither,—"oh, sir! do you know whose portrait that is? For my master has it, and I never dared to ask him; and the others do not know."
"It is a picture of the little boy who played truant and tempted another little boy to play truant too."
And then, as he replied, I wondered I had not thought of such a possibility; for looking from one to the other, I could not now but trace a certain definite resemblance between those floating baby ringlets and the profuse dark curls wherein the elder's strength almost seemed to hide,—so small and infinitely spiritual was he in his incomparable organization.
"Now, sir, do come and rest a little while before we go."