Coucou Peter sighed, and exclaimed, in plaintive tones—
“My organism is very ill, very ill! Soffayel, my dear Soffayel, make haste and refill the bottle, or I shall faint.”
At the end of a quarter of an hour Mathéus came to himself, and murmured—
“This man evidently belongs to the race of beasts of prey; he is capable of returning with a hatchet, or some other instrument of the kind!”
“Only let him come back!” cried the stout widow, doubling her fist in a threatening manner; “only let him come back!”
But it was in vain she said that, for Frantz Mathéus’s eyes turned ceaselessly towards the door, and the fear natural to his timid species made him blind to all Dame Catherina’s allurements.
Coucou Peter, having no further excuse for getting the bottle refilled, and feeling uncomfortable in the stomach, proposed going to bed. Everybody agreed with him, for it was late; the windows of the principal room were all dark, and not the least sound was heard out of doors.
Therefore Mother Windling took up the candlestick from the table, told Soffayel to shut the shutters, and begged Mathéus to be good enough to follow her.
They ascended the winding stairs at the back of the kitchen, and everywhere Mathéus saw order and wise economy; the passages were lined with great cupboards, and in these cupboards, which Dame Catherina had taken care to open, he saw tall piles of carefully-folded linen, red-bordered tablecloths, napkins, hemp, and flax. Farther on, grain spread to dry on wide floors; here clover, colza, lucern grass; in another place, wheat, barley, oats; it was a true store of abundance.
At last Mother Windling conducted him into a large, well-furnished bedroom, in which there were two chests of drawers, the tops of which were laden with magnificent Lunéville chinaware, and Walerysthâl glass. It contained also a canopied bedstead, as high as the Tower of Babel, and two handsome Saint Quirin looking-glasses.