“Upon my honor, Monsieur Goefle, upon my eternal salvation, I have neither let nor promised this room to any one. How can you think such a thing when you know what has happened here, and what goes on even now. Oh! nothing would induce my uncle Stenson to let you stop here. I will inform him of your arrival, and since they were not able to accommodate you at the new chateau, he will give you up his own room.”
“I will not allow anything of the kind,” replied M. Goefle; “you must not even tell him that I have come. He will learn to-morrow that I am here, and am very comfortable. The guard-room is rather small, but it will do very well for sleeping, and this shall be my drawing-room and office. It is not particularly cheerful; but for two or three days I shall be quiet, at least.”
“Quiet!” cried Ulphilas. “Quiet in a room haunted by the devil?”
“What makes you think that, friend Ulph?” said the doctor of laws, smiling, while little Nils began to shiver again, from fear quite as much as the wintry cold.
“I think so for three reasons,” replied Ulph, with gloomy solemnity. “In the first place, you found the door of the court open, although I had locked it after sunset; in the second place, the door of this room was also open, a thing that has not happened since I came here five years ago to take care of my uncle and wait upon him. The third and most incredible thing of all is, that there is a fire lighted, and that the stove is warm, although no fire has been made here for twenty years, and perhaps more. Lastly—hold, Monsieur Doctor, look!—there is some wax freshly spilled on the floor, and yet—”
“You spilled it yourself, you idiot; you are holding your lantern upside-down.”
“Oh, no, Monsieur Goefle! mine is a tallow candle, and that under the chandelier—wait!”
Ulph looked up and uttered a cry of horror on seeing that there were only ten candles and a half in the chandelier, instead of eleven and a half.
The lawyer was naturally kind and good-natured. Instead of allowing the preoccupation of Ulphilas, and the terror of Nils, to make him angry, he only thought of amusing himself at their expense.
“Well, God be praised!” he said, very seriously, “that proves that there are kobolds here; and if they will only be so good as to appear to me (I have wanted to become acquainted with them all my life, without ever seeing a single one), I shall congratulate myself all the more upon coming to this room, where I can sleep under their kind protection.”