And portly burgomasters, such
as you see about old-fashioned Flemish inns, till at length he arrived
at his room.
An old-times chamber it was, sure enough, and crowded with all kinds of
trumpery. It looked like an infirmary for decayed and superannuated
furniture; where everything diseased and disabled was sent to nurse, or
to be forgotten. Or rather, it might have been taken for a general
congress of old legitimate moveables, where every kind and country had
a representative. No two chairs were alike: such high backs and low
backs, and leather bottoms and worsted bottoms, and straw bottoms, and
no bottoms; and cracked marble tables with curiously carved legs,
holding balls in their claws, as though they were going to play at
ninepins.
My grandfather made a bow to the motley assemblage as he entered, and
having undressed himself, placed his light in the fire-place, asking
pardon of the tongs, which seemed to be making love to the shovel in
the chimney corner, and whispering soft nonsense in its ear.
The rest of the guests were by this time sound asleep; for your
Mynheers are huge sleepers. The house maids, one by one, crept up
yawning to their attics, and not a female head in the inn was laid on a
pillow that night without dreaming of the Bold Dragoon.
My grandfather, for his part, got into bed, and drew over him one of
those great bags of down, under which they smother a man in the Low
Countries; and there he lay, melting between, two feather beds, like an
anchovy sandwich between two slices of toast and butter. He was a
warm-complexioned man, and this smothering played the very deuce with
him. So, sure enough, in a little while it seemed as if a legion of
imps were twitching at him and all the blood in his veins was in fever
heat.
He lay still, however, until all the house was quiet, excepting the
snoring of the Mynheers from the different chambers; who answered one
another in all kinds of tones and cadences, like so many bull-frogs in
a swamp. The quieter the house became, the more unquiet became my
grandfather. He waxed warmer and warmer, until at length the bed became
too hot to hold him.
"May be the maid had warmed it too much?" said the curious gentleman,
inquiringly.
"I rather think the contrary," replied the Irishman. "But be that as it
may, it grew too hot for my grandfather."
"Faith there's no standing this any longer," says he; so he jumped out
of bed and went strolling about the house.
"What for?" said the inquisitive gentleman.
"Why, to cool himself to be sure," replied the other, "or perhaps to
find a more comfortable bed - or perhaps - but no matter what he went
for - he never mentioned; and there's no use in taking up our time in
conjecturing."
Well, my grandfather had been for some time absent from his room, and
was returning, perfectly cool, when just as he reached the door he
heard a strange noise within. He paused and listened. It seemed as if
some one was trying to hum a tune in defiance of the asthma. He
recollected the report of the room's being haunted; but he was no
believer in ghosts. So he pushed the door gently ajar, and peeped in.
Egad, gentlemen, there was a gambol carrying on within enough to have
astonished St. Anthony.
By the light of the fire he saw a pale weazen-faced fellow in a long
Flannel gown and a tall white night-cap with a tassel to it, who sat by
the fire, with a bellows under his arm by way of bagpipe, from which he
forced the asthmatical music that had bothered my grandfather. As he
played, too, he kept twitching about with a thousand queer contortions;
nodding his head and bobbing about his tasselled night-cap.
My grandfather thought this very odd, and mighty presumptuous, and was
about to demand what business he had to play his wind instruments in
another gentleman's quarters, when a new cause of astonishment met his
eye. From the opposite side of the room a long-backed, bandy-legged
chair, covered with leather, and studded all over in a coxcomical
fashion with little brass nails, got suddenly into motion; thrust out
first a claw foot, then a crooked arm, and at length, making a leg,
slided gracefully up to an easy chair, of tarnished brocade, with a
hole in its bottom, and led it gallantly out in a ghostly minuet about
the floor.
The musician now played fiercer and fiercer, and bobbed his head and
His nightcap about like mad. By degrees the dancing mania seemed to
seize upon all the other pieces of furniture. The antique, long-bodied
chairs paired off in couples and led down a country dance; a
three-legged stool danced a hornpipe, though horribly puzzled by its
supernumerary leg; while the amorous tongs seized the shovel round the
waist, and whirled it about the room in a German waltz. In short, all
the moveables got in motion, capering about; pirouetting, hands across,
right and left, like so many devils, all except a great clothes-press,
which kept curtseying and curtseying, like a dowager, in one corner, in
exquisite time to the music; - being either too corpulent to dance, or
perhaps at a loss for a partner.
My grandfather concluded the latter to be the reason; so, being, like a
true Irishman, devoted to the sex, and at all times ready for a frolic,
he bounced into the room, calling to the musician to strike up "Paddy
O'Rafferty," capered up to the clothes-press and seized upon two
handles to lead her out:
