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.
