were vacant—one a wretched hole, through which the wind whistled so loudly as to remind Sir Baldwin of his own desolate castle at Aarburg—the other a magnificent apartment, called “the Baron’s,” but in a most dreary state of neglect, owing to its being entirely appropriated to the use of some fantastical goblins who kept their revels there, and had had the good taste to select this, the noblest apartment in the castle, for their exclusive accommodation.
The poor castellan strongly persuaded the knight to sleep in the storm-visited attic, in preference to that tenanted by the ghosts; but to this Sir Baldwin would by no means consent after he had viewed the apartment. He had not the fear of ghosts before his eyes, and, at any rate, esteemed them better company than hail, rain, and sleet. “Gramercy! Sir Seneschal,” said he, “for your kind advice, which I do not intend to follow: I had rather sleep with the goblins, more especially as you say there are females among them, than under the chilling influence of all the winds of heaven; so, in spite of the knights adventurers, who, on their return from this chamber, have found that their hands and feet had changed places, I will pass the night in it, and dare the worst that may befall me.” The seneschal said nothing in reply, but sent food, wine, and lights, to the baron’s chamber. In a few hours the ball broke up, and the party of revellers dispersed: the castellan’s family retired to rest, and Sir Baldwin, after disposing of the contents of a small flagon of choice Rhenish, threw himself heavily upon his magnificent bed to dream of his beloved Bertha. But his
