musicians, teacher of the violin, composer, tax-collector of the commune,
sexton, and in other ways a useful citizen, and respected by all. We
knew the hills and the woods as well as the birds knew them; for we were
always roaming them when we had leisure--at least, when we were not
swimming or boating or fishing, or playing on the ice or sliding down
hill.

And we had the run of the castle park, and very few had that. It was
because we were pets of the oldest servingman in the castle--Felix
Brandt; and often we went there, nights, to hear him talk about old times
and strange things, and to smoke with him (he taught us that) and to
drink coffee; for he had served in the wars, and was at the siege of
Vienna; and there, when the Turks were defeated and driven away, among
the captured things were bags of coffee, and the Turkish prisoners
explained the character of it and how to make a pleasant drink out of it,
and now he always kept coffee by him, to drink himself and also to
astonish the ignorant with. When it stormed he kept us all night; and
while it thundered and lightened outside he told us about ghosts and
horrors of every kind, and of battles and murders and mutilations, and
such things, and made it pleasant and cozy inside; and he told these
things from his own experience largely. He had seen many ghosts in his
time, and witches and enchanters, and once he was lost in a fierce storm
at midnight in the mountains, and by the glare of the lightning had seen
the Wild Huntsman rage on the blast with his specter dogs chasing after
him through the driving cloud-rack. Also he had seen an incubus once,
and several times he had seen the great bat that sucks the blood from the
necks of people while they are asleep, fanning them softly with its wings
and so keeping them drowsy till they die.

He encouraged us not to fear supernatural things, such as ghosts, and