Once upon a time three
soldiers took shelter in the building for the night, and rummaged it
from top to bottom, when they found old father red-cap astride of a
cider-barrel in the cellar, with a jug in one hand and a goblet in the
other. He offered them a drink out of his goblet, but just as one of
the soldiers was putting it to his mouth-Whew! a flash of fire blazed
through the cellar, blinded every mother's son of them for several
minutes, and when they recovered their eye-sight, jug, goblet, and
red-cap had vanished, and nothing but the empty cider-barrel remained."
Here the half-pay officer, who was growing very muzzy and sleepy, and
nodding over his liquor, with half-extinguished eye, suddenly gleamed
up like an expiring rushlight.
"That's all humbug!" said he, as Peechy finished his last story.
"Well, I don't vouch for the truth of it myself," said Peechy Prauw,
"though all the world knows that there's something strange about the
house and grounds; but as to the story of Mud Sam, I believe it just as
well as if it had happened to myself."
The deep interest taken in this conversation by the company, had made
them unconscious of the uproar that prevailed abroad, among the
elements, when suddenly they were all electrified by a tremendous clap
of thunder. A lumbering crash followed instantaneously that made the
building shake to its foundation. All started from their seats,
imagining it the shock of an earthquake, or that old father red-cap was
coming among them in all his terrors.
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