For he lighted at length upon the very apartment where Wolfgang had partaken of supper, and where the old couple who had been in the picture-frames, and turned out to be the lady's father and mother, were now sitting at the table. “Well, Bertha has got a husband at last,” said the lady. “After waiting four hundred and fifty-three years for one, it was quite time,” said the gentleman. (He was dressed in powder and a pigtail, quite in the old fashion.) “The husband is no great things,” continued the lady, taking snuff. “A low fellow, my dear; a butcher's son, I believe. Did you see how the wretch ate at supper? To think my daughter should have to marry an archer!” “There are archers and archers,” said the old man. “Some archers are snobs, as your ladyship states; some, on the contrary, are gentlemen by birth, at least, though not by breeding. Witness young Otto, the Landgrave of Godesberg's son, who is listening at the door like a lackey, and whom I intend to run through the--” “Law, Baron!” said the lady. “I will, though,” replied the Baron, drawing an immense sword, and glaring round at Otto: but though at the sight of that sword and that scowl a less valorous youth would have taken to his heels, the undaunted Childe advanced at once into the apartment. He wore round his neck a relic of St. Buffo (the tip of the saint's ear, which had been cut off at Constantinople). “Fiends! I command you to retreat!” said he, holding up this sacred charm, which his mamma had fastened on him; and at the sight of it, with an unearthly yell the ghosts of the Baron and the Baroness sprung back into their picture-frames, as clowns go through a clock in a pantomime. He rushed through the open door by which the unlucky Wolfgang had passed with his demoniacal bride, and went on and on through the vast gloomy chambers lighted by the ghastly moonshine: the noise of the organ in the chapel, the lights in the kaleidoscopic windows, directed him towards that edifice. He rushed to the door: 'twas barred! He knocked: the beadles were deaf. He applied his inestimable relic to the lock, and--whiz! crash! clang! bang! whang!--the gate flew open! the organ went off in a fugue--the lights quivered over the tapers, and then went off towards the ceiling--the ghosts assembled rushed away with a skurry and a scream--the bride howled, and vanished--the fat bishop waddled back under his brass plate--the dean flounced down into his family vault--and the canon Schidnischmidt, who was making a joke, as usual, on the bishop, was obliged to stop at the very point of his epigram, and to disappear into the void whence he came.