"Then it was that I was one night walking through the house after all had gone to bed, as I always did, to see if all the lights were out, that suddenly a bright light struck me, which came towards me in the passage that leads from the tower to the old castle, where the ladies were staying. In my fright, and hardly knowing where the danger was, I cried Fire! Fire! as loud as I could. At the same time I ran along the passage towards the place where the fire was. Suddenly Harald was by my side. I knew but too well where he had been.--'Hush, old one,' he said, 'it is only a curtain!' And then he commenced to tear it down and to stamp the fire out with his boots. Suddenly the door opened which led to the rooms of the baroness, and which lay just opposite the burning window, and out rushes the old witch with a bundle under her arm, and the valet with a still larger bundle on his shoulder. They had nearly run over us; but Harald seized the valet by the shoulder and hurled him back so violently that man and bundle rolled on the ground. 'Are you again together, rascals,' he roared at the old woman, who began to tremble in all her limbs when she saw the baron in such a fury; 'trot back to your room or I'll help you!' All of a sudden he commenced laughing again, and I also could not help laughing when I saw that the old lady, in her hurry, had forgotten to put on her wig, and her own red hair was hanging down from her soiled cap in not very short braids. This and some other changes made her look so different that I hardly recognized her.--'Go to the devil, old witch,' cried Harald, still laughing heartily, 'and get yourself painted up again, or the world will see too clearly where you come from.'--The old lady murmured something which I did not understand, and went back to her room; the valet had in the mean time gathered himself up again and slipped down the narrow staircase which led from the passage into the garden. 'Go to bed, old one,' said the baron to me, 'and think you have dreamt all this, or think what you like. It is all the same to me. The comedy has lasted long enough.'