By the mysterious laws of magic, he knew, and yet did not know, the misfortune which had befallen him, and the crime of which he had been made the victim. In other words, he knew that something was as it should not be, and that, somehow or other, he had been cruelly wronged, but of the exact nature of the wrong he was as yet ignorant. Still, some instinct led him to the lake in which was situated the island upon which stood his father’s {072}castle, and he loved better than anything else to fly by night round and round the old place, uttering from time to time mournful cries, which now and then found their way to the ears of some of the Baron’s household. Whenever the false heir heard these sounds, it was noticed that he, shivered terribly, and crept, groaning and growling; under the nearest sofa, or anywhere out of sight. And upon one occasion, when the cry sounded louder and clearer than usual, and there came a noise as if a wing--had flapped against window of the state-room in which the family were assembled that evening, he howled miserably, the ground, and almost went into convulsions with alarm. [Illustration: 085] This behaviour on the part of his supposed son struck the Baron as strange, and was, indeed, the cause of some coldness between him and his wife. For, being a man somewhat proud of the chivalry and courage of his high ancestry, this display of cowardice on the part of his {073}probable heir and successor greatly irritated the old gentleman, and he boldly declared that he was sure it all came from the mother’s side. Such an accusation naturally put the Baroness into one of her passions, in the course of which she went so far as to pull off her husband’s wig and slap his cheeks. This indignity was one to which the Baron could scarcely be expected to submit, and having soundly shaken his respected consort, he left the room in high dudgeon, and took his meals alone for the next three days, which annoyed the Baroness more than anything else, as it left her only her daughters and servants to scold, which had become rather insipid. After a while this conduct of the child was set down to constitutional timidity, and the Baron only smiled contemptuously when it was repeated. So time wore on, and it really seemed as if there was no reason why the truth should ever be discovered, or the success of Martha Scweinvolt’s wicked scheme be otherwise than complete. It was not, however, wholly satisfactory to the waiting-maid herself, for, independently of the unpleasant behaviour of the false heir towards her, she had not even the satisfaction of seeing her mistress suffer as she had hoped. So it is that people who consult demons, or, what is nearly as bad, follow the dictates of their own evil passions, are generally deceived in the result, and find that the good to themselves which they expected to obtain pretty certainly ends in disappointment.