The grandmother stood by and said, “I trust that you’ll be alive and hearty long enough to climb this tree and gather cherries from it, and that your children and grandchildren may do the same.”

There was much to do and to set to rights in the house, and on such occasions it usually happens that those who are dearest to one another are as much in each other’s way as closets and tables which have not yet been placed where they belong.  The best proof of the amiability of these folks was that they assisted each other cheerfully, and indeed with jest and song.

Walpurga moved her best furniture into Irma’s room.  Hansei did not interpose a word.  “Aren’t you too lonely here?” asked Walpurga, after she had arranged everything as well as possible in so short a time.

“Not at all.  There is no place in all the world lonely enough for me.  You’ve so much to do now; don’t worry about me.  I must now arrange things within myself.  I see how good you and yours are; fate has directed me kindly.”

“Oh, don’t talk in that way.  If you hadn’t given me the money, how could we have bought the farm?  This is really your own.”

“Don’t speak of that,” said Irma, with a sudden start.  “Never mention that money to me again.”

Walpurga promised, and merely added that Irma needn’t be alarmed at the old man who lived in the room above hers, and who at times would talk to himself and make a loud noise.  He was old and blind.  The children teased and worried him, but he wasn’t bad and would harm no one.  Walpurga offered at all events to leave Gundel with Irma for the first night; but Irma preferred to be alone.

“You’ll stay with us, won’t you?” said Walpurga hesitatingly.  “You won’t have such bad thoughts again?”

“No, never.  But don’t talk now:  my voice pains me, and so does yours too.  Good-night! leave me alone.”

Irma sat by the window and gazed out into the dark night.  Was it only a day since she had passed through such terrors?  Suddenly she sprang from her seat with a shudder.  She had seen Black Esther’s head rising out of the darkness, had again heard her dying shriek, had beheld the distorted face and the wild black tresses.—­Her hair stood on end.  Her thoughts carried her to the bottom of the lake, where she now lay dead.  She opened the window and inhaled the soft, balmy air.  She sat by the open casement for a long while, and suddenly heard some one laughing in the room above her.

“Ha! ha!  I won’t do you the favor!  I won’t die!  I won’t die!  Pooh, pooh!  I’ll live till I’m a hundred years old, and then I’ll get a new lease of life.”

It was the old pensioner.  After a while he continued:—­

“I’m not so stupid; I know that it’s night now, and the freeholder and his wife are come.  I’ll give them lots of trouble.  I’m Jochem.  Jochem’s my name, and what the people don’t like, I do for spite.  Ha! ha!  I don’t use any light, and they must make me an allowance for that.  I’ll insist on it, if I have to go to the King himself about it.”