Claus Hopper now made his appearance:  a simple country lout, full of awe at finding himself in the very study of Dr. Knipperhausen, and too much embarrassed to enter into much detail of the matters that had caused his alarm.  He stood twirling his hat in one hand, resting sometimes on one leg, sometimes on the other, looking occasionally at the doctor, and now and then stealing a fearful glance at the death’s-head that seemed ogling him from the top of the clothes-press;

The doctor tried every means to persuade him to return to the farm, but all in vain; he maintained a dogged determination on the subject; and at the close of every argument or solicitation, would make the same brief, inflexible reply, “Ich kan nicht, mynheer.”  The doctor was a “little pot, and soon hot;” his patience was exhausted by these continual vexations about his estate.  The stubborn refusal of Claus Hopper seemed to him like flat rebellion; his temper suddenly boiled over, and Claus was glad to make a rapid retreat to escape scalding.

When the bumpkin got to the housekeeper’s room, he found Peter de Groodt, and several other true believers, ready to receive him.  Here he indemnified himself for the restraint he had suffered in the study, and opened a budget of stories about the haunted house that astonished all his hearers.  The housekeeper believed them all, if it was only to spite the doctor for having received her intelligence so uncourteously.  Peter de Groodt matched them with many a wonderful legend of the times of the Dutch dynasty, and of the Devil’s Stepping-stones; and of the pirate that was hanged at Gibbet Island, and continued to swing there at night long after the gallows was taken down; and of the ghost of the unfortunate Governor Leisler, who was hanged for treason, which haunted the old fort and the government house.  The gossiping knot dispersed, each charged with direful intelligence.  The sexton disburdened himself at a vestry meeting that was held that very day, and the black cook forsook her kitchen, and spent half the day at the street pump, that gossiping place of servants, dealing forth the news to all that came for water.  In a little time, the whole town was in a buzz with tales about the haunted house.  Some said that Claus Hopper had seen the devil, while others hinted that the house was haunted by the ghosts of some of the patients whom the doctor had physicked out of the world, and that was the reason why he did not venture to live in it himself.

All this put the little doctor in a terrible fume.  He threatened vengeance on any one who should affect the value of his property by exciting popular prejudices.  He complained loudly of thus being in a manner dispossessed of his territories by mere bugbears; but he secretly determined to have the house exorcised by the Dominie.  Great was his relief, therefore, when, in the midst of his perplexities, Dolph stepped forward and undertook to garrison the haunted house.  The youngster