Henrietta, however, did not believe in these invisible evil spirits. The
evil spirits she was acquainted with all went about in dress clothes and
surtouts. The atmosphere of mystery and enchantment which made the
little house uninhabitable only stimulated her fancy. She determined to
discover whether it was really uninhabited or not.
Accordingly, when she entered the house for the third time, she plucked
a wild rose and threw one of its buds into the pitcher of water on the
table, a second on the bear skin coverlet of the bed and a third, fourth
and fifth she stuck into the barrels of the muskets hanging up in the
armour room.
When now, she visited the lonely house for the fourth time, she looked
for the rose buds and could not find one of them in the places where
she had put them. Consequently there must needs be someone who slept in
the bed, drank the fresh water from the pitcher and used the firearms.
Her thirst for knowledge now induced her to enquire of her husband
concerning this little dwelling and he, then and there, elucidated the
mystery.
It was quite true that a lonely inhabitant of this house had once been
murdered there, that the common people believed it to be haunted, and
that consequently not one of them would cross its threshold at any price
either by day or by night. An old landed proprietor from the mining town
of X., who owned a small strip of forest in those parts and was at the
same time an enthusiastic huntsman, had taken advantage of this popular
superstition to buy this little house, for a mere song.
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