How much of this may
have been owing to the effect of the drugs on poor Lottchen's brain, I
leave my readers to determine. But when the family met at breakfast in the
morning, Teufelsbuerst, who had been already out of doors, reported that he
had found the marks of strange feet in the snow, all about the house and
through the garden at the back; stating, as his belief, that the tracks
must be continued over the roofs, for there was no passage otherwise.
There was a wicked gleam in his eye as he spoke; and Lilith believed that
he was only trying an experiment on Karl's nerves. He persisted that he
had never seen any footprints of the sort before. Karl informed him of his
experiences during the night; upon which Teufelsbuerst looked a little
graver still, and proceeded to tell them that the storm, whose snow was
still covering the ground, had arisen the very moment that their next door
neighbour died, and had ceased as suddenly the moment he was buried,
though it had raved furiously all the time of the funeral, so that 'it
made men's bodies quake and their teeth chatter in their heads.
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