The time fixed
on was the time when the other servants were accustomed to retire--eleven
o'clock.
Among the grooms attached to the stables was an Englishman, laid up with a
broken leg. His name was Francis. His manners were repulsive; he was
ignorant of the French language. In the kitchen he went by the nickname of
the "English Bear." Strange to say, he was a great favorite with my master
and my mistress. They even humored certain superstitious terrors to which
this repulsive person was subject--terrors into the nature of which I, as
an advanced freethinker, never thought it worth my while to inquire.
On the evening of the twenty-eighth the Englishman, being a prey to the
terrors which I have mentioned, requested that one of his fellow servants
might sit up with him for that night only. The wish that he expressed was
backed by Mr. Fairbank's authority. Having already incurred my master's
displeasure--in what way, a proper sense of my own dignity forbids me to
relate--I volunteered to watch by the bedside of the English Bear. My
object was to satisfy Mr. Fairbank that I bore no malice, on my side,
after what had occurred between us. The wretched Englishman passed a night
of delirium. Not understanding his barbarous language, I could only gather
from his gesture that he was in deadly fear of some fancied apparition at
his bedside.
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