ed with poplars then, but chestnut trees shade it now.

"Soon after his first wife was buried Lautenschlager married again, and
opened an eating-house in Steinbach, where he established his second
wife. He had a sister whom he placed in the cottage of poor 'Pfeiffe
Louise.' She carried on the business, and every day Lautenschlager used
to walk over from Steinbach to see how she was getting on, returning in
the evening to his wife, who used to relate to my mother that he
frequently came home terrified and bathed in perspiration, for as he
passed the place where he had drowned the cat, its ghost used to come
out of the river and run beside him along the dark road, sometimes
terrifying him still more by jumping in front of him.

"After a few years of married life the second wife died, and
Lautenschlager married a third. The little cottage business had
prospered, and in its place he now had a considerable draper's shop in
Michelstadt. He continued to walk over from Steinbach, where now the
third wife lived in the eating-house, and the ghost of the cat continued
to frighten him by appearing at nightfall as he walked beside the river.

"I can remember hearing his third wife describe his dread of it, and my
mother has told me how both the sister and the second wife used to say
the same thing, though I was too young then for them to tell me about
it. Lautenschlager used also to complain to the country people who came
to dine at his eating-house. He considered himself an ill-used man, and
felt that the supernatural powers were treating him very hardly, and
subjecting him to a real persecution. I have only the conversation of
his wife and the gossip of the village to vouch for his sincerity, and
the genuineness of the apparition is supported only by Lautenschlager's
word, but his evident anger and agitation were accepted as genuine, and
no one dreamed of doubting his word. He was not at all a dreamy or
imaginative man, and did not drink. His passion was merely momentary. He
was not only a draper and caterer but a usurer, and realized something
of a fortune by lending money on good security to peasants and farmers
who, it was said, did not consider how they bound themselves when they
signed the papers he put before them.

"Lautenschlager continued to be haunted by the cat-ghost at irregular
intervals for more than twenty years, and it made a marked change in his
character. He became serious, and during the latter part of his lif