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Then he left the room and went downstairs to Herr Sesemann; when he was once more sitting in the armchair opposite his friend, "Sesemann," he said, "let me first tell you that your little charge is a sleep-walker; she is the ghost who has nightly opened the front door and put your household into this fever of alarm.
So to- morrow the child must start for home; there you have my prescription." Herr Sesemann had arisen and now paced up and down the room in the greatest state of concern. "What!" he exclaimed, "the child a sleep-walker and ill! Home- sick, and grown emaciated in my house! All this has taken place in my house and no one seen or known anything about it!
There in her little white nightgown stood Heidi, with bare feet, staring with wild eyes at the lights and the revolvers, and trembling from head to foot like a leaf in the wind. The two men looked as one another in surprise. "Why, I believe it is your little water-carrier, Sesemann," said the doctor. "Child, what does this mean?" said Herr Sesemann. "What did you want? why did you come down here?"
Herr Sesemann went back to the dining-room with the letter; breakfast was now ready, and he asked, "Where is the child?" Heidi was fetched, and as she walked up to him to say "Good- morning," he looked inquiringly into her face and said, "Well, what do you say to this, little one?" Heidi looked at him in perplexity. "Why, you don't know anything about it, I see," laughed Herr Sesemann.
The alarmed lady had spoken to her also about Heidi's wild manner of talking, but Clara had not been able to put a meaning to it. She told her father everything about the tortoise and the kittens, and explained to him what Heidi had said the day Fraulein Rottenmeier had been put in such a fright. Herr Sesemann laughed heartily at her recital.
So Herr Sesemann recounted to him how the front door was nightly opened by somebody, according to the testimony of the combined household, and he had therefore provided two loaded revolvers, so as to be prepared for anything that happened; for either the whole thing was a joke got up by some friend of the servants, just to alarm the household while he was away and in that case a pistol fired into the air would procure him a wholesome fright or else it was a thief, who, by leading everybody at first to think there was a ghost, made it safe for himself when he came later to steal, as no one would venture to run out if they heard him, and in that case too a good weapon would not be amiss.
"Well, I know nothing about that," said the master of the house, "but I must beg you not to bring suspicion on my worthy ancestors. And now will you kindly call Sebastian into the dining- room, as I wish to speak to him alone." Herr Sesemann had been quite aware that Sebastian and Fraulein Rottenmeier were not on the best of terms, and he had his ideas about this scare.
He ran straight down the steep slope, not following the path on which Herr Sesemann was standing. As soon as the latter caught sight of him he beckoned to him to come. Peter advanced towards him slowly and timidly, with a sort of sidelong movement, as if he could only move one leg properly and had to drag the other after him.
Just so had Clara's mother looked, the fair-haired girl with the delicate pink-and-white complexion. Herr Sesemann did not know if he was awake or dreaming. "Don't you know me, papa?" called Clara to him, her face beaming with happiness. "Am I so altered since you saw me?" Then Herr Sesemann ran to his child and clasped her in his arms. "Yes, you are indeed altered! How is it possible?
Grandmamma now led her son to introduce him to Uncle, and while the two men were shaking hands and Herr Sesemann was expressing his heartfelt thanks and boundless astonishment to the old man, grandmamma wandered round to the back to see the old fir trees again.
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