He had tied a white kerchief round his head by way of night bonnet, and his hard-visaged, clean-shaven face, looking out through this, together with his bony figure, gave him some resemblance to a gigantic old woman.

The bottle of usquebaugh stood empty by his bedside.

Clearly his fears had been realised, and he had had an attack of the Persian ague.
'Ah, my young friend!' he said at last.

'Is it, then, the custom of this part of the country to carry your visitor's rooms by storm or escalado in the early hours of the morning ?' 'Is it the custom,' I answered sternly, 'to barricade up your door when you are sleeping under the roof-tree of an honest man?
What did you fear, that you should take such a precaution ?' 'Nay, you are indeed a spitfire,' he replied, sinking back upon the pillow, and drawing the clothes round him, 'a feuerkopf as the Germans call it, or sometimes tollkopf, which in its literal significance meaneth a fool's head.

Your father was, as I have heard, a strong and a fierce man when the blood of youth ran in his veins; but you, I should judge, are in no way behind him.