Part 10 (1/2)

I was very much disturbed by this little incident; more disturbed, in truth, than seemed reasonable, for my nerves for the moment were shaken.

Never, I told myself, never while I lived could I forget that fixed att.i.tude and stony face, or the glare of those terrible eyes. What was the man's history? Of what secret despair, of what life-long remorse, of what wild unsatisfied longings was he the victim? I felt I could not rest till I had learned something of his past life.

Full of these thoughts, I went on quickly into the town, half running across the field, and never looking back. Once past the gateway and inside the walls, I breathed more freely. The wain was still standing in the shade, but the oxen were gone now, and two men were busy forking out the clover into a little yard close by. Having inquired of one of these regarding an inn, and being directed to the Krone, ”over against the Frauenkirche,” I made my way to the upper part of the town, and there, at one corner of a forlorn, weed-grown market-place, I found my hostelry.

The landlord, a sedate, bald man in spectacles, who, as I presently discovered, was not only an innkeeper but a clock-maker, came out from an inner room to receive me. His wife, a plump, pleasant body, took my orders for dinner. His pretty daughter showed me to my room. It was a large, low, whitewashed room, with two lattice windows overlooking the market-place, two little beds, covered with puffy red eiderdowns at the farther end, and an army of clocks and ornamental timepieces arranged along every shelf, table, and chest of drawers in the room. Being left here to my meditations, I sat down and counted these companions of my solitude.

Taking little and big together, Dutch clocks, cuckoo clocks, _chalet_ clocks, skeleton clocks, and _pendules_ in ormolu, bronze, marble, ebony, and alabaster cases, there were exactly thirty-two. Twenty-eight were going merrily. As no two among them were of the same opinion as regarded the time, and as several struck the quarters as well as the hours, the consequence was that one or other gave tongue about every five minutes. Now, for a light and nervous sleeper such as I was at that time, here was a lively prospect for the night!

Going down-stairs presently with the hope of getting my landlady to a.s.sign me a quieter room, I pa.s.sed two eight-day clocks on the landing, and a third at the foot of the stairs. The public room was equally well-stocked. It literally bristled with clocks, one of which played a spasmodic version of Gentle Zitella with variations every quarter of an hour. Here I found a little table prepared by the open window, and a dish of trout and a flask of country wine awaiting me. The pretty daughter waited upon me; her mother bustled to and fro with the dishes; the landlord stood by, and beamed upon me through his spectacles.

”The trout were caught this morning, about two miles from here,” he said, complacently.

”They are excellent,” I replied, filling him out a gla.s.s of wine, and helping myself to another. ”Your health, Herr Wirth.”

”Thanks, mein Herr--yours.”

Just at this moment two clocks struck at opposite ends of the room--one twelve, and the other seven. I ventured to suggest that mine host was tolerably well reminded of the flight of time; whereupon he explained that his work lay chiefly in the repairing and regulating line, and that at that present moment he had no less than one hundred and eighteen clocks of various sorts and sizes on the premises.

”Perhaps the Herr Englander is a light sleeper,” said his quick-witted wife, detecting my dismay. ”If so, we can get him a bedroom elsewhere.

Not, perhaps, in the town, for I know no place where he would be as comfortable as with ourselves; but just outside the Friedrich's Thor, not five minutes' walk from our door.”

I accepted the offer gratefully.

”So long,” I said, ”as I ensure cleanliness and quiet, I do not care how homely my lodgings may be.”

”Ah, you'll have both, mein Herr, if you go where my wife is thinking of,” said the landlord. ”It is at the house of our pastor--the Pere Chessez.”

”The Pere Chessez!” I exclaimed. ”What, the pastor of the little church out yonder?”

”The same, mein Herr.”

”But--but surely the Pere Chessez is dead! I saw a tablet to his memory in the chancel.”

”Nay, that was our pastor's elder brother,” replied the landlord, looking grave. ”He has been gone these thirty years and more. His was a tragical ending.”

But I was thinking too much of the younger brother just then to feel any curiosity about the elder; and I told myself that I would put up with the companions.h.i.+p of any number of clocks, rather than sleep under the same roof with that terrible face and those unearthly eyes.

”I saw your pastor just now in the church,” I said, with apparent indifference. ”He is a singular-looking man.”

”He is too good for this world,” said the landlady.

”He is a saint upon earth!” added the pretty Fraulein.

”He is one of the best of men,” said, more soberly, the husband and father. ”I only wish he was less of a saint. He fasts, and prays, and works beyond his strength. A little more beef and a little less devotion would be all the better for him.”

”I should like to hear something more about the life of so good a man,”

said I, having by this time come to the end of my simple dinner. ”Come, Herr Wirth, let us have a bottle of your best, and then sit down and tell me your pastor's history!”

The landlord sent his daughter for a bottle of the ”green seal,” and, taking a chair, said:--