ion from the afternoon till the evening; night advanced, and still
he sat at the round table, dead to all the world about him, giving
signs of life only by an occasional deep sigh. The landlady did not
know what to make of him. She had placed herself at least a dozen times
near him, had tried to speak with him, but he only looked at her with a
staring eye, and answered nothing. She at last got very uneasy, for
just in the same way had her good husband of blessed memory gazed at
her when he died, and left her in possession of the Golden Stag.

She consulted the fat man, and he with the leather back gave his
opinion also. The landlady maintained that he must be either over head
and ears in love, or that some one must have bewitched him. She
strengthened her supposition by a terrible history of a young knight,
whom she had seen, and whose whole body became quite stiff from sheer
love, which caused his death.

The pedlar was of a different opinion; he thought that some misfortune
must have happened to the stranger, a circumstance which often befals
those engaged in war, and that, therefore, he was in deep distress. But
the fat man, winking, asked, with a countenance full of cunning
conjecture, what was the growth and age of the wine the gentleman had
been drinking?

"He has had old Heppacher of the year 1480," said the landlady: "it is
the best that the Golden Stag furnishes."

"There we have it," said the wise fat man; "I know the Heppacher of the
year eighty, and such a young fellow cannot stand it; it has got into
his head. Let him alone, with his heavy head upon his hand; I'll bet
that before the clock strikes eight he will have slept his wine out,
and be as fresh as a fish in water."

The pedlar shook his head and said nothing; but the hostess praised the
acknowledged sagacity of the fat man, and thought his supposition the
most probable.

It was now nine o'clock; the daily visitors of the drinking room had
all left it, and the landlady was also on the point of retiring to
rest, as the stranger awoke out of his reverie. He started up, made a
few hasty steps about the room, and at last stood before the hostess.
His look was clouded and disturbed, and the short time which had
elapsed between mid-day and the present moment had so far altered the
features of his otherwise kind, open countenance, as to impart to them
an expression of deep melancholy.

The kind-hearted woman was grieved at his appearance; and calling