ver shall be touched, said he, clasping his hands and bringing them
close to his breast, till that hour--What hour? cried the inn keeper's
wife.--Never!--never! said the stranger, never till I am got--For
Heaven's sake, into what place? said she--The stranger rode away without
saying a word.

The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards Frankfort
before all the city of Strasburg was in an uproar about his nose. The
Compline bells were just ringing to call the Strasburgers to their
devotions, and shut up the duties of the day in prayer:--no soul in all
Strasburg heard 'em--the city was like a swarm of bees--men, women, and
children, (the Compline bells tinkling all the time) flying here and
there--in at one door, out at another--this way and that way--long ways
and cross ways--up one street, down another street--in at this alley,
out of that--did you see it? did you see it? did you see it? O! did you
see it?--who saw it? who did see it? for mercy's sake, who saw it?

Alack o'day! I was at vespers!--I was washing, I was starching, I was
scouring, I was quilting--God help me! I never saw it--I never touch'd
it!--would I had been a centinel, a bandy-legg'd drummer, a trumpeter,
a trumpeter's wife, was the general cry and lamentation in every street
and corner of Strasburg.

Whilst all this confusion and disorder triumphed throughout the great
city of Strasburg, was the courteous stranger going on as gently upon
his mule in his way to Frankfort, as if he had no concern at all in the
affair--talking all the way he rode in broken sentences, sometimes to
his mule--sometimes to himself--sometimes to his Julia.

O Julia, my lovely Julia!--nay I cannot stop to let thee bite that
thistle--that ever the suspected tongue of a rival should have robbed me
of enjoyment when I was upon the point of tasting it.--

--Pugh!--'tis nothing but a thistle--never mind it--thou shalt have a
better supper at night.

--Banish'd from my country--my friends--from thee.--

Poor devil, thou'rt sadly tired with thy journey!--come--get on a little
faster--there's nothing in my cloak-bag but two shirts--a crimson-sattin
pair of breeches, and a fringed--Dear Julia!

--But why to Frankfort?--is it that there is a hand unfelt, which
secretly is conducting me through these meanders and unsuspected tracts?

--Stumbling! by saint Nicolas! every step--why at this rate we shall be
all night in getting in--

--To happiness--or am I to be th