odging for the night, friend?" inquires a kind voice near
me, speaking to my very thoughts.

"No. I am a stranger in Leipsic."

"And your herberge?"

"I know nothing of it."

The inquirer is a little man with a thin face, and a voice which might be
disagreeable, were it not mellowed by good nature. He tells me, then,
that he is a jewel-case maker, and has no doubt that I shall find a ready
shelter in the herberge of his trade till the morning, if I am willing to
accept of it. It is in the Little Churchyard. In spite of this ominous
direction I shake the good man heartily by the hand, and, although I lose
him in the darkness and confusion of the railway-station, cling mentally
to the Little Churchyard as a passport to peace and rest. I don't know
how it is that I escape interrogation by the police, but once out of the
turmoil of the crowd, I find myself wandering by a deep ditch and the
shadowy outline of a high wall, seeking in vain amid the drizzling mist
for one of the gates of the city. When almost hopeless of success, a
welcome voice inquires my destination; and, under the guidance of a
worthy Saxon, I find myself in Kleine Kirche Hof at last. There is the
herberge in question, but with no light--welcoming sign!--for it is
already ten o'clock, and its guests are all in bed. Dripping with rain,
and with a rueful aspect, I prefer my request for a lodging. The "vater"
looks dubiously at me out of the corner of one eye, till, having
inspected my passport, he brightens up a little, and thinks he can find
me a bed, but cannot break through the rules of his house so far as to
give me any supper. It is too late.

Lighting a small lantern he leads the way across a stone-paved yard, and,
opening one leaf of the folding-doors of a stable at its upper end,
inducts me at once into the interior. It also is paved with stones, is
small, and is nearly choked up with five or six bedsteads. The vater
points to one which happily is as yet untenanted, and says, "Now, make
haste, will you? I can't stop here all night." Before I have time to
scramble into bed we are already in darkness, and no sooner is the door
closed than my bed-fellows, who seemed all fast asleep a moment before,
open a rattling fire of inquiries as to my parentage, birthplace, trade,
and general condition; and having satisfied all this amiable questioning
we fall asleep.

We turn our waking eyes upon a miserable glimmering which finds its way
thro