h something of
contumely, and had at first comported himself toward his young deputy
like a man distracted. Anton had again spent an hour in reasoning with
him, and, in spite of all the latter's twistings and turnings, had
remained firm to his point. At length Wendel broke out, "Enough; I am a
ruined man, but you deserve to get your money. Your house has always
dealt generously by me. You shall be reimbursed. Send your agent to me
again in the course of the day, and come to me early to-morrow morning."

On the morrow, when Anton, accompanied by the agent, appeared before
their debtor, Wendel, after a gloomy salutation, seized hold of a great
rusty key, slowly put on a faded cloak on which countless darns showed
like cobwebs on an old wall, and led his creditors to a remote part of
the town, stopping before a ruined monastery. They went through a long
cloister. Anton looked admiringly at the exquisite moulding of the
arches, from which, however, time had worn off many a fragment that
encumbered the pavement. Monuments of the old inhabitants of the place
were ranged along the walls, and weather-stained inscriptions announced
to the inattentive living that pious Slavonic monks had once sought
peace within this shelter. Here in this cloister they had paced up and
down; here they had prayed and dreamed till they had to make over their
poor souls to the intercession of their saints. In the centre of this
building Wendel now opened a secret door, and led his companions down a
winding staircase into a large vault. This had once been used as the
cellar of the rich cloister, and down that same staircase the cellarer
had gone--ah! how often--wandering between the casks, tasting here and
tasting there; and at the ringing of the little bell above him, bowing
his head and saying a short prayer, and then returning to taste again,
or in comfortable mood to walk up and down. The prayer-bell of the
cloister had been melted down long ago; the empty cells were in ruins,
the cattle fed where once the prior sat at the head of his brethren at
their stately meal. All had vanished; the cellar only remained, and the
casks of fiery Hungarian wine stood as they did five hundred years
before. Still the rays of light converged into a star on the beautiful
arch of the roof; still the vault was kept stainlessly whitewashed, and
the floor strewn with finest sand; and still it was the cellarer's
custom only to approach the noble wine with a waxlight. Tru