Isabel shuddered at the spectacle, but made no comment, and Basil went
on: "Do you suppose they scorned the idea of Sam Patch as they gazed
upon the falls? On the contrary, I've no doubt that he recalled to her
the ballad which a poet of their language made about him. It used to go
the rounds of the German newspapers, and I translated it, a long while
ago, when I thought that I too was in 'Arkadien geboren'.

'In the Bierhauagarten I linger
By the Falls of the Geneses:
From the Table-Rock in the middle
Leaps a figure bold and free.

Aloof in the air it rises
O'er the rush, the plunge, the death;
On the thronging banks of the river
There is neither pulse nor breath.

Forever it hovers and poises
Aloof in the moonlit air;
As light as mist from the rapids,
As heavy as nightmare.

In anguish I cry to the people,
The long-since vanished hosts;
I see them stretch forth in answer,
The helpless hands of ghosts.'"

"I once met the poet who wrote this. He drank too much beer."

"I don't see that he got in the name of Sam Patch, after all," said
Isabel.

"O yes; he did; but I had to yield to our taste, and where he said, I
'Springt der Sam Patsch kuhn and frei',' I made it 'Leaps a figure bold
and free.'"

As they passed through the house on their way out, they saw the youth
and maiden they had met at the pavilion door. They were seated at a
table; two glasses of beer towered before them; on their plates were
odorous crumbs of Limburger cheese. They both wore a pensive air.

The next morning the illusion that had wrapt the whole earth was gone
with the moonlight. By nine o'clock, when the wedding-journeyers resumed
their way toward Niagara, the heat had already set in with the effect of
ordinary midsummer's heat at high noon. The car into which they got
had come the past night from Albany, and had an air of almost conscious
shabbiness, griminess, and over-use. The seats were covered with
cinders, which also crackled under foot. Dust was on everything,
especially the persons of the crumpled and weary passengers of
overnight. Those who came aboard at Rochester failed to lighten
the spiritual gloom, and presently they sank into the common bodily
wretchedness. The train was somewhat belated, and as it drew nearer
Buffalo they knew the conductor to have abandoned himself to that
blackest of