for a moment, then
he said: "Very well, I will stay."

"Luggage?" said the landlord, in his short, unceremonious way. "My
luggage is at Haslach. It can come up to-morrow."

"Bertha," called the landlord, in such a strident tone that the
mountains echoed the sound. The visitors drinking in the kiosk smiled;
they were well accustomed to the man. A neat red-cheeked girl appeared
in the doorway. "Number 47," shouted the landlord, and went off to his
other duties.

Bertha led the new guest up three flights of uncarpeted wooden
staircase, down a long passage to a light, clean, but sparely-furnished
room. The girl told him the hours of meals, brought some water, and
left him alone. He hung his knapsack on a hook on the wall, opened the
little window, and gazed long at the view. Underneath was the open
space where he had been standing, to the left the tower, and behind,
over the ruined walls, he could see the old, neglected castle yard full
of weeds and heaps of rubbish--a picture of decay and desolation.

"I have chosen well," thought Wilhelm, for he loved solitude, and
promised himself enjoyable hours of wandering in the ruins in company
with luxuriant flowers and singing birds.

He barely gave himself time to freshen his face with cold water, and to
change his thick walking shoes for lighter ones; immediately hurrying
out to make acquaintance with the castle. Before he could get there he
had first to find in the tumbledown wall a hole large enough to enable
him to get through. He shortly found himself in a fairly large square
space, the uneven ground being formed of a mass of rubbish, mounds of
earth, and deep holes. Woods protected the greater part of it, most of
the trees stunted and choked by undergrowth and shrubs, with
occasionally a high, solitary pine tree, and near to the west and south
walls half-withered oaks and mighty beeches stood thickly. Here and
there from the bushes peeped up bare pieces of crumbling stone and
broken pieces of mortar, in whose crevices hung long grasses, and where
yellow, white, and red flowers nestled. Climbing, stumbling, and
slipping, he worked his way through this wilderness, the length and
breath of which he wished to inspect so as to discover a place where he
could rest quietly, when he suddenly came to a precipitous fall of the
ground, concealed from him by a thick curtain of leaves. Startled and
taken by surprise, the ground seemed to him to sink under his feet. He
instinctivel