east noisily, for the guests were all
blessed with those keen appetites that attend upon light purses and
mountain air. The baron told his best and longest stories, and never had
he told them so well, or with such great effect. If there was anything
marvelous, his auditors were lost in astonishment; and if anything
facetious, they were sure to laugh exactly in the right place. The
baron, it is true, like most great men, was too dignified to utter any
joke but a dull one; it was always enforced, however, by a bumper of
excellent Hockheimer; and even a dull joke, at one's own table, served
up with jolly old wine, is irresistible. Many good things were said by
poorer and keener wits that would not bear repeating, except on similar
occasions; many sly speeches whispered in ladies' ears, that almost
convulsed them with suppressed laughter; and a song or two roared out by
a poor, but merry and broad-faced cousin of the baron that absolutely
made the maiden aunts hold up their fans.

Amidst all this revelry, the stranger guest maintained a most singular
and unseasonable gravity. His countenance assumed a deeper cast of
dejection as the evening advanced; and, strange as it may appear, even
the baron's jokes seemed only to render him the more melancholy. At
times he was lost in thought, and at times there was a perturbed and
restless wandering of the eye that bespoke a mind but ill at ease. His
conversations with the bride became more and more earnest and
mysterious. Lowering clouds began to steal over the fair serenity of her
brow, and tremors to run through her tender frame.

All this could not escape the notice of the company. Their gayety was
chilled by the unaccountable gloom of the bridegroom; their spirits were
infected; whispers and glances were interchanged, accompanied by shrugs
and dubious shakes of the head. The song and the laugh grew less and
less frequent; there were dreary pauses in the conversation, which were
at length succeeded by wild tales and supernatural legends. One dismal
story produced another still more dismal, and the baron nearly
frightened some of the ladies into hysterics with the history of the
goblin horseman that carried away the fair Leonora; a dreadful story
which has since been put into excellent verse, and is read and believed
by all the world.

The bridegroom listened to this tale with profound attention. He kept
his eyes steadily fixed on the baron, and, as the story drew to a close,
be