ou. You are also a stranger in
Dreiberg?"

"Yes."

They took the next turn, and the weather-beaten sign _Zum Schwartzen
Adler_, hanging in front of a frame house of many gables, caused the
mountaineer to breathe gratefully.

"Here my journey ends, Gretchen. The Black Eagle," he added, in an
undertone; "it is unchanged these twenty years. Heaven send that the
beds are softer than aforetime!"

They were passing a clock-mender's shop. The man from Jugendheit peered
in the window, which had not been cleaned in an age, but there was no
clock in sight to give him warning of the time, and he dared not now
look at his watch. He had a glimpse of the ancient clock-mender himself,
however, huddled over a table upon which sputtered a candle. It touched
up his face with grotesque lights. Here was age, mused the man outside
the window; nothing less than fourscore years rested upon those
rounded shoulders. The face was corrugated with wrinkles, like a
frosted road; eyes heavily spectacled, a ragged thatch of hair on the
head, a ragged beard on the chin. Aware of a shadow between him and the
fading daylight, the clock-mender looked up from his work. The eyes of
the two men met, but only for a moment.

The mountaineer, who felt rejuvenated by this contrast, straightened his
shoulders and started to cross the street to the tavern.

[Illustration: "Good night, Gretchen. Good luck to you."]

"Good night, Gretchen. Good luck to you and your geese to-morrow."

"Thanks, Herr Ludwig. And will you be long in the city?"

"That depends; perhaps," adding a grim smile in answer to a grim
thought.

He offered his hand, which she accepted trustfully. He was a strange old
man, but she liked him. When she withdrew her hand, something cold and
hard remained in her palm. Wonders of all the world! It was a piece of
gold. Her eyes went up quickly, but the giver smiled reassuringly and
put a finger against his lips.

"But, Herr," she remonstrated.

"Keep it; I give it to you. Do not question providence, and I am her
handmaiden just now. Go along with you."

So Gretchen in a mild state of stupefaction turned away. Clat-clat! sang
the little wooden shoes. A plaintive gonk rose as she prodded a laggard
from the dank gutter. A piece of gold! Clat-clat! Clat-clat! Surely this
had been a day of marvels; two crowns from the grand duke and a piece of
gold from this old man in peasant clothes. Instinctively she knew that
he was not a peasant. Bu