nd occupied the large table near the inn-door.
Presently I was startled by the sound of the zither; they began to
sing songs; the pretty daughter of the house came and joined in the
singing. I put down my book.

"The old lady who served me with my _Maass_ of beer, seeing my
interest, came over and chatted about her guests. Oh no, they were not
villagers; they came from four hours away. The slim one was a
school-teacher, and the _dicker_ was a tenor, and sang in the chorus
of the _Passion-Spiel_; the good-looking young man was to be the St.
John. Passion play! I pricked up my ears. When? Where? In their own
village, three days hence; only given once every ten years--for
hundreds and hundreds of years. Could strangers see it? What should
strangers want to see it for? But _could_ they see it? _Gewiss_. This
was indeed a stroke of luck. I had always rather wanted to see the
Passion play, but the thought of the fashionable Ober-Ammergau made me
sick. Would I like to be _vorgestellt_? Rather! It was not ten minutes
after this introduction before I had settled to stay with St. John,
and clouds of good American tobacco were rising from six Tyrolese
pipes, and many an "Auf Ihr Wohl" was busying the pretty _Kellnerin_.
They trotted out all their repertory of quaint local songs for my
benefit. It sounded bully, I tell you, out there with the sunlight,
and the green leaves, and the rush of the river; and in this aroma of
beer and brotherhood I blessed my damaged thigh. Three days hence!
Just time for it to heal. A providential world, after all.

"And it was indeed with a buoyant step and a gay heart that I set out
over the hills at sunrise on that memorable morning. The play was to
begin at ten, and I should just be on time. What a walk! Imagine it!
Clear coolness of dawn, fresh green, sparkling dew, the road winding
up and down, round hills, up cliffs, along valleys, through woods,
where the green branches swayed in the morning wind and dappled the
grass fantastically with dancing sunlight. And as fresh as the
morning, was, I felt, the artistic sensation awaiting me. I swung
round the last hill-shoulder; saw the quaint gables of the first house
peeping through the trees, and the church spire rising beyond, then
groups of Tyrolese converging from all the roads; dipped down the
valley, past the quiet lake, up the hills beyond; found myself caught
in a stream of peasants, and, presto! was sucked from the radiant day
into the deep g