The Goose Girl | Page 5

they went forward in silence. By the time they reached the gates
the sun was no longer visible on the horizon, but it had gone down
ruddy and uncrowned by any cloud, giving promise of a fair day on the
morrow. The afterglow on the mountains across the valley was now in
its prime glory; and once the two wayfarers paused and commented
upon it. Once more the mountaineer was agreeably surprised; the
average peasant is impervious to atmospheric splendor, beauty carries
no message.
Arriving at length in the city, they passed through the crooked streets,
sometimes so narrow that the geese were packed from wall to wall. Oft
some jovial soldier sent a jest or a query to them across the now gray
backs of the geese. But Gretchen looked on ahead, purely and serenely.
"Gretchen, where shall I find the Adlergasse?"
"We pass through it shortly. I will show you. 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. But what could he be? Comparison would
have made him a king. She was too tired and hungry to make further
deductions.
She was regarded with kindly eyes till the dark jaws of the Krumerweg
swallowed up both her and her geese.
"Poor little goose-girl!" he thought. "If she but knew, she could make a
bonfire of a thousand hearts. A fine day!" He eyed again the battered
sign. It was then that he discerned another, leaning from the ledge of
the first story of the house adjoining the tavern. It was the tarnished
shield of the United States.
"What a penurious government it must be! Two weeks, tramping about
the country in this unholy garb, following false trails half the time,
living on crusts and cold meats. Ah, you have led me a merry dance,
nephew, but I shall not forget!"
He entered the tavern and applied for a room, haggling over the price.
CHAPTER II
AN AMERICAN CONSUL
The nights in Dreiberg during September are often chill. The heavy
mists from the mountain slip down the granite clifts and spread over the
city, melting all sharp outlines, enfeebling the gas-lamps, and changing
the moon, if there happens to be one, into something less than a moon
and something more than a pewter disk. And so it was this night.

Carmichael,