"Has your horse ever shown such vice before?" asked Schindel.
"No," replied Tausdorf. "You know my old gray: he was the most docile beast that I ever rode."
"Then this accident strikes me as something singular," rejoined Schindel, "as if it were an omen intended by Providence to warn you of some great evil at hand."
"Don't say that with so much earnestness, my good uncle," exclaimed Tausdorf, laughing, "or you will terrify my Althea unnecessarily; and if she should fall sick upon it, the mischief which my bay's restiveness is supposed to prophesy would then have really come to pass."
"I should like you as well again if you had a little more faith," replied Schindel angrily. "Animals have often a sharper insight into the realm of spirits than your overwise men. Think on Balaam's awful history. It would not be the first time that a horse shied when he was bearing his master to his ruin. Who knows whether it is well that you have just now rode into the town?"
"Herr von Schindel is the faithful Eckart, and warns every one," cried Rasselwitz with forced laughter, and seized the goblet to wash down his anxiety, while Netz exclaimed--"Are we not at last, then, to sit down regularly, and fetch up our lost dinner-time?"
"Do so, good cousin, and take my place," replied Tausdorf, who since Schindel's last words had grown unusually grave and gloomy: "My honoured guests will easily excuse me if I leave them for my bed: I should make a sorry host to-day, for my head is somewhat stunned and dizzy from the fall, and repose will be the best thing for me."
He bowed, and left the company. The faithful Althea anxiously followed him.
"A tedious melancholy feast for a welcome," muttered Netz.
The guests looked at each other with disturbed countenance. A painful silence spread over the whole party, and the old Schindel put his finger to his nose, and said, "I keep to it still; this adventure is a very doubtful omen: God turn all to the best!"