He then turned his back upon the youth and strode on after the procession. Alf no longer felt the weight of his knapsack, but sprang forward toward Munster with joyful leaps. He soon, however, encountered a new mass of fugitives, among whom he could not easily penetrate--and the dust raised by people, cattle, horses and carriages, becoming insufferable, Alf retreated into a solitary inn by the way side, until the tumult had passed away.
As he laid down his knapsack in the tap room and called for a cup of wine, the door opened and in tottered a pale thin man in a long black clerical robe. He was followed by a light dashing fellow with the countenance of a satyr, who carried his bundle for him.
'I can go no further,' groaned the pale man, sinking down upon the nearest seat.
'Now, doctor, you are for the present indeed in safety,' said his attendant to him, depositing the bundle upon the stove-bench. 'Permit me to take a refreshing draught, and then to bid you farewell.'
'Thou dost not wish, then, to go to the good Hessenland, my son?' asked the doctor, sorrowfully.
'No,' answered the youth, 'but do not consider me unkind. I return to Munster. New governors will require new clothes, because much of the dignity of office consists in the dress. My needle will not be permitted to remain idle there, and I shall make great profits. Moreover the doctrine of liberty and equality was plain to me from the beginning; and if the good people would not come so easily to blows, nothing could be said against it.'
'I thought you held fast to the ancient faith,' said the doctor complainingly, 'since you sustained me so truly.'
'No,' laughingly replied the hare-brained youth. 'I held to you while you benefitted me; and on that account I could not reconcile it to myself to desert you in your hour of need. Now you are in safety; and I must return to the only place where fellows like myself are held in some degree of estimation; in any other I might remain all my life a wandering ragamuffin.'
'One deception less,' sighed the doctor sinking into gloomy meditation, when the host entered with a mug of wine for Alf. When he perceived the doctor the mug fell, and, clasping his hands over his head, he cried: 'Holy God! are you also driven away, reverend sir?'
'The true shepherds must first be driven away,' said the doctor with a melancholy smile, 'when the wolf desires undisturbedly to break into the unfortunate fold. Nevertheless I may congratulate myself that I held out until the last moment, and only yielded to open violence.'