One afternoon, after a long climb through an odorous forest of red-stemmed pines, with green-black tops stretching for miles and miles in an unbroken canopy, they came out upon a broad view that entranced with its sense of illusion. Cities, like bunched cattle, dotted the vast plain. Space and the wide, unhindered sweep of the eye reduced their greatness to the dimensions of toy-land.
Leighton and Lewis stood long in silence, then they started down the road that clung to the steep incline. On the left it was overhung by the forest; on the right, earth fell suddenly away in a wooded precipice. As the highway clung to the mountain-side, so did quaint villages cling to the highway. They came to an old Gasthaus, the hinder end of which was buttressed over the brink of the valley.
Here they stopped. Their big, square room, the only guest-chamber of the little inn, hung in air high above the jumbled roofs of Dürkheim. To the right, the valley split to form a niche for a beetling, ruined castle. Far out on the plain the lights of Darmstadt and Mannheim began to blink. Beyond and above them Heidelberg signaled faintly from the opposing hills.
The room shared its aery with a broad, square veranda, trellised and vine-covered. Here were tables and chairs, and here Leighton and Lewis dined. Before they had finished their meal, two groups had formed about separate tables. One was of old men, white-haired, white-bearded, each with his pipe and a long mug of beer. The other was of women. They, too, were old, white-haired. Their faces were not hard, like the men's, but filled with a withered motherliness. The men eyed the two foreigners distrustfully as though they hung like a cloud over the accustomed peace of that informal village gathering.
"All old, eh?" said Leighton to Lewis with a nod. "And sour. Want to see them wake up?"
"Yes," said Lewis.
The woman who served them was young by comparison with the rest. Leighton had discovered that she was an Alsatian, and had profited thereby in the ordering of his dinner. She was the daughter-in-law of the old couple that owned the inn. He turned to her and said in French, so that Lewis could understand:
"Smile but once, dear lady. You serve us as though we were Britishers."
The woman turned quickly.
"And are you not Britishers?"