Once—many years, perhaps centuries ago—a young German student, named Lek, was travelling from Leipsig to the Middle Rhine. His journey was made on foot, and a part of it lay through the Thuringian Forest.
He rested one night at the old walled town of Saalfeld, visited the ruins of Sorenburg, and entered one of the ancient roads then greatly frequented, but less used now, on account of the shorter and swifter avenues of travel.
Towards evening he ascended a hill, and, looking down, was surprised to discover a quaint town at the foot, of which he had never heard.
It was summer; the red sun was going down, and the tree-tops of the vast forests, moved by a gentle wind, seemed like the waves of the wide sea. Lek was a lover of the beautiful expressions of Nature, of the poetry of the forests, hills, and streams; and he sat down on a rock, under a spreading tree, to see the sunset flame and fade, and the far horizons sink into the shadows and disappear.
“I have made a good journey to-day,” he said, “and whatever the strange town below me may be, it will be safe for me to spend the night there. I see that it has a church and an inn.”
Lek had travelled much over Germany, but he had never before seen a town like the one below him. It wore an air of strange antiquity,—as a town might look that had remained unchanged for many hundred years. An old banner hung out from a quaint steepled building; but it was unlike any of modern times, national or provincial.
The fires of sunset died away; clouds, like smoke, rose above them, and a deep shadow overspread the forests. Lek gathered up his bundles, and descended the hill towards the town. As he was hurrying onward he met a strange-looking man in a primitive habit,—evidently a villager. Lek asked him the name of the place.
The stranger looked at him sadly and with surprise, and answered in a dialect that he did not wholly understand; but he guessed at the last words, and rightly.
“Why do you wish to know?”
“I am a traveller,” answered Lek, “and I must remain there until to-morrow.”