The Inn in Berncastel is a fair sample of the houses of refreshment on the Moselle: the landlord dines with his guests; the dinner is good, but ill-served, and is eaten at one o’clock, being followed by supper at eight. Travellers come and go without the people of the house seeming to care whether they stop long time or short; they are charged according to their nation, English paying more than French, and Germans less than either: however, the charges are not at all high, except for private dinners and out-of-the-way things.
The original pie-dish bason is here found in full force, accompanied by small square boards of napkins; the scantiness, combined with the hardness of which, render them about as useful as a wooden platter would be for the purpose of drying your face,—which, owing to the fortunate construction of the bason, does not, luckily, become very wet.
An agreeable fellow-diner informed us, that on the Moselle two codes of law were in force,—the Prussian on the right bank, and the Code Napoléon on the left: thus, in Berncastel a couple could not be united in marriage without a church ceremony, while in Cus it was optional. Our informant added that the ladies generally insisted on a church marriage, not because they thought the ceremony necessary, but to show off the grand array of their wedding-finery.
A tale is told at Cus of a Ghost who haunts the neighbourhood, and sometimes visits the town; he is called
THE BAD MAURUS.
The departed Maurus, who now figures as a pernicious hobgoblin, was formerly a resident of Cus; a drunkard and scoffer at all things holy, this wretch filled up the measure of his iniquities by beating his wife: so ill did he use her, that the neighbours were constantly obliged to come in and save her from his brutality.
The thread of his evil life was summarily cut in this manner: one night as he returned, drunk as usual, to his home, fully intending to beat his wife if waiting up, and equally bent on thrashing her if she had gone to bed, a man in black with a lantern kindly offered to show him the way home: he eagerly accepted the offer, and his guide preceded him; so the two went on, the black-hearted man led by the man in black.
In the morning Maurus was found lying dead at the foot of a rock; they raised the body and brought it to his poor wife, who, forgetting all his ill-usage, sorrowed for the death of her husband.
The widow ordered a suitable funeral, and the body was laid in the churchyard, but on coming back from the funeral, Maurus was seen looking from the garret-window, where he had been observing and sneering at his own funeral: everybody was horrified, and Maurus continued to haunt the upper story of his wife’s house until three priests exorcised the hobgoblin, and forced him into the country.