been a match for more than one when I was at service at the inn of The Three Lilies, and with such a fellow as you--"
"Be still, will you!" commanded the voice from the calash, rather faintly. "You know I meant no harm; it is only because I am so wretched in this dog's life of a professional ghost, and besides that, this confounded love affair, and no rest at night--"
"Yes, indeed, I can well believe it!" sighed the other, easily pacified. "You are even worse off than I, and not so much as a kiss will all this bring you.
It would be a good thing if you would put the girl out of your mind. It's all nonsense, anyway."
A heavy sigh came from the black depths of the wagon frame.
"That you don't understand, I observe. When this maiden, decked with all heavenly charms, crosses my path,
I am like a poor moth that cannot keep away from the lamp, although it does not go near it with the exact intention of burning its wings. I often think the priests' invention is not the real hell--as indeed we know; the true one is the suffering which we incur by our earthly sins. More than one little goose of a girl has cried her eyes out over me; a confoundedly handsome fellow I was, with a pocketful of money. Then, out of sight was out of mind with me; but now I am in for it. What I endure is heart-breaking. There is no drinking to the oblivion of this soul-suffering."