So it went on till eleven o'clock, when mine host, approaching with another bow, said, "Herr Baron, are you quite sure that it is a cold foot-bath you want?"
"Quite."
"I told the maid so," he replied; "but she says she cannot believe that a Herr Baron will have cold water, and thinks it should be lukewarm."
Satisfied on this point, he summoned the incredulous maid to light me to bed. She stooped low with what was meant for a curtsey, and would on no account turn her face from me, but went backwards up the stairs, holding the candle low, and begging me at every step not to stumble.
"Verily," thought I, "the whole household joins in the conspiracy."
She carried the candlestick delicately, as if it were of silver and not mere iron, placed it on a little deal table in the bedroom with a ceremonious air, made another low curtsey, and retreated to the door.
Then, with one hand on the latch, she said, after a momentary pause, "Herr Baron, I wish you a good night;" and withdrew, leaving me alone to sleep as best I might under the burden of an unexpected title.
CHAPTER VIII.
Dawn—The Noisy Gooseherd—Geese, for Home Consumption and Export—Still the Baron—The Ruins of Hartenstein—Glimpses of Scenery and Rural Life—Liebkowitz—Lubenz—Schloss Petersburg—Big Rooms—Tipplers and Drunkards—Wagoners and Peasants—A Thrifty Landlord—Inquisitorial Book—Awful Gendarme—Paternal Government—Fidgets—How it is in Hungary—Wet Blankets for Philosophers—An Unhappy Peasant.
Neither nightmare nor anything else disturbed me till the wagoners, hooking on their teams amid noisy shouts, filed off in two directions from the square, at the earliest peep of dawn. The quiet that returned on their departure was ere long broken by a succession of wild and discordant cries, which, being puzzled to account for by ear, I got out of bed and used my eyes. The gooseherd stood in the middle of the square, calling his flock together from all quarters, with a voice, as it seemed to me, more expressive of alarm and anger than of invitation. However, the geese understood it, and they came waddling and quacking forth from every gateway and lane, and the narrow openings between the houses, till some hundreds were gathered round the herd, who, waving his long rod, kept up his cries till the last straggler had come up, and then drove them out to the dewy pasture beyond the village. A singular effect was produced by the multitude of long necks, and the awkward movements of the snow-white mass, accompanied as they were by a ceaseless rise and fall of the quacking chorus. Such a sight is common in Bohemia; for your Bohemian has a lively relish for roast goose, regarding it as a national dish; and mindful of his neighbours, he breeds numbers of the savoury fowl for their enjoyment. Walk over the Erzgebirge in September, and you will meet thousands of geese in a flock, waddling slowly on their way to Leipzig, and the fulfilment of their destiny in German stomachs, at the rate of about three leagues a day.