"Coming, coming, sir!" she answered, and flew to the bar to satisfy the importunate man, and from thence she went to the cellar, and then to the kitchen, and was all of a sudden so full of business, that her guest in the bow had sufficient time to ponder over all he had just heard. He sat there, his hand supporting his head, looking with fixed eyes into the bottom of his silver tankard; he remained in that position from the afternoon till the evening; night advanced, and still he sat at the round table, dead to all the world about him, giving signs of life only by an occasional deep sigh. The landlady did not know what to make of him. She had placed herself at least a dozen times near him, had tried to speak with him, but he only looked at her with a staring eye, and answered nothing. She at last got very uneasy, for just in the same way had her good husband of blessed memory gazed at her when he died, and left her in possession of the Golden Stag.
She consulted the fat man, and he with the leather back gave his opinion also. The landlady maintained that he must be either over head and ears in love, or that some one must have bewitched him. She strengthened her supposition by a terrible history of a young knight, whom she had seen, and whose whole body became quite stiff from sheer love, which caused his death.
The pedlar was of a different opinion; he thought that some misfortune must have happened to the stranger, a circumstance which often befals those engaged in war, and that, therefore, he was in deep distress. But the fat man, winking, asked, with a countenance full of cunning conjecture, what was the growth and age of the wine the gentleman had been drinking?
"He has had old Heppacher of the year 1480," said the landlady: "it is the best that the Golden Stag furnishes."
"There we have it," said the wise fat man; "I know the Heppacher of the year eighty, and such a young fellow cannot stand it; it has got into his head. Let him alone, with his heavy head upon his hand; I'll bet that before the clock strikes eight he will have slept his wine out, and be as fresh as a fish in water."
The pedlar shook his head and said nothing; but the hostess praised the acknowledged sagacity of the fat man, and thought his supposition the most probable.
It was now nine o'clock; the daily visitors of the drinking room had all left it, and the landlady was also on the point of retiring to rest, as the stranger awoke out of his reverie. He started up, made a few hasty steps about the room, and at last stood before the hostess. His look was clouded and disturbed, and the short time which had elapsed between mid-day and the present moment had so far altered the features of his otherwise kind, open countenance, as to impart to them an expression of deep melancholy.
The kind-hearted woman was grieved at his appearance; and calling to mind the sagacious supposition which the fat man had pronounced as to the cause of his agitation, she proposed cooking a comfortable supper and preparing a bed for him; but her kind offices were altogether unavailing, as he appeared bent upon a rougher pastime for the night.
"When did you say," he inquired with a altering voice, "when did you say the nocturnal guest went to Lichtenstein? and at what hour did he depart?"
"He enters at eleven o'clock, dear sir," she replied; "and at the first cock crow he retires over the drawbridge."