The afterglow on the mountains across the valley was now in its prime
glory; and once the two wayfarers paused and commented upon it. Once
more the mountaineer was agreeably surprised; the average peasant is
impervious to atmospheric splendor, beauty carries no message.

Arriving at length in the city, they passed through the crooked streets,
sometimes so narrow that the geese were packed from wall to wall. Oft
some jovial soldier sent a jest or a query to them across the now gray
backs of the geese. But Gretchen looked on ahead, purely and serenely.

"Gretchen, where shall I find the Adlergasse?"

"We pass through it shortly. I will show you. You are also a stranger in
Dreiberg?"

"Yes."

They took the next turn, and the weather-beaten sign _Zum Schwartzen
Adler_, hanging in front of a frame house of many gables, caused the
mountaineer to breathe gratefully.

"Here my journey ends, Gretchen. The Black Eagle," he added, in an
undertone; "it is unchanged these twenty years. Heaven send that the
beds are softer than aforetime!"

They were passing a clock-mender's shop. The man from Jugendheit peered
in the window, which had not been cleaned in an age, but there was no
clock in sight to give him warning of the time, and he dared not now
look at his watch. He had a glimpse of the ancient clock-mender himself,
however, huddled over a table upon which sputtered a candle. It touched