But here the daughter showed me to my room. She blushed, of
course, and apologized for not bringing a candle, as she thought my
hair was sufficiently illuminating. "But," she added with another
blush, "I do SO like it."

I replied by giving her something of no value,--a Belgian nickel
which wouldn't pass in Bock, as I had found to my cost. But my
hair had evidently attracted attention from others, for on my
return to the guest-room a stranger approached me, and in the
purest and most precise German--the Court or 'Olland Hof speech--
addressed me:

"Have you the red hair of the fair King or the hair of your
father?"

Luckily I was able to reply with the same purity and precision: "I
have both the hair of the fair King and my own. But I have not the
hair of my father nor of Black Michael, nor of the innkeeper nor
the innkeeper's wife. The red HEIR of the fair King would be a
son."

Possibly this delicate mot on the approaching marriage of the King
was lost in the translation, for the stranger strode abruptly away.
I learned, however, that the King was actually then in Bock, at the
castle a few miles distant, in the woods. I resolved to stroll
thither.

It was a fine old mediaeval structure. But as the singular
incidents I am about to relate combine the romantic and adventurous
atmosphere of the middle ages with all the appliances of modern