and more vivid, and the thunder growled more fiercely than ever. In a few minutes the rain poured down in torrents, and the English student was drenched to the skin. "Here is a nice situation for a man on a pleasure trip!" muttered my ancestor to himself. "Lost, in the dead of night, in the midst of a thunderstorm, in an open plain without shelter, drenched like a drowned rat, as hungry as a wolf, and hardly able to crawl, from a sprained ankle!" His reflections were anything but of a pleasing sort, as you may imagine, yet he hobbled on as best he could, endeavoring to comfort himself with the vague hope of finding some sort of shelter for the night as soon as the storm should pass off. After dragging on his limbs with exemplary patience for another half-mile, it being then about midnight, he perceived a light from a cottage window not very far distant. His courage began to revive, and with halting gait he made for the door of the cottage. He knocked loudly, but no one answered. Thinking that he had not been heard for the rumbling of the thunder, he knocked again and again. Still no one came to the door. "I mean to lodge here for the night," said the Englishman to himself, "if I have to break the door open to effect an entrance." And he kept up a furious knocking for about three-quarters-of-an-hour. At length he heard a harsh, grating voice within break out in a string of choice Teutonic oaths, and the word "schweinhund" (pig-dog) pronounced once or twice. Footsteps were then heard descending the stairs, and the next moment a quaint-looking personage appeared at the door in dressing-gown and slippers, with night-cap on head and candle in hand, and demanded in a surly tone what the "teufel" he wanted at that hour of night. My ancestor apologized with much courtesy for having roused up so worthy an individual at such an unearthly hour, but pleaded that he was a poor benighted traveler, hungry and soaked to the skin. "Then you should have moved further on," was the curt reply. "But whither?" asked my relative. "To the township. This house is not a 'wirtshaus.'" "How far distant is it?" "A mile." By this he meant a German mile--equal to four English miles. "A mile!" exclaimed the Englishman. "I could not walk a mile to save my life. I've sprained my ankle and can't move a step further. I'm sorry to put you to such inconvenience, my good fellow, but I really must put up here." "But there is no accommodation," growled the inmate. "No matter. I dare say you have a little straw; if not, the bare ground will do." The inmate sulkily suffered the traveler to enter, and showing him into a parlor on the ground-floor, was about to leave him to himself. "Stop a bit, my good host," said the student. "I must beg to remind you that I am as hungry as a wolf, and as cold as
Prev.
Back
Top