By the time they reached the gates
the sun was no longer visible on the horizon, but it had gone down ruddy
and uncrowned by any cloud, giving promise of a fair day on the morrow.
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.
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