does not concern me.  The master is at liberty, and so is she, and it is not for me or my old Nanni to speak against unmarried people.  Both they and we are bound for Herzing when we die, the spinsters to howl in the moor and we men in the wood.  That is what the lads and lasses say of us;” and he gave a dry little laugh.  “Ask my opinion of the water, and I’ll answer you straightforward.  It’s an elixir, a perfect elixir;” and he repeated the sentence with the proud consciousness of using a dictionary word.  “As for the house, the master and the old maid, judge for yourselves, or ask them that sent you here.”

So saying, he sturdily marched on ahead, as if fearing to be compromised.  We did not feel encouraged, especially with night steadily falling down upon us.  Still less was the future hopeful when Joergel pointed with his stick in advance, exclaiming, “Arrived at last!”

Yes, arrived at an old weatherbeaten chalet, with a crazy barn to keep it company, dilapidated and tottering as if in the bankruptcy court, standing abruptly on the borders of the black fir wood, the air filled with the odor of concentrated pigstye; dark male figures playing at skittles on the path, and having to stop the game to enable us to reach the door; black male figures playing at cards and drinking wine in the dusky, close old parlor or stube, made still more gloomy by the large, projecting brick stove, unlighted at this season of the year.

We should never have proceeded on a voyage of discovery had not the thick folds of a woman’s yellow petticoat flickered before us on the steps of a smoke-stained ladder.

Joergel, who, with the utmost determination, resolved to fulfill his duty as guide, marshaled us up this old creaking ladder, then up a second, until we stopped in an open gallery sheltered by the wooden eaves, where a feeble old woman nursed an idiot child in the gloaming.  And yet what a landscape to relieve this desolate foreground!—­slumbrous mountains, dewy meadows, peaceful villages, over which the calm of Sunday lay.  We stood drinking in the tranquil scene, when a woman in blue apron and of rapid motion quickly touched my elbow with a large key; and bidding us follow she hastily flung open the door of a narrow wainscoted closet, smelling of hay.  “She had no other room,” she blurted forth, and then, without word of apology, disappeared as speedily as she had come.  We found ourselves the owners of two large bedsteads and two dilapidated chairs:  everywhere in the house we had caught glimpses of broken-backed chairs, witnesses either of poverty or riot.

A modest tap at the door announced worthy Joergel.  He tried to comfort us in his rough and honest way, with “They that sent you here are to blame.”

We interrupted him, saying that the fault lay with ourselves.

“Well, well! how could you tell?  But have no fears.  This house is disorderly for the want of a head, but remember, there’s an elixir of life in the water.  I’m very much satisfied with what you have paid me, and the next time we meet we shall regard each other as old acquaintance.”