“There sits the old Frau Himmelhahn, perched up in her owl-tower,” said the Baron to Flemming, as they passed along the Hauptstrasse.  “She looks down through her round-eyed spectacles from her nest up there, and watches every one that goes by.  I wonder what mischief she is hatching now?  Do you know she has nearly ruined your character in town?  She says you have a rakish look, because you carry a cane, and your hair curls.  Your gloves, also, are a shade too light for a strictly virtuous man.”

“It is very kind in her to take such good care of my character, particularly as I am a stranger in town.  She is doubtless learned in the Clothes-Philosophy.”

“And ignorant of every thing else.  She asked a friend of mine the other day, whether Christ was a Catholic or a Protestant.”

“That is really too absurd!”

“Not too absurd to be true.  And, ignorant as she is, she contrives to do a good deal of mischief in the course of the year.  Why, the ladies already call you Wilhelm Meister.”

“They are at liberty to call me what they please.  But you, who know me better, know that I am something more than they would imply by the name.”

“She says, moreover, that the American ladies sit with their feet out of the window, and have no pocket-handkerchiefs.”

“Excellent!”

They crossed the market-place and went up beneath the grand terrace into the court-yard of the castle.

“Let us go up and sit under the great linden-trees, that grow on the summit of the Rent Tower,” said Flemming.  “From that point as from awatch-tower we can look down into the garden, and see the crowd below us.”

“And amuse ourselves, as old Frau Himmelhahn does, at her window in the Hauptstrasse,” added the Baron.

The keeper’s daughter unlocked for them the door of the tower, and, climbing the steep stair-case, they seated themselves on a wooden bench under the linden-trees.

“How beautifully these trees overgrow the old tower!  And see what a solid mass of masonry lies in the great fosse down there, toppled from its base by the explosion of a mine!  It is like a rusty helmet cleft in twain, but still crested with towering plumes!”

“And what a motley crowd in the garden!  Philisters and Sons of the Muses!  And there goes the venerable Thibaut, taking his evening stroll.  Do you see him there, with his silver hair flowing over his shoulders, and that friendly face, which has for so many years pored over the Pandects.  I assure you, he inspires me with awe.  And yet he is a merry old man, and loves his joke, particularly at the expense of Moses and other ancient lawgivers.”

Here their attention was diverted by a wild-looking person, who passed with long strides under the archway in the fosse, right beneath them, and disappeared among the bushes.  He was ill-dressed,—­his hair flying in the wind,—­his movements hurried and nervous, and the expression of his broad countenance wild, strange, and earnest.