ure is so
free and unshackled; but the _people_, alas! wear the fetters. The
setting sun, which lighted up the old Brocken and his snowy top, showed
me also Halberstadt, the end of my Hartz journey; but its deceitful
towers fled as I approached, and I was half dead with fatigue on
arriving there.

The ghostly, dark and echoing castle of an inn (the Black Eagle) where I
stopped, was enough to inspire a lonely traveller, like myself, with
unpleasant fancies. It looked heavy and massive enough to have been a
stout baron's stronghold in some former century; the taciturn landlord
and his wife, who, with a solemn servant girl, were the only tenants,
had grown into perfect keeping with its gloomy character. When I groped
my way under the heavy, arched portal into the guests' room--a large,
lofty, cheerless hall--all was dark, and I could barely perceive, by the
little light which came through two deep-set windows, the inmates of the
house, sitting on opposite sides of the room. After some delay, the
hostess brought a light. I entreated her to bring me something
_instantly_ for supper, and in half an hour she placed a mixture on the
table, the like of which I never wish to taste again. She called it
_beer-soup_! I found, on examination, it was _beer_, boiled with meat,
and seasoned strongly with pepper and salt! My hunger disappeared, and
pleading fatigue as an excuse for want of appetite, I left the table.
When I was ready to retire, the landlady, who had been sitting silently
in a dark corner, called the solemn servant girl, who took up a dim
lamp, and bade me follow her to the "sleeping chamber." Taking up my
knapsack and staff, I stumbled down the steps into the arched gateway;
before me was a long, damp, deserted court-yard, across which the girl
took her way. I followed her with some astonishment, imagining where the
sleeping chamber could be, when she stopped at a small, one-story
building, standing alone in the yard. Opening the door with a rusty key,
she led me into a bare room, a few feet square, opening into another,
equally bare, with the exception of a rough bed. "Certainly," said I, "I
am not to sleep here!" "Yes," she answered, "this is the sleeping
chamber," at the same time setting down the light and disappearing. I
examined the place--it smelt mouldy, and the walls were cold and damp;
there had been a window at the head of the bed, but it was walled up,
and that at the foot was also closed to within a few inch