holy days. His hat was high-crowned and broad-brimmed, and
sometimes one of the youngest clerks would mount a feather. The
woollen shirt was hidden behind a broad linen collar, the close jacket
was buttoned up to the chin, and the cloak hung loose over it; and the
trousers were tucked into the broad-toed shoes, for the clerks did not
wear stockings. In their girdles they sported a dinner-knife and
spoon, and a larger knife was placed there also for the defence of the
owner; and this weapon was often very necessary. Just so was Anthony,
one of the oldest clerks, clad on high days and holy days, except
that, instead of a high-crowned hat, he wore a low bonnet, and under
it a knitted cap (a regular nightcap), to which he had grown so
accustomed that it was always on his head; and he had two of
them--nightcaps, of course. The old fellow was a subject for a
painter. He was as thin as a lath, had wrinkles clustering round his
eyes and mouth, and long bony fingers, and bushy grey eyebrows: over
the left eye hung quite a tuft of hair, and that did not look very
handsome, though it made him very noticeable. People knew that he came
from Bremen; but that was not his native place, though his master
lived there. His own native place was in Thuringia, the town of
Eisenach, close by the Wartburg. Old Anthony did not speak much of
this, but he thought of it all the more.

The old clerks of the Haeuschen Street did not often come together.
Each one remained in his booth, which was closed early in the evening;
and then it looked dark enough in the street: only a faint glimmer of
light forced its way through the little horn-pane in the roof; and in
the booth sat, generally on his bed, the old bachelor, his German
hymn-book in his hand, singing an evening psalm in a low voice; or he
went about in the booth till late into the night, and busied himself
about all sorts of things. It was certainly not an amusing life. To be
a stranger in a strange land is a bitter lot: nobody cares for you,
unless you happen to get in anybody's way.

Often when it was dark night outside, with snow and rain, the place
looked very gloomy and lonely. No lamps were to be seen, with the
exception of one solitary light hanging before the picture of the
Virgin that was fastened against the wall. The plash of the water
against the neighbouring rampart at the castle wharf could be plainly
heard. Such evenings are long and dreary, unless people devise some
employmen