every side to discover
anything like an inn! How we stared at each other in bewilderment when
at last, from we could not see where, came the well-known voice of Herr
von Walden, shouting to us to stop.

"It is here--_here_, I say. You are going too far."

"Here," judging by the direction whence came the words, seemed to be
a piled-up mass of hay, of proportions, exaggerated perhaps by the
uncertain light, truly enormous. Was our friend buried in the middle of
it? Not so. By degrees we made out his sunburnt face, beaming as ever,
from out of a window behind the hay--cartful or stack, we were not sure
which; and by still further degrees we discovered that the hay was being
unloaded before a little house which it had almost entirely hidden from
view, and inside which it was being carried, apparently by the front
door, for there was no other door to be seen; but as we stood in
perplexity, Herr von Walden, whose face had disappeared, emerged in
some mysterious way.

"You can come through the kitchen, ladies; or by the window, if you
please." But though the boys and Nora were got, or got themselves, in
through the window, Frau von Walden and I preferred the kitchen; and
I remember nothing more till we found ourselves all assembled--the
original eight as we had started--in a very low-roofed, sandy-floored,
tobacco-impregnated sort of cabin which, it appeared, was the
_salle-a-manger_ of the renowned hostelry "zur Katze" of Silberbach!

Herr von Walden was vigorously mopping his face. It was very red, and
naturally so, considering the weather and the want of ventilation
peculiar to the "Katze"; but it struck me there was something slightly
forced about the beamingness.

"So, so," he began; "all's well that ends well! But I must explain," and
he mopped still more vigorously, "that--there has been a slight, in
short, a little, mistake about the accommodation I wish to secure. The
supper I have seen to, and it will be served directly. But as to the
beds," and here he could not help laughing, "our worthy host has beds
enough"--we found afterwards that every available mattress and pillow in
the village had been levied--"but there is but one _bedroom_, or two, I
may say." For the poor Herr had not lost his time since his arrival.
Appalled by the want of resources, he had suggested the levy of beds,
and had got the host to spread them on the floor of a granary for
himself, the three young men, and Reggie; while his wife, Nora, an