blue eyes he had then peeped a little too much. In a few
words, Johannes Wacht became master, married the virtuous maiden of
Erlangen, and soon contrived through industry and skill to purchase a
pretty house on the Kaulberg,[4] which had a large tract of garden
ground stretching away back up the hill, and there he settled down for
life.

But upon whom does the friendly star of good fortune shine unchangeably
with the same degree of splendour at all times? Providence had decreed
that our honest Johannes should be submitted to a trial under which
perhaps any other man, with less firmness of spirit, would have sunk.
The first fruit of this very happy marriage was a son, an excellent
youth, who appeared to be walking steadfastly in his father's
footsteps. He was eighteen years of age when one night a large fire
broke out not far from Wacht's house. Father and son hurried to the
spot, agreeably to their calling, to help in extinguishing the flames.
Along with other carpenters the son boldly clambered up to the roof in
order to cut away its burning framework, as far as could be done. His
father, who had remained below, as he always did, to direct the
demolition of walls, &c., and to superintend the work of extinction,
looked up and seeing the imminent danger shouted, "Johannes! men! come
down! come down!" Too late--with a fearful crash the wall fell in; the
son lay struck to death in the flames, which leapt up crackling louder
as if in horrid triumph.

But this terrible blow was not the only one which was to fall upon poor
Johannes. An inconsiderate maid-servant burst with a frantic cry of
distress into her mistress' room, who was only partly convalescent from
a distracting nervous disorder, and was in great uneasiness and anxiety
about the fire, the dark-red reflection of which was flickering on the
walls of her chamber. "Your son, your Johannes, is killed; the wall has
buried him and his comrades in the middle of the flames," screamed the
girl. As though stung with sharp, sudden pain, her mistress raised
herself up in the bed; but breathing out a deep sigh, she sank back
upon the cushions again. She was struck with paralysis of the nerves;
she was dead.

"Now let us see," said the citizens, "how Master Wacht will bear his
great trouble. He has often enough preached to us that a man ought not
to succumb to the greatest misfortune, but ought to bear his head erect
and strive with the strength which the Creator has planted