The Argosy — page 155: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

140 Under Northern Skies. habit of this small place ; and habit is second nature. The familiar ceases to be strange. Allinge possesses some 800 inhabitants. It consists very much of one long street, built almost on the water’s edge. Opposite the very house just described was the small harbour: a harbour within a harbour, as it were; so that little vessels coming in performed a zigzag. It was strongly constructed, with a small lighthouse. <A few fishing boats lay in its shelter, and at low water we found that the less said about the smells the better. Just beyond the harbour was the inn, to which Jehu conducted us in state. We passed under a gate-way into a great court-yard ; a dog barked us a welcome ; lights gleamed in the windows; there was a small stir and commotion ; a fat landlady attended by a bustling hand-maiden came out upon the steps. No doubt about our remaining here for the night. Rooms were quickly given to us, small but clean and satisfactory. They looked on to the sea, and we could watch the fishing-boats putting out. The whole place was primitive, but it was quiet. The rooms opened on to the general sitting-room, where travellers took their meals, and where we had to deposit our boots. How travellers manage who, on arriving, find a roomful, it was difficult toimagine. It cannot bea comfortable sensation to put down your boots in the face of a dozen people at supper. Besides, a man without his boots feels taken at a disadvantage. Yet this once happened at Allerheiligen, in the Black Forest. We had arrived late at night and gone straight to our room. Presently we opened the door, expecting vacancy and a passage. But behold a large room, once the refectory of the monks, and to-night the refectory of lay men and women all earnestly engaged in supper. There seemed to be a thousand present, and probably there were at least forty. In a moment eighty eyes were focussed in one direction. We were probably taken for a ghost, for these were ghostly quarters, and we were in ghostly costume, ready to step into our well-earned couch. ‘The sensation was horrible. Some of the ladies screamed, and perhaps some of them fainted ; whilst we beat a hasty retreat, and mentally consigned the whole company to the regions of the departed monks. Here at Allinge we found no such disaster. ‘The sitting-room was empty and quiet. ‘There might be ghosts lurking about, but they were invisible. We do not dread the spirits of another world half so much as the grosser substances of this. Very soon the whole place was in repose. We watched for a time the lights of the fishing craft upon the calm, clear waters of the Baltic. Now and then a far off voice or a song came rolling quietly over the tranquil surface. ‘Then we, too, turned in, and soon all was lost in oblivion. At Aller- heiligen our dreams had been haunted by a myriad eyes, but here we slept the dreamless sleep of the just: until early, too early, the next morning, the chambermaid woke us to another day, and we found the sun already high and brilliant in the heavens. CORMICMOOOKS.(E©)