GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE PLACE. THE INN. LUDICROUS MISTAKES. THE PUBLIC ROOM. ASTONISHMENT OF THE PEOPLE AT THE SIGHT OF ENGLISHMEN. THE PRIESTS. SCENE IN THE TAP-ROOM. KINDNESS OF THE PEOPLE. OUR FISHING OPERATIONS. A CHASSE, AND A DAYLIGHT BALL.
Gabel, though a place of some extent, and containing a population of three or four thousand souls, possesses no corporate rights. On the contrary, it is subject to the jurisdiction of a noble, whose schloss stands, as I have stated above, close to the suburbs, where it is encircled by a wider space of green than attaches to the dwellings of the Bohemian nobility in general. There is no manufactory in the place, but a great deal of spinning and weaving,--occupations which the people pursue in their own houses; and the streets, with the exception of the market-place, and another which leads from the market-place to the church, are narrow and steep.
We had no difficulty in discovering the inn, to which our informant outside the town had directed us; and we made for it accordingly. The exterior was promising enough; for it had a wide front, many windows, and considerable elevation; so we passed beneath the archway, nothing doubting, and looked round for a door. One on the left stood open, and seeing a staircase before us, we ascended, but soon stopped short when on the landing-place we beheld some men in huge cocked hats, feathers, and swords; while others, in more peaceable attire, were bearing under their arms a parcel of uniforms. "We have mistaken our ground," said I to my companion; "this must be a barrack, or else there is a regiment marching through the town, and these apartments are assigned to them as quarters." Accordingly we hurried back again; and seeing another door, exactly opposite to that which we had first essayed, we pushed it open. We were right this time; for on traversing a narrow passage, we found ourselves in the hall or kitchen.
The hall or kitchen of a third or fourth-rate German inn, may not, perhaps, be familiar to some of my readers; so I will describe it. Imagine, then, an apartment thirty or forty feet long by twenty wide, and perhaps ten or twelve in height. Four or five windows front you as you enter, beside which are arranged, in the old style of our English coffee-rooms, as many deal tables, with benches ranged along three sides of each, and a few chairs covering the other. These leave about half the width of the room free; a portion of which is, however, engrossed by a large temporary closet, while the stove, in the present instance a very capacious machine of the sort, occupies as much more. For there is no visible fire-place any where, and all the cooking that goes forward is conducted at the stove,--or, as the Germans appropriately call it, the oven. Then, again, there is a bench fastened to the side of the oven, where in winter, the wet, and cold, and weary may rest; while finally, at the head of the apartment is a small table, whereon the landlady, almost always one of the inmates of the hall, plies her needle-work and eats her meals.