After listening to similar gossip for a while, I descended the mountain-side, a short distance to the Bülowshöhe. This is a rocky shaft that shoots, upward from the mountain, having from its top a glorious view through the door which the Bode makes in passing out of the Hartz. I could see at a great distance the towers of Magdeburg, and further, the vast plain stretching away like a sea towards Berlin. From Thale, the village below, where the air was warmer than in the Hartz and the fruit-trees already in blossom, it was four hours' walk to Halberstadt, by a most tiresome road over long ranges of hills, all ploughed and planted, and extending as far as the eye could reach, without a single fence or hedge. It is pleasant to look over scenes where nature is so free and unshackled; but the _people_, alas! wear the fetters. The setting sun, which lighted up the old Brocken and his snowy top, showed me also Halberstadt, the end of my Hartz journey; but its deceitful towers fled as I approached, and I was half dead with fatigue on arriving there.
The ghostly, dark and echoing castle of an inn (the Black Eagle) where I stopped, was enough to inspire a lonely traveller, like myself, with unpleasant fancies. It looked heavy and massive enough to have been a stout baron's stronghold in some former century; the taciturn landlord and his wife, who, with a solemn servant girl, were the only tenants, had grown into perfect keeping with its gloomy character. When I groped my way under the heavy, arched portal into the guests' room--a large, lofty, cheerless hall--all was dark, and I could barely perceive, by the little light which came through two deep-set windows, the inmates of the house, sitting on opposite sides of the room. After some delay, the hostess brought a light. I entreated her to bring me something _instantly_ for supper, and in half an hour she placed a mixture on the table, the like of which I never wish to taste again. She called it _beer-soup_! I found, on examination, it was _beer_, boiled with meat, and seasoned strongly with pepper and salt! My hunger disappeared, and pleading fatigue as an excuse for want of appetite, I left the table. When I was ready to retire, the landlady, who had been sitting silently in a dark corner, called the solemn servant girl, who took up a dim lamp, and bade me follow her to the "sleeping chamber." Taking up my knapsack and staff, I stumbled down the steps into the arched gateway; before me was a long, damp, deserted court-yard, across which the girl took her way. I followed her with some astonishment, imagining where the sleeping chamber could be, when she stopped at a small, one-story building, standing alone in the yard. Opening the door with a rusty key, she led me into a bare room, a few feet square, opening into another, equally bare, with the exception of a rough bed. "Certainly," said I, "I am not to sleep here!" "Yes," she answered, "this is the sleeping chamber," at the same time setting down the light and disappearing. I examined the place--it smelt mouldy, and the walls were cold and damp; there had been a window at the head of the bed, but it was walled up, and that at the foot was also closed to within a few inches of the top. The bed was course and dirty; and on turning down the ragged covers, I saw with horror, a dark brown stain near the pillow, like that of blood! For a moment I hesitated whether to steal out of the inn, and seek another lodging, late as it was; at last, overcoming my fears, I threw my clothes into a heap, and lay down, placing my heavy staff at the head of the bed. Persons passed up and down the courtyard several times, the light of their lamps streaming through the narrow aperture up against the ceiling, and I distinctly heard voices, which seemed to be near the door. Twice did I sit up in bed, breathless, with my hand on the cane, in the most intense anxiety; but fatigue finally overcame suspicion, and I sank into a deep sleep, from which I was gladly awakened by daylight. In reality, there may have been no cause for my fears--I may have wronged the lonely innkeepers by them; but certainly no place or circumstances ever seemed to me more appropriate to a deed of robbery or crime. I left immediately, and when a turn in the street hid the ill-omened front of the inn, I began to breathe with my usual freedom.