"Here yet, and hope to be for many a year to come," answered the fat host; "and you are here, not for the first time, I dare swear; but who you are, or when you last were here----
"_Ein Amerikaner!_ A _studiosus juris_, of the Pestilentia. _Ein alter Bursch_ of ten years back! Remember? Surely, all but the name."
"And what's in a name?" shaking the offered hand of the landlord. "Mine is a mouthful for you--Claghorn."
"_Herr Doktor_ Clokhorn. That's it. Not so great a mouthful after all." He led the way into the well-remembered garden. "Many a schoppen have you had here," he said; "and many a time sung '_Alter Burschen Herrlichkeit_' at this very table, and many trout----"
"Devoured," interrupted Mark. "That pastime will bear repetition. As for singing, one loses the desire."
"Not so," observed the fat host. "I am sixty, but I lead the Liederkranz to-day. Wine, woman and song--you know what Luther said----"
"I remember. But not even the Great Reformer's poetry is to be taken too literally. We'll discuss the point later on. Now some trout, then a pipe and a gossip."
When the host departed to attend to the order, Mark unstrapped his knapsack and looked about him.
He had come thousands of miles to see this garden! He admitted the foolish fact to himself, though even to his mother he would have denied it. The fat host was right; he had drunk many a flask of wine in this place, roared in many a chorus, had danced many a waltz with village maidens on yonder platform; but of these various scenes of his student days he had not thought until his host recalled them. They were memories, even memories with some of that tender sadness which renders such memories pleasant, but such as they would never have drawn him here.
And now that he was here, so sharp a pain was in his heart that he recognized his folly. The wound was yet too new. He should have waited a decade or more. Then he might have found solace in recalling her to his mind, here where first he had seen her; he, in all the arrogant pride of youth; she, with all the fresh beauty of a school girl. Now no effort was needed to recall her to his memory--she was ever present.
Nevertheless, he enjoyed his fish and his wine. "A superlative vintage," said the host, who had had time to recall his guest more distinctly, and who remembered that in past days _Studiosus Clokhorn_ had dispensed money with a liberal hand.