WOOERS.

(A story in which many utterly improbable adventures happen.)

CHAPTER I.

Which treats of Sweethearts, Weddings, Clerks of the Privy Chancery, Perturbations, Witchcraft Trials, and other delectable matters.

On the night of the autumnal equinox, Mr. Tussmann, a clerk in the Privy Chancery, was making his way from the café, where he was in the habit of passing an hour or two regularly every evening, towards his lodgings in Spandau Street. The Clerk of the Privy Chancery was excessively regular and punctilious in every action of his life. He always had just done taking off his coat and his boots at the exact moment when the clocks of St. Mary's and St. Nicholas's churches struck eleven; so that, as the reverberating echo of the last stroke died away, he always drew his nightcap over his ears, and placed his feet in his roomy slippers.

On the night we are speaking of he, in order not to be late in going through those ceremonies (for the clocks were just going to strike eleven), was just going to turn out of King Street, round the corner of Spandau Street, with a rapid sweep--almost to be denominated a jump--when the sound of a strange sort of knocking somewhere in his immediate proximity rivetted him to the spot.

And he became aware that, down at the bottom of the Town-house Tower--rendered visible by the light of the neighbouring lamp--there was a tall, meagre figure standing, wrapped in a dark cloak, knocking louder and louder on the closed shutters of Mr. Warnatz, the ironmonger's shop (which, as everybody knows, is therein situated); knocking louder and louder, and then going back a few paces and sighing profoundly, gazing up as he did so at the windows of the Tower, which were shut.

"My dear sir," said the Clerk of the Privy Chancery, addressing this personage in a civil and courteous manner, "you are evidently under some misapprehension. There is not a single human creature up in that Tower; and indeed--if we except a certain number of rats and mice, and a few little owls--not a living thing. If you wish to provide yourself with something superior in the hardware line from Warnatz's celebrated emporium here, you will have to take the trouble to come back in the forenoon."

"Respected Herr Tussmann----" the stranger began.

And Tussmann chimed in with "Clerk of the Privy Chancery, of many years seniority." He was a little annoyed, too--astonished, at all events--that the stranger seemed to know him. But the latter did not seem to mind that in the least, but recommenced:

"Respected Herr Tussmann, you are kind enough to be making a complete mistake as to the nature of my proceedings here. I do not want ironmongery or hardware of any description; neither have I anything to do with Mr. Warnatz. This is the night of the autumnal equinox, and I want to see my future wife! She has heard my ardent and longing summons, and my sighs of affection, and she will come and show herself up at that window directly."

The hollow tones in which the man spoke these words had about them something so solemn--nay, so spectral and supernatural--that the Clerk of the Privy Chancery felt an icy shudder run through his veins. The first stroke of eleven rung down from the tower of St. Mary's, and as it did so, there came a clattering and a clinking up at the broken old window of the Tower, and a female form became visible at it. As the bright light of the street lamps fell upon the face of this figure, Tussmann whimpered out in lamentable tones, "Oh, ye just powers!--Oh, ye heavenly hosts!--what--what is this?"

At the last stroke of eleven--that is, at the moment when Tussmann generally put on his nightcap--the female figure vanished.

This extraordinary apparition seemed to drive the Clerk of the Privy Chancery completely out of his senses. He sighed, groaned, gazed up at the window, and whispered "Tussmann! Tussmann! Clerk of the Privy Chancery--bethink yourself, sir! Consider what you're about. Don't let your heart be troubled. Be not deceived by Satan, good soul."

"You seem to be put out by what you have seen, Mr. Tussmann," the stranger said. "I only wanted to see my sweetheart--my wife, that is to be. You must have seen something else, apparently."

"Please, please," Tussmann said in a whimper, "I should be so much obliged to you if you would be good enough to address me by my little title. I am Clerk of the Privy Chancery, and truly, at this moment, a greatly perturbed Clerk of the Privy Chancery--in fact, one almost out of his senses. I beg you, with all due respect, my very dear sir (though I regret that I am unable to style you by your proper title, as I have not the honour to be in the least acquainted with you, having never met you before--however, I shall address you as 'Herr Geheimer Rath'--'Mr. Privy Councillor'--there are such an extraordinary number of gentlemen here in Berlin bearing that title that one can scarcely be in error in applying it)--I beg you, therefore, Herr Geheimer Rath, to be so very kind as not to keep me longer in ignorance as to whom the lady, your future wife, may be, whom you expected to see here at this hour of the night."

"You're a curious fellow, you and your 'titles,'" the stranger said, raising his voice. "If a man who knows a number of secrets and mysteries, and can give good counsel too, is one of your 'privy' or 'secret' councillors, I think I may so style myself. I am surprised that a gentleman who is so well versed in ancient writings and curious manuscripts as you are, dear Mr. Tussmann, Clerk of the Privy Chancery, should not know that when an expert--an expert, observe!--knocks at the door of this Tower here--or even on the wall of it, on the night of the autumnal equinox, there will appear to him, up at yonder window, the girl who is to be the happiest and luckiest sweetheart in Berlin till the spring equinox comes round."

"Mr. Privy Councillor," Tussmann cried, as if in a sudden inspiration, and with joyful rapture--"Most respected Mr. Privy Councillor! is that really the case?"

"It is," said the stranger. "But what's the good of our standing in the street here any longer? It is past your bed time. Let us go to the new wine-shop in Alexander Street; just that you may hear a little more about this young lady, and recover your peace of mind, which something--I have no idea what--has disturbed so tremendously."

Tussmann was a most abstemious person. His sole recreation (for "dissipation" we cannot term it) consisted in his spending an hour or two every evening in a café; where, whilst he read assiduously political and other articles in newspapers, as well as books which he brought with him, he sipped a glass of good beer. Wine he seldom touched, except that after service on Sundays he allowed himself a small glass of Malaga with a biscuit, in a certain restaurant. To go about dissipating at nights was an abomination in his eyes. So that it seemed incomprehensible how, on this particular occasion, he allowed the stranger, who hurried away towards Alexander Street with long strides, resounding in the darkness, to carry him away with him without a word of objection.

When they came into the wine-shop there was nobody there but one single customer, sitting by himself at a table, with a big glass of Rhine wine before him. The depth of the wrinkled lines on his face indicated extreme age. His eyes were sharp and piercing, and his grand beard marked him as a Hebrew, faithful to the ancient laws and customs of his people. Also his costume was very much in the old Frankish style, as people dressed about the year 1720; and perhaps that was why he had the effect of having come back to life out of a period of