The feast went on merrily, or at least noisily, for the guests were all blessed with those keen appetites that attend upon light purses and mountain air. The Baron told his best and longest stories, and never held he told them so well, or with such great effect. If there was anything marvelous, his auditors were lost in astonishment; and if anything mg facetious, they were sure to laugh exactly in the right place.
The Huron, it is true, like most great men, was too dignified to utter any join- but a dull one: it was always enforced, however, by a bumper of client Hochheimer; and even a dull joke, at one` own table, unveil up with jolly old wine, is irresistible. Many good things were mild by poorer and keener wits that would not bear repeating, except mi similar occasions; many sly speeches whispered in ladie` ears that impose convulsed them with suppressed laughter; and a song or two rim red out by a poor, but merry and broad faced cousin of the Baron, I hid absolutely made the maiden aunts hold up their fans.
Amid all this revelry, the stranger-guest maintained a most singular and unseasonable gravity. His countenance assumed a deeper cast of dejection as the evening advanced, and, strange as it may appear, even the Baron` jokes seemed only to render him the more melancholy. At times he was lost in thought, and at times there was a perturbed and restless wandering of the eye that bespoke a mind but ill at ease. His conversation with the bride became more and more earnest and mysterious. Lowering clouds began to steal over the fair serenity of her brow, and tremors to run through her tender frame.
Company
All this could not escape the notice of the company. Their gaiety was chilled by the unaccountable gloom of the bridegroom; their spirits were infected; whispers and glances were interchanged, accompanied by shrugs and dubious shakes of the head. The song and the laugh grew less and less frequent: there were dreary pauses in the conversation, which were at length succeeded by wild tales and supernatural legends. One dismal story produced another still more dismal, and the Baron nearly frightened some of the ladies into hysterics with the history of the goblin horseman that carried away the fair Leonora—a dreadful, but true story, which has since been put into excellent verse, and is read and believed by all the world.
The bridegroom listened to this tale with profound attention. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the Baron, and, as the story drew to a close, began gradually to rise from his seat, growing taller and taller, until, in the Baron` entranced eye, he seemed almost to tower into a giant. The moment the tale was finished, he heaved a deep sigh, and took a solemn farewell of the company. They were all amazement. The Baron was perfectly thunderstruck.
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