The Company Returned To The Tavern, For They Could Not Leave It Before
The Storm Should Subside.
They resumed their seats and gazed on each
other with dismay.
The whole transaction had not occupied five minutes
and not a dozen words had been spoken. When they looked at the oaken
chair they could scarcely realize the fact that the strange being who
had so lately tenanted it, full of life and Herculean vigor, should
already be a corpse. There was the very glass he had just drunk from;
there lay the ashes from the pipe which he had smoked as it were with
his last breath. As the worthy burghers pondered on these things, they
felt a terrible conviction of the uncertainty of human existence, and
each felt as if the ground on which he stood was rendered less stable
by this awful example.
As, however, the most of the company were possessed of that valuable
philosophy which enables a man to bear up with fortitude against the
misfortunes of his neighbors, they soon managed to console themselves
for the tragic end of the veteran. The landlord was happy that the poor
dear man had paid his reckoning before he went.
"He came in a storm, and he went in a storm; he came in the night, and
he went in the night; he came nobody knows from whence, and he has gone
nobody knows where. For aught I know he has gone to sea once more on
his chest and may land to bother some people on the other side of the
world!
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