The children came with me. I had some trouble in disinterring the landlord, but at last I found him, of course with a pipe in his mouth, hanging about the premises. He listened to me civilly enough, but when I waited for his reply as to whether the _Einspaenner_ would be ready about twelve o'clock, he calmly regarded me without speaking. I repeated my inquiry. "At twelve?" he said calmly. "Yes, no doubt the gracious lady might as well fix twelve as any other hour, for there was no such thing as a horse, much less an _Einspaenner_, to be had at Silberbach." I stared at him in my turn. "No horse, no carriage to be had! How do people ever get away from here then?" I said. "They don't get away--that is to say, if they come at all, they go as they came, in the carriage that brought them; otherwise they neither come nor go. The lady came on foot: she can go on foot; otherwise she can stay." There seemed something sinister in his words. A horrible, ridiculous feeling came over me that we were caught in a net, as it were, and doomed to stay at Silberbach for the rest of our lives. But I looked at the man. He was simply stolid and indifferent. I did not believe then, nor do I now, that he was anything worse than sulky and uncivilised. He did not even care to have us as his visitors: he had no wish to retain us nor to speed us on our way. Had we remained at the "Katze" from that day to this, I don't believe he would have ever inquired what we stayed for! "I _cannot_ walk back to Seeberg," I said half indignantly, "we are too tired; nor would it be safe through the forest alone with two children." The landlord knocked some ashes off his pipe. "There may be an ox-cart going that way next week," he observed. "Next week!" I repeated. Then a sudden idea struck me. "Is there a post-office here?" I said. Of course there was a post-office; where can one go in Germany where there is not a post and telegraph office? "The telegraph officials must be sadly overworked here," I said to myself. But as far as mine host was concerned, I satisfied myself with obtaining the locality of the post-office, and with something like a ray of hope I turned to look for the children. They had been amusing themselves with the piano in the now empty room, but as I called to them, Reggie ran out with a very red face. "I wish I were a man, mamma. Fancy! a peasant--one of those men who were drinking beer--came and put his arm around Nora as she was playing. '_Du spielst schoen_,' he said, and I _do_ believe he meant to kiss her, if I hadn't shaken my fist at him." "Yes, indeed, mamma," said Nora, equally but more calmly indignant. "I certainly think the sooner we get away the better." I had to tell them of my discomfiture, but ended with my new idea. "If there is a post-office," I said, "the mail must stop there, and the mail takes passengers."