In listening to such details one hour was spent. Another passed away in watching from the window such objects as this most quiet of quiet Bohemian burghs might produce. And of these there was one which, being associated with the memory of other days, interested me not a little. There is a fountain in the middle of the market-place, into which one stream of fresh water is continually flowing, while another drains off from it. Hither the women bring their clothes to be washed; not in the fountain itself, but in their own tubs, which they range round it; and the proceedings of one of these industrious damsels amused me much. She filled her tub to the brim, and then kilting her petticoats, set to work tramping with might and main, precisely as, in years long gone by, I have seen a Scotch girl do, on the Back-walk at Stirling, or the Calton Hill in Edinburgh. What a strange thing is association, and how easily is it called into play by the veriest trifles. The woman's legs had nothing to boast of in the way of symmetry, but I confess that I watched them, in their alternate rise and fall, with a degree of interest such as I have not for many a day bestowed on any other pair of understandings, whether male or female. The legs at length disappeared, for the curtain of the petticoats was dropped, and with it fell all the bright and glowing visions of boyhood, in which I had been indulging. I felt once more that I was neither in life's prime, nor a denizen of "bonny Scotland;" so I listened to certain suggestions which my young companion had for some time been making, and agreed to accompany him a little way down the course of the Bober, while he tried to fish. We went accordingly, but to no purpose. The Bober does not become a trout-stream till long after it has lost sight of the source from whence it springs, and we had our walk, with the conversation of the young burgomaster and a friend of his, a learned baker in the village, as our reward. The historical researches of the latter gentleman had been very extensive, and he possessed a laudable zeal to make this known. He was very curious to know whether Lord Cromwell were yet alive, or the king of England's head put on again. I did my best to satisfy him on these interesting topics; but I doubt whether I succeeded; for on my assuring him that there was no Lord Cromwell, and that the head of William IV. had never been cut off, he eyed me with a glance of peculiar distrust.