An old clock which hung by the wall pointed at the same instant to nine, and struck with a hoarse tone, “Cuckoo! cuckoo!” “What wretched taste is that!” said one of the travelers; “have you sold the handsome clock, and hung this up to plague yourselves the whole year through with its death-note?” “Yes, yes,” said the host, smiling; “make yourself merry, at your pleasure, over this bird; it brings me in yearly fifty Dutch guilders—a good crop that needs no tillage.” Four cannon shots were heard at the same moment. “O heavens!” shrieked Peter Joostens; “the feast has begun. The women take my life with their hunting here and there.” “But, Peter Joostens,” asked one of the travelers, “what is this that is going on in the village? Is it the wake?—that would be odd on a Thursday—or is the king coming to the village?” “It is a very extraordinary thing,” replied the host; “it is an unheard-of thing. If you knew the story, you might fill a whole book with it, without any invention. And the old cuckoo here has its place in Blind Rosa’s story.” “Blind Rosa!” said the younger traveler, astonished; “what a charming title! That would make a fine counterpart to ‘The Sick Youth.’” “Nay, that wont do,” said the elder; “if we go out together to collect material for stories, we must honorably divide the spoil.” “Well, we can hereafter draw lots for it,” said the younger, half regretfully. “In the meantime,” observed the elder, “we actually know nothing. Pull down your detestable shirt collar from your ears, Peter Joostens, and begin and regularly tell us all; and for your reward you shall have a book as soon as it is printed.” “Now I have no time for it,” answered the host; “I hear my wife coming down stairs; but come along with us to the village, and on the way I will tell you why the cannon are fired and the music plays.” The hostess entered the room, and dazzled the travelers’ eyes by her dress, so did it blaze in all the colors of the rainbow. She rushed up to her husband, pulled up his shirt collar again higher than ever, took his arm, and issued out of doors with him. The two travelers accompanied them, and Peter Joostens related on the way to his attentive hearers the whole story of Tall Jan and Blind Rosa; and though he had almost talked himself out of breath, he became besieged with all sorts of questions. They learned of him, however, that Herr Slaets bought of him the old cuckoo clock, that it might hang in its former place in the inn; that tall Jan had been four-and-thirty years in Russia, and in the fur trade had become a very rich man. That he had bought an estate, and meant to live upon it with Blind Rosa and the besom-maker Nelis’s family, whose children he had already adopted. That he had given the grave-digger a considerable sum of money; and, finally, that this evening there was to be held a grand folks-feast on the estate, for which occasion a whole calf was to be roasted, and two whole copper-fulls of rice furmety to be boiled.