The Czika had shown the wonderful self-control which this remarkable child never lost but for a few moments, and was going on with the collection as if nothing had happened. She did not even cast a glance at Oswald as he went back to the carriage, almost forced to do so by Franz. The carriage drove off. The crowd had quickly seized upon the fable of Oswald's insanity, which Franz had invented with such admirable presence of mind, and dispersed all the more rapidly as the increasing coolness of the evening air reminded them forcibly of the warm supper that awaited them in their warm rooms at home. CHAPTER IV. It was a few hours later. The evening had come completely. The mountains of Fichtenau were wrapped in their double veils of night and mist; on the dark sky a few lonely stars peeped here and there through the drifting clouds. The narrow streets of the little town were deserted; lights, however, were shining from the windows of the low, simple houses. People were sitting around the stove after their frugal suppers, and the husband told his wife, who for good reasons had not been able to venture into a crowd, what wonderful feats of strength, agility, and skill he had seen outside of the town on the great meadow; how an insane gentleman had driven up with his physician (who no doubt was bringing him to Doctor Birkenhain's great institution), and how he had embraced the pretty gypsy girl, who was going around with the plate, before all the people. The old, half-deaf grandmother, who was nodding in her arm-chair near the stove, and only heard half of what he was saying, remarked, "Yes, yes! gypsies are the devil's children; everybody knows that. My sainted great-grandfather lent a hand when five of them were burned on the great meadow." There was great feasting that night in the Green Hat, a low drover's inn near the gates of the town, and not far from the great meadow. The Green Hat was also the headquarters of all wandering rope-dancers, and therefore a most attractive place for all lovers of art among the people of Fichtenau.