He was almost naked; and there was blood upon his hands and body, and great tears in his beautiful eyes, and his face was like the face of the Saviour on the cross.  Not a single word did he say to the poor woman; but looked at her compassionately, and gave her a loaf of bread, and took the little babe in his arms, and kissed it.  Then the mother looked up to the great crucifix, but there was no image there; and she shrieked and fell down as if she were dead.  And there she was found with her child; and a few days after they both died, and were buried together in one grave.  And nobody would have believed her story, if a woman, who lived at the corner, had not gone to the window, when she heard the scream, and seen the figure hang the lantern up in its place, and then set the ladder against the wall, and go up and nailitself to the cross.  Since that night it has never moved again.  Ach!  Herr Je!”

Such was the legend of the Christ of Andernach, as the old woman in spectacles told it to Flemming.  It made a painful impression on his sick and morbid soul; and he felt now for the first time in full force, how great is the power of popular superstition.

The post-chaise was now at the door, and Flemming was soon on the road to Coblentz, a city which stands upon the Rhine, at the mouth of the Mosel, opposite Ehrenbreitstein.  It is by no means a long drive from Andernach to Coblentz; and the only incident which occurred to enliven the way was the appearance of a fat, red-faced man on horseback, trotting slowly towards Andernach.  As they met, the mad little postilion gave him a friendly cut with his whip, and broke out into an exclamation, which showed he was from Munster;

“Jesmariosp! my friend!  How is the Man in the Custom-House?”

Now to any candid mind this would seem a fair question enough; but not so thought the red-faced man on horseback; for he waxed exceedingly angry, and replied, as the chaise whirled by;

“The devil take you, and your Westphalian ham, and pumpernickel!”

Flemming called to his servant, and the servant to the postilion, for an explanation of this short dialogue; and the explanation was, that on the belfry of the Kaufhaus in Coblentz, is a huge head, with a brazen helmet and a beard; and whenever the clock strikes, at each stroke of the hammer, this giant’s head opens its great jaws and smites its teeth together, as if, like the brazen head of Friar Bacon, it would say; “Time was; Time is; Time is past.”  This figure is known through all the country round about, as “The Man in the Custom-House”; and, when a friend in the country meets a friend from Coblentz, instead of saying, “How are all the good people in Coblentz?”—­he says, “How is the Man in the Custom-House?” Thus the giant has a great partto play in the town; and thus ended the first day of Flemming’s Rhine-journey; and the only good deed he had done was to give an alms to a poor beggar woman, who lifted up her trembling hands and exclaimed;