But the man, finding novel effects in the obscurity, continued to gaze on the rickety houses and bestowed only a transient portion of his curiosity on the few wayfarers who stolidly trudged past him to cross a bridge of no importance a little beyond his post.
One or two of the passengers, rather those of the gentler sex than the rude one, had, however, given attention to the figure which the flowing cloak did not wholly muffle.

With his dark complexion and slender form, not much in keeping with the thickset and heavy-footed natives, and his glistening black eyes, he made the corner where he ensconced himself appear the nook where an Italian or Spanish gallant was waylaying a rival in love.
Presently there was a change in the lighting of the scene, the gloom had become trying to his sight.

Not only were two lamps lit on the small bridge, one at each end in the ornate iron scroll work, which Quintin Matsys would not have disavowed, but, overhead, the sky was reddened by the reflection of the thousands of gas jets in the north and west; the gay and spendthrift city was awakening to life and mirth while the working town was going to bed.

This glimmer gave a fresh attraction to the architectural features, and still longer detained the spectator.
"Superb!" he muttered, in excellent German, without local peculiarity, as if he had learned it from professors, but there was a slight trace of an accent not native.

"It has even now the effect which Gustavus Adolphus termed: 'a gilded saddle on a lean jade!'" Then, shivering again, he added, struck as well by the now completely deserted state of the ways as by the cold wind: "How bleak and desolate! One could implore these carved wooden statues to come down and people the odd, interesting streets!" He was about to leave the spot, when, as though his wish was gratified, a strange sound was audible in the narrow and devious passages, between tottering houses, and those even more squalid in the rear, a commingling of shuffling and stamping feet, the smiting of heavy sticks on uneven stones and the dragging of wet rags.
Struck with surprise, if not with apprehension, he shrank back into the over-jutting porch of an old residence, with sculptured armorial bearings of some family long ago abased in its pride.