As the shadows deepen and darkness falls upon the plain, our visitor joins the groups which are now fast leaving the meadow, and re-passes the great embrasure just as the rushlights begin to twinkle in the windows and a swinging oil-lamp to cast a dim light here and there in the streets.

But as his company passes out of a narrow lane debouching on to the chief market-place, their progress is stopped by the sudden rush of a mingled crowd of unruly apprentices and journeymen returning from their sports, with hot heads well beliquored.

Then from another side-street there is a sudden flare of torches, borne aloft by guildsmen come out to quell the tumult and to send off the apprentices to their dwellings, whilst the watch also bears down and carries off some of the more turbulent of the journeymen to pass the night in one of the towers which guard the city wall.

At last, however, the visitor reaches his inn by the aid of a friendly guildsman and his torch; and retiring to his chamber, with its straw-covered floor, rough oaken bedstead, hard mattress, and coverings not much better than horse-cloths, he falls asleep as the bell of the minster tolls out ten o'clock over the now dark and silent city.
Such approximately would have been the view of a German city in the sixteenth century as presented to a traveller in a time of peace.

More stirring times, however, were as frequent--times when the tocsin rang out from the steeple all night long, calling the citizens to arms.