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It was six o'clock when we reached the inn at Hayde, faint, hungry, and foot-sore.
We quitted Hayde without regret; and though still foot-sore with yesterday's travel, contrived to reach Burgstein, which is about three English miles distant, between twelve and one o'clock. It is an inconsiderable village, prettily situated under the felsen, or crags, from which it derives its name; and can boast of its schloss, the residence of Graff Kinsky, as yet a child.
There lay Hayde, a compact and apparently well-built town; about three miles to the right of it, and nestling back its own cliffs, was Burgstein; while farther off Gabel, Reichstadt, with a countless number of villages besides, told of the busy hands by which these fair fields were tilled and kept in order.
I do not recollect that anything worthy of mention befel till we reached Kamnitz, an old town, and the centre of a circle, through which it behoved us to pass, in order to gain first Stein Jena, and ultimately Hayde. The town itself lies in a hollow, and is begirt near at hand by well-wooded hills; but in itself it offers few attractions to the stranger.
And the landlady's heart being fairly won, all the rest was easy. The husband, as in duty bound, fell into his wife's views, and the servants took their cue from their superiors. In Hayde, however, though we so far gained our end, that a good supper with a comfortable apartment were afforded us, we have no right to boast of our progress in the hostess's affections.
Gabel was our point, towards which from Hayde a good chaussée runs; but we had no disposition to retrace our steps to Hayde, so, trusting in part to the map, in part to the directions which our good-natured hostess gave us, we struck across the country at a venture.
Then came the settling of the bill, which seemed to please him better, and we were once more en route. Our point to-day was Hayde, a town which our informants described as distant from Tetchen about seven stunden, that is to say, seven hours' good walking, in other words, from twenty-one to twenty-four English miles.
It is separated from the fells, or rugged hills, which form the northern boundary of the wide vale of Hayde, by a space of about two or three hundred yards; sufficiently wide to place it, in the days of cross-bows and ballistas, pretty well beyond the reach of insult, but by far too narrow to be of the slightest avail against cannon, and even musketry.
Hayde, which is a burgh town, having its burgomaster and other civic authorities, contains a population of between two and three thousand souls, and can boast of a large warehouse, or handlung, in which are exhibited and sold the mirrors and other articles in glass that are fabricated at Burgstein.
Perhaps, indeed, it may be as well to state, that our first reception, even in Bohemia, was not always flattering. Yet somehow or another, it invariably came to pass, with the solitary exception of Hayde, where our usual tactics failed us, that before we had been ten minutes under the roof of a Bohemian innkeeper, not only he, but his whole household, were at our devotion.
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