PYNNSHURST. PYNNSHURST: HIS WANDERINGS AND WATS OF THINKING. JDonalir itlacCcoir. "Nonjenetiendralsplasmonlivre in petto. Le Yoili, Messieurs, lizez-j'al entrepris et ex6cnt6 un voyage." XAVIEB DK MAISTBE. NEW YORK: Charles Scrtimrr. 1852. Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1S52, by CIIAKLES SCKIBNEK, In the Clerk's Ofiicc of t.be District Court of the United States for UK Southern District of New York. C. tT. BKNEDICr. 6TEREOTTPF.It, 201 TTllHam Street. CONTENTS. BOOK I. Pago L How I CAME TO WRITE, . . 7 II. GOING AWAY, . . . .11 IIL IMPRESSIONS OF HUGH PYNNSHUCST NATURE, . 10 IV. IMPRESSIONS OF PrNNsnunsx PASSENGEBS, . . 18 V. LE HAVRE, .... 21 VL LITTLE PAQUETTB, . . . .28 VIL THE LADY IN THE DILIGENCE, . . 33 VIII. A CEOOKKD STREET, . . . .88 IX. OVER THE MOUNTAIN, . . 43 X. THE FAIRY WITHOUT A HEEL, . . KJ //. L ALPS, . . . . .63 II. FIBST Cojonnnow, ... 73 III. CLKMENCE, . . . . .78 IV. SISTER-LOVE, . . . . 84 V. UP THE MOUNTAIN, . . . 104 VI. THE COACHMAN'S STOET, . . . Ill VII. TUB SHADOW or MONT BLANC, . . 116 2037915 COHTENTS. BOOK III. Toge L LAST LOOK AT THE LAKE, . . . 123 IL MOBAT, . . . .126 III. CHRONICLE OF CHABLES THE BOLD, . . .131 IV. FBIBOUBG, . .133 V. LION-HUNTING, .... 142 VL ALONG THE SARINE, ... 157 VII. THE EX-PEDAGOGUE, . . . . 165 VIII. BORN TO BE HANGED MAT BE DROWNED, . . 173 IX. GOD'S SHAKE, . . . .177 X. MOLESON, . . . .183 XL MR. Kirrs, .... 191 BOOK IV. L DDTCK BEBCHTHOLD'S STBONO CITT, . . . 201 II. ON TO INTEBLAKEN, ... 217 I1L MANFBED'S CASTLE, .... 230 IV. STAUBBACH, . . . . 233 V. DIE JlJNGFBAU, .... 287 VL JUNGFEACANA, . . . 243 VIL DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, .... 247 VIII. MORE CLIMBING, . . . . 252 IX. KosENLAUi, . . - . .262 X. THE HOSPICE, . ... 266 XI THE BIRTH OF TH* RUONE, . . .272 CONTENTS. BOOK V. Pago I. A SlCK-IlEADACHH, . . 279 II. A STORY OF THE DEVIL, . . . 289 IIL PREFACE, . . . . .290 IV. ABOUT TELL, . . . .299 V. THE WHITE BULL, . . . 805 VI. LUCERNE, .... 814 VIL THE LION OF LUCERNE, . . . 817 VIII. PONTIUS PILATE, . . ^ . .825 IX. GENEVIETE, . . . .829 X. A SHOBT CHAPTER, . . . 835 XL ROSENBERG, . . 835 XII. NOTHING BUT A KNOT OF RIBBON, . . 84G XIII. OUR LADY or THE HERMITS, . .- . S54 XIV. A FRIGHT, . . .860 XV. IDA YON ToGGENBtrsGH, . . .866 BOOK VI. I. ZURICH, . , . 877 II. MR. PYNNSIIUBST'S POKC, . . .889 IIL RHMHFALL, . . . .897 IV. A SONG, . . . 405 V. THE MAN IN THE OMNIBUS, . . . 410 VI. THE HOUSE OF HABSBOURG, . . 418 VII. ALICE, ... ,413 BOOK I. GOTHAM AND JURA. Wohlaut; noch getrunken den funkelnden Weln, Ade nun Ihr Lieben, geschieden muss sein, Ade nun Ihr Berge, du vaterlich llaus, Es treibt in die Feme mich mSchtig hinaua. PYNNSHURST : HIS WANDERINGS AND WAYS OF THINKING. 1. * Tai entrepria et ex6cut6 one yoyage." X AVIEB D* MAIBTSE. How I CAME TO WRITE. WHEN I was in Europe in the year 18 , I often com- muned with myself as to the nature of my duties towards my own land, the " green forest land " of the poets ; the " land of the free and the home of the brave," mentioned in our national anthem. I thought of volunteering to serve her in an ambassadorial character, for the ridiculously small sum of nine thousand a year, and nine thousand outfit ; but remembering that such a proposal might give rise to misrepresentation of motives, I determined to abstain from it. 8 PYNXSIIURST. I next thought of marrying a princess, and then forming an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the " land" before- mentioned, much to its benefit ; but I had to contend with so many old and deeply-rooted prejudices that I failed in this too ; and it is with sorrow that I feel obliged, thus publicly, to state, that, though I resided in their dominions for some time, and though I waived ceremony and called on them first, not one of the reigning sovereigns of Europe ever asked me to tea ! After this I formed various plans, but none met with better success than the two already mentioned. At last, one fine evening, as I ruminated on the shore of the Lac des Quatre Cantons, a luminous idea smote me. " I have it," I exclaimed, " Eureka ! O my country, I will write you a book." It was when impressed with a sense of the importance of this resolution that I asked myself, What book shall I write ? A question, you observe, of no little moment. It should not be a mere travel-book, nor a romance, nor yet a history, nor a geographical dissertation ; but a hachis, a mingling of utile and dulce, a kind of literary punch or pudding. Finally, I decided as you will see. It may surprise you to know that they are not my own adventures which I am about to relate. Mine are still more interesting, but I keep them back for the ninth edition of this work. But one day, on the Faulhorn, I met a person who looked HOW I CAME TO WRITE. 9 like a countryman, saluted him and passed by. We were on the edge of a precipice, walking upon a level road about seven feet wide. On one side was the perpendicular rock ; but, at its outer line, the road shelved abruptly to the edge of the precipice which hung over an awful chasm three h'undred feet in depth. There was snow a foot deep upon it. I heard oie half-muffled cry, and turned to see what I trust never to see again. He had walked too near the outer edge, and the snow had slipped from under him, and in an instant he was three feet from the line of the level, and slowly, slowly, the snow was yielding to his weight, and slowly, but ceaselessly, he slided towards the brink, carrying the white mass with him. Not any other cry escaped him ; but he raised his wild, black eyes to mine as I stood opposite him. There was beauty on his face, but it was white, white with horror. A yard, perhaps, of space was between his feet now and the edge, and his hands were griping convulsively at the rock left bare above him, at the cold and slippery stone ; and without pause, but yet more fearful for its slowness, it went on, as you have seen the wreaths upon the house-top sliding downwards at the noon-day thaw. I had a large Scotch plaid, and setting my staff in a crevice, and held firmly by my guide, I cast the end toward him, and as his foot passed the ledge, he caught the fringe. 10 TYNNSHUBST. In the moment's pause, I noticed bis position. One leg was cramped up under him ; one foot hung over the deep ; the lips were set so firmly and were so white that I could barely see their line. Only the large black eyes kept their awful look on mine ; the hands had burst the gloves in their terrible gripe upon the fringe ; the fringe was sewed upon the plaid, and as I looked, it parted ! I closed my eyes, and sickened, and fell back upon the snow. When I recovered from my stupor, my guide was filling my mouth with kirschenwasser, and the stranger was stand- ing at my feet. His face was still colorless ; a face of ineffable pride. But as I rose wonderingly, he took off his hat and said in a sweet voice a few simple thanks for the service I had rendered him. In my terror, I had not noticed that, as the plaid-fringe began to give way, my guide had gotten his rope loose and had thrown it to the stranger. It was thus that he was saved ; and it was thus that an acquaintance began between us, which soon ripened into an earnest friendship. They are scraps from his experience that you will find here. This is all the preface which I have to offer. If you like it Well ! If you like it not Well ! Peace be with you ! and may your lives be as long and as tough as that of our " last relic of the Revolution," who has died eleven times a month, ever since I was born, and continues to renew the phenomenon weekly, up to date. Hail, and farewell ! II. GOING AWAY. THERE was a great bustle at the foot of the pier. Large men, with gruff voices and shaggy great coats, bel- lowed tumultuously ; sailors worked at a mass of ropes of a dreadfully entangled appearance ; timid, heavy ladies were got with much trouble upon the deck of the packet ; trunks were dashed about in a manner to excite the indignation of their owners ; idlers stood, hand in pocket, on the wharf, gazing vacantly at the ship ; knots of men and women were saying " adieu" upon the quarter-deck ; two gentlemen from the interior were walking curiously about, poking their sticks at every block and coil of rope, and then looking at it as if they thought that possibly it was alive, and might call out suddenly, " Look here ! just stop that, will you 1" 12 I'YNNSIIURST. At last they began to plague a dog chained to the railing, but were checked by a voice which called out, " Best leave him aloae ; he's wicious." But as they did not discover the source whence the warning proceeded, they persisted in their amusement, until the animal made a sudden leap and snapped a piece out of one gentleman's leg. As he drew violently back and rubbed the wound, a mate, owner of the voice, advanced and in- formed them that, " Hyderphoby was hereditary in the family of that there dog." Whereupon the two gentlemen went immediately over the side, and " never came there no more." Standing by the quarter railing a young man was looking steadily over the bay towards the Narrows, the only solitary pei-son in the ship. Behind him a beautiful girl was talking in a low voice with two gentlemen, casting a look, every moment, at the motionless figure before her. Suddenly, as the captain shouted " All ashore," he turned his pallid face towards the little group, and without speaking a word, without moving the compressed lips, he pressed the hands of the two gentlemen, and, bending down, kissed the girl's cheek, which was whiter now than his own. Then ho turned again and looked towards the sea. His name was Hugh Pynnshurst. In the still pride of his face, you could read the story of GOING AWAY. 13 much suffering, borne alone, and felt the keener that it had had no utterance. One blow had swept from him the last things which he had to cling to ; he had been slandered without power to prove his innocence ; his self-defence was thought an unpro- voked attack ; he had been betrayed where he trusted ; misrepresented where he served. Too proud to seek a confidant, feeling his sorrow to be much too holy to retail to any other, he was still, and they called his silent anguish, sullenness ; and they thought his heart a cold one, because in deepest silence, it consumed away. They forgot that thorns crackle till extinguished ; but in the heart of the mountain the fire is still. Read in all systems of philosophy, he had been inclined to irreligion ; but woe was beginning to teach him better. If I copy these verses from his note-book, it is because they were so true for him. He found them in Jens Baggesen, who calls them " Leiden" " Suffering." They come from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. " Wer nie sein Brod mit Thramen ass', o .. 115 Church makes use of it, and without thanking God for the food which He sends. If you had not thought in time of your grace, you would may be have been obliged to take their place.' " " Such, Mademoiselle and Messieurs," said the coachman, " such is my grandfather's story." vn. THE SHADOW OF MONT BLANC. THEN, answering the thanks of all with a touch of the hat, he cracked his whip and urged his horses on. And the merry little party within, canvassed the merits of the coun- try round them ; made schemes of pleasant tours to last for a month to come ; discussed the lore of fairy land, its merits and its usefulness. Pynnshurst thought it all sym- bolical ; the Baron fancied it accidental. He was probably right, but Hugh had poesy and Clemence on his side. Ever as they mounted, they caught ravishing Alpine views, and saw, in the far distance, brief autumn showers falling. Skirmishings of warrior clouds, above the warrior Alps. Sometimes the summer would come back, marshal- ling his black-robed band, armed with the thunder, all to be swept away by the strong wind, weeping as they passed THE SHADOW OF MONT BLANC. 11 7 above the hills. And sometimes the king of the winter would rush out, upon his misty charger, from his rock fast- nesses to tilt against the sun. And the sun, with mace of fire, would attack him, shatter his crystal shield, and shower it down upon the earth in hail. But near our wanderers, the Autumn Heaven was warm and pure, and rolling onward gaily, between the Val de Travers and the Val de Ruz, they arrived at last at the lit- tle Auberge, whence they must walk a few steps to the glacier. It was not large, but still it was as unaccountable and as curious as its mightier kindred among the Alps. You could not at first believe it motionless ; there were waves just ris- ing, there were waves at full height rolling in their strength, there were waves just breaking on the shore, with foam upon their lips like a chafed war-horse. But you listened in vain for the sound of the waters ; you waited vainly for the breaking of the wave. And the silence and the repose stole gradually upon you, and you perceived that the vexed lake was solid as the steel. " It is Niobe, petrified in the midst of her stormy sorrow," said the baron. " It is like a silent passion," said Pynnshurst. " It was the lake of a repining Naiad," said the gentle Clemence, " who would have burst from these rocky boun- daries, and the spirit of the mountain has frozen her while she struggled." 118 FYNNSHURST. " Home, home," said Pynnshurst, " Nature is very grand, but man has a stomach. Three hours yet to dinner, and the air of the mountain here sets one's appetite on edge." The horses had eaten, and the coachman, thanks to a couple of Gulden from Pynnshurst, had drank, and he made the carriage spin along the downward way. The invalid was in the most exuberant spirits. " It is a year's lease of life to breathe this pure and brac- ing atmosphere," he cried. " I feel a strength which I have not known for months. A few more weeks, Clemence, and I shall be restored." She looked at him lovingly, and leaning forward, clasped the throat of his cloak. " Then," he said, " ho, for Paris ; where I shall find a husband for you, Mademoiselle, among some of our old names of France. What think you of that, Pynnshurst ?" and he looked maliciously affectionate ; " Do you think I can get any one to take her ?" " I shall feel it my duty," said Hugh, " to throw all pre- tenders into the Seine." " And you, Mademoiselle, pray what say you ?" " That it will be time enough to think about it when we get to Paris." She feared that he was exciting himself too much, but dared not check him ; he was looking so well and so exult- ingly handsome, with a fair fresh color, not hectic but clear THK SHADOW OF MONT BLANC. 119 and gentle. And so with undiminished gaiety they reached the hotel. " Quick with your dinners," cried Leon ; " Pynnshurst, we must finish the day with a row upon the lake." " Leon dear," said his sister, " had you not better rest ?" " No, no," he answered, " we must go and welcome the shadow of Mont Blanc. You know that this is the only month of all the year in which it falls on lake Neuchatel." "But it falls in the morning, Baron." " Peace, rebel, I am king to-day." And indeed he looked so well, and the evening was so warm and fair, that they yielded to his wish, and after dinner, they went down to the lake. " Only one rower," said the Baron, " and get a deaf and dumb one if you can." " I will row it myself," said Hugh. So the boat was prepared, and a bed of cloaks made for the invalid, and they floated out into the middle of the lake. And gradually the deep, holy calm of the sunset on those beautiful waters, fell upon all, and the silence of nature found its way to their hearts, and set its seal upon their lips. Only once the sick man spoke. " I know," he said, "why the great 'Monarch of Moun- tains' there, visits this sweet scene only in the Autumn. II is shadow comes to watch the death of the summer mid the lindens yonder on the shore % for it knows that all things are loveliest in decay." 120 PVN'NSHfRST. The teal's sprang into the sister's eyes, and as her brother laid his head upon her knees, she bent over to kiss him, and he raised his arms and put them round her neck, and held her so awhile, with her sweet face touching his. Then he seemed. to sleep; Clemence motioned to Pynn- shurst to turn towards the shore. As he did so a shiver passed over the frame of the baron as he lay with one arm above his face, upon his sister's knee. " Quick, quick, Mr. Pynnshurst !" she whispered, " if he sleep he will take cold." Yes, if he sleep ! and he does sleep. And the cold comes over him rapidly. And when he waketh, it will be with God. Without a murmur, without a pain, he has gone from this earthly loveliness to a scene more fair. Pynnshurst could see from his place that his friend was dead. He did not speak, however, but only rowed fust for the shore. And suddenly a little mist-cloud caught his eyes, and he watched it as it floated rapidly on, and disappeared away in the calm of heaven. When his eyes fell, they rested on Mont Blanc. Only in the autumn does it overshade these waters. Poor Clemence ; the shadow hath fallen upon thy heart, in thy Spring. BOOK III. CANTON FKEYBOURO " Le ' antott .lo Fribourg, bien qu'il ne soil pas Tun tics plus consid6rables do la Suisse, inerite d plusieura garda une attention partictiliere." MAGASIK PITTOKESQUK, Juillet, 1850. LAST LOOK AT THE LAKE. IF you take your station at the pier-head of Neuchatel, and turn your face towards the other side of the lake, in a somewhat south-easterly manner, you will see, provided vour eyes are open, and that you are not blind nor near- sighted, or, in the latter case, that you have your spectacles, and that you look towards the right spot you will see, I repeat, on the edge of the lake, a white spot, and further off, a whiter spot. Now, the latter of these is a very lofty tower, called in former days la tour de la Mortiere, and in modern times Oculus Helvetia, the Eye of Switzerland. From its top you can see all Switzerland, except a small portion in the south ; if you would take the trouble to remove the Alps you would see that part also. 124 On the top of this tower, they illumine a beacon-light, which tells to all Switzerland that a new revolution has broken out in France. Latterly, the tower-top has been very cheerful, but the price of fuel begins to rise. The white spot on the shore is the Chateau of Estavayer, about which I might have a great deal to say, when I have finished with other matters ; but I shall abstain altogether. The other matters may be summed up as follows. Esta- vayer is a corruption of Sta Viator; because the Viator comes suddenly to the lake. It has a church with fine wood-work in the choir ; a suppressed sisterhood of mercy ; an empty succursalc of the Jesuits, and an ancient sub- terranean prison. Opposite the chateau, on the Neuchatel side, is the chateau of Granson, where Charles the Bold got desperately flogged, and where once lived the noblest of Swiss knights, Otho de Granson, cousin of Gerard, Count d' Estavayer. How Otho won los and honor in England and in Burgundy, and came back to Switzerland to win the heart of his sweet cousin Kate, Baroness de Belss ; how he found a rival in his cousin Gerard d' Estavayer, and got swindled out of his bride, I might tell you, but I wont. You came near learning that Gerard killed Otho's squire and dog, and made three attempts upon the life of their master ; and that when they fought in the lists at LAST LOOK AT THE LAKE. 125 Lausanne, Gerard, by foul play, killed the good knight, and then that cousin Kate died broken-hearted, while Otho sleeps in the old cathedral church of Lausanne, on the shores of blue Lake Leman. But I hare taken a fancy to leave you in ignorance of this, and I will not balk my fancy. Let us go on to the next. II. M R AT . IT was a bright June morning when Hugh Pynnshurst, bid- ding adieu to Ne^chatel, mounted a sort of four-wheeled gig to go to Fribourg. The road keeps always by the side of the lake, between the water and the high vineyard-walls. The vines are just beginning to show their leaves, and the vineyards to lose their resemblance to an unshaved blacksmith. The dust rises from beneath the horse hoofs and the roll- ing wheels, and the wind drives it, in light clouds, far off to the foot of Jura, or to the bosom of the lake. Agile lizards bask on the parapet top in the genial warmth, or hide them- selves at the sound of footsteps in the thick foliage of the ivy. The year's first flowers salute the wanderer ; the green MOKAT. 127 fields sparkle with golden buttercups ; the daisies, stars of the earth, search vainly in the day-time their sisters of the sky ; under the violet, the desire of spring opens her deep blue eyes to regard the blue on high. On goes the Wanderer, bearing his sad heart with him On through S. Blaise, where the cross still rests upon the old church, all reformed but the spire. On through Marin, home of all muck heaps. On by Champion, where the pretty peasant fed his horse, and the little children trotted after him crying " Sitz, sitz" for batzen. And at last in crossing the Thielle he halts a moment on the bridge to take his last look of the fair lake. Clear down to Iverdun, it stretches far away, dotted with white sails, and the lazy steamer that frightens its pike and perch. The yellow bunch there to the right is Neuchatel ; at the left beyond those low hills, is visible the lake and town of Morat where Charles the Bold did not stay very long. So on he goes through socialist Anet, and at last rattles beneath the frowning gateway of the old feudal town of Morat. He entered a very extraordinary street, all arcaded ; and under the arches are women in droll costumes, carding wool, cutting up and peeling vegetables, combing the hair of smaller Swiss, and regarding the voyager with kindly glances as he passed observant but sad along the way. The shadow of Mont Blanc was on his memory yet. He entered the Couronne d 1 Or, and ordered his dinner ; 128 PYNNSHURST. while this was being prepared, he looked out of the back windows of the Hotel and saw that the next street was at least one hundred and fifty feet below him. Then he thought that Morat was an uncommonly comical city ; and he tried to imagine how people went from one street to another ; and he concluded that they must be hoisted up and let down with buckets, as they do in the mines. The beautiful lake was before him, beneath whose waves lie many a bright Burgundian sword ; within whose waters float fish whose great, great grandfathers may have eaten a cousin of Philip de Comines, or even of stout Crevecceur himself. On the other side there, dirty little Motiers casts its shadow on the waters, and northward the Broye ripples over its rocks, and " swaps" the Morat liquid for that of Neuchatel. As it becomes me to write the adventures of a "real traveller," the idlest observant wanderer that ever sauntered into out of the way places, I must tell you that Hugh, after looking at the walls, where Burgundian cannon-balls are still sticking, went outside and sought the museum. You would like to know what he saw there ; and that is just what I was going to tell you. He saw a brown lion in crimson pantaloons ; and that is the arms of Morat ; and I may mention here, that the said arms holds a flag in its hands. There he saw a lay-figure, all in MORAT. 129 armor, which they told him was Adrian Von Bubenberg, which is a very pretty name, but Charles of Burgundy did not like it. There he saw a funny little cannon with a fat head, and another long consumptive cannon, and any quantity of shields, and silver-gilt goblets from which the wine has vanished to " never come there no more." There he saw drums, captured from the drummers of le Tcmeraire, and still beaten on high festivals. I add by way of drumat\ca\ information, that they are not made of wood but of copper, and that the tone is louder but not so sweet as that of the drums in our own blessed republic. There he saw numerous halberds, (they are long-shafted battle-axes, Madam,) and several inscriptions commemora- tive of the Swiss prowess, done into Latin for the benefit of the common people, and highly eulogistic ; for the fault of the Swiss is like the only defect of the Americans, they are overweeningly modest. That cost forty cents. So he walked through the village by the high street, and tumbled off the other end into a road below, and waded through much dust to the battle-field, whereon is a stone pillar, with a florid inscription, and another monument very tastefully formed of the skulls and bones of dead Burgundians. Then he came back, and swallowed a petit verre d> absinthe, and ate his dinner ; and so called for his horse and got out of Morat at a trot. * 130 PYNNS HURST. It was there, you ought to know, that Duke Charles of Burgundy (our old friend in Quentin Durward, and Anne of Geierstein) came ; to flog the Switzers. But he did not do it, because the stupid creatures would not let him ; and I am going to tell you all about it. But if you don't like my version, you may go and look for the history out of which I copied it. III. CHARLES THE BOLD. IT was a brilliant day in June, and over Morat's castled height, the burning sun of a Switzer noon shed down his radiant light. It glinted on hauberk, spear, and shield, on the pointed towers of the old chateau, and farther off on the harvest field, where lay the camp of the foe. It lighted the lake with a golden hue, and over those little hills it fell, that intercept the pilgrim's view from the lake of Neuchatel. They were busy in Morat all the day, burnishing axe and edging sword, and riveting armour for the fray with the stout Burgundian Lord. The wily Louis Eleventh of France, had sent them many a stalwart lance ; you saw the eagle of Austria wave o'er the Switzer peasant, whose two-hand glaive was shining 132 I'YNNSHURST. now iu the holy light, to be red with blood before the night. Fifteen hundred cannons loudly waked the echoes of rock and glen, where the flag of Charles was floating proudly over his sixty thousand men. They had come by old Lan- sanne, slaughtering all both young and old ; breathing curse and blight, and ban, and bitter vengeance from Charles the Bold; for at Granson, only the other day, the Switzer churls so little prized, had taught him how to run away, a kind of lesson he much despised. Out and spake Duke Charles the Bold, " By stout St. George, these mountain churls shall learn to-day in their rugged hold, the might of belted knights and earls. You have fought at my side my merry men, in many a field and difficult siege, when we damaged the lands of fair Lorraine, and punished the trading dogs of Liege. France hath trembled to hear of you, and to-day the Swiss shall tremble too. "Onto the siege I give you all: sack and spare not; choose the booty ; wine from cellar, and steed from stall ; wealthy count and delicate beauty. Leave them not a place of rest ; mountain top nor rugged gorge ; but carve with your steel, on helm, and crest, my name, and the name of Stout St. George." And the banners to the winds were thrown ; pealed trumpet note and clarion tone, as the ringing battle blast was blown to the shout of the army, " Vive Bourgogm /" CHAKLES THE BOLD. . 133 Iii the city there, the Switzer clans, and an hundred men of fair Lorraine, and a stalwart troop of Austrians, Count Herman D'Eptingue's gallant train, held themselves in fair array, biding the dawn and the coming fray. Mid them all the keenest sword, wisest speech at council board, freest hand with golden hoard, was Adrian, Buben- berg's stout lord. " Noble knights with us allied, Lorraine's glory, Austria's pride; and you, brave hearted Swiss," he cried, " to-day you must make a valiant stand for the key of rocky Switzerland. There are the hosts of Charles the Bold, blades of steel 'neath cloth of gold. If they take these towers they con- quer all ; with Morat, Switzerland must fall. Swear then with me, that if any dare parley of peace with yonder foe, we will give his head to our mountain air, his corpse to the lake below." And they answered with assenting roar, as they lifted their two-edged glaives and swore. So the solemn day past on ; so the night had come and gone, when, with the earliest morning light, Halwyl, an Argovian knight, led the Bernese to the plain. Ever poured the ceaseless rain, rusting helm and drenching plume, wrapping heaven in sombre gloom, swelling each little rivulet's flow, and spoiling the string of the archer's bow. Front to front the armies stand, waiting the fate of Switzer- land. Charles with his splendid chivalry, full of confidence 134 I'YNNSHUKST. and scorn for fair Lorraine's young duke Rene, and the serried ranks of the peasant-born. But some of the keen- est Austrian swords that ever flashed in a sanguine fray, and some of King Louis' prowest lords, fought in the Swit- zer ranks that day. Many a gallant hunting hound, had followed his master to the ground, and now in wild and fiery mood, in front of either army stood. They growled and raised their brist- ling crests, gnashed their teeth, and broadened their chests, till they heard a whistle's thrilling notes, and then they sprang at each other's throats. Short and wild is the fiery strife, like that when two hungry tigers meet ; many a good hound loses his life, and at last the Prankish dogs retreat. And the Switzer army is not slack to shout as their dogs come bounding back. Out and spake then Halwyl's knight. " There, my men, is your cruel foe. Think of the bloody Granson fight, where they laid your brethren stark and low ; think of the blood which flowed the night that they con- quered Brie, and waste not a blow. Mow them down in their bloody path. Smite like the thunder when God is wrath. They are more than you, but they were more at Laupen by the Sane's rude shore. " The same Lord governs the earth as then ; ye are the sons of those Laupen men ; the self-same spirit is in your clay, then fight as your fath'ers fought that day. Each must fight as though he were all. Every heart is its coun- CHARLES THE BOLD. 135 I try's wall. Now to your knees, and ask the Blest to hear and grant the patriot's prayer : then blade in hand, then lance in rest, and swoop ye down on the Temeraire !" Just as they kneeled, the sun broke through ; soft through the clouds shone the welkin blue, and the grey mist glowed like a warrior's targe, as the chieftains shouted the order, " Charge !" Then as the mountain torrent leaps from the icy glacier's breast that bore it ; so as the maddened water sweeps the weight off the very rocks before it ; so as the avalanche of snow breaks from its lofty, cold abode, and hurls itself on the woods below, a missile launched by the arm of God so did the men of Morat go ; so did their deadly broad- swords mow the harvest of death among the foe ; and helms were cleft at a single blow, and gore flowed free as the rivers flow, when the spring sun melts the Alpine snow. Lance heads pierced through the cuirass backs ; limbs were lopped by the battle-axe ; sword-blows fell like the summer rain ; maces dashed fast through casque and brain; while ever over the bloody wold pealed the cannon of Charles the Bold. By the thick hedge over there Charles had placed his battery ; and ever its thick smoke filled the air, and its shot swept down the enemy. It opened the Switzers' sturdy flanks and broke the knightly Austrian ranks. Young Duke Rene's horse is slain ; fall the men of fair Loraine as falls 136 PYNXSHURST. the bearded harvest pale, beneath the fiercely beatincr hail. 'Twixt Courlevon and Bac le Grange, Charles had bid his armies range. In the centre, stout Crevecoeur, knight sans reproche et sans peur, by the Prince of Orange stood near the spearmen's serried wood. Off on the left there, by the tree, the glaives of the bastard Anthony, and of his gallant jackmen shine, with wild Adolph Von Ravenstein. On the right wing, meetly met, are Charles and the Duke of Somerset. Then brave Hahvyl leads his ranks full on the Burgun- dian flanks ; Waldman forms a wedge to enter in the closely serried centre ; the Bernese fall on the battery, and the sturdy gunners fall or fly. The guns are turned 'gainst their former master, the death hail rattles fast and faster ; Bubenberg sallies from the walls and on the crushed batal- lions falls. Then a shout peals o'er the fray. "The Switzer churls have won the day." The Temeraire has turned his back and swims the lake on a sumpter mule. The good Burgundiana are not slack to follow their gallant Prince's rule. Only the little English band are cut in pieces where they stand, and two Swiss halberts both have met in the cloven skull of Somerset. Such was the fray, as legends tell, fought upon Morat's grassy fell. It left the mountaineers as free as the very sons of Liberty ; it taught the fiery Charles the Bold that his CHARLES THE BOU). 13*7 temper ought to be controlled ; it killed the English for Charles's sake, and fattened the fish in Morat's lake. Much brave booty the Swiss had got, in the rich Burgun- dian camp ; goblets where the wine was not ; encensoir and jeweled lamp ; armor cleft, and broken spear ; battle-axe and cuirass dear ; many a trump and many a drum, and a rich, embroidered collar which they show you yet in the museum for the price of half-a-dollar. THIS IS THE END OF THE CHRONICLE. IV. FBJB o UR G. AND so, by a wild American-looking route ; through herds of superbest cows with church-bells around their necks ; by peasants and by others who are taught from earliest childhood to lift their hats in salutation of the stranger ; by occasional beggars who kiss their hands before they hold them out to receive your alms ; and who answer " God bless you," when you refuse them, and by groups of red-capped women in white upper affairs, whose name I do not know. Hugh trotted along level roads or dismounted to walk up hills, until he entered the village of Didingen, where he stopped to bait his horse, and to visit an ox- feorn preserved in the church for a reason sufficiently singular. In the wars which Fribourg constantly waged with its FRIBOURG. 139 neighbors, the scattered hamlets which now form the parish of Didingen were in danger of attack. One church in the centre served for all ; and in this church was a case of relics highly venerated, the only wealth of this poor people. They knew that if they were beaten, they would lose their relics ; so, after meet deliberation, they chose an ox, and fastened the case between his horns, and then turning his head toward the mountain, goaded him well, shouting and screaming and waving fire-brands. The contemplative animal, entirely roused from his usual calm habitudes, stood quiet for one minute as if lost in astonishment, then burst off in full gallop, nor stopped until he found himself safe among the mountains. The enemy came on ; the Didingers were beaten ; the church was searched, and when nothing was found in it, the foe retired. The good peasants then went in search of the ox, whom they found with the treasure safely bound to his horns. So they preserved his horns in honor of the service which he had rendered them. One has been lately lost, but the other still hangs in the sacristy, the solitary lion of Didingen. And now, in a few minutes, from the horizon before him, towers begin to rise, and pointed bell turrets, and a long white line that marks the bridge, and at last, just as he 140 I'YNXSHURST. passes the large roadside crucifix there, he stops to look at Fribourg, the Rome of Switzerland. Not many cities do you see like it. Upon an Alp almost surrounded by the noisy Sarine, cluster the build- ings, circled by a thick wall. On all the heights stand ancient towers, massive and gloomy, black with the lapse of time, and pierced with narrow loop-holes, wherefrom to return the compliments of besiegers. There to the left, across a chasrn horribly profound ; and lined with black bristling rocks, amid which, two hundred feet below, the river runs, stretches the wire- bridge, nearly a thousand feet in length, and twenty- five in breadth. Further on, is another bridge, smaller and painted black. Near the pilgrim are country houses before him an agglomerated mass, topped by the mighty roof, cross-tipped and crowned by a superb square tower, of the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas. So he trots through the gate of Morat, under the black and white shield ; passes the house whose cross of white marble marks the residence of the only Protestant minister, who touches his hat from the window as the voyager goes by. Past the old church of Notre Dame, and the new one of the Visitation ; past the convents and churches of the Capucins and Cordeliers ; through the fish-market and across the place where the militia are manoeuver- ruiHOUKi;. 141 ing ; round the Church of' St. Nicholas, and so to the capital Hotel de Zcehringen, at the head of the wire- bridge. V. LION HUNTING. BEFORE he had shaken the dust from off his feet, there came an invitation to supper, and another to dinner the next day, and a third to breakfast, and a fourth to supper No. 2 ; for, of all the people on the face of the globe, the Fribourgeois are the most hospitable. So he accepted all but the breakfasts, and in the glow of the reception, felt for a moment, as if he were not a " stranger in a strange land." " But," said he to himself, " if these kind hearts go on at this rate, I shall see precious little of Fribourg except the tables." Therefore he made what haste he could to be undusted ; and ran off to St. Nicholas, and to get a look at the church before the shadows of evening should fall. LION HUNTING. 143 First, he looked at the grand portal, decidedly the finest he had ever seen, vast and arching, and covered with well- wrought bas-reliefs, where the last Judgment is set forth, and devils carry off in mighty panniers, not only common folks but popes and bishops, emperors and kings. Higher up is a rosace or circular window of surprising beauty ; and then, the eye mounts up over frieze and fret- work to the pinnacles that terminate the tower, two hundred feet in height ; it is the loftiest tower in Switzerland, as the nave is the highest in Fribourg, and the city the highest in Europe. Enter the nave now, I don't know how many feet by half as many more, and terminated by a chancel whose dimensions "conform." Clusters of columns, on each side, support seven arches which mark the aisles ; each bears a saint under a sculptured canopy. Then longer columns rise to hold the ribbed roof studded with shields. The font and pulpit are of stone, and covered with remarkable beauty. Within the aisles are sixteen altars ; and a superb iron rood screen guards the high altar. Within the chancel the collegiate stalls are in old oak magnificently carved ; back in the tower is the organ which contains the celebrated human voice, the finest in the world ; pretty good pictures grace the walls ; and the whole view of the church is solemn and religious. It has no fine glass, however. Its date is 1480. Then he went to the place, where the wounded soldier, 144 PYNNSHURST. who had run from Morat, waving a linden branch, fell dead after shouting " Victory," the first news of the defeat of Charles the Bold. They planted the branch ; it grew and flourished, and now stands there well guarded, but respect- able only for its age and memories. It is a kind of weather aw for the Fribourgeois ; they clothe themselves for winter, when the leaves begin to drop, and take off their .mufflings when they come again. And now, he must to supper, no trifle here, to taste the hospitality of the patricians, and to plan a tour for to-morrow. Morning rose bright and fair over the heights of the city as Hugh Pynnshurst went to the church of the Capucins. About it there is nothing remarkable but its appearance of age. It belongs to the order, which the radical government has treated in appearance less severely, but in reality no less so, than the other religions. When the Jesuits, etc., were chased from the Canton the Capucins were permitted to remain, fulfilling the duties of their office. But no novice can be taken, no new member enrolled, and time will destroy them or bring about freer laws. One died the other day at the age of one hundred and two ; after his calm cloister life of prayer and toil going to get his reward. LION HUNTING. 145 After breakfast, he went to seek the party formed to accompany him, and they started to make the circuit of the city. They start from the hotel Zoehringen, where used to stand the hotel of the Counts of Thierstein, and cross the bridge which is not only the wonder of Fribourg, but one of the finest works of art perhaps in the world. Eight cables, each of five hundred wires, banded together, pass at each end through strong towers, and are wedged solidly into the living rock to the depth of sixty feet. These can support a weight of six millions, seven hundred and sixty thousand pounds ! " Oh, Mr. Pynnshurst, you should have been here when the bridge was blessed," cried one fair dame of the party, " All the clergy, all the military, and all the city, I believe^ were on the bridge, and towards the end of the benediction, as the crowd moved hither and thither, it began to sway and swing. Then it was sauve qui peut. And the rushing of the people only made the motion worse, and if it had not been for the bishop, many would have been crushed to death ; but he went about giving his benediction, and telling the people to be quiet, and that there was no danger ; so they all got safely off. One droll thing was to see the good old Vicar-General, who started for the end at the first oscillation, got upon terra firma, flung his surplice to a sacristan, and trotted off to the church, saying that " they 7 146 I'YSNSHURST. might bless iron bridges who would, he washed his hands of it." " Yet one cannot conceive this huge mass swinging," replied Hugh. " What a tremendous affair this is !" and he laid his hand on one of the great cables. " Yes, stout enough to all appearance," said the lady. " I know a story of those cables too ; shall I tell you that ?" '"Of all things," said Hugh, u I like a good story, well told ; and I am sure of both from you." " Thank you. Well then, when those two cables, each as thick as your arm, were first stretched across the chasm, find before they were bound together, the architect, a Frenchman, placed himself astride of them, and drew himself by the help of his hands from one end to the other." " Faith ! " said Hugh, " I know one man that won't follow his example." " And I know one," continued the lady, " who did ; or rather who exceeded him." " The name of the hero, Madam." " It was Laurent, a drunken cobbler ; well known to all the city for a harmless, worthless fellow. When the people cheered the adventurous architect, poor Laurent's pride was hurt." " ' Pooh ! ' said he, ' do you cheer a Frenchman for straddling across in that way ? I know a Fribourgeois UON HUNTING. 147 who will walk across if you will give him a bottle of wine.' " ' That's yourself, Laurent, I fancy,' said some one in the crowd. ' Well, I will give you the bottle.' " The people laughed at Laurent as he climbed up and balanced himself upon the wires, not expecting him to stand upright even above the land. But he started off, and before he could be stopped he was ten feet from the brink. " Then a silence fell upon the crowd, and they held their breath, with their eyes fixed upon him. He had more than passed the middle, walking on those trembling wires, no thicker than his arm ; and below him was the terrible yawning chasm one hundred and seventy feet. " Suddenly he staggered and threw up his arms ; a thrill of horror passed through the crowd. Yet his motion was but a tipsy bravado, and he reached the other side in safety, drank his bottle of wine, and offered to walk back for another. But the people would not suffer it. And now Mr. Pynnshurst, we are in the centre of the bridge ; look below and around you." As he looked downward, she threw a card before him ; and he watched it as it went wavering and fluttering down, down. He thought it would never stop ; he grew dizzy> and drew back his head. The lady smiled. 148 PYNXSHURST. " You are not so well accustomed to it as we are," she said. The smile hurt the proud man, and tender as he was to the weaknesses of others, he was violent to his own. He grasped a bar with each hand, and bending his head over the parapet, looked steadfastly below. The vertigo returned ; he grew faint and sick ; the bridge seemed to leave his feet ; his brain reeled and swain ; he felt the sensation of falling ; but his will was strong, and it conquered. He kept his position till the giddiness had passed, and then raised his head. His face was as white as ashes. " I see," said his companion gravely, " that you are very proud." " Pardon me," he answered, " I am at least very foolish." So he looked about him. To the left was the city, to the right the old towers mentioned before, each on a lofty hill. In front, a lovely landscape, smiling in the summer sun, with the roofs of the houses, along the Sarine, beneath his feet. Turning, he saw the second bridge, and up on the heights of Bourguillon, the exquisite little chapel of Loretto ; the German quarter lay at the foot of the moun- tain ; the wild gorge of the Gotheron displayed itself before him, and sunbeams kissed, in all directions, the cross of convent or of church. At the end of the first, and beginning of .the second bridge is a toll-gate, whose keeper lives in a series of cham- bers hewn in the solid calcaire of the mountain. Something LION HUNTING. 149 in the same style as the Hermitage of La Madelaine, about half a league from Fribourg, cut out by a hermit not many years ago. It is, however, much more complete than the toll -keeper's lodging, for it possesses a church and steeple, a sacristy, a kitchen, cells, cellars, and nearly all things neces- sary for a miniature convent. So now they cross the savage gorge, and mount the hill to Notre Dame de Lorette. Copied exactly from the original, within, and without. The four Evangelists and other saints in statues as large as life decorate the outside walls ; within, is the rough brick chapel with its simple altar. The bricks are nearly hidden with ex-votos, thanksgivings for mercies received from the All Merciful. In the little crypt below, are benches and an altar. A descent then brought them to the convent and church of the Capucines. Some poor were in the hall eating the meal, which the rule forbids the Sisters to refuse to any that may ask it ; the church is handsome inside, after the Italian fashion ; and they were yet in it when a servitor requested them to mount to the parlor. A carpetless room, with one table and six wooden chairs, is the finest in the house. On one side, a massive iron grating separates a space of six or eight feet square, which communicates with the cloisters by a door. When the party were quietly seated, this door opened and two sisters entered in the coarse, brown robe of their order ; their faces framed by the folds of white muslin that 150 PYNNSHURST. hid the forehead, and passed under the chin, their hands crossed on their breasts, their meek eyes raised for a moment and then abased again ; the low, calm sweetness of their voices and the religious gentleness which seemed like a halo round them, moved the soul of Hugh Pynnshurst till he could have wept. One of the sisters was eighty-four years old ; sixty of those years had been passed in prayer, and labor, and kind charities ; and still she wore upon her features the same look as her companion, a look of that ineffable holy peace which you find in Murillo's Madonnas. Hugh offered an alms and begged some little token of remembrance ; and they gave him a snail shell, in which a little Capucine looks out from behind a grating of lace. " Think of the radicals harassing those poor sisters," said one of the party, " sending a committee to inquire if they had no cause of complaint." " Yes, and the same committee were at the other side of the city with the same questions for the Capucins fathers," said another. "They asked Father Antoine if he had nothing to complain of." " If I had," said the old man, " it would not be to you that I would tell it ; but to the Bishop. Who are you ?" " We are delegates of the people," was the answer. " Pooh, pooh," said the father, " I have been that much myself these sixty years." LION HUNTING. 151 " Where, pray," was the question, " have you represented the people ?" " Before God," said he, " to whom I am soon going ; and I will make my complaints to Him." "And now, Mr. Pynnshurst," she continued, "you have seen the Capucines, let us go now to the sisters of St. Bernard." " Volontiers," said Hugh, and they ran down a street like a precipice to the abode of the white-robed sisters. " Can we see Sceur Ursule ?" was demanded. And for an affirmative answer, the door opened, and out came Sister Ursula, the cousin of half the party, rolling out a volume of French and German with the hugest rapidity. She put her hand through the grating to her lady cousins, and asked them for their fathers, mothers, brothel's, sisters, relatives, and acquaintances, concluding her catechism with, " Whom have you got there 1" " It is a gentleman from America, Sceur Ursule." " From America, ma foi ! that's a long way off. It is the other side of the Alps." "Yes, fifteen hundred leagues away from here," said Hugh, approaching the grating. " Dear me," she cried, " that's a great distance ; and you are no blacker than I am. From America, eh ? Ah then, in that case, you know Father Steinfleet ; he is there." " It is a large place, my sister," said Hugh, " in what part of it is the Rev. Father ?" 152 " He is at Rio Janeiro ; is not that near you ?" " Some thousand or two miles off," said Hugh. " Ah, St. Bernard ! it must be a large place indeed. And you are come all the way to Fribourg. Wait a minute, I'll give you a little mutton," and away she ran, and brought back some little lambs made of wool, which she distributed to the party. " There," she said to Hugh, " carry that back to America, and tell them that old Sister Ursule gave it to you, in the Convent of the Bernardines at Fribourg." Hugh promised to keep it faithfully, and so, with his companions, took leave. Descending still farther, they passed through the Bour- gillon gate, entered the lower city, and climbed to the upper by a stone staircase of some two hundred steps, and came out upon the grand place. " It is here that they used to build the Chateau d' Amour in the good old time," said his informant. " Ah, what a pretty name," answered Pynnshurst, " pray what was it, and who was the chatelaine ; and why did they take it away ?" " Which question shall I answer first ?" " What was it, if you please ?" " It was Chateau Amour. And long ago, here on the Grand Place, they built a wooden fortress, adorned with emblems, ciphers, and tender devices. Charged with the LION HUNTING. 153 defence of this, the fairest maidens of the city and its en- virons took possession on the first of May. Soon the young men, in their best gala dress, came in crowds to attack it. The bands of the city sounded the charge with the softest airs which they knew. On both sides, flowers were the only arms. They warred with wreaths, and bouquets, and garlands, and when this inno- cent artillery was quite exhausted, the drums beat the chamade (parley), and a white flag was unfurled on the to were of the chateau. Then the articles of capitulation were agreed upon, one of which always was, that every dame should choose her conqueror, and give for ransom a kiss and a rose. Then they retired to the windows of their houses, and the besiegers mounted their horses and promenaded the streets, while their fair enemies drenched them with perfumed waters from the windows. A ball closed the fete at night. " So fade old customs," said Hugh, " do they get any better ones in their place ?" " Yes, sometimes ; down yonder they used to burn the Jews for sorcery." " Ah, decidedly a change for the better. But were there many Jews here ?" " Oh yes ; in the twelfth century there was a synagogue here. And we have a hymn, which, with some variations, 7* 154 PVTNXSJIUKSI. nurses still sing to children, and which was sung by those ancient people six hundred years ago." " Ah, you must repeat it to me." " I cannot ; I have forgotten it ; but nurse shall tell it to you after dinner." " If I be a good child, I suppose," said Hugh, smiling. " Precisely ; and now to begin your goodness, let us go peaceably to dinner." After dinner the hymn was produced, and Hugh, to his vast astonishment, found, in the wail of this stricken people, the original of " The House that Jack Built," and of that most thrilling of legends, the history of " The Kid that wouldn't go over the bridge to get the bonny bunch of blackberries." He wrote it down as he heard it, in French. I will give his version, and then will translate it myself; for which services, let all infant antiquaries bless my memory. " Mon Pere (Dieu) a achete un chevreau (Israel) pour deux deniers (Mo'ise et Aaron). Le chat (les Assyriens) vint devorer le chevreau que mon pere avait achete pour deux deniers. Le chien (les Babyloniens) mordit le chat qni devorait le chevreau, etc. Le baton (Cyrus) battit le chien qui mordait le cht qui, etc. N HUNTING. 155 Le feu (Alexandre) brula le baton qui battait le chien qui, etc. L'eau (les Romains) eteignait le feu qui brulait le baton, etc. Le boeuf (les Sarrasins) but 1'eau que eteignait le feu qui, etc. Le schochet (boucher) tua le boeuf qui buvait I'eau qui, etc. Malek Hamavet (VAnge de la Afort) extermina le boucher, qui tuait le boeuf, qui buvait 1' eau, qui Eteignait le feu, qui brulait, etc." DONE INTO ENGLISH BY A PERSON OF QUALITY. My Father bought Israel his kid for two pennies. The wild cat of Syria came to devour the kid that my father had bought for two pennies. The dog of Babylon bit the cat, that devoured the kid, that, etc. Cyrus, the stick then beat the dog, that bit the cat, that, etc. Alexander, the fire burnt the stick, that beat the dog, that bit, etc. The Roman water quenched the fire, that burnt the stick, etc. 156 PYNNSHUBST. The Saracen ox drank the water, that quenched the fire, that, etc. The butcher killed the ox, that drank the water, that, etc. And the Angel of Death destroyed the butcher, that killed the ox, that drank the water, that quenched the fire, that burnt the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that eat the kid which my Father had bought for two pennies VI. ALONU THE SARINE. BREAKFAST, to his great surprise, Hugh Pynnshurst was very well able to attend to. And that respectable meal, pleasantest duty of the morning, causer of the first smile of the stomach, being thoroughly discussed, he paid his bill, passed round to say sever il adieus, sent his baggage by diligence to Berne, and started on foot, staff in hand, from the southern port of Fribourg, following the course of the Sarine. The day was beautiful ; a few light clouds drifted lazily along the sky, shutting out from time to time the sun, and permitting the pedestrian to walk for a minute bare-headed, and a very great luxury that is too. The king-fisher, or something like him, flitted from bank to bank of the Sarine, and when once a little way 158 I'YKNSHUKST. from the city, the patient stork shot up his long neck like a spy-glass, tucked one long leg away somewhere under his feathers, and stood there on the other long leg, with his head lackadaisically on one side, the very image of intense imbecility. But woe to the small fish that took him for a fool and came too near the edge ; pop ! down went the leg, out went the neck, snap went the bill, " wabble," said the throat, and the small fish floundered hopelessly 'mid the gastric juices of the stork. The bright waters tumbled over one another, and seemed so habituated to twisting round rocks and flowing in circles or figures of eight, or turning face and going headlong back towards the source for a hundred yards, and then repenting and rolling their tides in the first direction, that even when they were forced to run straight between rocky walls, they made small whirlpools, and seemed always trying to climb up or flow up their perpendicular banks. Along this, marched the resolute traveller, stopping now and then at an auberge for a glass of beer, until at length he arrived at Hauterive, once so celebrated. Here he found a convent of Cistercians, a few of whom were yet permitted to remain, and who welcomed the visitor with kind hospitality. The abbey was founded in 1137, by Count William de Glane, and afterwards aided by various Princes. It stands in a valley hemmed in by precipitous rocks, and the Sarine winds embrncingly round it. It is a huge, square affair, with ALONG THE SAKINK. 159 a court and portico in the centre. Around it are the mills, the smithies, the carpenter shops, and dairies, for they are of all trades, these monks, and live entirely by the labor of their own hands ; Pynnshurst learned of them, that like Cesar's Nervii Niillum adituni esse cd eos mercatoribus ; nihil pati rerum ad luxuriam pertinentium inferri. They have, however, a fine library, a cabinet of Natural History, and another of medals. The church is very ancient, but of an architecture unknown to ecclesiologists. A league or so further on, Hugh saw a golden lion gibbeted before a house, and in answer to his inquiries, they told him that he was in Bulle. As he had been obliged to climb a very high hill, by a very bad road, in order to get there, he determined to stay to dinner. " Give me," said he, " if you please, a chicken." "Monsieur, we have none, but we have some capital veal." " I don't like veal," said Hugh, " can you not give me a mutton cutlet, or a bit of filet de boeuf ?" " Very sorry, Monsieur, but we are just out of both. Has Monsieur ever tasted our Bulle veal ?" " No," said Pynnshurst, " and I never mean to, if I can help it ; could you make me an omelette ?" " I will see in a moment," said the hand-maiden. s "Do," said the hungry man, "and give me, meanwhile, some bread and a bottle of wine." So the maiden brought them, and very sour wa^ thai 100 PYKXSHUKST. which she called wine. Then she set off again, but soon re- turned, saying " Monsieur, we have not an egg in the house." " And what then in the name of famine, diet and emacia- tion, have you got ?" roared the angry traveller. " Sir," said the maiden calmly, " we have excellent veal." Hugh was conquered. There was a dignity in her per- severance which he could not resist. " Bring it to me," he said with a sigh, " only bring if quick." . ' She returned in a moment crying, " Helas ! Monsieur, that maudit hound, Fritz, has de- voured it while I was talking to Monsieur." " Mademoiselle," said Hugh, placing a piece of money in her hands, " I have the honor to bid you an affectionate farewell !" And he got out of Bulle as fast as he could, struck up a violent walk and never stopped till he entered a little hamlet near the Val Saint. Here he found wherewithal to satisfy his hunger and so set off to the Holy Valley, to seo the Convent of Carthusians, founded in 1280 and suppressed in 1778. It was Girard, Baron de Corbieres, who founded it, he being in green old age, and his son Girard, also well advanced, having no children to inherit. So all the relatives consenting, they gave the lands of Hauterive, la Roche, and Mont Choffloz to the good fathers, to have and to hold in ALONG THK SAKINE. 161 perpetuity ; and when, by a few year's labor, the monks had reclaimed the marsh, and made a soil upon the mountain, and taught the wilderness to smile, the lady of Corbieres most unexpectedly presented her lord with a daughter. How to dower her was a question difficult to answer, for Girard had given nearly all his lands to the Carthusians. So after much thinking he begged his well beloved fathers of Val Saint, to have pity upon him and on his child, whom God by their prayer had bestowed on him, and to give her back some portion of the heritage of her father. And the good monks, whose toil had made the value of the estates fifty fold what it had been, returned to him " and to his thrice dear daughter Jeanette, the third of all the lands, forests, and plains, and vineyards, which the said Girard had devoutly given, to the said Jeanette and her heirs forever." After that, all went well until in 1778, when the Convent was secularized, after sixty-four priors had ruled it, through more than five hundred years. Sold by the government, it was purchased (that is, the buildings and a little ground) by the Trappists, exiled from France. So by a path, that led through pleasant fields, Hugh wandered on towards the austere abode of the consecrated. There, in the house of labor and mortification ; of fast and silence, many thoughts crowded on his mind. Long clois- ters whose walls are crowded with sentences from Holy 162 PYNNSHURST. Scripture ; the dormitory, where each bed of planks had one thin covering, and one low pillow of straw ; the cemetery, where each night the monks must go, to kneel among the aameless graves, and meditate upon the nothingness of life ; and that one ever-open grave, waiting for the first that should pass from his cell, to its enclosure more cold, more narrow, and more still. There was the darkened refectory, where bread and milk, and vegetables form the sole repast, and water the only drink ; and in another place the chapel, where psalms are chanted without ceasing to the august tones of the Ritual music. He thought of their rule. Going to their hard couch at half past seven to leave it again at midnight ; seven hours passed kneeling in the chapel ; the rest in meditation and in manual labor, save the time taken for one short repast a day. There, fifty poor orphan boys are clothed and nurtured and taught trades. There every wanderer, whatever his religion, is received with hospitality. Shown first into the parlor, he waits a moment. Soon two fathers enter and kneel before him ; then if he will, conduct him to the chapel, where one reads a chapter of the Holy Scriptures to him, and so gives him over to the father whose business is to entertain him, and who only has permission to speak. If they kneel to the stranger, it is because they remember this saying, " I was a stranger and you took me in," and ALONG THE SAKINE. 163 this one also, " Whatsoever ye have done unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Hugh left the monastery ashamed of his luxury and fear of physical mortification, and thinking of those lines : " They talk so well in modern days, of lives of prayer and toil, Yet rob the monk of those fair lands he won from barren soil ; They talk of brave hearts patient beneath the afflicting rod, Yet mock those souls which suffer in silence with their God." Refreshed by his sleep, and by a good breakfast, he went on his way. From Fribourg, he had followed the Sarine, a remarkably crooked river, which, like many other Swiss streams, rises nowhere, empties nowhere, and yet is a river very respectable and evident in the middle, though it loses itself at both ends. Sometimes these Swiss streams plunge into lakes and become invisible, like the Broye and Thielle. Sometimes they cut suddenly round the corner of a mountain, and are never seen any more. In the latter instance they act like frisky naiads ; in the former they degrade themselves into canals. Well, he had left the river to go to Bulle ; crossed it again to get to the Val Saint, and from there went back again near Bulle, to take a look at the Tour de Treme, and so go on to Gruyeres, the Moleson, and the Pars Dieu. He records of Tour de Treme as follows : " It is a small village where there is nothing to be seen." 164 I'YNNSHUKST. It is, however, on the road to Gruyeres, where he deter- mined to dine, and where he was at least sure of getting good cheese. As he entered the valley, from the middle of which rises the spiral hill, topped by the village, he heard the sound of a hurdy-gurdy, and beheld two men, the one grinding a dolorous dance on the aforesaid exquisite instru- ment, and the other carrying, on a board, the stuffed skin of a very small alligator. At sight of Hugh, the music-grinder turned faster, and his comrade, doffing his hat, approached the tra- veller. "Sir," said he, "this is an extraordinary animal, quite unknown in la Suisse ; it is called the crocodile. It is found only on the shores of the Ohio, in Egypt. It puts its food into its mouth with its tail, which serves it for a spoon. It imitates the cries of a man in distress, and if an ox or sheep come to aid the crier, it swallows him alive ; it is musket- proof, and sleeps in the winter. This specimen was taken after a violent struggle, in which he devoured two men and a boy." Equally instructed and delighted, Hugh requested the orator to accept a batz ; and the music stopped grinding, the alligator passed on, and Hugh entered the village of Gruyeres. VII. THE EX-PEDAGOGUE. As he entered the inn, a large landlord and a small man in black saluted him. " What can you give me for dinner ?" he asked. " Trout, and a cutlet ; a slice of roe-venison, a tartlet and Gruyere cheese," replied the host " You are the very Prince of Aubergistes," cried the traveller. " Oh, Monsieur, we know that the Anglais love to be well fed. When will Monsieur dine ?" " In two hours, until when, I should like to see the lions. Who can I get to conduct me ?" "You have happened just in the nick of time," said mine host, and added, pointing to the little man, " there is the wisest man in the village, only he loves a little too much wine. It was that which lost him the school here." 1 66 PYNNSntTRST. w Ah, he was a schoolmaster here ?" " Exactly, and it is he that knows all about the old counts, and Chalama the fool. Will Monsieur try him ?" " Yes, yes," said Hugh, "present him," and the presenta- tion over, he addressed the funny, crooked little specimen. " Monsieur, if you are idle, I would be delighted if a man of your learning and urbanity could accompany rne to the Chateau, and if afterwards you would favor me with your company for dinner." The little man raised his eyes, which squinted, yet danced for joy ; while his long large red nose wriggled about like a crazy sausage. It was a most unaccountable nose ; so large, so plump, so rosy, and endued with such a power of motion, that it seemed to wander at will all over his face, and to be fixed to no particular spot. " Monsieur," he said, and his proboscis lifted itself up to his eyebrows, and then descended with a zig-zag motion to the side of his mouth, " Monsieur, you do me very great honor. Steck, my friend, treat Monsieur well, and give him some Neuchatel quarante-six. Monsieur likes quarante- six /" " Certainly, certainly," said Hugh, " anything you will." " Let us go up then," said the little man, " to the Chateau. I used to be schoolmaster here, sir ?" " Ah," said Hugh, " and why, pray, did you leave the place ?" " Whv you see, sir, that my boys were the best educated THE EX-PEDAGOGUE. 107 in the Canton of Fribourg ; Pere Girard's system not ex- cepted ; and because my school grew famous, the others got envious, and plotted to have me banished ; and the com- mittee here were the worst of all ; they were intemperate, Monsieur," and his nose grew crimson and seemed to turn ilself inside out with contempt. " And the result ?" said Hugh. " Oh, Monsieur, to argue with that kind of people is not worth the quatresfers d 1 un chien ; so I left them to do as much better as they could ; and they have taken a Jean vaurien, in my place." "Republics, you know, are always ungrateful," said Hugh. " Ah, yes, Monsieur, odi profanum vulgus et arceo ; there were no such doings in the time of our good old Seigneurs. They would soon have come down to settle the committee, with a half dozen of their fine men at arms behind them. You know, Monsieur, that we Gruyerois are the handsomest people in Europe." Hugh smiled assent, and the little man talked on. " There, Monsieur, is the Moleson, the pride of Fribourg the king of our mountains. It means moles summa, that name ; it was the monks who called it so, and there you see the great S. Bernard ; and further on there, high shouldered Diablerets, where the Devil was chased by Saint Klaus ; and here is the Chateau at last." A low portal let tliHn in, through walls of an astounding 108 PYNNSHURST. thickness, to a court-yard upon which the Chateau doors opened. Entering, they went through the ancient building ; into the little chapel, and then into the room of torture, but nothing much is preserved except the walls and an old stone handmill. " They were good lords, these Seigneurs of Gruye"res, the people say," observed Pynnshurst. " Yes, Monsieur," replied the little man, " they were models. All that a Seigneur should be, our stout old Counts were ; free hand and strong hand ; brave and true heart, generous masters, faithful allies, sages in council, and lions in the field, I wish we had them back again." " Where did they come from ?" Hugh asked. " I do not know, Monsieur ; but long ago, in the year seven or eight hundred, I believe, a fiery Hun, weary of carnage, established himself here ; killed upon this mountain a Grue, (stork) and determined to build a castle here, and to call it after the bird, which he took also for his arms ; and so he got possession of all the country, which, you know, is celebrated for its cheese." " They were a quarrelsome set of Counts these, were they not?" " Yes, ma Jle f they loved a fray better than a feast ; though they were no bad hands at that either. The Duke of Savoy, the Vallaisians, and Berne, and Fribourg, kept them pretty busy. But here they had poets, players, and buffoons like Girard Chalama ; they gave brave feasts and THE EX-PEDAGOGUE. 1G9 held academies for all the troubadours and minesingers. And besides all that, they gave sites to the monks and built convents and churches, and endowed them well. For they were as good as they were peppery, our old Counts of Gruy- eres." " So much the better for them," said Hugh, " they must have been very rich to hold so gay a court." " Parbleu /" said the little man lifting his nose, " they possessed from here all along the Sarine there up to the glaciers of Sanets, and their cadets one after another, built all around us here the towel's of Trcmes, of Corbieres, of Mount Salvens ; the Chateau d'OEx, Vanel, d'Aigremont and Bellegarde." " And their people loved them, you tell me." " Saperlotte ! I should think so ! When the Counts Hugh, and Turnius gave all their goods to the cloister of Rougernont, and determined to start for the Crusades in the Holy Land ; and when they gathered an hundred brave fellows to follow the Grue to the Holy Sepulchre ; the young mountaineers collected round the castle, shut up its gates, tore down the drawbridge, and swore that their lords should not leave them." " And did they go 2" asked Pynnshurst. " Parbleu ! they had a fashion of doing what they liked those Counts of Gruyeres ; and the people could only weep When they heard the banneret ciy ' March Gruyeres ; we must go forward now; let him come back who can.' But 170 PYNXSHUHST. it was not always fighting with our Counts. They had a ball once that commenced here in the courtyard with seven persons, one fine Sunday night, and finished off there at Gessenay on Tuesday morning with seven hundred dancers, Lord Eodolph the lightest of them all." " Something of a dance that, my friend," said the tra- veller, " but whence comes the title of Corbieres ? 'tis a droll name that, rather." " It had a droll origin, it comes from a corbeau (crow) which took a fancy to the cadet of Gruyeres, who built the Chateau yonder; and which dropped from its mouth a silver ring whenever a boy was born, and a golden one for the girls." " That species of crow is now, I presume, totally extinct is it not ?" " Unluckily, yes, Monsieur, it was a bird of the good old times. I wish I had one in my family. But I have more babies than gold rings." " You know the name of Chalama ; he was the Count's buffoon, my guide-book says." " Aye," said the schoolmaster, " buffoon, and troubadour, and gallant man-at-arms, and propbet, all together. He was the History of Gruyeres. Nothing had ever happened here that he did not know ; and he used to sing the brave deeds of their ancestors to the Counts while they were dining. 'Tvvas he that held the Court of Trifles, where the Count was not admitted till he had taken off his spurs." THE EX-PEDAGOCH"K. l7l " Why was that law passed ?" asked Hugh. " Because, one day the Count tore Chalama's legs with his spurs, for answering, when he asked him his opinion of his marriage with Catharine de la Tour, ' that if her heart turned upward as much as her nose, she would be better in a convent than in the Chateau of Gruyeres.' Poor Cha- lama, his prophecy came true.-" " His prophecy ?" " Yes, that the day would come when the ' Bear would boil the Grue in the cauldron.' " " And what may that mean, my friend ?" " Why you know, Monsieur, that the bear is the arms of Berne ; and the people call the black and white shield of Fribourg, the caldron ; and so in 1600 or thereabouts the last Count Michael incurred so many debts, that he was obliged to sell his estates and go off to die in a foreign coun- try. And then Berne and Fribourg shared the lands of fair Gruyeres between them ; and now we have a Fribourg bailiff instead of our own good old Counts." " Peace to their ashes," said Hugh. " Amen," said the small man, " but it is what they cared least about here. Monsieur has seen all the Chateau." " In that case, my friend, let us go to dinner." " With all my heart. Take care of that cistern, Mon- sieur ; it is into that that the thief fell, one night, and saved himself from drowning by catching his trousers on a Rpike." 172 PYNNSIIUBST. " We have a proverb, my friend," said Hugh, " which runs on thus wise, ' He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned? " "Mafic! Monsieur, we have the same proverb; but it is not always true ; as was proved in the case of Fritz Goujat." " Pray, what was his case ?" " I will tell Monsieur at dinner. At present, I am so uncomfortably thirsty, that I could not do it justice." " Very well, we will put it off till then ; descendons? So down they went to the auberge, and the host was as good as his word. The soup, it is true, was a jelly ; but then all Swiss soups are so ; but the trout, and the cutlets, and the slice of chevreuil, and the quarante six blanc were not to be sneezed at. And the ex-schoolmaster drank and ate, and talked, and performed such amazing gymnastic feats with his nose, that Hugh was equally instructed and delighted. When the little man had put at least two bottles under his waistcoat, Hugh reminded him of his promise to tell the story of Fritz Goujat. So the small man took his nose away from the middle of his face, tucked it comfortably away under his left ear, emptied his tumbler, and began. vm. HE WHO is BORN TO BE HANGED, ETC. " FRITZ GOUJAT, Monsieur, was a native of Ueberthal, near the Lac Domaine, which Monsieur will probably visit before he leaves this part of the country. His father was a cobbler, his mother a cobbleress, and from both Fritz learned that worst of vices, intemperance. My service to you, Monsieur. " Fritz grew up a tall, handsome gargon, but wild as an unbroken colt. He made himself a fisherman upon the lake, and used to spend half his time upon the water. Well, Monsieur, in Ueberthal, the nests were robbed of eggs and the orchards of fruits, and though nobody could find him out, yet everybody was sure that it was Fritz Goujat who was the criminal ; and everybody in the village prophesied that Fritz would be hanged. 174 PTNNBHURST. But down in Thai, which was on the lake, all that they saw of Fritz was in his boat ; in all kinds of storms and tempests, standing up, or running along the thwarts, or carrying sail enough for a seventy-four, and everybody there said that Fritz would certainly be drowned. " ' He does all the mischief of our village,' said an Ueber- thalite to a Thalite, ' he steals, and puts wild notions into the young folks' heads, and cuts up every possible descrip- tion of caper, besides drinking enormously. He will certainly come to be hanged.' " ' No danger of that,' said the Thalite. ' He was on Lake Domaine all last week, when the waves were as high as my house, and his boat is nothing but an egg-shell. Beyond all doubt he will be drowned.' " ' They that are born to be hanged will never be drowned,' said the Ueberthalite. " ' And they that are born to be drowned will never be hanged,' retorted the Thalite. " ' Fritz will be hanged,' said the former, a little nettled. " ' Fritz will be drowned,' was the sturdy reply. " ' Hanged !' said the first. " ' Drowned !' said the second. " ' Anybody, but a fool, could see with half an eye that he is going towards the gallows as fast as he can,' roared the Ueberthalite, with a crimson face. THE MAN WHO IS BOKN TO BE HANGED, ETC. 1*75 " 'Any thing but an ass, would know that his grave must be a watery one,' said the other as hotly. " ' Do you call me an ass ?' said the former. " ' Do you think me a fool ?' said the second. " ' Parbleu !' said the Ueberthalite, ' put that in your pipe and smoke it,' and he gave him a blow on the chest. " ' Thank you for the present. It is thus that I knock the ashes out,' and the reply lighted on the left eye. " So at it they went, swearing, fighting, rolling on the ground ; when suddenly a third came up and separated them, saying " ' It is not a question of battle at present. The matter is to give the body Christian burial.' " ' What body ?' cried the combatants. " ' Fritz Goujat's !' was the answer. " ' Is he dead then ?' they asked. " ' As a door nail,' was the answer. ' He was found six feet below his boat in the lake.' " ' There, drowned ! I told you so,' said the Thalite, tri- umphantly. " ' With the slip-noose pulled tight round his throat, his eyes starting out, and the end of the noose fastened to the boat,' continued the informant. " ' You see, idiot,' said the Ueberthalite, ' that he was hanged.' " ' People who die six feet under water, are not hanged ! bete!' 1*76 PYNNS11UKST. " ' And people who die strangled by a rope round the throat are not drowned, animal !' " ' We have a proverb in my village, that ninety-nine donkeys and one Ueberthalite make an hundred asses.' " ' And we have one in ours which says, " If you wish to see a hog, you must go to the Thai." ' " ' Take that,' ) said the combatants, and renewed their " ' Take that,' i fisticuffs. "But, Monsieur, the quarrel has continued ever since between the two villages ; and to this day I don't know whether Fritz was drowned or hanged. Such is the story, Monsieur ; your very good health." And now the little man began to talk thickly ; so Hugh gave him a dollar and left him ; and went to take a nap in his room, determining, as the weather was warm, to con- tinue his tour after nightfall. And when he started, he passed by the landlord's advice through a grass-field newly mown, and on the first bunch of hay, he saw the little schoolmaster very asleep indeed. His hands were clasped upon his bosom, and there he lay snoring upon his back, his loose nose wriggling at the stars. IX. GOD'S SHARK. MR. PVNNSHURST slept that night in the little auberge which has placed itself amid the straggling houses of the Pars Dieu. In 184 7, he would have slept beneath the same roof with the Carthusian Fathers, in a cell adorned and softened for the voyager. But the fathers were gone. The wisdom of the government had chased them from the canton. Whether that wisdom were wise or not, many men doubt to this moment. One thing is certain, that in the neighborhood there are an hundred beggars where once there was not even one. He is at the foot of the Moleson. Often at Neuchatel he had regarded that stately Alp, lifting his kingly form, crowned with eternal snow, and robed at present in the green of spring ; and now he was beside it. 178 I YNXSHURST. He loved the mountains; the trace of God's fingers rested on them ; man had not changed their features. Up rose their glorious masses, stalwart and proud ; fronting the bright heaven boldly, for they had not sinned. And at their feet lay the sweet valleys, cradles of the spring. And when Hugh looked upon them a droll fancy came into his head. It was this : That the smile of the man is in his eyes and lips, but the smile of the mountain is at its foot. Refreshed by a good sleep, he rose in the morning and walked towards the deserted convent. Sadly it lay there before him, stretching out its long building with cross- tipped roofs, religious in its desolation ; and while he looked he sighed, that the evil should take back what the good had given to God. At the distance of some leagues from Fribourg, in the ancient county of Gruyere, lived, in the good old time, the excellent Count Peter III.; and when his race was run, he departed this life in a good Christian manner, leaving his memory and his property to his widow Wilhelmette. The lady Wilhelmette had, in her province, a certain mountain, fruitful in snows and torrents, very grand to look at but very unproductive. To this she joined some acres of good pasture land and gave it all to the Carthusians, asking them to pray for her, for her young son, and for good Count Peter the departed. To it she gave the name of Theil- Gottes, or Pars-Dieu ; the share of God ; and got Bochard, monk of Val Saint, appointed the first Prior. GOD'S SHAKE. 179 The monks went stoutly to work ; they cleared the forest, they terraced parts of the mountain side, they brought soil thither with much labor, and sowed abundantly, and planted. And soon the voice of prayer made sweet the solitudes ; and alms were ready for the wandering poor, and the cross upon the tower, and the mellow bell told the poor mountaineer that God was beside him. Little by little the people gathered round, and built their humble houses there, and the wilderness smiled, and there was another home of torrents won from rough Nature for a house of prayer. This was in A. D., 1308. In the year 1800, the ancient convent was biirned down ; but the monks contrived to build it up again, without diminishing their alms. And so it stood until that melancholy revolution, lifting up radicalism, drove the good fathers from their home, and left the empty halls of " God's Share" to tell to the wan- dering stranger, the story of their benevolence. There, within three years, was a wondrous clock, which marked the seconds, minutes, quarters, halves, and hours > the days, the weeks, the months, the feasts of the whole year, the courses of the planets, the phases of the moon, and half a dozen other things. There, too, was an organ, played by a mechanical hand, which could accompany seve- ral simple chants. These were the work of good old Father Bertram, who 180 PYNNSHURST. is with God now, and of whom one pleasant legend is as follows : Long ago the old monk had vanquished nearly all his enemies ; but one held out still unsubdued and apparently unconquerable. It attacked him with unsparing severity^ knocked him down, and kept him often confined to his bed when he ought to have been chanting the offices in the choir with his brethren. He called this enemy sleep. Every means was tried in vain to get the better of it ; he fasted hard, and worked more than his share, and added to his devotions, but he only slept the sounder ; and in the matin office they missed his counter-bass, and the father Prior scolded, but not hard, for brother Bertrand was getting old, and had labored very faithfully. But the old man's conscience was harder to deal with than the father Prior, and it abused him terribly. Now, he was as good a mechanician as he was a sleeper, and he resolved to make himself a clock that should awake him for the office. So he made one, which, at the proper hour, rung a loud bell, and beat upon a kettle-drum and made a cock crow shrilly ; and the next morning he was the first in the chapel. But he soon got used to the noise, and in a week slept soundly through it all. Next he added a serpent who hissed horribly in his ear, "it is time to get up." But dealing with serpents brings to man uncomfortable knowledge, and this one taught the poor GOD'S SHARE. 181 frere Bertrand, that it was not sleep which kept him in his bed, but simple, unadulterated laziness. So he added to the drum, and bell, and cock, and snake, a heavy oaken plank, which fell, when the clock ceased striking, and massacred his toes. This did very well for three mornings, but on the fourth, the devil whispered him to curl his legs up under him. He did so and slept like a top. But all that day his conscience was a fearful companion, and so teased him, that he set his wits to work, to discover an expedient to satisfy it. His clock was no gilded Geneva gimcrack, fit for the mantel-piece of a lady's boudoir ; but a ponderous piece of workmanship, huge as the side of his cell, and strong as a steam-engine. So he placed a sort of mighty spring among the works, and fastened a stout cord to the end of it, and the other end of the cord to his body, and when the clock struck the matin hour, the bell rung, and the drum beat, and the cock crew, and the snake hissed, and the spring went off with a mighty crack and jerked poor brother Bertrand into the middle of the floor. This was convincing. The enemy gave up. But alas ! no sooner had the good friar happily succeeded, than he died. " I shall wake to-morrow," he said, smiling as he died, " in a place where I shall sleep no more." Pynnshurst spent most of the day in wandering about the 182 PYKXSHUKST. silent and desert convent, listening to the sad echoes of his own footsteps in the cold and silent halls, and slept at night in the same little auberge, to mount the Moleson to- morrow. For Pars Dei lies at the foot of the Moleson, on the fore- head of which mountain, rises a cross more than six thousand feet above the level of the sea, proclaiming that the mountain is God's. X. MOLES ON. HUGH has his Alpenstock (stock meaning stick in Ger- man) in his right hand, as he climbs, not with any great rapidity, the ascent of Moleson. At first the trees are respectable, and the clusters of houses may be called villages. An occasional lizard may be seen amid the rocks, and the sparrow whistles here; but higher up, there the growth is stunted, the pasture lands have more flowers than grass ; goats get along much more successfully than cattle ; houses become rarer, though there are some even on the peaks ; chalets make themselves visible ; little white and brown butterflies take the place of birds ; the violet becomes immense, the alpine rose clings in the crevices ; and so matte rs alter, till he stands puffing and wiping his forehead at the foot of the cross. 184 PYNNSHUKST. To the west, he looks over the Gruyere pasture lands, o'er Moral's lake and the low hills that bound it, where the blue waters of Neuchatel are framed in the Jura. Northward runs the Sarine, only a silver thread to him, with the Weissenstein topping the distance. Southward, the Savoy Alps, under the dominion of the kingly Mount Blanc. Westward, the Bernese Oberland, where hills on hills arise, and the white foaming cataracts fall forever, and the avalanche roars down from the crest of Yungfrau, and the pure, bright Silberhorn woos the caress of the sun- beam. When he had seen all this he turned to come down again. But Ihe land had disappeared. Some hundred feet below him rolled, billowing, the inky clouds wild children of the Alps. He heard the rush of falling rain, drenching the valleys beneath. Then the dull mass heaved strongly, and out from its dusky heart leaped the keen lightning, and the thunder's roar rolled backward to the Alps, and they returned it to the Jura yonder, and " every mountain now had found a tongue," and sullen and deep were the echoes that awoke amid the caverns of those hills. Thus stood he in the sunshine, gazing down upon the storm. But the tempest has gone by, and he must descend and march stoutly onward to Lac Domaine. But half way down he entered a cottage to beg a drop of kirsch, the Alpine whiskey. MOLESOX. 185 " Guten tag, Madame ; can you give me a mouthful of kirsch, for I have climbed your mountain here till I am very weary ?" " Ja ja, Jlerr, you shall have some that my goodman makes with his own hands, and you'll find none like it in your grand hotels down below there ; and if you will eat a morsel of goats' cream cheese and a cut of our brown bread, you will be heartily welcome." " My good dame," said Hugh, " your hospitality pays me for mounting. I will accept your invitation with all my heart. Hospitality is chased from the plains to the refuge of the chamois and the ibex." " I think I know what the Herr means ; that the kindly offer of a morsel and a drink is only found now among the mountain folk." " Yes, that is what I mean." " Ah, and it is only too true ; I know when I go with the goodman down there to the market. We Swiss are neither so good nor so simple as we used to be. It ions oth- erwise when good Queen Bertha span? " I have heard that proverb many a time ; pray, what is its meaning ?" " Well, you must know that when the good queen took refuge here, she built churches and hospitals for the poor and sick, and gave all her revenue in alms ; and they were the happiest days ever known, says the history. And one day out walking, she saw a young peasant girl guard- 186 PYNKSHURST. ing her sheep, and working diligently the while at her spinning-wheel. So she was pleased with the little one's industry, and gave her a handsome present and enough to dower her to boot. " And the next day, every lady came to court with a spin- ning-wheel. But the good queen laughed and said, ' The young peasant came the first, and like Jacob she has won the blessing.' " But the ladies were ashamed to leave off their work, and the queen was the busiest of all, and the fashion of the court passed to the cottage, every body was industrious, and every body was happy, and so we say here,. Those were the best days in which queen Bertha span." "Thank you for your story; and now I must say 'good bye' and leave you." " God's blessing and St. Mary's go with you," she replied. He could not offer to pay her ; so he took a little gold medal of Ensiedeln from his breast and hung it round the neck of her child, and nodded farewell and so parted. There is no pleasanter peasantry than that of Fribourg. ^Vell looking, and when possessed of enough to nurture them, well and cleanly dressed; in scarlet handkerchiefs and white bosomed and striped bodices, with purple or brown skirt. They always salute the stranger ; for polite- ness is part of their religion. In every other part of Switzerland when you give a coin MOLKSON. 187 to a beggar, old or young, lie does not regard you, nor thank you, but falls at once to the examination of the piece ; grunts and goes off. But the Fribourgeois kisses his hand before receiving, mutters a blessing on you, and pockets the alms without looking at it. So that if you are that way inclined you can present him safely with a button. These peasants are exceedingly respectful, are yet free and frank as daylight with you. You never see any stiff- ness of respect ; still less anything like fawning ; yet least of all intrusion or impertinence. If you enter the cottage its owners do their best to promote your comfort while you are there, and if they like you, send after you in going, a shower of benedictions. Hugh liked to talk with them, and liked to hear them talk among themselves, even when he could not understand them, for their patois there is musical as Italian. " You have a stout burden there, my friend," he said to a Laitier (milkman) who was descending beside him with all his utensils on his back. " Ah, 'tis nothing when one is used to it," he answered, touching his cap. " And do you carry that up and down the mountain, all the year." " Oh no, 'tis but a little way that we carry it, from the pastures only to those houses there below, where the butter and cheese are made. And those we take to the plain only once in the year. We make famous cheese here." 188 PYNSSHURST. " Yes, my friend," said Hugh, " I have eaten Gruyere cheese, maybe you made it yourself, twelve hundred leagues from here." " St. Martin ! where then ?" " In America, you know where that is ?" " Oh yes," was the reply with the calm dignity of con- scious knowledge, " that's in New York ; I know, for I have a brother there, I suppose you know him, Christian Schatel, he is a Laitier." In Switzerland people even in the rank of respectable shopkeepers, always expect that all Americans are intimate acquaintances. A tailor at Neuchatel measuring me one day, informed me that he had just finished a coat for Mr White. "Indeed," said I. " Yes ; Monsieur knows him ?" Now it is just the color in which I happen not to have one solitary acquaintance ; I know one Mrs. Green ; two Mr. Browns, a family of Blacks, and the respectable oyster cooker of Broad street, Moses Blue ; but not a White, not ore. So I told the tailor. " No." " Mais, Monsieur, he is from America." " My friend," said I, " America is thousands of miles long and thousands broad. I have never seen the quarter of it." " But he is from New York," persisted the Schneider, MOLESON. 189 " pale man, wears spectacles, great many pimples on his face." " Alas," said I, " New York has five hundred thousand inhabitants : three quarters of them are pale ; three eights wear spectacles, and pimples, Lord bless you, are as common as huckleberries. Positively and absolutely, I do not know Mr. White." So was the peasant astonished when Hugh did not know his brother, and so did he wonder and bless himself as Hugh enlightened him on the size of the place. " I suppose you are happy here ?" Hugh said. " Oh yes, happy enough. We have our own sickness and death, like the plain folk. And sometimes we tumble off a precipice, besides. Then a snow slide, for we have no great avalanches as in the Oberland there, will crush a cabin or kill some of the cattle, but God is good, the cattle come again, and as for the friends that go away, we can pray for them till we follow them." " How much of the year, are you out on the pastures ?" Hugh asked. " Till the snow has covered them, and then we herd the cattle in the chalets, and feed them with the hay which we make in summer." " And you have your own amusements, doubtless ?" " Oh, yes, in the summer nights the young folks dance to the pipe, and in the winter those who have not gone further 190 TYNXSHURST. down, cluster in the chalets, and the old folks tell wild Alpen stories." " Stories about what ?" said Hugh, on the look out for a legend. " Ah, about many a thing, sometimes about the Sabbat, when the witches come to adore the great Buck of the mountain ; sometimes of the dwarfs who lead the cattle astray ; or of the servant-spirits who help us in the chalets, if we leave a cup of milk for them eveiy night ; or of the black hunter who chases in the storms over the Alps there." " And could not you give me a specimen of these stories ?" asked Hugh. " I ! oh no ; I am neither old enough nor young enough." " How so, pray !" " Why, I have forgotten the stories of childhood and have not yet learned those of old age. At my age we work, and when clustered around the fire at night, I sleep a good deal more than I hear, for I am generally very tired. See here we are at the chalet ; I hope you will try our cream, and rest a moment ; there is a guide at the door too, I dare say that there is another voyager within." XI. MR. Ki PP s. As Hugh passed under the low portal, he saw the back of a young traveller, who was talking most volubly to a stout dame, one word of German to twenty of English. The German he uttered in a Christian tone, but he screamed out the English as if he were mad. He was evidently under the impression, not peculiar to him, that to make a foreigner understand you, it is merely necessary to yell like a Mohawk. The fat dame was trying not to laugh, as the stranger ad- dressed her. " ffabcn sie a brush, my good soul ; a brush you know ! a brush ! to brush with. Nichts Nichts ! Ich kabi tum- bled in the mud, and ruined my trousers, trousers, hey ?" and he looked with a broad smile into the good woman's 192 PYNNSHURST. merry face. " Ah, you are laughing at me, sie sie, laugh ! laugh !" and he drew the corners of his mouth back to illus- trate its meaning. " But the brush, my good soul, haben sie nicht brush ! for my trousers you know, bless you, my trousers ! brush !" Hugh stepped forward laughing and said " If you will accept my services as interpreter, they are heartily at your disposal." The figure turned round, uttered a cry of joy, and seized the hand of our amazed wanderer. " Oh Pynnshurst !" he bolted forth, "who'd have thought it ? to meet you here on the Moleson ; in the Alps, and scenery, and things of that kind. I am uncommonly glad to see you ; just look at my trousers ; fell in the mud half a mile from here, and was obliged to walk in them, very un- comfortably wet, to this place." " You ought to have taken them off, and hung them on your staff," said Hugh. " I thought of that," said the stranger, " and of putting my legs through the sleeves of my coat ; but they were not long enough." " Which, Gus, the sleeves or the legs ?" " The sleeves, my dear fellow ; and then you know too, if I had met any ladies, they would have thought it very strange to see a man wearing his coat in that way but I say, Pynnshurst, how d'ye do 2" And he shook the wanderer heartily by the hand. Hugh MR. KIPPS. 193 had recognized in him Mr. Augustus Frederick Kipps ; a New Yorker, with a good heart and an empty head. " What in the name of all that is petrifying, brings you to Switzerland, Kipps ?" " Why, bless you, everybody goes ; and then you know there is the Alps and scenery and avalanches and things How do you like my costume de voyage ?" "It is all that is most lovely; it is in fact Alpestre /" " No, do you really think so ? I got it made in Paris as I came through. Do you like the cold ?" " Infinitely ; but what news from New York ?" " Oh, a budget full ; they are trying to bring up straps again ; but I have a letter for you in iny sack down below there. Where do you come from ?" " From the top of the mountain there." " And where are you going ?" " To Berne and the Oberland." " The Oberland ! that's where the scenery is, is not it ?" " Yes, that is the spot ; there is the Yungfrau, and Stock horn, and Niesen, and Reigenbach, and Giesbach, and Staub- bach." " Stop !" cried Kipps, " Staubbach ; let me think," and he placed his hand upon his forehead for a moment, and then gravely resumed, " yes, it is Staubbach. I have got that on a salad-spoon which I bought at Geneva. There's a great deal of blue and white about it, I know, and scenery. Well, my dear fellow, I'll go with you !" 194 PYNNSHURST. " But wont you finish the ascent of the Moleson ?" asked Hugh. " No, no, confound the Moleson, I'll go with you. Where do you sleep to-night ?" " At Lac Domaine, a good walk from here ; so, if you wont mount, let us go down and on our way." So with all manner of adieus from the good-hearted peasants, they descended and marched on for the Schwart- zee. " And so you have seen all the world of New York, with- in three months, hey ? Were you very uncommonly sick in crossing, my poor Augustus ?" " I was, indeed, Pynnshurst ; many a time when I leaned over the edge of my berth, which cut me confoundedly here under the chin ; many a time I wished to be back in my own room, and I thought if ever I got there again, that I would let the Alps and things, go to sea themselves, if they wanted to." " But how did you really come to start ?" Hugh asked. " Well, the fact is, I had talked a good deal about it you know ; and my aunt Lucy, not the one that's dead you know, but another one ; squints a little and wears pink caps ; well, she was always talking to me about scenery, and voyages to enlarge your ideas and all that sort of stuff, as if there was any use in that : my ideas are not good for anything : what is the use of enlarging them ?" " But finally she persuaded you to try the voyage, hey ?" MR. KIPPS. 195 " No, she did not. No ; it was one night at Mrs. Schuy- lev's ; who should come up to me but your cousin Alice, pale and thin, but so uncommonly pretty that it makes you feel queer, you know, when you shook hands with her, well, she said, ' I hear that you are going to Europe, Mr. Kipps.' ' Yes,' I said, ' I talked about it.' ' If you do go,' she added, ' you will carry some letters from me, and try to find Hugh out, wont you ?' That's what made me come, Pynns- hurst ; when she said ' won't you,' in that kind of a way to me, I would have started to walk here for her. The very next morning I ordered a pea jacket and a blue cap with an anchor button on it. Everybody took me for a naval officer except the sailors." " Good cousin Alice," said Hugh, " how does she look, Gus ?" "Like an angel tired of staying here on earth," said Kipps. " She seldom smiles, and when she does, it is so sad that I would rather see her cry. There are letters from her in that sack, which I will give you when we get to our destination." And so they marched forward stoutly through the Val Saint across the Sarine and along the Yaun ; then a mono- tonous and ugly route to Pre-de 1'Essert, cradled in the hills, and once the property of the Abbey of Hauterive, so, in a little while, to the Schwartzee (black lake) or Lac Domaine. A lake elliptic, clearly crystalline, and framed in richest verdure, and you bounce from 'mid the savage and most 196 PYNNSHURST. ugly rocks and herbless paths, upon it suddenly. Like to a Cairngorm in green velvet case, lies the fair water elegantly packed ; in full circumference about a mile. All its fair sloping banks are meadow lands, or fertile pastures beau- tiful with herds; and the sweet tinkling of the cowbell comes, borne dying o'er the water to your ear. Sweet tinkling say I for the bell is not that miserable little copper thing that scares the sparrows in a Yankee glade, but a full rich-toned and most musical bell ; weighing a dozen, maybe twenty pounds ; and so loved by the soft eyed, smooth haired cow, that if you take it from her neck, she dies. No sources feed this lovely little lake ; no merry rivulet supplies its floods, but to its breast the melted glacier steals, and it sleeps calm the nursling of the snows. There, if you wish to, you can take a bath, in the pure lake or in a nasty spring of sulphur water, under the red roof which you see peeping there from out the trees. Having entered the inn, Hugh Pynnshurst sent Kipps to amuse himself in the bath-room, while he locked himself in his room to read his letters from home, Letters from home ! how musical the cry;/ to the boy sailor on the far off main, when from the friendly vessel drawing nigh, across the billow floats the gentle strain. The words, the tear-deeps of his memory move ; they tell a mother's or a sister's love ; and playmate, friend, and MB. KIPPS. 197 sweetheart, to him come, out on the sea in letters from his home. The frail sad mother, by her children's prayer, driven from her native but ungenial air, to where the breeze amid the pine wood sweeps, or orange blooms nod white o'er South- ern deeps ; feels the warm life blood from her cheek retreat ; feels the deep mother heart suspend its beat ; half hoping, and half fearing, see her come, stretching her thin hand for those letters from home. The man, who, scattering with too open hand, finds him- self penniless in stranger land ; in the worst corner by his landlord thrust, who trusts unkindly, for he fears to trust. How he lifts up his shame-o'erburdened head, and puts new pride and vigor in his tread ; while his bright eyes o'er all things boldly roam, at thoughts of double letters from his home. But to the wanderer ! Still the trembling chords ; for him there is no music in those words. Home is where love and gentle trust abide ; 'tis there where mother, child, and wife, reside. Bereft of these, roam on, lone heart, roam, o'er crag and wold, and fell, thou hast no home. Hark ! from the Alp crests falls a whispered strain, like the low breeze before the summer rain. Then rises in the stillness, to a psalm, solemn, and sweet, and infinitely calm. " O child of woman, yearner for the grave ; sorrow was sent to teach thee to be brave; bow not nor murmur at thy load of pain ; what man hath borne, that man can bear 198 PYNNSIIUKST. again; compare the burden which o'erweighs thy pride, with that which pressed upon the Crucified. Then leave thy gloom and issue into day ; go, fulfil man's two duties, work and pray. Faithful for God, live bravely, bravely die, and then the wanderer hath a home on high." BOOK IV ALPS. filer weder Lauferstab noch Kron' Die schone Welt verzieret ; Hler Gott allein sitzt auf den Thron', Und Gott allein regieret. BAGOESEN. AlpenlieCt, I. THE STROKG CITY OF DUKE BERCTHOLD. DILIGENCE painted yellow, with red streaks here and there, guided by postillion in blue and red, and pewter buttons with the federal cross, and hard glazed hat, with white-washed copper band : Diligence, whose conductor carries a small pouch beneath his blue and silver arm, an ambulant post-office, and who keeps incessantly selling his place whenever he can get any one to buy it, and smokes very bad tobacco indeed. Diligence, drawn by horses with tails en papillate, within thy solemn and most cavernous gloom lurk some- thing like a dozen living mammalia, bimana, omnivorous, highest 'mid vertebrated animals, among whom philosophers know two specimens to whom are given these names. Hugh Brian Aytner Henry Pynnshurst, commonly called 9* 202 PYNNSHURST. Hugh Pynnshurst, and Augustus Frederick Kipps, usually known as Gus Kipps. On then they roll along a dusty road in the warm July weather, the yellow wheat waving in the fenceless fields, and crimson poppies mingling with the golden straw. " Wheat," said the conductor, pointing out enormous fields " which sprang from two grains brought in the pocket of one returned from far Australia, land of the bush-ranger and the kangaroo ; where the dodo is still supposed to exist, and where shepherds get rich when the natives don't eat them young." Roaring through a long Gothic-roofed bridge, that crosses the tumbling Aar, they find themselves in Aarberg, a strong walled city, surrounded by the river in high tides, and nearly so at all times. It may be interesting to state here that our travellers drank a bottle of beer, and that they paid a shilling for it, sixpence too much ; but perhaps the extra sixpence was for the extra acid, for the beer was very sour. There is a chateau there, and several other buildings, of what nature, outward form, or inward fashion, I do not know, and Pynnshurst did not discover ; and as for Kipps, bless his honest heart, he never bothered his head about such matters, he was thinking what colored gloves he ought to wear when he should get to Berne. First he decided on straw-color, and asked Pynnshurst how he thought they would loci:; Hugh replied, ''very THE STRONG CITY OF DUKE BEKCTHOLI). 203 well," and Augustus was satisfied, but a thought presented itself suddenly that it was too light a color for a Swiss city, and he proposed brown. " Very good," said Hugh. " Or slate-color, yes, I think slate-color will be best." " Yes," said Hugh. "Yes," said Augustus, and so the gloves were settled and he gave up his mind unreservedly to the consideration, of pantaloons. So beautiful a road exists nowhere else that I know of. For miles on miles, broad, smooth, and exquisitely kept, lined with superbest lindens, and with elms, and now and then a huge wild-cherry tree ; a very avenue it is. And* now then, look there to the right where soars on high the square tower of the Cathedral and the spire of the Church of St. Esprit, and turret dome and red roof glance in the sunshine, and the Aar roars welcome to Berne. Swift through the Morat gate you pass, and the huge bears that guard it loll out their stone tongues at you as you go by them ; and you rattle into the post court, and emerge from your four-wheeled gaol. You are in the city of the brave old dukes of Zoehringen. " And* now will I give you what of the history of this ' town' is known, and I humbly entreat the reader that if he shall, in this that we have written, find anything not delivered according to the truth, he will not impute the same * Bede Hist. Ecc., B. I., Pref. 204 PYNNSHURST. to me, who, as the rule of Histoiy requires, have labored sincerely to commit to writing such things as I could gather from common report, for the instruction of posterity." When Kaiser Henry IV. quarrelled so bitterly with Gregory VII., the stoutest opponent of the Emperor, and staunch adherent of the Pope was Bercthold, Duke of Zcehringen, the most puissant Seigneur of the Black Forest. He having several times well drubbed the troops of Henry, at last made friends with him, and received from him in fief all the seigneurial rights over the city and the Monastery of Zurich. He was also Landgrave of Burgundy, and exer- cised o'er all Burgundian Switzerland the imperial powers. Well, when Bercthold IV. found himself duke he looked about for a fitting place to build himself a strong city. By the blue rushing of the arrowy Aar, he found a lofty hill, solid and stixmg ; on three sides, girdled by the torrent which has just left Lake Thun ; and on the fourth sloping in an inclined plane, off to the West. There from the summit, when the sky was clear, one saw the Bernese Alps from Wetterhorn to Stockhorn (the peak of thunder and the stick-peaks). Conical Niesen rises there frowning on blue-lake Thun, and backed by the pale gray Blumis Alp. Throned in the midst, the Lady of the Moun- tains, the stately virgin queen of Oberland, majestic Yungfrau stands; and then the eye ranges on along the snowy, glacier- covered mass, whose four peaks, more or less like sugar- TUB STRONG CITY OF 1)UKE BERCTHOLD. 205 loves, soar up into the clouds, peaks called the Eigera, Monach, the Finster Aar-horn (gloomy peak of Eagles) and the Shreckhorn (peak of Terror). " There," said good Duke Berchthold, " will I build my strong city." Then he called his wise men and his strong men about him, carpenters, and smiths, and masons, and they cut their strong foundation in the hill there, and they piled the mighty walls, and fortified the great chateau, and so at last drew a huge line of bastion and redoubt around the work and the strong city was built. And the duke was well pleased. " And now," he said to his warriors, " to-morrow go we forth to the chase ; and the first animal that we slay shall give a name to my strong city." So with the morning, knight and squire, horse and hound, streamed from the gates there towards the mountains, and as they neared them, the leashes were slipt, the dogs sprang forward, started, coursed and killed a hare. " That does not count," said Duke Berchthold, " a little timorous beast like that can never give a name to my strong city. " My lord, the dogs bay on the mountain," cried a squire. " Forward then, and may the game be a brave one this time." It was a sturdy bear (BAER) ; and though he ran well and fought well, yet he was floored at last, and they slew him 203 I'YNNSHURST. there, and took his name for their name JBcern, and his body for arms. On the posts of the Morat gate, two enormous bears in granite look heavily out upon the linden-lined road as if they would like to go to the hills, but were too lazy. The great fountain in the grand street, is surmounted by a sturdy bruin armed cap-au-pied, a sword girt at his side, and a banner in his paws. Another, shows an archer with young cubs for squires. On the Zcit glocken Thurm, the mighty " time clock tower" built in good Berchthold's day, in 1189, the same respectable animal amuses the charmed populace each time the clock strikes. A fat man, crowned and throned, marks every stroke, by yawning like a true Swiss, by lifting and by lowering his sceptre ; a wooden cock goes past, flapping his wings ; a manikin beats on the bell with a huge ham- mer ; and a bear procession passes, some armed, some carry- ing flags, some, instruments of music. In fact the bear is everywhere. He ramps in the centre of that respectable coin the batz, value three cents ; he grins from inn post and from sculptured frieze : and finally, male and female, inhabits in full life, a small paradise of his own on the ramparts of the city. From time immemorial two have been preserved, which cost at present seven hundred francs a year. They used to live within the walls ; but were banished for a little indis- THE STROSG CITY OF DUKE BERCTHOLD. 207 cretion on the part of the lady ; she managed to climb the wall of her apartment and ate a boy. Some say that this was considered as a crime for which she was exiled to the ramparts ; but others hold, and more reasonably, that the boy was an unwholesome boy, that he disagreed with her, and that she was removed to her present abode for change of air. She seems in excellent health at, present, and annually presents her lord with two young cubs who unite their father's stateliness with the tenderer graces of their gentle mama. When in 1798, the French republicans took possession of the city, they sent the bears to the Jardin des plantes in pursuance of that very French notion, Dieu Jit la France pour lui-meme, et toute autre chose pour la France. But when le bon temps revint the first care of the Bernois was, to re-establish their illustrious fellow citizens in peaceable possession of their former privileges. In the superb park or esplanade which from behind the cathedral looks over the warring Aar upon the glorious pan- orama of the Bernese Alps ; where lindens so magnificently rich in foliage that the very rain cannot penetrate them, shadow the gravelled walks, clustering with long-haired students and white-corsaged nursery maids; here, say I, stands upon a marble pedestal a very fine bronze duke Bercthold, uncovered and leaning on his sword. An armed bear, bare-headed, bears his casque, which few could bear in our degenerate day. Those heavy head pieces 208 PYNXSHURST. borne of old by that well born race, now long since gone unto " that bourne from which no traveller returns." On the four sides of that square pedestal, are four square plates of bronze, where, sculptured in high and delicate relief, shine forth four deeds of Berchthold. In one he builds his strong city ; in another he stands amid his hunters, backed by the Alps, his foot, and sword-point on a bear defunct, and underneath him this hexameter Ex bellua occisa nomen sit urbis futurce. " From the slain-beast shall come the name of the city." What he does in the other two is a matter forgotten. Look over the edge of this esplanade. An hundred feet below, the Aar tumbles frothily over a dam ; there is the island of baths ; there too the lower village, where the plebs congregate and vegetate. Hence, Theodore Weinzoefflin fell with his horse ; one of them was killed, the other lived and became a parson. There is the cathedral ; go in and look at it. That ancient, gentleman, who talks no French and very little German, will conduct you for the modest sum of seven batzen, round the walls ; will tell you how Matthew Oezinger, and his son Vincent built it in 1422 ; will show you very good sculp- ture on the parapet ; and the Last Judgment, with the wise and foolish Virgins above the portal. Inside he will show you a tablet with seven hundred names of seven hundred Bernese slain by the French, in- scribed thereon ; another monument to Berchthold, and a THE STRONG CITY OF DUKE BERCTHOLD. 203 fine wood-work Choir, where Martin Luther represents an Apostle. There is a pretty Greek church, (du St. Esprit) and another, in the old part of the town, called the French church, where the blinded papists are permitted by the liberal government to take turn about with the more en- lightened Calvinists. Issue forth now into the arcaded streets ; sunshine or rain, 'tis all one to pedestrians in Berne, every side walk is an arcade ; you are always in the shelter, except when you cross the streets Right pleasant it is to walk through the bear city, and examine the inhabitants. Here, by her little counter, on the edge of the curb-stone, a black-eyed coquette, with tresses of unheard of richness, offers you pictures or carved wood from the Oberland, or a painted pipe or a tobacco-pouch, or some other nonsense, with a smile revealing exquisite teeth, a beauty that nearly all the Bernese women possess. Further along is a young peasant girl, in purple skirt, black velvet boddice, cut very low in front to show the snowy linen that mounts up to her round, sunburnt throat ; where the bodice ends and the linen begins, on each side is a silver rose, or heart, or star, or some such affair, from which hang silver chains, which, gracefully depending, pass under the arms, and are fastened to another rose or star upon the shoulder behind. Her short white sleeves are covered on the outside with a plait of linen starched into steel-like 210 PYNNSHURST. stiffness ; her rich, black hair hangs in two braids nearly to the ground, the ends of the ribbon that fasten it trail in the dust : the hem of her purple skirt is bound with red cloth of an inch in width. That is her mother or her aunt there with her, dressed very like her, except that her hair is snooded up, and that she, the mother or aunt, wears a black cap, with black lace wings stiffened out with wires for a foot on each side of her face, so that the head looks, at a distance, like a gigantic black butterfly. That young follow yonder with the sturdy calves cased in ribbed woollen stockings, and carrying that huge milk barrel on his back, may be her lover. His nether garments cut off at the knee, rise up to the middle of his chest, and are kept in place by two embroidered straps that cross the shoulders ; he has a red silk handkerchief about his throat, and a rose in his mouth. Go thy ways for a good-looking fellow, O father of future Bernois. But what is chis next ? A small green cap, shaped like I don't know what like a pear with the blossom end on the head like a green paper candle-shade like a pyramid of ice-cream beginning to fall like itself, in a word, and like no other thing; with an appearance of fulling that makes you put your hand up instinctively to save it. This thing, I say, is placed upon a mane of hair, black or blonde, which tumbles on the owner's shoulders. He, with sweet, rose-cheeked, open, blue-eyed face, or THE STKONO CITY OF 1H7KK BKKCTHOLD. 211 with deep, gipsy tint, and wild, thoughtful, black eyes ; with the young, cherished moiistache upon the upper lip, and the old, cherished pipe below it ; with the broad, white collar turned over the loose coat, covered with braid, bears a thick stick in his hand, and goes fast on his way. He nods to every pretty girl, with some quaint salutation that provokes a smile ; he gets out of everybody's road that shows signs of politeness for him, but butts up violently against rude men ; and asks fiercely, " Gott im Himmel ! Can't you look where you go ?" "Well, that is a German student. But look at that group. A fat red faced gentleman, in black coat, brown trowsers, and white vest and cravat, whose right hand plays with a bunch of rich seals, which hang from a ribbon in the old style. Upon his arm is a fat red-faced lady, in silks fur-trimmed, August though it be ; in her hand is a reticule, a large parasol, a brown paper bundle and a spectacle case. Every two minutes she looks over her shoulder to call after two very tall girls and two very tall boys, all very fair, blue-eyed and blond-curly haired, the girls having ringlets, the boys close crops. They have all grown much too fast, are very shaky and unsolid in their general appearance ; walk as if their legs were entirely new and they were trying them on for the first time ; their arms swing loosely about as if they had no sockets at the shoulder ; but were fastened on merely with a piece of thread ; they keep their mouths open, and laugh occasionally in a vacant manner. 212 PYXNSHURST. The youngest boy jerks up his leg every minute, to pull up a stocking which seems to have a propensity to get from under the thraldom and shadow of the trouser. That is a " respectable English family travelling in Switzerland." The girls have tartan shawls of course. But stop ; there he comes ; get out of his way ! Robed in full black, long in a dress-coat, yellow and meagre; getting into every body's way, finding every body in his ; pricing every article from one end of the street to the other ; turning round to look under women's bonnets ; carrying his gloves in his hands ; biting occasionally at a small ivory horse-head on top of the rattan, in his large red hand ; with an expression half conceited, and half astonished, with his mouth puckered into a half whistle that's a United Stateser. These and many other things sees Hugh Pynnshurst as he strolls beneath the arcades of Duke Berchthold's strong- city. Off yonder, is the tower of the Grand Goliath ; it was made originally for a Saint Christopher ; but they have turned the Christian into a Paynim, and he frowns there very red in the face. He is some thirty feet of stature, leans upon a two handed Swiss-sword and scowls upon a small stone David, who menaces him with a sling from a fountain top in the street below. The fountains in all Swiss cities are droll ; in Berne specially so ; they are all columns with figures on the top. THE STRONG CITY OF DUKE BERCTHOLD. 213 You find Moses with his horns of light ; a fat man munch- ing a baby, called the Ogre ; an ancient Swiss Archer ; a Bear ; Sampson ; Justice ; what you will. Opposite the grand porch of the Cathedral, is a superb equestrian statue of Rodolph von Erlach, the hero of Laupen ; who, when retired to cincinnatize upon his paternal acres, quarrelled about money matters with an amiable son- in-law, who cut the throat of Count Rodolph. In the low balconied windows are bright-colored cushions for those who are idle enough to look out upon the passen- gers. The majority of the gentlemen wear spectacles ; donkey carts are numerous, so are donkeys. Hugh should have gone to the Falke ; but he had asked for advice from a fellow-traveller, who sent him to /' Abbaye du Singe, the tavern of the monkey, much to his after dis- content. Suppose him arrived, received by a curious little red-headed individual, who was, perhaps, the monkey in person, speaking very little French indeed, and assigned* to his room. Suppose him washed and gone to dinner, after table (FH'dte hours, and therefore, with covers for only Kipps, himself, and a third person. Oh ! what a very, very bad dinner it was ! Then, at fish- time, the door opened and a pale man in carpet slippers came in, bowed solemnly, sat down opposite the third cover, and eat in silence, till the first roast had been discussed. Then he opened his mouth and said as follows, very slowly in English that smelled strongly of the North of Ireland. 214 PYNNSHTJRST. " If I don't speak to you, don't think I am unsociable ; most English are unsociable ; I'm not so meself. I've got a sick boy here, and am fatigued with attending on him. Me wife is also fatigued. I've a friend who has passed all his summers for thirty years in this hotel ; and I've another friend, a devilish fine fellow, in the dragoon-guards, who has done the same thing for fifteen. An Englishman died here the other day, from cutting a corn. The toe mortified, and they cut off the toe ; the foot mortified, and they cut off the foot ; the leg mortified, and they cut off the leg ; the body mortified, and then he died ; I never cut me corns meself, I file 'em. Then he ate some roast veal, half a chicken, considerable salad, a bird, a large mass of pudding, a quarter of a tart, a piece of sponge cake, and some stewed prunes. Washed them all down with half a bottle of thin, white wine, rose, bowed solemnly, sighed heavily, and passed slowly from the ipartment, with his hands crossed calmly over his stomach. After the dinner, which was served by the porter in a blue coat, Hugh went up to his room, and sate himself down for a moment to think. The door opened ; a tall man, hat on head and segar in mouth, for the Swiss resem- ble the Americans in these politenesses, walked in, came up to the table and seized a pen, an inkstand, and a broken segar, which lay thereon. Then he searched about the apartment, examined the baggage, and turned round. Hugh was on his feet by this time, and had gone to the THE STRONG CITY OF DI T KE BEUCTHOLl). 215 window to see how high it was from the ground, when the strange man spoke. " This morning, when I went out, Monsieur, this was my room ; if I came in without knocking, it was because I thought it was still my room." " Have you not mistaken the number ?" asked Hugh. "Here is my inkstand and pen," replied the stranger " but my trunks have vanished. It is very curious, I will go and inquire ;" and he disappeared as coolly as he came. 4 When Hugh had gotten over this and had set himself down to think again, a chambermaid entered, and requested him to go and take a walk as she wished to change the bed- clothes. He looked at her stupidly, and begged her to repeat what she had said. The repetition was exact. "Bless my soul," he thought, "what an uncommonly funny hotel this is ; but no good ever comes of disobeying a woman, so I will go and see Kipps." But he met Kipps in the hall, coming to see him, for Augustus had just suffered the same fate. " By Jove !" he said, " this is a little too strong, Pynns- hurst, especially as it rains. What shall we do ?" " Go drink our coflfee at a Cafe," said Hugh, and they departed, and from the Cafe they went on the ramparts to look at the deer ; and at night to the theatre, where a French company played Le nuit aux soufflets and le Capi- taine Charlotte. 216 PYNNSHURST. After a tolerable sleep, they met at breakfast in the morning, and after the matutinal Havanna, went together to the Museum, where they saw an ibex and some Alpine lynxes, and a mighty lammergeyer, and lots of bears and an ancient camelopard with the hair nearly all worn off, and the stuffed skin of Barry, the noble dog of St. Bernard, who was shot by a perishing voyager who took the kind friend for an enemy the dog of St. Bernard for a wolf. There they saw all the portraits of the old Avoyers of Berne, and the Prie Diei* of Charles le Temeraire, and various other matters equally entertaining and interesting. So the time passed away till twelve o'clock, when they went to tiy the early table d'hdte. It was served by the red monkey before mentioned, and by the gentleman who was waiter when in blue coat, porter in brown linen jacket, and shoeblack in shirt-sleeves. Hugh got no farther than tho soup ; it had such large things swimming in it, that he resolved to go away, and take places in the diligence for Thun, leaving Kipps to pay the bill, for that soup terrified him ; it was like that which they served at the Invalides. You know the story ? No ! Well, one day, it came upon the table with a cavalry boot in it. The veterans remonstrated with the cook, and re- quested that it might not happen again. "We know," said they, " that it isn't dirty, but it takes up room!" n. ON TO INTERLAKEN. " YES, Kipps, my dear boy, we have the coupee, and we are now going to see the scenery. You must get your soul ready for sublime impressions, my good fellow." " I have -worn these shoes since I left Paris, and there is not a crack in them yet," said Augustus Kipps. So they go to the Post-Bureau and take their places, one window, one middle seat. Then there is a violent darting hither and thither on the part of the people in general. Somebody is saying adieu to the third man in the coupee in most guttural Dutch. The clerk calls the roll ; the conductor mounts the box beside the postillion, the latter gathers up the reins in his hand, cracks his long whip, and away they go over the stones, out at the same Morat gate, by a continuation of the same avenue linden-lined. 10 218 PYNNSHURST. Along the fertile valley of the Aar, dotted with many a village and farm where the huge red roofs glisten amid trees, or spot the rich green pasture lands. The river is rarely visible; but on high there, show themselves the snowy summits of the Bernese Alps, and by and bye, as the sun sinks behind the hills, you roll into Thun, quaintest of quaint little towns. When you are in the street, the side walks are high above your head ; and in front of eveiy shop is a small park of its own, some ten or twelve feet square, provided with benches, where the inhabitants may sit and gaze peacefully down, through their ambient pipe clouds, on the tops of the diligences or other vehicles that pass by below. There, after a good supper, slept they well, for beds and all else are excellent at the Hotel Bellevue. And in the morning, when they waked and rose, the rain came down as if it had been paid for it. There was no sky in particular, but all above looked like a very large lead roof, very thor- oughly oxidized ; grey, spotty, dull, very unpretty, bad for the tourist in Switzerland. But in half an hour, it had ceased to pour ; and that most patience trying of all known weathers, the dull Scotch mist came on ; the rain degenerated into a drizzle ; and the drizzle, by its persistence, erected itself into a nuisance. What was to be done until two o'clock, the hour of departure ? ON TO INTKRLAKEN. 219 Play a game of chess with Kipps ? No, Augustus was looking at his shoes and might not be disturbed. Go out, in front, and talk to the guides ? No, for they could talk of nothing but the propriety of engaging them. They are like the good Doctor in Joe Miller. " Doctor, I am very unwell ; I have such and such symptoms ; what do you think I had better take ?" " I think, my dear Madam, that you had better take advice? So with those worthy men grouped about the front piazza there, with their brown linsey-woolsey clothes and round white felt hats. " It is extraordinary weather," says the tourist, " I do not know whether to stay or go on ; pray, my good friend, what would you recommend ?" " I should recommend Monsieur to take a guide," and out comes the little book of certificates, and the tourist is besought to read how Mr. Buggins, Monsieur Pautin or Herr von Hundertdonner crossed such and such passes, and found the possessor of said book faithful, etc., etc., und der ffleichen mehr, saith the Deutcher. But by this time Kipps has sufficiently contemplated his shoes ; and the other portions of his dress offering no par- ticular inducements to prolonged meditation, he proposes a walk, and so they muffle themselves in their plaids, roll up their trousers, and start. 220 PYNKSHURST. They get just outside of the garden fence when they hear, " Wollen die Herren etwas Tcauffen .?" " Achetez quelque chose chez moi, Messieurs." 11 They lift their eyes and see a row of little shops where wood is cut into most expensive shapes. They enter and find themselves surrounded. Work boxes, corbeilles, bell ropes made of wood, match-boxes, glove-boxes, things to wind silk on, painted with Swiss landscapes, water falls, mountains, " scenery," as Kipps says, what you will. There are Chalets, wooden men and women, bears, chamois, ibexes, birds, needle cases, cows, laitiers from the pasture-land, cheese-makers from the Alps, chamois horns and skins, work tables, chairs, anything you like. So you spend every cent in your pocket and go out feeling very repentant. Then they passed through the town, and out along the edge of the lake to Schadau, where one of Louis Philippe's steam-manufactured banker barons builds a chateau in tho style of the renaissance. Over the lake there, sharp peaked conical Niesen shows his coned outline through the veiling haze, and the mightier mass, just hinted through the gloom, is Stockhorn. They get sufficiently wet, and so go back, feeling very Swiss-touristical, to an early dinner ; and then the sun comes out to light them to the little iron steamer which shall take them down to Nieuhaus. O.\' TO INTERLAKEN. 221 bright sweet lake of Thun, as the rushing Aar pours through thee, Tiis waters mingle lovingly with thine and leave them lingeringly, to go their way and kiss the feet of the strong city of Duke Berchthold, then on, to seek their rest on the broad bosom of old Father Rhine. Pretty country seats are on thy banks, and bright gar- dens make gay thy shores. Southward, there by Stock- horn's foot, stands the castle of Spietz, built, saith the chron icle, by Attila, when he led his conquering Huns towards the fertile South, and won the fearful title, " Scourge of Yonder there that huge black rock mass contains the Cavern of St. Beatus. Voyaging, a soldier, from England, his birth-land, to visit the Emperor Claudius at Rome, he had noticed this place upon his journey, and at his return, he examined it more particularly. He found a double cavern, wild and savage, through which a little rivulet ran ; some wild fruit grew beside the mouth of the cave ; and there the good man rested, chasing away, saith the legend, a dragon which inhabited it. The wild Helvetians gathered about the stranger, and first heard from his lips the message of GOD'S love ; and the first converts brought others, and their numbers swelled to thousands. So to his cave-home, by the blue sweet waters, what time his work was done, came GOD'S pure angels, and carried the holy one to his rest on high. 222 PTNNSHUBST. For many an age came pious pilgrims to that cavern to pray; but in 1550 the Canton of Berne closed S. Beat's cave, and walled up the entrance, and forbade the peasant to bend his knee in that home of the first Christian of Switzer- land. But when the tourist found that the place was a curious one, then Berne took down the wall, and built a cabaret, and those other yawning pilgrims came, who pay but pray not. And Berne was satisfied, for there is no superstition in a dollar. Point d" argent, point de Suisse ; mais beau- coup d> argent, tant de Swisses que Von voudrait. But the boat stops at Nieuhaus, and Hugh and Kipps em- bark in an anomalous barouche, and are borne through Unterseen (between Lakes) to Interlachen, beloved of the " English tourist in Switzerland." Rain, rain, rain ! From the portico of the Hotel des Alpes, the travellers, huddled there like chickens under a shed, look dismally out upon the muddy road ; where they see donkey carts and puddles and the very thick ankles of the peasant women who pass with huge panniers on their heads. Guides innumerable stand along by the gate-posts and line the fences. English without limit, crowd the hotel. One young man beside Hugh, who has devoted his energies to the cultivation of some yellow fuzz upon his upper lip, sits there passing his finger again and again over the top of his mouth, and evidently deludes himself into the idea that he is playing with a moustache. Another young man, who ON TO INTERLAKEN. 223 looks weak-minded, asks him if he buys his boots in Paris. He says no, but that he wishes it would stop raining. Then the weak-minded young man remarks, that it is * the most miserable day that he has seen for a long time ;" and so both relapse into silence. Kipps comes down stairs in full dress, and finding to his surprise that the rain is as bad as it was five minutes before, goes immediately back to his room, and puts on his foul weather suit. In the parlor there, that young lady in blue who sat down by the piano just now, has been taken with a fit, and screams violently " Love not ! love not ! the thing you love may die !'' Hugh supposes that she has become deranged in con- sequence of some affair of the heart. Then he demands if Augustus will walk down by the village, but the latter prefers going into the parlor, where he opens himself like a compass in front of the fire, and looks alternately at his patent-leathers and at the deranged young lady, who continues to scream. In the thirteenth century the Lutschinn, a torrent-river, ran along here, and by its yearly inundations converted the whole valley into an unwholesome marsh. But a convent of Augustinians settled there ; turned with much labor (those drones of the dark ages), the stream into the lake of Brienz and won the fair land from the waters. 224 PYNNSHURST. Hugh found their monument, down yonder mid the madeira nut trees; the black, bare, desolate, but stately, even magnificent arches of the Gothic church and monastery. " A mighty window, hollow in the centre, Shorn of its glass of thousand colorings, Through which the deepened glories once could enter, Streaming from off the sun, like seraphs' wings, Now yawns all desolate ; now loud now fainter The gale sweeps through the fret- work, and oft sings The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire Lie, with their halleluias quenched like fire." In the huge chancel, they have fitted up a chapel for the English Episcopal service ; and in the crypts below, a small oblong room holds the Catholic altar, and a few rude wooden benches. There in the ancient monastery meet the two creeds, the ancient and the new, but both now, stranger iu that land. Peep through the grating of the door there, and see those poor plain candlesticks, the tabernacle, and the image of the agonized Redeemer that mark the temple of the ancient faith, while from the side there on a " Niche alone but crowned, The Virgin-mother of the God-born child, With her son in hei blessed arms looks round,' ON TO INTERLAKEN. 225 But outside climbs the ivy up the mouldering buttress ; the rank weed nods from the ruined window ; the white moss clings upon the splintered pinacles, and the good fathers who reclaimed the valley are in the dust " Their souls are with the saints we trust." Back to the gay hotel. Turn thee, Hugh Pynnshurst, from the mournful past, which looks out upon thee from those ruins, with sad, calm, eyes ; thou dwellest too long with the bye-gone. It is not now the heroic faithful age, and thy heart, cast in an old forgotten mould, is wearing itself away in its love for that which has been. The wind through the shattered cloisters chants its melancholy psalm, sad and low like the wail of an angel. Sweet is its music ; but it is not well for thoe. Out from the shadows ! go into the world, seek out the task God sets thee, and so, labor and pray ! Pynnshurst is, I fear, irrevocably behind the age. He doubts whether steam be much of a benefit ; he has little reverence for the great dollar ; he does not like all this new upturning of society ; he don't believe in the dreams of Mr. Prudhomme, nor of Hahnemann, nor of Fourrier : he goes as his old Norman sires went ; he is one of those men who have long pedigrees, and believe in God. As he goes back, he passes a peasant seated in his cart 10* 226 in the midst of a half dozen pigs, and looking so contented that Hugh thinks of the old French song : " Oii peut on 6tre mieux, Qu'au sein de sa famille ?" He has only time to dress when the dinner bell rings, and he descends. Oh, what floods of English, and how very much over-dressed two-thirds of them are ; and how very much the ladies are not pretty. Kipps is in an agony. He did not know that there was so much company in the house, and he has a colored vest on. But he buttons his coat, and feels more re- signed. So matters jog on until the morning. And now, when he opens his eyes and gets up and goes to the window, he thinks of what quaint Carlyle says : " Evermore, up the east comes the grey brindled dawn ; on dewy branch, birds, here and there, with short, deep warble salute the coming day. Stars fade out and galaxies, street lamps of the city of God. The universe, O, my brothers, is opening wide its portals for the levee of the Great High King." A few light clouds, attenuated into mistiness, are swept from the blue heaven by the wings of the purple dawn : "The rain is over and gone:" Gleaming up through the tree tops shines the blue glimmer of the rolling Aar. The voice of the waters sings the matin hymn. The fog banks ON TO INTEKLAKEN. 227 that linger about the mountain only make the sunshine fairer ; as brightest through the gloom of our sorrows, shines the smile of our pardoning Father. So soon as he can procure and swallow a cup of coffee, he starts forth, passes through the village, and crossing the river by the wooden bridge, climbs a young Alp that stands behind the hotel, and which calls itself, I reckon, the Harder. It is rather a wearisome ascent, if you have not got your mountain legs on yet ; but they have put wooden stairs there to help you, and there are benches to rest on, and roadside springs to taste, (if you like that liquid,) and con- venient precipices for the English to fall from, a privilege which they avail themselves of, at the rate of about eighteen per season. You stop to look at the pretty mosses, at the green- burnished beetle, and the well-housed snail ; you nod to the fat, little, rattle-pated sparrows who hop all around you, crying whecp, peep ; and at last you sit down upon that rock there at the summit, knock a large brown spider off your knee, wipe your spectacles if you wear any, blow your nose, and so look at the landscape. You see the river, the music of whose rushing soars up, there to you, rolling tumultuously down to Unterseen, over whose needle-case tower and quaint gables is visible the Lake of Thun, sparkling at the foot of St. Beatsberg and of the Niesen. 228 I'YNNSHURST. Through the rich meadows, where red roofs mingle with the clustering leaves, windeth the gleaming river. Beneath you, the white and many-windowed houses of Interlachen. Before you, over the sweet lawn, a wild valley darts off into the mountains, and at the end the white-robed Jungfrau lifts her peaks on high, crowned with the glistening snow, and veils her virgin bosom in the clouds. A little to the right frowns Schreckhorn, and Stockhorn bounds the view from the other bank of Lake Thun. At the foot of Stock- horn sleeps a hill of cedars. When Hugh gets back, he finds Kipps in full voyage rig, and they get ready for departure. Each has an alpen- stock,- a white pine staff, some six or seven feet long, iron- spiked at the end. On it is burned the name of Interlachen. Large, stout shoes, studded with nails, cover the feet, a linen blouse the shoulders, a little flask of Jcirchenwasser swings under the left arm, a pipe and tobacco pouch under the right. White felt hats, with a flower in the band, protect their " knowledge boxes." Thus admired and admiring, they go out to look for a guide. " Do you know the scenery ?" says Kipps to a short, nice- looking man. " Oh yes, Monsieur, I was born there." Whereupon Kipps rushes at Pynnshurst and insists upon instantly engaging the individual. " Is he a good one ?" asked Hugh. " Good ! why he was born there !" ON TO INTERLAKEN. 229 " Born where, Gus ?" Gus looked thoughtful. " By Jove," said he, " I forgot to ask him. But off there in the scenery, I suppose." On examination the birth-place was found to be Grindel- wald. It was a child of the great Glacier who was to guide them. A child of forty summers, short, stout, slow of speech, rather worsted by small pox. He was to carry the plaids and the knapsacks, and to lead the tourists. So eleven o'clock strikes in the Salle a manger, and our pair pay their bill and depart from Interlachen. Over a piece of prairie land, studded with daisies, and quivering with white and yellow butterflies, into the Lauter- brunnenthal, the vale of Lauterbrunnen, and along the edge of the Lutzschin, a fierce torrent. That huge square tower that frowns there to the right, is the castle of Unspunnen, where Byron placed his Manfred ; that superb creation, who dwelt there in the stronghold : and with him The sole companion of his wanderings And watchings her, whom of all earthly things That lived, the only thing he seemed to love The lady Astarte. Yet the tower has its own true tradition, less gloriously beautiful than that given it by the poet, but illustrative enough of the wild times. Thus runs then the true story of III. MANFRED'S CASTLE. THE Barons of Unspunnen were the most puissant lords who lived among the Alps. They ruled from the Grimsel to the Gemmi ; the Grindelwald, the Lauterbrunnen, and many another peak and valley. Burkhard, last of his race, had declared against the claims of Burgundy ; and consequently against Burgundy's lieutenant, Berchthold V. last duke of Zaeringhen ; and the latter, worried by his foeman, built first the strong chateau of Thun, and then his own strong city, (Berne) six leagues further down the Aar. Now Baron Burkhard's only child, the lady Ida of Un- spunnen, was all that can be imagined of embodied love- liness and excellence; and Rodolph, Count of Woeden- schwyll, bravest of stout duke Berchthold's warriors, saw, loved, and went half crazy for her. MANFRED'S CASTLE. 231 He demanded her of her father. The old baron offered him a halter instead ; so, Kodolph, waiting till the foray called away the old eagle, climbed to the eyrie, seized upon the beauteous Ida, bore her triumphantly to Berne and mar- ried her there. But if Burkhard were fierce against Burgundy before, this set him entirely mad ; and many, many a year, the waves of Thun and of the rushing Aar were stained with blood because of it. By and by, years began to weigh upon the stout old baron, and gentle thoughts stole o'er him in the evening when he sate so lonely in his desolate hall. The face of his daughter looked on him through the mist of his tears. Berchthold was generous as brave ; and when the stories of his foeman's sadness were bruited at his court, he took with him three squires and a page, started for Unspunnen, and entering unannounced into the hall of the castle, he placed in the old man's arms the child of the unforgotten Ida. The old lord melted ; a truce was sworn ; and the young Walter was proclaimed Baron of Unspunnen. " This day," cried the grandfather, " shall be celebrated among us forever." And up to this time, once in three years, the peasants have celebrated pastoral gymnastic games in honor of that reconciliation. They show you there, .1 mass of rock, PTNI 232 PTNNSHURST. weighing two hundred pounds, which in 1 808 was thrown by a sturdy peasant of Apenzell, ten feet. A little further up the valley is the tower of Rotherflue, whose master slew his brother. Then the Swiss Cain, " went forth, a fugitive," among the mountains and perished miserablv. IV. ST AUBB A H. THE road winds always along the edge of the torrent, crossing light wooden bridges, skirting the mountain foot, or seeking the midst of the vale. Every few yards you have a whirlpool or a little fall ; a mass of huge black stones that strive in vain to bar the water's way, or a flat space where the floods widen into a little placid lakelet. At last they got to Zweilutschinnen (the two torrents) where two streams, called the black and the white, branch off, one running through the valley of the Grindelwald, the other through Lauterbrunnen. It is this last which Hugh followed, and it led through indescribable glories ; between those two mighty walls of living rock, so perpendicular, so high, hewn by the hand of God, and crested at His word with sombre pines, sighing to Alpine winds. 234 PYNXSHURST. "Nothing but water springs? (that is the meaning of the German word Lauterbrunneri), is well said of this exquisite valley. Twenty or more cascades leap from the heights above, and serve to feed the Lutzschin. In front, as one goes on, stands ever, as the barrier of the vale, the brilliant Breithoru, wearing his glacier shield on his strong heart and lifting his proud, chivalric head there, the champion of the Jungfrau at his side. Lawns thick with chalets whose roof-eaves descend nearly to the ground ; flocks of white goats upon the mountain side; the musical tinkle of the leader's bell, the distant echoes of the Alpine horn, and the all-present, everlasting hills filled Pynnshurst's heart with poetry. '"Above me," so his soul spake to him in Childe Harold's words : " Above me are the Alps, The palaces of nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned eternity in icy halls Of cold sublimity, where foams and falls The avalanche, the thunderbolt of snow. All that expands the spirit yet appals Gather around these summits, as to show How earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below w So in a little while they get to the very bad hotel of tha ' Capricorne, and after half an hour's repose, they start to STAUBBACII. 235 look at the illustrious Staubbach (dust fait). Just out of the door, three small girls attack them with hands full of minerals ; ten yards further on, a small boy lifts some dirty rags that curtain a box, and show the delighted " Tourists in Switzerland," a kid with two heads and a badly stuffed hawk ; again ten yards, and there is a stall of wood carvings, where Hugh buys an ibex, and both leave their staves to be tipped with chamois horns and branded with the name of Staubbach. Then on till the wind wafts in their faces the water dust of the cataract. Nine hundred feet it falls, rushing in foam from the brink at first, to widen into exquisite lace-work, and so to break up into watery powder, which the wind tosses as it will. The most amazing thing, after its height, is to see a waterfall swayed hither and thither by the wind. No idea of it seemed to Hugh Pynnshurst so just as Byron's. " The sunbow's rays still arch The torrent with the many hues of heaven, And roll the sheeted silver's waving column O'er the crags headlong perpendicular ; And flingeth lines of waving light along And to and fro. like the pale courser's tail, The giant steed to be bestrode by death. As told in the Apocalypse." But Kipps said, " It was very pretty," and " that he guessed it was dinner time, and besides the spray was ruin- ing his trousers." 236 PrNNSHURST. Dinner over, Hugh mounts to his room. The roars of the Staubbach and the Lutzschin mingle ; the balm of the evening air comes through the open window and disposes him to quiet. Also, his legs ache. So he lies down upon the sofa on his back, and sees what he sees. To his left is the wall of the valley; behind it, with higher, wilder peaks, the chain of the Wenghern Alp. At the end there, snow-clad and cloudy, with fair white patches silvering in the sun, the crests of Jungfrau. The wall at his right there, crested with pines, bears on its top, Miirren, the loftiest village in Europe. Over the tree tops yonder, looking out from between those walls, Breithorn, all silver, shows in the distance. He takes one good look, and goes to bed ; for to morrow he has to cross the Wenghern Alp, twelve miles to mount, as many to descend ; no joke to the unmountainous man. Sleep calmly, Hugh Pynnshurst ; happier so than awake. Enjoy again thy childhood, rocked in the cradle of dreams. God guards the sleeper here as elsewhere. The footsteps of His Angels fear not to tread among His Alps. V. DlE JuNOFRAtJ. NOTHING could be fairer, lovelier, than the glorious morning which greeted our awakening voyagers. The sun poured down his light upon the beautiful valley ; the shepherd boys were driving their goats to the mountains, and the merry kids bounded round their dams. The Lutzschin brawled on its way ; the early rainbow spanned the cataract, and the guide opening the door brought in Pyunshurst's shoes, and told him they must start in an hour. The coffee swallowed, the havanna lighted and inserted in that natural porte-cigar, formed by the lengthening of the eye-tooth, they set out stoutly on the road, chanting as they walk. Just before they started, a voice behind them said; " Nous aurons eln pon ckour, Messieurs? 238 PYNNSHURST. Hugh turned to look upon one of those open, hoiuwt German faces, which are the very type of good-hearted- ness. " Yes," he said, " everything promises well." " I am glad of it," said the German, in his curious French, " for I told my wife ; said I, ' My dear, you go round by the valley in the car, and I will go to take a look at the Staubbach ;' " here he consulted his guide, book, " ' nine hundred feet fall ; and to-morrow I will cross the Wenghern Alp, five thousand, three hundred and forty feet (guide book again), and meet you, my dear, at Grindclwald to- morrow night.' And if it had rained this morning, you know, gentlemen, that I could not have done it." " So you cross this morning," said Hugh. " Yes." " Have you a guide T " No, I am all alone ; and have no baggage, for I told my wife, ' My dear, go round by the valley, and I- will cross the Wenghern, and meet you to-morrow at Grindelwald.' " " You had better accompany us," said Hugh ; " it will give us great pleasure." The honest face lighted up immediately, as its owner accepted the invitation with a thousand thanks. So they started : past the cataract ; down by the little church across the river to the foot of the ascent, and then it began. For an hour all went well, though very difficultly. The PIE JUXGFRAU. 239 steep and winding pathway, full of marshy spots, and springs, leading over crumbling rocks and through thick junipers, was soon found rather long. " Bless me, guide, is it all like this 2" " Oh, my knees and calves !" " Ach ! dis do make warm a man." Such exclamations began to be common ; but at last they had achieved the severest climbing ; a pasture land of gentler ascent rolled its chalet and herd-spotted surface be- fore them ; the village, named from the mountain, showed itself in the distance, and by common consent, they sat down, took a sup of kirsck, lighted a pipe and reposed. The valley below was too fair to describe ; they saw all along its course to the white houses of Unterseen and Inter- lachen, in the distance ; right opposite, and on the same level, they had Staubbach, below them the church and the hotel, which looked in the distance like the carved houses they had bought at Thun. All round there the large mountain violet, sometimes as big as a silver dollar, and on the milder rocks the Alpine rose, beautiful nursling of the snows, green and crimson crest-plume of the kingly hills. It loves the brink of preci- pices, where it waves in the cold air. And those gentians of so superb a blue, atoms of a sum- mer sky. And the many colored mosses and flowering lichens ; and buttercups, ten times the size of their sisters of low meadow lands ; and the purple thistle and the golden 240 PYNNSIIURST. heath, stud the thin soil, and prove that God loves the mountains. But the pipe is finished, and they climb again. Now and then, a black-corsaged woman, or a milk-laden peasant passes them ; yonder they are mowing, and the sweet smell of the hay regales their expanded proboscis. Every half hour they meet a group of voyagers going in the opposite direction ; the men with staff in hand, sometimes with sack on shoulder, the ladies on a mountain pony, or carried by sturdy mountaineers in an arm-chair. And now they are amid the snows ; and the grass and flowers peep dimly from the half melted little masses, and the sun is high in heaven, and at last they rest there at the inn upon the summit, in the face of the immortal and colossal Jungfrau. O God beneficent ! how very grand Thy hills ! robed in those glistening snows that never melt, that ice forever firm ; clad with the glacier as with a coat of mail. Shattered, as if by thousand thunderbolts, and the tumultuous heavings of unnumbered earthquakes. But grander, statelier, more beautiful in ruin, than aught else in harmonious preserva- tion. ' Over her broad heart, girdled by the frost, in huge and gracious folds, clings the white garment of the Queen of Hills. At her broad base, there yawns the awful gulf called in the solemn German tonorue the Vale of UIK jrNOFUAU. 241 Wrecks, where never human foot may tread, nor human voice be heard, nor the mellow bleating of the flocks, nor smoke of clustering cottages arise to tell of human life. There falls the shivered avalanche ; there the huge rock- mass, riven from its base, rolls thundering to its rest ; there stream the waters from the glacier, there fall the drifting snows. On high, twelve thousand feet above you, soar the untrodden peaks ; the silver horns imperishably pure, lift- ing their pure cones in the glance of day, glow white for evermore. Their snows, continually drifting, prevent the slightest spot or shadow, and form a misty but transparent veil about the ivory bosom. Hush ! is it muttering thunder that you hear from the hollows of the mountain ? No ! it is the awakening of the avalanche ! Yonder the cloud of snow-dust rises ; and there, along the ridge, stream, like a river, the powdered particles. Then an enormous mass heaves quivering there on high. Slowly it rends itself away, gathers the loose snow on the crag ; seizes and crushes into dust the pinnacles of ice, grasps the strong granite masses in its hands, and lifting up its voice on high, a voice of many thunders, hurtles down. And the awed heart grows still, and the dilated eye follows its awful course ; and the trees quiver on the ravine's edge, and the deep echoes sound amid the chasms, and the avalanche plunges down into the gulf, and the 11 242 PYNNSIIURST. snow cloud rises in the air, like the sands of the desert when the simoom blows, and the chilling, solemn echo of its fall comes up from the deeps below. Then all is silence, but that silence is the voice of God! All round, the mountains lift their mighty fronts ; the cloud-cowled Monk, the large and smaller Higher, and Wetterhorn, the thunder peak. And Hugh feels that if any land should be without human rulers, it it this land, sung by Jens Baggesen, in his Alpenlied : Where never sceptre, never crown, O'er earth their glories fling": Where God alone, sits on the throne, And God alone is King VI. JUNGFKAUANA. HUGH mounted a huge hill which is the summit of the Wenghern Alp ; and enjoyed from thence a more extended view. Some dozen parties of travellers were at or near the little inn ; and the tinkle of the horses' bells sounded musically. Now and then, in the distance, you heard the crack of the chamois hunter's carabine, and the notes of the long, bark Alpine horn. Kipps had ordered a chamois steak and some baked pota- toes ; and when the first sound gave warning of the avalanche and everybody rushed forth to watch its fall, Augustus followed them ; but when the mighty mass was half way down, and at its grandest moment, he said, " Well ! I fancy that my steak must be ready," and re- turned into the inn. 244 PVNNSIIURST. The government of Berne had offered some considerable reward for mounting to the summit of the Jungfrau. Well, one day, the Herr Professor B arrived, accompanied by three guides ; full of spirit, life, and deter- mination. They slept at the inn, and started the next morning on their perilous journey. Stoutly climbed the Herr Professor all the first day, and he couched in the snow beneath a shelving ledge, brimfull of science and of hope. But cold was his waking in the morning ; the air of the peak chilled him ; his kirsch bottle was empty ; he labored till eleven o'clock, and then he yielded. " Guides," said the Herr Professor, in a melancholy voice, " I give it up ; let us go down again." And down they went ; and at the inn, the guides re- quested their pay. " My friends," said the Herr Professor, " I expected to gain the reward ; but I have failed, and alas, I have no money." " But, Mein Herr, that is not our fault, we were willing to go with you." " That is very true, my friend." " And we must be paid for our trouble, you know." " That is very just," said the scientific man, " but I have nothing to pay you with." " You should have thought of that before you started. .IUNGFUAUANA. 245 We cannot lose our time and toil ; we are poor men and have families to support." " It is mournful, I acknowledge," said the Herr Professor, " but what will you have ? I've got no money." " But it is infamous !" said the first guide. " It is a cheat !" said the second. " He is a scoundrel !" cried the third, knitting his brows. " It is a shame !" muttered the voyagers, grouped about the learned man. " Your bill," said the publican, " is nineteen francs, twenty-five centimes. " My case," said the Herr Professor, " is a peculiar one. You, my good landlord, are justly entitled to your bill ; and your claims, my dear friends," to the guides, " are undeni- ably just ; but alas, I have no money. Here !" And he gave his watch and chain to the guides. " Here !" and he gave his signet ring to the Innkeeper. " Gentlemen, good evening !" so saluted he the travellers. Then took he his Alpine staff, and his knapsack, and went mournfully on his road to Berne. The possessors of the watch and the signet ring looked at their newly acquired possessions, and at each other ; the travellers laughed ; a small dog upon the portico scratched his ear and looked wisely, but said nothing. " But, I say," cried one of the guides, " that fellow has at least let us know that a reward is offered for mounting the Jungfrau ; let us gain it ourselves." 246 PYNNSHURST. The advice was thought good, the party was made, and they accomplished the feat and received the money. They put an iron stake upon the summit, which stood there a year or two and was then stormed down. Since then, six peasants from the Grindelwald, and in 1841, Agassiz, and Professor Forbes of Edinburgh, accom- plished the ascent ; passing the glacier of the Oberaar, that of the Viesch, the lake of Moril, and the glacier of the Al- etsch. The height of the mountain is 13,780 feet. I would describe the view from the summit, were it not for three reasons. 1st There are descriptions of views enough in this work. 2d The clouds below you generally impede an extended prospect ; and 3d I have never seen it. It is true that if the last reason had presented itself sooner to my mind, it might have sufficed without the other two. For the descent, our wanderer, Augustus, and the German, joined themselves to two Frenchmen, and went upon their way. One of the Frenchmen asked Kipps how he liked the Staubbach ? " I did not think it at all like the one on my salad-spoon," was the answer. vn. DOWN THE MOUNTAIN. AFTER a few minutes' walk, they came to a steep descent, some three hundred feet in depth and lined by a fallen avalanche ; three of the voyagers seated themselves on- the brink, lifted their feet, and shot swift as an arrow to the bottom. But this did not satisfy the elder Gaul ; he chose mother spot, steeper and fresher in appearance, started, and came down like a thunderbolt. Four-fifths of his descent accomplished, he saw before him a piece of bare earth some ten feefc in diameter, and tried to stop himself; the motion jerked him up into the air; heels over head he flew, in a most miraculous somerset, landed upon the snow on the other side, dashed along his way and brought up, to his astonishment and disgust, in a tranquil mud puddle at the bottom. 248 PYNNSllUltST. They requested him to do it again, but he wouldn't. This is a very rapid way of descending a fallen avalanche ; you save a great deal of time ; you amuse yourself cheaply ; you get a species of sleigh ride ; but the method is open to too slight objections. Your pantaloons feel very uncom- fortable, and in some instances you break -your neck. Otherwise, it is very nice. So laughing, jesting, stopping now and then for a view ; looking at and relieving or refusing the beggars every child and old pei-son begs here sliding down snow hills ; they went on. But the jests got fewer; grunts took their places, and then moans. The knees, the muscles of the legs, seemed bursting, breaking at the terrible descent ; the feet slipping / forward in the large shoes and throwing all the weight of the body upon the ends of the toes, soon became covered with blisters. 'Twas in vain that they threw their stafls forward to stop themselves in some headlong descent, they only jerked their shoulders out of joint. Now did they mock at horns and backs, glaciers and cataracts, and bergs and thalt. Silent save for an occasional moan, or a howl as some loose stone rolled across the fevered toes. The perspiration poured from their foreheads ; their hot hands stuck to their staves; they stumbled at every other step ; until at last in very despair they began to jest and be merry, then struck up the Marseillaise, aban- doned their legs to their own wild will, and rolled, pitched, DOWN TI1K MOUNTAIN. 249 stumbled, fell, dropped from point to point, as fortune decided, until they stopped at a chalet of the Grindelwald to rest and to make observations. Looking between Wetterhorn and Faulhorn, the white glaciers of Grindelwald, fringed with dark pines, swelled from the clefts of the mountain, it seemed to the very doors of the houses. The village, with its two hotels the Bear and Eagle, both mountain birds, and its houses scattered here and there, glowed in the rays of the descending sun ; thousands of cattle grazed along the plain ; old men held little cannon in odd corners and fi'red them to rouse the echoes, " for a consideration." So they rolled on their way, footsore and weary, to the Eagle, who spread his sheltering wings above them, meek as maternal dove. " Will you go at once to your rooms, gentlemen ?" asked mine host. " Parbleu /" was the reply in chorus. "When will you dine?" " Immediately, if you please." As they mounted the stairs they heard a cry of joy. The good German, his face all bubbling with delight, looked alternately out of the door and at his fellow " Tourists." " Oh ! Messieurs," he said, " il est mon femme ! He is mine wife /" And indeed a carriage drove up, he was soon locked in a tender conjugal embrace, and so the others went 11* 250 PYNNSHURST. up stairs leaving the reunited rubbing their noses lovingly together. Oh, the delight of cold water ; the delicious first shiver as the hot face plunges into the cool fluid ; as the dust comes off, and the hands grow dry and smooth again. And then the luxury of an entire change of raiment, and the pleasant feeling of the feet when the guide comes up, and rubs them all over with a tallow candle. Tingle, ingle, ingle ! ting ting ! ting ! Yes, yes, that is the merriest music in the Alps. It is Swiss, my dear madam, for " dinner is ready." As Hugh descends the stairs, the little Dutchman catches his arm, and presents him to a tall damo robed with much lace. " Monsieur," he says, " he is my wife, he shall speak no French. II est mon femme, il ne parlera pas Fran- And Hugh, speaking very little German, bows silently and the lady dips, folds both hands in an owner-like man- ner over the arm of her recovered spouse, and carries him in to dinner. At dinner were seven ladies ; fortunately French and German, so that one might venture to talk to them with- out being introduced. So they gossipped away on the perils and pleasures of voyaging, the difficulties arising from the absence of rail- roads and steamboats in those parts ; telling an occasional DOWN THE MOUNTAIN. 251 anecdote of some gentleman who had fallen from a preci- pice, or lady who had perished in a snow drift. Many bottles of a very good small wine were emptied ; much laughing was heard, and at last the German wife's head sunk upon her beloved's shoulder ; his broad kind countenance once more bubbled with delight, and then subsided into a sweet tranquillity calm and still as peace. Then out of doors for the Havanna or pipe, and in again for the bed ; for to-morrow one mounts grand Scheideck. Only one thing had threatened the harmony of the evening. An old gentleman grew stormy about that which they called coffee ; but he grew pacified when Hugh told him the rule for " Tourists in Switzerland." " Lorsque on donne une liquide, telle que ce soit, noir&tre et quelque soit peu sale, on appelle c,a du cafie, et on 1'avalo silencieuse- ment et on remercie le bon Diem" vm. MORE CLIMBING. THE travellers have swallowed their coffee ; they march through the village out upon the road to the Mer de Glace, the Ice Sea. What it most resembles in the distance is an enormous mass of soap-suds. The surface is somewhat oxygenized, and somewhat dirty. It pours through the enormous cleft of the hills there, between the Eigher and the Mettenberg, and there rests. Now, whosoever has walked along the Aar, the Reuss, or even the Lutchen poet, or no poet will say at once, a frozen torrent. There is not the slightest exaggeration in Byron's figure ; there is not even ever so little liberty taken with the resemblance ; it strikes the woodenest imagination as exhibiting. MORE CLIMBING. 253 " The aspect of a tumbling tempest's foam Frozen in a moment." The surface, white and soap-sudsy, broken into minute balls or drops, is precisely that of the mountain waters. Its sudden swellings and depressions ; the irregularity of its cascades, rapids, falls, short spaces of calm are all exactly what you find in the Reuss as you go through Uri, or the Aar as you climb to Handeck ; and through the troubled surface you look down into the crystal, pure as an infant's heart, below. I believe that very imaginative people, or at least very impassioned people, are never impressionable ; I mean, not quickly so. Pynnshurst climbed up the glacier, laughing and careless enough, amused only at the danger, and rather with the sentiments of a school-boy upon a new sort of skating-pond than with any very respectable feelings. But when fairly up amid those still waves, when the enormous extent of the glacier began to make itself felt, and he looked down into crevices of cold, transparent walls, three hundred feet in depth, upon the blue waters that flowed tumultuously below. When he leaned his breast against the clear and brittle wall between him and destruction, and saw death yonder on the other side of that transparent sheet. When the silence of those waves crept gradually over him ; those waters that gave no sound, all wild and stormy as 254 PVNNSHURST. they were ; those mighty surges, as of the Atlantic, voiceless and motionless ; those breaking waves hanging suspended, and not to fall and not to flow forever, evermore ; then he was impressed and awed, and began to understand the glacier, and some such fancy as this came over him. That there was a time, in the far long ago, when this tremendous sea, lashed into fury by the olden winds Eurus, and Africus, and Notus, flowed strong and terrible from its abodes on high ; that it shivered the mountains in its furious way ; that it rove asunder those Alpine peaks ; and gathered there, to rush upon the plains and valleys, and to whelm them with eternal devastation. But that one deep prayer from some good man's heart, had flown before it to the throne of God, and that the Voice which once spake upon turbulent Galilee, had spoken here amid the mountains, and said to the stormy waters, Peace ! be still ! How many leagues upon leagues it stretched away along its granite bed there he never inquired; what were its scientific causes he never knew, nor cared about, but he gathered some of the glacier flowers that bloom about its edges, and putting his impressions in a private pocket of his own heart, asked Kipps, " If it would not be a superb neighborhood for an ice- cream saloon." The old man who went before them, cutting steps along the slippery descent, had seen blooming around him a lovely MORE CLIMBING. 255 collection of twenty-four babes ! He beat the Patriarch, hollow ; and Hugh could not help thinking of Mrs. Gamp's expression that " blessed is the man as has his quiver full of sitch." As they descended, a young Dutchman, who was tra- velling alone, began to mount ; he got up some ten yards, when his foot slipped, and he fell ; he lighted upon he lighted that is, he did not light upon his head, but he slid to the bottom like a corduroy avalanche, for of that material was his travelling suit. He got up, cast one look of exces- sive astonishment at the glacier, and turned off and went away without saying a word. He evidently fancied that- everything was en regie., that every " tourist in Switzerland" did that ; but that there was no necessity for doing it more than once. And he was right. To tumble from a glacier ; to be blown up ' in a steamboat ; to fall through a hole when you are skating upon a river ; all these are of those little astonishments, one of which generally satisfies a man for his lifetime. " One finds dead chamois here sometimes, Messieurs," said the guide. " Ah ! how so ? where do they come from ?" " Well ; they have either slipped from the edge of some precipice, or have been chased over the brink by the hunters ; or may be wounded, and so have fallen." And have you sometimes hunted ?" 256 PYNNSHURST. " Oh, yes, most guides, at least we Oberlanders, hunt more or less." " It needs a steady head and a sure foot, I fancy," said one of the Frenchmen. " Oh, yes, and a clear eye, and stout shoulders in the bargain ; it was last year that I caught two young ones alive upon the Eigher, there." " Alive ! why you must be a famous hand at it. They must have been very young ?" " Just born," said the guide ; " I had watched the mother for a couple of weeks, and as soon as her little ones saw the light, I shot her and caught them." Nobody was sportsman enough not to feel an emotion of pain, as the hunter said, with so much sang froid, " I shot the mother and caught them." The poor, loving, Alpine antelope, that had sought the wild heights of the mountains, and there first heard the bleat of her little ones, to be killed in the earliest moments of her maternal tenderness. Yet the guide was a good-hearted soul, that would not do harm to a fly. Only he fancied that chamois were made to be killed. There ought to be some law made for their preservation, however, for the animal is disappearing; and they have already annihilated the Ibex, father of all goats. His head and horns are rare even in Swiss museums at present. And that soft-eyed, graceful mountain Antelope will soon follow him to extinction. All along the mountains you find the MORI; CLIMBING. 257 head and horns for sale. Now and then you get their flesh at the table ; it is good enough, though it does not at all equal the roe-venison. The ascent of the Grand Scheideck is very fine, from the constant variety of views which it presents, but immensely fatiguing. It is one of those endless mountains which bother one like a treadmill ; one of those succession affairs, of which you fancy that you are always on top, and in which you always deceive yourself. You have continual steep ascents of three or four hundred feet, up which you drag your weary way, persuading your- self that it is the summit. But once past the brink, you see a little plain, from whose centre rises exactly such an ascent as you have just accomplished. How many there are on Scheideck Hugh never knew. Enough, that after enormous toil, with his eyes kept upon the ground, he got over a piece of shelving rock, by the aid of some roots, and finding a flat space, sat down in despair, and announced to his companion his intention to climb no more. " I will finish my days here," he said calmly, " in peace- able contemplation of the Faulhorn there, feeding upon butterflies and violets, and quenching my thirst with snow- balls." " But we are on top," said the Guide. " Ah," said the weary man, " in that case, I will take a mouthful of Kirschemoasser. Capitaine, tell me a story !" " Listen then," said Capitaine de C , "Yesterday ; no, 9* 258 PVNNSHURST. the day before yesterday, there arrived down below there a party of three English bagmen, travelling en milord. Being very hungry, they wished to appease their cravings with some pastry. So the leader drew a dictionary from his pocket and demanded, " ' Un confesseur /' " ' Certainly, gentlemen,' said the waiter, ' if you will follow me, I will lead you to one.' " " They went to the other end of the village ; entered a plain neat little house ; and were requested to sit down in the parlor for a moment " ' Good style this, rather !' said Jenkins, ' it is better than eating in a shop.' "' I wish they would make haste,' said Timkins, 'for I am cruel hungry.' " ' I hear a foot,' said Slimkins, ' I suspect it's him} " Then the door was opened, and a kind-faced old man in cassock, surplice and stole, came in. " ' Good morning, gentlemen !' he said. ' Let me con- gratulate you and myself upon your arrival. It is very seldom that travellers give their first thoughts to their re- ligious duties, and you must be pious and excellent young men. They may still call your country the ' Isle of Saints,' if there be many like you who remain there. The waiter has informed me of your desire to confess ; if one of you will come with me, I will show him to the confessional ; MORE CLIMBING. 259 the other two can pray in the church until their turn comes.' " The trio were thunderstruck. Open-eyed and mouthed they gazed upon the old pastor, and at last their amaze- ment found vent in the national exclamation " ' Damn !' " ' Did you ever ?' said Jenkins. " ' No, I never,' said Timkins. " ' Aint it a curious go ?' " murmured Simkins, interroga- tively. " At last Jenkins recovered. " ' I don't want to confess /' he roared, ' I aint a papist. I want a confesseur pour manger, pas un confesseur, pour confesser. Bonbons ! you know. Cakes ! Pies ! patisseries f " ' Ah,' said the good Cure, ' I think I understand. It is not a confesseur that Monsieur is in want of; it is a con- fiseur /' " ' Oui ! Oui ! Oui /' squeaked the trio, like three little pigs, lost in Broadway. " ' Allow me then to take off my surplice and I will show you the way,' and the smiling Cure disrobed, took his hat' and guided the hungry voyagers to the pastry-cook." " Thank you," said Hugh, " that narrative has refreshed me considerably. I think that I can go on now. But tell me, guide, is it always the Wetterhorn here at our right ?" " Always, Monsieur." " Well, it is a very respectable mountain ; en avant /" 260 PYXNSHUKST. So forward they go. A few hundred steps bring them to an uncommonly dirty little auberge ; where ham, cheese, small wine and roast potatoes await their appetites. The only house upon the summit was burned down, and travel- lers are received in a temporary shantee opposite the ruins. Once rested and refreshed, they begin the descent courageously, and finish very painfully in sight of the Au- berge of Eosenlaui. rx. ROSENLAUI. IT needed all the persuasive power of the guides to induce them to mount for half an hour up to the Glacier. But it was the most beautiful in Switzerland ; so they decided to go. They cross the Reichenbach, on a bridge composed of two pine trees. How many hundred feet below the torrent rolls, I cannot say. I only know that when the idiot who lies in wait there for your batzen, has pushed the huge stones over the brink, you get weary of watching them, before the dull faint splash comes up through the granite sides, to tell you that the rock has reached the torrent. And this, that the roar which deafens you when you stand beside it down below, is here, upon the bridge, directly over it, as low and faint as the ripple of the gentlest rill that sings o'er white pebbles in the Carolina pinewoods. 262 PTNXSHURST. But the glacier is worth the trouble, because of the purity of its ice, and the beauty of its caverns. The principal thing is an immense hole into which you enter. The guide cuts steps, and you descend some seven or eight feet, to a sort of natural balcony. You are then in the glacier, surrounded by the ice ; blue as the summer skies, and clear as a cairngorm. You lean over a transparent parapet, some thirty inches thick, and see below you, hundreds of yards, the swift rushing Reichen- bach. The guide stands behind you with his hand above your collar ; for, the fall of an avalanche, a rift in the ice- mass ; and your frail balcony crumbles beneath your feet ; and down through the wild profound, spinning about like a feather in the wind, dashing out brains and life against the crags of ice, you fall in pieces. Last year, a German student fell from the height into this very Reichenbach. They collected, there below, thirty-two morsels of his shattered body. They rest two hours at the inn. Then pass along the torrent, through forests, and mid fallen rocks, ever between vast heights, by a gentle and pleasant descent, carpeted with verdure and with flowers, to the head of the longest, most abominable, most break-neck, joint-severing, dislocating, foot-wearing, frame-destroying stair-case, that man and nature ever made together. When it was passed, Kipps began to speak of it ; but ROSENLAUI. 2G3 was warned, if he valued Hugh's friendship, to obliterate all traces of it from his memory. As for the Captain, he declared that he would publicly insult and provoke to a duel, anybody who ever hereafter should put him in mind of it. A little further and they hear the sound of falling water. It is where the Reichenbach bounds from the mountain to the valley of Hassli. The cascades are exceedingly beautiful. A very large body of water pours from the rocky banks, covered with luxuriant vegetation, and falls into the basin below with that solemn continuous roar which helps to make the majesty of cataracts : then a few feet of level flow, again a plunge, and finally a third ; and then the turbulent floods roll swiftly on to mix their waters with the rushing Aar. It is certainly the most beautiful thing that our wanderer has seen. The green clustering leaves, with flower- ing vines trembling at the voice, but rejoicing in the cool spray of the fall : the mass of foam below : the dreamy sound, as of a distant thunder, not broken into peals, but uttering its voice forevermore : the gracious rainbow, spanning the sheet ; the Alps above, below the beauteous valley, divided by the Aar, spotted with pleasant villages, "And fields that promise corn and wine," All these compose a landscape which is pleasant to look upon. Winding down the side of the hill, they reach the valley, and march, joyous in level roads, to the brink of the river. 264 PYNNSHURST. Here a small skiff receives them, which is taken over with- out sails, oars or steam-power. A cable crosses the stream ; along the cable glides a noose, which noose is attached to a rope whose other end is fastened to the boat ; and the force of the current makes her pass from shore to shore ; a sort of rudder keeping her side somewhat to the current. In half an hour they have marched through half of Mey- ringen and are at the Hotel, where a most preposterous and unheard of imitation of a chimpanzee scowls portentously from the facade and is pleased to be known as the " Savage." Received, lodged, and bathed, as they have yet an hour to wait till dinner, they go out to look at the village, town, burgh, or whatever it may be. It is a very curious, old-carved-wooden-house-filled sort of affair. The roofs have enormous eaves ; balconies surround each story ; the windows are in lattice work ; each house weai-s its date cut in front ; some have odd, pious, or moral sentences. From the hill on the other side there, they see the Alpbach pouring frothily. It is a stream which is good enough to overflow the vale from time to time. Some hundred years ago, for instance, it came rolling over the village, upsetting- smaller houses, and filling the church ten feet deep with mud. A black line painted round the walls attests the fact to the interested and inquiring "Tourist in Switzerland." A wood-cutter tempts you in the Salle a manyer, with all ROSENLAUI. 265 sorts of costly nonsense ; but some, it must be acknowledged, of exceedingly delicate execution. It is the employment of balf Oberland to cut up, in winter, their forests in chalets, work-boxes, tables, and so forth, for the consumption of travellers in the summer. It is an ingenious people, is the people of Berne. In the first place, they are guides, innkeepers, alpenstock- branders, cutters of steps in the glaciers, horse and mule owners, and chair-porters, who are necessary to show the scenery, and to drain your pockets. Then you have the wood-carvel's, the laudscapers, and the costume painters ; the chamois hunters with skins and horns, and the goatherds, who imitate the antelope horn with the produce of their herds, all to tempt you further. These employments occupy father and elder brother. Then the grandfather has a small cannon which he fires off in the neighborhood of an echo. The mother and aunt rush to the cottage door, and sing and play on a quaint mountain harp. The second son is blowing an Alpine horn up on the peak there. The third son holds a tamed chamois in a rope by the way-side. The eldest sister keeps a small shop of varieties. The eight, nine, and ten year olds sell you minerals, bunches of cherries, and nosegays of wild flowers ; and the younger ones who cannot be deluded into any idea of labor, simply hold out their hands as you pass and trot after you screaming out bdtzen ! It is an ingenious people, is the people of Berne. 12 X. THE HOSPICE. COFFEE, and the petit verre having been duly discussed ; salad spoons, wooden chamois, etc., having been purchased ; the bill paid, the coat packed away, the blouse put on, and the newly branded staff well grasped, our travellers set off from Meyringen to mount most painfully to Handeck ; to follow by a wild and picturesque forest-route the course of the Aar. A mere path, gradually winding along the precipitous sides of the mountain, conducts them to the awful spot, where the above named river and the Erlenbach, pour, face to face, their full floods from the granite ledge ; mingle their foaming waters ere they reach the bottom, and then two hundred feet below the quivering bridge of pine, sweep onsvard to the Rhine. THE HOSPICE. 267 Here is the second scene in Pynnshurst's memory. First, is the Jungfrau, God's majestic mountain, motionless, silent, save for the fall and roar of avalanches. Next is this double cataract. Precipitous granite walls, how high, I know not, a thousand feet, perhaps, on each side of the dreadful chasm. On one hand, there is no footing even for a bird ; on the other is the goat path, which he had followed, three, five feet wide, perhaps. Above, the trees rustle on the brink ; beneath, speeds the white river. Face to face meet the two swollen torrents, the untamed children of the hills ; divided only by ten or twelve feet of rock ; so there they fall in thunder and in foam. Words are good for nothing here. No poet can describe ; but a simple or a loving heart can feel the presence of the King of Kings; can see His power in the bound of the waters, can hear His voice in their commingling roar. The best thing you can do when you visit this place, is to be silent, and to say in your heart " Our Father." They leave it, and go up to the inn, the last human habi- tation between this and the summit. Thence they mount, and pursue their way through gloomy fir woods ; once across the bed of an ancient glacier, a granite bed, so polished by the ice that one slight deviation from the rude stepping places hewn in the mountain, will send you to destruction ; many times over the Aar on bridges without parapet. Then the forest ceases, and lichens and rhododendrons alone are seen. Still higher and even these have disappeared, they 268 marched on the sterile stone ; and soon they enter the regions of eternal snow, and see eight thousand feet above the ocean's level, the gloomy walls and narrow windows of the Hospice of the Grimsel. The setting sun shed his last rose light on the scene ; near to the house, were one or two broken naked peaks ; to the left was a dull lake, half liquid, half frozen. All else was white. In front rose the road to the summit still a good thousand feet, and there were no sounds here, but the whistle of the marmot, and the voice of the sweeping wind. An ancient hospice, built and kept, by the monks of old, on the Alpine height here far above the clouds, to be a refuge for the weary voyager ; a salvation for the lost amid the snows. Hugh, after dinner, gcew very sad up among the snows there, and went early to bed, after taking another look at the ibex head nailed over the front door. 'Twas, as I have already said, an ancient hospice where he lay, 'mid fields of endless snow, too high for the sound of the sighing woods, or the mountain-torrents flow. But the monks were gone from the ancient cells ; the chapel walls were bare ; the laugh of joyous revelry arose from the place of prayer, the rugged halls where holy love embraced the poor of old, were kept by the modern merci- ful, whose best reward is gold ; and when the solemn hours THE HOSPICE. 269 advanced and the sinking moon grew dim, the silence was unbroken by the midnight chant or hymn. And sleepless lay the wanderer, beneath those voiceless skies, and mournfully the silence filled his soul with memo- ries. Over his meditative soul with gliding step and slow, passed in a long procession the mournful long ago. The joyous rose light of his youth passed like a driving cloud the folds of one white bridal robe changed to a sable shroud. Beside his father's ruined porch he saw a guardian stand a silent angel with a torch inverted in his hand. He felt the pang of pride that breaks, but cannot learn to bend ; the icy mists rose silently between him and his friend ; religious hate attacked him next ; his creed was reckoned sin ; the tender ties of heart were cut that bound him to his kin ; the last things which had loved him well, were now beneath the clay ; his heart was bare, and lone, and cold, as the cell wherein he lay ; and ever over those arid lands the mountain blast was wild, as his faded face sank in his hands and he wept like a stricken child. But he thought of the holy time gone by, when the well of love was deep ; when the holy cross flashed far and nigh from the glacier's icy steep. When the toiling brethren built their home, on the mountain where he trod, to battle gainst the avalanche, brave warriors of God. They came from the valleys of the South, where the birds ne'er cease to spring, where the soul of beauty lives fore'er, lulled in the lap of Spring, where all is fair, and 270 I'VXNSUCHST. warm, and bright. They had issued boldly forth, to hear the sign of the crucified to the rocks of the frozen North. Over the solemn Alpine cliffs their chants of glory rang ; the psalms of Judah's palmy fields, 'mid the crags of ice they sang, they drew the dying from the snow, the wanderer from the wold, they brought the chilled and erring lamb back to the only fold ; there was nothing that they had not left and counted but as dross, to make that bleak and sterile peak an hospice of the cross. And a shame came o'er him that he sank so prone beneath his pain ; he felt, what man had borne before that man could bear again ; and he knew that God who lives beyond the shadow of the grave, when he said to him, " Be ever sad," said too, " Be ever brave !" All that remains of the hospice, is a box for' alms, stuck against the wall of the dining room. A father and four daughters keep the inn, in the summer, but go down to the valley when the cold season approaches. As a kind of memory of old time, a servant and some dogs pass the winter there, to watch for chance travellers. The worthy man was astonished some years ago, by the visit of an uninvited avalanche which smashed the roof in, and frightened the guardian down to Meyringen. In the morning our pilgrims, wanderers, or " Tourists in Switzerland," meet in the Salle a manger, and delectate their reposed stomachs with a matutinal refreshment ; then THE HOSPICE. 271 the Alpenstocks receive the name of Grirasel, the appro- priate needle-box or other wood cut is purchased, and they follow the guide over the eternal snows up to the summit. It was here, you know, that the Austrians had posted some troops in the campaign of 1799. Lecourbe, the French general, had tried in vain to dislodge them ; when a peasant, rejoicing in the sweet name of Noegeli, offered to lead the republicans, by a path known only to him, to the rear of the Austrian position. But his condition was, that they should give him a mountain to be traversed in the passage ; Point d* Argent, Point de Suisse. The bargain struck ; the general Gudin led his troops across the Doltihorn and the glaciers of Ghclman, fell upon the Austrians and exterminated them. That sullen lake to the right there was choked with corpses ; they still call it the Lake of the Dead. Stand up upon the summit, look at the mountains round you ! Snow fields and crags of ice ; and naked granke peaks ; at sombre pine woods fringing rough hill sides, and bleak, cold plains, unclad with any verdure. You have done with Berne, Hugh Pynnshurst ; turn your back, and tumble down five miles to light upon the Glacier of the Rhone, in the Canton of Valais. It cannot be said of the Wanderer, that he descended, nor that he went down ; tumbled is the word ! I stick to it. I will go to the stake sooner than give it up or exchange it for nnv other word whatsoever. XL THE BIRTH OF THE RHONE. AT the door of the little shantee there, stands the hostess in square cap, of purple ribbon and black lace ; across the rustic bridge move white and black goats on their way to the pastures on the hill. And those two mountains far off yonder, shining mid the skies, tall sentinels on the border land, Cheville in Vallais, Anzeidaz in Berne, touch each other ; and, between them, nurse a fountain, which gives birth to two small rivers, the Avengon and the Lyzerne. On the 24th of September, 1714, reports like those of heavy cannon began to sound from the summit of Cheville, and continued with violence for twenty-four hours. After this, a thick smoke broke forth, followed by a jet of flame, and the enormous mountain burst! The fragments, fine as gravel, were cast for more than forty miles. THE BIRTH OF THE RHONE. 273 Fourteen human beings, all buildings and all cattle, the latter very numerous, were whelmed beneath the mightier fragments and buried, either living or else crushed to atoms. The course of the Lyz^rne was stopped and its bed became dry as ashes. It was supposed that a sulphur mine had take fire within the heart of the mountain. Among the number of Vajaisians who disappeared, was a man of the village of Auen, much missed, because much beloved. All whom he left behind him became the charge of the township, and wife and children regretted him, in praying, at the service instituted for the repose of his soul in the parish church. On Christmas Eve, he entered the door of his house, pale and emaciated, his hair wild and unkempt, his body nearly naked ; and as he came in by the door, wife and children, after one glance, made their escape at the window, leaving him in peaceable possession. Somewhat astonished at so unloving a reception, and remembering that " nought is so unkind as kindred," he resolved to try strangers ; but the villagers fled from his presence ; and then, as he stood alone hi astonishment, they came back fortified by the Cure. He went at once to the poor fellow, gave him both bread and wine ; next took him to the church, where they re- turned thanks for his deliverance, and finally adjourned to the parsonage, where they made him tell his story. " I was at the foot of the mountain, father," he said, " in a crevice quite narrow enough, cutting the wild grass for 12* 274 ray cow, when suddenly I heard a sound as if the world had broken up, and looking upwards, I saw a mountain falling on me. I crouched upon the floor of the crevice, and the mountain fell. Then I knew, father, that I was buried alive. " So I went down on my knees, and prayed God for grace to die like a good Christian, and made my confession there to him and craved his pardon. But I also prayed that he would help me to escape ; though I said also ' Thy will be done. 1 " After that I had no fear, but set myself to work as heartily as I could. 3 could see nothing, but there was air enough, and I heard a trickling of water. God had sent a little stream through the crevice ; I groped about to find the rock, that I might lean my hands against it while I drank, and the first thing I touched was my sack. It was full of cheeses, for I was going to the market when I noticed the wild grass in the chasm. " So I worked and prayed, living on the cheese ; sleeping on the earth when fatigued, and working with my staff and long knife while I was awake. I knew no difference of days and nights. It was all night with me. " How long I was theio I know not, but when my last cheese was eaten, my staff passed through a mass of earth as I was working, and when I withdrew it I saw the light. Gradually I enlarged the hole ; passed through it, and am here. THE BIKTH OF THE RHONE. 275 " ' De profundis clamavi ad Te Doming said the Cure, ' et audivistis vocein meant. Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, Oh Lord ! and Thou hast heard my voice.' " And now having told you that story, let ine go in and devour goat's milk cheese and cold something which the hostess calls ham, drink the abominable wine, miscalled of Astie it should be " nasty " and look out of the windows upon the mighty glacier there. Don't be alarmed, I am not going to describe it; but just look at that huge crystal cavern, giving out those mighty floods of water. It is the Rhone, that leaps from the deep heart of the glacier ; it is the Rhone, whose wild waves sweep here at your feet ; child of Valaisian Alps, it goes its way along the bases of the Penine hills, sweeps through Geneva's lake, waters the sunny lands of Dauphiny, laves the rich soil of Languedoc and Provence, Mother of Song, to give its treasures at last to the broad Mediterranean. " Flow on, exulting and abounding river ; Making thy waves a blessing as they flow Through banks whose beauty would endure forever, Could man but leave thy bright creation so." It is Childe Harold who says that, though he says it of the Rhine. "Start, start!" cries the guide; "you must walk well to cross the Furca Pass and get to old St. Gothard's feet by sunset" 276 i-vx. \SIIUKST. So away they go along the glacier's edge, and climb a hill that is decidedly unequalled for difficulty. The " hill difficulty " in John Bunyan's dream is a lawn to this affair. It is " right straight up !" and the road seems to take plea- sure in putting you as near the edge of the precipice as possible. In one place near the summit, Hugh walked for some minutes on a path eight inches wide, muddy and shelving, with a rough rock to his right, and fresh air for two hundred feet below him to his left. The top is about one foot wide ; you can straddle it if you will, and the boundary cross there tells you that you have one leg in Catholic Valais and the other in Catholic Uri the conscience of Switzerland. Hugh sat so, reposing himself and looking at the landscape, with a piece of bread and cheese in one hand, and a flask of Kirchenwasser in the other. As the situation is an interesting and romantic one, we will let him stay there till the next book. BOOK V. FOREST CANTONS " loh wandlo durch cln Land so froh. Ach ich vergess' es nimmer." SICK HEADAC HK. IT was at Hospenthal that Hugh slept as you already know. All the day long, he had not been overly well ; the journey had been toilsome, the sun very hot. A very bad dinner gave him an indigestion, and from the indigestion had come a headache. He had hoped that it would pass away, but it only got worse ; and the more he tried to chase it away, the more it would not move one step. A sick headache. Do you know what that is ? Yes ! What ! You ! my stout fellow ? Yes ; you have a headache when you butt your great stupid noddle against a doorpost, or a lamppost, or a mantelpiece, or the head of your neighbor. You have headache when you have been tipsy all night, and get up feverish, and with a violent lovo 280 PYNNSHURST. for cold water in the morning ; when your teeth are covered with tartar, and your eyes sting; and your round foolish nose is all red and bulbous in its general effect ; and you fall against your wash-hand-stand as you rise, and find your legs very shaky and unsolid. Then I grant that you feel more stupid than usual, and that you have a pain across your forehead, or the top of your thick cranium, or in the back there by the bump of philo- progenitiveness ; but bless your dull soul ! that's not a head- ache. You, my dear child ! After dancing all night ; after eating so many, many creams and pickled oysters ; after standing in the conserva- tory there, smelling tube roses and listening to the soft whispers of your own, own Jinkins ; after having screwed up that precious little waist till it looked like your own wrist ; after rolling, opening, closing, raising, sinking, those soft ex- pressive eyes ; and finally sitting up half an hour after your return, to meditate his last words as he shawled you in the entry ; you have drooping eyelids ; and those clustering tresses feel very heavy, and a dull, thick dizziness hangs like a mist over the light brain. You are sensitive to the least noise ; and you perceive that the oysters and creams do not coalesce; and there is a singing, or ringing, or humming, or buzzing, in those ears, delicate and rose-tinted like a conch-shell ; and you feel very much like laying that pretty head upon mama's kind bosom, SICK HEADACHE. 281 while her gentle hands bathe the forehead with cologne, and press between velvet palms, the throbbing temples with maternal gentleness but, my dear infant, that is not a headache. But you see there, on that steamboat, the tall man, with the dark complexion and fiery black eye ; with a slight but iron wrinkle straight between his brows. His black hair curls ; his lips are pressed together ; his thin small hands are closed tightly, as he looks into the deep water there. He has headache. And that younger man there in the library ; with the same hair, and eyes, and face ; who has his elbows on the table, and his forehead crushing beneath the fierce gripe of his nervous hands ; the features sharpened, the skin livid, the eyes generally half closed ; but opening wildly now and then. He has headaches. So had Pynnshurst. His present one commenced as follows : First, a dull leaden pain, seemed to settle down overall the surface of his brain, as a fowl upon her brood. Then quick detonating throbs beat heavily along his forehead ; which hurt, yet seemed not to be in his head, but a kind of echo from some distant place. Then a pang, vivid like lightning, shot from temple to temple furrowing through his brain ; then another from the eye to the back of the head ; then from ear to ear. And these came fast and thick, till the brain boiled and seethed 282 PYNNSHURST. as the waters boil and seethe beneath the lashings of the wind ; and the heavy weight, as of a fowl brooding, changed to a condor's talons, and they tightened hot and fiercely, griping into the bubbling pulp of the brain. Then he bought a pill of opium and went to bed. Pale, hot, pulseless, he lies there with his head thrown back upon the pillow, and moist motionless hair, lying heavily on his forehead ; a slight convulsive closing and opening of the finger is the only sign of life. You cannot hear nor see him breathe. The eyes rest motionless, half closed ; you see part of the white and part of the glazed black orb. And evermore the griping pain continues, and tho vivid pangs shoot through the brain. The opium cannot make him sleep, but it can make him dream. He does not think, but notions arrange themselves and print themselves painfully upon the pia mater. Their first form is this. That it would be better for him if he were a polypus, drollest of rayed animals, a Zoophyte, from Z66n, animal, and phyton, a plant ; because the polypus has no head what- ever. He has nothing but one stomach and a great many arms ; and he puts his food directly into his stomach with his arms ; neither chews it, nor swallows it ; but peaceably puts it there ; and has no headache because he has not got any head ; and no indigestion, for in four minutes he con- verts a stout hard-skinned larva into nutritive chyle, and if you turn him wrong-side out like the finger of a glove when SICK HEADACHE. 283 it wants mending, he digests just as well that way as the other. Then the notions change. O His forehead begins to expand slowly but surely. For years and years, as he lies there, with his upturned, motion- less face, he feels it growing, miles, miles in height, and leagues in breadth ; and the hair of the head and brows spring up and branch, and the slight folds of the skin be- come wild gorges, and ice and snow lie thickly there, and freeze with horrible pain in, into his head. Then he knows his forehead is the Grimsel. For a long time he felt the Austrian manoeuvres, but they scarcely pained him, the cold was so intense ; but soon he was aware that Gudin had crossed Noeggli's Groettli, with his fierce French, and was rushing down upon the Austrians ; there, in the centre of his forehead, met the armies ; and the clash of armor, and the roar of musketry, and wild shrill neighings of steeds, and shouts of warrior men, rung on his thrilling senses ; and the quick wheel and tramp of heavy battalions, rolled ever over his forehead ; and now and then an iron horse hoof broke through the skull and came crashing in upon the brain : and the dead fell and lay there heavily, growing cold upon him : and the streams of hot blood rolled sluggishly, cooled, stagnated and froze there 5 and for all he felt no horror. He had but one sense and that was pain. That passed. 284 PYNNSHURST. And then some awful power brought the Jungfrau, thirteen thousand feet in height, and set it on his front. No more shouting and pangs from the battling of an army, but an awful weight pressing even there, and yet not crush ing in the skull. No sound there, but all cold and utterest, most solitary stillness, except when the avalanches would burst from their rest on high and hurtle down the mountain side with a roar of many thunders. He shuddered as he felt them coming down, but they broke and rested cold and heavy there, without the power to slay him. At last. He knew that his brain was contracting to its original size, and that the skull must contract to contain it ; and it did so ; but what it lost in extent it gained in thickness ; and at last it was finished, leagues upon leagues thick. There was no more pain now. Only the dull oppressive sense of that thickened envelope. It tortured him to have his face always turned upward ; but the mass was too heavy to turn. But in despair he strove and heaved with shoulders that seemed to be of iron, with neck-sinews of steel, and at last the mighty mass revolved upon its base ; it turned and he felt it crash down- ward upon its side. And then he slept. That, my good fellow ! That, my dear child, was a headache ! He often had them like that ; and he used to believe that SICK HEADACHE. 285 some day he would die quietly under one of them, alone, in a strange land. It is a pleasant valley there at the foot of St. Gotthard. And when he had issued from the hotel or inn, which was a very bad one indeed, he went first to the little Italian Church, pretty and clean, but overcharged with ornament, and thence climbed up to the old square tower on the height there. He saw, in the not very fertile plain, the villages of Urseren, Realp, and Ziindorf. At Realp, in tho little lodge where the good Capuchins receive you if you do not march onward to Hopital, His humble board the holy man prepares, And simple food and holy lore bestows ; Extols the treasures that his mountain bears ; And paints the perils of impending snows. So sang a Duchess of Devonshire in 1812, and so repeated Hugh Pynnshurst, when he had unhorsed himself from where we left him ; when he had descended the Mountain, and stopped at Realp to taste Italian wine before going on to Hopital. Above there, in the rear, gleam the white peaks of conse- crated Gotthard ; bleak and desolate enough. 286 PYNNSHUUST. No haunt of man the weary traveller greets, No vegetation smiles upon the moor, Save where the flowret breathes uncultured sweets, Save where the patient monk receives the poor. It is the same Duchess who is responsible for that quatrain. In 1300, on those heights stood an humble hospice; later, St. Charles Borromeo gave the idea, and his kinsman Frederick executed it, to build a more commodious dwelling for the brethren there. Thence stream the Reuss, the Tessin, the Rhone, and Father Rhine. There passed Suwarrow and the armies of the French Revolution, the latter battering down the Hospice. There is now from hence to Altorf, one of the very finest roads anywhere visible ; but how it turns and winds ; there is no direction which it does not take, no manner of crook, bend, or curb, that it does not form. So along that march the travellers, through quaint old Andermatt ; through the Hole of Uri, a tunnel of some three hundred feet through the heart of the mountain. Ever as they advanced, the valley deepened : the eternal hills grew higher on each hand, and the boiling Reuss fell fiercely on its way ; for a stream that declines forty-five hundred feet between S. Gotthard and the lake of the Four Cantos, cannot be said to flow it folk. SICK HEADACHE. 287 At last they are at the Dcvifs Bridge, looking over the parapet of the new one down upon the old. Both are types of their epochs. To-day's bridge careful, neat, in the best chosen spot, close up beside the cataract, double arched, Avell walled, and some twelve or fourteen feet wide. The old one consists of a single bold arch, flung where the torrent is wildest across the foaming waters. Scarcely can two persons pass aloug its rude surface, which is un- guarded by any parapet. To-day is safer ; the past was bolder and more pictur- esque. You think of the road-makers or the architect upon the new. You thought of God and eternity upon the old. The one in fair cut stone gleams in its yellow newness ; the other moss-clad and grey with age, is rude as the Alps that surmount it ; wild as the cataract which it spans. " And who pray built this bridge ?" asked Hugh. "The Abbot Gerald of Einsiedlen in 1118," read one of the Frenchmen from the guide book. " Oh, hang the guide book information," cried Pynns- hurst, '' let us come to facts. Who built the old bridge, guide ?" " Well, they say in the canton Uri here, that it was built by the Devil." " Ah, that is something like. But he don't make any- thing at present except steam factories and cotton spinning machines ; he has quite given up architecture. But tell us 288 PTNNSHURST. all about it. What did he do it for ? and how much did they pay him !" " Well, he did it on bargain," said the guide, " but the Abbot Gerald swindled him." "How so T IL A STORY OF THE DEVIL. " SIR," said the guide, " the people all prayed the Abbot of Einsiedlen who ruled all this country then, to build them a bridge ; and he advertised for a builder. So they came from all over Switzerland ; but when they saw how the Keuss roared and foamed over the rocks, they shook their heads and went back home again. Only two remained. " One was a tall handsome man in black, and the other, a poor young fellow very clever as a millwright, and well known in the country. " ' We seem to be left alone here,' said young Christian, for he had the same name that I have, gentleman. " ' So it appears,' said the tall gentlemen, ' are you an architect ?' M ' I have only built mill dams as yet,' replied the other, 13 290 PYNNSHURST. ' but I came to look at this. But I cannot do it ; I have studied it for two days, and can make nothing of it ; and now give it up. If I had gotten the reward' and he stopped and sighed, as he thought of a blue-eyed maiden at home, who was as poor as he was. " ' It is left for me then ?' said the tall man. " ' Ah, you fancy that you can do it ?' " ' Oh yes, I am certain ; I have done severer tasks than that.' " ' And what plan have you, may I ask ?' " ' I shall throw an arch simply across the torrent.' " ' Indeed, and when will you finish ?' "'I think I will do it this evening,' said the tall man carelessly. " ' A.h !' said Christian, laughing, ' Why, you must be the devil !' " ' At your service,' he answered politely. " Christian looked at him, but saw nothing particular about him, except that his eyes were very brilliant. " ' If you would like the credit, I will do the work for you for a consideration.' " ' And what may that be, pray ?' " ' If you will sign this contract, giving me your soul.' " Christian did not exactly like that. A cold chill ran over him ; and he was just going to begin his prayers, when a young peasant girl passed along the mountain, singing. " The poor young fellow thought of the sweet-voiced, blue- A STORY OF THE DEVIL. 291 eyed maiden at home ; thought too that the other was some architect amusing himself with his country simplicity, and half afraid, half laughing, he signed the contract. " The tall man folded it and put it in his pocket ; raised his hat politely, and disappeared. " Christian went to the Cure below there, where he passed the night. He had half forgotten what he had done, and regarded the whole as a joke, but in the morning as he walked out to take a last look at the place, judge of his horror when he saw the bridge built and his own name on it as architect. " He flew to the Cure, where the abbot was staying, told him all, and besought his help. " ' We will do what we can,' said the Abbot Gerald, " In half an hour afterwards there came a knock at the door, and the tall man in black was there, when the good monk opened it. " ' Good morning,' said the former, ' you have a piece of my property here, they tell me, Abbot.' " Now Abbot Gerald was no more afraid of the devil than a Swiss is of an Austrian. " ' Hush,' said he quietly, ' don't wake the young man ; let us talk the matter over. Come in.' 292 PVNNSHURST. "The devil glanced into the room, and saw nothing but an old woman ; and in a bed at the other end, a form which he recognized for the young mill-wright's by the clothes. " ' Take a seat,' said Abbot Gerald, and pointed to a chair beside the table. " ' You are very polite,' said the devil, sitting down, ' I thank you kindly ;' and he noticed that there was a chess- board on the table. " ' You play then, Abbot Gerald,' said he. " ' A little,' said the Abbot, ' but it is not worth speaking of. The chief matter is, that you cannot have that young- ster.' " ' Oho !' said the devil, ' we will see about that. The contract is in perfectly good form.' " ' It is little I care about that,' said the abbot, ' but the scandal of the thing ; and you know that if I set myself to work you'll have a tough time of it.' " ' I don't think that your conduct is decent,' said the devil.' " ' Not decent ! you scoundrel !' said Gerald, in a pas- sion.' " ' Well, there then, I ask your pardon, I spoke hastily ; but be reasonable now : Come : I'll play you for him.' " ' Two souls from my parishas,' said the Abbot thought- fully, ' it is too much.' " ' Two ! Who then ' cried Satan. A STORY OF THE DEVIL. 293 " Abbot Gerald pointed at the old woman, " ' Ah !' thought the other, ' I did not know that I had any claims upon her. But I don't mind her much, and I always get one game out of two;' then he added aloud, Til play you for both, and that's fair.' " ' Well, I don't like to be too hard,' said Abbot Gerald ; ' I agree ; but it is dry work playing chess.' " He touched a little bell, and a monk came in. The abbot whispered to him ; he went out, brought in a bottle of wine, and disappeared again. " ' Will you try some of this ?' said the abbot. " ' I thank you,' was the answer, ' I carry a little bottle of s'pirit with me. Dare I offer a drop to your lord- ship ?' "'We stick to our light wines here,' said the abbot drily. ' I am getting too old to change. Sit down here, you sinner,' said he to the old woman, shoving her into a chair by the stove. "'It is your first move, and we play for this ono first.' " ' After you,' said the devil, politely. " ' By no means ; I am at home,' said Abbot Gerald. " So the devil took the move, and after a pretty tough game, the abbot check-mated him completely. "'You are strong at chess, Abbot Gerald. You 294 PYNNSHURST. have won that one there,' and he pointed at the old woman. " ' So you give up all claim now and forever ?' " ' Oh, honor bright ; would you have me cheat you after so much politeness ! 1 yield every inch. But now for the other.' " ' I am tired,' said Abbot Gerald, ' I think that I will not play any further. I'll give you the other ; only take him quietly.' " ' You are very courteous,' said the devil, as he walked to the bed, and tapped on the sleeper, who breathed heavily. " ' Come, get up,' said the devil. " ' Humph,' said the sleeper. " ' That's not the best of good manners,' said the other, ' get up when I bid you ! ' and he pulled away the clothes. " The sleeper was a huge grey pig ! with the millwright's clothes ranged about it ; and as Satan turned round, he saw the old woman strip off her mask and cloak, and show Christian, pale enough, but smiling. "'That's a shabby trick you have played me, Abbot Gerald,' said the devil, ' but I'll batter your bridge down again.' "'Try it,' said Abbot Gerald, laughing heartily, as the other flew out, banging the doors to in a rage. "The devil got half way to the place, when he met A STOKY OF THE DliVIL. 295 the procession returning. They had blessed the bridge while the game of chess lasted, and he had no more power over it. " It was so that Abbot Gerald tricked the deviL" m. THE PREFACE. WHILC I was learning Pynushurst, I was surprised at the amount of folly that was in him ; and finding it so abundant in his notes, had almost induced me to abandon the editing of them. But I considered, that his character was now made up of many qualities, dominated by two, the one natural, the other acquired Pride and mournfulness. The causes of his sadness he never spoke of. Among his acquaintance, some knew one cause, some another ; but he was no confider. Something had destroyed his power of trust. Now, in a very earnest character, when pride prevents any utterance of sadness, and when sadness is very powerful, when it is morbid and overwhelming, the re-action is as ex- cited as possible, and always verges upon folly. THE PREFACE. 297 And the haughty coldness that loves no sympathy, that will not show its wounds even to have them healed, cannot with all its power, make the tear pass into a gentle smile ; it cannot gradually subdue the emotions and render them calm and tractable by degress ; it must tear the sad thoughts from the heart ; it must fling itself, as it were, to some extreme. With enthusiasts, with poets, with impassioned people this extreme is very often nonsense ; it is sometimes mere buffoonery. You can see it in Byron, Burns, and many another. I wish to show Pynnshurst as I knew him ; as his own papers reveal him. I do not wish to draw a perfect char- acter, but a real one ; not to make a hero, but to exhibit a man, commoner in society than is generally believed. To show a little of this being, at first, alone with nature, or in the company which one always meets amid the Alps has seemed to me the best way of making the experiment. If he interests at all, I mean to write his life, for I have yet other papers which I am not yet permitted to open. Then, perhaps, the lesson may be useful. Proud, passionate, a dreamer, generous in thought, word, and deed ; gentle in all his instincts, guided in all things by the old French law, Noblesse oblige ; deeply religious, poet and enthusiast, with the vices and virtues that belong to such character ; the sufferings and pleasures that attend it ; 298 PYNXSHUKST. this, if I can paint it, in my rude way, faithfully ; must, 1 think, be more or less useful. That is my preface to this work. IV. ABOUT TELL. " (Test dans les petits Cantons que Fon se sent Suisse" say the Genevois and Neuchatelois. These, with their wild scenery, their glorious lakes hemmed in by stalwart Alps ; their rushing floods innavi- gable, their " churlish soil" and " lingering winters" form the hero land of the Switzers. All the other Cantons have their history, but it is the history of the little Cantons ; the IV, Cantons, the Primitive Cantons, the Forest Cantons, Uri, Unterwald, Schwytz, and Lucerne ; which make the foreigner's idea of Switzerland. Here, in this wild valley which Pynnshurst and his com- rades are looking at just now, how many a scene has passed ! First, when Berne preached the Reform w'th the sword 300 PYNNSHUUST. blade very unavailingly ; for the Conscience of Switzerland, Uri, with the other heroic Cantons continued in the old faith. Then again. The wild Suwarrow was here in 1799 with his Russians ; and the troops of the French Revolution met him, and were driven before him ; they broke down a part of the Devil's Bridge ; but boards were tied together with the scarfs of the Russian officers, and with such bridges they crossed the torrent, and chased the French. Then this fair valley echoes night, noon, and morn, with the choral psalm of the mountaineer ; who when the glad sun cometh up the east, or when they enter their chalets for the noon-day meal, or when the day goes down behind the peaks, place themselves at their doors, and chant the Angelic Salutation. Then finally (after having passed through Wasen and Amsteg, where they purchased clouded crystals and bun- dles of asbestos), at Attinghausen, these same rocks and waters witnessed the mournful parting of Pynnshurst and Kipps another historical recollection for the hero Cantons for Hugh would linger here a little while with Nature, and Kipps went onward to see " the scenery" with the two Frenchmen. So Hugh confided his few messages of remembrance to Augustus ; gave him good counsels, and so they embraced and parted ; the one for Altorf, the other to rest for a time in the Auberge. ABOUT TELL. 301 Here ruled and lived the noble Baron Werner von Attinghausen, beloved by his people. Among them was Walter Furst. The quarrel between Gessler and the Schwytzers had gotten to dagger drawing, and needed but a little to change the daggers into swords. This little was soon furnished ; a young trooper of Gessler had insulted a woman of the name of Baumgarten, and was slain by her husband. This roused the slumbering wrath of Werner StaufFacher, Landamman of Schwytz. He passed the lake, and took refuge with Walter Furst. Here he found a young man called Arnold Ander Halde de Melchthal, who had broken with, a rod, the finger of an insolent servant of the Austrian governor. The latter, in revenge, put out the eyes of Melchthal's father. Then, these three, chose out thirty men, and mounted to the plain of Gruttli, and promised mutually, to maintain their people in the possession of their ancient liberties, but without injury to the rights of the Counts of Habsbourg ; (for it was this rank which gave the emperors certain rights in Switzerland) only that they would deliver to their children the freedom which they had received from their fathers. Then Furst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal, raised their right hands to Heaven, and swore " In the Name of God, who had made Emperors and peasants, and from whom all hold the inalienable rights of humanity, valorously to defend 302 their menaced liberty, each giving what aid was in his power." Here was already, you perceive, a very promising little beginning of a revolution. And it is this oath, or rather a picture of it, that you find represented in frescoes upon sides of houses, as at Altorf, in wood carvings, engravings, and what not ; wherein the three swearers strike picturesque attitudes, exhibit a prodigious muscular development of calf, and point with more or less grandeur to the clouds. Now while affairs were in this state, Governor Herman Gessler, who was about as big a fool as he was a tyrant, advised himself to set a cap upon a pole, and " all people, nations, tongues, and languages, were to bow down before this image which ' Gessler the Governor,' had set up." But a certain man of Uri, son-in-law of Furst, and known as William Tell, declared, that he would bow to the Duke of Austria, or even to the Governor, his representative, but that the necks of the Uri ( Urus, buffalo) were too stiff to bend to caps, ducal caps, night caps, or others, of whatever species they might happen to be. Then happened the incident of shooting the apple from the head of his son, by Tell. Then Gessler himself would take the sturdy archer across the lake, to imprison him for contempt, in another canton. But near the Griittli, the land hurricane, called the Fcehn, leaped out from the deep valleys of St. Gothard and roused the lake to fury. ABOUT TELL. 303 Tell was the best boatman, as well as the best archer, in the four cantons, and Gessler, cutting his bonds, ordered him to conduct the boat to the shore. He obeyed ; guided the boat skilfully amid the vexed waves to the foot of the Axenberg ; leaped to the shore, in pushing back the skiff with his foot, and bounded up the mountain side like a chamois. Gessler escaped this danger, and went towards Kussnacht ; but in a defile of the road as he passed, Tell stained his name and that of his country's struggle for freedom, by the cold-blooded assassination of his enemy. He shot him from behind a rock, in the canton of Schwytz, and fled to Eis brother-in-law at Attinghausen. This set the ball famously in motion. All the high nobles declared against Austria and led the people in the war ; and a variety of things were done ; a variety of heroes revealed ; numerous people killed ; the Emperor Albert rendered highly dissatisfied ; the cantons freed, and subjects innume- rable furnished for bad frescoes and worse tragedies. Hugh never could find out how the nobles perished. All through Switzerland there are families called noble, reve- renced by the people and enjoying a sufficiently good opinion of themselves and their importance, but called by no title. Fribourg, it is true, is divided into families patrician and plebeian, and was, until 1848, governed by about twenty of the former, in whom the right to govern and legislate is 304 PYNNSHUKST. hereditary ; but even in Schwytz, there is a class called the nobles. Pynnshurst dined, as greater and lesser men have done before him ; took a look at his room, asked numerous ques- tions in defective German ; received responses of which he understood just half, and then walked out of doors to make a survey of the village, and to look at the house wherein Walther Furst was born : he found it to be uncommonly like the other houses in Attinghausen, and went satisfied to bed: slept well, and started the next morning for the mountains. V. THE WHITE BULL. LEAVING Attinghausen, then, of which we may say that it is a quaint little place, looking old beyond the memory of eagles, he started off for a walk, and, choosing the first path that he came to, followed it till it led him up among the Surrennes. Here he lighted on a superb cascade, that flung itself wrathfully over sixty feet of shelving, rugged rock. Weary with his walk, he was glad to see a cottage beside him, where he knew that he was sure of a welcome and a drink of milk. " You come from Attinghausen," said the peasant wife who received him, " you must be a stout walker though you don't look like it." " Oh, I am getting used to it," he answered, " and in your beautiful country here one never tires of walking." 306 PYNNSHURST. " You English gentlefolks," she sahl, " have a great many droll ways of finding pleasure. If I had fine houses and comforts like you, I would not walk about over our steep mountain paths." " My good dame," said Hugh, gravely, " the enervate soul of the civilized man finds alleviation for satiety cnly in that which contrasts the routine of his actual existence. It is a part of the ' universal fitness of things.' " " Ah !" she cried, " you are laughing at me. That's philo- sophy that you were talking. I know it when I hear it : a philosophy stayed with me once, in this little cottage, for a month ; he was hunting for flowers here, and called a moun- tain daisy, by a name as long as from here to Altorf. But he was an honest, brave little gentleman as ever I saw, though he was bald. He cured Hans of the fever, and would not let me take it out of his board. If all the philo- sophies were like him, welcome one and all, would I say. He was very fond of a drink of milk." " I am not a philosophy myself, Madame," said Hugh, ' but I like milk as much as the driest of them." " And you shall have some," she said, " in one moment, with a foam on it like the Stierenbach yonder." She disappeared for a moment, but returned with a brown loaf in one hand and a full bowl in the other. " "What did you call the torrent there ?" asked Pynn- shurst. THE WHITE BULL. 307 " The Stierenbach," she answered, " that is, the Bull's Torrent." " And why do you give it that name, pray ?" " Oh, it is an old, old name, that. You see that there are fine patches of pasture about here ; and long ago, the people of Uri and of Unterwald used to fight about the ownership of them. Well, among these herdsmen was a wild fellow called Ital Struck, who cared for little except his cattle, and he went so far as to baptize one favorite animal, and to give it a Christian name. " But lo and behold, the beast changed suddenly into a frightful monster, which first devoured Ital Struck, and then took possession of the pastures, suffering neither men nor cattle to come near them. So it was agreed between the Men of Uri and of Unterwald, that whosoever of the two should rid the country of the monster, should have the title to the pasturage. " The men of Uri accordingly sent to consult a wonderful magician who had just come from Spain ; and he gave them this advice. To choose a calf which was to be nur- tured by a single cow the first year, by two the second, and so on till he got to be nine years old. Then he was to be led here by a maiden with light hair, and dark eyes, and she must be an orphan. She was to be attended by a boy whose father and grandfather, mother and grandmother, were still alive. " So when the ninth year came about, there was the 308 VJTNNSHURST. most beautiful and gentle bull ever seen ; his bide was white as snow, but his short sharp horns were black ; and at the proper time he was wreathed with flowers, and the maiden led him here, and then retired. " As soon as he found himself alone, he uttered three tremendous bellows, which brought the monster out from his cave ; and then began the most terrible fight ever known. You can see the prints of the bull's hoofs all along the rocks there yet. " Well in the end, the monster was beaten, and rushing to the small lake there, plunged in, making that cataract by his plunge, and never was seen again from that day to this. But the conqueror went to drink at the water, and its cold- ness killed him. So the men of Uri got the pasture, and called it Stierenbach, in memory of the bull." Hugh thanked his hostess, drank his milk, and slipping a gulden into the hands of a little girl, daughter of the land- lady, bade her adieu, and walked down to his inn. There as he noted in his journal what she had told him, he bethought him of a legend in the Iron Alp, which a guide had told him at Moesbach, a village on the borders of Uri and Schwytz. They believe in the village there, that if any one, through a malicious wish to cheat his lawful heirs, buries or hides his money, his soul will be tormented until some one shall find the hoard, and put it once more in circulation. Now a certain widow having quarrelled with the kinsfolk THE WHITE BULL. 309 of her late husband, sold all her property, cast the purchase money into a gloomy chasm near the village, and soon after died. In the village, at this time, lived a poor devil, who called himself Hantz Laimer, whose only employment was to search for hidden treasures. He was always followed by a goat with three horns, which he took with him to all the old chateaux, abandoned chalets, ruins, and every other place which tradition had mentioned as the resting-place of a treasure. Well, on Christmas Eve, when the night had fallen, a phantom appeared, and addressed him in these words : " Hantz Laimer, follow me ! I wish to enrich thee !" , Hantz followed without hesitation, and soon arrived at the chasm where the widow had thrown her money. " Descend," said the phantom ; and, without hesitation, Hantz leaped down, and found himself beside his three- horned goat. By the side of the animal, he perceived a huge cauldron full of gold and silver. Couched on the top of the glittering mass, squatted an enormous toad, with fierce red eyes. " Hantz," said the phantom, " kiss that toad three times, and the cauldron and its contents will be yours, and you will deliver a soul in pain. Be not afraid, when I tell you that at each kiss he will become more frightful." Hantz kissed it once, and its vilo mouth opened half way down its body, and its red swollen tongue lolled out. 310 PYNNSHURST. He kissed it twice, and every freckle on its bloated carcase seemed to crawl, and its loathsome eyes hung from their sockets but still leered at him. Then Hantz could stand no more, but started back, bellowing with horror, and the cauldron rolled into a fissure of the rock with a terrible din, and the three-horned goat fell stark and stiff; and the toad disappeared in the side of the mountain with a fearful scream, and as Hantz crawled from the chasm he heard these words three times repeated far off in the .hollow of the mountain "Lost! lost! for evermore !" A good sleep refreshed him, and prepared him to start the next morning for Altorf. A short walk brought him to this pretty city, or town ; where the first thing he saw was William Tell, in a very uncomfortable position on top of a fountain. From him, he turned his eyes towards the side of a house, where, perhaps, the abominablest fresco that ever was painted, exhibited the three swearers of the Gruttli. The fountain occupies the place of the pole which held the cap, unbowed to by Tell. It is here that the shooting scene took place ; a fountain marks the position of the archer, some other thing the place of his son ; but the apple which he shot from the boy's head has not been preserved; it was probably munched THE WHITE BULL. 311 by the youngster, after the extraction of the paternal dart. As there is nothing else to see, Hugh pushes on to the bright little borough of Flueln; where the glorious lake of the four Cantons, rolls its silver waters, amid glorious scenes; and bears upon its bosom, the shadows of the Rhigi and of Pilate. Yonder, the jetty swarms with people. Two brown robed Capuchin friars, with their sandalled feet. Gaily dressed Germans, the women of which nation always travel in full gala-dress. Travellers of every grade from the rich milor in his luxurious berlin, to the student with his knapsack on his shoulder. Alpine sticks, well covered with names, or pure as yet, are abundant. Baggage and children very numerous. Opposite the hotel is a little church, into which Pynns- hurst goes and says a prayer. Then marches down among the people to look at his fellow travellers, and to watch the approach of the little steamer yonder, which comes paddling and splashing along, to the great astonishment of the grave, quiet Alps. Beech-woods and pine-woods climb from the water's edge, up the tall hills ; the chalet and the herdsman's cottage glimmer through the dusky leaves. Sinister Pilate rears his cloudy head, and promises foul weather ; it is clear and fair just here, but the glooms are thick there round the crest of the mountain of the Accursed. The boat touches the shore and is made fast ; the plank, 312 PYNNSHURST. just like an American one, is thrown out ; a small man in a bluejacket, with anchor-stamped brass-buttons, helps the ladies out, and tries his best to look like a sailor. Pedestrians for the mountain route that Hugh has passed over ; families in post-coaches, for St. Gotthard ; bands of long- haired students ; brown coated guides ; a cassock or two, and dames and babes innumerous leave the small affair ; and Hugh goes on board with the crowd ; and the bell is rung, and much bellowing is heard, according to the rule in such cases, and so they turn their faces from Flueln, and steam along the glorious lake. Look behind you ; in that little chapel, de Stauffacher and Furst met with their peasant comrade, Melchthal, and formed their earliest plans ; that height there is the Gruttli, where they swore. But now we pass another little building ; entirely open on the lake side. You wonder to see it, unprotected there amid the wild scenery. By the cross upon it, you see that it is a chapel ; as you come nearer, you recognize the altar ; the solemn crucifix rising in the centre ; the flower vases and all the sacred ornaments. "What does it there alone ! It is the glory of every Swiss. To that one Catholic shrine at least each protestant head (if Swiss) is bared. That rock there in front, is the rock on which leaped Wilhelm Tell, when he spurned back the bark containing Gessler, amid the boiling waves. It is the Tellen Cappel, the Chapel Tell. THE WHITE BULL. 313 There, once in every year, a solemn mass of thanksgiving is celebrated. And the lake is covered with painted boats, clad with gay streamers ; echoing with music ; and Switzer- land comes there to thank the God of armies for the victories that He gave them, and the freedom which he aided them to win in the bye-gone hero times. VI. LUCERNE. DOUBTLESS the lake of the four Cantons, sometimes known as the Lake of Lucerne, should have inspired Hugh with numerous thoughts, for it is very beautiful, and made him often think of the Hudson from Caldwell's to New- burgh. You go straight up northward to Brunnen ; then you strike to the left ; then north again, and finally in a sort of " north'ard by west'ard" advancement you descend upon Lucerne. I know that it ought to be described, but the wanderer has not left me even a note, and I have had description enough. Stop ! I know what to do. " Crystal waters ; blue, profound, glorious Alps ; Khigi wild pine ; wind of the hills ; glancing billows, brightening in the beam ; Weggis ; Mount Pilate ; crest of snows ; Tell ; LUCERNE. 315 Cessler; cloudy shrouds; crags; chalets.; chamois; hero age ; the holy Past." There, my dear madam, are the materials for a descrip- tion in our style. Mix 'em to suit yourself. The boat stopped very near to an exaggerated hotel which looked with true parvenu insolence over the noble old lake ; all blue granite, windows, novelty, and pretension. All which, however, did not prevent its being a very capital hotel that Schweitzerhof. There may good things be got for dinner ; seduisant breakfasts tempt you ; and you are well treated, and the bills are as long as a crane's. So when Hugh had spruced himself up a bit, and had slightly refreshed both outward and inward man ; he made a rush at a long bridge which was near and walked through it and back again glancing at the pictures with which each arch is adorned; and which represent the lives of S.S. Maurice and Leger ; and which would be much more instructive if they were not quite so dilapidated. This he thought, while looking for a moment at the beautiful view which any one can enjoy from the middle arches, if always the said any one be not blind, or if he be there. Then Hugh went to the cathedral, and saw a fine, old church, and a goblet of Charles of Burgundy, who, by the way, has left plate enough behind him in Switzerland to furnish the court of an emperor. In this country, every old article in silver, every tin cup gilded, every bit of old bro- 316 PYNNSHURST. cade, and armout somewhat inlaid and adorned came from the table, the tent, the body of Charles the Bold. There are, at least, eleven full suits of armour in Switzerland, all of which were worn by the Duke at the siege of Morat only. He must have kept his armorers very busy changing him. To get to the church, you mount several broad steps to the platform upon which it is built. You find yourself in a huge court in front of the portal. Those old towers, and the paintings on them, are of the fourteenth century ; the rest of the edifice is more modern. Three sides of the court are arcaded, and form a long stone-paved walk going round the church. This is the cemetery. Each division has its picture, some of exquisite merit ; its cross, its garland of flowers ; its benitier, and its aspersoir. There is sometimes a bust of the deceased ; sometimes a crucifix the size of life, sometimes a group in marble. There is the raising of Lazarus, of the widow's son, the benediction of " the little ones suffered to come unto Him." Once there is the consoling Angel, who caresses with his left arm and wings two little orphans, kneeling by a grave, and points with his right hand upward to where the brightened heavens veil the rich portals of the Better Land. VII. THE LION OF LUCERNE. IN all guide books, one reads of the Lion of Lucerne : in all shop windows, in carved wood, marble, stucco, clay, one sees the Lion of Lucerne : So Hugh Pynnshurst goes in search of it And as he went, he tried to fancy what it was and wherefore. He knew that it came from the glorious chisel of Thorwaldsen ; and he dreamed about it as he walked. He dreamed that long ago, say sixty years or so, a good king reigned in the pleasant land of France ; where the vineyards bloom upon the hill side, and gleaming waters wind amid the flowers ; where the blue sky hath few clouds, and rich fruits nod from sunny garden walls ; where old forests tremble to the winds, and mountains and the ocean form a barrier; where every step brings a new history, 318 PYNNSHURST. where every stone has a legend of knightly memory ; where Bayard and Du Guesclin fought, and Holy Louis ruled, and good St. Vincent preached. That there ruled a good king, called Louis, from his saintly ancestor. But he dreamed that Richelieu had destroyed the nobles (those God-ordained bulwarks of a throne,) and that the ancient chivalry had grown quite dissolute, and had ex- changed the thrilling clarion for " the lascivious pleasings ot the lute ;" that man had degraded woman; that cold, infidel philosophy had frozen ancient faith ; and that France had thrown aside those two heroic sayings, " Noblesse obliye" and " Dieu, son honneur et sa dame." Then God left France. Yes, left it, though a holy king was on the throne ; who stripped himself to give his people bread ; who lived by prayer and alms ; whose only fault was this, that his kind heart was too loving, too merciful towards his people. God punishes man for great crimes committed, by leaving him to commit others. Who throws away grace, has none. There needs a martyr for great principles, and remission comes by blood. Louis must suffer for the sins of his people, of his sire, of France. Fear paralyzes the heart of that fair land. An awful spirit is abroad, and its name is Revolution. Crush it, King Louis, or it crushes thee. TUB LION OF LUCERNE. 319 " They are my people," spake the king, " I will not crush them." " But historians will mock at thy weakness." " Let them mock ! at least they will say that I loved my people." Then the whole fabric of society fell, for it was rotten; and from the dust and ruins swarmed up myriads of crea- tures hitherto unseen. The wise deliberated : the timid fled : the false betrayed God and King. God turned away his face : King Louis trusted his people. "Wild men and wilder women roved the streets, crying now for bread, now for a constitution. Blasphemies floated in the air : pollutions stank amid the city. Reason was throned in the temple of the Highest. And ever the human ocean swelled and raged, and the throne tottered as the billows shook it ; and he that sate thereon wept, but still loved his people. And the fierce cries changed, in the course of years, men say, they seemed but moments in Hugh Pynnshurst's dream. There is a stately lady by the throne, exquisitely beau- tiful but white as death. The blood of many kings flows in her veins and she does not know how to fear, but she does not trust the people. At first Hugh seems to hear them crying, 'mid the pauses of splendid music, " God save Louis the benevolent, King of France and of Navarre," but no ! it seems ho lias 320 I'YNNSIIURST. not heard aright ; it is, " Livo the Restorer of Liberty !" and yet not so, it is, " Long live the King of the French !" Ah, if they cried those things they have changed them suddenly. Now they say, " Down with Monsieur Veto !" One moment's silence ; then swells an awful roar, min- gled with howlings as of countless wolves that have lapped human blood, and its distinctness curdles the blood in the dreamer's veins and the marrow in his bones ; and the face of the stately lady waxes white with agony, but does not lose its stateliness as the yell bursts forth, " Death to Louis Capet and to the Austrian !" And still King Louis loves his people. Then Pynnshurst hears the roar of the Lion of Lucerne ! Loyalty is a child of the mountains. You find it there where ancient blood flows purely in the veins of the hill men. Whether in the Highland offspring of the old Norse Kings, the clans that died for Charles ; or in the chil- dren of the rude Scythian Barons, the Swiss who died for Louis. They had come from their far, cold Alps, to be a guard for the King of France. Diesbach and Erlach, Counts of old renown ; Zimmerman of long line ; Castella from the pasture lands of Gruyere, and Grison Sails, with his melan- choly harp. There are now some thousand and fifty of them at the THE LION OF LUCERNE. 321 Tuilleries. And the butcher Santerre with his furious mul- titudes marches against them. " Throw down your arms," cried the Butcher. " Yes, but only with our lives," was the answer. Then commenced the unequal war; the mountaineers defending themselves with what few arms they had, and the thousands assailing them with musketry and artillery. But they fight fearfully those guards of the king ; hundreds have fallen, but not vainly ; the howls below there show that the wolves are stricken. Then comes that last sad order. " The King commands the Swiss, to depose at once their arms and to enter their quarters. (signed) Louis." Alas ! Louis, they are all the defenders thou hast left. " True, but they are killing my people." " But thy people hate thee." " It may be ; but I love them." Obey, ye noble Swiss ; ye at least are true soldiers, ye know that the warrior's first duty is obedience. Issue from the Tuileries, brave guards, with your families ! They do so, and the knife finishes them. Soldiers and servants, women and little children are heaped up in the courts, in the gar- dens, at the gates of the Louvre, in the prisons, in the hospitals !* * Histoire du massacre de 10 Avril par le maire Petion. 14* 322 PYNNSHUB3T. A thousand lie dead in Paris. One or two get back to their mountains. In the side of a rock, above a little lake where the water drips always from the heights, is carved the den. There dies the giant lion. A broken spear is hi his side ; below him a lance point presses on a cross marked buckler ; and a shivered battle-axe lies in front of him. On the calm glorious face, is dignity and death. Slowly the blood is streaming from his side, the heroic eye is glazed ; the brow contracted with proud pain that does not murmur, and the great head bowed upon the shattered paw which still guards the lily shield of France. The lance is in thy side, O stately forest king ! Quenched is thine eye of pride, And paralyzed thy spring. The echoes of thy roar Shall wake the woods no more. No more thy foaming teeth shall cling With awful clench to the livid prey; For thy broken heart bleeds fast away, Thou crownless, dying king ! Beside the gleaming Seine, Thy fiery eyeballs shine, THE LION OF LUCERNE. 323 Out from the throbbing vein The hot gore spouts like wine. Thou guardest, thou alone, A king and an ancient throne : But a thousand hungry gaunt wolves pine ; They have tasted blood, their thirst is wild And they rush on thee. forest child, For the warmest blood 'tis thine ! Well dost thou fight to-day : But the master bids thee hold, And thou canst but obey Loyal as thou art bold Then fall and perish there, Far from thy native lair ; But ere thy sinewy limbs are cold, Prove, even while thou dost expire, That Truth is mightier and higher Even than the love of gold. Yet let thy fading eye Rest on the cruel lance ; Thy guardian foot still lie On the broken shield of France. Shake from thy mighty mane The drops of crimson rain ! Kindle once more that kingly glance, Till the gaunt and howling pack For an instant more shrink back Then fall and die for France ! But while a soul can burn With a glorious thought and high. 324 PYNNSHURST. While thrilling hearts can yearn For the noble when they die : While there is upon the sod One true to King and God. His earnest glowing thoughts shall turn To thy most sacred memory, And his quivering lids o'erflovr for thee, Thou Lion of Lucerne ! Having " rid his bosom of this perilous stuff," Pynn- shurst felt somewhat easier, talked awhile with the last of the Swiss Guard, who in his patched, red uniform, shows the sublime monument, and who was a drummer boy in the Eegiment ; and then went into the little shop which no lion in Switzerland is without, not even the Lion of Lucerne. Here he bought a clay model, a fac-simile of Louis' last order, and other matters, and returned to his hotel to rumi- nate on a variety of matters, and to stare out of his windows at the cloudy Pilate. But not without having entered the little chapel to say a prayer for the repose of the noblo Guards, before the Altar, whose pall was embroidered by the hands of the Duchess of Angouleme, and to admire the fine legend of the chapel. It consists of two words only. " PAX INVICTIS !" Peace to the unconquered ! VIII. PONTIUS PILATE. Two separate points, lifting themselves gloomily through the clouds, mark the sombre mass of Mount Pilate, a height of ten leagues surface. Upon the Brundelalp is a cavern, wherein a mass of rock represents a man seated at a table, reading. It is called the statue of St. Dominick. But as you climb the steep and rugged sides of the huge calcareous mass, you see, perhaps, half way up, a black and sullen-looking lake, framed in wild rocks, and savage as scenery can possibly be. You are not to sing nor speak until you pass it. Above all, you must shun to cast or fruit, or flower, or stone, or morsel of wood, or any other thing, into its dark and gloomy waters ; but mutter your prayer, and so pass on. 326 PYNNSHUHST. By disobeying any of these commands, you may awaken the soul of Pontius Pilate, which lieth chained, the peasants tell you, under the livid flood. This is the legend which father has handed down to son, among the stalwart mountaineers of Lucerne. When Pilate had condemned our Lord, a fear took pos- session of him, which changed, after the crucifixion, into the deepest despair. Sleep deserted him, and his food became repulsive to him. So he quitted Judea for Rome, hoping to escape from memory by change of place. But the shadow of the cross was everywhere; on the Eternal city as on the rock of Calvary. At last, after many wanderings, finding no relief, no lessening of his horrible remembrances, he imitated Judas and hanged himself. But there is only one rest in the grave ; the rest of the Just. Earth would not keep within her bosom the clay of him who had condemned her Maker. In an earthquake he was cast out of his tomb into the water. But at once the waters stormed ; an incessant blackness brooded over them ; the clouds loved to gather there ; the waters raged without ceasing, and neither bark nor man dared tempt their surface. At last the governor of the country commanded that the corpse should be searched for and carried far away. So they bore him to France, and dug a grave upon mountain near Vienne, and there they buried him. But the old pines groaned upon the heights ; a fierce unending tern- PONTIUS PILATE. 327 pest took up its dwelling there, and nothing was heard but the continual roar of winds and crash of falling trees, and sound of torrents swollen past all bounds, and the noise of falling masses of rock, loosened by the blast. Then the people dug up the carcase and cast it into the Rhone, but the Rhone grew furious, and Charlemagne, the Emperor, ordered the accursed clay to be carried to Lau- sanne : and when Lausanne could not keep it, it was brought here to this mountain. Here he held horrible orgies, with Caiaphas, Judas^ Herod and troops of fiends. It was an awful punishment* only to be united ; but sometimes they forgot "their anguish to torture some poor wayfarer. Terrible was the passage of the mountain to such a one. Sometimes the most dolorous and heart-piercing cries rung in his ears, but he could see nothing. Sometimes invisible arms caught him up and whirled him through the air and dashed him down into crevices and chasms of the rocks. Such was the state of things, till once a holy monk passed by that way one of those olden pious men whose lives were toil and prayer and at the desire of the people he went to exorcise the mountain. All night he rested there, wrestling for the mastery ; and a wild storm seemed to shake the mountain till day began to dawn. Then all grew calm. The monk had cast the fiend into the black lake, where he lies at present. But whosoever shall insult him by casting anything into the lake, gives him 328 PYNNSHUKST. his ancient power for a moment, and if in mortal sin, is destroyed by him. Such is the legend of the mountaineer. A wild un- founded legend it may be, but it can teach the willing learner this lesson, that there is no peace for guilt but in penitence; that remorse cannot hide from itself; that there is no stain so foul as the stain of innocent blood ; that man has no power so mighty as the power of prayer. IX. GEN E vi EVE. FANCY, gentle reader, and I write for no other, fancy our dear Hugh coming out of the Schweitzerhofs Salle a manger. " What had he done there, Sir ?" " What had he done, Miss ? He had done an omelette and an enormous slice of buttered toast, and two cups of strong coffee and a petit verre de Cognac, and was now coming out to do a cigar." " Quelle horreur ! the sensualist !" " You treat him properly, ma'am ; and your sentiments may perhaps be the same as those of the party of three at the side table yonder, who looked at him so often." There was a gentleman of some fifty years ; a lady of an age that ladies never attain to, and a younger lady who must have been a good-twenty-one-year-old-er. 330 PYNNSHURST. But what hair she had ! Enough to stuff a sofa, only they never stuff sofas with chestnut silk and sunbeams. The others paid attention to their breakfast, and high time for them to do so ; it was eleven o'clock the young one only looked at Pynnshurst. " Are you sure, Genevieve ?" said the unyounger lady, with a mouth full of bread sopped in cafe au lait. " Oh, yes, it is he. I know his beautiful forehead, and his tristes, thoughtful eyes. And then his hair is worn veiy peculiarly." " He looks a decent sort of a young man," said the male. . " He looks a gentleman," said Genevieve. " I will accost him after breakfast," said the other. " And as he looks as if he were going to smoke," said she, who seemed to be his wife, " bring him to us when he is re-scented." Not to be mysterious, these three, were M. le Comte and Madame la Comtesse de Saulnes and Genevieve de Chateigneraye. Hugh is marching up and down the portico, havanna en bouche, when a gentleman doffs his hat, and bids him good morning, demanding fire for his cigar. And so they walk side by side. " What abominable weather !" said the stranger. " Peculiarly so ; but the good Lucernois have, a pis allcr in those covered bridges." GENEVtEVE. 331 " True, but any place, especially an invariable promenade, is desolate in a rain." " Yes, we can do no sight-seeing, not even at the moun- tain. Have you been upon Pilate ?" " No." " Ah, you should go." " Can one take ladies ?" u No, it is too difficult. The tender will do better upon Rhigi." " Ah, we expect to go there soon. You have been, I suppose." "T>h, yes, twice, and nearly lost my life once; nearly gave another name to that catalogue of Anglais who annually break their necks in Switzerland." " But you ! Are you English ? from your accent you must have resided long in France." " You compliment like a French gentleman ; I was in Paris just one month." " You surprise me. "Were you sick in the Channel I" " Not in the least ; we had delicious weather." " And what did you think of your old possession, Calais ?" " I never saw it ; we came to the Havre." " To the Havre ! A droll accident happened there to a young friend of mine. She caught her shawl in a car-door, and would have been killed but for the prompt interposition of a young traveller, who saved her." 332 PYNNSHURST. w Indeed !" said Hugh Pynnshurst. " And since, she can speak of nothing but his kindness." " She is grateful," said Hugh. " She magnifies him over all Crichtons, Bayards, and du Guesclins." " A young lady's romance," said the Wanderer. " She is here ; she thinks to have recognized the traveller." Hugh began to get red. ." She is sure that you are he." " I was fortunate enough to render such a service to a young French lady at the Havre," said Hugh. " Well, come, and be presented to her in form," said the other. I call myself Count de Saulnes and Genevieve is travelling with my wife and me. Your cigar is finished, so come here to your heroine." So the cigars are thrown away, and they enter the big granite portal and climb two flights of the broad granite stairs, and M. le Comte knocks at the door of what they call a lake room, and a voice feminine says, " Entrez? And they enter. Pynnshurst recognises the lady who fainted in the car, and makes a low bow to her before going to seat himself beside Madame de Saulnes. " Void," she said, " notre hero.' 1 '' " Yes," he answered, " have I not the heroic air ?" " No, not the modern, you would have more of it if you OENEVIEVE. 333 wore spectacles, looked conceited, and smelled of new news- papers." " All your heroes then are journalists ?" " No, not mine, but the modern heroes. The plume, you know, is greater than the sword. I read that now in all the journals ; what do you think it means ?" " That the pen is more brutal than the sword, with less danger to its wielder." " Genevieve told me that you talked epigrams." " She was very good to recollect how I talked." " She could not very well help it after the service you had rendered her." M When do you go to the Rhigi ?" asked Pynnshurst. " Genevieve, ma chere, viens id" said Madame de Saulnes : and when she had obeyed, Madame left her to talk to Pynnshurst, and taking her husband's arm drew him into a corner. " May I thank you for my preservation without awaking the pride of that very haughty mouth and forehead ?" said a low, sweet voice beside Pynnshurst. Hugh looked earnestly at the speaker. " Yes, thank me," he said, " you cannot offer me money." " Are you Lucifer ?" " No ; although very handsome, I am not quite beautiful enough to pass for the ' Son of the Morning.' " He answered so gravely that she smiled, but continued gravely, 334 PYNNSHURST. " Would you think it necessary to say an epigram if I thanked you for picking up my handkerchief?" " No." " Do you esteem my life of less value than that ?" " No, thank me." " Well then, I do thank you from my heart, less for your actual saving of my life than for your gentle, brotherly kindness during the rest of our journey together. I needed kindness." " You were in mourning, were you not ?" " Yes, for a dear brother ; and I had gone with a second, the last of our family, to Havre ; there he was knocked down and injured by a cart. And I dared to go to Paris alone, that I might send at once the surgeons who might not have gone for a letter." " And did you save your brother 2" " No, I am the last of my race." " And I too," he said sadly, and looking up, he confronted a pair of large, rich, brown, velvety eyes. They talked an hour and a half. X. A SHORT CHAPTER. Two weeks upon the lake, boating, riding, sight-seeing with Genevieve. XL ROSENBERG. " So we go to the Rhigi this morning. What a glorious day ; bright as one of your smiles," said Hugh. " My inmost heart courtesies to you," replied Genevieve. " How do we go ?" 336 PYNNSHURST. " On horseback, it was determined." " Oh, I know that ; but how is our party divided ?" " Why, you, of course, go with Madame la Comtesse." " Of course, I do no such thing. I go with you." "I say, Pynnshurst," cried the Count, "start off with Genevieve. I dare not trust my wife to you. She is the only one I've got." " Take care of the pence ; the pounds will take care of themselves, is a proverb in our country," whispered Hugh. " Impudently applied," said Genevieve, " I wont go with you." " Very well, let M. and M'de de Saulnes go alone ; if you wont go with me, I will stay with you." " Can't I get rid of you ?" " Not easily." " Help me on my horse then." So off they went by Arth and Kussnacht, and so towards Goldau, until rough, rude, broken, the torn mass of Mount Rosenberg lifted itself up. " There is a story to that," she said, " what is it ?" " I will tell you," he answered, " punctually out of the guide book." Yonder where Rosenberg lifts his torn head five thousand feet above the plain, and fronts the heavens with his friable crest ; yonder, at the foot of the giant, slept the peaceful village of Goldau. Daily there, rang the church bell for Mass and Angelus. Peaceful in their meekness lived the ROSENBERG. 337 quiet villagers ; their joy, to marry their children, with ban- nered processions and sweet flower crowns ; their greatest sorrow when the pastor scolded them. When an old man died among them, it was a ripe ear gathered to the garner of God ; when a little one faded hi the arms of the mother, it was the Good Shepherd who took a young lamb to his bosom. And over both they placed a cross and a wreath of flowers ; and the flowers told of hope, and the cross was consolation. But one day the mountain fell ; and the village was no more. Now the fall of the Rosenberg happened on this wise. The summit and the sides are composed of round masses of stone cemented together by a material solid but yet soluble. Long and violent rains can produce solution ; and, once the adhesion destroyed, the mass descends. The annals of the country tell of large rocks thus falling, but it was in the old time that ; and had been long for- gotten. But in 1806, the summer had threatened a second deluge; the rains were heavy and incessant. The huge crevices of the mountain widened, subterraneous mutterings as of sudden thunders were heard, masses rolled down from the heights, and lay at the foot of the mountain. On the second day of September, an enormous crag detached itself and fell, mid a cloud of black dust. The earth trembled, yet the people rested. 15 338 PYNNSHURST. One man, cutting wood in his garden, was terrified. Then one saw a huge crevice forming itself on the crest of Rosenberg, and widening visibly. The springs were dried up suddenly ; the pines in the forest tottered ; the birds fled frightened, with strange wild cries. Then the whole side of the mountain was seen to move downward, but very slowly. An old man who had often predicted the fall, smoked his pipe calmly as he watched it. A younger one urged him to escape ; but he said, " No, there was time enough yet to fill his pipe again." So the young man went on his way, falling at every few steps, for the earth rocked under him. Once he turned round, and saw that the house where the old man was sitting had disappeared. He himself barely escaped. Another inhabitant took by the hands two of his children, and bade his wife follow with the third. But as she entered the house to seek the little one, she met her servant Fran- cisca Ulrich, holding the little Marianne. At the same instant, as Francisca related afterwards, the house was de- tached from its foundation, and began to roll over and over like a ball. Sometimes the girl was on her head, sometimes on her feet ; but always in total darkness, and at last she was separated from the infant. When the movement of the house ceased, she found herself hemmed in on all sides, her head the lowest, and covered with braises and cuts. She imagined herself ROSENBERG. 339 interred alive at a great depth, and with much difficulty- managed to disengage her right hand, and to wipe away the blood which flowed from her eyes. At this moment she heard the cries of little Marianne, and called to her. The child replied that she was on her back, in the midst of stones and brush-wood, which pressed her very much, but that both hands were free ; that she saw the light and even something green. She asked if somebody would not come soon to help them ? Francisca answered, That it was the Day of Judgment, and that there was nobody left to help them ; but that they would soon be dead, and then would go to be happy in Heaven. So they commenced both to recite their prayers, and while so engaged the sound of a church bell was heard, and Francisca, coming gradually to the belief that the whole earth was not yet destroyed, set herself to comfort the infant. The poor child complained bitterly of hunger ; and the servant, whose feet were highest, suffered in them the in- tensest cold. After prodigious efforts, she succeeded in disengaging her arms, and she thought that this was what saved her life. The little Marianne had ceased to lament, and so the awful night passed on in silence. The poor father had managed to escape with one of his children. He wandered about all night, and returned to the scene of the ruins, to search for the rest of his family. A foot sticking out amid the ruins, discovered to him his 340 PYNNSHURST. wife. She was dead, her infant in her arms. Then little Marianne heard the noise of the digging, and recommenced her cries, and so was saved ; one of her legs was broken. The poor Francisca was rescued with much difficulty; she remained blind for many days, and was ever after subject to sudden cries of terror. The house had been swept along more than fifteen hundred feet before it was crushed. An infant, two years old, was found unwounded and asleep upon its mattrass. Such was the mass of earth and stones that rushed into Lake Lowertz, six miles from the Rosenberg, that a wave was raised so mighty and so vast, as to sweep over the island of Schwa nau, seventy feet above the water level; as to inundate the opposite bank, and in returning, to draw with it houses and chalets with their unfortunate residents. The wooden Chapel of Olten was carried half a league ; in the streets of Steinen men found still living fish. And now the sunny pasture lands of Rosenberg are gone, and the sterile rock only lies upon the site of the Village of Goldau. " Thank you," said Genevieve, " that was pretty well ; you will of course say a number of beautiful things when we are on the Rhigi." " One at least." " And that one will be P " Genevieve !" ROSENBERG. 341 ** Monsieur !" ** Oh, I only meant Coleridge's poem ; listen " The moonshine stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve ; And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own, dear Genevieve." " Very sweet, but it is here that we begin the ascent ; talk well, for my horse fatigues me." On what subject shall I enlarge ? All are alike to a genius like mine. Shall it be botany, of which I know nothing but that the flowers have very hard names; or Geology, which is a very lively study for ladies ; or Zoology, that I may call you a Biman ; or Ichthyology, to prove to you that a whale is not a fish ; or some other ism or ology. Will you have prose or poetry ? Rhyme or Reason ?" " Poetry." " Listen then. " ' One morn a Peri at the gate Of Eden stood disconsolate.' n u Oh, I know that by heart ; try again.' " ' O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea.' " 342 PYNKSHUEST. " I prohibit Byron." "' Well met, by moonlight, proud Titania.' " "I prohibit Shakspeare." " ' Quand la mer rouge a pam A la troupe noire, Pharaon tout de bon crut Qu'il en fallait boire. ' " W I do not want any French." u ' Ein lustger Musikannte, marchirte am Nil ^ Da kroch aus dem Wasser ein grosses Krokodile Wer wolt 'ihn gar verschlticken Wer weiss wie das geschah ?' " "I don't undei-stand German." " Listen then, Genevieve ! Genevieve ! Genevieve ! Gene- vieve !" " There, that will do for poetry. How careless this guide is ; my horse has stumbled twice." Shall I lead him for you?" " You cannot, away off there." " Well, I will come nearer. Guide, take my horse ; I will walk. Your horse ought to be gentle, he bears a gentle burden." " Thank you ; tell me about the Rhigi." So he told her how he had nearly perished there but for the interposition of God, and the help of a chance traveller; ROSENBERG 343 and she said that it was her own case at the Havre. And then they did not talk any more for awhile. Silent and thoughtful, on they ride ; their hearts are in repose, they stop to say a prayer beside Our Lady of the Snows. The cornfields nod upon the sides of the eternal hill ; the gentle violet abides beside each falling rill. And ever at their horses' feet the blue-eyed gentians lie, lurking wherever grass blades meet, fallen atoms of the sky. Up .in the golden heaven, the sun runneth his bright career. The timid cloudlets, one by one, flee from his glittering spear. The fair lake 'mid the mountains pent, gleams from the circling sod, like the blue eye of a penitent, looking timid up towards God. In the hotel on the summit, Hugh read this notice : " Messieurs the travellers are notified that all who take the blankets from the beds' to mount the top of Rhigi, must pay ten batzen (thirty cents)." Hugh thinks the tax but reasonable, as early prome- naders usually wade through much damp mist to look at the sunrise. When toilettes had been made, and the party had de- scended, the Count said, " I suppose that you, Pynnshurst, will be the first at the sunrise in the morning." " A Dieu ne plaise," said Pynnshurst. " What, do you not love nature 2" " Love her ? yes, I would for her sacrifice anything 344 PYNNSHURST. almost. I would pinch out of her snuff-box ; I would lend her my umbrella; I would in short do anything for her except get up early in the morning. Also, what is a sunrise ?" " Heretic," cried Genevieve, " it is all that is beautiful in nature." " Did you ever see one ?" " Your question is impertinent, I shall not reply to it." " I have seen several. You are up at an improper hour ; there are no fires in the house as yet ; a dowdy maid with a mop and pail is the only thing stirring in the rooms. The front door is open, and the grey chilly mist comes in and bites your very marrow. So you go out, and wet your slippers in the fields uncomfortable with dew. In the midst of these abominations, you become sensible of a round ball, like a red-globe oyster sign, hung out in the Eastern heavens. Your nose tip is frozen ; your eyes begin to water ; your feet are soaked ; your teeth chatter, and the red ball gets bigger and redder, and one small sparrow utters a querulous pee-wheep, and tucks his foot under his wing to warm it. That is a sunrise ! Hang your sunrises !" " What then did you come on the Rhigi for ?" " What for for the sunsets." u Are they so lovely ?" " Worthy of you as a spectator." KOSENBERG. 345 " High praise ; from whence should I do them the honor to regard them ?" "If you will trust to my guidance, I will lead you. Come madame, come Count." " Not I," cried Mde. do Saulnes, " I am weary enough for one day." " And I also," said the husband, " go ; you and Gene- vieve." xn. NOTHING BUT A KNOT OF RIBBON. So the two passed a half hour, gazing on the Rhigi panorama in the golden light of the sunset. "Beautiful as immortality," said Hugh. " Tremble si je t'immortalise." " J' immortalise le malheur," replied Genevieve. " Who says that ?" he asked. " Count Alfred de Vigny," she replied. " Ah, a pet of mine. Do you like Cinq Mars ?" "Yes, but still more Eloa." " I do not know it." " It is a woman Angel whose soul is aU. pity. The beau- tiful, outcast Angel of the Morning Star meets her on the confines of heaven, and tempts her through her pity to love him." "And then?" NOTHING BUT A KNOT OF RIBBON. 347 " And then she falls. She is all pity, ' she was created,' says the poet, ' from the tear that Jesus wept for Lazarus.'" " The idea is very beautiful ; the verses you quoted ; Are they from Eloa " " No, they are from Le Malheur." " Ah," said Hugh, " it is commoner than pity. Please repeat them." " I will give them to you," she said ; " have you a morsel of paper or a card ?" " Yes, and a pencil in the bargain ; les voiqi? She wrote the blank side of the card full, and turned it to write on the other side. " Clemence de Mortmart ! Are you that Mr. Pynnshurst 2" she asked, as she turned it. " Yes, and your slave." " Then you know Clemence de Mortmart," she said thoughtfully. " Very well ; and you !" " We were bred at the same convent. Do you not love her?" " As a brother, yes I" " Only as a brother !" " I confess that it is a fault ; but I repeat, only as a brother." " Then you are insensible." " Not so." Cold then." 348 PYNNBHUR8T. " Would that I were. But it is as well ; men call me so?" " How then did you not lose your heart 3" " Clemence always seemed to me too fragile and too pure for human love." " You are right. You know that she is now a Sister of Charity ?" " No, I did not. We did not correspond." " It is true then ; it was you who nursed Leon ?" M I sometimes helped his sister." " You are very good." " I feel so when near you." "That answer comes from pride. You do not h'ke strangers to praise you." "Pardon me: Praise is too rare for me not to like it from any mouth, especially so sweet a one as yours. But are you a stranger ?" " Women do not answer such questions ; you must reply to it yourself." " You are not then." " So be it. We are friends. Some say that it is very dangerous for a young man and a young woman to swear friendship." " Dangerous perhaps," Hugh said, " for the young man." " Your compliments are very gracefully turned ; but I would rather that you would not make them to me." JfOTHINa BUT A KNOT OF RIBBON. 349 " The same words," Hugh said, ** which are a compli- ment from one, are a heart-thought from another." " Which are yours for me ?" " I will not tell you ; but I wont compliment you." " Thank you. Why do you press your lips so straightly together ?" " It is a sign that I am obstinate." " No, you are only proud " she hesitated before she added, " and very sad. Why ?" " Si je t'immortalise, j'immortalise le malheur," he answered. " Do you believe that men were made to be sad ?" " No, they make themselves so." " HOW r " They might be the rocks that frown over the torrent, but they choose to be its bed, and it rends them." " What torrent P " The torrent of their passions." "You talk like a poet." " I "am a poet." "Do you write?" " Yes, verses ; but not poetry. It won't come out of my heart." " That is very pretty ; how do you know that you don't write poetry ?" " Because what I write sends no echo to my soul ; and seems to take little from it" " Perhaps you are right. Poetry is a poor trade." 350 PYNKSHURST. " Yes, shoemaking is better." Why is it so ?" " Because the spirit of trade is now the great spirit of the world ; because poetry appeals to the heart, and hearts are merchandise now-a-days ; they sell them as they do other things." A change passed over her face ; passed, I say. " You speak bitter truth," she said, " but hearts we are told, and poetry are empty stuff." " So tradesmen say," he answered, " but they lie." " Why do you not tell them so in books ?" " It is not my mission." " What then is your mission ?" " I do not know. I suppose that it is to suffer." " Do you not make your own sufferings ?" " Some of them, but they are, therefore, only the more bitter." "How so?" " Because in a sorrow which comes from some external source we have our imaginations to aid us to bear it ; but when imagination makes the grief, there is no com- forter." " I am afraid you speak truth ; but our guides do not know it." " No, they tell one that he is morbid. That may be, but to tell him so is a poor remedy for his morbidness." " We are talking sadly, let us be gayer." NOTHING BUT A KNOT OF RIBBON. 351 " I cannot, unless I be foolish ; and I do not want to be so now." " Shall we be silent then ?" "Yes, for awhile." And they were silent, and side by side sate there looking upon the exquisite panorama. And then the great sun sank slowly, and the clouds fled before him. They rolled high up, in floating wreaths of mist, and vanished in the azure deeps of heaven. And the roseate glory brightened the horizon. And the song of birds arose. And the green was bright upon the herbage ; and the snow patches shone upon the mountains. And the two sate silent. Then a glorious cloud city built itself in the west, of gold and purple, rich crimson and green. And while they looked, a light breeze touched it, and it crumbled and passed away. " Ruined," sighed Genevieve. " Every thing lovely is loveliest in ruin." " That is very foolishly said, and you don't believe it ; why did you say it ?" " I do not know ; for I do not believe it. But I do really love ruins very much." " Why do you love ruins ?" " We have this proverb, 'A fellow feeling makes us won- drous kind.' " " Are von a ruin then ?" 352 FYNNSHURST. " Pardon me ! my quotation was rather false Byronic and sentimental." " Don't be proud, please. What did you mean ?" " Frankly then 4 I have suffered a good deal." " Irremediably so ?" she asked. He paused a moment ere he answered, " No, I think not." " Then you are not a ruin. And now answer my ques- tion." " Why, I love ruins. Because I feel poetically, and ruins are poetic. I love the past, think it less erroneous, and very much more reverent than the present." " You like reverence ?" " Yes, I do not consider the Blmana, a man if he lacks reverence and affection." " Which would you rather be, loved or respected ?" "Loved." "Which would you rather give, love or respect?" " They are twins, they should never be separated." " Could you love anybody that you did not respect ?" "No; but I could love when all the world refused respect." "Were you ever in love ?" "Ever since the age of six, when Martha Mills broke my heart into flinders." " That means that you will not answer my question ; but it was rather impertinent." NOTHING BUT A KNOT OF RIBBON, 353 " You ought to be fined." " Well, impose the fine ; I will pay it." " Give me that knot of ribbon at your collar." " No," she said, reddening and keeping her eyes down. " But you promised to submit to my fine. Do you not keep your promises ? It is nothing but a knot of ribbon." " I do not keep all, I fear " and she sighed. " Please, keep this one." " Must I give it as a fine ?" " No ; as a gift as a pledge." " As a pledge of what ?" " I won't tell you ; please give me the ribbon." " Here, take it. Let us go back to the hotel." The small white hand extended the ribbon, and he bowed till his lips touched it ; then they walked silently to the inn. He had it, but after all, it was nothing but a knot of ribbon. xm. OUR LADY OF THE HERMITS. THAT same funny little steamboat, with the same funny commander, in anchor buttons, which had brought Hugh from Flueln to Lucerne, now waited to conduct him and his companions from Lucerne to Schwytz. For they had returned to the Catholic city from the Rhigi. They were all going, Genevieve and all ; and low-bodied, ruddy-nosed porters, bore numerous parcels upon their backs, to the steamboat. So they look at the mountains, talk of the lake, historically, Swiss-patriotically, scientifically, poetically, sentimentally, and in a variety of other ways and " allies," during some three quarters of an hour. " What is that ?" cried Madame, pointing to the shore. " That is Altstadt, my dear," said her husband. " But I don't mean the place, I mean that thing like a OUR LADY OF THE HERMITS. 355 \voinan, with, its hair torn off the forehead and strained into two preposterously long tails." "That, Madame," Hugh answered, "is a Schweitzer maiden in her national costume." " She could change it for the better," said the Parisienne. " What is that huge mass there ?" " That is the boatman's barometer. When the clouds lift themselves o'er that torn crest, bad weather cometh near ; when they lie still upon the rugged breast, the morn- ing will be clear." "'Hat der Pilatus Hut, so istdas Wetter gut, Hat der Pilatus Degen, so gibt es Regen.' " " And DOW if you turn your head and look yonder over Kussnacht, you will see the ruins of Nevv-Habsbourg, the residence of the imperial Counts." " And how come you to know all these places ?" " Oh ! thanks to a good deal of wandering about ; to much asking of questions, and to diligent reading of my guide book, I am become quite a cicerone." " What pray, then, do you know about Brunnen ? It is there that we leave the steamer, is it not ?" " Yes ; and I know nothing of it except that from thence we take the diligence to Schwytz. And now, see, here we are ; and here, I suppose, begins our pilgrimage." Then the diligence carries them to Schwytz, where they look at the droll h'ttle chapel built in three days while the 356 PYNKSHURST. country was under interdict; and at the bright, grand modern church, where a glorious organ was rolling floods of melody, through the pointed arches to the altar foot. Then from Schwytz they pass on to Rotherthurm, where a road branches off at right angles towards the Shrine of our Lady of Hermits. All along the road they see groups of poorer pilgrims. Here, a son conducts a bed-ridden mother in a little cart ; there, a poor cripple hurples on with difficulty, muttering his prayers ; he may have come all the way from France. Troops of school children from the neighboring villages move on chanting hymns; and, yonder, with her rosary in her hands, that weary, way-worn young mother is carrying her thin, white little baby to pray for it to the Mother of Pity. In an hour they rattle through a curiously-paved street ; where the shop-windows are full of crosses, rosaries, sacred pictures, medals, and prayer-books, but contain nothing of a worldly tendency except sugar-plums. They wheel round a corner, and find themselves suddenly in an enormous square, with a fourteen-mouthed fountain in the centre, and there before them stands the antique Abbey, divinatus consecrata. All are very quiet and talk little. Hugh is so, for it is a deeply devout nature, his ; and the others are so, for they remember that this is a time when France needs many prayers. They can see, on looking out of the windows, an enormous OUR LA2Y OF THE HERMITS. 357 court, enclosed by rows of the very smallest shops that have ever been known. In the centre is the fountain, with four- teen mouths, whereon " the Virgin Mother holds the God- born child." In front an immense flight of steps, statue- lined and balustraded, conduct to the huge platform whereon the Abbey stands. It is a mighty Italian building, the church in the centre , and the wings comprising a chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, the apartments of the Benedictine brethren, a seminary, an enormous library, and the offices. There now rules Domi- nus Abbas, Henricus IV. And the brethren merit the reputation of the Benedictines for learning and protection of literature. Behind the burnished cupolas, and statue-bordered roofs, you see the wooded hills of Schwartz, and further on, the Alps of Appenzell. Here, in A. D. 805, Meiurad, of the illustrious house of Hohenzollern, came to reside, when he resolved to exchange the empty glories of the world, for peaceful contemplation and prayer in the solitudes. Here he built his little hermitage, amid the solemn wilds where nature only spoke of God. Here he was visited by the poor, the suffering, and the needy, and none who came went away uncomforted. He made friends of the great mountains, the waters, the green forests of tall pines, and not only of them, but also of the little animals which dwelt in his neighborhood ; the birds came to be fed by his hands, 358 PTNNSHURST. and two crows, shyest of the feathered race, became quite domesticated with him. But his relief of the poor had given rise to the idea that he had money in his poor dwelling-place, and two wretches were found who determined to murder him. The murder was accomplished, and the assassins fled to Zurich ; but were traced, it is said, by the two crows, which, flying before the officers of justice, pursued the miserable men, stained by holy and innocent blood. They were taxed with their crime, confessed it, and expiated it with their blood. In the arms of the Abbey, two crows occupy the dexter base of the shield. Hildegarde, Queen of Germany, had built for Meinrad a chapel, and had enriched it with an image of the Holy Virgin ; but after Meinrad's death, his hermitage rested vacant, and the neighborhood was only trodden by the feet of the many pilgrims who came to honor the memory of St. Meinrad. Among them, in 907, came Bennon, son of Raoul, King of Burgundy ; and he, with some companions, founded here the first abbey under the rule of St. Benedict. When the building was finished, and St. Conrad, Bishop of Constance, came to consecrate it, he was forbidden by a vision to accomplish the ceremony, the Saviour himself announcing that lie had blessed the temple built in honor of Himself and of His mother. Therefore the temple bea:s this legend, Divinitus Consecrata. OUR LADY OF THE HERMITS. 359 Here every crowned king and most of the great barons of Europe, were wont to pilgrimage until the Re- formation. But to this day 200,000 Catholics come every year to pay their vows before this shrine, so holy and so renowned. And now our voyagers are ready to enter it. They have >ught at the humble, little shops whatsoever they desire to have blessed; and already the voices of the brethren are intoning the Magnificat, and the Evensong is nearly at an end. They enter and kneel near the portal. Far away amid the distant arches, up to the painted domes, through the rich columns, floats the melodious chant. Organ and sweet human voices, utter the words of the sacred scriptures with blended harmonies, and swelling notes, that rise and fall in that vast pile, as solemn oceans rise and fall in the world, which is also a solemn temple of the most High God. When the vespers are over, they examine the vast church. Immediately in front of them is the holy chapel, wherein is the image of the Virgin. Ten altars, along the sides of tho aisles, are enriched with entire bodies of the saints of long ago. Over the grand altar is a fine Assumption by the Suabian Kraus ; on its front is a bronze of the Last Supper. The lateral church of St. Magdalen, contains twenty four confessionals ; and penitents of all languages may there find guidance and consolation. Shall we follow our voyager further in this holy place ? No. Let him pursue the dictates of his religion. To-mor- row morning ho will be ours again. XIV. A FRI&HT. IT is to-morrow morning. The glad sun kisses the bronzed turrets of Our Lady of the Hermits. The early Mass has been heard ; and all our little troop are breakfast- ing together, in the Salle-a-manger of the Peacock. Good inn, kept by the funniest Dutchman who has ever been ridiculous on the face of this planet. O Martin Gyr ! thou art a worthy creature, but thou art equivalent to a slight attack of neuralgia. When thou unitedst into incomprehensible phrases, the forty-seven French words which complete thy Gallic vocabulary ; when thou terminated'st every sentence with dans ces mani&res la and fanciedst that thou spakest French ; when thou didst rol thy goggle-eyes at me ; did'st shake thine addle-head ; did'st grin with such effusion of imbecility as mortal eye hath A FRIGHT. 361 ne'er till then beheld ; then O Martin Gyr ! I wrote thee down in my little note book, Host of the Peacock, and most comical of Dutchmen. " How shall we go to Rapperschwyll ?" " There are but two conveyances, madame, one's own legs and the legs of a horse." " I shall take the latter," cried Madame de Saulnes. " Anc I," quoth her husband. " I shall walk," said Genevieve, " it is only three miles." " I would rather go with them," whispered Pynnshurst, " but for politeness-sake I will walk with you." Genevieve pouted at him, which seemed to please him rather than otherwise. All the world knows that to go from Einsiedeln to Rap- perschwyll, you must cross the court and turn off by the left of the convent. Then you march on until you come to the chapel of St. Meinrad, built on the site of the hermitage which was the scene of the murder. It stands on a little knoll which overlooks a wooded val- ley, and is backed by loftier heights. It is a plain, square building, as simple within as without. Rude paintings on the ceiling represent the life of the holy hermit. Here they found another party of travellers ; a small thin man with sparse wiry hair, furiously on end and inde- pendent as the citizens of a new European republic, and two lengthy, strong-looking ladies, principally composed of green veil and tartan shawl, 1(5 862 PYNNSHURST. At the door of the neighboring inn sate a weary looking porter casting mournful looks at his baggage rack, which stood beside him laden as if for an elephant or at least a camel. " Bong jour, Musheer" said the little man. " Good morning, sir," answered Hugh. " Ah, you're English then," continued the other in a quick, jerking, positive sort of voice, " I said so when I saw you ; I said to my wife, I'm positive he is English. Do you believe all that story about the crows ? it's all a humbug, I'm positive." " What story about the crows ?" asked Hugh. " Them that traced St. Meinrad's murderers you know. I'm sure you have heard the story." " I do not see anything improbable in it," replied Pynn- shurst. " Intelligent attachment and resentment is suffi- ciently common among animals to make it likely enough." " That's 'very true," said the little man thoughtfully. " And then, you know," said Hugh, " that the tradition is a very respectable one, and not so very ancient. And there is to this day a hotel of the Crows at Zurich." " No, is there, though ? an actual hotel." " As actual as the Peacock at Einsiedeln !" " But the same crows ! Meinrad's crows !" " Yes." " Why then it must be true." Here the little man seemed to be mentally engaged in ,1 A FRIGHT. 363 Sourse of ratiocination. " Probable enough," he muttered, " crows are very intelligent animals respectable traditions hotel at Zurich. Sir," he said to Hugh, " My dear," he cried to his wife. " It's all true ; that about the crows, no humbug about it. I'm positive." Then he turned to his wife and Hugh heard him say, " respectable tradition," and that crows were very " intelligent animals." " But I must say good morning, Sir," said Pynnshurst. " We wish to reach the steamboat at two o'clock." " Oh, are you going to Zurich ? I knew you were, as soon as I saw you. So am I ! but there's the steamboat ; come, my dear. Here, you sir Porteur, prencz les trunks, we shall be too late for the steamboat, I am positive we shall be too late. Good by, Sir." And away went the little man, the two ladies, and the heavily-laden porter on the road to Rapperschwyll. During this time Genevieve had mounted the horse of Madame de Saulnes, and had ridden on in front, so that she was hidden from the others by a bend in the road. Hugh gave his arm to Madame, and they walked on together. Just as they reached the bend, they heard the quick clatter of a horse's hoof and a scream, and as they turned the rock, they saw Genevieve's bonnet lying on the road, but she and her horse were invisible. w Mon Dieu f die est perdue /" cried the Parisienne ; and Hugh darted off at full speed. No sooner had he turned round a second rock, however, than he saw Gene. 364 PYNNSHURST. vieve quietly seated on her horse, laughing merrily, and returning at a snail's pace. " Aha !" she cried, " you are a brave cavalier to let your fair dame encounter unknown perils alone. But you were frightened," she continued, as she looked at him, and saw how very pale he was. " Yes," he answered quietly, " I was alarmed." " Not much, I suppose ; as it was only I who ran the risk." " If it will give you pleasure," he said, " to know that I suffered greatly, I will tell you so." " Mais. Are you angry ? Do you think it was a child- ish trick which I played to frighten you ? No ; it was childish enough, but not cruel. But see Madame running ! frightened out of her Parisian propriety !" And Genevieve put her hand upon Hugh's shoulder, jumped from the horse, and ran to be embraced by the Countess. " Don't scold, please," she said. " Mr. Pynnshurst has already scolded me. I only wanted to see if that venerable animal had forgotten how to trot, and on his declining to notice either my chirps or my slaps with the bridle, I stuck a pin in him. He was so astonished that he struck off at once into something intended for a gallop, and as it appears my hat ribbons were untied, the wind blew my bonnet offi and I gave a little woman's scream, and frightened Mr, Pynnshurst." So speaking, she took her bonnet ; shook back a couple * A FRIGHT. 365 of curls that were hanging near her eyes, and turned her sweet glowing face towards Pynnshurst ; with a smile that said, Scold me any more " if you dare." As she met his steadfast look, she saw something in it that made the glow deepen, and cover all her face. So the party resumed its former order. The de Saulnes mounted their beasts, and the younger couple walked along beside them. " You look grave, yet," said Genevieve. " I was thinking," he said, in a low voice, " how utterly I love you !" " Hush !" she answered quickly, " do not speak so. Unhappiness will come soon enough. Let us enjoy the moment. Do you not know, then, that one of my names is Ida, and that it is nearly impossible to kill an Ida ?" " I did not know it." " Well, then, I will prove it to you by a legend. Do you see that mountain yonder ?" " Yes ; it is " " Hush ! don't tell me. I want it for the present to be in Canton Thurgovie ; it was there that Saint Ida lived. Shall I tell you her history ?" " Yes, please." XV. IDA VON TOGOENBURQ. " WELL, then, you must know that yonder hills are called the Hornli, on whose top is the puissant castle of Toggen- burg. " Below this mountain lies the Ida-thai, or valley of Saint Ida, a mighty chasm, rough and savage, but covered with abundant vegetation. This dell, like many a church in the German cantons, takes its name from Ida von Kirch- berg. And this is the story of her life. " Ida was bora about the middle of the twelfth century, and her parents spared no expense nor trouble for her edu- cation. The good chaplain taught her to read and to write, and she copied more than once the four Gospels. One copy, kept in a case of gold, never quitted her. Her mother taught her a housewife's accomplishments, and in IDA VON TOGGENBURG. 367 their walks pointed out the plants that were good for food and those that were serviceable for medicine. For the noble lady in those days must know how to dress a wound and nurse the sick. " Beautiful and good, Ida was the idol of the county, and especially of Henri, Count of Toggenburg, who saw her as he came from the tournaments at Cologne, wooed, won, and bore her home, with rich chivalric pomp, to the castle of his fathers on the Hornli. And there they lived some years in perfect union, with nothing to disturb their harmony. " But their sorrow was at hand. One day when she had opened her jewel-case and wardrobe for some household purpose, a magpie flying in at the open window, seized, as was his instinct, a ruby ring and bore it off to his nest. It was her wedding ring, and Ida dared not tell the Count of its loss. " Some weeks afterward, a hunter of the Count's hearing a wonderful chattering in the nest, climbed up the tree, unnested the little ones, and found at the bottom the ring. Not knowing whose it was, he slipped it on his finger and thanked heaven for his good fortune. Arrived at the castle, he displayed his treasure, which the domestics wondered at, though they doubted the story of the bird's nest. "Now Wolf hard Chamberlain was at deadly feud with the hunter, and saw in the jewel a means to destroy him. So he went to his lord and charged the Countess with too 368 PYNNSHURST. tender sentiments for the hunter, and offered as proof, that she had given him even her wedding ring. "The Count had always allowed his wife to think for both, but he was a man of action ; fiery and proud, head- strong and fearless. So he sent for the hunter, tore the ring from his finger, had the poor fellow tied to the tail of his fiercest steed, and lashed the animal from the door of the Castle. Then mounting to the chamber of his wife, he treated her as cruelly as words could do, and then opening a window that looked above a precipice, he flung her through it. " But the Angel of the Innocent was beside her. She fell into a clump of bushes, and although the height was immense, she received no harm. " Recovered from her fright, and casting herself upon her knees, she prayed for the pardon of her enemies, and then vowed to retire from the world, and give herself to God in solitude. " So she followed the course of a little rivulet, that ran through the desolate defile, to empty its tribute into the Murg. Thick forests of stunted firs covered the sides of the ravine ; the path was rough with rugged stones, and the green of the woods was broken here and there by massive rocks. " At last, after a long and wearisome journey, she saw a cavern with a low entrance, and determined to make that her home, if she should find but room enough. IDA VON TOGGENBURG. 369 " She found it sufficiently roomy and began to explore it. In it she discovered two or three earthen vases, an axe, a huge rusty knife, and some pieces of iron. In a small fissure of the side she found a roll of parchment containing the Psalter, and at the end, traced on the wall with coal, a cross, and these words of the prophet, I will guide him to the desert, and there will I speak unto his heart. " From all these marks, she concluded that the cave had been the residence of some holy anchorite, and the words which he had written she received as an oracle. " She too determined to pass a hermit's life in this lovely place, her occupation, prayer and meditation ; her pleasure, the reading of the Gospels and the Psalter ; her sole com- panion, God. " Here accordingly, she passed nine years without seeing any living thing, but the birds and squirrels, the fish of the rivulet, and now and then a roe. The longer she remained, the more she loved her solitude. Abandoned to the will of Heaven ; peaceful in the thought of her innocence ; glad of any refuge from man's injustice, she found happiness where only it resides, in holiness. " The wild fruits sustained her in summer ; roots, laid by in early autumn, were her winter food, and her drink was from the brook. She found honey in the cliffs of the rock ; she caught, with netted osiers, the fish, and dried them in the sun ; moss gave her a bed, and she wove it even into coverings. And the birds and squirrels soon grew acquainted 16* 370 PYNNSHURST. with, and played familiarly about her, and formed her guile- less society. " But one day, when in meditation, she heard the barking of a dog, who had caught sight of her. She retired to her cave, but was pursued by the animal, shortly followed by a hunter. The latter addressed her, but receiving no answer, regarded her attentively, and despite of her emaciation and strange clothing, he recognized her, and threw himself at her feet, exclaiming, " ' O, my lady Countess, is it you whom we have wept so long ?' " Seeing herself discovered, she begged of him, in whom she recognized a servitor of her husband, to keep his dis- covery secret. But he refused to promise, and departed to tell the Count. " The Count's remorse for his double murder had been horrible ; a new theft of the magpie had proven the inno- cence of the Lady Ida, and he had no repose by night or day. " At the dawn of day, after the return of his hunter, he sought the cavern, and threw himself at the feet of his injured wife, demanded pardon with tears, and besought her to return to her place and rank. But Ida raised him say- ing: " ' My lord, I have long sinco pardoned you, and now I confirm my forgiveness ; but I implore your permission to finish my life in the solitude.' IDA VON TOGGENBURG. 371 " ' I am dead,' she said, ' to the world. And though you have authority over me, judge whether I have not won the right to demand what I desire.' " ' Oh, return, return, Ida,' pleaded the count, ' and I will have the chamberlain burnt alive.' " ' My lord,' said Ida, ' where you would be pardoned, you should pardon. For him, as well as for you, I have prayed before that cross, made rudely with my own hands ; but which has still had power to bid me say with the Crucified, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. Send away your chamberlain from the castle, but give him wherewithal to keep his old age from want.' " ' But is this all, Ida ?' " ' No, I have more to ask. That you will send me the garments of a Benedictine religious, and that you will build me a cell near the church at Fischingen, where I can offer every day my prayers for you and for myself.' " Her husband, after many useless attempts to change her resolution, consented to her wish, and when the cell was builded, she took possession of it, and passed her life in prayer and charity, and so went home at last to the rest of the weary on high." " Thank you for your legend, which is exquisitely told." " Of course ; / told it. What were you and the father porter laughing about at Einsiedeln ?" " At a visitor, who asked with a sneer, whether miracles were still performed at Einsiedeln. ' Why, yes,' said the 372 PYNNSHURST. father. ' And pray, what may be the most notable of this century ?' ' It is,' answered the monk, ' that the people of this century come hither to pray.' But we are at the long bridge." Long enough it certainly was, for it crosses the lake of Zurich, from Lachen to Rapperschwyll, a distance of five thousand feet. When they had passed it, they met the little Englishman who had arrived some half an hour before them. " Too early you see, sir, for the boat," he cried, " but I knew we should be so. Posted along like horses ; porter demanded six batzen extra ; and after all, no boat in sight ; but I said so from the first ; I was positive of it." What a beautiful lake is lake Zurich. Just beside the long bridge is the bright little thick-wooded island of ^Eu- frau, asleep on the bosom of the waters. It was here that Zwingle procured shelter for Ulric von Hutton, the friend of Martin Luther ; Ulric was troubadour, and gallant warrior, but his merits are detracted from, in the eyes of some folks, by a little eccentricity. He wanted four wives at a time. So he had to run away from Germany, and came here to die and to be buried. He was none the worse Reformer because of his eccentricity. Along the shores lie bright, white villages, basking in the sun. The Zurich gondolas with fluttering awnings and high curved prows float gaily about, the fishermen ply their trade, and the voyagers, grouped upon the little dock, gaze IDA VON TOGGKXBURG. 373 at the prospect, chatter or yawn, while there below the snorting little steamboat comes puffing along, furrowing the still waters of the lake. As it comes, a big white crane rises slowly and flaps himself away to the reedy shores at the south. And so they go to Zurich in the Republikanner. BOOK VI. AND LAST. OONTAININ8 ALL 80BT8 OF MATTERS, AND THB END. J'ai jet6 ma vie aux delices, Moi-meme credule a ma joie ; J 1 enlvre mon coeur, je me noia Anx torrents d'un riant orgueil ; Mais, le malheor, (levant ma face A pass6 ; le rire s' efface, Et mon front a reprit son deiU_ ALFRED DE VIOWY. ZlJRI OH. I THANK my stars that I have arrived at the last book of this present manuscript. Perhaps it would have been better had I not commenced the first ; perhaps it wouldn't. On the credit of the last hypothesis, or shadow of hypothesis, let it go forth. There is a purpose in it, even in its folly. If you find it out, follow it ; for my part I devote my present time to some gossip with myself about Zurich. As I never saw Venice, and as I never expect to see it, I have a mania for comparing other cities to it. Wherever I see considerable or more water, I say, " that is Venetian." I love to call New York the Venice of the West ; I call a village on a duck pond, the Venice of private life. 378 PYNNSHURST. Am I alone in this fervor ? If so, I am original, and originality is so rare a quality at present, that its possession may excuse my other faults, if I have any, which is very doubtful in my judgment, and in that of my old nurse Nanny Macbride, to whom I have read portions of this work. Good old creature, what a pity it is that she is deaf. As you come nigh Zurich, you are struck with its very decided picturesquely or ism, I am not sure which is bet- ter. Highest of all is the old Norman tenth centuiy cathe- dral, which has some good stained glass, and a pulpit from which Ulrich Zuingle preached the Reformation. A very long quai is lined with gondolas, whose striped blue, red, and white awnings do what young poets call, " glitter in the beam." That means, they look bright when the sun shines. To the left hand you see the spire of St. Peter's whose pastor was the physiognomist Lavater, and which, with the old arsenal, and the ancient Dominican con- vent, form the only buildings which are worth twice looking at in Zurich. It was in this same convent, you know, that the first Eng- lish Bible, by Miles Coverdale, was printed ; and since that, it has become the university ; about whose cabinet, listen to this legend. Here until lately, was shown a monument of conjugal de- votion very rare in our times. A good peasant of the neighborhood, it is about a cen- ZURICH. 379 tury since, had the misfortune to lose the faithful partner of his joys and sorrows. Being very, very poor, he mourned over his lot. Who would now mend his clothing and keep the house in order, and earn some kreutzers by the spinning wheel, and soften poverty by her economy !" " Woe's me," he thought, " what shall I do ? She was all my fortune, that poor Trudchen ; and I cannot even bury her, for there is not a batz in the house. For the same reason, she cannot be embalmed, and I cannot keep even thee, my Trudchen, if thou art not embalmed. No, I have resolved what to do. I will sell thee to Herr Schimmeltrouk, the surgeon, and so thou canst still contribute to the comfort of thy faithful spouse." Not sooner determined than executed ; the bargain was made, and honest Hans retired. And the surgeon, not content with the skeleton, had the skin tanned very neatly. But the story got wind and both were arrested. The Council was divided. Some held it an outrage : others deemed it excusable for the sake of the interests of anato- my. The party for acquittal was the strongest, and the accused would have got off scatheless, but that suddenly the women burst into the hall, crying unitedly, "Justice, justice on the monsters! We will not be skinned and tanned." And so the husband was cast into prison, the surgeon smartly fined for the benefit of the poor, and the leather of the faithful Trudchen suspended in the museum. But 380 PYNNSHURST. lately the people grew too delicate, and they show the thing no more. When Charlemagne was here, lodging in the house of Zumloch, he ordered the erection of a column in the place where the holy martyrs Felix and Eegula were beheaded. " Place a bell," said he, " upon the top ; and let the rope be long enough to touch the ground, and whosoever hath a cause to be judged, let him ring while I am at dinner, and I will rise from the table to hear him and to do him right." So the column was built and the bell was hung, and on the very first day it was stoutly pulled. The Emperor despatched a page, to fetch the suppliant, but none was visible. This thing occurred three times. Charlemagne astonished, ordered a guard to be set, who should keep strict watch and discover the mysterious ringer. A little after arrived a serpent which pulled the cord, and sounded the bell. When they told this to Charlemagne, he rose from table saying. " Well, man or beast, if he claims my protection he shall have it." Arrived before the column, he found the animal which curbed itself in graceful salutation, before his Majesty, and glided off towards the Limmath. The monarch followed with all his court, and stopping when the serpent stopped, discovered an enormous toad, who had usurped the dwelling of the suppliant. He was soon expelled, and the rightful ZURICH. 381 proprietor, after three graceful reverences, took possession of his recovered domicile. The toad was immediately executed. The next day, as the Emperor dined, the grateful serpent presented himself, leaped on the table, and dropped from his mouth, upon a golden plate before the monarch, a ruby of extraordinary lustre. Struck with this circumstance Charles took a fancy to the place ; builded the Wasserkirch (Water-Church) upon the spot, and gave the ruby to his wife. But the ruby was a talisman, whoever had it must be loved. Charles could scarcely bear to lose sight of the Empress, and when necessarily separated from her, fell into the deepest sadness. The Empress discovered the secret, and in her last illness concealed the stone under her tongue, fearing that it might fall into the hands of another woman, who would so cause her to be forgotten. So she died and was embalmed, yet Charles would not forsake her even then ; but in all his voyages for eighteen years, he bore the Empress with him. A courtier who suspected the mystery, was fortunate enough to get possession of the gem, and the next morning her majesty the Empress, was buried with all the honors of royalty. But the poor courtier never had a moment's re- pose ; Charles could not bear his absence, he gave him half the offices of the court, at least all those which kept him constantly in the presence ; and the poor fellow, worn 382 PYNNSHURST. out, emaciated, half dead with honors and the want of sleep, flung the fair jewel into a marsh, and so reposed. But the Emperor fell in love with the marsh ; not Empress nor Chevalier had been dearer to him. And to prove his great affection, he had it drained, and built upon the place the city of Ait la Chapelle, and founded there a glorious cathedral, wherein his august bones still slumber, and whose chapter had perpetual alliance with their brethren of the Zurich chapter. But Zurich has no chapter now. The old creed is repre- sented by a pretty Greek church, by some seven hundred faithful, and by the relics of antiquity, which, with the site of the city, alone attract the traveller to pause there. Hugh and M. de Saulnes went to the arsenal, where they saw immense quantities of armor, richly cleaned and bur- nished ; a suit of mail taken from Charles of Burgundy, at the siege of Morat, of course, and numerous partizans, bills and bows, " all of the ancient time." In a glass-case, is the head-piece, cuirass and battle-axe with which Zuingle fought, and opposite hangs the cross- bow with which William Tell shot that apple from his younker's head. There is no taste in the arrangement of the armory. All the suits are heaped together, but are nicely cleaned. You would fancy that an antiquarian cook ZURICH. 383 maid had taken them for pots, so well scoured are they. In the lower story of the building are large quantities of cannon, all, probably, " taken from Charles of Burgundy at the siege of Morat." It was on the site of this old arsenal that Conrad III. do Sardaigne, held the Imperial tournament for his master, the Emperor. And in these days, when to be rich, is to be a great man, at least with us, in these days of contempt for dark ages, noblesse, hereditary gentleness and other follies and mournfulnesses of the same nature, Hugh Pynnshurst, fiercest and foolishest of aristocrats, offers these laws copied from the old tourney deed kept in the library of Zurich, and written for those robber barons of the Khine whom we hate so sensibly and so well. "Every noble of race, who shall have said anything against the Holy Faith ; who shall have spoken evil of Christendom or of its chief; or betrayed his seigneur, or abandoned him in battle ; or ruined or defamed a maid or wife ; or perjured himself ; or abused his wife ; or robbed church or chapel, widow or orphan ; or struck an unoffend- ing citizen ; or done harm to his tenants or his neighbors by violence, robbery or fraud ; or who is an adulterer ; or who engages in trade, shall be cleared from these lists by blows of the rod." Hugh read this aloud at night and demanded, " Have we gained or lost in losing the middle ages ?" " Lost," said the women. 384 PYNNSHURST. " Humph," said the Count. And the " Humph" was as displeasing as the " fudge" of Mr. Burchell in the "Vicar of Wakefield." Hugh thought with the women. " But tell me, count," said Hugh, " can you really mea- sure this Tyrian age, this age of successful traders against the old hero times." "Why, yes, and I reckon that the present age will have the best of the comparison. Where is it weaker ?" " It has no honor." " True, but it has honesty." " There is no honor without honesty ; there is much honesty without honor. God made the Beautiful ; it is as much man's duty to encourage the Beautiful as it is to defend the True ; for the Beautiful is the True." " You are an enthusiast, mon cher" " So is every man with a heart." " Perhaps he may be ; but ' heart' as you call it, does all the harm nearly in the world. I lean to the opinion of Sir John Chester about heart. ' It is a lump of red flesh ;' That which men call heart is impulse, passion enthusiasm, dreaminess, young folly, everything, in a word, that pro- duces sorrow, and is not common sense." " I would rather be a fool with a heart, than a sage with- out one," cried Genevieve. " My dear," said the count, " you are a woman." " That is, a fool with a heart ! be it so." ZURICH. 385 u My dear count," said Hugh, " if I were a tilting baron of old time, I would have you in the lists for that ; if I were a modern Frenchman, I would have at you with the small sword, but being a prudent man, honoring trade and fearing to be injured, I will only reply to you in words. This, then, I say to you, that you have eaten something at dinner that disagreed with you." " I yield," said the count, " that is, I stick to my opinion." " You talk a great deal of nonsense to-night," said the countess. " It is for you, my dear," said the husband. " And I," said Genevieve, " feel too selfishly to talk non- sense. I would have the old time back again, that refining woman might have her place again. You say that men honored us too much then. It was better than to sell us like cattle as you do now." " The fact is," said M. de Saulnes, " that you should all have applied to your heads, what was applied to the feet of Freiheitsknaben." " And what might that be ?" " I am going to tell you. You must know, Mesdames, that long ago in the city of Bale, there was a court held. It was in an obscure quarter of the city called the Kohlen- berg, or coal-hill ; which was anciently inhabited by the following respectable classes of society : "The executioner and his assistants; the torturers the 17 386 PYNNSHURST. cleaners of sewers, all Jews and Turks, all buriers of those who died of the plague or other pestiferous diseases, and all of nameless occupations. Here they were confined ; the place was esteemed infamous ; the denizens were compelled to find wives and husbands among each other, and even the courts of justice were closed to them. " But as these worthies had their law-suits and processes, as well as their more respectable neighbors, it was found necessary to furnish them with a tribunal of their own. " Accordingly a tribunal, composed of a president and twelve assessors, chosen from among the lower working classes, and called Freyheitsknaben (Freedom's boys), were appointed to hear and arbitrate the disputes of the Kohlen- bergians. " In torn vestments, with the legs bare to the knee, they took their seats under a huge linden, planted on the coal- hill, and the president, armed with a baton, was obliged to keep his right foot in a bucket of water until the case had been argued and the decision announced. " ' 'the advocates, or the parties if they happened to conduct their own cause, were accommodated in like manner with a bath, and as the sittings were in mid-winter, this method wonderfully facilitated the proceedings of the Court.* " It was this Court which in 1570, condemned a hog to be burnt alive for having devoured a child." * This practice is not copyrighted ; but is heartily at the service of all Courts of Justice in the United States. It might be well to introduce it in Congress ZURICH. 387 " What horrors you are talking ?" said Madame de Saulnes, " I must say for you, my dear, that you succeed perfectly in everything you undertake ; you undertook to be disagreeable to night n'est ce pas mon ami ?" " My dear, such remarks are called in English ' floorers !' have done." " And I begin," said Genevieve de Chataigneraye. " Count de Saulnes, you have talked nonsense, you are condemned to listen to sense. Milor Pynnshurst, you have committed some crime or other, I have forgotten exactly what ; you are condemned to read this manuscript !" And as she spoke, she handed him a roll of paper. *, His eye glanced quickly at it, and then at her, but she was looking another way. " Are your commands definitive ?" he asked. " Like the laws of the Modes and Persians," she replied. " I like manuscripts of an evening," said the Count, " they are soothing after the day's fatigue. My dear, do I snore when I sleep ?" " Come here," said Madame, making room upon a sofa, " and if you sleep I will pinch you." While they made these arrangements, Hugh said in a whisper, " Must I really read this aloud I" " If you please, yes," said Genevieve. " It may please others as much as it has pleased me." " It has pleased you, then." 388 PYNNSHURST. She did not answer, but she colored as she felt that his earnest eyes were fixed upon her. " Go a-ead, Peensoorst" said M. de Saulnes, in English, " but don't be any longer zan possible." " Read as you wrote it, feelingly," said Genevieve, and when he dropped his eyes upon the paper, she fixed hers upon his face, and kept them there until he had finish- ed reading what follows here ; H. ME. PYNNSHUBST'S POEM. I. LONE beside yon headlong torrent, Hung by fir trees dark and horrent, Where the clustering ivy droops O'er the white and foaming current ; Where the gloomy owlet whoops ; By the mournful ruin there, Sate the thoughtful wanderer. Moonlight played through crumbling arches, Through the yawning window frames, There the thick and weeping larches Hung o'er half erased names Fading fast, forgotten, lone, Upon broken cross and stone- In the planets silver gleaming Sate he there, not idly dreaming, But his thoughtful brain was swimming 390 PYNNSHURST. With the music of wild rhymes Of the olden hero times. Yonder where the drooping willows Shade the broad reclaimed marsh ; Yonder, where the sweeping billows Lift their voices, wild and harsh. With the war that ocean wages ; Yonder where the glacier pillows Its cold head amid the snows Cold as death, that dread repose ! Up there, 'mid the ice of ages, Whence the mighty mountain launches Down the thundering avalanches On the villages and vales ; On the tall crag's dizzy ledges, Where the chamois hunter pales ; On the precipice's edges, Whence the leaping torrent rages ; 'Mid the rank and steaming sedges On the limits of the fen, There were bands of holy men Who gave up their earnest mind To the bettering of their kind. Loving JESU and their neighbor, Living but by prayer and labor, In the days of spear and sabre, When men loved the minstrel's rhymes, In the bye gone hero times ! MR. PYNNSHURST'S POEM. 391 When the hungry came they fed him : When the pilgrim strayed they led him Right, and asked his prayers for payment ; 9 For the captive, consolation, For the thirsty, cool potation, For the destitute, -warm raiment Waited at the Convent door Then the clay of paupers found Rest in consecrated ground. For the sick their love was nigh ; They were piteous to the poor, And their record is on high ! And with all, modern wrathful, They were not so very slothful ! When the olden lore, forgotten In the parchment manuscripts, Lay 'mid dust and mildew rotten In the damp unwholesome crypts They rebrought it into day, Washed the many stains away, Copying every letter over With the patience of a lover And the wisdom of a sage. And, in our conceited age. If the whole world be a college Where each learns a little knowledge, 'Tis that all its hoards are drawn From the wells of learning sunk By some now forgotten monk, Slumbering maybe 'neath the lawn, Of a desecrated Abbey 392 PYNNSHURST. Called to-day, the Priory, Re-established with a shabby Mocking of the tracery Where some holy architect Chiselled out the songa of praise Which the beauteous columns decked In the olden hero days. Take your modern steam and powder ; Steam inflates and powder raises, And ye chant their praises louder Than ye chant your Maker's praises, For on these ye build your hopes, And with these deceive the masses, Take your magnifying glasses ; Your far sighted telescopes, And your air pumps ; all these came By a monk from whose old name With what power ye had, ye've taken All the glory Roger Bacon ! Yes, ye drain the juicy boughs And ye mock the ancient trunk ; Yet your modern honor flows All from that one idle monk Who found time to work and pray, Time to chant the choral psalms, Time to give the pauper alms, Time to give you power to-dav ' MR. PYNNSHURST'S POEM. 393 There were vicious, there were idle, Too quick or too slow to stir ; These, they wanted curb and bridle, Those had need of whip and spur But the Many were no lurkers By a convent's flattering board ; They were very earnest workers In the vineyard of the Lord ! n. Then in every quaint, old city There were Sisterhoods of Pity : Sisterhoods forever going Through the dim and winding-street ; With their dark robes meekly flowing To their mercy-winged feet. Ever free and open-handed, ] Giving to whoe'er demanded ; Searching out the poor and needy, Yet, such very gentle judges, That the idle and the greedy. Mingling with life's weary drudges, Found a ready aid and speedy. Theirs was not the alms that grudges ; They had slight discrimination ; Pity was their first sensation. First they gave, and then reflected ; Left no charity neglected Feared to send away even any : 17* 394 PYNNSHURST. Lest, 'mid the unworthy many Loudly clamoring at their door, There might be some worthy poor : Lest among those asking aid Some of God's lambs might have strayed. III. Oh, my brothers ! as ye wander Through the winding ways of life, Hear the poet ! stop, and ponder In the pauses of your strife : E'er forcvermore ye squander All the coined gold of life On your madness ; pause and ponder ! In your earthquake revolutions ; In your sweeping reformations ; In your headlong blind ablutions Of the olden time's pollutions ; In your overthrow of nations : Stop ! even there amid the surges Of your life sea, e'er it urges You to death upon its swell, With its mournful sounding dirges Ringing out your funeral knell, Pause and think ! Have ye done well ? Was it either wise or holy ? Was it not a melancholy And a blind and heartless folly, Thus to drive from town and city, All those Sisterhoods of Pity I MR. PYNNSHURST'S POEM. 395 All that troop of praying people, Who, in tempests as in calms Ever, with uplifted palms, Prayed amid the solemn booming Of the bells that rocked the steeple ; And amid their ceaseless alms, Sent the music of their psalms Up to God amid the fuming Of the incense balms ! Are ye truly any better For the convent desecrated ? For the hospice desolated ? Have ye broken any fetter, Have ye made man freer, better, By the altar overthrown ? By the grave-yard's broken stone ? By the down-cast splintered cross ? By the irreparable loss Of the lives of countless poor, Dying at your very door, Who had been alive and merry, In the olden monastery ? Are ye better for the severance Of your lives from holy faith ? Better for your cold irreverence ? Better for your dread of death .' Have you fewer paupers now .' Is your pity any deeper For the poor Cain's seared brow ? Is the alms-house any cheaper 396 PYNNSHURST. Than the hospice ? and are men Gentler to the Magdalen ? Ye too have your eloquent preachers ; Ye too have your eager teachers, Who, to your great heedlessness, When ye ask will answer, " yes '." But, my brothers, they are wrong, Hear my voice, though 'tis a song In these acts of yours I know it That your love hath had no part '. Hear me God hath given the poet For the teacher of your heart. And I tell you in my burning Love for you, and in the yearning That I have for by-gone times, Which I chant in rudest rhymes, That ye merited not the boon That the time is coming soon, But not sooner than ye want it. When as undeserved guerdon, Ye will kneel and weeping pray To the piteous God for pardon, That ye drove these things away, May He grant it ! This is one of Mr. Pynnshurst's " ways of thinking." DEL RHEINFALI. . "So you wont go with me to see the Rheinfall, Genevieve ?" " No, we have already seen it, and M. de Saulnes has some business here that will keep him." " I believe I wont go." " Yes, do go, please. I would rather that you should, and you will be absent but a day. We wont forget you in a day. There, then, you are near enough. Well, if you will ! You are very impudent ; good-bye ; don't take cold, and come back to-morrow. These flowers ? For what ? You are very foolish, but take them. "What ! again. Well, no more. Good-bye." 398 rYNNSHURST. All alone in his post-chaise. Hugh falls back and examines himself. He is earnestly in love with Genevieve de Chateigneraye. It is a long while that bis heart has been searching happiness ; he believes he has found it. His was one of those natures which crave woman-love ; he had often endeavored to destroy that nature ; but man can- not destroy what God has made so strong. Repress it, change it, soften passionateness, calm enthusiasm, all this is possible, when self-government is perfect ; but to tell a heart that yearns for a companion to cease its yearning is vain. Unloving natures do not think so ; loving ones do ; and I write only for them. He kisses the flowers. That is nonsense ; but all lovers do so. He stops his watch. There shall be no time for him, until he see Genevieve again. Poor Hugh ! " ce n' est pas 1' homme qui arrete le temps, c' est le temps qui arrete 1' homme." They stop to change horses, and pretty peasant girls, coming from the field, with their reaping-hooks in their hands, but less modest than Ruth, crowd about the post- chaise and importune the young voyager for small coins. " Guter Herr, ein Schelling, oder ein Kreutzer, oder ein Bate." " Oder ein Kuss ; nicht wahr mein Kind ?" " Ja, Herr, mit dem Kreutzern." Then he falls back and dreams again. First, boldly, then fearfully, for a Past full of sorrow comes before him, RHEINFALL. 399 and then passes by him in mournful procession, the ghosts of the long ago. But he is roused by chantings, and looking from the win- dows, he sees pilgrims on the road to Einsiedeln, and poor peasants from the Black Forest ; the women in red stockings, long black cassocks and little velvet skull caps. The head and body are like those of Monsieur le Cure, but the legs are the legs of a cardinal. They are murmuring the Vater Unser, and the Gegrusset sey*st Du, Maria, as they pass. " The hills are rich with fruited trees And fields that promise corn and wine." He learns that a vineyard may be pretty, but that, to be so, it must be German. The vines untrimmed, broad leafed and clustering together ; not so economic as the French, but richer in vegetation and really beautiful. No Alps are here, but fertile slopes, and sunny knolls, budding up from the plain, and clothed with verdure or with golden grain. And the blue that gleameth through the vineyard's green, 'tis the blue of Father Rhine. They go through Schaflhausen, quaint old town, upon whose house fronts, worn out frescoes tell stories of old battlo fields, and the Hotel Weber receives them in its wide opened arms, hospitable at twenty francs per diem. One passes through the house out upon the large perron, and one recognizes that one is no longer in Switzerland but 400 PYNNSHCRST. in Germany. All the world is there, seated at little tables, where ever are fat beer jugs and tall dyspeptic looking bottles of Rhein-wein ; and people sitting at those tables, or lounging over the railings to look at the fall ; or strolling up and down talking about what interests them, or, if they have such companions as I generally have, about what don't interest them at all. Four statues, a handsome man for Asia ; a handsome woman for Europe, an " Injun Squaw," for America, and a little the most preposterous " nigger" that, ever was modelled in stucco, for Africa, guard the balustrade. The good Dutchmen talk away, amid multitudinous pipe puffing; casting occasional wide smiles at the visible cataract, which foams some thousand feet below. Two iron lions keep the hotel door from which Hugh Pvnnshurst issued. He stqod there for a moment observ- ant of the group. Two fat gentlemen in brown especially attracted his attention. They looked so uncommonly like the brothers Cheerible in Nicholas Nickleby. Also he noticed an American gentleman, who with his back turned to the cataract and his chair tilted upon its hind legs, occupied himself in playing with a bunch of brelogues at his watch chain, and in puffing his cigar-smoke through his nose. On his face was written, " This Swiss scenery ain't anything. I'm an American and despise their furren waiter/alls, they're nothin' to our free Niagara." RHEINFALL. 401 Huo-h took a loco-foco match from his case, rubbed it O gravely on the nose of one of the iron lions, lighted a cigar, sate down on the right hand aforesaid lion, smoked and looked at the things. Immediately before him was the Dutchman-sprinkled perron. Several feet below, stretched pleasure grounds, through which winding pathways sought the shore. On the left lay the hamlet of Neuhausen ; to the right thick woods bordered by vines ; in front across the river the very old Castle of Laufen, "frowning o'er the wide and winding Rhine." And between the brushwood covered banks, rough here and there with rocks, the impetuous flood boils white and foamy. Some sixty feet is the greatest fall ; but a rapid above and below lend length to it, and the foam continually form- ing and perishing, like human dreamings ; and the rainbow that guards the cataract, and the hazel bushes that dip into the water ; and the ripe fields of wheat so yellow on the hills, and clustering vineyards green amid the corn, pleased poor Hugh Pynnshurst and he blessed the Almighty maker of Beauty that he had made the Rhinefall. He descended and leaned over the railing. He had an asinine way of letting himself get red, and permitting the tears to corne in his eyes when he looked upon Jungfrau's and Rhine falls ; and one of the fat gentleman in brown had been watching him, and now the fat gentleman ap- proached him and said, 402 PYNNSHURST. " He is good, das Fall ?" Hugh turned, and saw a good old face all bubbling up with interest, and with pride in the fall. " Oh yes," he said, " it was very good." " Der Herr muss see him when das "Wasser is much." " Yes," Hugh supposed, " that the sight was finer then." " A.ch guter Gott, feiner ! der Herr speak good ; but I mein brother shall tell which speaks rnorer English als I." So off trotted the good little German, and brought back the other fat gentleman in brown, who instantly ad- dressed Hugh as follows : " Good bye, seer ; you think handsome our waterfall, and us like the strangers when he does not, what you say in English, turn up him nose." " But can anybody doubt the great beauty of this I" asked Hugh in German. " Ah," cried both brothers, " you speak German !" and then the first rattled off into a wilderness of all sorts of words beginning with " sch," and terminating in " ein," or " ich," or " eicht," concluding by an invitation to dinner at half past two, and supper at eight, so long as Hugh should reside in the city. Hugh explained that he must leave to-morrow morning ; but would they sup with him at the hotel ? One could, the other could not ; and so as the perron had lost the majority of its guests, and the night began to fall, the refuser quitted Hugh with a kind shake of the RHEINFALL. 403 hand, and orders to his brother to please the young Englander. They supped quickly, and then went down below the fall to see the lunar rainbow and other dianic effects. All these were very pretty, and so they washed down their supper with a little glass of kirschenwasser at the cafe on the brink of the river, mounted to Hotel Weber, and parted with effusion. The prettiest things are the verdure-covered patches of rock in the very midst of the foaming fall, whereon bright bushes and long grass are nourished by the spray, and shake their loose leaves into the white waters at every wind. From Hotel Weber, when the day is clear, one sees the shadows or outlines of some Alps, and those, with the sweet, bright sceneiy around the river, furnish a deli- cious prospect. Comparatively considering, Hugh rather preferred the Passaic falls, but yet greatly admired the cataract of the Rhine at Schaff hausen. When he got back to Zurich, which he did by means of the meanest post system every known in any country, he found a New York newspaper waiting for him. He read it carefully from " stem to stern," but found nothing to interest him, except that an old friend had written a book ; and that one Rev. John Gigg was explaining the Apocalypse. The Rev. John advertised his seventh lecture. The subject was " The Opening of the Seals." 404 I PYXNSHUKST. Hugh trusted that the Rev. John would be clear ; and it was agreed that if the lectures were published, Hugh should purchase and send to the count seven copies, for the instruction of the little de Saulnes. V. A SON G. ZURICH and its lake, and the moon-lighted Belvidere of Hotel Bauer ; the little square park where the Limath runs into the lake, and the long quai-promenade where the gondolas wait, and the distant mountains are all very lovely. And the lake itself where your oarsmen push* you over its sweet blue waters, and the curtains hang round you screeningly in a gentle summer afternoon, is the best of all. Rest upon thine oars, waterman ; let the musical beat of the waters be heard against the dark, that its sound may mingle with the silver tones of Genevieve's dear voice. * Push is the word ; on none of the Swiss lakes do they row in pulling the oars to them ; hut they face the prow of the hoat and push the oars from them. 406 PYNNSHUKST. Through the opening of the curtains when the light wind waves there, gleam the white peaks and glaciers of the Alps of Schwytz, Uri, and Glarus, and the white high forehead of Apenzell Sends. Sunset is not far off, the clustering glories purpling the rich clouds, tell that the day must die. That inimitable, gold-varnished green, which belongs only to western hea- vens, deepens in the horizon ; floods of gold streaked with crimson, form the ocean where float the " freighted clouds !" Shadows whose colors come from heaven, flit o'er the lake or rest upon it. Now and then the red perch leaps from the waters, and falls in a shower of sparkling drops, back to his crystal field. From the shore comes music, and out, far out on the lake that gay boat is occupied by a brass band ; and all the mingled sounds, melting together, die voluptuously over the blue sweet waves. " Sing, Genevieve !" And in a low sweet voice, inaudible at a little distance, but thrilling with its fluty sounds the soul of the listener whose hands are folded in her's, Genevieve sings that pas- sionate ballad of Heinrich Heyne's. The purple sea gleamed wide and bright As day's last glories shone, We sate by the ancient fisher-house Silent and all alone. A SONG. 407 The mists arose, the waters swelled, The gull swept circling past, And from thine eyes, with passion filled, The tears came streaming fast. I saw them fall upon thy hand And on my knee I sank ; And quick, from off that white, white hand, Those streaming tears I drank. Since then my soul burns with desire, Desire consumes my years. Ah, thou wild heart ; that weeping girl, Hath poisoned thee with her tears. The melody of this song, by Schubert, was one of those which used to go direct to the heart of Hugh Pynnshurst. Genevieve had a rich contralto voice, capable of modulation the most delicate and distinct, as pure in the lowest as clear in the highest notes. And while keeping strictly to the air, she filled it with sweet inflections, like those which you notice in some notes of the robin, uttered with a deep fluty sound like the blending of two voices. Would you, young man, like to change places at this moment with Hugh Pynnshurst ? Hugh neither sang nor played. He could not talk wisely about music, but he was music-mad. He never praised that which pleased him, but sate hushed and silent amid the 408 PYNNSHURST. applauses of others, rocking the last sounds in his heart, and treasuring the silver echoes, till the last died slowly away in the deeps of his feeling. Nothing delighted him more than to collect and translate for Genevieve the ballads which are so numerous through- out Germany and Rhenish Switzerland, andwhich are so full of simple yet profound sentiment. The " Landlady's little Daughter," " the Last Shot," Uhland's " Song of Parting," " the Broken Ring," and many another had he taught his darling to warble for him. And the still calm joy of such an hour as this ; floating on the limpid Zurichsee, with the gorgeous landscape round him and the sweet voice of a beloved woman thrilling his soul, paid him for many past sorrows; he would have purchased it willingly at the price of many sorrows to come. Peace, wild heart! Buy not suffering: it will come unbought. God will give thee abundantly until thou be pure. It bears a much later date than this, the poem that I find in his papers in which he searches his soul and its self- deceits, and which concludes with a bitter truth which the proud man was too honorable to conceal from himself. " I have tried to banish the notion, To drive the thought away ; For it only vexes the ocean Of pride that fills my clay. A SONG. 409 But ever sharper and rougher The truth on my soul sinks in, That I sin not because I suffer, But I suffer because I sin !" " Hugh," said Genevieve, " let us go home." " My home, Genevieve, is where you are. Are you not content here ?" " Yes, but it grows late." " But it is our last night upon these sweet waters ; to- morrow we leave them, perhaps forever." " To-morrow !" she said dreamingly. " Yes, you must rise preposterously early to go to Baden, and by that abominable means of travelling, a rail- road." " I like railroads better," said the lady smiling, " since I travelled from the Havre to Paris. You were my guardian spirit." " I did not know that angels had any." " They have not, but I have, now let us go back." " Truants," said Madame de Saulnes when they appeared, " you deserved both to be whipped. Was it so very beau- tiful?" " Very," said Pynnshurst, who was thinking of Gene- vieve. 18 VL THE MAN IN THE OMNIBUS. OH, the embarking place, where one gets into the omni- buses to go to the cars ! What fighting for places ; what appeals to the conductors ; what thumping and confusion of box, coffer, and baudbox. How eccentric valises hide them- selves under huge trunks, and ridiculous carpet-bags vanish from the hands of old ladies as if by magic. One gentleman had very much pleased Hugh by his awful anxiety about a certain trunk. Let us watch him with Pynnshurst. After much fussing, he thinks that he recognises his trunk stowed away in the baggage-wagon, and gets into the vehicle destined for the live freight. But lo ! when the baggage-wagon has got out of sight, the gentleman sees, as he fancies, his trunk disappearing in the distance, borne on the shoulders of a strong man ; the THE MAN IN THE OMNIBUS. 411 gentleman leaps from the omnibus, pursues the strong man and commands him to " put down that trunk." Strong man refuses. Gentleman insists. Strong man asks, " Why ?" Gentleman says, " it is my trunk." Strong man says, "it is not ;" gentleman flies in a passion and says, " But by thunder it is !" Strong man then puts down the trunk ; gentleman looks at it and says, '' Oh, it is not mine." " Confounded Camel !" grumbles the German porter, as the gentleman rushes distractedly back to the omnibus, where the conductor is purple in the face with bellowing for him to come. " Get in, sir !" says the conductor, taking him by the arm. Gentleman gets in, and turning, sees his real trunk left, behind on the ground ; makes a dart to go out ; con- ductor slams the door to, crushes the gentleman's hat over his eyes, and knocks him staggering back upon a cross bur- gher's corns. Cross burgher says " camel," and pushes the gentleman into the lap of a fat lady opposite, where he crushes a basket of confectionery. Gentleman starts up, pushes his hat from before his eyes, and begs fat lady's pardon ; fat lady only looks at him savagely, and at her confectionery piteously, and murmurs " Gam-el /" Omnibus being full, the gentleman leans in a curbed posi- 412 tion against the doors, every jolt of the omnibus knocking his hat against the roof and by consequence over his eyes : he takes off his hat, and begins a smile, when a tremendous jolt bumps his head fiercely against the top ; he puts it on again, and a second jolt buries him in his beaver to the chin. Then he curls himself still more and more, and leans back against the door, just as the driver pulls up his horses with a jerk ; the conductor throws the door open, bellowing "Depot," and the gentleman disappears backwards head over heels. What became of him is not known ; Hugh never saw him " no more." But Mr. Pynnshurst leaves, for our instruction, this note. " When a German, at least a Schweitzer, wishes to fulminate his fullest wrath against his neighbor, he calls him a ' verfluchtiye Kamecl] a cursed camel. When the French- man is vexed to a certain degree, he says, syllable by syllable, ' an-i-mal /' " He generalizes, but the Deutscher is more accurate ; he specifies what kind of animal, it is a camel. The above note is taken from a work now in press, en- titled, " All customs of all countries carefully considered and philosophically analyzed, by Hugh Pynnshurst. Four volumes in large quarto, with wood cuts and notes. Sub- scriptions received by all booksellers? VII. THE HOUSE OF HABSBOURG. RATTLETY thump ! rattlety thump ! cling clang cum jiggeldy rattlety bump ! Such is the history of the journey by rail-road to Baden, which is a very ancient town much celebrated for the quantity of Roman ruins which it furnishes. The Limath waters it, and the visitors who come to it, if they be so inclined. It is the great bathing place of Switzer- land ; it is said that no Swiss lady will accept a spouse un- less there be in the marriage-contract a clause which entitles her to visit Baden once in every year. It is therefore a sort of imitation Baden-Baden, where the Swiss, too economical to go to the grand Duchy, meet and wash. " Thanks be praised," that they do wash once a year for fashion's sake if not for cleanliness. 414 PYNNSIIURST. Whether our voyagers dipped or not, no record doth re- main ; but that they did promenade on horseback, ass-back, and on foot is clear, and may be proved by anybody who will buy Hugh Pynnshurst's manuscripts for the sake of having the autograph at the price designated by the present holder and possessor. For instance they went to Habsbourg, or rather to the ruins of Habsbourg ; the Old not the New ; the first nest of the imperial Counts, not their more modern possession ; the place whence arose that race which ruled the Holy Roman Empire and now sits enthroned on Austria, in the person of one of the most promising Princes of Christendom. Towards the year 1080, Count Radbolt founded the Chateau of Habsbourg on the high hill yonder. His brother, the bishop Werner, who had furnished him with means for the construction of the fort, going one day to visit him, was surprised at the small size of the battlements, and reproached the Count. During the night the Count assembled his vassals and ranged them, fully armed, upon the platform, and when the bishop issued from his chamber, he saw a numerous and well equipped force. "These, brother," said the Count, "are living walls, for which I have employed your money ; and these men, brave and faithful, will prove for you and me a better guard than any battlements of stone." TIIR HOUSE OF HABSBOUKG. 415 Herein, I have forgotten when, an impoverished Count, Rodolph, by name, held such state as he might with little means. He, one day, riding by a river, saw a priest with the viaticum, standing wistfully on the brink without any means of crossing. " What is the matter, father," asked the Count ? " My lord," replied the priest, " a sick man waits for me on the other side, and I see neither boat nor ford." Kodolph dismounted. " Take" said he, " this horse. He has often carried death and desolation into the midst of thick battalions ; now let him bear hope and life to the poor man who expects you. I wait for you here." The Cure did not wait to be twice invited ; but helped by the Count, mounted the charger and crossed the stream. Rodolph watched him until out of sight ; then with his gauntleted hand he wiped a tear from his eye. " Ah," said he, " yonder goes no mighty captain, nor rich baron; but who among the warriors is so glorious, who among the powerful is so happy ?" The Cure returning, found the Count sitting where he left him. He would have dismounted and returned the horse, but Rodolph said, "Keep him, father; he is an old and faithful servant, whom I would spare now from the toils of battle. I am not rich, but I can still afford to give that alms to the poor whom you serve. Only, do not mention it. God will know 416 FYXXSHURST. it without our speaking of it. Good-day, father, and re- member me when you pray." They separated, the Cure blessing Heaven for the good horse ; Count Rodolph walking on to visit the Abbey of Fahr. There Sister Bertha opened the gate for him saying, " My lord, the Emperor, you are welcome." " What mean you, sister ?" said the Count, astonished at her salutation. " I mean what I say," she said, " you have done to-day a noble action. Do not deny it ; for though no one has told me, I know it ; and I also know that you have been elected Prince and Master of the Holy Roman Empire, for God is with the just. Go, Rodolf of Habsbourg, thou hast not had shame to help the lowly ; poor, thou gavest alms ; baron, thou cherishedst the poor. The blessing of the Highest is upon thee." And in a few days word came, indeed, to the Count that the electors had chosen him to fill the mighty throne which represented the ancient seven-hilled mistress of the world. I might tell you how they went to Konigsfelden, or Kings- field, where the Emperor Albert was slain by foul conspiracy. I might tell you what bloody vengeance the Empress Agnes took ; and how she built a convent in atonement for her cruelty ; and how the first monk to whom she offered it, rejected it with scorn, saying, " Know, woman, that the holy God loves not the price of THE HOUSE OF HABSBOUKG. 417 blood. Go, repent thou ; but think not to buy mercy by founding a monastery." Then, they go to bed. And the next day they pass by Lenzburg and Aarau, through fields where red-skirted black- bodiced peasants were- reaping the bearded grain ; by way- side crosses, into the shadow of the huge Cathedral of St. Ursus, whose broad white marble steps and fountain-decked balcony are the glory of the Catholic City of Soleure. There follows an unfillable hiatus in Pynnshurst's notes. How long he stayed in Soleure I know not ; how many times they mounted the famous Weissenstein, I cannot tell. The next chapter, it is the last, will show that they mounted it once. But it is here that I say good-bye. My editing work is done. Ill done or well done, I know not, and cannot now discover. Believe me, I intended well. Read what I have gathered or let it be ; I will still say unto thee, Reader, as the Romans said to their dead : HAIL AND FAREWELL. VIII. ALICE. " YES, yes. 1 have seen few things so beautiful. The panorama is very like that from the Rhigi ; and if I miss here the wild lakes and wilder Alps ; there is a peace and beauty in this that repays me for them. See how the sun- light burns upon the spires of St. Ursus, and the church of the Capuchins there below ; and off there, the blue Jura, and here to the left the white Alps, and the Aar that looks like a silver thread below there. Very beautiful ; and so peaceful and happy." She spoke in a very low voice, and lifted for an instant her deep eyes to the face of her companion. " Yes ; it goes to the heart, a scene like this," was his reply, " I feel it very deeply." His voice was little more than a whisper ; but she heard it distinctly. ALICE. 419 So they spoke no more, but stood silently side by side, looking at the scene, until the rest of the party warned them that it was time to descend. They were the last ready ; perhaps, that poor, little, patient, grey pony was the most difficult of all to mount ; certainly it took longer to arrange the saddle and other matters, than for all the others put together ; and that may perhaps be the reason why they were many yards behind the others throughout the whole descent. Her pony stumbled, and he, walking at its side, put his arm round her waist to support her ; and either the way was dangerous, or he was forgetful, for the arm rested there, and the lon