TALES AND TRADITIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 SWITZERLAND. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/talestraditionsoOOwest 
 
TALES and TRADITIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 SWITZERLAND. 
 
 WILLIAM WESTALL, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "TALES AND TRADITIONS OF SAXONY," 6 6 THE OLD 
 FACTORY," " LARRY LOHENGRIN," ETC. 
 
 bonbon : 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 
 1882. 
 
 [All rights reserved.] 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, 
 CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 PACE 
 
 CHAP. I. . 3 
 
 „ II 14 
 
 THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 CHAP. I. . -27 
 » II 38 
 
 „ ni 45 
 
 » »v 54 
 
 860294 
 
vi 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. I.— SUNNY MEMORIES .... 73 
 
 „ II— DIVIDED LIVES 87 
 
 „ III. — THE RISING STORM . IOI 
 
 „ IV.— THE BATTLE AND THE VICTIMS . 112 
 „ V. — AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS . .122 
 „ VI— RECONCILIATION . . . . 130 
 
 THE CHATELAINES DAUGHTER . . .137 
 
 THE SPITTLER OF THE GRIMSEL . . 163 
 
 THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX . . 187 
 POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 CHAP. I.— THE LENKERHORN DYNASTY . . 215 
 » II. — THE NEW PASTOR . . . .225 
 „ III.— THE AMMAN AND HIS COUNCILLORS 232 
 „ IV. — A RARE FLOWER .... 239 
 
 » V. — VICTORY AND DEFEAT . . . 262 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. 1 275 
 
 „ H 285 
 
 >j HI. . 301 
 
 » iv. 312 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A thousand years ago (more or less) there lived 
 in the hill country, not far from the town now 
 known as Freiburg in the Breisgau, a poor 
 charcoal-burner. Though he toiled hard from 
 early morn to dewy eve, it was all he could do 
 to keep body and soul together. Being of an 
 aspiring turn of mind, this charcoal-burner was 
 bitterly discontented with his lot ; and when he 
 looked down into the valley and saw the lordly 
 castles that crowned every eminence, and the 
 turrets of more than one palatial religious house, 
 he cursed the cruel fate that had made him a 
 hewer of wood, instead of a powerful baron or a 
 wealthy abbot. Often, after his day's work was 
 done, would he throw himself, half-tired to death, 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 on his rude bed of leaves, and ponder deeply on 
 the mysterious dispensation which makes of one 
 man a pauper and another a prince. 
 
 " Do we not all come into the world naked ? " 
 he thought. "Are we not born equal? Is not 
 one man as good as another? What have those 
 fellows down there done that they should be 
 clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare 
 sumptuously every day, while I am forced to live 
 up here all alone like a mountain cat, feed on 
 bacon and black bread, and sleep on a bed of 
 leaves in a leaky old hut ? I am as good as any 
 of them — ay, better; for my body is stouter, my 
 limbs are bigger and stronger than theirs. Not 
 one of them that I have seen yet — even the burly 
 Otto von Riesenberg — that I could not brain with 
 my staff — in spite of their long swords and those 
 iron pots they put on their stupid heads." 
 
 As the poor charcoal-burner's reflections always 
 terminated in sleep, the solution of the problem was 
 indefinitely deferred. 
 
 At length an event occurred which gave an 
 entirely new turn to his thoughts, and altered the 
 whole course of his life. In order to convert the 
 wood he cut, during the day, into charcoal, he 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 5 
 
 covered it over with clay, set it on fire, and left the 
 heap to smoulder all night. One morning, the 
 most memorable of his life, when he went to his 
 furnace, as usual, and removed the charcoal, he 
 saw, lying on the floor, a great bar of pure silver, 
 still hot as if it had just been smelted. He uttered 
 a shout of joy, and after further testifying his 
 pleasure by a vigorous dance round his furnace, 
 he picked up the precious find, tied it up in an old 
 clout, and hid it carefully away in a corner of his 
 hut. The next morning he found that his furnace 
 had produced another ingot, and as the supply 
 went on without intermission, he had soon a very 
 respectable pile, which, in the absence of a lock-up 
 cupboard or a strong room, he concealed under a 
 heap of leaves and branches. 
 
 About this time the charcoal-burner, no longer 
 poor, chanced to make a journey to the plain, 
 where he heard that the once-powerful king of a 
 neighbouring country, driven from his throne by a 
 revolution, and now dwelling in a humble cottage 
 hard by, had issued a proclamation offering the 
 hand of his daughter and a principality to whom- 
 soever should advance him enough money to equip 
 an army and recover his throne. 
 
6 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " A princess and a principality ! " said the 
 charcoal-burner to himself. "Exactly what I 
 want. The arrangement will suit me to a T. 
 To-morrow I will wait on his ex-majesty and 
 make him a tender of my assistance." 
 
 So next morning the charcoal-burner, after 
 donning his Sunday best (which was not, however, 
 much better than his week-day worst), and washing 
 his face (a thing that, as a rule, he did only on 
 Sundays, but this was a special occasion), he 
 shouldered his sack of silver, and set out for the 
 plain. The sack having been used for carrying 
 charcoal, was necessarily very dirty, and the day 
 being warm, and the charcoal-burner not posses- 
 sing a pocket-handkerchief, he was forced to use 
 his hands, blackened by contact with the sack, to 
 stroke the perspiration from his brow (varied by 
 an occasional application of his coat-sleeve), so that 
 when he arrived at the royal abode his appearance 
 was, perhaps, not quite as courtly as he supposed. 
 
 The door was opened by a stout old gentle- 
 man, who had formerly been the monarch's prime 
 minister. 
 
 " What do you want ? " he asked, rudely and 
 suspiciously. 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 7 
 
 " I want to see the king." 
 " What is your business ? " 
 " That is my business." 
 
 And without further parley the charcoal-burner 
 pushed the old gentleman on one side and stalked 
 into the house. 
 
 He found the king sitting on a three-legged 
 stool. 
 
 " What do you want ? " asked his majesty, 
 using just the same words as his prime minister 
 had done. 
 
 "I want to help you to win back your kingdom, 
 on the conditions set forth in your proclama- 
 tion." 
 
 " You!" exclaimed the astonished monarch. 
 " You ! Why, you are only a common man. You 
 cannot help me to my kingdom." 
 
 " Wait till you have seen my credentials," said 
 the charcoal-burner, at the same time pouring the 
 glittering contents of his sack at the king's feet. 
 " What do you think of that now ? And there's 
 more where that comes from." 
 
 " God bless me ! You must be Croesus come 
 to life again. Where have you got all this money ? 
 Who are you ? H 
 
8 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 "A king's son-in-law and a duke, if your 
 majesty is a true man." 
 
 " I am a true man, my lord duke ; and, as you 
 will find, as good as my word. Come hither, 
 Iona, my dear." 
 
 Whereupon a beautiful girl of seventeen 
 entered the room ; and she was so graceful, and 
 so splendidly dressed withal, that the poor char- 
 coal burner felt quite ashamed of his rough garb 
 and dirty face. 
 
 "Behold in this gentleman your future husband, 
 Iona," said the king. 
 
 The princess bowed, and put her lily-white 
 hand into the charcoal-burner's horny fist. 
 
 "Circumstances, over which he has no con- 
 trol," continued the monarch, tc have prevented 
 him from appearing in apparel more befitting the 
 occasion ; but, as this pile of silver which he has 
 just poured at my feet testifies, he is rich, and 
 when we have recovered our rights, as, thanks 
 to his help, we speedily shall, your husband, my 
 child, will be one of the greatest men in the 
 land." 
 
 His majesty proved a true prophet. He suc- 
 ceeded in his enterprise, and the charcoal-burner 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 9 
 
 was created Duke of Zaehringen and Carinthia, 
 and made ruler over all the region round about. 
 He developed high qualities as an administrator, 
 and showed himself fully worthy of the king's 
 confidence and kindness. He built himself a 
 magnificent castle at Zaehringen, a place from 
 which he derived his principal title, and became 
 celebrated, far and wide, as Berthold the Bearded. 
 But, strangely enough, all this property did not 
 bring him content ; and there were times when he 
 wished that he had remained a simple charcoal- 
 burner in the same forests of the Breisgau, where 
 he now hunted the wild-boar and the red-deer, 
 with a lordly following of knights and retainers. 
 The Princess Iona died a few years after their mar- 
 riage, and for his second wife Berthold took a noble 
 lady, with an immense fortune and a bad temper. 
 He had a large family, and his sons were not 
 always obedient, nor his daughters always loving. 
 His feudatories were rebellious, his thralls dis- 
 contented, and he had frequent disputes with his 
 suzerain — the king who succeeded the monarch 
 whom he had helped to win back his kingdom. 
 Berthold's troubles preyed on his mind, He grew 
 gloomy and morose, gave way to ungovernable 
 
io TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 fits of rage, and led his servitors such a terrible 
 life, that, had he not paid them extraordinary- 
 wages, they would have struck work in a body 
 and left him to serve himself. 
 
 One day, when the duke happened to be in a 
 particularly bad humour, his major-domo waited 
 upon him, as was his custom, to inquire what it 
 would please his serene highness to have for 
 dinner. 
 
 " Dinner, dinner," exclaimed the duke savagely, 
 " the devil take the dinner ! " 
 
 " Yes, your highness," answered the major- 
 domo gravely ; " but it must first be made. What 
 would it please your highness to order ? " 
 
 " Bring me," said Berthold, with a snarl — 
 "bring me a roast baby." 
 
 " Yes, your highness," replied the servant ; 
 and as he silently withdrew, the lord of Zaeh- 
 ringen breathed a sigh and sank into deep 
 thought. 
 
 Two hours later he was roused from his reverie 
 by the entrance of the major-domo, who ushered 
 in two waiters carrying between them an enormous 
 dish. 
 
 Horror of horrors ! On the dish lay, done to a 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 ii 
 
 turn and beautifully browned, the trussed-up body 
 of a six-months-old baby. 
 
 " What is that ? " roared Berthold the Bearded, 
 rising from his chair, his eyes aflame, and his red 
 beard bristling with rage. "What, in the name 
 of all the fiends, have you got there ? " 
 
 "The roast baby you ordered for dinner, my 
 lord duke." 
 
 " You have never dared — you don't mean to 
 tell me, varlets, that you have killed and cooked a 
 poor little baby ; that you took my random words 
 seriously ? By the piper that played before Moses, 
 by the grave of my mother and the bones of my 
 father, I'll gibbet every man jack of you as high 
 as Haman ! " 
 
 " You surely would not be so unjust, my lord 
 duke," answered the major-domo, without the 
 slightest sign of discomposure. "We have only 
 obeyed your orders, and you always visit dis- 
 obedience with your severest displeasure. We 
 dared not do otherwise." 
 
 " It is true, it is true," exclaimed Berthold, 
 sinking back into his chair ; " wretched man that 
 I am ! You have only done your duty. I am 
 rightly served. Take the unlucky little wretch 
 
12 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 away, and see that it has christian burial. I must 
 try to make what poor amends to the parents 
 I can." 
 
 " They want no amends, my lord duke." 
 " How?" 
 
 " Cook bought it from the mother — one of the 
 thralls. She seemed glad to get rid of it, your 
 serene highness." 
 
 " Did she know for what purpose it was 
 intended?" 
 
 " She did, my lord duke." 
 
 " Good heavens ! " gasped the duke, " what 
 is the world coming to ? " 
 
 From that moment Berthold knew not a 
 moment's peace. If he had eaten it, the baby 
 could not have lain heavier on his soul. He 
 made pilgrimages, performed penances, and, in 
 hope of purging his soul and appeasing the wrath 
 of Heaven, he built the famous town of Freiburg 
 in the Breisgau, and set in the midst of it a fine 
 church. He also built and endowed two convents 
 in the Black Forest, said many prayers, received 
 frequent absolutions, and burnt thousands of 
 candles at the shrines of hundreds of saints. But 
 all was in vain: he failed to regain his peace 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 of conscience ; and Berthold the Bearded, Lord 
 of Zaehringen and Carinthia, died, bitterly re- 
 gretting that he had been tempted to exchange 
 his charcoal-burning and his quiet life in the 
 woods for the coronet of a duke and the hand 
 of a princess. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Shadowy though the story of Berthold the 
 Bearded undoubtedly is, there are acute critics 
 who see in it a fable based upon truth. They 
 think that the great house which he, or some- 
 body else, founded owed its rise to successful 
 mining operations, of which fact the legend of 
 the silver ingot is no more than the poetic and 
 slightly exaggerated expression. Be that as it 
 may, Berthold's successors were historic and 
 sufficiently tangible personages. Their sway ex- 
 tended over the region of the Black Forest, and 
 much of the country now known as Switzerland 
 owned their rule. 
 
 Berthold II. married Agnes of Rheinfelden, 
 * and died in nil ; Berthold III. married Sophia 
 of Bavaria, and died in 1123; Berthold V. sur- 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 named the " Rich/' last and greatest of the Dukes 
 of Zaehringen, inherited from his father, Ber- 
 thold IV., the regency of Burgundy east of the 
 Jura. This heritage was a troublesome one ; it 
 embittered his life and hastened his death. The 
 Burgundian nobles, always turbulent and re- 
 bellious, resisted the reforms by which he sought 
 to ameliorate the lot of his lowlier subjects, and 
 fiercely resented the favour which he showed to 
 the towns and traders, who greatly aided him in 
 his efforts to check the overweening arrogance of 
 his feudatories. When they openly rebelled he 
 met them in the field, and, after several encounters, 
 defeated them in a pitched battle. To consolidate 
 his victory, and the better to hold his own in 
 any future contests that might arise, he fortified 
 Moudon and Yverdon (canton Vaud), and the 
 castle of Burgdorf (canton Berne), which last he 
 chose for a residence. But his greatest exploit 
 in building was the building of the city of 
 Berne. 
 
 The first scene in a famous comedy, in twenty 
 acts, written in 1609, by Michael S tetter, a senator 
 of Berne, represents the duke as calling together 
 his council in Burgdorf Castle, and making a 
 
1 6 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 speech to this effect : " An old proverb, handed 
 down to us by our ancestors, has it that when 
 riches and honours come in by one door, hatred 
 and envy enter by another. My father, who 
 ranked high among the European potentates, 
 knew well the truth of this adage ; and I, who 
 inherit from him the fine duchy of Burgundy 
 and the beautiful lordship of Nydeck, I also, 
 who wish no man ill, have incurred the hatred 
 of my nobles. But God, in his goodness, has 
 bestowed upon me great blessings. I have many 
 faithful servants. I have never oppressed the 
 poor. I detest tyranny and pride ; therefore, my 
 friends, do these haughty nobles hate me. But 
 I have the love of my people — have I not, Baron 
 of Bubenberg ? " 
 
 " The people look up to you as their protector 
 and friend," answered the baron, who was one 
 of the duke's most faithful ministers. 
 
 After a long deliberation with his council, 
 Berthold decides that the best means of keeping 
 the nobles in order and protecting the people 
 from their exactions, is to build a walled city 
 in a central position, into which they may gather 
 and live in peace. 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 17 
 
 Then the first huntsman is sent for, a man 
 of years and wisdom, who knows every stream, 
 and hill, and forest in the country, and asked for 
 his advice touching the site of the proposed city. 
 In reply he makes a long speech, wherein, after 
 protesting his devotion to the duke and his 
 dynasty, and his sense of the honour conferred 
 upon him in demanding his counsel, he argues that 
 the most advantageous position for a great town 
 is in the neighbourhood of his highness's hunting- 
 tower of Nydeck, on the left bank of the Aar. 
 
 The suggestion finding favour with the duke, 
 he announces, amid the plaudits of his councillors, 
 that on the following day there will be a grand 
 hunt in the forest of Nydeck, and that the first 
 beast killed shall give his name to the new 
 city. 
 
 Whereupon the Baron of Bubenberg opines 
 that the name of a city being a matter of high 
 moment, it is greatly to be desired that the 
 first spoil of the chase may be some fine and 
 noble animal. 
 
 The first hunter answers that the forest 
 
 abounds with all sorts of large game, particularly 
 
 with red and fallow deer ; but that he and his 
 
 c 
 
18 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 faithful piquenrs will use their utmost efforts to 
 lay at the feet of his highness a lordly bear. 
 
 In the olden times the river Aar, after leaving 
 the lake of Thun and bathing the walls of the 
 ancient church of Schertzlingen, flowed through 
 the town of Thun, which, with its fortifications, 
 defended the territories of Zaehringen from the 
 seigneurs of the Oberland. With many bends 
 the stream then traversed thick and sombre pine 
 woods, in the midst whereof stood the great castle 
 of Bubenberg. Next, as if flying affrighted from 
 those wilds, it threw itself, spinning and swirling, 
 into the valley of Matte, where there were several 
 corn-mills belonging to the lord of Bubenberg. 
 Farther on, the Aar forced its way through a 
 narrow gorge, formed by oak-crowned hills, on 
 one of which stood the duke's hunting-tower 
 of Nydeck. A wooden bridge, defended by a 
 bastion, crossed the Aar — hereabouts white with 
 foam, and tossing tempestuously in its rock-strewn 
 bed. 
 
 This was the scene of the chase which should 
 decide the name of the new city. 
 
 Early in the morning the Duke of Zaehringen, 
 attended by a train of gallant knights and a bevy 
 
I 
 
 7 HE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 i9 
 
 of fair ladies, crossed the wooden bridge and took 
 his stand on a jutting rock, whence could be 
 seen all the preliminary incidents of the hunt ; 
 for it was intended to drive the quarry to near 
 where Berthold stood, and kill him at the ducal 
 feet. 
 
 The duke had not long to wait. In less than 
 an hour the notes of the huntsman's horn, the 
 shouts of the piqueurs> and the baying of the 
 hounds, proclaimed that one of the wild animals 
 of the forest had been tracked to his lair. Then 
 came a crackling of branches, a trampling of 
 hoofs, a ringing cheer, and a mighty he-bear, with 
 great gleaming teeth and lolling tongue, rushed 
 out of the wood and ran at full speed towards 
 the river. For a moment he hesitated, but hearing 
 the cries behind him, he plunged into the seething 
 water and struck out boldly for the other side. 
 The duke and his companions, seeing this, gave 
 their horses the rein and were just in time to 
 turn the bear back as he rose from the river. 
 The piqueurs and the hounds came up at the 
 same time. All rushed pell-mell into the water. 
 A terrible fight followed, and the Aar was dyed 
 
 deep with bruin's blood, mingled with that of 
 
 c 2 
 
20 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 more than one of his foes, whom his terrible 
 paws had laid low. But numbers were against 
 him, and in a few minutes the carcase was 
 dragged from the water and laid at the duke's 
 feet. 
 
 " It is a fine and powerful animal, gentlemen," 
 said Berthold. " Baer " (bear, hence Berne) " shall 
 be the name of our new city ; and it will one 
 day be as powerful, and as much feared by its 
 enemies, as that bear was feared by the other 
 denizens of the forest. ,, 
 
 On his return to the tower Berthold conferred 
 with his councillors as to whom he should confide 
 the execution of the great scheme on which they 
 had unanimously resolved. Nobody was con- 
 sidered so suitable as the Baron of Bubenberg, 
 who had travelled in many lands and had great 
 experience ; and to him accordingly was the task 
 intrusted. 
 
 Not long after this event a terrible misfor- 
 tune befell the house of Zaehringen. The two 
 sons of the duke died suddenly at Burgdorf 
 of a mysterious malady which the leeches who 
 were called in declared to be due to a subtle 
 poison. According to tradition, the poisoning 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 21 
 
 was contrived by some of Berthold's discontented 
 nobles, in revenge for the severe measures he 
 had taken against them. They were said to have 
 effected their object through the instrumentality 
 of his second wife, the Countess of Freiburg, 
 whom one of the conspirators had persuaded to 
 give the children poison, under the pretext that 
 it was a harmless potion, and good for their 
 health. The duke, in full belief that his wife 
 was privy to the foul deed, had her put to 
 death. He afterwards discovered how she had 
 been deceived by the conspirators, and that she 
 was no more guilty of the crime for which she 
 had suffered than himself. The duke's life was 
 thenceforth overshadowed by two great sorrows. 
 He grieved for his sons and he grieved for his 
 wife, and his grief was sharpened by the bitter 
 consciousness, ever present in his soul, that he 
 had imbrued his hands in innocent blood. Switzer- 
 land, where these misfortunes had befallen him, 
 became hateful to him, and he passed the 
 remainder of his days at Freiburg in the 
 Breisgau. Yet he always took a warm interest 
 in the city of his creation, and when he grew old 
 and feeble, and felt that his end was approaching, 
 
22 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 he placed Berne under the special protection of the 
 Emperor Frederic II., who, at his instance, con- 
 firmed and extended its liberties and privileges 
 in the celebrated charter known as the Golden Bull. 
 
 Among other things this instrument stipulated 
 that Berne should never be separated from the 
 empire ; that it should have two annual fairs ; 
 that if a merchant were robbed during the fair, 
 the emperor would punish the robber ; that the 
 emperor would never appoint a landammann, a 
 priest, or a schoolmaster, but confirm those whom 
 the city might name to him ; that no burgher 
 of Berne should ever be constrained to escort 
 the emperor so far that he could not reach his 
 own home before nightfall ; that, when the emperor 
 visited Berne, the city should find lodgings for 
 him, his suite, and his knights ; that wager of 
 battle should be lawful; that the city should be 
 empowered to coin money and judge offences ; 
 that it should be free from taxes ; and that, finally, 
 it should enjoy all the privileges possessed by 
 the imperial city of Cologne. 
 
 Whether because of this charter or not, Berne 
 flourished exceedingly. As the old chronicler 
 Anselm says : 
 
THE BUILDER OF BERNE. 
 
 "The prophecies made about its greatness 
 were accomplished. Little by little the Bear's 
 claws grew strong and formidable ; his mouth 
 filled with terrible teeth ; his eyes and ears 
 became sharp and keen ; he left his den to 
 devour his neighbours and make war on his 
 enemies ; he conquered the eagle of Austria, and 
 overthrew the bull of Burgundy." 
 
 In modern times a far nobler and more worthy 
 destiny than any of these has been reserved for 
 the city of Bear — that of being the capital of 
 the freest of European states. 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 St^SRN were the laws and strange the customs of 
 the older Swiss cantons. Their criminal codes 
 were of Draconian severity. Modern ideas of 
 humanity, and of sympathy with the suffering, 
 were slow in finding their way to the remote 
 valleys and primitive communities of Helvetia ; 
 while antiquated beliefs and dark superstitions 
 lingered there long after they had been 
 banished from Western Europe. Nowhere were 
 supposed wizards and witches more relentlessly 
 persecuted than in Switzerland. In their zeal to 
 put down sorcery the cantons of the new faith 
 vied with those of the old. Going no farther 
 back than the close of the seventeenth century, 
 
28 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 we find that, in 1689, two women were beheaded, 
 and one burnt alive, at Trogen, Appenzel, on a 
 charge of witchcraft. In 1690, a poor creature 
 of the name of Katherina Wetter was executed 
 (her body being afterwards burnt) at the same 
 place for a like offence. This woman was the 
 last person put to death in Appenzel for sorcery ; 
 for it was afterwards found out (how is not stated) 
 that her admission of having had dealings with the 
 evil one was due to a diseased imagination, and 
 had no foundation in fact. In other words, she 
 was a woman of weak intellect, as were many of 
 these supposed witches. In 1666 an entire family 
 — mother, son, and daughter — were burnt alive at 
 Alpnach, in Unterwalden, a Catholic canton, for 
 practising forbidden arts. In 1701 a woman was 
 burnt alive at Warterklugen, in Zurich, and seven 
 other persons were beheaded, in the same Pro- 
 testant canton, for a similar offence. In 17 14, a 
 supposed witch, a girl of sixteen, was burnt at 
 the stake on the Heinzenberg, in Graubiinden. 
 But perhaps the most frightful tragedy recorded 
 in the dark annals of witch persecution is one 
 that befell, less than one hundred and fifty years 
 ago, in the town of Zug. There lived there at 
 
THE -SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 29 
 
 that time a weak-minded girl of seventeen, who, 
 as is said, at the instigation of the Jesuits, 
 denounced by name a number of her neighbours 
 —old men of seventy, fathers and mothers of 
 families, young men and maidens — as wizards, 
 witches, and practisers of unholy rites. All whom 
 she named were forthwith seized and put to the 
 torture. A man and his daughter, who with- 
 stood the ordeal, were acquitted and set at 
 liberty. A woman of the name of Liedenfrau, 
 from Thurgau, though equally steadfast, was less 
 fortunate. Rack and thumbscrew failing to extort 
 from her any admission of guilt, she was thrust 
 into a dark underground dungeon, and left to 
 perish of cold, hunger, and her terrible hurts. 
 Thirteen other women and girls, after being simi- 
 larly tormented, and constrained thereby to own 
 themselves guilty of deeds they had never done, 
 were either strangled or burnt at the stake. The 
 tongue of one of them, before her execution, 
 was torn out with fiery pincers ; another had her 
 right hand hewn off, and her flesh burnt with 
 red-hot irons. One of the victims was upwards 
 of seventy. All this happened in the year of 
 grace 1738, in the Catholic canton of Zug. But 
 
3° 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 to a Protestant community belongs the bad emi- 
 nence of longest continuance in witch-harrying ; 
 for the last execution for sorcery in Switzerland 
 took place at Glarus, in 1782. 
 
 It is generally supposed that the French re- 
 volution of 1789 dealt the practice of judicial 
 torture its death-blow, and that nowhere in 
 Europe did it survive the opening of the present 
 century. This is an error. A man was racked 
 in Zug so lately as 1824 ; and for several years 
 thereafter the thumbscrew was in common use in 
 this canton albeit — if that makes any difference — 
 as a punishment after conviction, not as a means 
 of extorting confession before trial. In the 
 archives of Obwalden appears an entry, in 1840, 
 of a payment of thirty shillings to t^e execu- 
 tioner for beating a prisoner (who had proved 
 refractory under examination) with rods in the 
 " torture-chamber." Even at so recent a date as 
 1855 this method of enforcing admissions of guilt 
 seems to have been still in vogue ; for in that 
 year it is stated (in the public records of Obwalden) 
 of a certain accused person that, " after being 
 chastised with rods, the prisoner was cautioned that, 
 if he did not answer more frankly, he w r ould be 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 3i 
 
 led back to the torture-room and severely handled ; 
 whereupon the examination was resumed." 
 
 Communities that tolerated the torture of un- 
 convicted, and therefore presumably innocent, 
 persons, did not, as may well be supposed, err 
 on the side of tenderness in their treatment of 
 proved evildoers. With few exceptions the 
 primitive cantons, until far into the second half 
 of the nineteenth century, retained the penal 
 codes of the thirteenth, almost in their original 
 integrity. Many of the sentences set forth therein 
 are of an obviously ecclesiastical origin. Hence 
 the object of nearly all of them is much more 
 punitive and expiatory than deterrent or pre- 
 ventive. In 185 1, a woman, convicted of incen- 
 diarism in Nidwalden, received this sentence : 
 She was to stand on the Harterstein (stone of 
 punishment, a sort of pillory) fifteen minutes, 
 and, while the bells tolled a solemn peal, listen 
 to the reading of her own sentence ; on a certain 
 Sunday to be conducted to the church of Stans, 
 and there compelled to kneel before the pulpit 
 during the delivery of a sermon on the sin of 
 fire-raising; to pass five years in prison. After 
 the expiration of her imprisonment she was to 
 
32 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 go to church every holiday, attend morning and 
 afternoon service every Sunday, and say her 
 prayers in public every two months ; to be de- 
 prived of all her privileges as a member of the 
 commune ; to be placed under the supervision 
 of the police and her friends — the latter being 
 ordered to provide for her maintenance. The 
 husband of this woman — at whose instance she 
 committed the crime that brought upon her so 
 many punishments — was condemned to eight 
 years' imprisonment ; which does not seem to 
 have been altogether to his liking, since he broke 
 prison and fled to Berne. But, unfortunately for 
 him, he fell into the hands of the police of that 
 city, and was by them sent back to Nidwalden. 
 There he was tried for contempt of his judges 
 in presuming to escape, condemned to listen to 
 the reading of his sentence, with the traditional 
 bell-tolling accompaniment, and to stand fifteen 
 minutes on the stone of punishment with a gag 
 in his mouth ; after which he was relegated 
 to his dungeon to undergo the remainder of his 
 sentence. In the same year, a girl of the name 
 of Katharina Berthold, charged with speaking evil 
 of dignities — to wit, of the cantonal authorities — 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 33 
 
 and u unseemly behaviour," was ordered to stand 
 on the stone of punishment; to kneel in church 
 while a discourse was preached on the enormity of 
 her conduct ; to be imprisoned for four months in 
 chains in her father's house ; for three years there- 
 after to stay at home at nights ; and finally, when 
 she went to church — and she was to go at least 
 once every Sunday and holiday — to sit during 
 the service on "the stool of repentance.'' A short 
 time previously a man, convicted of manslaughter, 
 was ordered, amongst other things, to visit on 
 successive Sundays every parish church in the 
 canton, and hear, on his marrow-bones, a long 
 homily, prepared with special reference to himself 
 and his misdeeds, which, so far at least as he 
 was concerned, was aptly termed a " punishment 
 sermon." 
 
 A still more remarkable survival of ancient 
 customs was wager of battle, which, until within a 
 comparatively recent period, was the lawful and 
 accepted way of settling suits for slander, in the 
 canton of Appenzel-Innerrhoden. A man who 
 considered himself to have been slandered had 
 the right to challenge his defamer to single combat 
 under the following conditions : The fight must be 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 with fists ; it must be fought under the open sky, 
 never in a house ; several witnesses were to be 
 present to see fair play ; the challenge to fight 
 was to be in due form ; both men were to be 
 willing ; the combatants were not to wear knuckle- 
 dusters, or finger-rings, nor to givb foul blows 
 (strike below the belt). The first fighter fairly 
 floored was held to have lost the wager, where- 
 upon the men were separated by the witnesses, 
 and all adjourned to the nearest alehouse to drink 
 " the cup of peace." If the man challenged felt 
 himself physically unfit for the contest, he could 
 crave the intervention of the landweibel (a local 
 magistrate), whose good offices in these circum- 
 stances generally succeeded in settling the matter 
 in dispute, " without further trouble." 
 
 In no part of Switzerland used the punishment 
 of convicted offenders to be more severe, or the 
 treatment of suspected evildoers more harsh, than 
 in this same canton of Appenzel. The practice 
 of torturing accused persons, or rather (as this 
 term might be supposed to imply that they were 
 thumbscrewed or racked) the infliction on them 
 of bodily suffering to induce confession, was in 
 vogue only a few years back ; nor did it, probably, 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 35 
 
 fall into complete desuetude until 1874, when the 
 Federal Constitution, that year adopted, placed a 
 general interdict on corporal pains and penalties, 
 as well as on the punishment of death. 
 
 In the council-room of the old Rathhaus of 
 Appenzel, there is, or was not long ago, an instru- 
 ment locally known as the " bocksfutter." It con- 
 sisted of a long bench, on which delinquents 
 ordered to be punished with stripes, and prisoners 
 who were obstinate about admitting their guilt, 
 were wont to be placed, with legs and arms out- 
 stretched, as if they were going to swim. But 
 any attempt to move these members was prevented 
 by enclosing them in iron clamps firmly fastened 
 to the bench. This preliminary completed, the 
 executioner was called in, and ordered to give 
 the victim as many strokes with an " ochsenziemer," 
 on the bare body, as the judges might think 
 necessary to loosen his tongue or purge him of 
 his offence. Another so-called " truth-finder " 
 (Wahreitserforschungsmittel) was the u cage." The 
 cage was a cell under the roof of the Rathhaus, 
 constructed of solid beams of timber, windowless, 
 and so small that a tall man could neither stand 
 upright nor stretch his legs in it. He must either 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 cower on the floor, or lie in a constrained position 
 on the little truckle-bed which occupied one side 
 of his den. Professor Osenbriiggen of Zurich 
 mentions, in his " Culturhistorische Bilder aus der 
 Schweiz," that, when he went through the Appen- 
 zeller Rathhaus, in 1862, he inquired of his con- 
 ductor, a young woman — presumably the daughter 
 of the housekeeper or gaoler — if confinement in the 
 cage had not a powerful effect in constraining 
 people to confess. "Ja," answered the maiden, 
 with a matter-of-fact air ; " they do not generally 
 hold out long, especially in winter." 
 
 To understand the full import of this answer, 
 it should be remembered that not only was the 
 place unceiled, unwarmed, and unlighted, but that 
 Appenzel is 2600 feet above sea-level, and that a 
 north wind in these Alpine regions often brings 
 with it cold of almost Siberian severity. A few 
 days' solitary confinement in the cage in mid- 
 winter was probably not less effective in taming 
 rebellious spirits than thumbscrew or rack. To 
 escape so terrible an infliction, many men would 
 confess to a great deal, whether they were guilty 
 or not. 
 
 The abuse to which this method of "truth- 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 37 
 
 finding " was liable, and the sternness with which 
 punishments in Appenzel were wont to be enforced, 
 arq illustrated in the following true story, which 
 has suggested the present sketch and its title of 
 "The Silver Chain." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOME thirty years ago — to be precise, in 1849 — 
 there were living in the commune of Monten, 
 canton Appenzel, two girls, who bore the names 
 respectively of Maria Koch and Mathilde Weber. 
 
 There is little distinction of rank in a primitive 
 Swiss canton ; and, albeit the Kochs were poor 
 and the Webers rich, they belonged both to the 
 class of yeomen-farmers, and the maidens were 
 fast friends and frequent companions. Anna 
 Maria was the better-looking of the two. She 
 had rosy cheeks, flaxen hair, a creamy skin, blue 
 eyes, and, though under twenty, she was tall and 
 well-built, and possessed the physical development 
 of a woman of five-and-twenty. Mathilde, on the 
 other hand, was rather short and slight, and some- 
 what plain of feature, yet kind and amiable withal, 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 39 
 
 a great favourite with her parents and beloved by 
 her friends. She was envied too; for on high days 
 and holidays, when she donned the gay folks' dress 
 of Appenzel, she bore on her breast a bigger and 
 finer silver chain than any maiden of her acquaint- 
 ance could boast of. Maria Koch often looked 
 wistfully at her friend's chain, for, in common with 
 a few of the poorer girls of the valley, she lacked 
 this token of wealth. A silver chain, moreover, 
 was regarded not merely as an ornament ; it was 
 supposed to act in some measure as a charm — to 
 help its wearer to win a hochzeiter (sweetheart), 
 and, when won, keep him faithful to his troth. 
 In this respect, however, Mathilde Weber's silver 
 chain had done her scant service. It had not 
 brought her a single offer, while her friend was 
 betrothed to a fine young fellow of the name of 
 Conrad Oberwald, who had probably found in her 
 rosy cheeks and bright-blue eyes more attractive 
 metal than in Mathilde's darker orbs and gayer 
 apparel. Maria was nevertheless haunted by a 
 fear that, until she too possessed a breast-chain, 
 her sweetheart's constancy would not be assured — 
 that some richer, if less comely, rival might 
 deprive her of his love. 
 
4 o 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 This was the state of things in the summer 
 of 1849. 
 
 On June the seventeenth of that year, a bevy 
 of the fairest maidens of Gonten were gathered 
 under the friendly shade of a leafy lime-tree in 
 the outskirts of the village. All were attired in 
 their " Sunday best," and the breasts of most of 
 * them were brilliant with heavy silver chains ; for 
 it was Corpus Christi day, a high Church festival, 
 and a general holiday. 
 
 " Who is going to church ? n said one of the 
 girls. 
 
 " I, and I, and I," answered several 
 "I am waiting for Mathilde Weber," said Maria 
 Koch. " We agreed to go together, and she said 
 she would come this way round. We were to 
 meet here by the lime-tree. ,, 
 
 " If she does not come soon, you'll be late," 
 observed another of her companions. "I am 
 going to start now; it's too warm to walk 
 fast." 
 
 " I saw Mathilde Weber last night," put in 
 Hilda Yodel, a bright-looking girl with mischievous 
 black eyes, "behind Hans Ochsenbeins garden, 
 and she zvas ivalking with somebody" 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 4i 
 
 The last words were delivered with marked 
 emphasis and a significant look at Maria 
 Koch. 
 
 " Who was it, who was it ? " asked half-a-dozen 
 eager voices. 
 " Guess." 
 
 " How can we guess ? It was not surely " 
 
 "Yes. It was Conrad Oberwald." 
 
 " It's a lie," broke in Maria impetuously ; " and 
 you know its a lie, Hilda Yodel ! " 
 
 " Lie for you, Fraulein Koch ! Keep your 
 lies to yourself! Do you suppose my eyesight 
 is not better than your ignorance ? And why 
 should not Conrad and Mathilde take a walk 
 together behind Hans Ochsenbein's garden, or 
 anywhere else, if it pleases them ? What is it to 
 you, I should like to know ? " 
 
 " Here is Mathilde coming," said another girl ; 
 " we'll tell her what you say." 
 
 "Tell her," answered Hilda defiantly; "she'll 
 not deny it." 
 
 When Mathilde neared the group, she was met 
 with a chorus of questions. 
 
 " Were you walking with Conrad Oberwald last 
 night ? Hilda Yodel says she saw you with 
 
42 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Maria Koch's hochzeiter, Mathilde, close to Hans 
 Ochsenbein's garden. Is it true ? " 
 
 " Quite true/' said Mathilde simply. " He over- 
 took me by Naegele's house, and we went the 
 length of the garden together, talking about Maria 
 here " (with a smile), " and he gave me a message 
 for her, which I will tell her afterwards.'' 
 
 " Is that all ? " remarked one of the elder girls 
 indignantly. " It's just like you, Hilda Yodel, 
 trying to stir up mischief, saying you saw Conrad 
 and Maria courting." 
 
 " That may have been your thought," answered 
 Hilda pertly; "but it was not my saying. All 
 that I said was that I had seen them walking 
 together. How long have walking and courting 
 been the same thing ? n 
 
 " It is what you meant, anyhow." 
 
 " That is what you say, Fraulein. But if it is 
 all the same to you, I will be judged by my own 
 words, and not by your opinion of my meaning. 
 And now I am going to church. The bells will 
 have done tolling in five minutes." 
 
 On this the group broke up into twos and 
 threes, and all moved off in the direction taken by 
 Hilda Yodel. Mathilde and Maria went together. 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 43 
 
 Since the latter had so fiercely given Hilda the lie, 
 she was silent and preoccupied, and had borne no 
 * part in the subsequent conversation. 
 
 The chalet of the Webers was some distance 
 from the village, and after service Maria excused 
 herself from returning with her companions 
 directly to Gonten, on the plea that she was 
 going to set Mathilde on her way home. An hour 
 or two later Maria reappeared in the village, and in 
 the evening went to church a second time, where, 
 meeting Hilda Yodel, she expressed to her great 
 disappointment that Mathilde Weber had not 
 come again to service, as she had promised. 
 
 " She has perhaps other fish to fry/' said 
 Hilda, with one of her meaning smiles. " Nobody 
 can make me believe that, with such a breast-chain 
 as that, she cannot have a hochzeiter if she likes. 
 I should not wonder if she had one already. Now, 
 has not she, Maria ? You know ; she tells you all 
 her secrets, I am sure she does." 
 
 " I know nothing either of Mathilde Weber or 
 her concerns," answered the other angrily; and, 
 refusing Hilda's proffered companionship, she 
 walked off alone. 
 
 " She has not forgotten this morning," muttered 
 
44 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Hilda. " She is jealous yet. Have those two 
 been quarrelling, I wonder ? I should not be sur- 
 prised. The best friends are often the first to fail 
 out." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The next day was one of great excitement in 
 Gonten. Early in the morning it began to be 
 rumoured that Mathilde Weber was missing, and 
 before noon her father appeared in the village to 
 beseech the help of his neighbours in looking for 
 his daughter. She had gone to church, he said, 
 the previous morning, and had not returned. He 
 and several others had sought for her all night, but 
 as yet without the slightest success ; and they 
 feared some evil had befallen the girl. 
 
 One of the first persons questioned was Maria 
 Koch. She was the missing maiden's particular 
 friend, and the last person seen in her company. 
 The account she had to give was simple and 
 straightforward. They had gone together, she 
 said, after leaving church, to a point on the way 
 
46 TALES OF SWITZERLAND, 
 
 to the Webers' house, which she described. 
 There they had parted, and Maria, as her parents 
 could testify, was at home to dinner not much 
 later than the usual hour. 
 
 Had Mathilde, she was asked, expressed any 
 intention of going elsewhere than straight home ? 
 None whatever, she answered ; and nobody could 
 be more surprised than herself to hear that she 
 had disappeared. 
 
 This deepened rather than helped to clear up 
 the mystery ; nor, in spite of the efforts that were 
 made, was any light thrown upon it during the 
 remainder of the week. The distracted parents, 
 although they sought far and near, and had the 
 aid of many friends and the cantonal police, 
 found not the slightest clue to their daughter's fate. 
 
 On the Sunday morning following, the young 
 girls of the village bent on church-going, met, as 
 usual, under the lime-tree. Their conversation ran 
 naturally on the disappearance of Mathilde Weber. 
 It was the all-absorbing subject of the day — people 
 talked of little else. 
 
 " Poor Mathilde ! " said one, " I hope she has 
 come to no harm. If she had run away she 
 would surely have been heard of before this time." 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 47 
 
 u Why should she run away ? " demanded 
 another. " Folks don't run away when they have 
 done no wrong ; and nobody ever did say, or 
 could say, aught against Mathilde. There was not 
 a better girl in all Appenzel, let alone Gonten." 
 
 "If anybody knows anything about her, it's 
 Maria Koch," observed Hilda Yodel decisively. 
 " She cannot miss knowing ; she was with her 
 the last." 
 
 " Here she comes ; let us ask her." 
 
 "And, as sure as I am a sinner, with a new 
 silver chain on her breast ! Where can she have 
 got it ? Her father is too poor to buy her one — 
 that everybody knows." 
 
 The moment the object of these remarks came 
 within earshot, she was warmly wished joy of her 
 new acquisition, and eagerly asked how she had 
 come by it. 
 
 " Conrad Oberwald gave it me," she answered. 
 
 " Well done, Conrad ! " exclaimed several voices. 
 " He is a hochzeiter worth having ! I wish there 
 were more like him." 
 
 " I wish I had a chain like that," said Hilda 
 Yodel, eyeing the ornament curiously, and testing 
 its thickness with her finger and thumb. " There 
 
4 8 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 is not a finer in the commune. If poor Mathilde 
 had not taken hers with her I should almost think 
 you had borrowed it, Maria." 
 
 " How could it be Mathildes ? " answered the 
 other angrily, while her face turned from red to 
 pale, and to red again. " Conrad gave it me, I tell' 
 you, on Friday — no, yesternight. He always said 
 he would give me one — like — like Mathildes — and 
 this is it — and it is like Mathildes ; but that does 
 not make it hers. It is mine, I tell you." 
 
 "Well, I did not say it was not. There is 
 nothing to get in a temper about, that I can see. 
 But is it not time we were going to church ? Will 
 you walk with me, Maria ? " 
 
 "No; I am going with Gretchen Langbein," 
 said Maria, with an air which plainly told that 
 her wrath was far from being appeased. 
 
 " Well, then, I shall go with Katherina 
 Keinhosen. But just look here, Maria ; if I 
 had been you, I don't think I should have 
 chosen the first Sunday after my friend's dis- 
 appearance, and maybe death — for there's many 
 a one that thinks she has been foully murdered 
 « — to sport a fine new silver chain, just as if 
 you did not care. Come along, Katherina." 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 49 
 
 And before Maria, who seemed choking with 
 rage, could find words to answer, Hilda and her 
 friend were on their way to church, whither the 
 rest of the fair throng shortly followed them. 
 
 While this was going on, a band of merry 
 children were playing and gathering wild-flowers 
 in a wood, about midway between Gonten and 
 the chalet of the Webers. Through the wood 
 ran a pellucid stream. Though it nowhere attained 
 the dignity of a river, the stream formed here 
 and there deep pools, sometimes calm and silent, 
 but oftener swirling round with the impulse of 
 the incoming water, and foam-crested. While 
 hot in chase of a swarm of golden-hued butter- 
 flies, the children came suddenly on one of these 
 pools. Except on one side, it was hemmed in 
 by rocks and overshadowed by trees. 
 
 The butterflies fluttered over the brook, and 
 as their pursuers could no longer follow them, 
 they began a busy quest after flowers and wild 
 strawberries. 
 
 A bold boy of twelve lay down on the brink 
 of the pool, and reached out his arm to pluck a 
 forget-me-not. 
 
 E 
 
5o TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Uttering a cry of horror, he bounded to his 
 feet. 
 
 " Gott im Himmel ! what is that ? " he shouted, 
 as with outstretched arm he pointed to the seething 
 water. 
 
 His companions gathered round him, and, 
 t embling with fear, looked down into the pool. 
 They saw there an awesome sight — a draped 
 human figure, with a ghastly face, wide-open 
 eyes, and long dark hair, moving swiftly round 
 in the swirling water. Round and round it went 
 - — sometimes hidden from view by drooping trees 
 and the projecting bank, but returning ever and 
 anon to the middle of the pool, and gazing into 
 the sunlight with lack-lustre orbs. 
 
 One look was enough. The children — some 
 of them too terrified to speak, others sobbing 
 and wringing their hands — turned, with one accord, 
 from the spot and fled. They ran out of the 
 wood to the footpath which skirted it, and thence 
 into the road leading to Gonten ; nor did they 
 stop until they met a group of people coming 
 from church, to whom one of them, more eager 
 than the rest, announced that they had seen a 
 ghost in the Wassertobel. 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 " No," said the sturdy little fellow who had 
 first seen the body, " it's no ghost ; it's a woman's 
 corpse. I could tell by her clothes and her long 
 hair." 
 
 "It's more likely a log of wood that has 
 frightened you," said one of the men who heard 
 the story. " They are often very queer-shaped, 
 those logs of wood ; and when they are bobbing 
 about in the water, with a lot of weeds on the 
 top of them, they look for all the world like a 
 christian/' 
 
 " It's no log of wood either," answered the 
 lad. " Logs of wood don't have petticoats and 
 eyes and hair, do they? Do you think I don't 
 know a woman from a log ? " 
 
 " Let us go and see," said another. " It is 
 not far to this Wassertobel. Perhaps the children 
 are right after all." 
 
 " We are right ; anyway I am right," put in the 
 youth defiantly. "You see if I am not. Come 
 along ! " 
 
 Whereupon they all moved off together — some 
 five or six men, and nearly as many girls and 
 women — towards the Wassertobel. 
 
 One glance sufficed to show that the children 
 
 £ 2 
 
TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 were right. It was a body ; and when, with the 
 help of a branch cut from a tree, it was drawn to 
 the side, and lifted from the water, all present 
 recognised the body as that of Mathilde 
 Weber ! 
 
 " Poor Mathilde ! 99 said one of the men pity- 
 ingly. "Who could have thought that a girl like 
 her, with kind parents, and everything to make 
 life happy, would make away with herself?" 
 
 "Are you sure that she did make away with 
 herself?" asked Hilda Yodel. 
 
 " You surely don't think that 99 
 
 " That she has been murdered. Well, I hope 
 she has not ; but what has become of her chain ? 
 It was so firmly fastened that it cannot have been 
 lost in the water. And look here " (pointing to 
 the front of the drowned girl's dress), "it has been 
 torn off. See how her gown is rent, and the 
 gatherings burst. It has required a strong pull 
 to do that/' 
 
 " That is clear," said one of the men. " It is a 
 case for the Statthalter. Let us take the poor 
 thing home to her father and mother ; and after 
 that some of us will go and tell the police." 
 
 And then they made a bier of branches, and, 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 53 
 
 reverently laying the poor girl's body thereon, 
 carried it to her parents' house. 
 
 A few hours later, a constable, accompanied by 
 Herr Weber, waited on Maria Koch, and asked to 
 see the silver chain which she had worn that 
 morning at church. Weber at once identified it 
 as that of his daughter. It was of peculiar make, 
 bore certain marks, which he knew ; and he could, 
 he said, swear to it anywhere. Asked how she 
 came by the chain, Maria told the same story 
 that she had told her companions early in the 
 day — it had been given to her by her sweetheart, 
 Conrad Oberwald. 
 
 Before midnight Conrad Oberwald was arrested 
 and lodged in the dungeon at Appenzel Rathhaus, 
 on a charge of murder. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Very few people in Gonten or Appenzel felt p any 
 doubt as to Conrad Oberwald's guilt. The few 
 who, at the outset, had contended that Maria 
 Koch was the real culprit could not resist the 
 arguments of those who believed in her innocence 
 and her sweetheart's guilt, supported as they were 
 by several telling facts and considerations. How, 
 it was asked, could Maria have thrown Mathilde 
 into the Wassertobel ? It was some distance 
 from the road to the footpath ; and though she 
 was the stronger it was not conceivable that she 
 could have dragged the other, in open day, 
 through the wood, robbed her of her chain, 
 and drowned her in the pool. A strong man 
 might do such a deed — hardly a young girl. 
 What more probable theory could be suggested 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 55 
 
 than that Conrad, who was seen in Mathilde's 
 company the night before, had waylaid her as 
 she went home from church, after parting with 
 Maria, persuaded her to walk with him in the 
 wood, and then accomplished his purpose? It 
 was also plausibly urged that the very fact of 
 Maria wearing the chain the very first Sunday 
 after the festival of Corpus Christi was alone a 
 strong proof of her innocence. Had she herself 
 either murdered Mathilde, or been in any way 
 privy to the murder, she would hardly, being 
 presumably of sane mind, have openly displayed 
 her plunder within three or four days of its 
 acquisition. 
 
 This, at least, was the popular view of the 
 case. It was also the view of the police and 
 magistrates of the canton, who, on the grounds 
 stated, assumed Conrad's guilt from the first. 
 There is, however, a wide difference between 
 assumption and proof, and the evidence against 
 the prisoner, either direct or circumstantial, was 
 weak in the extreme. It rested entirely on Maria 
 Koch's assertion that he had given her the silver 
 chain. But it was clearly impossible to convict 
 a man on the testimony of a witness who, on a. 
 
TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 certainly not impossible (however improbable) sup- 
 position, had the strongest imaginable motive to 
 swear falsely — the saving of her own life. Unless, 
 therefore, other evidence should be forthcoming, 
 or Conrad could be induced to confess, the pro- 
 secution was likely to fail. Hence the most 
 strenuous efforts were made to extort a confes- 
 sion ; for of further evidence there was little 
 hope. The prisoner was examined and ques- 
 tioned, time after time, by the Wochenrath 
 (police-court), and always with the same result. 
 He stubbornly refused to make any admission of 
 guilt, saying roundly that if Maria Koch said he 
 had given her Mathilde Weber's silver chain, or 
 any other chain, she lied. He was then ordered 
 to be flogged with an ordinary whip ; and this 
 aid to confession failing of its intended effect, 
 he was fastened to the bocksfutter, and cruelly 
 flagellated with a piece of stiff ox-hide. Still 
 Conrad protested his innocence. The court next 
 ordered him to be bound hand and foot, and 
 clapped in the cage under the roof of the 
 Rathhaus. This was the hardest trial of all ; but 
 nothing could shake the man's constancy. He 
 remained as firm as ever in his resolution — not 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 57 
 
 to tell the truth, the judge maintained — not to 
 tell a lie, he said. This went on for several 
 months — alternate floggings, bocksfutterings, and 
 imprisonments (generally with hands and feet 
 bound together) in the cage ; and one way 
 and another, Conrad, a man of fine proportions 
 and strong constitution, was reduced to a shadow 
 of his former self. Yet nothing seemed able 
 to subdue his spirit ; and the Wochenrath began 
 to think they would have to let him go, after 
 all, and that the murder of Mathilde Weber was 
 one of the many crimes reserved for punishment 
 in some other world than this. 
 
 Meanwhile Maria Koch, if her looks did not 
 belie her, was little less wretched than her lover. 
 She waxed thin ; her cheeks lost their roses ; her 
 eyes seemed to grow larger, and, when she was 
 suddenly greeted, they took an almost painfully- 
 startled expression. She shunned her old com- 
 panions, and could never be persuaded to talk 
 about Mathilde and Conrad. This occasioned no 
 surprise. No wonder Maria Koch looked ill, 
 people said. Her hochzeiter was shut up in a 
 dungeon at Appenzel, on a charge of murdering 
 her dearest friend; and she knew, as everybody 
 
58 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 else knew, that he would only leave it for the 
 scaffold and a shameful death. How could she 
 help feeling wretched ? No wonder was it either 
 that she would never go near the Wassertobel ; 
 that she would go a long way round to avoid it 
 What could be more natural ? And there were 
 other folks besides Maria Koch that would walk 
 a mile or two out of their w T ay rather than pass 
 the Wassertobel after nightfall. The place was 
 uncanny. Had not Andreas Jud the goatherd, 
 one night when it was light of moon, seen a 
 white figure sitting on the edge of the pool ? 
 and were there not others that had seen the same ? 
 
 With very few exceptions indeed, the popular 
 persuasion of Conrad's guilt was as strong in 
 October as it had been in June. Chief among 
 the dissidents were Hilda Yodel and Frau Flimm, 
 wife of the landweibel (a sort of sheriff, and 
 keeper of the Rathhaus). Hilda, who had closely 
 watched Maria, both at the time of Mathilde's 
 disappearance and since, had drawn conclusions 
 decidedly unfavourable to that young woman's 
 innocence of her friend's death. Frau Flimm, 
 from her observation of Conrad, had arrived at 
 precisely the same conclusion. 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 59 
 
 Appenzel being a small canton its public 
 officers have to fulfil divers functions ; and when 
 — as often happened — the landweibel was away, 
 his wife had to look after the prisoners in the 
 Rathhaus. It thus came to pass that she was 
 brought frequently in contact with Conrad. At 
 first, like everybody else, she believed in his 
 guilt ; and more than once, when she took him 
 his food, she had exhorted him to confess. 
 
 "Tell the truth like a man," she said. "You 
 will have to tell it sooner or later, or they will 
 find it out in some other way, and anything is 
 better than suffering as you suffer. Why, you 
 are always being either bocksfuttered or shut 
 up in the cage. I'd liefer have my head chopped 
 off at once, if I were you. Besides, if you 
 confess they may let you off with a long term 
 of imprisonment." 
 
 To this suggestion Conrad simply replied that, 
 being innocent of the crime imputed to him, he 
 could not admit that he was guilty. In the 
 end Frau Flimm believed him, and did all that 
 lay in her power to keep up his spirits and render 
 his imprisonment as tolerable as, in the circum- 
 stances, was possible. Her conviction of Oberwald's 
 
6o 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 guiltlessness was confirmed by Maria Koch's 
 manner, when she called at the Rathhaus to 
 inquire about him, as she always did when she 
 came to Appenzel. Most people looked on these 
 visits as a proof of the girl's constancy and affec- 
 tion ; but the Frau Landweibel and Hilda Yodel, 
 who frequently communed with each other on the 
 subject, held that the visits were a mere blind, kept 
 up solely to sustain the belief in her innocence, 
 and, incidentally, in her lover's guilt. 
 
 As Frau Flimm pointed out to Hilda, it was 
 a suspicious circumstance that, albeit Maria was 
 so particular in inquiring after Conrad, she never 
 cared to see him — had, indeed, several times 
 refused to see him when the landweibel's wife 
 had proposed to take her to his cell. Neither 
 was her behaviour in other respects on these occa- 
 sions that of one with conscience void of offence. 
 Her visits were always of the shortest. She could 
 never look Frau Flimm in the face ; and her whole 
 bearing, besides showing that her self-imposed 
 duty was extremely disagreeable to her, betokened 
 a mind ill at ease. 
 
 After long cogitation, and taking frequent 
 counsel with Hilda Yodel — the only person who 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 61 
 
 shared her belief in Oberwald's innocence — she 
 resolved to try the experiment of surprising Maria 
 into an admission of the truth the very next time 
 she called to ask after her lover. 
 
 A few days afterwards the girl, as Frau Flimm 
 expected, came to the Rathhaus, and, in her usual 
 hesitating manner, and with averted gaze, inquired 
 " how Conrad was doing ? " 
 
 " Badly, very badly," answered Frau Flimm, 
 looking sternly at her questioner. " They had 
 him on the bocksfutter again yesterday ; now he 
 is in the cage up there in the dark — hands and feet 
 roped together — and you know how cold it is. 
 How the poor fellow shivered and moaned when 
 I went to see him an hour since ! I think Conrad 
 is like to die, Maria Koch ! " 
 
 " To die, Frau Flimm ! " exclaimed the girl, 
 trembling all over. " Conrad like to die ! " 
 
 " Yes, die ! " thundered Frau Flimm. " You 
 are going to kill him, as you killed Mathilde 
 Weber ! " 
 
 " I kill Mathilde ? No, no ! Do not say so — 
 it is not true ! " muttered Maria, turning deadly 
 pale, and leaning against the wall for support. 
 
 " Yes, you ! Do you think I cannot see, that 
 
62 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 I cannot read your guilt in your face ? And is 
 there not a God in heaven ? Does not He know ? 
 Do you want to have another murder on your 
 conscience ? Confess, girl, and save your soul ! 
 You drowned poor Mathilde, and took her chain !" 
 
 " I did, Frau Flimm ! God forgive me, I did ! " 
 and the girl, sobbing convulsively and covering 
 her face with her hands, sank down on the floor. 
 "But oh/' starting up, and laying her hands on 
 Frau Flimm's shoulders, " don't tell, don't say 
 anything to the landweibel ! They will cut my 
 head off, if you do, and I don't want to die — oh, 
 I don't want to die ! " 
 
 " I hope they won't do that," said the other 
 pityingly, for her woman's heart was deeply 
 touched by the girl's terrible agitation and 
 wretchedness; "but I shall be obliged to tell, if 
 it is only for Conrad's sake. Besides, it is my 
 duty. I am the landweibel's wife, you know." 
 
 " But not to-day, liebe Frau Flimm, not to-day, 
 please — not to-day ! I want to go home to my 
 mother. I have been buying-in for her. Let me 
 go, Frau Flimm. I will come back to-morrow 
 and give myself up to the landweibel ; I will 
 indeed ! Do, please, let me go ! " 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 63 
 
 As she spoke, the girl moved towards the door. 
 Frau Flimm pushed her back. 
 
 " Not so, Maria, not so. I must tell the land- 
 weibel, and I cannot let you leave the Rathhaus. 
 You will have to stay here to-night I will send 
 word to your mother." 
 
 " Let me go, I tell you ! " shouted Maria, who 
 was now bitterly regretting having allowed herself 
 to be surprised out of her secret, and almost wild 
 with fear. " Let me go ! I will go ! Stand aside, 
 or I shall hurt you ! " 
 
 And then she shook herself free from Frau 
 Flimm's grasp and made a second turn for the 
 door. The girl was tall] and strong and desperate ; 
 she struggled fiercely to gain her end ; and had 
 they been left to themselves would have been 
 much more than a match for her opponent. But 
 the latter shouted for help ; and, as she fell 
 exhausted on the floor, her husband ran into the 
 room. 
 
 " Seize her, hold her ! " she exclaimed, pointing 
 to Maria. " She is a murderess ! She killed 
 Mathilde Weber ; she has told me herself. Seize 
 her! n 
 
 Then there was another struggle ; for the girl 
 
64 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 refused to yield even to the landweibel ; and she 
 made so determined a resistance that, before she 
 could be secured and placed in a cell, he had to 
 call for further help. 
 
 When Maria was brought before the examin- 
 ing judge the next day, she retracted her 
 confession, or, rather, denied having made 
 any ; but a night in the cage loosened her 
 tongue, and she made a full avowal of her 
 guilt, The |story was soon told. Greed and 
 jealousy were her motives. She was afraid 
 Mathilde would rob her of her lover, and she 
 coveted her silver chain. On Corpus Christi day, 
 as they were going home from church, she con- 
 trived, by pretending that she had lost her pater- 
 noster in the wood a short time previously, to get 
 her friend near the Wassertobel. When they 
 reached the brink she pushed the poor girl in, at 
 the same time tearing the tempting ornament from 
 her breast. She thought the body would sink to 
 the bottom and never be seen again. In saying 
 Conrad Oberwald had given her the chain, she 
 had no idea, she said, of bringing him into the 
 trouble ; but when the murder came out, she 
 dared not tell that it was her doing, and so 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 65 
 
 kept silence and let her lover bear the 
 blame. 
 
 The method of procedure in criminal cases 
 in Appenzel, at the time in question, was as 
 peculiar and old-fashioned as any other institution 
 of the canton. The examination was conducted 
 by a court called the Wochenrath. It had the 
 power of putting refractory prisoners to the 
 torture, as poor Conrad Oberwald found to his 
 cost. By increasing the number of judges, it 
 could constitute itself, in certain contingencies, a 
 Blutrath (Council of Blood), and try serious cases. 
 But the power of life and death was vested in 
 the Great Council of the canton, by whom all 
 capital cases, in the last resort, were heard and 
 decided. Their proceedings were conducted in 
 public — literally " with open doors." The exami- 
 nations of the Wochenrath, on the other hand, 
 were held with closed doors. The official de- 
 signation of the Public Prosecutor was Reichs- 
 vogt — Imperial Bailiff — a name that had come 
 down from the time when Appenzel formed 
 a part of the Holy Roman Empire. The ap- 
 pointed defender of the prisoner was the 
 Armenpfleger, or overseer of the poor. When 
 
66 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 these men had made an end of speaking, it was the 
 custom for the Landammann, who presided over 
 the council, to inquire if any minister of God or 
 kinsman of the accused desired to say a word on 
 his behalf. If no kinsman answered to the call, 
 the accused would beseech the Church, "which 
 thirsteth not after blood," to plead with his earthly 
 judges to temper their justice with mercy. The 
 hearing over, the prisoner was removed, the court 
 cleared, and the case debated with closed doors. 
 A majority decided. In the event of an 
 equality of votes, the casting vote was always 
 given in favour of acquittal. The sentence was 
 pronounced with open doors. If the prisoner's 
 doom was death, the great bell tolled a solemn 
 peal, the Landammann broke his staff in twain, 
 and threw the pieces among the people, with the 
 words : " As he finds no mercy here, so may God 
 forgive him hereafter." The execution followed 
 swiftly on the sentence, the condemned being 
 taken straight from the place of judgment to the 
 scaffold, and there beheaded. 
 
 There were, however, at times some strange 
 exceptions. When a woman was condemned to 
 death for infanticide, and the Franciscan sisters of 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 67 
 
 Appenzel volunteered to take charge of the poor 
 creature and u better her" — an offer they never 
 failed to make — their offer was accepted, as a 
 matter of course, and the sentence remitted. On 
 one occasion a sentence of death was commuted 
 into a sentence of imprisonment, because a 
 peasant, who had a fine meadow full of grass near 
 the place of execution, represented to the council 
 that the crowd would trample it down and cause 
 him a heavy loss. Another time this order of 
 things was reversed. It had been arranged to 
 confine a convict, condemned to penal servitude for 
 life, in a prison at St. Gall — Appenzel being short 
 of accommodation at the time — but when it was 
 found that the place destined for him had been 
 bespoke, and that the St. Gall people could not 
 take him in, the Great Council reconsidered the case, 
 ordered the man to be beheaded — and beheaded 
 he was. 
 
 On the 27th of November, 1849, the Wochenrath 
 held an Assize of Blood, and declared Anna 
 Maria Koch guilty, on her own confession, of 
 having murdered Mathilde Weber. In anticipation 
 of sentence to death being passed on her by the 
 Great Council she was diligently visited by 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 several priests and exhorted to repentance ; but 
 she stubbornly refused their ministrations, saying 
 she could not, and would not die. 
 
 On the 3rd of November the Great Council 
 met in the Rathhaus to decide whether she should 
 live or die. After the case for the prosecution had 
 been stated by the Reichsvogt, the Armenpfleger 
 said what he could in extenuation of her offence, 
 for to gainsay it in the face of her own confession 
 was clearly impossible. Then the Landammann 
 asked if any of the prisoner's kinsfolk had aught 
 to urge on her behalf. On this her father and her 
 sister made a piteous appeal for mercy, and the 
 council proceeded to judgment. By a majority of 
 ninety-two to six they condemned Maria Koch to 
 death, and ordered her to be taken forthwith to 
 the place of execution, and there beheaded. 
 
 When the wretched girl saw the Landammann 
 break his staff, and heard the dread sound of the 
 knell which told her doom, she uttered shriek 
 after shriek, and it required the utmost efforts of 
 four strong men to bind her and carry her to the 
 scaffold. There she had a desperate struggle with 
 the headsman and his helpers, and it was long 
 before she could be forced down and fastened to 
 
THE SILVER CHAIN. 
 
 69 
 
 the block. And even when that was done she 
 managed to thrust her neck between her shoulders 
 in such a way that the executioner was unable to 
 perform his office. All the time she uttered the 
 most heartrending cries, and the Reichsvogt (who 
 was superintending the execution), completely- 
 bewildered and unmanned, sent a message to the 
 Great Council, asking what must be done. The 
 answer was short and stern : " Let the doomster do 
 his duty." 
 
 On this the condemned, who had drawn from 
 the delay hopes that her life might even yet be 
 spared, renewed her struggles, and her cries were 
 more terrible than before. She broke her bonds, 
 and had to be fastened a second time to the block. 
 Then a grey old man, who had served in foreign 
 wars, stepped from the crowd and told the 
 headsman to wind the girl's long hair round a pole 
 in such a way that, being stretched to her full 
 length by his helpers, she could be firmly held, and 
 thereby hindered from shifting about and con- 
 tracting her neck. This was done. With a single 
 stroke Maria Koch's head was severed from her 
 body; and thus the agonising scene, which had 
 lasted two hours, came to an end. 
 
7o TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 This execution made a great sensation in 
 Switzerland, and was probably one of the causes 
 that led to the abolition of capital punishment, 
 by Federal enactment, in 1874. True, the right of 
 life and death has since been restored to the 
 cantons, but the privilege is not one of which they 
 are likely to make extensive use. 
 
 Conrad Oberwald never quite recovered from 
 the effects of his confinement in the cage and his 
 flagellations on the bocksfutter. The canton 
 refusing to make him any pecuniary compensation 
 for his sufferings, a public subscription was got up 
 for him in Appenzel and St. Gall, which produced 
 a sum sufficient to enable him to buy a piece of 
 land, settle in life, and marry Hilda Yodel, who 
 had believed in Conrad's innocence, and spoken a 
 good word for him, when all the world was against 
 him. 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WJNDS. 
 
THE 
 
 BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SUNNY MEMORIES. 
 
 IN the neighbourhood of Altorf, in the historic 
 canton of Uri, and near the highway between 
 Amsteg and Erstfeld, there was to be seen, not 
 very long ago, a charming little chalet. It stood 
 in the middle of a green meadow, bounded on one 
 side by a sparkling brook, on the other by a broad 
 belt of woodland, and in summer was almost 
 hidden behind a leafy screen of fruit-laden vines 
 and trailing rose-trees. When, in early morning, 
 the sun rose above the Alps, lighting up the dark 
 pine wood with a golden glory, dyeing the meadow 
 a brighter emerald and the roses a richer scarlet, it 
 was like a scene in fairyland, or the realisation of 
 
74 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 a poet's dream of an earthly paradise. Travellers 
 passing that way from , the mountains or the lake, 
 however great their hurry, rarely failed to take 
 a long look at the little chalet, its vines, its rose- 
 trees, and its meadow, its pointed gables, carved 
 galleries, and laughing rivulet ; and many of them, 
 as they wiped the perspiration from their brows, 
 and continued their journey along the dusty- road, 
 prayed heaven that it might be their lot to pass 
 the rest of their lives in the enjoyment of that 
 peace of mind with which, as they thought, the 
 dwellers in so lovely a spot must surely be blessed. 
 
 So much for the outside : and now, using a 
 story-teller's privilege, let us open the door and 
 see what is going on inside this highly-favoured 
 dwelling. 
 
 ~ The principal apartment, which has the appear- 
 ance of serving at once as a sitting-room and 
 superior kitchen, occupies nearly the whole of the 
 ground-floor of the house. It is well furnished: 
 the chairs are of black oak ; there are several 
 richly- carved chests and settles ; a great porcelain 
 stove stands in one corner, and the well-waxed 
 oaken floor shines like a mirror. Everything 
 betokens the chalet to be the dwelling of a well- 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 75 
 
 to-do peasant — of a man, that is to say, who owns 
 the land he cultivates — one of a class happily 
 abundant in Switzerland, a class that constitutes 
 the bone and sinew of the country. 
 
 The table is set for breakfast. It is covered 
 with a cloth of snowy whiteness, whereon 
 repose a jar of honey, a huge loaf of bread, a 
 great jug of milk, and an old-fashioned silver 
 coffee-pot 
 
 The inmates of the room are two — a man and 
 a woman, husband and wife. The woman, whose 
 name is Helena, is young and shapely, tall and 
 handsome. Her eyes are large and dark, her 
 hair is black and luxuriant ; and were it not that 
 her countenance is disfigured by pride, anger, and 
 obstinacy, it would, beyond a doubt, be beautiful 
 and prepossessing. She looks at her husband, 
 who is gazing intently through the lozenge-shaped 
 panes of the lattice window, as if mutely inviting 
 him to breakfast ; but he takes no heed, and she, 
 either disdaining to ask or fearing to speak, sits 
 down to the meal alone. Nevertheless, she seems 
 ill at ease, eats without appetite, and from time 
 to time casts a glance at her husband more defiant 
 than loving ; and her whole manner indicates 
 
76 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 that she would greatly prefer a storm, however 
 violent, to so unnatural a calm. Meanwhile 
 Arnold Beckenried, for so is the husband called, 
 continues looking through the window, as if there 
 were nobody in the room but himself. Yet 
 though he looks he sees nothing, for his gaze 
 is turned inward, and his thoughts are busied 
 with the past. He goes over in his mind the 
 principal events of his life, thinks of the time 
 when, after he was left a poor orphan without 
 the means of subsistence, Walter Trogen had 
 compassion on him, set him in summer to watch 
 his flocks on the Alps of Unterwalden, and in 
 winter sent him to the village school. When 
 he neared man's estate, Siegfried, the master 
 boatman of Sisikon, whose attention had been 
 attracted by the lad's stalwart proportions, and 
 his confidence won by his comely countenance 
 and bold bearing, advised him to leave the 
 mountains and seek his fortune on the lake, 
 offering to give him charge of one of his boats 
 and teach him his calling. This offer the young 
 shepherd gladly accepted. He went to Sisikon, 
 entered Siegfried's service, and speedily became 
 one of the most expert boatmen on the lake. 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 11 
 
 The life pleased him ; he loved the open air, 
 delighted in movement and danger, and the 
 independence of his new vocation was congenial 
 to his character. After a few years spent with 
 Siegfried, he had saved enough money to buy him- 
 self a boat, and was thenceforth his own master. 
 
 One day, when he was looking out for a fare 
 at Bauen, whither he had just taken some pas- 
 sengers and a small cargo from Sisikon, an old 
 man and a young girl came down to the jetty 
 and asked to be rowed to Fluelen. Arnold was 
 not the only boatman present, and several others 
 offered their services ; but the young girl, after 
 a single glance at his face, stepped on board his 
 little craft, and the old man followed without a 
 word. During the passage it came on to blow a 
 little, as it oftens does on the Lake of the Four 
 Cantons, of which Lake Uri forms the southern 
 extremity, and though the young lady (for she 
 was well and even expensively dressed, and her 
 manner gracious and refined) showed some signs 
 of fear, the dexterity with which Arnold handled 
 the boat quickly reassured her. When they 
 arrived at Fluelen she thanked him with the 
 sweetest smile that, he thought, he had ever seen 
 
78 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 on mortal face ; while the old man complimented 
 him handsomely on his skill, and said that when- 
 ever he or his daughter had occasion to go on 
 the lake they would have no other boat than his 
 and no other boatman than himself. 
 
 They told Arnold at Fliielen that his pas- 
 sengers were Hans Hittenberg and his daughter 
 Helena. Hans was one of the richest peasants 
 in Uri ; he had a large farm of his own, many 
 mountain pastures, and, it was rumoured, much 
 money out at interest. Hence Helena, being his 
 only child, was for that country a great heiress, 
 and might, had she chosen, have mated with a 
 wealthy landowner or a prosperous merchant. 
 But her father, who had lost his wife many years 
 before, loved his daughter so passionately that 
 he could not bear the idea of parting with her, 
 and was much more likely to repulse than to en- 
 courage suitors for her hand, however personally 
 eligible they might be. But Helena had been so 
 used to having her own way (her father had 
 spoiled her so much, and she was so high- 
 tempered and self-willed), that it was not to be 
 expected, if she did take a fancy, that she would 
 be restrained from gratifying it either by con- 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 siderations of prudence or of filial duty. Hans 
 knew this, and when he thought of his increasing 
 infirmities, of what the future might have in 
 store for his darling, and of the difficulty of 
 controlling her, his mind seriously misgave him. 
 
 After the meeting at Bauen and the journey 
 to Fliielen, Hans Hittenberg and his daughter 
 made frequent use of Arnold's boat on their 
 goings to and fro on the water. The lake of Uri 
 seemed suddenly to have unfolded new beauties 
 for Helena. She was ever finding excuses for 
 journeys to Bauen, to Axen, to Seelisberg, and 
 to Fliielen ; she never could be persuaded to go 
 thither by road when it was possible to go by 
 water, and it generally was possible. On these 
 occasions she was often accompanied by her 
 father, sometimes by a servant, and now and 
 then she went alone. She always felt safe, she 
 told her father, in Arnold Beckenried's boat ; 
 and Hans was content, for he lived only in his 
 child. 
 
 As for poor Arnold, from the very first moment 
 he set eyes on the beautiful and wayward girl, 
 he had been utterly and hopelessly in love with 
 her. Her vivacity, her energy, her restlessness, 
 
So 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 her very self-will even, had infinite charms for 
 him. For a long time, however, Arnold did not 
 dare to lift his eyes in love, much less declare his 
 passion to Hans Hittenberg's daughter. How 
 could he, a poor man, whose only fortune was his 
 boat, hope to win the hand of the richest heiress 
 in the canton? But being a mountaineer of 
 Unterwalden and a free Switzer, and, therefore, 
 like one of Abraham's children, subject to no 
 man, he was too proud, and had too high a sense 
 of his own dignity, to urge an impossible suit or 
 cherish a hopeless love. So he resolved to sell 
 his boat, leave his beloved Urner lake for ever, 
 and seek his fortune in some other part of 
 Switzerland, or, perhaps, in a foreign country. 
 
 Almost on the very day that Arnold arrived 
 at this decision word was brought him at Fliielen 
 that, at a certain hour next morning, Herr 
 Hittenberg and his daughter would take passage 
 in his boat as far as Bauen. He received this 
 message with mournful satisfaction. He would 
 see Helena for the last time, have an opportunity 
 of telling her of his near departure, and bidding 
 her a long farewell. She and her father had 
 shown him great kindness, and it was only right 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 81 
 
 that he should pay his respects to them before he 
 left the neighbourhood. As it fell out, however, 
 Helena came alone. A sudden call of business 
 at the last moment, she explained, had prevented 
 her father from coming with her, and there was 
 not time for the maid to make herself ready. 
 
 Arnold took his oars and Helena a place in 
 the stern of the boat. They could thus look each 
 other in the face. But Arnold did not profit by 
 the opportunity ; he dared not encounter the 
 fascination of Helena's eyes, for fear they should 
 make him waver in his resolution. So he bowed 
 his head, planted his feet firmly, bent himself 
 to his work, and the Sunbeam glided swiftly over 
 the blue waters of the lake. 
 
 " There's a fair wind, Herr Boatman/' remarked 
 Helena, after a long silence. "Why not make 
 sail? It will be ever so much more pleasant, 
 besides being easier for you." 
 
 " Ja wohly Fraulein," replied Arnold, without 
 trusting himself to return the kindly glance shot 
 at him by his charming fare. 
 
 And he stepped his mast, hoisted his little lug- 
 sail, and shipped his rudder. 
 
 These arrangements rendered necessary a 
 
 G 
 
82 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 change of position. He had to go to the stern, 
 take the tiller, and keep an eye on the sail. Helena 
 had to make way for him ; but as she did not 
 move many inches, they were now nearly vis-a-vis, 
 and very close together. Arnold could not 
 help feeling happy in spite of himself, and of the 
 consciousness that his great resolve was in serious 
 jeopardy.. He stole a glance at his passenger 
 as she spoke, with a kindly, almost, as he fancied 
 (and his heart beat wildly at the thought), a loving 
 look. 
 
 " You do not seem well to-day, Herr Boatman," 
 observed the lady graciously. " Are you ailing ? " 
 
 " No, mein Fraulein, I am quite well." 
 
 u Then you are not happy. You look dis- 
 couraged ; you are silent, and your face seems 
 worn. What is the matter?" 
 
 "Nothing, mein Fraulein ; there is nothing at 
 all the matter." 
 
 " Come now, Herr Boatman, it is wrong to tell 
 untruths, and you know that is an untruth. Any- 
 body can see that you are either unwell or out of 
 tune (verstimmt)." 
 
 " I did not know — I was not aware — that is, I 
 did not think," stammered Arnold. Then des- 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 83 
 
 perately : " It is perhaps because I am going 
 away ; and the Urner see (lake of Uri) has 
 been my home so long. It is sad to have to 
 leave it. I do feel unhappy, mein Fraulein." 
 
 " Going away! Whither ? what for ? " exclaimed 
 Helena, turning rather pale. 
 
 " Perhaps to the Boden see, or to be a boat- 
 man on the Rhine or Elbe. I am going to seek 
 my fortune." 
 
 " Going to seek your fortune ! Don't you 
 think you could seek your fortune nearer home, 
 Herr Beckenried ? " said Helena, who, guessing 
 which way the wind blew, thought, considering 
 their relative positions, it was her duty to give 
 Arnold just a little encouragement. 
 
 But Arnold, whose diffidence prevented* him 
 from taking advantage of the opportunity, made 
 no answer. 
 
 "Your friends will be very sorry," continued 
 Helena ; " do you think you are acting 
 wisely ? " 
 
 " What friends ? who cares enough for me, or 
 my comings or goings, to be sorry that I should 
 do this or that ? " 
 
 st My father; I am sure he will be very sorry," 
 
 G 2 
 
8 4 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 said Fraulein Hittenberg, as she turned her head 
 and hid her face with her sunshade. 
 
 " Only your father ! You will not be sorry at 
 all then, mein Fraulein ?" asked Arnold, in a broken 
 voice. 
 
 " Yes, Herr Boatman, I too shall be very sorry. 
 But it is you who do not care for us, or you would 
 not think of going away to seek your fortune 
 when — when " 
 
 Just then a gentle zephyr blew aside the sun- 
 shade, and Arnold saw that Helena was very pale, 
 and that her beautiful eyes 'were filled with tears. 
 This was a sight before which his fine resolution 
 melted into nothingness, and throwing to the 
 winds every consideration of prudence and pride, 
 he £ave heed only to the promptings of his 
 heart. 
 
 " If I only thought, Fraulein," he exclaimed, in 
 great agitation, "if I could persuade myself that you 
 cared half as much for me as I care for you, I 
 would stay by the Urner see for ever." 
 
 "And how do you know that I don't, Herr 
 Boatman ? " said Helena, smiling through her 
 tears. 
 
 " Then you do, you do care for me ; you do 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 85 
 
 V 
 
 love me a wee bit, mein Fraulein ! " almost shouted 
 the happy boatman, as he let go the tiller and 
 grasped Helena's fairylike fingers in his great 
 brown hands. 
 
 " No, Arnold Beckenried, I don't love you a 
 wee bit." (Here Arnold's face, which had just 
 expressed ecstasy, fell below the zero of despair.) 
 "But don't look so miserable, you foolish man. I 
 love you a great deal. There now, are you satisfied, 
 or are you still determined to seek your fortune in 
 a strange land ? " 
 
 Arnold's answer was to let go one of her hands, 
 put one arm round her waist, and press his lips 
 to hers. 
 
 Then his countenance again looked troubled. 
 " But " he began. 
 
 " But," laughingly echoed the maiden, " are 
 you still unhappy ? What thought is troubling 
 you now ? " 
 
 " Your father. Will he allow his only daughter 
 to mate with a poor boatman, who has not a rood 
 of land he can call his own ? " 
 
 " Oh, is that all ? " answered Helena, with a 
 slight toss of her head. " If you are poor, we are 
 rich, and have enough for all. The good father 
 
36 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 never says me nay, and he will not object to 
 Arnold Beckenried for a son-in-law. I shall not 
 stay long at Bauen ; you must wait for me and 
 take me back, and we will together tell the father 
 that we are verlobt (affianced). I answer for his 
 consent." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 DIVIDED LIVES. 
 
 Helena was right After a delicious day spent 
 on the lake, the recollection of which never faded 
 from the memories of either of them, they went to 
 the chalet, and Arnold, in a manly straightforward 
 way, asked Hans Hittenberg for his daughter's 
 hand in marriage. 
 
 " He says he is poor, father," said Helena, in 
 answer to an interrogative look from the old man ; 
 u but he is good, and we are rich, and I — and I, 
 dear father, love him and he loves me," 
 
 "Not rich, child, not rich, only comfortable," 
 interrupted Hans, who liked to be thought less 
 well-off than he really was. "Thou might have 
 done better, Helenchen" (little Helena), "and I 
 
88 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 am not sure that I ought to give my consent to thy 
 becoming the wife of a common boatman." 
 
 At these words Arnold rose from his chair, and 
 looked rather fierce. 
 
 "Not so fast, Herr Beckenried, not so fast," 
 continued the father, who had been speaking 
 diplomatically, and was really well pleased at the 
 turn things were taking. " It is surely no offence 
 to say that Helenchen might do better than marry 
 a boatman — all the more credit to thee for having 
 won her — nor did I say I would not give my 
 consent to your betrothal. But it must be on 
 one condition — on one condition. Helenchen 
 must not leave her old father, and, Arnold, you 
 will have to quit the lake, and live with us here at 
 the chalet." 
 
 Arnold, as may well be supposed, made no 
 difficulty about accepting Hans Hittenberg's terms ; 
 yet, notwithstanding his love for Helena, it was 
 not without a pang that he consented to abandon 
 his free life on the Urner see, even to become 
 a rich man's son-in-law, and the husband of a 
 handsome heiress. 
 
 Hans, as we have observed, was well pleased, 
 albeit he did not think it politic openly to say so. 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 89 
 
 The great object of his life was now all but 
 achieved. If Helena married Arnold she could 
 not well marry any other body, and he would not 
 be deserted by his only child in his old age. For 
 the rest, Arnold's character was irreproachable. 
 He was a man without enemies ; everybody would 
 be rejoiced at his good fortune, and he could not 
 fail to make Helenchen (as her father always called 
 her) a good husband. 
 
 After a brief courtship they were married at 
 Altorf. Half the countryside came to the 
 wedding, and people thought the bridegroom the 
 most fortunate of men, an opinion in which Arnold 
 doubtless fully concurred. But as the glamour of 
 the honeymoon wore off, and the hard realities of 
 life began to make themselves felt, the young 
 couple found out — what many another young 
 couple has found out — that their happiness was 
 not a happiness without alloy ; and it gradually 
 dawned on Arnold's mind that even in Chalet 
 Hittenberg there was a cupboard with a skeleton 
 in it ; a skeleton that often threatened, and might 
 some day destroy, the peace of their beautiful home 
 — Helena's imperious temper and wayward self- 
 will. So long as she had absolutely her own way, 
 
9o 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 and everybody in the house and about it practised 
 the virtue of passive obedience and acknowledged 
 the absolute authority of its mistress, all went well ; 
 but anything like opposition she would tolerate 
 neither from her husband nor her father, and woe 
 to the servant that ventured to remonstrate against 
 her orders or omitted to obey her commands. For 
 awhile Arnold submitted with loverlike docility to 
 his fair tyrant ; albeit, being a man with a mind of 
 his own, there necessarily came a time when he 
 felt himself constrained to rebel; whereupon un- 
 pleasant collisions occurred; and but for the 
 watchfulness and moderating influence of the 
 father — who knew his child's weakness, and how 
 much his own mistaken indulgence had fostered 
 it — there would have been bitter domestic strife 
 and a divided household. 
 
 At length Hans Hittenberg passed from the 
 scene, and was buried with his fathers ; and it 
 almost seemed as if the happiness of Arnold 
 and Helena had been interred in the same tomb. 
 For this, though the wife was chiefly in fault, 
 the husband was by no means free from blame. 
 He knew, or might have known before he married 
 Helena, that she was a spoiled child, and as a 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 spoiled child he ought to have treated her. She 
 loved him dearly, his influence over her was 
 great, and by the use of gentle means, by the 
 exercise of patience and firmness, by quiet 
 reasoning and loving remonstrance, he might, 
 perchance, have gradually weaned her from her 
 wilfulness, hastiness, and impatience of opposition. 
 The object was well worth the effort ; for Helena 
 had so many noble qualities, that, freed from 
 these faults, she would have been a woman in 
 ten thousand, a wife worthy of a monarch. But 
 he preferred the strong hand to the oiled feather, 
 stern reproof to the soft answer that turneth 
 away wrath: He had often won his way through 
 the fierce storms that sometimes lash into fury 
 the lake of the Four Cantons, by sheer firmness 
 of mind and force of will, and he thought to 
 conquer his wife's temper by a similar display 
 of energy. When this design was perceived by 
 Helena, all the worst qualities of her nature were 
 excited ; her pride and obstinacy were alike 
 aroused. She opposed Arnold out of sheer 
 wilfulness, to show him, as she said to herself, 
 that, though he was her husband, he should 
 never be her master. Differences and disputes 
 
92 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 became frequent, hot words were often bandied 
 between them, and the love of their youth was 
 in great danger of being replaced by open 
 estrangement. 
 
 Arnold had long desired a more active life 
 than the life of the chalet — where there was in 
 truth too little scope for a man of his active 
 and energetic temperament — and now that his 
 father-in-law was dead he wanted much to buy 
 a large dairy-farm in Unterwalden, and become 
 a keeper of flocks and herds in his native 
 mountains. But this project, without the co- 
 operation of his wife, was impossible, for she 
 inherited in her own right the whole of her 
 fathers property, and Arnold had no independent 
 means of his own. Nevertheless, he went about 
 the business as if Helena's consent had been 
 given, or as if the price of the land he proposed 
 to buy were already in his possession. This 
 indiscreet proceeding, which in any circumstances 
 would have been annoying, aggravated Helena 
 almost past endurance ; and she resolved that, 
 come what might, she would neither consent to 
 leave the chalet nor find money for the purchase 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 of the farm — a determination which led to their 
 last and greatest quarrel. 
 
 On the morning on which our story opens 
 the peasant proprietor from Unterwalden, with 
 whom Arnold had been in treaty for the purchase 
 of his house and fields, called at the cottage to 
 ask for a final answer ; whereupon Arnold, after 
 saying that he accepted Herr Ritschard's terms, 
 inquired of Helena, in a matter-of-course manner, 
 when it w r ould suit her convenience to go with 
 him to the notary to complete the transaction. 
 
 "Never," was her prompt and impetuous 
 answer ; " never will I leave this house where 
 I was born and bred, and where I passed the 
 happy days of my maidenhood. As for the farm, 
 that's your business ; all that I know is, that no 
 money of mine shall go to pay for land in Unter- 
 walden, nor anywhere else. And I don't think it's 
 any use your waiting, Herr Ritschard ; Arnold 
 cannot buy your land — the most he ever had 
 was an old boat — and I won't." 
 
 At these words Herr Ritschard, a quiet old 
 man, with a strong dislike for domestic broils, 
 quietly took up his hat and went away. 
 
TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Then Arnold, too indignant to speak, turned 
 towards the window, and remained as if gazing 
 through it — though in reality seeing nothing — for 
 nearly an hour. 
 
 Meanwhile Helena, tired of waiting, had sat 
 down to breakfast. Greatly irritated by Arnold's 
 silence and abstraction, she at length gave way to 
 her impatience. 
 
 " Are you going to stay there all day ? Won't 
 you have something to eat ? " she asked, in a voice 
 that tried to be conciliatory, but was not. 
 
 "No. Fm not hungry." 
 
 Then another interval of silence followed. 
 Both seemed angry ; but Arnold's anger was that 
 of a resolute man, Helena's that of a wilful woman. 
 She knew that a word would have reconciled 
 them, yet this word she would not speak. 
 
 Again the silence was broken, this time by 
 Arnold. He had resolved, and was now about 
 to act. 
 
 " Where is Rudolf?" he asked. 
 "In his crib." 
 "At this hour?" 
 
 " He was so tired last night, I thought I would 
 let him have a long sleep." 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 95 
 
 Arnold opened the door of a small bedroom. 
 A bright little fellow, of some six years old, had 
 just unclosed his eyes, as was evident from the 
 fact that he was vigorously rubbing them with 
 a pair of chubby fists. When he saw his father 
 he uttered a cry of joy, and stretched out his 
 hands to him. The latter, instead of taking the 
 child in his arms and riding him on his shoulder, 
 as was his wont, turned to his wife. 
 
 " Dress him," he said, in an imperious voice ; 
 " I am going out, and shall take him with me." 
 
 "Whither?" 
 
 Arnold looked at her fiercely for a moment, 
 as if calculating the effect of the answer he was 
 about to give. 
 
 a To Fliielen," he said, speaking slowly and 
 deliberately. " Siegfried of Sisikon, my old 
 master, is there, and goes to-day to Brunnen 
 for cargo. I am going to ask him for a place 
 as pilot or boatman. I am without money, you 
 know ; yet, though I have no longer a boat, I 
 can earn my own living, and I will no longer 
 be a burden on anybody?' 
 
 Helena turned pale. 
 
 " But you are not going to-day ? " she exclaimed. 
 
96 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 "Yes, to-day, and at once." 
 "But the boy?" 
 
 "The boy will go with me and live with me. 
 He shall be a boatman, like his father." 
 
 Helena would have broken out in reproaches 
 and remonstrances, but there was that in Arnolds 
 manner and his words which put a seal on her 
 lips. She saw now, when too late, that she had 
 pushed opposition and contradiction too far, and 
 that in taunting her husband with his poverty 
 before a stranger she had committed a fault 
 that would not readily be forgiven nor soon for- 
 gotten. Her agony at the prospect of losing 
 Arnold and the child was almost more than she 
 could bear. She had to lean against the wall 
 for support ; she covered her face with her hands ; 
 she tried to speak, but could not. Yet amid 
 all the mental torture she was undergoing, the 
 greatest she had ever known, it never occurred to 
 her to yield — to ask Arnold's forgiveness — to throw 
 her arms round his neck — remind him of their 
 ancient love, and entreat him to let them be to 
 each other as they once had been. It did not 
 seem to her as if she could humiliate herself to 
 do this, even though the alternative should be 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 death ; and rousing herself by a supreme effort, 
 she silently obeyed her husband's behest. 
 
 When the child was ready Arnold took him 
 by the hand and led him away. Helena, yielding 
 to an impulse she was unable to resist, followed 
 them to the garden-gate to give the little fellow 
 a last embrace. She folded him convulsively in 
 her arms, and gave him two or three passionate 
 kisses. 
 
 " Good-bye, Helena," said Arnold. 
 
 And in his voice there was a softness, a touch 
 of bygone tenderness, and the look that went 
 with it was almost supplicatory. " Only speak, 
 Helena," it seemed to say, "and all may yet be 
 well." For a moment she hesitated ; pride and 
 love were struggling fiercely for the mastery; 
 pride won ; and turning slowly on her heel, 
 Helena re-entered the chalet. 
 
 When she had closed the door behind her, and 
 
 was once more alone, a flood of tears somewhat 
 
 * 
 
 relieved her pent-up feelings. Yet they were more 
 tears of anger and mortification than of sorrow 
 and repentance, and with the sense of sadness 
 that oppressed her was mingled a strong feeling 
 of resentment against Arnold ; for had he not 
 
 H 
 
9 8 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 refused to yield to her wishes, and taken away 
 her child ? It was evident that Helena possessed 
 no inward force or virtue whereby she might 
 overcome the cardinal defect, of her character. 
 Only some external event — some crushing 
 calamity — could give to her better nature the 
 victory over the pride and wilfulness that had 
 bereft her of her husband and her son, and left 
 her a solitary woman in a desolate home. 
 
 Meanw r hile Arnold and the boy were walking 
 rapidly in the direction of Fliielen — too rapidly 
 for Rudolf, for the day was warm, and the little 
 man's legs were short. 
 
 Arnold was buried in painful thought. Helena's 
 rejection of his last appeal had wounded him more 
 deeply even than the open insult of the morning. 
 Never, never, he said to himself, would he go 
 back to her. Let her live alone with her pride, 
 her wilfulness, and her wealth. He would resume 
 his old calling. By working hard and saving hard 
 he could soon earn enough to buy another boat, 
 and by dint of perseverance and industry he might, 
 perhaps, raise himself to a higher position, and 
 leave Rudolf as well off as if he were to inherit 
 all Hans Hittenberg's riches. He knew a kind 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 motherly body at Brunnen in whose charge he 
 could place the child. He would see him every 
 day, and have all his love ; Helena should have 
 no share in it. She had the money, he had the 
 boy ; and he felt himself the richer of the 
 two. 
 
 Arnold, while thinking so much of his boy's 
 future prospects had become quite oblivious to 
 his present needs, and he continued to push on, 
 almost forgetful of his companionship. 
 
 "Papa," said at length Rudolf, who had 
 already tried vainly two or three times to attract 
 his father's attention. 
 
 " Yes, Rudy," answered the other abstractedly. 
 
 M It's very hot, papa." 
 
 " So it is, my little man ; but we shall soon 
 be at Fliielen, and then we are going to have a 
 sail in Siegfried's boat." 
 
 "Will you go too?" 
 
 " Yes, we are going together ; do you suppose 
 I would let you go alone?" 
 
 " Oh, won't it be nice ! I'm so glad. But I 
 say, papa." 
 
 "Yes, Rudy." 
 
 " Papa, if I was a big man like you, and you 
 
 H 2 
 
IOO 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 was a little boy like me, do you know what I 
 would do ? " 
 
 " No ; what would you do, Rudy ? " 
 
 " Td carry you on my back, papa/' 
 
 " You would, would you, old man ? " said 
 Arnold, greatly delighted at this sally. "You 
 deserve carrying, if it is only for saying that ; and 
 I will carry you, but in my arms, not on my back." 
 
 And the father, suiting the action to the words, 
 lifted the lad from the dusty road, wiped the 
 perspiration from his brow, and the two talked 
 and laughed lovingly together until they reached 
 Fliielen, when Arnold, after fondly kissing the lad, 
 placed him once more on firm ground. Now that 
 he had lost, or thought he had lost, the love of 
 Helena, that of Rudolf had become more precious 
 than life itself. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE RISING STORM. 
 
 All was quiet in Fliielen; one steamer had just 
 left, and no other was in sight or expected ; no 
 tourists were departing for Airolo or Bellinzona, 
 none were arriving from those parts, yet a group 
 of fishermen were gathered near the jetty and 
 engaged in earnest conversation. They seemed to 
 be discussing matters of grave import, and now 
 and again one of them would take a look round 
 and upward, and then shake his head, as if some- 
 thing were brewing skyward which did not quite 
 please him. 
 
 " Pll tell you what it is, Siegfried/' one old 
 fellow, conspicuous by his leathery skin, wrinkled 
 face, and knowing look, was saying, " before an 
 hour is over you'll havet he fohn behind you, and 
 take my word for it, you won't find it easy to 
 
io2 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 reach Brunnen. You'd better stay where you are 
 until the storm blows over." (The fohn, it may be 
 as well to explain here, is the south wind ; it 
 blows sometimes with great violence for days 
 together, and is much feared by the boatmen of 
 the Swiss lakes. The bise, the north wind, is 
 almost equally dreaded, especially in French 
 Switzerland, where it is generally more violent 
 than in the north and the east. Sometimes they 
 are both blowing at the same time, the one in the 
 upper the other in the lower air. When the point 
 of contact is near the earth or the surface of 
 a lake, the consequences are terrible : boats are 
 dashed in pieces, rocks hurled from the mountain- 
 tops, whole forests cut down, and houses unroofed, 
 just as in a tropical cyclone.) 
 
 "That I will not, Andreas/' answered Siegfried 
 from Sisikon — a tall broad-shouldered man of 
 about sixty, with a weather-beaten face, bright 
 blue eyes, and an air at once genial and resolute. 
 " Unless a fohn be a right bad one, I'm not afraid 
 of it. I've been too long sailing on Uri lake for 
 that ; and from the look of things, this won't be a 
 very bad one. Besides, we shall have the wind 
 at our backs, you know/' 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 " But I say it will be a bad one," grumbled 
 Andreas. " Man and boy, Fve been on the lake 
 nearly seventy years, and I've never seen a surer 
 sign of a strong fokn than this day, and " 
 
 " Hullo ! here comes Arnold Beckenried," 
 interrupted Siegfried. " What news do you bring, 
 Beckenried ? " 
 
 " I'm glad to find you are not gone, Siegfried," 
 replied the new comer, with a forced laugh. 
 "If -you'll ship me as pilot I'll go with you to 
 Brunnen." 
 
 " To-day ! " said Siegfried, with a surprised 
 look ; " why, you won't be able to get back before 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " I don't want to get back at all ; I'm going 
 to take up my old calling and live at Brunnen 
 again." 
 
 " Going to take up your old calling ! Donner- 
 wetter, if I had a wife and home like yours, 
 Beckenried, it is not a boatman I'd be. What's 
 the matter ? " (with a wink at the others). " Has the 
 handsome Helena given you the sack ? " 
 
 At this suggestion Arnold almost lost his 
 temper. 
 
 " Will you take me or not, Siegfried ? " he 
 
io4 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 asked peremptorily. "If not, there are others 
 who will." 
 
 "What, cannot you stand a joke, Beckenried ? 
 You used to be good-tempered enough. Take 
 you ? of course I will, and glad to do it. You 
 shall pilot us to Brunnen. What think you of 
 the weather ? Andreas here says we shall have 
 the fohn before long." 
 
 Arnold, who had been so busied with his own 
 concerns that he had not given the weather a 
 thought, looked towards the south. The sky was 
 cloudless, and a casual observer would have 
 detected nothing that betokened an approaching 
 change of atmospheric conditions. The fog that 
 in the early morning had shrouded the mountain- 
 tops had almost disappeared, and the last shreds 
 of it were drifting rapidly northward, a sign 
 that might have seemed rather favourable than 
 otherwise. This, however, was not Arnold's 
 opinion. 
 
 " Yes," he said, shading his eyes with his hand, 
 " we shall have the fohn ; see, it is already in 
 the upper air, and has driven the mist from the 
 tops of the Frohnalp and Oberalp." 
 
 " And if you'll take my advice/' said old 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS, 105 
 
 Andreas, " you'll go at once, if go you must. 
 You'll maybe get to Brunnen before the storm 
 breaks ; you have that chance." 
 
 " You are right. Here, lads " (to his two men), 
 " step into the boat and ship your oars, and see 
 that all is in order. We may have a hard pull 
 before we get home. Come along, Beckenried, 
 we must have you at the helm." 
 
 " I hope, Arnold," continued the old man 
 earnestly, as they walked towards the boat, " it 
 is well with you at home. Don't the wife and 
 you pull well together ? She is young, you know, 
 and has been indulgently brought up. I am afraid 
 you have quarrelled, or you would not be leaving 
 your home in this way." 
 
 " Do not ask me any questions. I cannot tell 
 you — at least not now," answered Arnold im- 
 patiently. " Let us go to the boat." 
 
 "You must not be angry at my asking," 
 returned the old man, with much feeling. " We 
 are old friends, and I wish you well, Beckenried ; 
 but it is ill to go on the lake of Uri with bitterness 
 in the heart, for then the spirits that haunt its 
 waters are angered, and raise high winds and fierce 
 storms. Only those who have the heart pure and 
 
io6 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 the conscience clear should venture where danger 
 and death may befall them." 
 
 These words startled and almost terrified 
 Arnold. They seemed to him ominous of evil ; 
 and during the voyage that followed, and for many 
 a day thereafter, they rang in his ears like a knell 
 of fate. 
 
 It was a relief that an inquiry, interposed at 
 this moment by one of the boatmen, rendered it 
 unnecessary for him to take any notice of Sieg- 
 fried's remarks. 
 
 Once in motion, gliding smoothly and freely 
 over the dark-blue wavelets of the lake as rapidly 
 as three pairs of oars could propel them, Arnold, 
 who had taken the helm, shook off somewhat 
 of his oppression. It was pleasant to see Rudolfs 
 delight ; the child shouted, and clapped his hands 
 with glee, and, thought the fond father, made the 
 scene, fair as it was, appear still fairer. As for 
 Siegfried, he had recovered all his wonted gaiety, 
 and Arnold said to himself that he had never 
 seen his old master in better spirits. Men who 
 are sound in health, and live all day long in the 
 open air, do not often indulge in melancholy 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 107 
 
 forebodings ; their " bosom's lord " generally " sits 
 lightly on his throne." 
 
 All this time there had not been enough wind 
 to ruffle Rudolfs curls. It seemed as if the 
 prediction of old Andreas were going to be 
 falsified, and that they would reach Brunnen 
 without being overtaken by the dreaded fohn y 
 when, as they neared the Axenberg, Arnold felt 
 as it were a hot breath wafted across his 
 face. 
 
 It was the bode of the coming tempest, 
 and, setting his teeth hard, and grasping the 
 tiller with a firmer hand, he prepared for the 
 worst. 
 
 " Ah/' exclaimed Siegfried, dropping his oars 
 with startling suddenness,, "do you see that 
 black line, Beckenried, right away there over 
 against Bauen ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it is the fdhn. I had felt it before 
 you spoke. But it is passing towards Bauen ; 
 we may perhaps escape it." 
 
 "Keep up your hearts, my lads," said Sieg- 
 fried to the two boatmen. "Bend well to your 
 oars, and, please God, we shall all sleep in our 
 
TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 beds this night at Brunnen. Once let us double 
 Axen Point and we shall be all right." 
 
 The promontory formed by the Axen, where 
 it advances into the lake, is greatly exposed to 
 the action of the wind and the water at its base 
 was much agitated. Thanks, however, to the 
 skill of the pilot, they doubled it without diffi- 
 culty, and north of the point the lake on its 
 eastern side was as waveless as a fairy's well. 
 But the opposite side was marked with a line 
 of foam, and angry billows were breaking on the 
 rock-bound shore. 
 
 " What do you say, Beckenried ? 99 said Sieg- 
 fried, as he carefully scanned mountain, sky, and 
 lake. "We shall not make Brunnen without 
 difficulty — danger, perhaps ; but it would be soft 
 to go back to Fluelen. I should never hear the 
 last of it from that old Andreas and the others. 
 There is nothing I hate more than to have 
 people say to me : * It is just as I told you/ 
 What do you think, Arnold ?" 
 
 Arnold did not answer. All his thoughts 
 were concentrated on the weather and the boat ; 
 moreover, desperate though he was, he had no 
 desire to share with Siegfried the responsibility 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 109 
 
 of continuing a voyage so evidently full of 
 peril. 
 
 "Come, what do you think, Beckenried ? " 
 repeated the old man impatiently. 
 
 "Never mind what I think. What will you 
 do — go on or go back ? " was all the answer 
 Arnold gave him. 
 
 On this Siegfried seemed more undecided 
 than ever. For a few moments he did not 
 speak ; then, with an air that savoured more of 
 hasty impulse than deliberate resolve, he gave 
 an order that proved the death-warrant of two 
 out of the five souls on board the Fay. 
 
 " Go on, then, in heaven's name. The blessed 
 Virgin will help us. It will not be the first 
 fohn I have faced." 
 
 "Good/ said Arnold. "And now hoist the 
 sail. There is no time to lose. Our best chance 
 is to reach Brunnen before we get the full force 
 of the blast." 
 
 " Donner-wetter ! you are truly a brave pilot, 
 Beckenried ! " exclaimed Siegfried admiringly. 
 " None but you would dare to make sail with 
 the wind freshening like that. Hear you not 
 the fohn howling in the mountains ? It will lead 
 
TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 us a dance soon, and a wild one too — wilder 
 than merry, I am afraid." 
 
 "That is exactly why we must make all the 
 speed we may, so as to reach Brunnen as soon 
 as possible. Hoist the sail, I say." 
 
 "It shall be done, Beckenried. Here, Trau- 
 gott; here, Heinrich, step the mast. Steady, 
 now, and with a will. That's right. Now up 
 with the sail. Not too high ; thunder and light- 
 ning, men, what are you thinking about? Do 
 you want to have the Fay blown out of the 
 water ? Lower it at least a foot. Good. Now 
 take your oars again, and Fll stand by the sail. 
 Keep your weather-eye open, Herr Pilot ; our 
 lives are in your keeping." 
 
 The wind rose higher and higher ; it thundered 
 in the hollows of the mountains, and sweeping 
 up the lake with frightful violence pushed before 
 it a huge wave that seemed to threaten the Fay 
 with utter and immediate destruction. But 
 Arnold guided the boat with so much skill, and 
 held the tiller with so firm a hand, that nobody 
 seemed afraid ; the two boatmen were cool and 
 alert, Siegfried smoked his pipe as complacently 
 as if he were sitting in the parlour of The Three 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. in 
 
 Switzers at Sisikon, and Rudolf clapped his 
 hands and shouted for joy in the strange wild 
 scene around him. 
 
 The lake was now covered with white foam, 
 which, blown upward by the wind, assumed 
 fantastic forms of more than earthly beauty, 
 coloured with all the brilliant tints of the rain- 
 bow. Far above the strife of the elements the 
 sun shone brightly in a sky of azure ; and while 
 the imprisoned waters beat angrily against the 
 rock-bound shore, and the trees on the moun- 
 tain-tops were swayed to and fro by the raging 
 tempest, the heavens, their splendour undimmed 
 by a single cloud, remained calm and serene. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BATTLE AND THE VICTIMS. 
 
 The Fay had passed Tell's chapel. Every 
 moment brought them nearer to their desti- 
 nation ; the danger seemed almost passed ; and 
 though no one had shown any sign of fear, nor 
 probably experienced any, all felt relieved as 
 they approached Brunnen, and Arnold, in the 
 assurance that his dear little boy would soon 
 be in a place of safety, breathed a silent yet 
 heartfelt prayer of gratitude to heaven. 
 
 " Bravo, Beckenried ! " shouted Siegfried. 
 " You have done well — borne yourself like a 
 man with a marrow in his backbone. I could 
 not have done better myself, not even were I 
 thirty years younger." 
 
 But Arnold is too intent on his work, the 
 peril is still too great, to permit him to relax 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 113 
 
 his vigilance or notice the old man's words of 
 praise, grateful as in other circumstances they 
 had doubtless been to him. 
 
 On flies the Fay before the gathering fohn, 
 now burying her stem under a cloud of spray, 
 now rising on the crest of a foam-tipped wave, 
 sometimes shipping a sea, but always kept well 
 before the wind by the skilful hand of the bold 
 helmsman. Siegfried is watching the sail ; 
 Traugott and Heinrich are baling out the 
 water which washes every minute over the 
 bows. 
 
 They near Grutli ; Brunnen is almost • in 
 sight. 
 
 " Hurrah, my men ! " shouts Siegfried. " Half 
 an hour more and we shall be at /anchor. We 
 will celebrate our victory over the fohn by a 
 supper at The Boatman's Rest. Holy Virgin 
 protect us! what is that?" and the old man, 
 with blanched face, pointed his trembling hand 
 towards the south, where the atmosphere had 
 suddenly thickened. 
 
 At the same time Arnold, whose gaze was 
 directed northward, became conscious of an 
 abrupt change in the temperature. A light yet 
 
H4 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 cold wind struck him full in the face. The 
 two boatmen, who had heard Siegfried's excla- 
 mation, and knew too well what it meant, seemed 
 terrified beyond expression. 
 
 " Do you feel the coolness in the air ? " 
 said the old man. " It is the forerunner of the bise" 
 
 "Yes," answered Arnold gloomily, looking 
 wistfully at Rudolf ; " it is the bise. Yet, if it 
 comes not lower and the fohn holds, there is 
 still hope for us ; but if the north wind descends 
 on the lake, then may God help us, for man 
 cannot." 
 
 "Amen!" said the old man solemnly. "For- 
 ward, in heaven's name, forward ! Here, Traugott, 
 Heinrich, ship your oars and row for bare life. 
 Unless we ca^i reach Brunnen before the winds 
 join in battle we are lost men." 
 
 Arnold, still holding the tiller with his right 
 hand, leaned forward and loosened the lashings 
 by which a short time before he had bound 
 Rudolf to his seat. Then he looked round on 
 the lake and the mountains as parts of a world 
 he might never see again. Night was setting 
 in. The huge mass of the Seelisberg cast its 
 dark shadow athwart the seething water ; the 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 115 
 
 rocks on either side of them loomed large and 
 threatening in the deepening twilight, and the 
 last rays of the departing sun were dyeing the 
 hoary head of the Frohnalp a bloody red. 
 
 Brunnen is now in sight. 
 
 " Courage, men, courage ! " exclaimed Siegfried 
 cheerily ; " we are almost at home. Forward ! 
 in the name of heaven, forward ! and all may 
 yet be well." 
 
 But that which they so much feared had 
 already come to pass. The two winds were in 
 contact. The fohn was pushing the bise before 
 it, and the latter, compressed and thrust down- 
 ward, raged on the surface of the lake and 
 dashed against the sides of the mountains with 
 the force of an earthquake. Rocks were rent 
 asunder and hurled into the lake ; trees fell like 
 corn before the sickle ; and every now and 
 again, as some mighty monarch of the forest 
 was laid low, a sound as of distant thunder was 
 heard above the uproar of the storm. ( 
 
 The sail, having become now a danger rather 
 than a means of safety, was promptly lowered, 
 the mast unstepped, and all the men, Arnold 
 included, took to their oars. 
 
 1 2 
 
t 
 
 116 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 "The time is coming," said the old man, 
 " when every one of us must fight for his own 
 life as best he may. Let every man think 
 beforehand how he will act should the worst 
 befall. But the nearer we can get to Brunnen 
 the better will be our chances — there is no 
 possibility of landing anywhere else — so let us 
 struggle on, in God's name, and in full trust in 
 His power to help us in this our sore strait. 
 And we can pray. Let every man say a prayer 
 for himself ; for prayer is a sheet-anchor that 
 never fails. It is our surest help in peril, our 
 only hope in the hour of death. Is it not so, 
 Beckenried ? " 
 
 Arnold bowed his head ; he was too full to 
 speak; for Rudolf, wild with terror, and drenched 
 to the skin by the wind-tossed spray, was clinging 
 convulsively to his father's knees. 
 
 " Take me home ! " screamed the child, " take 
 me home to my mother — why cannot we go 
 home to mother? Please, dear vaterchen, do 
 take me home." 
 
 "I will take you home, Rudy," answered 
 Arnold desperately; a we shall soon be at Brunnen, 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 and to-morrow morning we will go back to 
 mother." 
 
 But as he uttered these words of hope the 
 warning of old Siegfried — "It's ill to sail on the 
 lake of Uri with bitterness in the heart " — rang 
 in his ears like a portent. 
 
 The four men bend to their oars with the 
 desperate energy which the fear of death alone 
 can call forth. For awhile they make visible 
 and even rapid progress. They can now dis- 
 tinguish the white houses of Brunnen, and a 
 hearty cheer from Siegfried tells that hope is 
 once more in the ascendant. 
 
 " Never say die, lads ! " he shouts. " I tell you 
 we shall all sup together this night in Brunnen." 
 
 But as if to give the lie to this confident 
 prediction, the Fay at the same instant seems to 
 be stricken with sudden paralysis — she sticks fast 
 in the water and makes no way whatever. 
 
 " Pull, men, pull ! " cried Arnold, " pull for 
 your lives ! " himself at the same time bending 
 to the stroke-oar, which he is working, with 
 such force that it almost snaps in twain. 
 
 But all was in vain. The bise was raging 
 
n8 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 with such terrific violence that their uttermost 
 efforts availed not to move the Fay one foot in 
 advance. All they could do was to keep her 
 stationary, and prevent her broaching-to and 
 being swamped. 
 
 And then another peril arose. Hundreds of 
 trees, broken and thrown down from the moun- 
 tains in the Battle of the Winds, were dashing 
 madly about, threatening every moment to hurl 
 themselves against the boat and shiver it to 
 atoms. Arnold seized a boat-hook, and by dint 
 of his great strength, aided by a marvellous 
 quickness of eye, succeeded for a time in warding 
 off this new danger. 
 
 " They can see us from Brunnen now/' said 
 Siegfried ; " they will surely not let us perish 
 without making an effort to save us." 
 
 " They do — they do see us ! " exclaimed Traugott 
 joyfully. " Look there, they are putting off in 
 that big boat. A few minutes and they will be 
 here " 
 
 " And not a minute too soon," interrupted 
 Siegfried, who was watching the movement of 
 the trees around them with intense anxiety. 
 
 " Look out, Arnold, look out ! " he shouts 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 excitedly, as a huge pine-trunk makes a wild 
 rush towards the starboard side of the boat. 
 "Keep her off, men; do the impossible, Beckenried, 
 or we are lost." 
 
 When the tree came within reach Arnold 
 launched his boat-hook, and made a superhuman 
 effort to thrust it aside. He very nearly suc- 
 ceeded, but the tree, as it glided past, struck the 
 Fay's stern and broke the rudder. The next 
 moment the boat was bottom upwards and her 
 crew struggling in the water. Arnold, who had 
 never lost sight of Rudolf, dived after him as 
 he went down, and, rising with the child, held 
 fast in one of his arms, struck out for the boat. 
 After a desperate struggle, in which he tore off 
 all the finger-nails of his right hand, he succeeded 
 in getting astride of the keel. Then, pressing 
 Rudolfs unconscious form to his bosom, he found 
 by the beating of his heart that the boy still 
 lived. Looking around for his comrades, he saw 
 Traugott and Heinrich clinging to the floating 
 trunk of the very pine-tree which had caused 
 their disaster ; while Siegfried was a few fathoms 
 away, swimming towards the Fay. The boat 
 from Brunnen had already gained half the dis- 
 
i2o TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 tance between themselves and the shore. With 
 rescue so near at hand it could hardly be doubted 
 that all would yet be well. 
 
 " Courage, Siegfried ! " cried Arnold cheerfully 
 to the old man. "Come here alongside, and Til 
 give you a leg up. If we can only hold on for 
 five or ten minutes — and I think we can — those 
 brave fellows from Brunnen will be here with 
 their boat ; so keep up your spirits, old friend." 
 
 " Hark ! what is that ? " exclaimed Siegfried, 
 in a startled voice, as, seating himself behind 
 Arnold, he pointed towards the Seelisberg. 
 
 Above the howling of the wind and the tumult 
 of the waters could be faintly heard the sweet 
 sound of a church bell, calling the faithful to 
 prayer. 
 
 " Ave Maria ! " said the old man solemnly, " it 
 is the passing-bell, the bell of the dead. God 
 wills that one of us this night shall die. His 
 will be done. If the lot should fall on me it 
 will only be just ; for by my pride and recklessness 
 have your lives been brought into this deadly 
 peril. I should have turned back, but I was too 
 proud — I was too proud. God forgive me. Ave 
 Maria ! Christ have pity ! " 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 As he spoke he raised his hands towards 
 heaven, and while his hold was thus relaxed a 
 huge billow dashed over the boat and threw him 
 again into the water. Arnold, leaning forward 
 to help his friend, lost his balance, fell headlong 
 into the lake, and, striking in his descent against 
 a passing log, sank beneath the flood. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS. 
 
 An hour later a man was lying on a couch in one 
 of the rooms of The William Tell at Brunnen. At 
 the head of the couch sat a doctor, watch in hand, 
 and with a finger on the man's pulse ; at his foot 
 stood the village priest, saying a Latin prayer. 
 Several fishermen, their clothes dripping wet, were 
 curiously looking on. 
 
 " He will pull through," said the doctor em- 
 phatically; "his pulse becomes stronger every 
 minute. See, he moves, he opens his eyes." 
 
 " Heaven and the holy Virgin be praised ! " 
 exclaimed the priest, fervently clasping his hands. 
 
 " What is it ? where am I ? " muttered Arnold 
 Beckenried feebly, as he gazed around with lack- 
 lustre eyes. 
 
 Then, in trying to push away the damp hair 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 123 
 
 from his brow, he caught sight of his wounded 
 fingers, and remembered all that had happened. 
 
 " Where is my boy — my little Rudolf ? " he 
 demanded excitedly, raising himself on his elbow, 
 and looking intently into every corner of the 
 room. 
 
 All looked at him pityingly, but none answered. 
 
 " Where is my child ? " he asked again, leap- 
 ing from the couch and seizing the man nearest 
 to him by the shoulders. "I want him, I tell 
 you ; I cannot live without him. But " (lowering 
 his voice) "you perhaps don't know Rudolf; you 
 never saw him. He is a little fellow, only six 
 years old ; it was his birthday last month ; but 
 he is well grown. His cheeks are rosy, his eyes 
 dark, his hair is long and curly, and he has a 
 merry smile, and is good and loving withal — the 
 dearest, bonniest boy in all the land of Uri. 
 What have you done with him ? Maybe he is 
 not well with falling in the water? You have 
 put him to bed. Take me to him ; let me see 
 him. Quick, I beg of you, take me to him." 
 
 "It is time to end this," said one of the fisher- 
 men who had been in the Brunnen boat, wiping 
 away a tear from his weather-beaten face. " Look 
 
124 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 here, Beckenried, it may seem a cruel thing to 
 say, yet the truth must be told. In this world 
 you will never see your boy again. God has 
 been good to him : he lies at the bottom of the 
 lake with old Siegfried of Sisikon. We saved 
 you and the two boatmen, but for the others we 
 were too late." 
 
 " No, no, no ! I do not believe it. He is 
 on the boat ; he is afloat on some drifting log. 
 
 I will go and look for him ; I will dive ; I 
 
 will Let me go, I say ; nothing shall hinder 
 
 me." And dashing aside the arms that would 
 have restrained him, the desperate man rushed 
 out of the house, and running down to the waters- 
 edge, began to unchain a boat. The fishermen 
 followed, pushed him away by main force, and 
 dragged him back to the inn. 
 
 " Arnold Beckenried/' said the priest severely, 
 "do you know that you are rebelling against 
 heaven ? Would you, because you have lost your 
 child, throw away your life ? Do you think, if it 
 had not been good for you, for your wife, and for 
 the little one whom He has taken to Himself, 
 God would have visited you with this afflic- 
 tion ? " 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 125 
 
 "You are right, father, you are right. I am 
 wicked and sinful and rebellious ; it is ill to sail 
 on the lake of Uri with bitterness in the heart. 
 Poor Helena ! Lend me a coat, some of you, 
 and I will hie me home." 
 
 "Go home to-night!" exclaimed one of the 
 fishermen. " Know you what like of a night this 
 is ? On Uri lake it is blowing a hurricane, and 
 not a boatman in Brunnen will take you to Fliielen 
 either for love nor money." 
 
 " I do not mean by the lake. I will go on 
 foot over the Axen." 
 
 " Impossible ! " said the innkeeper, " it would 
 be nothing less than madness. Over the Axen 
 on a night like this ! Why, there is not a guide 
 in the countryside who would go with you, offer 
 him what you might." 
 
 " I want nobody to go with me. Do you take 
 me for a cowardly townsman or an idle tourist?" 
 exclaimed Arnold indignantly. "Know that I 
 am mountain born, and could find my way over 
 the Axen blindfold. Will somebody, for pity's 
 sake, lend me a coat ? ,J 
 
 " Give him a coat," said the priest, " and let 
 him go. It is the best thing that he can do. The 
 
126 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 very effort will divert his thoughts and help him 
 to support his sorrow." 
 
 The coat was speedily found. 
 
 "Go, Beckenried," continued the priest, "and 
 may Heaven and the holy Virgin protect thee ! " 
 
 Arnold thanked the priest for his kindness, 
 and after expressing his gratitude to the brave 
 fellows who had ventured their lives to save his, 
 and to the keeper of the inn for his hospitality, he 
 set out on his long journey. 
 
 The storm still raged fiercely upon the lake ; 
 but as he ascended the mountain its force seemed 
 gradually to abate, and the clouds which from 
 time to time drifted slowly between earth and 
 moon showed that another wind-current was 
 beginning to prevail in the upper air, and that a 
 change of weather was at hand. The path at 
 that hour was utterly deserted, and, save for the 
 sound of Arnold's footsteps and the echo of 
 falling pebbles, which, dislodged by his tread, 
 bounded from rock to rock until they dropped 
 with sullen plunge into the waters of the lake, 
 the stillness of the night was unbroken. The 
 wild animals, terrified by the battle of the winds 
 and the fury of the tempest, were hidden in their 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 127 
 
 lairs ; the birds had taken refuge in the depths 
 of the forest, and the goatherd had long since 
 led his flocks to the fold. Arnold was alone on 
 the Axenberg, the only human being, probably, 
 on the road between Brunnen and Fluelen. He 
 breasted the height without turning to the right 
 or the left, without let or pause, with legs firmly 
 planted at every step, bent head, and tightly 
 clasped hands ; his body full of vigour, his mind 
 torn and tossed by bitter thoughts and agonising 
 memories. But for him, his pride, his folly, his 
 obstinacy, Rudolf might still have been alive. 
 True, Helena had not been* kind ; she was unjust, 
 proud, and self-willed ; but was he so much 
 better than she that he had a right to punish 
 her by taking away her child and making him 
 the victim of his parents' frowardness ? How 
 should he break to Helena the terrible news of 
 which he was the bearer, how tell her that her 
 boy slept his last sleep in the Urner see, and 
 that in the flesh she would never see him more ? 
 
 Agitated by thoughts like these he pursued 
 his way. 
 
 Shortly after passing the summit of the 
 mountain, he saw to the left of the path a small 
 
128 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 meadow which, as he knew, overhung the lake, 
 and, seized with a sudden impulse to look once 
 more on the scene of the tragedy, he entered 
 the enclosure, and from the edge of the precipice 
 looked into the depths below. Long and passion- 
 ately he gazed into the dark seething water, in 
 which, as it seemed to him, all the brightness of 
 his life lay buried. He pictured his lost boy as 
 he appeared only a few hours before — his childish 
 beauty, his winning ways, his engaging prattle, 
 his affection for Helena and himself — and then 
 he pictured him lying stark and stiff at the bottom 
 of the lake, never more to see the light of the 
 sun, or to be clasped to the hearts of those that 
 loved him so well, and who would have died to 
 shield him from harm. 
 
 As Arnold turned away from the precipice he 
 groaned aloud, and flung a bitter curse at the 
 fierce winds and treacherous waters that had 
 wrought him and his such terrible misery. Just 
 then a cloud was blown away from the face of 
 the moon, and he saw before him a rude wooden 
 cross, planted there by pious hands, to mark the 
 spot where a fatal accident had befallen a poor 
 woodcutter. Arnold, like most of the men of 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 129 
 
 Unterwalden and Uri, belonged to the old religion, 
 though, like them and all free Switzers, he was 
 little given either to over-credulity or superstition ; 
 but at this moment he was in a state of intense 
 mental excitement ; emotion was in the ascendant. 
 He looked upon this apparition of the emblem of 
 man's salvation as a sign from heaven, and, throw- 
 ing himself at the foot of the cross, poured forth his 
 heart in prayer, with a fervour and an abandon- 
 ment which are possible only when sorrow and 
 affliction have passed with their burning plough- 
 shares over the soul. 
 
 K 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RECONCILIATION. 
 
 It was*night|in*'the Chalet Hittenberg, but Helena 
 slept not. She] had spent a wretched day. Pride 
 might stifle the still small voice which told her 
 that the misery she endured was of her own 
 making, yet it could neither quench her love for 
 her husband, nor subdue her yearning for her 
 child ; and the fear that her separation from them 
 might be lifelong drove her wild with anguish. 
 She accused Arnold of cruelty in taking away 
 the boy, in her despair almost cursing the man 
 whom she still loved, and whom she had 
 vowed before God to honour and obey. Then, as 
 the day went on, another fear overshadowed her 
 soul. The voice of the fohn in the mountains, and 
 the swaying of the trees in the forest, told her that 
 danger brooded over the lake of Uri, and that all 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 131 
 
 who were sailing on its waters were in deadly peril. 
 Arnold and Rudolf had gone with Siegfried of 
 Sisikon to Brunnen ; so much she had heard from 
 a neighbour who had seen them at Fluelen. 
 Would they reach their destination in safety ? 
 Should she ever see them again? She knew 
 Arnold's courage and Siegfried's obstinacy too 
 well to suppose they would abandon the voyage 
 at the last moment, or turn back after they had 
 once set off. She tried to pray, but could not ; 
 her heart was still rebellious and the supplications 
 she would fain have spoken remained unuttered. 
 When night came she went to bed and tried to 
 sleep, but the oblivion she summoned refused to 
 come, and her thoughts were so dismal that, long 
 before daybreak she rose and went down to the 
 common room of the chalet, where she had spent 
 so many happy days with her father, her husband, 
 and her boy. After pacing to and fro for several 
 weary hours, she sat down, and, covering her 
 face with her hands, tried to calm the fever of her 
 mind. 
 
 The effort is vain, and as the sun rises above 
 
 the mountains, flooding the cottage with the golden 
 1 
 
 light of another dawn, Helena lifts her head and 
 
 K 2 
 
132 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 looks towards the window near which her husband 
 had stood the morning before, when he told her of 
 his resolution to break up their home. 
 
 As she looks, she bounds to her feet with a 
 cry of terror. Against the window-sill leans a 
 man with a haggard ghastly face, dishevelled 
 hair, tangled beard, and garments dripping wet. 
 In that woebegone creature Helena recognises 
 her husband, but whether in the body or out 
 of* the body she knows not, and she stands there 
 with outstretched arms and fearful eyes, as if turned 
 into stone. 
 
 The next moment the door turns on its hinges, 
 and Arnold stands before her in the flesh. 
 
 " Helena," he said, " I have come back to you. 
 God has punished us for our sins by taking Rudolf 
 to himself ; his body lies deep in the Urner see ; 
 but his spirit is with the angels in heaven. " 
 
 "And you are his murderer," she was going 
 to say, but the cruel words were arrested on 
 her lips and remained forever unspoken. 
 
 With a quick gasp and a feeble attempt to 
 save himself, Arnold fell heavily on the floor. 
 The excitement, the fatigue, and the fasting of 
 the previous twenty-four hours had been too much 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WINDS. 
 
 133 
 
 even for his robust frame, and he had fainted. 
 But Helena thought he was dead. 
 
 The double stroke was more than she could 
 bear. At last her proud spirit was conquered ; 
 and great as had been her past obstinacy and 
 self-will, her present abasement and remorse 
 were still greater. 
 
 She knelt, weeping, over Arnold's prostrate 
 body ; she raised his head on her lap, and looked 
 lovingly on the face over which so fearful a 
 change had passed since she last beheld it. 
 Then she found that he still lived. She bathed 
 his brow with cold water, she plied him with 
 restoratives, and in a little while he opened his 
 eyes and took her hand in his. 
 
 " Forgive me, Arnold," she cried, "oh forgive 
 me. The fault is mine. I drove you away. 
 My pride, my obstinacy — my wicked obstinacy 
 — have done this evil. I have killed my child — 
 I have killed my child." 
 
 " No, Helena ; you have not killed him, any 
 more than I have. We did not mean to lead 
 him into danger. God has seen fit ^to take him 
 away, for our good and his ; let us take the 
 lesson to heart." 
 
134 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 For a long time Helena refused to be com- 
 forted, but at length she was brought to see the 
 death of her darling in the same light in which 
 Arnold saw it, and to admit that affliction 
 was sometimes the surest proof of the divine 
 love. 
 
 From that time forth the Beckenried house- 
 hold ceased to be divided against itself, and the 
 peace of Arnold's and Helena's lives was never 
 again troubled by warring tempers or domestic 
 broils. 
 
 There was no question now of remaining at 
 the chalet. The neighbourhood of Fhielen and 
 the lake had become hateful to them both. The 
 farm in Unterwalden was bought, and they 
 settled in one of the most beautiful parts of 
 Arnold's native canton. 
 
 After a while God gave them another Rudolf, 
 to replace, as far as might be, him whom they 
 had lost. But they never forgot their firstborn, 
 nor that his loss had been their gain ; for they 
 knew that where he had found his early death 
 they had found the peace of their lives— in the 
 Battle of the Winds on Uri lake. 
 
THE 
 
 CHATELAIN'S DAUGHTER. 
 
THE 
 
 CHATELAIN'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Early on the morning of the 8th of June, 1476, 
 being fourteen days before the battle of Morat, 
 a mounted peasant galloped in hot haste into the 
 court of Chillon Castle. Hurriedly dismounting, 
 the horseman demanded instant speech of the 
 Chatelain de Chatelard, commandant of the for- 
 tress, and governor of Vevey and Tour de Peilz. 
 
 " Here I am, Montchal ; what are your 
 tidings ? " said the commandant, coming forward ; 
 for albeit the sun was only just risen, he had 
 already been afoot an hour or more, visited his 
 men-at-arms who were keeping watch and ward 
 in the pass, and inspected the garrison of the 
 castle. 
 
 " The soldiers of Berne are crossing the 
 
138 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Jaman," answered the scout, for such he was. 
 " In little more than an hour they will be down 
 in the valley. Hark to the tocsin ! and see, the 
 beacons are ablaze on the summit of the Naye 
 and the slopes of the Moine." 
 
 The Chatelain, looking in the direction indi- 
 cated by the scout, saw two thin columns of 
 smoke curling slowly upward in the clear morn- 
 ing air, and listening intently he could hear the 
 faint echo of alarm-bells, as the sound was borne 
 from tower to tower and from valley to valley. 
 
 Then the Baron de Gingins, Chatelain of 
 Chatelard, knew that the lords of Berne were 
 about to wreak the vengeance they had so fiercely 
 threatened. A short time previously the towns 
 of Vevey and Tour de Peilz had allowed free 
 passage to a body of Italian soldiers, on their 
 way to the camp of Charles the Bold of Bur- 
 gundy, then at war with the confederate cantons. 
 Taking offence at this proceeding, which they 
 regarded as a breach of neutrality, the govern- 
 ment of Berne gave orders to Zurkinden, Vogt 
 of High Simmenthal, to lay siege to Tour de 
 Peilz, and give it and Vevey over to pillage, 
 and put the inhabitants and the garrison to the 
 
THE CHATELAINES DAUGHTER. 
 
 139 
 
 sword — a command all the more easy of execu- 
 tion, as the country about Lake Leman was just 
 then almost denuded of Savoyard troops. 
 
 Although Pierre de Gingins was entrusted 
 with the defence of two strong places and an 
 open town, and had to take thought, moreover, 
 for his own castle of Chatelard, he disposed 
 only of a few score men-at-arms and two or 
 three hundred archers of Lavaux. His father, 
 the Sire de Belmont, with a force equally slender, 
 held the Chablais of Vaud ; while the defence of 
 Upper Chablais had been confided to the Sire 
 de Miolans, whose troops were composed chiefly 
 of vassals of the Count of Geneva, at that time 
 lord of the country and deputy of the Duke of 
 Savoy. But De Miolans, tempted by the pro- 
 mises, and corrupted by the gold, of the crafty 
 king of France, deserted his post, and leaving 
 his troops to their fate, withdrew into Dauphiny. 
 The Chatelain of Chatelard was thus left to bear 
 unaided the brunt of the Bernese onslaught, and 
 make head against it as he best might. 
 
 After hearing the scout's report, asking him 
 two or three pointed questions, and giving a few 
 minutes to reflection, De Gingins ordered the 
 
140 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 men who were with him, save the handful necessary 
 for the defence of Chillon, to fall back on Tour 
 de Peilz; and then, mounting a swift horse, he 
 himself hastened thither at full speed, to prepare 
 the garrison for the attack, which he knew would 
 be a formidable one, and might tax all their 
 resources and their utmost energy successfully to 
 oppose. 
 
 Tour de Peilz at the time in question was a 
 small town, walled and moated, and further de- 
 fended by a citadel, whose rounded and ivy- 
 mantled keep still exists, and lends an additional 
 attraction to one of the most charming landscapes 
 on the shores of Lake Leman. It was founded 
 in 1234, by Peter of Savoy, known to his con- 
 temporaries as the " little Charlemagne/' the builder 
 of Chillon. Under Peter's successor the popula- 
 tion of the place, owing to the advantages of 
 its site and the favour of the House of Savoy, 
 rapidly increased in importance and extent, and 
 at the opening of our story Tour de Peilz was 
 at the height of its fortunes. 
 
 When the Chatelain reached the Chillon gate 
 he found the drawbridge that spanned the moat 
 already lowered and the guard standing to their 
 
THE CHATELAIN'S DAUGHTER 
 
 141 
 
 arms ; for long before his arrival they had recog- 
 nised his black steed and glittering armour ; and 
 by the speed at which he rode they knew that 
 their lord's business was one that brooked not 
 delay. 
 
 "To arms!" cried De Gingins as he galloped 
 over the bridge. " To arms ; every man to his post ; 
 load the culverins ; man the ramparts ; hoist the 
 banner of Savoy on the outward wall. Before noon 
 the Swiss will be upon us, before nightfall the 
 town will be encompassed on every side ! " 
 
 Then, entering the castle, he called round him 
 his principal officers, gave his orders in detail, 
 and, telling them how little of mercy they had 
 to hope for from a foe whose object was rather 
 vengeance than conquest, exhorted them, as their 
 only means of safety, and by their duty to their 
 prince, to offer a vigorous resistance, cheering 
 them with promise of a victory — albeit in his 
 heart he hardly believed victory possible. 
 
 "And now," he continued, after he had dis- 
 missed the officers to their stations, "let somebody 
 bring hither Siegfried, my major-domo." 
 
 Meanwhile the Chatelain, still mounted on 
 his black charger, anxiously watched the progress 
 
142 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 of the preparations he had ordered. Pierre de 
 Gingins was a man of commanding presence — 
 tall, spare, and middle-aged; pale, dark-browed, 
 and stern of feature. A smile played about his 
 lips, an attempt at cheerfulness that the sadness 
 of his fine black eyes sorely belied. His general 
 expression was that of a man oppressed with care 
 and saddened by a foreboding of coming ill. 
 
 " I am here, my lord/' said a thick guttural 
 voice at his elbow. 
 
 The Baron looked round and, notwithstanding 
 his preoccupation, the sight he saw made him 
 almost laugh. The speaker was Siegfried, his 
 major-domo, a great mountain of a fellow, fat 
 as two Falstaffs rolled into one, and with a 
 face that might have served a painter as a model 
 for the face of a Silenus. He was swaying to and 
 fro, and trying to balance himself first on one 
 leg and then on another — an attempt in which 
 he signally and ludicrously failed. 
 
 "Oh, you are trying if you are sober, are 
 you ? " said his master. " You may save your- 
 self the trouble, for I give you my word of 
 honour that you are about as drunk as I have 
 ever seen you. What have you been doing?" 
 
THE CHATELAINES DAUGHTER. 
 
 " Bottling the Vin de Montreux, my lord ; the 
 very finest wine I ever tasted. In two years' time, 
 my lord, it will be fit for the duke — fit for the 
 kaiser — yea, fit for the gods to drink. Let me 
 fetch a goblet for your lordship to taste." 
 
 " Two years ! " exclaimed the Chatelain scorn- 
 fully. " Where shall we all be in two years, 
 think you — in two days even ? Hear you not the 
 ringing of the tocsin, and the call to arms ? Your 
 countrymen, under Vogt Zurkinden, are marching 
 against us, and if they attack the town, as they 
 threaten, and you fall into their hands, they will 
 hang you like a dog, and not leave a single drop 
 of your wine undrunk. So look to yourself, 
 Siegfried. Where is the Lady Bertha ? " 
 
 " In the chapel, my lord," answered the major- 
 domo, in a trembling voice, for the news he had 
 just heard sorely troubled him. 
 
 " Here, varlet," said the Chatelain to a groom, 
 who stood by, "hold my horse/' and, without 
 giving further heed to Siegfried, he entered the 
 castle. 
 
 " Ten thousand devils ! " muttered the major- 
 domo, as with blanched face and unsteady gait he 
 followed his master. "The Vogt of Simmenthal 
 
144 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 coming ! What his lordship says is true. If he 
 takes the town — and take it he will — and finds me, 
 Berner born, among these cursed Savoyards, the 
 least I can hope for will be a short shrift and a 
 long rope. I will get me into the cellar, and hide 
 me behind that butt of Burgundy in the far corner. 
 They will want sharp eyes that find me. And 
 I will hide there till the hurly-burly is done, and 
 Zurkinden has gone back over the Jaman." 
 
 As the iron heel of the Chatelain rang on the 
 flagged floor of the little octagon chapel in the east 
 turret, Bertha rose from her prie-dien and turned 
 to greet him. Tall, above the usual height of her 
 sex, and of noble presence, the lady of Chatelard, 
 albeit she had only seen twenty summers, wore 
 a look little less grave than that of her gallant 
 father. Her eyes, like his, were dark, her cheeks as 
 delicately coloured as an Alpine rose, and her long 
 black hair covered her shoulders like a veil. 
 
 "What has happened, my father?" she 
 said, as the Baron touched her fair cheeks with 
 his lips ; for she knew that for no light cause 
 would the Chatelain enter the chapel in full 
 armour. She lived, moreover, in a troubled time; 
 she had heard of the threat of the lords of 
 
THE CHATELAINES DAUGHTER. 
 
 Berne, and, though of high courage, past ex- 
 perience had made her constantly apprehensive 
 of evil. 
 
 " Zurkinden and the Swiss are within an hour's 
 march of the town, my Bertha. Ere this they have 
 probably crossed the Naye. They have orders to 
 storm Tour de Peilz, and punish us for having 
 obeyed the command of our prince ; which means 
 that, if the place falls into their hands, they will 
 put the garrison to the sword and pillage the 
 town. But have no fear, we shall send these 
 gentlemen back to Berne faster than they came. 
 We will give them such a reception that those of 
 them who survive will never, as long as they live, 
 forget the Tour and its chatelain. Meanwhile, 
 my dear child, I want you to stay with your 
 maidens in the east turret, where you will be free 
 from danger. When the fight waxes warm come 
 here to the chapel, and pray God and his holy 
 saints to give us the victory. Heaven bless you 
 and guard you, my Bertha. Since your mother 
 and brother perished in that terrible storm on 
 the lake you have become doubly dear to me. 
 You only are left me to love." 
 
 "And there is none but you for me to love, 
 
 L 
 
146 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 my father," exclaimed Bertha, throwing her arms 
 passionately round her father's neck. "Let me 
 go with you, let me ride by your side to the 
 ramparts. I cannot, cannot remain here, and 
 know that you are in deadly peril." 
 
 "That may not be, my Bertha," said the 
 Chatelain, folding her in his arms, and imprinting 
 a loving kiss on the girl's upturned brow. "It 
 is a woman's place to watch and pray, a man's 
 to pray and fight. But fear not, I will go into 
 no unnecessary danger, and Hubert shall bring 
 you at least every hour news of the strife." 
 
 And then the Chatelain, after giving his 
 daughter a last embrace, and conducting her 
 to the altar, where she sank on her knees before 
 the image of Christ, left the chapel. 
 
 As he entered the castle yard he was met 
 by one of his officers, who informed him that 
 the look-out on the north tower reported that 
 the banners of Berne were in sight. 
 
 " So soon ! " said the Chatelain. " It is 
 Zurkinden's advance - guard ; the main body 
 cannot be here for an hour or two more. 
 How speed our preparations ? " 
 
 " Fairly, my lord baron. The archers of 
 
THE CHATELAINES DAUGHTER. 
 
 Lavaux have arrived, and are at their posts ; 
 the cannoniers are getting their pieces into 
 position ; the matchlock men are casting bullets ; 
 water is running fast into the moat. JE daresay 
 we shall be ready as soon as the Swiss are, 
 Do you think they will hazard an attack to- 
 night ? " 
 
 "They will be very eager, I daresay, and 
 they are fully aware of their strength and our 
 weakness ; but an attack before to-morrow would 
 be the merest foolhardiness ; and Zurkinden is 
 no fool. I wish he were. They have had a 
 long march ; they want rest ; they must invest 
 the town and place their engines. All this will 
 take time. No, they cannot deliver an assault 
 before to-morrow's sunset, at the soonest. Never- 
 theless, my brave Berthaud, it behoves us to 
 complete our preparations with all possible speed, 
 Let us to the western rampart, for there, I fear, 
 is our weakest point." 
 
 Long after her father had left the chapel, 
 Bertha remained prostrate before the altar, 
 only rising from her knees when the clang 
 of arms, the tramping of horses, the hoarse 
 shouts of the Swiss, and the answering cheers 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 of the garrison, told her that the foe was before 
 the walls. 
 
 Then she withdrew to her chamber in the 
 east turret and sat there alone, buried in deep 
 thought, until the sun, after crowning the snowy 
 heads of the Chablaisian alps with crimson glory, 
 disappeared behind a mass of purple cloud that 
 hung over the summit of Mount Jorat. The 
 fall of night seemed to rouse her from her reverie. 
 She rang a silver bell which stood on the table 
 at her side. One of her maidens answered the 
 summons. 
 
 " What would you, my lady ? " asked the 
 maiden. 
 
 "Send hither Hubert, my page, and bring 
 me a lamp.'' 
 
 In a few minutes Hubert, a handsome and 
 stalwart youth, only a year or two younger than 
 Bertha herself, appeared. 
 
 " What are your tidings, Hubert ? " she asked ; 
 " when say they the attack will begin ? " 
 
 " It is the opinion of Monsieur Berthaud, 
 Lady Bertha, as I just heard him say to my lord, 
 your father, that the Swiss will deliver their 
 first assault to-morrow morning at sunrise. They 
 
THE CHA TELAIN'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 149 
 
 have brought fascines, and planks, and ladders, 
 and are beyond all doubt making ready to 
 bridge over the moat, and take us by escalade ; 
 but they seem to have no artillery, and with 
 our bombards and culverins — though they are of 
 small calibre and our garrison is so weak — 
 Monsieur Berthaud is confident that we shall 
 beat them off with ease." 
 
 "Thank you, my good Hubert. You are a 
 bearer of brave tidings. I shall perhaps be able 
 now to take a few hours' sleep. But early in 
 the morning bring me tidings of the fight." 
 
 " Before sunrise I will be on the ramparts, 
 and every hour you shall know how speeds the 
 strife/' 
 
 " Every half-hour, my good Hubert, every 
 half-hour." 
 
 " Be it so, Lady Bertha ; your word is law 
 — my law." 
 
 Hardly had the first rays of the sun on the 
 following morning gilded the snow -crested 
 summits of the Alps, when the page again 
 presented himself in the east turret. 
 
 The Swiss were developing their plan of 
 attack, he said. They had been at work during 
 
 t 
 
ISO TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 the night and bridged the moat in three places ; 
 the first at the north-east angle of the town, 
 the second opposite the principal gate, the third 
 at the south-east angle: Thus three assaults 
 might be delivered at once by three different 
 storming -parties, any one of which would be 
 superior in numbers to the whole of the garrison. 
 "If they had artillery," added Hubert, "I am 
 afraid it would go hard with us. Hark! the 
 combat has begun." 
 
 And then Bertha heard, not for the first 
 time, the terrible din of war. Bombards boomed 
 from the ramparts, arrows hurtled through the 
 air, men shouted and cursed and shouted again, 
 horses neighed and stamped, the ring of steel 
 against steel showed that some of the Swiss had 
 already mounted the wall, and as they were 
 hurled back into the moat their death screams 
 were heard even in the chamber of the Chatelaines 
 daughter. 
 
 " Oh Hubert, this is unbearable," exclaimed 
 Bertha, with flashing eyes. "I cannot stay here 
 like a helpless child while my father is in danger 
 of his life. I will go to him and fight by his 
 side. Fetch me hither a suit of armour." 
 
THE CHA TELA IN' S DAUGHTER. 151 
 
 "Oh Lady Bertha, it cannot be. Do not 
 think of such a thing, I pray you. What would 
 my lord, your father, say ? " 
 
 "I will answer to my father, Hubert. Do 
 as I bid you. Are you not my page,/ sworn to 
 obey my least command ? How dare you to 
 hesitate ? Go, I say." 
 
 It was impossible to gainsay an order so 
 peremptorily given. Hubert went to the armoury 
 and selected a suit of armour which he thought 
 might not be too heavy for the delicate, yet 
 far from feeble, limbs of his fair mistress. 
 
 With the help of her maidens and her page 
 Lady Bertha was arrayed in cuirass, greaves, 
 helmet, and gauntlets of iron ; and after being 
 girt with a slender sword of Toledo steel, she 
 descended, followed by her page, who was also 
 fully armed, to the outer court of the castle. 
 Then her horse, a black Spanish jennet, was 
 fetched, and, still accompanied by her faithful 
 attendant, she hastened to the principal gate of 
 the town, whither she arrived at the very moment 
 that the brave archers of Lavaux had repulsed 
 an attack led by Zurkinden in person. 
 
 " Glorious ! " exclaimed Bertha, waving her 
 
152 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 sword, as she joined her father ; " down with the 
 bear of Berne ! See how they run ! Will you not 
 let the men-at-arms pursue them, father ? " 
 
 " You here, Bertha ! " said the Chatelain in a 
 surprised and almost angry voice. " Did I not 
 bid you remain with your maidens in the east 
 turret ? " 
 
 "I could not bear to be separated from you, 
 father. How was it possible for me, when I heard 
 the sounds of war, and knew that you were 
 fighting for honour and life, to fold my hands 
 and tell my beads, and hide in my chamber ? 
 You forget whose blood runs in my veins, my 
 lord baron." 
 
 " Be it so, Bertha/' answered the Chatelain, 
 who, stern soldier as he was, had never in all 
 his life had the courage to chide his daughter ; u I 
 cannot say nay to so bold a spirit. I think, too, 
 the danger is almost past. We have repulsed all 
 their attacks as yet. The courage of our men is 
 high, and Zurkinden's losses are so heavy that, 
 seeing he has no artillery, he will hardly venture 
 to attempt another assault." 
 
 But even as the commandant spoke the ranks 
 of the Swiss — who by this time had recovered 
 
THE CHATELAINES DAUGHTER. 
 
 153 
 
 from their confusion — opened, and disclosed to 
 view two large bombards, which had been trans- 
 ported with immense difficulty over the mountains 
 from Berne. 
 
 Then Pierre de Gingins knew that he was 
 fighting for a lost cause — that Tour de Peilz 
 was doomed,, for its old gates and ramparts were 
 in no condition to resist modern engines of war. 
 The bombards were planted opposite the Chillon 
 gate. Their fire, directed against the towers by 
 which it was defended, soon rendered them un- 
 tenable, and the valorous archers of Lavaux, whose 
 arrows could not reach the artillerists, had to be 
 withdrawn. The gate and the flanking walls did 
 not long withstand the besiegers' fire, and while 
 Zurkinden made at this point his chief attack a 
 strong force was told off to escalade the eastern 
 rampart, whose principal defenders had perforce 
 been called away to make head against the main 
 attack. The device succeeded, and while the 
 Chatelain was warmly engaged with the main 
 body of the enemy in his front, who, after bat- 
 tering down the gates with their guns were 
 advancing to the attack in overwhelming numbers, 
 one of his officers came in hot haste to tell him 
 
154 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 that a second storming-party were pouring over 
 the eastern wall, and that he would soon be taken 
 between two fires. 
 
 Bertha and Hubert were still by the Chatelain's 
 side. They had done good service as aides-de- 
 camp ; more than once, indeed, they had plunged 
 into the thickest of the fight, and the crimson 
 stains on the page's sword showed that he had 
 not used it in vain. Bertha bore herself right 
 nobly. She encouraged the men-at-arms by voice 
 and gesture. Fired by her example they fought 
 like heroes. Every time the Swiss made a rush 
 at the gate they were driven back with great loss, 
 and had it not been for the success of the second 
 attack the defenders, in spite of Zurkinden's artil- 
 lery, might perhaps have held their own, or, at 
 least, have kept the foe at bay until nightfall, and 
 so have given the town's people and the garrison 
 time to escape by the lake. As it was, when the 
 Chatelain heard that the foe had gained the 
 eastern rampart he ordered his men to fall back 
 towards the citadel. 
 
 "All that we can do now," he said to those 
 about him, "is to sell our lives as dearly as 
 possible. Better to die fighting than to be hanged 
 
THE CHATELAINES DAUGHTER. 155 
 
 in cold blood by those butchers of Berne, for a 
 quick stab or a long rope is all the mercy we 
 may expect from them. Bertha/' he continued, 
 turning to his daughter, " promise me that you 
 will not fall into the hands of tlfe brutal 
 Swiss " 
 
 "Alive? I promise, my father. Have no 
 fear, Bertha of Chatelard will show herself worthy 
 of her father and the race from which she springs." 
 
 " That is spoken like my daughter, and a true 
 Chatelard. But you are young to die, my child. 
 May it please God and the holy Virgin to 
 spare Ah ! " 
 
 Pierre de Gingins threw up his arms and 
 bounding convulsively in his saddle fell for- 
 ward on the neck of his horse, a dead man. A 
 bolt from a crossbow had pierced his brain. 
 
 The Savoyard men-at-arms, discouraged by 
 the death of their leader, now rapidly gave way. 
 F01* a few minutes Bertha remained by the side 
 of her dead father. She even refused to leave 
 him, and would have been captured by the Swiss, 
 who were by this time advancing from two sides, 
 had not the page seized her horse's bridle and 
 forcibly led her aw r ay. 
 
i S 6 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " The Berners have taken the town ; they have 
 killed your noble father/' he exclaimed; "what 
 will it profit to let them kill you also ; or, still 
 worse, to take you alive ? " 
 
 Bertha, too much overcome by grief to have 
 any will of her own, yielded to her page's advice, 
 and rallying a few of the archers of Lavaux, who 
 had formed the Chatelain's escort during the day, 
 Hubert succeeded in gaining the citadel. But 
 the Swiss were close behind them, and as the 
 Savoyards were too few to offer a successful 
 resistance they could only hope for a short respite. 
 
 After barring the ponderous door, the page 
 led the way to the chapel in the east turret. 
 
 " What are you about to do, Hubert ? " asked 
 Bertha, rousing herself for a moment from her 
 stupor of grief. 
 
 " Escape ! " 
 
 " But it is not possible. Listen ; the Swiss are 
 even now breaking in the door." $ 
 
 " Never fear, Lady Bertha. In a few minutes 
 we shall be beyond their reach. See here/' and as 
 the page spoke he produced a coil of rope, with 
 which he had provided himself on entering the 
 castle. 
 
THE CHATELAINES DAUGHTER. 
 
 157 
 
 Then, going to a window overlooking the lake, 
 he ordered two of the soldiers to break it in with 
 their halberds. This done, he lowered Bertha by 
 means of the rope to the water's-edge. In a few 
 minutes himself and the archers were by her side. 
 A large boat was moored hard by, into which they 
 all entered, and Hubert, directing the men to take 
 each an oar, placed himself at the helm, and they 
 pushed off into the lake*. 
 
 "We are safe now/ exclaimed the page. 
 "Did I not say we should balk them?" 
 
 " But have we balked them ? " said one of 
 the archers. " See ! they are running down to the 
 water — they have got a boat ! They are going to 
 follow us ! " 
 
 " Let them follow us," answered the page. 
 " They cannot overtake us. If they do we shall 
 be quite a match for them ; and before they can 
 find and man another boat we shall be halfway 
 across the lake." 
 
 It was soon evident that, as Hubert said, the 
 Swiss had no chance of overtaking the fugitives. 
 Their boat was heavier, and their men were less 
 expert with the oars than the archers of Lavaux, 
 who were as much at home on water as on land. 
 
158 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " Go a little slower," ordered the page ; * let 
 them believe they can overtake us. We will try 
 to avenge on these ruffians the death of our noble 
 Chatelain." 
 
 This was done. When the pursuers saw that 
 they were gaining on the fugitives they redoubled 
 their exertions, for they knew that Bertha of 
 Chatelard was in the boat, and they had been 
 strictly charged by Zurkinden to bring her back, 
 dead or alive. Meanwhile Hubert, after handing 
 the tiller to Bertha, had armed himself with a 
 crossbow, and directed all the archers save two 
 to be ready on a given signal to follow his 
 example. Then, so soon as he judged the Berners 
 to be well within bowshot, he gave the [word, and 
 a shower of bolts was let fly among them, killing 
 two outright and wounding two others. One-half 
 their boat's-crew were thus hors de combat, and 
 there was nothing for the survivors to do but 
 hasten shoreward with all possible speed. Hubert, 
 albeit much disposed, did not deem it prudent to 
 follow them, and the Savoyards continued their 
 voyage unmolested to the Chablais side of the 
 lake. 
 
 They alone escaped. All the other survivors 
 
THE CHA TELAIN'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 of the garrison were hanged ; Siegfried, the major- 
 domo, alone excepted. He was found helplessly- 
 drunk behind the butt of Burgundy, where he had 
 hidden himself at the beginning of the fight ; and, 
 as no rope could be found strong enough to bear 
 his weight, he was put into a boat, taken into deep 
 water and thrown overboard, not even being 
 allowed the short shrift, which, had hanging been 
 his fate, would probably have been granted 
 him. 
 
 All the inhabitants of Vevey and Tour de 
 Peilz, who had not left before these places fell 
 into the hands of the Swiss, were pitilessly put 
 to the sword, and their houses, after being pil- 
 laged, burnt to the ground. The keep, whose 
 sturdy walls not even the torch could destroy, 
 was alone left standing. For several years after 
 Zurkinden's fated visit Tour de Peilz and Vevey 
 were left desolate and unpeopled. 
 
 Bertha found a refuge in the castle of St. Pal, 
 a possession of the Sieur de Blonay. She mourned 
 bitterly her father's death, and in the following 
 year, shortly after being told that Hubert the 
 page had perished in the disastrous battle of 
 Nancy, while fighting in the ranks of the Bur- 
 
j6o TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 gundian army — she was taken from a world 
 where she had known so many sorrows, to join 
 in the heavenly kingdom those who had gone 
 before. 
 
 [The siege and destruction of Vevey and Tour 
 de Peilz, the massacre of their inhabitants, and the 
 death of the Chatelain de Chatelard, are historic 
 facts. According to tradition, eight men of the 
 garrison only escaped. The house of De Gingins 
 is one of the oldest, and was once one of the most 
 powerful, in canton Vaud. It has produced dis- 
 tinguished soldiers, statesmen, and scholars. The 
 De Gingins were seigneurs of Divonne, Montreux, 
 Fernex, Gingins, Genollier, and Belmont, co- 
 seigneurs of Vevey, Chatelains of Chatelard, and 
 barons of La Sarraz. The chateau of Chatelard 
 is now the property of the Marquis Dubochet ; but 
 the ancient and picturesque castle of La Sarraz 
 still belongs to a Baron de Gingins, who is 
 descended in a direct line from Jean de Gingins 
 (father of Pierre, killed at the siege of Tour de 
 Peilz) and Marguerite, baroness of La Sarraz, 
 herself a descendant of the puissant princes of 
 Grandson.] 
 
THE 
 
 SPITTLER OF THE GRIMSEL. 
 
 M 
 
THE SPITTLER OF THE 
 GRIMSEL. 
 
 In 1557, the landschaft (district) of Oberhasli, 
 with a view to facilitate travel between the 
 cantons of Berne, Uri, and the Valais, built 
 a Hospice on the Grimsel pass, ^at a height of 
 5750 feet above the sea-level, and placed therein 
 a spittler, or steward, who was charged to keep 
 the road clear of snow, and provide meat, drink, 
 and lodging for such travellers as had need 
 thereof, so far as the weather and his receipts 
 might permit. Travellers who had the means were 
 expected to pay their score, but nothing was to be 
 asked from the poor. To meet the expenses thus 
 incurred the spittler was empowered to take up a col- 
 lection throughout Switzerland; and all god-fearing 
 people, especially those who had occasion to make 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 alpine journeys in winter, subscribed freely to so 
 pious a work. The spittler was further rewarded 
 by the benedictions of the hundreds of wayfarers 
 whom he succoured ; for none ever left the friendly 
 shelter of the Hospice without uttering a fervent 
 Vergelt de's Gott ! 
 
 For some three hundred years these were the 
 duties — with the liability thrown in of being 
 snowed up half the year, crushed by an avalanche* 
 if they stayed in, or eaten by wolves if they went 
 out — of the Grimsel spittlers ; their recompense : 
 scant pay, many blessings, and an approving 
 conscience. But the present century wrought a 
 wondrous change in their fortunes, and those of 
 the Hospice. Switzerland came into vogue as the 
 playground of Europe. Every summer a fructi- 
 fying stream of gold flowed over the pass, the rude 
 alpine caravanserai became a modern hotel, and the 
 Hospice, instead of being a charge on the landschaft, 
 produced a handsome addition to its revenues. 
 
 * On March 22nd, 1838, the Hospice was overwhelmed by 
 an avalanche, which broke through the roof and floors, and 
 filled every room but that occupied by the man in charge, 
 who succeeded with great difficulty in working his way 
 through the snow, and, together with his dog, his only 
 companion, reached Meiringen in safety. 
 
THE SPITTLER OF THE GRIMSEL. 165 
 
 The best known and most remarkable of the 
 new spittlers of the Grimsel, men who paid rent, 
 and were hotel-keepers rather than stewards, was 
 Peter Zybach. Peter took the house in 1836, in 
 succession to Herr Leuthold, whose daughter he 
 had married. Zybach was a good specimen of a 
 thrifty energetic Switzer, and under his manage- 
 ment the Hospice acquired an almost European 
 celebrity, and himself and his family a wide 
 popularity. Though only the leaseholder he 
 greatly improved the property at his own cost, 
 increased the number of bedrooms to a hundred, en- 
 larged the dining-room, and fitted up the house for 
 the accommodation of well-to-do travellers. The 
 domestic arrangements were left to his wife, his son, 
 and his daughters, while himself looked after the out- 
 side concerns — the little farm that formed part of his 
 take, and the mules, horses, carriages, and drivers, 
 which in the summer season were always coming 
 and going. But as he knew the country well, having 
 in his younger days been a bold cragsman and 
 ardent chamois hunter, he was always appealed to 
 when a traveller or "pass-man" wanted information 
 about routes, mountain-paths, the condition of the 
 glaciers, or the prospects of the weather, of which 
 
i66 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 he was esteemed an almost infallible judge. Peter 
 had a fine family of sons and daughters, who were 
 almost as widely known as himself. His eldest son 
 was the indoor manager. His comely daughters, 
 clad in the picturesque costume of old Berne, acted 
 as waiters ; and the eldest of them, besides being 
 conversant with literary German, spoke fluently 
 the English and French tongues. 
 
 The visitors'-book was quite a curiosity. It 
 contained a poem by Toepfifer, the renowned 
 Genevan poet ; clever Greek verses in praise of the 
 Hospice, by a celebrated German professor ; 
 queer Latin ones in praise of Zybach's daughters, 
 by rollicking German students ; and the auto- 
 graphs of many Englishmen of rank and fashion. 
 Agassiz, Desor, and Hugi had w r ritten in the 
 book descriptions of their excursions among the 
 peaks, passes, and glaciers of the neighbouring 
 Alps ; and Karl Vogt contributed a treatise on 
 the eggs of the Philodina roseola, and that curious 
 creature the glacier flea (Desoria glacialis). 
 
 Zybach enjoyed, moreover, the rare distinction 
 of being a prophet in his own country. He was 
 as much esteemed by his neighbours as by his 
 guests. Bound by his contract with the land- 
 
THE SPITTLER OF THE GRIMSEL. 167 
 
 schaft to keep the house open all the year round, 
 he performed his duties of good Samaritan so 
 generously, was so good to the poor, and so 
 public-spirited withal, that his name was held 
 in honour in the cantons of Berne, Uri, and 
 Valais, and in all the region of the Helvetic 
 Alps. During the sixteen years of their tenure 
 of the Hospice there was probably in the whole 
 of Switzerland no happier family than the 
 Zybachs, none whose future seemed brighter 
 or more assured. But, in 1852, there befell a 
 terrible calamity, which brought ruin and degra- 
 dation in its train, marred their fair prospects 
 for ever, and made the name of Zybach as 
 painfully notorious as it had once been widely 
 respected. 
 
 In 1852 it became a question of renewing 
 Zybach's lease, which expired at the end of the 
 following year. That it would be renewed the 
 spittler made no doubt, for he had come to look 
 upon the house as virtually his own. He was 
 attached to the place ; he counted on ending his 
 days there ; he hoped that his son would be 
 spittler after him, and that the Hospice would be 
 a living for his children when he was gone. But 
 
1 68 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Zybach was too popular and prosperous not to 
 have enemies, some of whom held high office in 
 the landschaft. When he requested a renewal 
 of his lease, unexpected difficulties arose. Under 
 the old lease he had paid a rent of two thousand 
 five hundred and thirty-six francs, including the 
 privilege of making a collection throughout Swit- 
 zerland for the maintenance of the Hospice in the 
 winter months. In effect, therefore, the land- 
 schaft sold the right of asking alms, and made a 
 profit by pleading poverty. But however much 
 they made they wanted to make more ; and on 
 the ground that the Hospice had greatly improved 
 in value they demanded a considerable increase 
 of rent. Zybach admitted the improvement, but 
 asserted that it was almost entirely due to his 
 own outlay and his own exertions, and offered 
 three thousand francs a-year. This offer was re- 
 fused with something like contempt. Angry words 
 followed, and a few days afterwards Zybach was 
 told that the landschaft had found another spittler, 
 and that he must give up possession of the Hospice 
 on the expiration of his lease. 
 
 This was a terrible blow to Zybach. Leaving 
 
THE SPITTLER OF THE G RIMS EL. 169 
 
 the Grimsel seemed to him like the end of the 
 world. He had been the spittler sixteen years ; 
 his name was identified with the Hospice ; it had 
 been mentioned in scores of guide-books ; he 
 had friends all over Europe ; he was held in high 
 honour by his neighbours, and looked upon him- 
 self — with reason — as the first man in that part 
 of the country. Who was there in the Bernese 
 Oberland, in Uri, in the Valais, or even in Lucerne, 
 that had not heard of Peter Zybach ? And now 
 in his old age — he was verging on seventy — he 
 was threatened with the loss of the position he 
 had so arduously won and of which he was so 
 justly proud. And this was not all : heavy pecu- 
 niary loss stared him in the face. In the belief 
 that his lease would be renewed he had been at 
 great expense in enlarging, and otherwise improv- 
 ing, the Hospice — an expense in respect of which 
 he had no legal claim for compensation from the 
 landschaft ; and he knew the landschaft too well 
 to expect anything from their goodwill. All these 
 things preyed on Zybach's mind. A man natu- 
 rally of genial disposition and a cheerful counte- 
 nance, he became dull, morose, and heavy^eyed. 
 
TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 His fits of despondency, varied by occasional 
 savage outbreaks of temper, made those about 
 him fear for his sanity. 
 
 He came one night to his wife, as she after- 
 wards told, crying bitterly, wringing his hands, 
 and begging of her to save him. 
 
 "Save thee from what, my poor Peter?" she 
 asked. 
 
 But that he could not tell, or would not, and 
 the alarming thought occurred to her that her 
 husband might be meditating suicide. 
 
 This was the position of things at the end 
 of the season of 1852, when the Zybachs, in 
 accordance with their usual custom, broke up 
 their summer establishment, dismissed their fifty 
 or sixty domestics, and went to Oberstein, near 
 Meiringen, where they generally passed the winter. 
 Three men-servants (winterkneckle, as they were 
 called) were left in charge of the Hospice, the 
 spittler being bound by his contract to keep the 
 house open all the year round. 
 
 After the removal to Oberstein Peter became 
 a little less gloomy and more like his former self, 
 and in the middle of November he went on a 
 journey into the Valais. 
 
THE SPITTLER OF THE GRIMSEL. 171 
 
 The day after his departure one of the knechte 
 came to Oberstein with the startling news that 
 the Hospice had been burnt to the ground. The 
 fire had broken out in the night, he said, and it 
 burnt so fiercely and so fast that he and his com- 
 panions had barely time to escape with their 
 lives, and they feared that a poor traveller who 
 was lodging in the house, and to whose impru- 
 dence they had reason to believe the fire was 
 due, had perished in the flames. At anyrate, he 
 had not been seen since, and the fire broke out 
 in that part of the building where he slept. 
 
 So soon as news of the disaster reached Zybach 
 in the Valais he returned home in all haste, and 
 after visiting the ruined Hospice and conferring 
 with his servants, he sent, as in duty bound, 
 notice of the fire to the statthalter (justice of 
 the peace) at Oberhasli, and to the insurance 
 companies concerned. The building was insured 
 by the landschaft, the contents by Zybach him- 
 self ; but as he was not fully covered, and would 
 in any event be a heavy loser, much sympathy 
 was felt for the spittler in the cruel misfortune 
 that had overtaken him. 
 
 A few days after the fire the statthalter, accom- 
 
172 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 panied by the representatives of the two insurance 
 companies in which the Hospice and furniture 
 were insured, made an official visit of inspection 
 to the Grimsel. They found the Hospice a com- 
 plete ruin. A few articles only, of which the 
 value might be two thousand francs, had been 
 saved. No trace of the body of the stranger who 
 was said to have perished could be found. This 
 circumstance, the manner of the three men, certain 
 inconsistencies in their statements, and one or 
 two other signs, suggested to the minds of the 
 statthalter some very unpleasant suspicions, and 
 after taking counsel with the insurance agents, 
 it was resolved that they should return the fol- 
 lowing day, bring their own men, and make a 
 thorough search of the premises. 
 
 They went a second time accordingly. Peter 
 Zybach was there to meet them, but only two 
 of the servants were present. The third had 
 disappeared. 
 
 This was another suspicious circumstance. Still 
 more suspicious was the finding, in a midden be- 
 hind the house, of fourteen cases of wine and 
 spirits, four casks of beer, and a number of 
 cheeses, hidden in a heap of hay. 
 
THE SPITTLE 7? OF THE GRIMSEL. 173 
 
 Zybach did not seem in the least disconcerted. 
 He accounted for the presence of the wine in the 
 midden by explaining that it had been put there 
 to preserve it from the frost, a thing that was" 
 always done in the beginning of winter. In his 
 preoccupation the day before, he had forgotten to 
 mention the circumstance, an inadvertence for 
 which he thought he might well be excused. 
 
 " And the cheeses were put in the hay to keep 
 them from the mice, I suppose," said the statt- 
 halter grimly, as he made a sign to his men to 
 continue the search. 
 
 In an outhouse other things were found — furni- 
 ture, bedding, cases of glass and pottery— and 
 behind the rocks on the Seematteli, hard by the 
 tarn, still more were unearthed. 
 
 The statthalter, now fully convinced not only 
 that the Hospice had been purposely destroyed, 
 but that the spittler himself had planned the deed, 
 remarked, with a pitying surprised look : u I am 
 sorry for you, Zybach ; you are a very unfortunate 
 man." 
 
 On this, Zybach's assumed composure com- 
 pletely left him. He seemed for the first time 
 to realise the terrible position in which he stood — 
 
174 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 for by the law of Berne the doom of fire-raising 
 was death. He turned as pale as the snowflakes 
 on the rocks, heavy drops of sweat rolled down 
 his cheeks. He tried to speak, but could not, 
 and then, throwing up his hands with a gesture 
 of despair, he ran forward a few paces and plunged 
 head foremost into the dark waters of the tarn. 
 One of the men dived after him ; he was rescued 
 in a lifeless condition, and with great difficulty 
 restored to consciousness. 
 
 After this incident the statthalter thought it 
 his duty to give Zybach into custody, and the 
 spittler was removed to Meiringen, where he was 
 examined and committed for trial at the ensuing 
 Thun assizes. 
 
 The three knechte were also arrested, and 
 committed for trial. Before the trial came on 
 they all made a full confession. The names of 
 them were Caspar Alpanalp, Heinrich Alpanalp, 
 and Heinrich Blatter. The two former were 
 brothers ; Blatter was their brother-in-law. Caspar 
 Alpanalp, who had been in Zybach's service fifteen 
 years, deposed that, shortly after the spittler had 
 engaged him as one of the winterknechte, he took 
 him aside one day and said that he wanted the 
 
THE SPITTLER OF THE GRIMSEL. 175 
 
 Hospice to be burnt down — not to hurt anybody, but 
 in order that he might build another and a better 
 house, and find employment in the following 
 spring for the working people of the neighbour- 
 hood. If Caspar would lend a helping hand he 
 should have seven hundred and fifty francs for his 
 trouble. Caspar, after some hesitation, accepted 
 the offer, stipulating, however, that he should not 
 be called upon actually to set the house on fire. 
 He must draw the line somewhere, and he drew 
 it at applying the torch. For this part of the 
 business he recommended his brother-in-law, 
 Blatter, who, having served in the armies of 
 France, Holland, and Naples, might be presumed 
 to possess fewer scruples — and more experience 
 in the art of fire-raising — than folks that had spent 
 all their lives in the Oberland. Blatter, on being 
 sounded by Zybach, expressed himself quite 
 willing to undertake the job and keep silence 
 afterwards. He was a poor man with a large 
 family, and the tender of seven hundred and fifty 
 francs was probably a temptation that he could 
 not resist. Heinrich Alpanalp was subsequently 
 brought into the plot, though why, unless to keep 
 the other two company, does not seem very clear. 
 
176 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 According to the testimony of Caspar Alpanalp 
 and Blatter, Zybach superintended the removal of 
 the property in person, and promised them, if 
 they did their work well, a further sum of one 
 thousand five hundred francs. When these arrange- 
 ments were completed, Blatter went to Thun to 
 buy sulphur and other combustibles, and Zybach 
 started on his journey for the Valais, so that he 
 might be out of the way when the plot was 
 consummated. 
 
 On the 15th of November the three knechte 
 disposed the sulphur among some heaps of 
 shavings which had been saturated with oil, and 
 so distributed them as to make success certain. 
 Their next proceeding was to fetch wine and 
 brandy from the midden and have a big drink. 
 When the conspirators thought the night was 
 sufficiently advanced, and their courage had been 
 screwed up to the sticking-point, Blatter (though 
 not without some urging from the Alpanalps) 
 went into the dining-room and set fire to the 
 shavings. 
 
 Three hours later the Grimsel Hospice was a 
 heap of smoking ruins. 
 
 The story of the mysterious traveller was a 
 
THE SPITTLER OF THE GRIMSEL. 177 
 
 clumsy fiction, invented to account for the origin 
 of the fire. 
 
 In May, 1853, all the prisoners were arraigned 
 for trial at Thun. Zybach, finding it impossible 
 to struggle against the overwhelming circum- 
 stantial evidence and the terrible testimony of 
 his accomplices, confessed his guilt, and made a 
 pathetic appeal for mercy. 
 
 "I admit my guilt," he said. "I have ruined 
 both myself and my family. Let those who hear 
 me take warning from my fate. The aim of my 
 whole life was to work and save for myself and my 
 children, and to be useful to the landschaft ; yet 
 now, by one evil deed, am I plunged into darkness 
 and sin, and stand in the shadow of death. I 
 have been honoured and respected by many here 
 present, by none more than by the judges who 
 have now to pass sentence on me, and whose 
 pity I earnestly beseech. I know that I deserve 
 punishment — chains and a dungeon — and I will 
 not attempt to extenuate my offence. I ask only 
 for myself and my accomplices, whom I have 
 brought to ruin, the mildest doom which it may 
 be in your power to award. I ask this also for 
 the sake of my poor wife and children." 
 
 N 
 
178 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Notwithstanding this appeal the jury found 
 Zybach guilty, without extenuating circumstances, 
 of having maliciously and revengefully incited his 
 servants to set fire to the Grimsel Hospice. 
 Thirty years ago the criminal code of Berne was 
 of Draconian severity. Blatter and the two 
 Alpanalps, although the jury gave them the benefit 
 of extenuating circumstances, were sentenced to 
 twelve years' imprisonment in chains. Zybach 
 was condemned to death by beheading. On 
 appeal to the great council of the canton this 
 punishment was commuted to twenty years' im- 
 prisonment in chains — for a man of the spittler's 
 age a doom hardly less terrible than death. 
 
 In the mere incidents of this story there is 
 nothing extraordinary- — nothing to distinguish it 
 from many others that might be told — since fire- 
 raising in Switzerland, either for gain or revenge, 
 is unhappily by no means a rare offence. Its 
 singularity lies in Zybach's motive, which the 
 verdict of the jury neither correctly denotes nor 
 sufficiently explains. How came it that a man 
 of sixty-four, a man w T hose blameless character 
 and unbroken success in life proved him to be 
 possessed both of conscience and understanding, 
 
THE SPITTLER OF THE GRIMSEL. 179 
 
 should conceive and execute a crime involving 
 so frightful a risk, a crime that neither promised 
 gave nor gratified revenge? For it was clearly 
 shown that, even if Zybach had succeeded in 
 secreting and turning to account the things his 
 men stowed away, he would still have been a 
 heavy loser — his furniture and other belongings 
 being only partially insured. The landschaft, on 
 the other hand, being fully insured, could take 
 no harm by the destruction of their property. 
 Why then, it will be asked, did Zybach, at the risk 
 of his life, compass the burning of the Hospice ? 
 To burn down a house seems a strange expedient 
 to get reinstated as its tenant. The spittler may 
 have reasoned in this way : The Hospice being 
 well insured and yielding a handsome rent would 
 certainly be rebuilt. Of that there could be no 
 doubt. In order to have the new house ready for 
 the reception of guests by the opening of the next 
 season the work would have to be taken ener- 
 getically in hand the moment the weather per- 
 mitted. To this end a man of energy, resource, 
 and capacity would be wanted — a man whose 
 personal interest was identified with the speedy 
 execution of the undertaking, and who could 
 
 N 2 
 
180 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 guarantee its completion within a given time. 
 One man alone., thought Peter Zybach, possessed 
 these qualifications, and he made up his mind that 
 the landschaft (with whom the fire could not fail 
 to open the way to a renewal of their former 
 friendly relations) would gladly avail themselves 
 of his services and advice, and, in the upshot, 
 grant him another lease on favourable terms. In 
 any case — albeit events might not take precisely 
 the turn he anticipated — with the blind hope- 
 fulness of a morally drowning man he persuaded 
 himself that the burning down of the Hospice would, 
 in one way or another, turn to his advantage. As 
 to the moral character of the act — well, nobody, 
 save the insurance companies, would suffer ; and 
 was not prompt payment of losses, in consideration 
 of premiums received, their special business and 
 the sole justification of their existence ? An occa- 
 sional fire was even conducive to their interests ; 
 it served as an excellent advertisement, and 
 brought home to people in a very telling way 
 the benefit of insuring and the expediency of a 
 prompt renewal of their expiring policies. Many 
 a man, who would not for the world defraud a 
 neighbour, does not scruple to cheat a company. 
 
THE SPITTLER OF THE GRIMSEL. 181 
 
 If, as has been said, corporations are without 
 conscience, those who deal with them are often, 
 for the nonce, equally ill provided. 
 
 The strangest part of the affair is, perhaps, 
 Zybach's obliviousness to the risk he ran of being 
 found out ; that for so very problematical an advan- 
 tage he should have imperilled the prospects of his 
 children and risked his own life. Even if the insur- 
 ance people had suspected nothing, and paid him 
 the amount of his loss without hesitation or demur, 
 it is little likely that the guilty knowledge which 
 he shared with three of his servants could have 
 been long kept secret. His accomplices, more- 
 over, could have held him at their mercy, and he 
 would have had to spend the rest of his days in a 
 miserable state of terror and suspense, with a 
 Damocles' sword perpetually hanging over his 
 head. But Peter was desperate, and desperation 
 does not balance probabilities — it acts. The fear 
 of falling often exercises a greater influence over 
 men's conduct than either avarice or ambition, 
 and men of a certain stamp will go to greater 
 lengths to keep what they have than to gain what 
 they covet. This sort of a man seems to have been 
 Peter Zybach. The keeping of an alpine hostelry, 
 
182 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 among a bleak wilderness of mountains, where 
 "the snowflake reposes" all the year round, though 
 an undeniably elevated calling, may not appear to 
 everybody an especially enviable lot, yet Zybach 
 staked life and liberty in a reckless attempt to 
 retain his position as spittler of the Grimsel — a 
 position that he identified with his social standing, 
 and which to him, who began life as a goatherd, 
 seemed almost the highest a man could occupy. 
 
 It is in the very nature of things that the 
 punishments inflicted by human tribunals should 
 be haphazard and unequal — in some cases inade- 
 quate, in others excessive — and they who think 
 that justice is most just when tempered with 
 mercy may well be of opinion that for Zybach's 
 high offence — the only one in an otherwise reput- 
 able life — -even his commuted sentence was too 
 severe a penalty. And this seems to have been 
 the opinion of the authorities of the canton ; for 
 after a few years' imprisonment in chains his 
 sentence was commuted to banishment for life. 
 Peter then went to Elsass, whence, after a time, 
 he addressed a touching appeal to the Government, 
 to be allowed to return to his native land. He 
 was old and homesick, he said ; his days were 
 
THE SPITTLE R OF THE GRIM S EL. ^3 
 
 not long, and he yearned to see " the smoke of his 
 village " once more ere he died. 
 
 u The smoke of his village." Poor old Zybach ! 
 
 Who that knows Switzerland — who that has 
 seen the smoke of an alpine village curling past 
 the dark pine-wood, and losing itself in the 
 mists above which tower the glacier and the 
 avalanche — that has heard the joedel of the 
 goatherd among the recks — the tinkling of cattle- 
 bells in the mountain pastures — the rush of the 
 torrent through the gorge, can help feeling the 
 pathos of the broken man's prayer and pitying 
 his fate ? 
 
 But Zybach had sinned, and he was constrained 
 to drink the cup of his punishment to the dregs. 
 The Government did not deem it expedient to 
 grant his request, and the Spittler of the Grimsel 
 died in exile. 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF 
 VERSONNEX. 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF 
 VERSONNEX. 
 
 Few, probably, of the thousands of travellers 
 who every year visit the spot rendered famous, 
 if not sacred, by the philosopher of Fernex 
 (which in these latter days has taken to itself 
 the name of Fernex- Voltaire), are aware that 
 they make at the same time an excursion into 
 the land of Gex, a land that yields to none north 
 of the Alps in picturesque scenery, historic in- 
 terest, and romantic association. Though the 
 Pays de Gex is one of the very smallest of 
 countries, extending only from a point on the 
 Rhone outside Genevan territory to the River 
 Divonne, and from the Jura to Lake Leman, and 
 is now little more than a geographical expres- 
 sion, it has retained its present designation from 
 prehistoric times. 
 
1 88 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 For four hundred and sixty-four years Gex 
 was under the domination of Rome ; for one 
 hundred and twenty-eight years it formed part 
 of the first Burgundian kingdom ; for upwards of 
 two centuries it was ruled by Frankish kings ; for 
 half a century by Bosson, king of Aries. Then 
 it was annexed to the second Burgundian king- 
 dom. From 1032 to 1218 it was an appanage 
 of the Holy Roman Empire ; for one hundred and 
 three years thereafter the masters of the country 
 were its own seigneurs ; from them it passed to 
 the dukes of Savoy, who kept it until they were 
 driven out by the men of Berne in 1536. In 
 1589 the Bernese left the land once more to the 
 Savoyards, who held it for twenty-five years, when 
 they were again dispossessed — this time by the 
 allied troops of France and the Swiss cantons. 
 A few months later it was reconquered by the 
 Duke of Savoy, but only to fall the same year 
 (1590) into the hands of the Genevans, who 
 retained possession of the Pays for eleven years, 
 when it was ceded by treaty to Henry IV., king 
 of France. Finally, in 1815, the land of Gex 
 was partitioned between France and Switzer- 
 land ; so that several of the communes which 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 189 
 
 anciently formed a part of the Pays belong now 
 to the canton of Geneva, while the remaining, 
 and greater, part is included in the French 
 department of the Ain. 
 
 If I add that the Pays de Gex has been 
 visited by some of the greatest men and most 
 famous conquerors the world has known ; that 
 it has been traversed by the legions of Julius 
 Caesar, the hordes of Attila, the hosts of Charle- 
 magne, and the armies of Napoleon ; devastated 
 in turn by Helvetians, Gauls, Huns, Teutons, Bur- 
 gundians, Saracens, Savoyards, Swiss, Spaniards, 
 and Frenchmen, it will be seen that the narrow 
 strip of land between the Jura Mountains and 
 the Lake of Geneva has been the theatre of 
 great events, and that its claims to historic and 
 archaeologic interest are more than justified. 
 
 The aboriginal inhabitants of the land were 
 of the Keltic race. They have left traces of 
 their presence in the names of the streams and 
 mountains, and in Druids' stones, which even 
 yet are regarded by simple-minded Gexians as 
 something mysterious and sacrosanct. 
 
 Not very long ago the authorities of Geneva 
 conceived the idea of carrying away, and placing 
 
190 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 in the Botanic Garden of the city, the great 
 Druid Stone of Troinex, known as the Pierre 
 aux Dames. The project went so far that a 
 trench was dug about the block, rollers were on 
 the spot, and the removal was about to begin, 
 when the people of the neighbourhood raised 
 such an outcry and besought the Council of 
 State so earnestly to let the stone be, that the 
 order was countermanded, and the Pierre aux 
 Dames of Troinex still remains undisturbed where 
 it has lain for unnumbered ages. 
 
 It used to be believed in days gone by (and 
 the belief probably still lingers in the remoter 
 parts of the Pays de Gex) that the Pierre aux 
 Dames, and the three Druid stones between 
 Versonnex and Grelly, were thrown thither in 
 sport by the giants who, according to tradition, 
 once dwelt in the fastnesses of the Jura. Another 
 legend has it that the giants placed the stones 
 in their present situation to protect the treasures 
 which are supposed to be buried at immeasurable 
 depths underneath them. These treasures are 
 further and more effectually guarded by the 
 giants' curse, which will pursue anybody who 
 attempts to destroy or remove the stones ; and it is 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 19 1 
 
 a well-known fact that evil has never failed to befall 
 the reprobates who have dared to lay unhallowed 
 hands on these mysterious relics of the past. Of 
 this the following story affords fearful proof. 
 
 Once upon a time, some hundred and fifty 
 years ago — though the precise date is perhaps 
 not of great importance — there lived in the 
 village of Versonnex, which is not far from 
 Divonne (signifying in Keltic speech the Springs 
 of the Gods), a young well-to-do peasant of the 
 name of Gaspard. He had inherited from his 
 father and mother, who died when he was a 
 little child, several rich meadows, a piece of wood- 
 land, a fine vineyard planted on the sunny slope 
 of the hill, and an excellent stone-built house, 
 close to the little river Ondar, which runs through 
 the village and passes near the churchyard. By 
 the careful husbandry of his uncle, in whose charge 
 it had been left, Gaspard's property was so 
 improved during his minority that, when he 
 came of age, he was one of the richest peasants 
 in the countryside. But this proved a question- 
 able advantage to him, since instead of living 
 carefully and looking after his fields and his 
 vineyards himself, as if he had been less 
 
192 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 well-off he would have had to do, and as 
 his father had done before him, he left the 
 management of his affairs to hired servants, and 
 spent the greater part of his time in idleness 
 and dissipation. He would take his gun and his 
 dog and wander for days together in the forest of 
 the Dole and the Reculet. He was a great 
 player at bowls, an adept in all games of skill 
 and chance, and so strong and fearless withal, 
 that not a youth in the village dared say him 
 nay. They called him Wild Gaspard, and old 
 people, when his name was mentioned, would 
 shake their heads and look unutterable things. 
 His uncle alone seemed to have faith in him — 
 appeared, indeed, rather proud of the noise his 
 nephew was making, and gave it as his opinion 
 that, when Gaspard found a wife, he would mend 
 his ways and settle down to steady work, like 
 other folks. But notwithstanding his dark hand- 
 some face and tall stature and broad shoulders, 
 the more respectable of the maidens of the village 
 looked on the youth with little favour. Perhaps 
 this was because two or three girls who had 
 been seen in his company were afterwards ill 
 spoken of, almost lost their characters indeed. 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 193 
 
 But be the cause what it might, Gaspard remained 
 so long single that when the uncle died his 
 nephew was still a bachelor, nor did the old 
 man's death work the slightest change in the 
 nephew's conduct. He was as wild as ever, stayed 
 out late at night, drank, gambled, and spent so 
 much money that the village wiseacres said he 
 was running fast through his property, and fore- 
 told speedy ruin. 
 
 But so far from growing poorer, Gaspard 
 seemed to grow richer; instead of mortgaging 
 his meadows and selling his vines, he put money 
 out at interest and bought land. More than 
 one of his neighbours who had prophesied his 
 ruin became his debtors for money lent. 
 
 All this terribly puzzled the good folks of 
 Versonnex, and many a hard-handed close-fisted 
 peasant, who had given the greater part of a 
 long life of ferocious self-denial to the task of 
 filling an old stocking (hidden away in the thatch) 
 with ecus, passed sleepless nights in wondering 
 how Wild Gaspard contrived both to spend and 
 to have, and in envying his good fortune. 
 
 At length chance did for Gaspard what he 
 had not yet been able to do for himself, or, at 
 
 o 
 
194 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 any rate, what he had not done — found him a 
 wife. It befell on this wise. One evening, just 
 as the sun, sinking fiery red behind the Jura, 
 had turned the silvery vapour which hovered 
 over the Alps and floated above the valley of 
 Sixt into golden cloud, Gaspard, on his way 
 through the village to his house by the river, 
 was accosted by a young girl with a bundle on 
 her arm. She asked to be directed to the dwelling 
 of a peasant who lived not far off, and whom 
 Gaspard well knew. Struck by the girl's appear- 
 ance — for she was young, pretty, modest-looking, 
 and well clad, and seemed, moreover, as if weary 
 with long walking — he offered to accompany 
 her to her destination and insisted on carrying 
 her bundle. She accepted his offer with many 
 thanks, and told him as they went along that 
 the peasant after whom she had inquired was 
 her uncle, that she had come on a visit to him, 
 that her home was in the Chablais, and her name 
 Marie. 
 
 "Here is your Uncle Jean's house/' said 
 Gaspard, after they had walked about a mile. 
 " I must now leave you. But this is the time 
 when lads and lasses burn nuts to find out 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 195 
 
 their fortunes. I will come one of these nights 
 and we will see if we cannot find out yours and 
 mine." 
 
 The young man was as good as his word. 
 The very next evening he went to Uncle Jean's, 
 and Marie and 4ie and the Uncle's sons and 
 daughters burnt nuts together, told tales, and 
 tried to find out their fortunes. He proved him- 
 self the best tale-teller of the company, and 
 made himself so agreeable withal that the cousins, 
 of both sexes, pressed him to come again ; and 
 when he was gone, all agreed that Wild Gaspard 
 was, after all, a very nice fellow, or, at any 
 rate, not nearly so black as he had been painted. 
 
 Marie did not think him black at all ; for 
 when, a month or two later, he asked her to 
 be his wife, she did not say nay ; and as Gaspard, 
 since his acquaintance with Marie, had given 
 up his evil ways — ceased to frequent the village 
 auberge and bowling-alley, and went off no more 
 on mysterious journeys into the mountains — Uncle 
 Jean gave a willing consent to the betrothah 
 Before Christmas came they were married, and 
 Marie, now Madame Gaspard, became mistress 
 of the stone house by the river. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 For some time after their marriage Gaspard 
 was very steady and Marie very happy. He 
 stayed at home, looked after his land and his 
 cows, superintended the dressing of his vines, 
 and altogether behaved so well that his neighbours, 
 almost forgetting that they had ever called him 
 " wild," began to look upon him as quite an 
 exemplary husband and a respectable member 
 of society. To crown the happiness of the young 
 couple, two children were born to them, and, 
 to all seeming, their lives were likely to prove 
 as quiet and uneventful as those of any other 
 peasants of the land of Gex. But whether it 
 was that he began to weary of the monotony of 
 married life and the company of his wife, or 
 that the evil spirit, which his love for her had 
 for a while exorcised, again possessed him, a 
 great change came over Gaspard shortly after 
 the birth of their second child. He grew morose 
 and gloomy, went out at nights, and took long 
 walks into the dark pine-forests that overspread 
 the summits and slopes of the Jura. He no 
 longer challenged young men to fight and 
 wrestle as he once did ; he seemed to have the 
 power of daunting them with his look. The 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 197 
 
 neighbours began to dread and dislike him more 
 than ever. They had good cause ; for he grew 
 very quarrelsome and went to law on the least 
 provocation ; and when he went to law he won 
 as invariably as he was wont to do when he 
 played at bowls or at cards in the village inn. 
 
 Among other folks with whom he fell out 
 was his wife's uncle. One of Jean's fields ad- 
 joined one of his. In the middle of it was a 
 big Druid Stone. This field Gaspard wanted 
 to buy, but as it was the nearest to his own 
 house, which Jean possessed, he refused to part 
 with it. Hence arose a bitter quarrel ; for the 
 old man was obstinate and the young one per- 
 sistent. In the end, Gaspard removed the land- 
 mark between the two fields, and drove his plough 
 over a part of Jean's property; so that the uncle, 
 in order to assert his right, was constrained to 
 bring an action against his niece's husband. 
 But before it had well begun, Jean became very 
 uneasy ; for his friends told him that Gaspard, 
 having the ear of the judge was sure to win ; 
 so, lest worse should befall, Jean agreed to 
 let his kinsman have the field at his own 
 price. 
 
193 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 As may well be supposed, this affair made 
 Marie very unhappy ; for her husband, what- 
 ever he might be to others, was still kind to her. 
 The strife between him and her uncle, whom 
 she greatly respected, had been a sore trouble, 
 and when it ended her satisfaction was unbounded. 
 In the village the incident gave rise to very 
 ugly rumours; and the feeling against Gaspard, 
 though none dared openly avow it, was stronger 
 than before. There were stories of his having 
 been seen near the Druid Stone at midnight ; 
 and old people told with bated breath how they 
 had heard from their sires that the spot was 
 haunted by one of the giant ghosts of the 
 mountains, who went thither at stated times to 
 watch over his hidden gold. It was said, too, 
 that by the practice of certain pagan rites, known 
 only to a few descendants of the ancient Allo- 
 broges, the former possessors of the land, men 
 had sometimes compelled the giants to yield 
 them a portion of their treasure and lend them 
 a part of their strength. But it was affirmed, and 
 firmly believed, that those who had dealings with 
 these ghostly giants were accursed, and always 
 In the end overtaken by dire misfortune. 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 199 
 
 These stories made such an impression in the 
 village that GasparcTs house began to be looked 
 upon as unlucky, and few entered it save on com- 
 pulsion. When Marie and her two children fell ill 
 of a fever Gaspard could get nobody in Versonnex 
 to nurse them, and even at Gex the only person 
 he could persuade to undertake the task was a 
 woman known as Red Claudine, from the Franche- 
 Comte, on the other side of the mountains. She 
 was young and not unhandsome; but old Karl 
 Saladan, who was generally acknowledged to be 
 the wisest man in the village, said she had deceitful 
 eyes and a cruel mouth, and was not to be trusted. 
 Be that as it may, she nursed Marie and her 
 children with great seeming devotion ; but whether 
 it was that she came too late, or they were doomed 
 beforehand, the little ones died soon after her 
 arrival, and were buried side by side in the church- 
 yard near the river. People looked upon this as a 
 judgment ; there could be no longer a doubt, 
 they said, that Gaspard had dealings with the 
 giants, and that the curse was now beginning to 
 work. 
 
 As Marie was still very sick, and at times deli- 
 rious, her husband did not tell her at once of their 
 
2oo TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 » children's death. He feared she might die too, 
 and his gloom was terrible to see. The night 
 after the funeral she seemed rather better, and 
 Gaspard, believing her to be asleep, stole quietly 
 out of the house. As Claudine had gone down 
 to the village, Marie was thus left alone. 
 
 After quitting the house Gaspard struck right 
 across the fields, and did not stop until he reached 
 the Druid Stone. There he paused, and looking 
 towards the Col de la Fau9ille by the light of the 
 new moon, he repeated in a low voice what seemed 
 to be an incantation. As he spoke, a vast shadowy 
 form, in the shape of a man, emerged from the 
 forest and drew near, until it stood over the stone. 
 Its head overtopped the tallest oaks, and it carried 
 in its hand, as a staff, the trunk of a young pine- 
 tree. 
 
 " You called me," said the spectre, in a voice 
 that sounded like distant thunder, " what is it you 
 desire ? " 
 
 a To tell you, first of all," answered Gaspard, 
 who did not seem to be in the least afraid, " that 
 the ground whereon we stand is mine. I have 
 bought this field, and with it the stone." 
 
 " Bought it ! " said the phantom, with a laugh 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 201 
 
 that made the trees sway to and fro, as if shaken 
 by the wind. u Bought it ! Why, in the fiend's 
 name, did you buy the field when you could have 
 taken it ? What use is the strength I gave you — 
 that you cajoled me out of rather — if you buy 
 things ? Any fool can buy." 
 
 "That is true; but you forget, most worshipful 
 giant, what sort of a world this is — how it has 
 degenerated since you lived and lorded it on the 
 mountain there with your kinsfolk and slaves. You 
 were very strong, I know, but there is a power 
 nowadays stronger than all the giants that ever 
 dwelt on the Jura put together. This power is 
 called the Law, and those who defy it always come 
 off second best. You may meet it by cunning, 
 perhaps, but you cannot overcome it by force. 
 Therefore I bought the field. I thought you would 
 be glad to know that it was mine, and that we 
 might meet henceforth on my own land." 
 
 " Humph ! " said the giant, who did not appear 
 to be in the best of tempers, "that makes very 
 little difference to me. Did you think the owner 
 of the field was likely to use this terrible Law 
 against me — lay an action against me for trespass, 
 eh ? It will be a long time before they get me 
 
202 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 into a court of justice, I think. But what else 
 do you desire ? You surely have not called me 
 here to tell me that you have bought a field." 
 
 " I want to know something. Will my wife live ? " 
 
 " As long as you let her, she will live," answered 
 the giant, with a scornful laugh that made Gaspard 
 tremble, bold as he was. " Anything else ? " 
 
 " Yes, I want some more gold." 
 
 " Gold, gold ! Why, man, you are always 
 wanting gold. What do you do with it all ? 
 But hear this — no more gold from me shall you 
 have." 
 
 "Well then, I shall take it," said Gaspard 
 defiantly. " I shall dig under the stone, or blow 
 it up with gunpowder, and help myself to whatever 
 of your treasure there is left." 
 
 "You miserable wretch!" roared the enraged 
 giant ; " I'll brain you where you stand," and, 
 raising the pine-tree high above his head, he 
 made as if he would carry his threat into instant 
 execution. 
 
 " Ah, ha ! " laughed Gaspard, " you cannot ; 
 you are powerless. Did you not tell me that 
 when your body cast no shadow in the moonlight 
 your arm had no pith. Strike, I am not afraid." 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 203 
 
 " You ungrateful scoundrel ! " thundered the 
 giant, letting fall his upraised staff. " Is this my 
 reward for telling you so many high secrets, for 
 giving you half my treasure, for making you the 
 strongest and richest man in the Pays de Gex ! 
 True, I am a poor ghost without physical strength, 
 and my club is but a shadow, yet I have a terrible 
 power you wot not of. I can curse, and my curse 
 is all potent. And now, Gaspard of Versonnex, 
 I curse you and your house with the curse of 
 a giant of the Jura. May evil befall you in this 
 world and the next ; may your life be misery, 
 and your death damnation ! " 
 
 As the ghostly form of the giant disappeared in 
 the darkness the last words of his malediction rang 
 through the forest, and were given back with 
 fearful distinctness by the echoes of the mountain. 
 
 When Gaspard, after a few moments spent in 
 deep thought, turned to go, a white figure sprang 
 from behind the stone and stood before him in 
 the path. 
 
 " Oh Gaspard, Gaspard ! " exclaimed a voice 
 he well knew, "in the name of Heaven and the 
 holy Virgin come not here again. Avoid this 
 spot, it is thrice accursed." 
 
204 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 It was Marie, and before her husband had 
 recovered from his surprise, she sank fainting on 
 the ground. 
 
 Stooping over her prostrate form, he gazed 
 intently in her face. Then he drew from his 
 belt a long glittering knife. It flashed in the 
 moonlight. 
 
 " No ! " he muttered, as if struck by a sudden 
 impulse, or moved by some tender recollection. 
 "She is delirious; she has followed me without 
 intention. Maybe she has seen nothing, or, if she 
 has, will not remember. I will take her with me." 
 
 He raised her in his arms, and carried her 
 home ; and when Red Claudine returned there 
 was nothing to show that either of them had 
 been out of the house. 
 
 Marie recovered her health, but not her spirits. 
 Her illness, her children's death, the conduct of 
 her husband, and, perhaps, the recollection of the 
 scene at the Druid Stone, had transformed the 
 once happy wife into a joyless woman. She went 
 about like one in a dream, rarely spoke, and 
 seemed glad that Red Claudine, who showed no 
 inclination to depart, took all the management 
 of the house and dairy. Gaspard, who watched 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 205 
 
 his wife closely, thought she remembered nothing 
 of what had passed on the night of his inter- 
 view with the phantom, and he began to carry 
 out his resolve to uplift the stone. By assiduous 
 drilling and a free use of gunpowder, he broke 
 off three long slabs, which he proposed to con- 
 vert into doorsteps. The last of them had been 
 brought down to the house before Marie knew 
 what was going on. 
 
 When she saw them she turned deadly pale, 
 and almost fell to the ground. 
 
 " Oh Gaspard ! 39 she exclaimed, " what are 
 you doing? Do you want to ruin yourself both 
 in this world and the next ? Have you forgotten 
 that terrible night at the Druid Stone and the 
 spectre's curse ? " 
 
 The next day, when Red Claudine went into 
 the village to make her purchases, she told that 
 poor Madame Gaspard had fallen ill again of her 
 old complaint. Those whom she told did not 
 seem much surprised. They shook their heads, 
 and said they feared it was likely this time to go 
 hard with her. In this opinion Claudine, who 
 looked very sorrowful, appeared quite to agree. 
 "Madame Gaspard," she remarked, "had never 
 
2o6 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 got over her last illness and the loss of her 
 children ; even before yesterday's attack came 
 on she was very weak, and her husband had been 
 greatly concerned about her. Still, there was no 
 telling ; she might pull through after all. They 
 must trust in Heaven and the holy Virgin, and 
 hope for the best. They were taking every care. 
 Madame was never left alone. Either herself or 
 Monsieur Gaspard was with her night and day." 
 And Red Claudine wiped her eyes and heaved a 
 deep sigh, as if the trouble were really more than 
 she could bear. 
 
 The following day Claudine was in the village 
 again, fuller of trouble than before. Poor Marie 
 had died that morning, just as the day broke, 
 and she was come to order the coffin, poor 
 Monsieur Gaspard being quite beside himself with 
 grief, and unable to stir out of the house. 
 
 Several of the neighbours who went to see 
 the body before it was put out of sight, drew each 
 other's attention to the tranquil expression of the 
 face, and opined that poor Madame Gaspard must 
 have died very peacefully. Claudine said she had, 
 that she did not seem to suffer at all, passing 
 away as if she were falling asleep. 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 207 
 
 Despite the awe and detestation in which 
 Gaspard was held, the death of his two children, 
 followed at so short an interval by that of his 
 wife, touched his neighbours' hearts, and he re- 
 ceived many tokens of their sympathy ; but when, 
 a few weeks after he had laid Marie in the grave, 
 he led Claudine to the altar, great w T as their 
 indignation, and he was shunned more than ever, 
 but still so much feared that everybody carefully 
 avoided giving him offence. 
 
 The Gex country is a land of gushing springs 
 and running waters. The rivulets that traverse 
 it are for the most part sufficiently well-behaved, 
 and pass from their source in the Jura to their 
 home in the blue depths of lake Leman, either 
 silently and swiftly, or with no more ado' 
 than befits modest mountain-born streams. But 
 sometimes their gentle waters, when swollen by 
 autumnal rains, the melting of winter snows, or 
 a summer thunderstorm, become the maddest of 
 torrents — rise above their banks, sweep over fields 
 and vineyards, and leave in their wake destruction 
 and death. 
 
 The Ondar, which flows through Versonnex, is 
 little more than a brook, and it seems almost 
 
208 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 absurd to suggest that it could ever be a cause 
 of apprehension or a source of danger. But one 
 day in the autumn following the marriage of 
 Gaspard and Red Claudine, a cloud broke over the 
 Jura, and the stream filled so fast, and mounted so 
 high, that the villagers were in great alarm, and 
 those of them who lived on its banks left their 
 houses and made hurried preparations to place their 
 belongings in a place of safety. Just when the 
 flood was at its height a huge pine-tree, which 
 had been brought down from the mountains, got 
 fixed transversely across the river in such a way 
 as to impede the flow of the water. It soon 
 became evident that, unless the obstruction could 
 be instantly removed, the village would be com- 
 pletely inundated, and many of the buildings 
 either destroyed or seriously damaged ; a calamity 
 that was only averted by the boldness and 
 presence of mind of several young men of the 
 village, who, heedless of danger, used the saw 
 and hatchet to such purpose that the pine-tree 
 was speedily dislodged from its place and floated 
 away in the flood. 
 
 And then a strange and awesome thing hap- 
 pened; A gigantic ghost-like shape came out of 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 209 
 
 the driving rain, and, seizing the pine-tree in his 
 hands, placed it a second time across the stream, 
 but between the church and the houses, in such 
 a position that the flood was turned through the 
 churchyard, without endangering the village. 
 
 " Murder will out ! " exclaimed the phantom, 
 as he completed his task and sank down, as 
 appeared to the awestruck beholders, into the 
 raging torrent. 
 
 There being a rapid fall in the ground from 
 this point to the churchyard, the stream poured 
 into it with such violence that the tombstones 
 were overturned, the earth washed away, many 
 coffins swept from their graves, and the church 
 itself almost destroyed. 
 
 After the subsidence of the flood — and it sub- 
 sided almost as fast as it had risen — the first 
 thought of the villagers was to put the churchyard 
 in order, and to restore the dead to their graves. 
 Only one of the coffins was found to be injured — 
 that of Madame Gaspard. It had been burst open 
 by the water, and lay several yards from the body 
 which it had enclosed. Some of the men were 
 just about to raise the poor corpse reverently from 
 the ground, where it rested face downward, when 
 
 p 
 
2io TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 the sexton called attention to a peculiar appear- 
 ance at the back of the head. Looking more 
 closely the onlookers perceived a wound at the base 
 of the skull, and found further that it had been 
 caused by a large nail, which was there still. On 
 this a great fear came over all, and they remem- 
 bered the words of the phantom : " Murder will 
 out/' 
 
 Gaspard was at once arrested, and, seeing in 
 the extraordinary revelation of his crime that 
 the hand of God was against him, and that he 
 was a doomed man, he owned himself guilty, con- 
 fessing that he had put his wife to death to 
 prevent her from betraying the secret of his un- 
 hallowed dealings with the giant of the Jura. 
 He was taken to Gex, and there executed. 
 
 As for Red Claudine, when she saw the bodies 
 strewn about the churchyard, she had been cunning 
 enough to escape. It was believed she went into 
 Savoy. Be that as it may, she was never seen 
 in the Gex country again. Gaspard, before his 
 death, became very penitent, and expressed great 
 contrition for the terrible crimes of which he had 
 been guilty — practising arts forbidden by the 
 Church, and so cruelly killing his wife. 
 
THE DRUID STONE OF VERSONNEX. 211 
 
 His fate has served as a salutary warning to 
 succeeding generations. Nobody since his time 
 has attempted to disturb the Druid Stone of 
 Versonnex, or to hold converse with its guardian 
 spirit ; a circumstance which probably accounts for 
 the entire disappearance in these latter days of 
 the phantom giants of the Jura from their ancient 
 haunts. 
 
 p 2 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE LENKERHORN DYNASTY. 
 
 The ruined castles and mouldering keeps that 
 crown the wooded heights and naked rocks of 
 " Free old Rhastia," a region known indifferently 
 to the outer world as Graubiinden and the 
 Grisons, recall to the pensive wayfarer the age 
 of chivalry and romance, the good old times 
 when freebooter barons ruled in every valley of 
 the Upper Rhine, living joyously on the fruits 
 of their vassals' labour, and levying black mail 
 on itinerant merchants and belated wanderers. 
 The protection afforded by the lords of these 
 castles to the tillers of the soil was dearly bought. 
 They exacted from their unfortunate tenants so 
 many dues, and laid on them so many grievous 
 
216 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 burdens that their lives were hardly worth living, 
 and it is almost a wonder that they consented 
 to live. 
 
 Some of the feudal usages that came into 
 vogue at the time in question outlasted the lord- 
 ship of these rude chieftains. Even after the 
 Thirty Years' War, when the Vorder Rhein 
 country was wasted with fire and sword, and 
 the Grisons passed temporarily under the domina- 
 tion of the house of Hapsburg, the Austrian 
 nobles, to whom certain seignorial privileges 
 were transferred with the properties they pur- 
 chased and annexed, forced the wretched peasants, 
 under one pretext and another, to surrender 
 nearly all that was left of their poor pos- 
 sessions. But the issue of that terrible contest 
 — in which, by the deplorable weakness of the 
 Confederation, several of the northern cantons 
 were forced to engage — was greatly to weaken 
 the old feudal system. Many knightly land- 
 owners perished in the war, their castles be- 
 came tenantless and fell into ruins, their estates 
 passed into other hands, and the burghers were 
 enabled to assert their time-honoured rights, and 
 regain their ancient independence. But the 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 217 
 
 change, though salutary as far as it went, was 
 far from being thorough. The day of democracy 
 had not yet arrived, and the hewers of wood 
 and drawers of water were not long in finding 
 out that they had only exchanged one set of 
 masters for another. Nevertheless, the second 
 yoke was easier than the first. 
 
 Owing to circumstances which it is not 
 necessary here to narrate, power in the rural 
 communes of Rhsetian Switzerland fell into the 
 hands of a few families, who, albeit of the peasant 
 class, formed a real hereditary caste, and in after 
 years came to be known as magnates, kings of 
 the valleys, and potentates of the village. Though 
 they lived among their subjects, and, like them, 
 had flocks and herds and mountain pastures, 
 these families exercised almost despotic sway. 
 Father was followed by son, if not by acknow- 
 ledged hereditary right, by force of long custom. 
 This yeoman-aristocracy revived for its own benefit 
 many feudal usages, grew rich on the labour of 
 others, after the manner of old aristocracies, and 
 on great occasions displayed an almost princely 
 pomp. 
 
 The French Revolution, which destroyed so 
 
218 TALES OF SWITZERLAND, 
 
 many things, put an end to all that remained of 
 the feudal system in Switzerland, albeit the 
 thorough emancipation of the Confederation from 
 aristocratic fetters was the work of the present 
 century. 
 
 With the cataclysms of 1792-18 14 the legal 
 sway of the village potentates of Graubiinden 
 finally disappeared. Such authority as they 
 contrived, in the capacity of landammanner (com- 
 munal presidents) and statthalter (justices of the 
 peace), to retain, they owed to their own adroit- 
 ness, to their comparative wealth, and to that 
 respect for old families and ancient usages which 
 survives so much longer in the country than the 
 town. 
 
 One of the last of these rural sovereigns of 
 Free old Rhaetia was a certain Hans Lenker- 
 horn, who united in his own person the offices 
 of landamman and statthalter of the confederate 
 communes of Stein, Oberstein, and Niederstein. 
 But in deference to the democratic tendencies 
 of the age and, like the wise man he was, caring 
 more for the substance than the shadow of 
 power, he contented himself with the simple title 
 of " amman." 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 219 
 
 Hans Lenkerhorn lived in the largest house 
 in Oberstein, a house which, together with much 
 cattle and many mountain pastures, he had in- 
 herited from Peter his father, who had been 
 amman before him, and from whose venerable 
 lips he had learnt priceless lessons in the art 
 of government. For Peter was a born leader 
 of men ; and had his lot been cast in a higher 
 sphere, a later age, and another country he might 
 have emulated the fame of Bismarck or Cavour. 
 The principle of his rule was, everything for the 
 people and nothing by the people. When he 
 watched the herd of beautiful cows (he would 
 have none but the best) browsing on one of 
 his alps, and saw how willingly they acknow- 
 ledged the supremacy of the strongest and 
 handsomest, he would call her the Queen of 
 the Mountain, muttering to himself, as he stroked 
 her comely neck : 
 
 " Ach Gott ! these dumb creatures have more 
 sense than thick-headed peasants, who find fault 
 with their betters, and think, poor fools ! that 
 they understand affairs of state and are fit for 
 self-government." 
 
 Besides his son Hans, Peter possessed a 
 
220 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND, 
 
 daughter — a broad-backed, bright-eyed, rosy- 
 cheeked mountain maid, of marriageable age. 
 Though Frieda was a good child, and her father 
 loved her, he often wished she had never been 
 born. 
 
 Being a peasant of aristocratic instincts, he 
 desired to transmit the whole of his property 
 unimpaired to his son and heir. But as a man 
 of his condition could neither marry his daughter 
 without a handsome mitgift (dower) nor cut her 
 off with the traditional shilling, the girl's existence 
 threatened to interfere with his plans for the 
 maintenance of the family dignity in succeeding 
 generations. 
 
 Had the amman not been a Protestant he 
 might possibly have persuaded his daughter to 
 enter a convent. But there was nothing nun- 
 like in the girl's character ; and a hint from 
 Frau Lenkerhorn that the marriage state was a 
 state of unmitigated wretchedness, and that those 
 were wisest who remained single, was so ill 
 received (being answered by the remark that 
 her mother did not seem particularly wretched, 
 and that Liesa Lindau, who had been married 
 the year before to the Alpvogt Christian, was 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 221 
 
 very happy) that the amman made up his mind 
 to the worst, and asked his wife what she thought 
 was the least mitgift they could decently bestow 
 on the child. 
 
 This was rather a bothering question for the 
 Frau Amman, for if she could have had her way 
 she would have dealt the same measure to both 
 her children. But to have hinted as much would 
 have raised a storm ; so, on the plea that the 
 point was rather a knotty one, she asked time 
 for consideration. Before she had done consider- 
 ing an event occurred that saved her the trouble 
 of coming to a decision, and possibly prevented 
 a dispute between her husband and herself. This 
 event was the betrothal of their son Hans to 
 the daughter of a neighbouring potentate as rich 
 as Peter himself, and so well dowered withal that 
 the amman felt he might now portion Frieda 
 right royally, without endangering the heir- 
 apparent's future position. 
 
 Soon after Hans' marriage, which was followed 
 at a short interval by the marriage of Frieda, 
 with a young man of her own rank and ample 
 means, Peter resolved to abdicate in favour of his 
 son and heir. He was growing old and feeble, 
 
222 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 and he desired, before he died, to see the reins 
 of government placed in younger and firmer hands. 
 It was a degenerate age, and he feared that if he 
 left things to the last the gemeinde (commune) 
 might forget their duty and suffer some low-born 
 interloper to step into his shoes. So, after a long 
 and serious conversation with Hans, the amman 
 summoned his privy council — Michael the spendvogt 
 (treasurer), Christian the alpvogt, and Jos the writer 
 — to hear his decision and receive his instructions. 
 He intended, he said, at the approaching yearly 
 meeting of the gemeinde to resign the office he 
 had so long held, and it behoved them to think 
 whom they would choose as his successor. On 
 this, the spendvogt answered with a courtly smile 
 that there was only one possible successor to the 
 Herr Amman — that Lenkerhorn must succeed 
 Lenkerhorn — and that the council would do all 
 that was necessary to make the election of Herr 
 Hans sure and spontaneous. 
 
 When the great day came, Peter, who, in spite 
 of his fourscore years, was still a magnificent 
 specimen of a mountain-bred man, standing in 
 the place in which had stood five generations of 
 his forefathers, announced his intention of resign- 
 ing the honourable position he had so long 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 223 
 
 held. In an eloquent farewell speech, he thanked 
 his fellow burghers for having so frequently 
 elected him as their ruler and chief magistrate, 
 and recommended them to choose as his suc- 
 cessor the worthiest among them — the one best 
 fitted to bear the burden of power and insure 
 the prosperity of the confederate communes. 
 On this there was a general call for Hans 
 Lenkerhorn, and, no other candidate being pro- 
 posed, old Peter, with well-feigned reluctance, and 
 a deprecatory air, as if he felt that the slight 
 services he had been able to render the gemeinde 
 were receiving a far higher reward than they 
 deserved, declared his son and heir the duly elected 
 landamman and statthalter of the confederate 
 communes of Stein, Oberstein, and Niederstein. 
 Then he stepped down from his chair, and Hans 
 was conducted to the seat of honour by Jos 
 the writer and Michael the spendvogt. If the 
 acclamations that followed the new amman's 
 speech were a measure of its quality, it must 
 have been fully worthy of the occasion. And so 
 it doubtless was, for albeit Hans had not been 
 highly educated, he possessed a shrewd mother- 
 wit and a ready tongue. The speech, moreover, 
 had been carefully prepared beforehand, and 
 
224 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 rehearsed in the presence of the ex-amman and 
 his privy council, whose long experience of affairs 
 enabled them to make several suggestions which 
 the young man was glad to adopt. 
 
 Peter's prescience was justified by the event. 
 In less than three years after handing over the 
 helm of state to his son, he was gathered to his 
 fathers. He was buried in a manner befitting his 
 rank and the custom of the country. All the 
 men of the confederate communes followed* the 
 ex-amman's body to the grave. After the funeral 
 there came a mighty drink, a drink worthy of 
 a banquet of Teutonic warriors or of an Irish 
 wake of the last century. The Lenkerhorns kept 
 open house, and so copious were the libations of 
 schnapps poured out in honour of the old potentate's 
 memory that hardly one guest went home sober, 
 or awoke next morning without a splitting head- 
 ache. Two old men from Stein and a young 
 man from Niederstein did not awake at all. But 
 a time-honoured custom had been well kept, the 
 splendid hospitality of Amman Hans won him 
 great popularity, and, together with other incidents 
 of the funeral, was the favourite theme in the 
 village ale-house for years thereafter. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NEW PASTOR. 
 
 Amid a generation growing almost every day 
 more impatient of legitimate authority and less 
 reverent of ancient customs, Hans Lenkerhorn was 
 now left to maintain alone the supremacy of his 
 house. But he had qualities that eminently fitted 
 him for the task. While quite his father's equal in 
 ability he was far more politic and patient. Though 
 in character no less resolute than his predecessor 
 he was less absolute in manner. He studied 
 government as a fine art, had learnt that to 
 conquer it was sometimes necessary to stoop, 
 knew when to yield and when to insist; and, 
 although during his long reign many attempts 
 were made to oust him from power, he died 
 landamman and statthalter of the confederate 
 communes. The greatest difficulty he encountered 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 arose out of a conflict with the Church, in the 
 person of one of its ministers, a conflict which he 
 conducted with a craft and subtlety that, had they 
 been displayed in a wider field, would have won 
 for him the reputation of a great statesman. 
 
 So long as old Pastor Greis was able to perform 
 his duty, nothing could be more harmonious than 
 the relations of Church and State in the gemeinde 
 of Oberstein. The pastor was a good easy soul, 
 who never tried to force water uphill nor smoke 
 downhill. In other words he let the world wag — 
 never embroiling himself with the amman by 
 meddling with politics, nor risking his popularity 
 hy attempting to amend the morals or improve 
 the manners of his flock. But even in the 
 mountains of Rhaetia men grow old, and the time 
 came when, after having had spiritual charge of 
 Oberstein more than seventy years, the Herr 
 Pastor felt himself constrained to retire from the 
 active duties of his calling. He was succeeded by 
 a young man fresh from the university, recom- 
 mended by the consistory, and elected by the 
 gemeinde, of course at the instance of the amman, 
 for Hans at that time wielded almost as much 
 power in Oberstein as Bismarck now wields in 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 227 
 
 Germany. Hans thought that a young man 
 would be more submissive to authority and fall 
 more readily into the ways of the gemeinde than 
 a man of mature age. 
 
 As touching young men in general, Hans may 
 have been right ; but, as touching this particular 
 young man, the event proved him to be wrong. 
 
 On the day appointed for the arrival of Herr 
 Schuster, the amman sent Fritz the vorsteher 
 (head-man) down to the Chur road to meet him, 
 and place one of his best horses at the pastor's 
 disposal. When the young man knew what was 
 expected of him, he manifested some alarm, for 
 equitation had not been included in his college 
 course, and he had never bestridden a steed in his 
 life. But when the vorsteher assured him that it 
 was an old custom for a new pastor to enter the 
 commune on horseback, he allowed himself to be 
 persuaded, and with much trepidation, and on the 
 strict understanding that Fritz should lead the 
 horse every bit of the way, he got into the saddle. 
 Beyond the feeling of discomfort occasioned by 
 the unwonted motion, the Herr Pastor took no 
 harm by his ride, and he had the satisfaction of 
 knowing that he made his entry into the village 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 in the same fashion as his predecessors had done 
 from time immemorial. 
 
 All the gemeinde and several strangers from 
 a distance were at church when Karl Schuster 
 preached himself in. Everybody wanted to see 
 what like of a man was the new pastor, and how 
 he would comport himself on so trying an occa- 
 sion. As he followed the advice of Dr. Martin 
 Luther, " Tritt frisch auf und thu das Maul auf " 
 (keep cool and open your mouth), and was not 
 wanting in capacity, he delivered an excellent 
 discourse, and came off with flying colours. One 
 of his observations : " As God gives me strength, I 
 will teach and console, and, need arising, I will 
 admonish and reprove, without respect of persons," 
 had, however, so revolutionary a ring, and was 
 so different from anything old Pastor Greis had 
 ever said, that it caused quite a sensation, and 
 every eye was turned to the landamman to see 
 how the sentiment liked him. But Hans possessed 
 a face of Disraeli-like impassiveness, and, though 
 he had doubtless his thoughts, he made no 
 sign. 
 
 When, a few days later, the Herr Pastor called 
 on the Herr Amman, he was received with a 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 229 
 
 great show of cordiality. Hans congratulated him 
 on his sermon, asked many questions concerning 
 his life at the university, and expressed a hope 
 that they should be good friends. 
 
 A week after Karl Schuster had preached his 
 first sermon the cattle came down from the 
 mountains where they had been pasturing during 
 the brief but brilliant alpine summer. With 
 them came the children who had watched 
 and tended them, eager after their long holiday 
 for their winter schooling (which lasts generally 
 from October to the end of May) to begin. But 
 education was not yet compulsory in Switzerland, 
 and the pastor, to his great surprise, discovered 
 that, though Oberstein possessed a schoolhouse, 
 it had just then no schoolmaster. The highest 
 salary the amman could be persuaded to propose, 
 or the gemeinde to sanction, was one hundred 
 gulden (about eight pounds) a-year. No fit man 
 could be got for the place, and for two winters 
 the Oberstein children had received no instruction 
 whatever. 
 
 This greatly grieved the pastor. He thought 
 it ill for children to grow up in ignorance, and 
 spend more than half the year in idleness. Moved 
 
230 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 by these considerations, and, perhaps, by a per- 
 fectly pardonable desire to add to his own poor 
 stipend of four hundred gulden (thirty-three 
 pounds) the pay allotted to the schoolmaster, he 
 offered to take the vacant place until some better 
 arrangement could be made. The proposal was 
 hailed with acclamation by all the fathers and 
 mothers of the commune, part of whom had 
 viewed with considerable dissatisfaction the pro- 
 spect of their children running wild about the 
 place for the next seven or eight months. So the 
 schoolhouse was opened, and the pastor entered 
 on the duties of his new office. He found the 
 undertaking more arduous than he had expected. 
 The teaching of sixty children every day, in 
 addition to preaching on Sundays, and other 
 ministerial duties, taxed his strength to the 
 utmost, and he was heartily glad when the dis- 
 appearance of the snow from the lower alps 
 gave the signal for the migration of the cattle 
 and their little watchers to the mountain pastures. 
 
 "The Herr Pastor looks ill/' observed, one 
 day about this time, Christian the alpvogt to 
 Michael the spendvogt. "When he first came 
 here his face was plump and rosy ; now he is 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 231 
 
 lantern-jawed, as pale as a snow-drift, and as thin 
 as an icicle." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," answered the spendvogt, whose 
 opinions were generally a faithful reflex of those 
 of his master. "The Herr Pastor takes too 
 much upon himself, and in more ways than 
 one. What business has he to play the school- 
 master ? He forgets that it is not good for a 
 man to serve two masters. No wonder he looks 
 ill." 
 
 But well or ill, Schuster was not the man to 
 draw back his hand from the plough ; and great 
 was the joy in Oberstein when, as winter once 
 more drew near, he announced his intention of 
 reopening the school. He was far superior to 
 any teacher the gemeinde had ever before pos- 
 sessed, and as his pay was really next to nothing,, 
 the thrifty Obersteiners had every reason to be 
 satisfied with the arrangement. They got high 
 quality at a low price; and, to do them justice, 
 they were not ungrateful. If thanks could en- 
 rich, the Herr Pastor would have been a wealthy 
 man. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE AMMAN AND HIS COUNCILLORS. 
 
 "I HAVE news for you, Hans," said to him one 
 day his wife, on her return from a visit to her 
 old godmother in Niederstein, a week or two 
 after the school had broken up for the summer. 
 " Do you know what they say ? They say that 
 our pastor, under the plea of bettering his health 
 after his winter's work, is always afoot, and goes 
 a good deal to Warden Konrad's in Niederstein. 
 But you may be sure of one thing — it is not 
 the warden or the Frau Warden he cares about ; 
 it is the buxom Klara, who inherits a handsome 
 fortune from her aunt Mathilde. These ghostly 
 gentlemen, who talk so much about heavenly 
 treasures, are as keen as other folks to lay up 
 for themselves treasures on earth. But do you 
 think it would be wise, dear Hans, to let him 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 233 
 
 have Klara? My father, of blessed memory, 
 used often to say that it was ever so much 
 easier to keep a poor parson in his place than a 
 rich one. Rich ministers are always so prodigal 
 and independent." 
 
 "Don't let the pastor's doings make you any 
 gray hairs, Gretha dear," answered her husband, 
 with the air of a man conscious of foreseeing 
 everything. " I heard of these visits to Niederstein 
 several days since, and Spendvogt Michel has 
 already dropped a few words into the warden's 
 ear, that will, I think, put a spoke in the parson's 
 wheel, and cause him to take his walks in another 
 direction." 
 
 " I know you are very wise, Hanschen," an- 
 swered the Frau Amman (who, if she had con- 
 fessed the truth, was rather annoyed to find that 
 her news was old, and that her advice had been 
 anticipated), "and it is not for me to set up my 
 opinion against yours, but don't you think, now 
 it would have been better to get a proper school- 
 master, even if it did cost a little more? It 
 is Schuster's teaching, more than his preaching, 
 that makes him so well liked. Indeed, when he 
 preaches against schnapps, as he did last Sunday 
 
234 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 and calls it 'the enemy/ he treads on^ a good 
 many folks' toes. They say, as I say, that it is 
 his business to preach the gospel, and that when 
 he tells people what they should eat and drink 
 he is meddling with what doesn't concern him, 
 and flying in the face of scripture. Doesn't the 
 holy writing say, ' Take no thought what ye shall 
 eat or what ye shall drink '?" 
 
 " There you are right, Gretha," observed Hans, 
 as he puffed energetically at his long pipe. 
 " Schuster is becoming altogether too meddle- 
 some ; but as for engaging a schoolmaster at high 
 pay, I have very good reasons for doing as I have 
 done. You must remember that the gemeinde 
 is not very well off this year. That flood in 
 March made sad havoc, and the avalanche last 
 month laid low a thousand trees in the Tannen- 
 wald. We shall have to spend at least five hundred 
 florins this summer in replanting. We have no 
 money to throw away on schools and school- 
 masters, I can tell you ; and I have other 
 reasons." 
 
 For all this disclaimer, the amman knew 
 quite well that he had made a mistake ; but it was 
 his maxim, as it had been his father's, to hold fast 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 
 
 by whatever he had once said, and never to 
 acknowledge himself in the wrong. 
 
 Before Frau Lenkerhorn had made up her 
 mind what to say in reply, the door opened, and 
 the three members of the privy council, entering 
 the room hat in hand, bowed low at the threshold, 
 and expressed a hope that the Herr Amman and 
 the Frau Amman found themselves in good health. 
 
 The amman returned the greeting, pointed 
 with his pipe to a capacious settle hard by his 
 own chair, and nodded to his wife, w 7 ho thereupon 
 opening a door (there being no bells in the Lenker- 
 horn establishment), called out in a tone of com- 
 mand : " Gretchen, das bier." 
 
 In a few minutes a brown-faced serving-maid 
 appeared with four great tankards of beer, which 
 she placed on an oaken table near the amman 
 and his guests. 
 
 " Well," said the spendvogt, after each man 
 had taken a long drink, and a few unimportant 
 questions had been asked and answered, " it has 
 turned out as you expected, Herr Amman — the 
 Herr Pastor goes no more to Warden Konrad's." 
 
 "Ah, I thought that would stop him," answered 
 Hans complacently. "We must not be having 
 
236 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Herr Schuster married to a rich wife. That 
 would make him worse to manage than ever. 
 I wish we had such a minister as him of Nieder- 
 stein. He is a sensible man now, does not 
 bother his flock with new-fangled notions, nor 
 try to turn young peasants into conceited scholars. 
 He thinks as I think, that a knowledge of milking 
 and cattle-tending is all the learning they require, 
 or that is likely to do them any good." 
 
 "That is true, Herr Amman," put in Writer 
 Jos; "but folks are so stupid. It is always the 
 pastor this and the pastor that now in our 
 gemeinde. He is nearly as much thought of 
 and looked up to as you are yourself, Herr 
 Amman, shame that it is to say so. Even some 
 of the fellows he openly reproves from the pulpit 
 speak well of him, because, forsooth, he takes so 
 much trouble about things, and schools and 
 catechises the children so diligently. And then 
 he is so absurdly civil to the women. They 
 swear by him." 
 
 "Why don't you send him to the right 
 about ? " growled the alpvogt ; " your blessed 
 Herr father would have done, and that right 
 quickly." 
 
 " So he would. You are quite right, Herr 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 237 
 
 Alpvogt. But we, unfortunately, live in different 
 times, and must use different means. The pastor 
 is popular, so popular that if we were to propose 
 his dismissal we might not be able to carry 
 our proposal, and that would be a serious blow 
 to our influence. It is better to wait than to 
 fail. Rede should go before deed. Time brings 
 opportunity, and I am disposed to think that, 
 before our pastor's pupils begin to vote and 
 multiply, he will be reprimanding and reproving 
 without respect for persons in some other church 
 than ours. As our neighbours over the mountains 
 say: Chi vivera vedera? 
 
 "That is right/' said the spendvogt, "what 
 the Herr Amman says is quite true, nothing 
 could be truer ; and, old as some of us are, I 
 think we shall all live to see that meddlesome 
 parson sent away faster than he came, and not 
 on horseback either." 
 
 "It is all the fault of those pestilent newspapers," 
 interposed the alpvogt, who being the senior, was 
 naturally the most conservative, member of the 
 council. " Why, in your Herr father's time, Herr 
 Amman, nobody in the gemeinde, save himself 
 and the Herr Pastor, ever thought of looking at 
 a paper, and now Bernard the brieftraeger, as 
 
238 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 he was telling me only the other day, actually 
 brings into the gemeinde every week no fewer 
 than six. No wonder people's minds are un- 
 settled, and they do not submit as they used 
 to do to the authority of their betters." 
 
 "Well put, Herr Alpvogt," rejoined Hans; 
 "people's minds are unsettled, and it is all this 
 nonsense about reading and writing that is doing 
 the mischief. What business have a lot of peasants 
 with newspapers and books, I should like to 
 know ? But what cannot be cured must be 
 endured. There must be no open opposition to 
 the pastor, mind — yet* We cannot swim against 
 the stream. When we hear him praised we must 
 praise him too ; only you can just shake your 
 heads, say something about a new broom sweeping 
 clean, and that you hope it may last. Like all 
 young men, Herr Schuster has more zeal than 
 discretion. One of these days he will be going 
 a little too far — there are signs of it already — 
 and then But, you understand, I think." 
 
 Jos the writer said they understood perfectly, 
 and would faithfully follow the Herr Amman's 
 instructions; and after the tankards had been once 
 more filled and emptied the council separated. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A RARE FLOWER. 
 
 THE Frau Amman was mistaken in supposing 
 that the pastor had fallen in love with the 
 warden's daughter, or that he had designs on 
 her fortune. He certainly admired the buxom 
 Klara, as did most people, for she was a hand- 
 some girl, with gentle manners, and it is quite 
 possible that, with time and opportunity, admira- 
 tion might have developed into a warmer feeling. 
 But Herr Schuster's visits were paid as much 
 to the mother — who was in delicate health — as 
 to the daughter, and when he perceived, from 
 Herr and Frau Konrad's manner, that his calls 
 had ceased to be welcome, he promptly discontinued 
 them. 
 
 " You no longer go to the Herr Warden's ? " 
 said Fritz the vorsteher to him one day. 
 
240 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " No ; they did not seem to want me, and I do 
 not like going where I am not made welcome." 
 
 " Can you guess why they don't want you ? " 
 asked the other. 
 
 The vorsteher, be it observed, was one of the 
 pastor's best friends, and no great admirer of 
 Hans Lenkerhorn and his privy council. 
 
 " I suppose they have taken a dislike to me/' 
 answered Schuster ; " it may be that I have un- 
 wittingly offended the Herr Warden." 
 
 "No, Herr Pastor, I don't think that is it at 
 all," said the vorsteher drily ; " unless I am much 
 mistaken, it is our noble amman's doing." 
 
 " But how — why ? " exclaimed Schuster, " I 
 don't understand " 
 
 "It is very easy to understand though. The 
 amman feared you might be finding favour in the 
 eyes of the buxom Klara. Klara has a fortune, 
 you know. If you married her, you would have 
 comfortable money, and our amman does not 
 want anybody to be rich but himself — above all a 
 pastor who is already more popular than he likes." 
 
 " Surely, Fritz, you do the amman wrong. He 
 has always shown himself very friendly." 
 
 "It is all show, though. The amman is a very 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 241 
 
 crafty gentleman, and no friend of yours, Herr 
 Pastor. He will do you an ill turn if he can, as I 
 well know. I have it from a sure source. But 
 never mind, Herr Pastor, you have made yourself 
 many friends in the gemeinde. They will stand by 
 you, and if our king does not mind what he is 
 doing, his reign will be shorter than he looks for/' 
 
 A few days after this conversation Herr Schuster 
 set out on a long mountain journey. Botanising was 
 his hobby, and in spring and summer he spent most 
 of his leisure in the collection and arrangement of 
 plants and flowers. He had hitherto rarely ex- 
 tended his walks beyond the confines of the 
 confederate communes. This time he was about 
 to go farther. He meant to cross by the Blitzen- 
 spitze into the valley of the Wildwater, an 
 affluent of the Rhine, where he hoped to find a 
 rare flower, with which he had long desired to 
 enrich his collection. 
 
 After walking several hours the pastor reached 
 one of the lower spurs of the Blitzen, the highest 
 point of which — a slender-seeming shaft of rock, 
 black as night — rose high above the snow-line. 
 His way lay, not over the summit — which was a 
 virgin peak — but by a zigzag path, that wound 
 
 R 
 
242 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 now through a patch of pine-wood, now by the side 
 of a glacier-fed torrent, now over a field of snow, 
 towards the pass that gives access to the valley 
 of the Wildwater. The weather was superb, and 
 the mountains, which still retained much of their 
 winter livery, were more gloriously beautiful than 
 on the brightest of summer days. The meadows 
 and pastures, from which the snow had only lately 
 receded, were lustrous with verdure and gay with 
 wild-flowers. The trees were silvered with hoar- 
 frost, and one glittering crest, white with the snow 
 of a thousand winters, rose above another as far as 
 the eye could reach. 
 
 So enchanted was Schuster with the scene 
 around him, and he lingered so long on the way, 
 that it was high noon before he gained the Blitzen 
 pass. After taking off the edge of his appetite 
 with some cheese and bread he had put in his 
 pocket before starting, and slaking his thirst by 
 swallowing a mouthful of snow, he began his 
 descent towards the valley of the Wildwater, 
 where he hoped to find the rare flower, of which 
 he was in search. He had not gone far when he 
 heard the musical tinkling of cattle-bells, and on 
 doubling a promontory of rock, found himself in a 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 verdant pasture, shut in between beetling cliffs, and 
 peopled by a herd of beautiful cows, tended by two 
 gentle watchers. For albeit one of them, as is the 
 custom with alpine shepherdesses when tending 
 their flocks, was clad in male attire, there was a 
 display of ribbons about her neck, and a coquetry 
 in the set of her hat, that would have betrayed her 
 sex, even if it had not been announced by her 
 occupation — for the damsel was knitting a stocking, 
 Her companion wore the costume of the country— 
 a gaily-striped skirt, reaching barely to the ankle, 
 black bodice, with white wide sleeves, extending 
 no farther than the elbow, and an arrangement of 
 muslin wound round the head, almost after the 
 fashion of a turban. Her cheeks were like the 
 petals of the wild rose, her eyes as blue as a forget- 
 me-not, her teeth as white as fresh-fallen snow, and 
 her tresses as dark as the rocks of the Blitzen. 
 
 " Guteji Tag, Franlein" said the parson, after a 
 short pause of surprise, stepping briskly forward 
 and politely doffing his hat. 
 
 " Good-day, Herr Pastor," returned the young 
 lady in the striped petticoat. 
 
 " Herr Pastor ! " exclaimed Schuster wonder- 
 ingly, for there was nothing — just then, at least — 
 
244 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 clerical in his appearance. He had no long-skirted 
 black coat dangling, petticoat fashion, about his 
 legs; no foolish little dog-collar encircled his neck; 
 no hat of ecclesiastical cut covered his head ; he 
 was dressed like a mountaineer, and — save that his 
 build was somewhat spare and his cheek rather 
 pale — looked like one. " Pray tell me, my little 
 lady (mein Fraulein), why you think I am a 
 minister.'' 
 
 "Because I have seen you in the pulpit and 
 heard you preach/' answered the maiden promptly. 
 
 " But — but I don't remember ever to have seen 
 you before, and yours is a face not easily forgotten." 
 (Here the pastor examined the girl's features so 
 critically that she blushed and looked in another 
 direction.) "You surely do not belong to my 
 flock ? " 
 
 " Oh no, Herr Pastor. My father and I walked 
 over the mountains to hear you preach your first 
 sermon. That is the only time I was ever at 
 Oberstein." 
 
 " Oh, that explains it. I don't think I saw 
 anybody that Sunday — only a crowd of faces." 
 
 "You preached a very good sermon, though. 
 My father said he never heard a better. If Ober- 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 stein were not so far off, we should come to hear 
 you often." 
 
 Here the pastor doffed his hat a second time, 
 and inquired whose ministrations the young lady 
 was in the habit of attending. 
 
 " Herr Braunhosen is our pastor," she answered ; 
 " but he is getting into years, poor old man ! and 
 mumbles so in his talk that nobody can make out 
 what he means." 
 
 " Herr Braunhosen is pastor of " 
 
 " Regels." 
 
 " Regels, in the valley of the Wildwater ! Why, 
 that is where I am going. I want to find a rare 
 flower that grows only on that side of the mountain." 
 
 " You are fond of flowers, then ? " 
 
 " Very. I go about gathering them all the 
 summer." 
 
 " So am I. I should like you to see my garden 
 at Regels. Who knows ? perhaps you might find 
 in it the flower you want. If you like, I will show 
 you the way ; it is not very easy to find — at least 
 the short cut is not — for strangers." 
 
 " You are very friendly, mein Fraulein. I 
 thank you heartily. I shall be very glad to be 
 shown the way, if it be not too much trouble." 
 
246 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " Trouble, oh no ! I am going to Regels 
 myself. I don't live up here and lodge in the 
 hut there, as Klaerchen does. This is my father's 
 alp, and these are my father's cows, and I have 
 only come to see them and spend an hour with 
 Klaerchen. I daresay we shall find my father 
 with the woodcutters in the Feenwald. He will 
 be glad to make your acquaintance. But won't 
 you have a drink of milk before we set out ? 
 We cannot offer you anything stronger." 
 
 Schuster declared that, of all things in the 
 world, he would like a drink of milk ; whereupon 
 Klaerchen was ordered to fetch a jugful from 
 the hut ; and her mistress poured out a glass 
 for the pastor and gave it him with her own 
 dainty hand. He found it a decided improvement 
 on the snow he had just swallowed. 
 
 " Ade, Klaerchen," said the young lady, as 
 she turned towards the valley, " I shall come to 
 see you again one of these days." 
 
 "Ade, Fraulein Valeria/' said the shepherdess, 
 making a curtsey, which, in her undraped con- 
 dition had so droll an effect, that her mistress 
 broke into a merry laugh, and the pastor, despite 
 his desire to be proper and polite, could not 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 247 
 
 repress a smile ; whereupon poor Klaerchen blushed 
 violently and hid herself behind a big boulder. 
 
 "So Valeria is your name," observed the 
 pastor. "You must come of a Romansch or 
 Italian stock." 
 
 " I am called Valeria Schnewitchen, and my 
 father is Hauptmann (captain) Schnewitchen," said 
 the maiden, who was frankness itself, and un- 
 sophisticated to a fault, And then she went on 
 to tell Schuster all about herself, her family, and 
 the people of Regels. Her father, she said, 
 had been a soldier of fortune. While still very 
 young he made the campaign of Moscow. He 
 had served in the army of Holland, in the Swiss 
 guard of Louis XVIIL, and had held a commission 
 in one of the Swiss regiments of the king of 
 Naples. He was married in Italy to a lady who 
 died on the very day Valeria was born. A few 
 years after his wife's death, Captain Schnewitchen 
 retired from the Neapolitan service, settled with 
 his daughter in his native gemeinde, and was now 
 the largest landowner in Regels and an officer in 
 the cantonal militia. 
 
 As Valeria concluded this story, which was 
 told at some length and with many digressions, 
 
248 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 they reached a hollow in the mountain filled with 
 snow, that, owing to its northern exposure and 
 the shadow cast by a high wall of rock, had only 
 just begun to melt. 
 
 "This is our nearest way," said Valeria, 
 " right over the snow. Are you good at crossing 
 snow? " 
 
 " Of course I am," replied Schuster, with a 
 smile. " Nobody can well live in Graubiinden, 
 or pass two winters in Oberstein, without becom- 
 ing an adept in snow-walking." 
 
 " That is good. But a slip on a road, or an 
 ordinary mountain-path, is nothing ; on this Ber- 
 griicken it might be fatal. Down there " (pointing 
 to the extremity of the slope) " is the Schwartzer 
 Abgrund (black precipice), it is more than a 
 thousand feet deep. The snow, too, is treacherous 
 just now; soft on the surface and hard and slippery 
 underneath. You must be very careful. Plant 
 every footstep firmly, and keep a fast grip of your 
 alpenstock. I will go first, please — I must — I 
 know the way, and you do not. The snow is 
 melting to-day. See, the track we made this 
 morning — Andreas, the ziegenhirt, and I — has 
 nearly disappeared." 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 249 
 
 The ridge was very steep, so steep that Valeria 
 had often to pause and stamp steps with her feet 
 before going farther. The snow descended almost 
 sheer to the edge of the precipice. The pastor 
 followed his fair leader closely and cautiously, 
 now and then exchanging a word with her. 
 
 They had won about half the distance towards 
 the further edge of the arret and were beginning 
 to descend — for they had to pursue a zigzag 
 course — when Schuster was startled by a sudden 
 exclamation from Valeria. 
 
 " Ach ! the dear father is coming to meet me. 
 How good he is ! He feared I should not be able 
 to cross the Bergriicken alone — as if I did not 
 know the way as well as he ! " 
 
 " Oh God in heaven, the Herr Pastor has gone ! 
 He will fall over the Abgrund and be killed. Father, 
 father, save him — save the Herr Pastor ! That is 
 a good father ; run, run, you will reach the bottom 
 of the Bergriicken before him. 1 ' 
 
 It was quite true. Schuster, who had been 
 listening to Valeria and looking at her father, 
 instead of minding his footing, had made a false 
 step, and was now shooting down the snow-slope 
 with the velocity of an avalanche. In vain he dug 
 
250 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 his hands, and tried to plant his heels in the snow ; 
 it melted in his grasp like water ; he went round 
 and round like a teetotum, and every second 
 brought him nearer to the edge of the terrible 
 Schwartzer Abgrund. 
 
 He had abandoned hope, and was trying to 
 think a hurried prayer, when he felt himself caught 
 by the collar, and a firm hand raised him to his 
 feet. 
 
 "It is well I was here, Meinherr," said his 
 rescuer, " or you would have been somewhere else." 
 
 The pastor, who was too breathless and too 
 much overcome by emotion to speak, could only 
 for the moment look the thanks he would fain have 
 uttered. 
 
 Hauptmann Schnewitchen had a red brown 
 face, scarred in two places with sword-cuts, heavy 
 grizzled moustaches, broad shoulders, and long limbs. 
 Though he had passed his sixtieth year the captain 
 was still an active mountaineer, and renowned for 
 his prowess as a hunter of the chamois and the 
 bear. When he heard his daughter's cry he did 
 not attempt to overtake Schuster — the attempt 
 would have been useless — but by running dia- 
 gonally down the arret he gained the edge of the 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 251 
 
 precipice in time to intercept him, and so literally 
 plucked the pastor from the jaws of death. 
 
 a Come this way/' said Schnewitchen, when the 
 minister had recovered his breath, " we will mount 
 the rocks on this side and join my daughter up 
 there. ,, 
 
 Schuster gave a nod of assent. He was still 
 too full to speak. 
 
 They found Valeria standing near the edge of 
 the arret, looking very pale and agitated. 
 
 u Who is this gentleman ?" asked thehauptmann 
 in Italian, when he had come within speaking 
 distance of his daughter. 
 
 "What! Don't you recognise him, father? 
 He is the Herr Pastor of Oberstein." 
 
 "Who under providence owes his life to 
 you," said Schuster, in the same language, as he 
 doffed his hat and saluted Herr Schnewitchen. 
 
 " I am delighted to make your acquaintance," 
 replied the captain, as he returned the salute. 
 " Tut, tut, Meinherr, you are not the first man who 
 has slipped on a Bergriicken and been helped to 
 his feet by a friendly hand. You would have 
 done the same to me. Let us say no more 
 about it." 
 
252 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " He is going into the valley, father, to look for 
 a rare flower." 
 
 " I see. The Herr Pastor is a botanist. I hope 
 he will find what he wants. But he must first 
 vorlieb nekmen (take pot-luck) with us at Regels. 
 I had good luck fishing this morning. You shall 
 taste our trout, and I have some complitir in 
 my cellar that would not disgrace the White 
 Cross at Ouera. We will crack a bottle of it, you 
 and I." 
 
 The pastor did not refuse the invitation, and an 
 hours easy walking, for it was all downhill, brought 
 them to their destination. Though Regels lies in a 
 valley overshadowed by great mountains, it is nearly 
 four thousand feet above sea-level — a village of 
 neat brown chalets, farm buildings of antique 
 pattern, two or three substantial houses of white 
 stone, with a quaint church, whose copper-covered 
 spire gleams in the brilliant sunshine like burnished 
 gold. Regels is surrounded by meadows and 
 orchards, and the Wildwater, white with " glacier 
 milk," eddies swiftly past it towards the Rhine. 
 Most of the inhabitants are of Romansch origin, 
 and speak the lingua Romanscha ; but several 
 German-Swiss families have long been settled in 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 
 
 253 
 
 the valley, and nearly all understand German, 
 which is fast superseding the Latin dialects of the 
 Engadines and the Vorder Rhein. 
 
 In one of Regel's white houses lived Hauptmann 
 Schnewitchen and his daughter Valeria. The house 
 was roomy, and the rooms were spacious and 
 lofty. It had been built after the hauptmann's 
 own design, and in bright sunny weather suggested, 
 as he doubtless wished it to do, reminiscences of 
 the sunny south. A broad verandah in full view 
 of the Blitzenspitze and the Wildwater overlooked 
 a charming garden, the cultivation of which was 
 Valeria's favourite pastime. In this verandah the 
 parson was regaled with a luxurious repast. The 
 trout were supplemented with other good things, 
 and Schnewitchen — who rarely had an intelligent 
 listener — as they discussed the bottle of complitir, 
 fought his battles over again, and talked much 
 and pleasantly about the countries he had visited, 
 and the stirring events in which he had taken 
 part. Valeria played several airs on the piano, 
 and sang a Romansch song. As for Schuster, he 
 found the company of his new friends so agreeable 
 that he forgot all about his botanising, and when 
 he rose to take his leave, the alpcn gluhen was 
 
254 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 playing over the glacier-crowned summit of the 
 Gallinario. 
 
 The hauptmann insisted on accompanying his 
 guest as far as the Blitzen pass. Before they 
 parted he pressed the minister to pay them another 
 visit. 
 
 "Come as often as you can, Herr Pastor," 
 said the old soldier. " You may always count on 
 a warm welcome and good cheer. The walk is 
 long, I know, but it will stretch your legs and 
 improve your wind. And as for plants, you will 
 find as many as you want on the sunny side of 
 the Blitzen, and down here in the valley." 
 
 On this hint the pastor acted. Whatever 
 direction he took at starting, his botanising 
 excursions generally ended at Regels. Something 
 seemed to drag him thither. More that once he 
 found Valeria keeping Klaerchen company in the 
 old place, and walked with her to the village, 
 where he always met with the warm welcome 
 which the captain had promised him. There were 
 good reasons why his visits should be agreeable 
 both to the father and daughter. For Schuster, 
 albeit a poor Swiss parson, was a scholar and a 
 gentleman ; and though he was not a travelled 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 
 
 255 
 
 man like the hauptmann, he knew many things 
 of which the hauptmann was ignorant, even in the 
 latter's own line. 
 
 As for Valeria, she looked up to the Herr 
 Pastor as a being of a superior order, and was lost 
 in astonishment at the variety and profundity of 
 his learning. He helped her with her garden; 
 told her many surprising things touching the 
 nature and habits of plants ; was thoroughly 
 conversant with the history of Free Old Rhaetia, 
 and could go on talking for hours about the Three 
 Rhaetian Leagues, the Gray League (whence 
 Graubiinden), the League of God's House, and the 
 League of the Ten Jurisdictions — subjects in which 
 Valeria took the greatest delight. 
 
 All this time the parson was worshipping 
 Valeria in secret, not daring to hint his love, for 
 fear he might be forbidden her father's house. He 
 was too poor, he thought, to be accepted as the 
 suitor of the wealthy hauptmann's daughter. 
 
 Nobody at Oberstein knew of Schuster's visits 
 to Regels, and of his friendship with the Schne- 
 witchens. It was the busy season. All the young 
 people were watching the cattle in the mountains, 
 all the men were busy on the land. Seed had to 
 
256 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 be sown, crops harvested, wood fetched from the 
 forest. The women, too, had to work, and none 
 had time to take note of the Herr Pastor's comings 
 and goings. He remembered the warning of Fritz 
 the vorsteher, and kept his own counsel ; and his 
 passion for botanis'ing was a sufficient excuse for 
 frequent absences and long excursions. 
 
 And so things went on, until the herald snow 
 of another winter whitened the slopes of the 
 Blitzen and the Gallinario, boding the approach 
 of hard weather, and warning the herds on the 
 mountains to lead their flocks to the valleys. 
 
 On a morning in the latter half of September, 
 the pastor once more wended his way by the well- 
 known path towards the vale of the Wildwater. 
 The air was keen and the sky nebulous, the pools 
 by the wayside were coated with ice, and the trees 
 white with hoar-frost. Every sign denoted that 
 this might be the last visit he could make to 
 Kegels for many months, and his heart was heavy 
 within him. On the alp below the pass he found, 
 as he had expected, Valeria and Klaerchen. Valeria 
 wore furs, and Klaerchen had added to the oddity 
 of her appearance by throwing over her shoulders 
 an old sack. With the help of several boys and 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 257 
 
 girls she was getting her cows and goats together, 
 preparatory to driving them down the mountain, 
 and the hills all round were alive with the tinkling 
 of bells, the low of kine, and the merry yoedelling 
 of their keepers. 
 
 " Guten Tag y Herr Pastor," said Valeria, extend- 
 ing her hand ; "are you to come to help Klaerchen 
 to take the cows home ? " 
 
 " Certainly, mein Fraulein., if you ask it," an- 
 swered Schuster briskly ; for the moment he set 
 eyes on Miss Schnewitchen his spirits seemed to 
 revive. " Shall I help you, Klaerchen ? " 
 
 " Ich danke, nein" returned the hirtine, with a 
 laugh. " What do Herr Pastors know about cows 
 and goats ? Why, you would be driving them over 
 the Schwartzer Abgrund, and what would the Herr 
 Hauptmann say then? You keep Fraulein Valeria 
 company. You like that better than following at 
 the tail of a flock of cows, I know right well — dass 
 weiss ich ganz gut" 
 
 This sally made Valeria blush and the parson 
 look slightly foolish, and they walked on silently 
 in the wake of Klaerchen and her flocks and 
 herds. Whether by accident or design, they let 
 the drove get a long way before them, and as 
 
 s 
 
2 5 8 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 they entered the Feenwald at one end the tail 
 of the last cow disappeared at the other. The silence 
 by this time was beginning to be oppressive, the 
 more especially as each was thinking about the other. 
 
 " That is a very nice cow/' said the pastor, by 
 way of breaking the ice — and the silence. 
 
 " Very " said Valeria absently ; " and so kind 
 and learned. ,, 
 
 " A kind and learned cow ! " exclaimed the 
 bewildered Schuster. u But, liebes Fraulein, how 
 can a cow be kind and learned ? I never " 
 
 " I meant — that is, I did not mean — I mean 
 that I was not paying attention to what you said ; 
 I was thinking about something else," stammered 
 Valeria. 
 
 " And I was thinking about something else too, 
 Fraulein." 
 
 "Yes, Herr Pastor?" 
 
 " I was thinking how many weary months must 
 go by before the pass is free from snow — for there 
 will be a downfall to-night or to-morrow — and I 
 can come to Regels again." 
 
 " But there is the road ; why cannot you take a 
 sledge and come by the road ? " said Valeria, with 
 an alarmed look. 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 259 
 
 "For several reasons. I have neither horse 
 nor sledge ; the new schoolmaster has not come — 
 there is no telling when he will come — and until he 
 does I shall have no time for visiting ; and there 
 is another reason." 
 
 " What is the other reason, Herr Pastor ? " 
 
 " People would talk. They would say I had an 
 object : they would perhaps say that I went to 
 Regels to see you." 
 
 " Is there anything wrong in coming to see us, 
 Herr Pastor ? " 
 
 a But don't you see, Fraulein, they might say 
 that I went to visit you ; they might say that — 
 that — I love you ? " 
 
 " And don't you, Herr Pastor ? " asked Valeria, 
 regarding him calmly with her forget-me-not eyes. 
 " Is it not our duty to love each other ? " 
 
 "It is, and I hope I love my fellow-men ; but 
 you, Valeria," exclaimed Schuster passionately, " I 
 love more than all the world ; and if I dared — if I 
 were not so poor — I w r ould ask you to be my wife." 
 
 "But I know so little," murmured the girl, "and 
 you are so learned/' 
 
 " Then you do — you do love me ? " said the 
 pastor joyfully, taking both her hands in his. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 "Yes, Herr Pastor, I do love you," returned 
 Valeria, looking at him steadfastly, though her 
 voice trembled and a bright blush mantled her 
 cheek. " But I am so ignorant and you are so 
 learned. " 
 
 " But you are good, my Valeria, and goodness 
 is far before learning," said the pastor, as he 
 timidly and almost reverently touched with his lips 
 the girl's pure forehead. Your innocence is better 
 than my knowledge, and your love is a blessing of 
 which I am not worthy. But what will your father 
 say ? I am afraid he will be very angry/' 
 
 " If he is angry with you he will be angry with 
 me, and that is impossible ; he has never been 
 angry with me in all my life." 
 
 This argument, though encouraging as far as it 
 went, did not seem to the pastor absolutely con- 
 clusive, and he informed the hauptmann of what 
 had come to pass with considerable misgiving as to 
 the manner in which his confession would be 
 received. But he might have spared his anxiety. 
 Captain Schnewitchen showed neither anger nor 
 surprise. 
 
 " Valeria is the only kin I have," he said, " and 
 what makes for her happiness makes for mine. 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 261 
 
 God knows I don't want to part with the child, but 
 we must part some time, and I'd like to see her 
 comfortably settled before my name is taken 
 off the muster-roll. I think you are worthy of 
 her, pastor, if any man can be worthy of so 
 good a girl. As for your poverty, never mind 
 that ; you have youth and energy, and all I have is 
 Valeria's." 
 
 So Schuster went on his homeward way re- 
 joicing : and though, as he descended the Blitzen 
 towards Oberstein, the clouds gathered overhead, 
 and the air was thick with fast-falling snow, he 
 heeded it not, thinking only of the fair flower he 
 had found in the vale of the Wild water, and of 
 the bright future before him. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 VICTORY AND DEFEAT. 
 
 When the amman heard of the pastor's betrothal 
 to Valeria Schnewitchen he was more put about 
 than his wife had known him to be for a long 
 time. 
 
 "Thunder and lightning !" he exclaimed. "I 
 had better have let him marry the buxom Klara. 
 That Schnewitchen is rich, and can give his 
 daughter no end of a mitgift" 
 
 " Cannot you stop it ? " asked the Frau Amman. 
 
 " How can I stop it ? Are they not betrothed ? 
 Schuster will be more popular than ever now. 
 Well, we must just swim with the stream. Time 
 brings opportunity. I daresay we shall catch him 
 tripping one of these days." 
 
 The next time Hans met Schuster he con- 
 gratulated him on his good fortune, and wished 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 
 
 263 
 
 him every happiness; and the Frau Amman said she 
 had heard that Fraulein Schnewitchen was as good 
 as she was handsome, and would have a fine mitgift 7 
 and that the Herr Pastor was a very lucky man — a 
 sentiment in which the Herr Pastor fully concurred, 
 It was not long before the amman had another 
 cause for disquietude, and another reason for 
 fearing and hating the pastor. One of the old 
 customs of Oberstein was a sort of corvee. At 
 certain times of the year all the people of the 
 commune were constrained to turn out — either in 
 person or deputy — to mend the communal roads, to 
 the great profit of the large proprietors, who in this 
 way got the roads leading to their mountain 
 pastures kept in order by the unpaid labour of the 
 poorer members of the gemeinde. Though the 
 custom had not the sanction of law, and those upon 
 whom the burden fell resented it in secret, nobody 
 had yet ventured to resist it openly. But the 
 pastor, emboldened by his love, and encouraged by 
 the thought that his marriage with Valeria would 
 make him independent both of the amman and 
 the commune, resolved on the first opportunity to 
 denounce the custom, and, if possible, deliver his 
 humbler parishioners from the yoke imposed on 
 
264 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 them by those whom they regarded as their 
 betters. 
 
 The opportunity soon came. One day when 
 he was out for a walk, Schuster found a number of 
 people busy mending a road, that was in no sense 
 a public road. It led no whither but to the 
 amman's mountain pastures, and was used ex- 
 clusively by his cattle and servants. Among the 
 workers Schuster perceived a poor widow, whose 
 sole possession was a couple of goats, and who, as 
 he well knew, had a hard struggle to make both 
 ends meet. 
 
 " I think you might have been spared this task, 
 Trina," he said, pausing in his walk. 
 
 "It is an old custom," answered the woman, 
 wiping the sweat from her brow ; ic but it is not 
 right." 
 
 " True, Trina. Prescription is no justification 
 for oppression. But why do you and these others" 
 (several of whom were listening to the conversation) 
 "submit to this oppression? The law does not 
 compel you to give your labour — why then do you 
 give it ? " 
 
 " I don't know," muttered Trina, shaking her 
 head dubiously. " It's an old custom ; the amman 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 
 
 265 
 
 is a great man, and there is no telling what he 
 might do." 
 
 "The amman cannot harm you/' said Schuster 
 calmly. 
 
 " The Herr Pastor is quite right/' said a young 
 fellow, who was leaning listening on his spade. " I 
 am tired of working for nothing, and I shall go, let 
 stay who will." 
 
 And shouldering his spade he marched off. In 
 a few minutes he was followed by all the others, 
 and the last survival of feudalism was abolished 
 once and for all in the commune of Oberstein. 
 
 When the amman heard of this incident he 
 was terribly annoyed, and uttered curses, not loud 
 but deep, for he was touched both in his dignity 
 and his pocket. 
 
 " I will teach this meddlesome parson to stick 
 to his last," he exclaimed furiously. "What business 
 has he to interfere with things that concern him 
 not ? " 
 
 This was what Hans said in the bosom of his 
 family and the secrecy of his council. When he 
 met the minister he always spoke him fair ; and he 
 took frequent occasion to commend openly his 
 devotion and zeal. 
 
266 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Shortly after his marriage, which took place 
 the following summer, the parson succeeded in 
 effecting another reform, which, unfortunately, did 
 not prove as permanent as his abolition of the 
 corvee. He put down — for a while — the custom 
 of fuddling at funerals. Ever since his arrival at 
 Oberstein he had set his face against this custom. 
 He was shocked when mourners appeared at a 
 graveside in a state of brutal intoxication. By 
 incessant remonstrance, by appeals from the pulpit, 
 by personal entreaty,, he had so far influenced 
 public opinion that wine and schnapps were no 
 longer dispensed in the chamber of death ; yet the 
 consumption of drink on these occasions was still 
 excessive, and funerals often gave rise to scandalous 
 scenes, both before and after interment. 
 
 At length the pastor, feeling himself, as he said, 
 strong in the affection of his people, proposed that 
 the gemeinde should suppress the practice by a 
 local police regulation, a regulation which at that 
 time they had full power to adopt. Now, however, 
 the power no longer exists. The Federal Consti- 
 tution of 1874 put an end to local option, and 
 removed every check on the production and con- 
 sumption of strong drink, with the consequence 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON 
 
 267 
 
 that Switzerland is fast becoming — if it has not 
 already become — the most drunken country in 
 Europe. 
 
 The minister's proposal, as may be supposed, 
 provoked much comment, and encountered a 
 formidable opposition. 
 
 " Heaven's thunder ! " said Alpvogt Christian 
 to Spendvogt Michel, " what will the # man want 
 next ? He will not be content until every one of 
 our time-honoured customs is swept away. What 
 says the Herr Amman ? " 
 
 " The Herr Amman will not oppose the Herr 
 Pastor," said the spendvogt, with a curious look. 
 " For this he has good reasons, which you will 
 perhaps learn from himself. Time brings oppor- 
 tunities, you know." 
 
 "So it does — for the parson," growled the 
 alpvogt. " I wonder when our turn will come ? 
 If the Herr Amman's father had been alive he 
 would have known better than to stand all this 
 nonsense. But politics nowadays are getting 
 beyond the comprehension of a plain old fellow 
 like me. If this sort of thing goes on much longer 
 there will be nothing for it but to retire from public 
 life altogether." 
 
268 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 The spendvogt was right. To the surprise of 
 all, save those in the secret, Hans offered no 
 opposition to Schuster's proposals. He frankly- 
 admitted that excessive drinking at funerals — or 
 any other time — was not exactly a desirable thing; 
 and though he feared the Herr Pastor's proposals 
 went a little too far, he was entirely in the hands 
 of the gemeinde ; whatever measure his fellow- 
 citizens thought it expedient to sanction he would 
 frankly accept and strictly enforce. 
 
 After a speech from the pastor, the new regu- 
 lation, forbidding drinking at funerals, and impos- 
 ing further restrictions on the sale of drink, was 
 adopted, though not by a very large majority. 
 
 The amman was as good as his word. He 
 enforced the enactment with relentless severity. 
 When complaints were made that he was too hard, 
 he would answer that it was his duty to administer 
 the law. as he found it — a law for which, not he 
 and his council, but the Herr Pastor and the 
 majority of the gemeinde were responsible. 
 
 The consequences, which the astute potentate 
 had foreseen from the first, were not long in mani- 
 festing themselves. Before the law was many 
 months old a violent reaction set in against it, and 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 
 
 269 
 
 a party bitterly hostile to the pastor was formed in 
 the gemeinde. The seven innkeepers of the con- 
 federate communes, all of whom were heavily hit 
 by the parson's Muzzling Law — as the new regu- 
 lation came to be called — with as many of 
 their customers as they could influence, joined 
 the ranks of Schuster's enemies. These again were 
 reinforced by not a few weak-kneed friends of 
 sobriety, who, yearned for the fleshpots of Egypt — 
 in other words, for the free fuddles that from time 
 immemorial had been the invariable concomitants 
 of funerals, and by all who thought old things 
 better than new, and objected on principle to every 
 sort of innovation. It was a contest between good 
 and evil — and evil won. 
 
 When the amman gathered from the reports of 
 his councillors, and his own observation, that the 
 pastor's influence was on the wane, he perceived 
 that the opportunity he had so long waited for 
 had arrived, and he resolved to strike the grand 
 blow for which he had so craftily prepared the 
 way. An ordinary man would have been content to 
 checkmate the parson by procuring the abolition of 
 his Muzzling Law. But Hans Lenkerhorn was not 
 an ordinary man. He determined not alone to 
 
270 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 repeal the law, but to get rid of its author. 
 Measures were taken accordingly. At the next 
 yearly meeting of the confederate burghers there 
 was an unusually strong muster of publicans and 
 sinners ; and Spendvogt Michel proposed, and 
 Writer Jos seconded, a motion calling upon Pastor 
 Schuster to give in his resignation. The pastor 
 and his friends were taken by surprise, and after a 
 hot debate, in which Fritz the vorsteher took a 
 leading part, the motion was carried by a majority 
 equal to that whereby fuddling at funerals (soon to 
 be re-established) had been forbidden. 
 
 ' The pastor accepted his fate with resignation. 
 The loss was not his. Valeria's fortune of twelve 
 hundred gulden a-year (one hundred pounds) made 
 him passing rich, and both he and she felt that he 
 might find a more congenial sphere of duty than a 
 parish ruled by an unscrupulous potentate, where 
 his services had been so little appreciated and so 
 ill requited. 
 
 When the pastor preached his last sermon, and 
 bade his flock a loving farewell, there was hardly a 
 dry eye in the church — especially among the women 
 ■ — who, if they might have had their way, would never 
 
POTENTATE AND PARSON. 271 
 
 have suffered their revered minister to be igno- 
 miniously dismissed for a too faithful performance 
 of his duty. The next day he went away, with 
 deep sorrow in his heart — for he had made many 
 dear friends in Oberstein — yet full of hope that 
 God would not allow to perish the seed he had so 
 painfully sown. . 
 
 Thirty years afterwards Karl Schuster, now a 
 university professor and an author of high repute, 
 came again to Oberstein, as member of a Govern- 
 ment Commission on education, and he greatly 
 rejoiced to find that his hope had not been in 
 vain. 
 
 The landamman slept by the side of Peter his 
 father — none of HansLenkerhorn's sons having been 
 found worthy to succeed him — and the first child bap- 
 tised by the pastor reigned in the potentate's stead. 
 The old wooden schoolhouse was replaced with a 
 substantial stone building, in which the children 
 of the gemeinde were taught by a trained teacher 
 from Chur. Herr Schuster's successor gladdened 
 him with the information that the custom of exces- 
 sive drinking at funerals was falling into desuetude, 
 
272 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 and he saw everywhere so many signs of improve- 
 ment that he went away, for the second time and 
 the last, with a thankful heart and full of hope for 
 the future of the community in which he had spent 
 the first eventful years of his ministry. 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 T 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On a fine morning in the month of June,, 187 — , 
 Mr. and Mrs. Briggs sat down to breakfast in the 
 salle-a-manger of the Hotel de la Paix at Geneva. 
 Being early, and having a choice of places, they 
 had taken a small table — at the suggestion of the 
 head-waiter — in a part of the room which com- 
 manded a view of the lake, the Rhone, and the 
 Alps. A northerly wind, fresh but not too sharp, 
 had dispersed the fog that shortly after daybreak 
 had somewhat obscured the prospect, and the 
 mighty Mont Blanc, lighted up by an unclouded 
 sun, was showing himself in all the fulness of his 
 splendid proportions — white, dazzling, and majestic. 
 
 " Yon's Mount Blank, waiter, isn't it ? " asked 
 Mr. Briggs, pointing his finger in that direction. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 "Yes, sir, that's Mon Blon," answered the 
 waiter, as he bustled off to fetch Mr. and Mrs. 
 Briggs their cafe-att-lait. 
 
 " Isn't it grand ? " observed Mrs. Briggs enthusi- 
 astically. " It just looks as if it were med of blank 
 mange " (by which the lady probably meant blanc- 
 manger). 
 
 " Well, I was thinking it looked uncommon like 
 a mountain of fresh-deviled cotton. By gum, it 
 would be worth some brass if it wor ! " 
 
 " Wouldn't they stare at it in Bolton 1" remarked 
 Mrs. Briggs, disdaining to notice her husband's last 
 remark, which she deemed rather coarse. 
 
 "Ay, and they'd see it too, if it were clapped 
 atop of Rivington Pike. And look there, what a 
 lot of good water's running all to waste. It would 
 keep some bleach crofts going, yon would." 
 
 At this moment the waiter returned with the 
 coffee. 
 
 " Is this all as you're going to bring us ? " asked 
 Mr. Briggs, with a dissatisfied air, as he surveyed 
 the table, on which there were placed, besides the 
 coffee and milk-jugs, a few rolls of bread, two pats 
 of butter, and a small jar of honey. "TV bread 
 looks very nice, but I'd like summut a bit solider." 
 
LUC&Y SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 277 
 
 " We generally serve only cafe-au-lait, or tea 
 and bread, for first breakfast; but if monsieur 
 would like some meat or eggs, or an omelette, 
 they can be prepared in a few minutes." 
 
 " Well, what shall it be, Mary Ann ? " said Mr. 
 Briggs, appealing, as gentlemen are wont to do 
 in such circumstances, to his better-half. 
 
 " Whatever you like, Sam, I'm not pertickler." 
 
 " Well, then/' observed Mr. Briggs, true to his 
 British instincts, " we'll have beefsteaks. Waiter, 
 bring two beefsteaks.' , 
 
 " Yes, sir ; anything else, sir ? " answered the 
 waiter, who had served part of his apprenticeship 
 in London. 
 
 "No, I think that'll be all. Stay, you may 
 bring us a few potatoes, if you have ^ny ready. 
 And look here, waiter — has owt been heard o' my 
 portmantle ? " 
 
 "No, sir. You can hardly expect an answer 
 yet, sir. It was only last night that Mr. Trink- 
 mann telegraphed to Paris." 
 
 And the waiter went off at a run to order the 
 beefsteaks and potatoes. 
 
 " If I may tell you what I think about th' 
 portmantle," observed Mrs. Briggs, in a tone of 
 
278 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 reproach, "you'll never see it again. I never 
 knew such a thing as to tak' it to th' wrong 
 office V that way." 
 
 "Oh, we'll get it reet enough, you'll see. I 
 always was lucky about them things. I never 
 lose owt. And if I did tak' it to th' wrong shop — 
 what then ? Hasn't many a one done th' same ? " 
 
 "Why didn't you ask?" 
 
 " I dar'say ! It is all very fine asking when 
 you cannot talk. But you have no call to worrit, 
 Mary Ann ; th' portmantle '11 be heard on afore 
 the day's o'er, tak' my word for it. We got 
 that shawl as you lost i' Lundon, and when I 
 left my topcoat V that cab i' Paris, didn't th' 
 driver bring it back th' day after? I always 
 was lucky^ and never more so than when I wed 
 thee, my lass." 
 
 Mrs. Briggs, appeased by this gallant speech, 
 smiled graciously, and poured out for her husband 
 a cup of coffee. 
 
 They were more than halfway through with 
 their beefsteaks and pommes sautees, which Mr. 
 Briggs declared to be "tip-top, and no mistake," 
 when the indefatigable waiter, with a look of 
 importance, placed on the table a yellow envelope. 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 279 
 
 " Behold a despatch for monsieur," he said. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you ? " observed Mr. Briggs 
 triumphantly to his wife, as he laid down his 
 knife and fork and broke open the seal. "It's 
 about that portmantle." 
 
 But it was not " about that portmantle," and, 
 as Mr. Briggs read, his ruddy countenance turned 
 deadly pale, his lips trembled, and beads of 
 perspiration started on his brow. 
 
 H What is it, what is it, Sam ? " exclaimed 
 Mrs. Briggs, turning also pale ; for she could 
 see that the missive contained evil tidings. 
 
 "Oh Mary Ann, it's about Betsy — she's took 
 ill! — she's very bad. What shall we do? — we 
 mun go home at once." 
 
 " Let me see, let me see/' said Mrs. Briggs 
 excitedly, snatching the telegram from her 
 husband's shaking hands. 
 
 A tear trickled down her cheek as she hastily 
 ran her eye over the ill-omened message ; for 
 Betsy, whom a few days before she had left at 
 Bolton healthy and happy, was the youngest of 
 her children, the flower and favourite of her flock. 
 Hardly able to believe her own eyes, she read 
 it a second time slowly and painfully, dwelling 
 
280 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 on every syllable, and almost spelling every word. 
 As she read on, her look of sorrow changed into 
 one of bewilderment, then of indignation ; and, 
 throwing the unlucky paper angrily on the table, 
 she exclaimed, with a withering look at her 
 husband : 
 
 "Why, it isn't for us at all, man, and it isn't 
 Betsy as is ill, it's Bates ; look here. And it's 
 from somebody called Jones, and we know no 
 Jones. Where's th' henvelope ? " 
 
 Mrs. Briggs was quite right. The telegram 
 was signed "Jones," and the name mentioned in 
 it was " Bates," though the " s " being written with 
 a long tail, as is customary with continental writers, 
 it did not look unlike " Betsy." Mr. Briggs picked 
 up the envelope, which he had thrown on the 
 floor. A more careful scrutiny showed that it 
 was addressed to Monsieur Riggs, a name that, 
 in the hurry of the moment, he might easily 
 have mistaken for his own. He had, therefore, 
 every excuse for opening the envelope ; but his 
 wife was very indignant that she should have 
 been made the victim of his blunder in con- 
 founding " Bates " with their Betsy, and she 
 expressed her sense of his stupidity in language 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 281 
 
 more forcible than elegant. She had never had 
 such a turn in all her life before, she said. If 
 you had touched her with a feather she was 
 that " took n that she would have fallen off her 
 chair. What could he think, she demanded, to 
 read the thing that careless as not to see it 
 came from somebody of the name of Jones, and 
 what had he learned to write for if he could not 
 tell the difference between " Bates " and " Betsy " ? 
 
 Mr. Briggs, thus objurgated, had very little to 
 say for himself, so he turned to vent his wrath on 
 the waiter, who had caused all the trouble by 
 bringing him a message clearly meant for some- 
 body else. 
 
 Just then his eye was caught by the figure of 
 Monsieur Trinkmann, the proprietor of the hotel, 
 who was coming towards them with another yellow 
 envelope in his hand. 
 
 " What's up now ? " said Mr. Briggs, in a 
 puzzled voice. " I'll be hanged if there isn't 
 another of them things." 
 
 "I'm afraid there has been some mistake about a 
 telegram, Mr. Briggs," said the landlord, who spoke 
 passable English, and was particularly attentive 
 to his guests. " We have a Mr. Riggs staying 
 
282 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 here, and he seems to have got a message meant 
 for you, while you may possibly have got the one 
 meant for him." 
 
 " Is this it ? " asked the other, exhibiting the 
 telegram he had opened. 
 
 "Monsieur Riggs ; yes, this is it ; and this one, 
 I believe, is for you." 
 
 "It seems to be," observed Briggs dubiously, 
 carefully scanning the address before opening 
 the envelope. "Here, stop a minute," he 
 called out to M. Trinkmann, who was making, 
 off with the other message. "This is a darned 
 thing in French as I cannot read a word of. Would 
 you be good enough ? " 
 
 " Certainly, with pleasure. It's from the chef 
 de gave (the station-master) at Paris, to say that 
 your portmanteau has been found and will be sent 
 off by the express to-night. You may expect it 
 here by eleven o'clock to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Thank you kindly, sir. What a fine thing it 
 is to understand two or three languages as you do, 
 Monsieur Trinkmann ; I wish I could. And now, 
 Mary Ann, what do you think now ? Didn't I tell 
 you as the portmantle would turn up all right ? I 
 always was lucky, and nobody can deny it neither." 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 283 
 
 "Ay, more luckier than clever," answered the 
 lady sharply, for she was far from having recovered 
 from the shock of her husband's untoward 
 announcement. 
 
 Briggs, not being prepared with an immediate 
 answer to this home-thrust, and thinking, pro- 
 bably, a change of subject desirable, hinted that 
 it was about time they were taking their contem- 
 plated drive in the direction of Fern ey, and intimated 
 that if Mrs. B. would go upstairs and " put on her 
 things," he would go and order a carriage. 
 
 While this is being done, and our hero and 
 heroine are on their way to Ferney, it may, perhaps, 
 please the reader to be informed who they are and 
 whence they come. Mr. Briggs, known to his 
 familiars as "Sam Briggs," is a retired cotton- 
 waste dealer from Bolton, of some five-and-fifty 
 years old, stout, broad built, and with a ruddy 
 good-humoured face. His hair and mutton-chop 
 whiskers are white, and he sports a white hat, 
 which he is fond of wearing slightly on one side. 
 His origin is of the humblest, and he owes his 
 success in life entirely to his own industry and 
 thrift, though, as regards thrift, he has been 
 admirably seconded by his wife. But Sam Briggs 
 
284 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 is enterprising as well as industrious. By dint of 
 judicious buying and selling during the American 
 war he made a considerable fortune, and, what is 
 far more remarkable, he managed to keep it. 
 
 Shortly before his appearance at the Hotel de 
 la Paix he had retired from business in favour of 
 his two sons. One of the first uses he made of 
 his liberty was to pay a visit to the Continent, 
 which he had long had a desire to see ; for, though 
 rather rough of speech and somewhat unrefined in 
 manner, Mr. Briggs was by no means devoid of 
 intelligence, and people who tried to take advantage 
 of his seeming simplicity, generally got the worst 
 of the bargain ; moreover, as he himself said, he 
 was often greatly befriended by luck. Besides 
 Betsy, whom they had left in charge of their 
 house at Bolton, Mr. and Mrs. Briggs had a 
 married daughter — wife of a cotton-spinner — who 
 regularly every year presented them with a grand- 
 child ; and, as their elder son was also married and 
 the father of a numerous progeny, there was little 
 probability of the race of Briggs dying out, or of 
 the head of the family being under the painful 
 necessity of leaving his fortune to the Bolton 
 Infirmary. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Our travellers were highly delighted with their 
 drive to Ferney and Gex, and along the foot of the 
 Jura, by Divonne and Coppet, back to Geneva. 
 They returned to their hotel at six o'clock, with 
 ravenous appetites, and did full justice to the 
 excellent dinner provided for them by mine host 
 of the inn. 
 
 When the meal was over they seated themselves 
 in the corridor of the hotel, and listened to the 
 strains of a magnificent musical-box, provided by 
 the landlord for the delectation of his guests ; 
 while Mr. Briggs regaled himself with an excellent 
 cigar, which he enjoyed all the more that he had 
 bought it at the astonishingly low price of three 
 halfpence. 
 
 The sight around them was novel and interest- 
 
286 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 ing. Visitors were walking, singly and in groups, 
 about the corridor ; some were sitting at little 
 tables sipping coffee, others were playing baga- 
 telle ; people were coming and going ; gaily-dressed 
 ladies were promenading with knickerbockered 
 gentlemen.; through the swinging-doors could be 
 seen skiffs shooting about on the river ; steamers 
 were coming and going, and the huge mass of the 
 Rhone, swollen by the melting of Alpine snows, 
 rushed arrow-like under the Pont du Mont Blanc, 
 and eddied past Rousseau's isle in the soft light of 
 the setting sun. 
 
 Mr. Briggs was contemplating this varied scene 
 with serene satisfaction, when he suddenly received 
 a dig in the ribs that almost made him swallow all 
 that remained of his three-halfpenny cigar ; and 
 the partner of his life, with a look of horror, 
 directed his attention to a small table near them, 
 whereat were seated two ladies. 
 
 One of the ladies was middle-aged, and wore 
 garments of sober hue ; the other was young, fair, 
 and fashionably, almost flashily, attired. At the 
 moment Mr. Briggs set eyes on them the soberly- 
 dressed one had just handed to her companion a 
 lighted match, which the younger lady was in the 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 287 
 
 act of applying to a long cigarette, delicately- 
 poised between a pair of lovely lips. 
 
 " I never saw such a thing in all my life, Sam," 
 whispered Mrs. B. to her spouse — never ; she's no 
 better than she should be, I'm sure she isn't. I 
 thought you said this was *a respectable house ? " 
 
 "And so it is, one of th' respectablest in 
 Geneva." 
 
 " Nonsense ! How can it be when such as 
 them's here ? " 
 
 It should be remarked that Mrs. Briggs was 
 a strict chapel-goer, and plumed herself on the 
 extreme correctness of her moral principles. 
 
 "Well, it is rayther stiff for a young woman 
 to be smoking in hothells i' that way. I'll ask th J 
 landlord if he thinks it's a right thing to do." 
 
 No sooner said than done. Beckoning to 
 M. Trinkmann, who was close by, Mr. Briggs 
 asked him if he received ladies into his house who 
 carried on " i' that way." 
 
 " How ? " said the landlord, not seeming clearly 
 to understand. 
 
 " That there lady as is smoking, what " 
 
 " You want to know who she is ? That's the 
 Princess Vera Blatchemkoff, daughter of the 
 
288 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Russian prime minister ; the other is her lady 
 in waiting." 
 
 " Goodness gracious ! " exclaimed Mrs. Briggs ; 
 " and do you mean to say as Prince Blackemoff — 
 him as I've seen his name in th' papers — lets his 
 daughter smoke ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; Russian ladies nearly all smoke. 
 The Princess Vera is a very amiable young lady, I 
 believe." 
 
 " Well, I never ! I couldn't have believed it if I 
 had not seen seen it. {Aside.) They'll think we're 
 romancing when we tell 'em in Bolton, won't they, 
 Sam ? — Is she staying here, Mister Trinkmann ? " 
 
 " No, she is staying at the baths of Divonne ; 
 she has been shopping in the town, and dined at 
 the table-d'hote. But I beg your pardon, Madame 
 Briggs, had you not better move your chair a 
 little ? — you are sitting in a courant d'air — in a 
 draught — you will be taking a bed cold." 
 
 The landlord minced his words sometimes. 
 Mr. Briggs, on the other hand, though able to 
 speak fairly good, if not quite faultless, English, 
 had been so long accustomed to express himself in 
 broad Lancashire, that he often used his vernacular 
 idiom without knowing it. 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 289 
 
 "What did you say about the bed being cold ? " 
 he demanded (he had caught only the concluding 
 part of the remark) ; " I'm sure it was warm enough 
 for owt last night ; I know I wor gradely 
 sweltered." 
 
 M. Trinkmann looked puzzled ; he had not the 
 least idea what " sweltered " meant, but guessed it 
 was some sort of illness. 
 
 " Indeed, I am very sorry," he said ; " was it 
 very painful ? Is there anything I can do for you ? 
 There is a very clever English doctor here. Would 
 you ? " 
 
 "A doctor! What for?" interrupted the 
 retired waste-dealer, puzzled in his turn. 
 
 " I thought you said you were ill in the night — 
 that you were gradely sweltered." 
 
 " I did, but that isn't being ill ; it's only being 
 grade — very hot — in a muck sweat, you know." 
 
 Even with this explanation Trinkmann did 
 not seem much enlightened ; but not deeming it 
 discreet to cross-question his guest any further, he 
 made a courtly bow and bolted to the door to 
 receive a bevy of visitors who had just arrived by 
 the steamer from Bouveret. 
 
 " You are English, I suppose ? " said a pleasant 
 
 u 
 
290 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 voice, with a slightly foreign accent, at Mr. Brigg's 
 elbow. 
 
 Turning his head, the latter saw seated near 
 him a short fat man, with a heavy moustache, 
 hooked nose, white teeth, dark eyes, and black 
 well-oiled hair. 
 
 • " Yes, I'm an Englishman ; are you ? " answered 
 and asked the Boltonian. 
 
 " No, Fm an American. " 
 
 " You don't look like one," observed Mr. Briggs 
 frankly, " nor yet talk like one ; Americans talks 
 through their noses." 
 
 " A naturalised American, I should say, I'm an 
 Austrian — or rather a Hungarian — by birth ; but 
 I was compelled to leave my country, after 1849, 
 for political causes, when I betook myself to the 
 United States, where I have been living ever since. 
 I am now on my way to Vienna and Pesth, to see 
 my kinsfolk. You are travelling for pleasure, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes ; we're making a bit of a tower, my missus 
 and me. We shall set off from here, maybe to- 
 morrow or the day after, and go to Berne, Lucerne, 
 and two or three other places in Switzerland. Then 
 we thowt of going into Germany a bit." 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 291 
 
 " How singular! That is almost the same route 
 we are proposing to take. We shall perhaps meet 
 again." 
 
 iC Like enough we may." 
 
 " And if we do, I shall be happy if I can be of 
 any use to you. I know both the country and the 
 language."" 
 
 " Thank you kindly; we're always very glad of 
 anybody to talk for us a bit, for we know nayther 
 th' language nor th' country." 
 
 u Well then, in case we do meet again, suppose 
 we exchange cards. Here is mine." 
 
 Whereupon the stranger produced an elegant 
 morocco case, from which he extracted an enamelled 
 " pasteboard," bearing the following inscription : 
 
 <Jfrit&,erkh $cxbxmrib boxt Soazxdmtoutkzkv, 
 
 and handed it with gracious mien to the English- 
 man. The latter fumbled in his breast-pocket, 
 and drawing therefrom a card, gave it carelessly 
 to his new acquaintance. As Friedrich Ferdinand 
 von Foozielmwiecksky glanced at the address which 
 it bore, his face assumed so curious an expression 
 that it attracted the attention of Mr. Briggs, who, 
 as he said to himself, " wondering what was up," 
 
 u 2 
 
292 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 took a side look over the Austrian's shoulder, and 
 saw to his dismay that the card he had given the 
 stranger was thus conceived : 
 
 SOLOMON SOWERBUTTS, 
 
 Dealer in Rags, Bones, and Old Iron. 
 
 HOLE r TH' WALL, 
 Nr. Blackburn. 
 
 M That's a wrong *un," uttered the Boltonian 
 hastily ; " it's a chap as does a bit o' business in 
 waste with my sons. It had got mixed up with 
 t' others. See, this is my gradely card." 
 
 Mr. Briggs, who had a keen eye to economy, 
 had utilised some of his old business cards for 
 private use; and the one he gave to Herr Foozielm- 
 wiecksky in exchange for that of Mr. Solomon 
 Sowerbutts ran as follows, the centre line being 
 half erased : 
 
 SAML. BRIGGS, 
 
 Dealer in Cotton Waste, 
 
 BOLTON. 
 
 "I'm not in business now," remarked Mr. Briggs 
 apologetically. " Pve given it up to my sons ; but 
 I thowt it was no use having fresh cards printed 
 to come abroad with, so I've made shift with these 
 old 'uns." 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 293 
 
 "And they do very well, I'm sure. So you 
 have retired from business — made your fortune, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Well, we have a little bit o' summat. I mean 
 we have as much laid by as will keep us comfort- 
 able while we live, and be a nice nest-egg for th* 
 lasses when we're gone ; lads can look after ther- 
 sells ; besides, they've getten th 1 business, and 
 there's not a better i' all Bolton 
 
 " I'm very glad to hear it. I wish I could say 
 I had made a fortune ; but I'm unfortunately not 
 in trade. I follow the calling of engineer, and 
 shall be glad if I can make a small competency 
 by the time I reach your age." 
 
 " Well, there's worse things than a small 
 competency." 
 
 " Yes, half a loaf is better than no bread. And 
 now I must say good-evening, for I'm going to 
 the theatre. If we do not meet again here we 
 shall perhaps meet in the Bernese Oberland, or 
 in Germany. You will pay a visit to Dresden, of 
 course ? " 
 
 " I expect so. Dresden is down in my — what 
 do you call it ? — in my itinerary. Mr. Rovings — 
 that's a travelled gentleman in our parts — Mr. 
 
TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Rovings said we must on no account miss Dresden. 
 And then, I think, we shall go on to Prague, and 
 from there to Vienna." 
 
 a About when do you expect to be at Dresden?" 
 
 u In about a month, I think." 
 
 " Good ; I'll look out for you. And now I must 
 really leave you ; I see my wife is waiting for me 
 outside. Good-bye. A pleasant journey; hope 
 to see you again soon." 
 
 "A very pleasant-spoken gentleman. I'm 
 glad we have made his acquaintance. That's one 
 of the advantages of going abroad — you make 
 new acquaintances," observed Samuel, quoting a 
 sentiment that he had once heard expressed by 
 his friend Rovings. 
 
 " Very/' answered Mrs. B. " I think foreigners 
 is freer in their manners and politer than English 
 folks. What did he say his name was ? " 
 
 a Here it is, he gave me his card : Friederich 
 Ferdinand von Foozle — Foozleum — Foozlum- 
 whisky — ay, that is it, Foozlumwhisky — and a 
 fool of a name it is too. I've heard o' Scotch 
 whisky, an' Irish whisky, an' English whisky, an' 
 malt whisky, an' potato whisky, o' whisky 'ot an' 
 whisky cowd — but this is the first time I ever heard 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 295 
 
 o' Foozlumwhisky. I wonder at folks having such 
 awkerd names." 
 
 " Maybe he cannot help it ; it was ten to one 
 his father's." 
 
 " He could change it, couldn't he ? specially if 
 he's been so long in America." 
 
 "We cannot judge o' foreigners by wersells," 
 replied Mrs. Briggs sagely ; " it's happen thowt a 
 nice sort o' name where he comes from." 
 
 " Happen but it would bother 'em V Bolton if 
 they saw it on a signboord." 
 
 Our travellers, following the lines laid down 
 for them in the Rovings' itinerary, journeyed 
 through a part of the Bernese Oberland, made the 
 tour of the Lake of the Four Cantons, and stayed 
 a while at Zurich, Berne, and Lucerne. They were 
 highly delighted with all they saw; and in the 
 hotels and elsewhere they met so many English, 
 and English-speaking people, that their ignorance 
 of the language of the country caused them no 
 inconvenience worth naming. Their principal, 
 almost their only, worry was in the matter of 
 soap. They were always leaving it behind them. 
 The first remark made by Mr. Briggs on being 
 shown into their bedroom at a new hotel was 
 
296 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 generally: "Drat it, Mary Ann, we've forgotten 
 th' soap again ! " And then he would perform a 
 vigorous pantomime by way of letting the cham- 
 bermaid know what was lacking ; for though every 
 male creature in a Swiss hotel, from the proprietor 
 to the boots, is nearly always more or less ac- 
 quainted with the English tongue, the female 
 domestics are not often equally skilled. Hence, 
 when Mr. Briggs wanted soap he was compelled 
 to rub his hands energetically together, as if he 
 were producing a lather, and then apply them to 
 his face as if he were washing it, which actions he 
 would emphasise by pointing to the water and 
 shaking a towel in the wondering zirnmermaed- 
 cheris face. If the young woman were quick of 
 apprehension, she would give a knowing nod, 
 vanish, and in a few minutes return with a lump 
 of scented soap — price one franc. But Swiss 
 chambermaids, not being invariably of preter- 
 natural sharpness, it did once or twice happen that 
 a girl, alarmed by Mr. Briggs' gesticulations, rushed 
 incontinently to the landlord or secretary of the 
 hotel, and informed him that the English gentle- 
 man in one hundred and twenty-two had gone 
 mad. This was quite satisfactory to Mr. Briggs, 
 however, for it brought somebody on the scene to 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 297 
 
 whom he could tell his wants without pantomime ; 
 and by some means or other he always succeeded 
 in getting his soap. After many guesses and sur- 
 mises, Mrs. Briggs came finally to the conclusion 
 that the absence of soap from continental bed- 
 rooms arose from its dearness, and that its use 
 was restricted to the cleansing of dirty linen — a 
 theory to which the lady considered the small 
 capacity of the chamber crockery lent additional 
 probability. As she gravely remarked to her hus- 
 band : " Folks who washed their faces with the 
 damped corner of a towel no bigger than a pocket- 
 handkerchief, and dried them with the other corner, 
 needed neither much soap nor big basins." 
 
 Our travellers did not, however, see quite as 
 much of Switzerland as, in the first instance, they 
 had intended to do. Mrs. Briggs was one of those 
 persons who are never happy unless they are 
 slightly miserable, and who, in the absence of 
 real cares, find it necessary to their comfort to 
 create imaginary ones. The incident of the 
 wrongly-delivered telegram at Geneva had sug- 
 gested to her all sorts of alarming possibilities. 
 Betsy — so ran her thoughts — might be took ill 
 after all, for she had grown fast, and was not 
 over strong ; and Alice — her eldest, and married 
 
298 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 daughter — who was expecting an " increase " — as 
 she generally was — might have a bad time ; and 
 Jane, the cook, was that clumsy and okerd that 
 she would not be surprised to hear any day of her 
 having set th' house o' fire, or scalded herself to 
 death, or let th' kitchen boiler blow up — " and us 
 all this way off," as Mrs. Briggs plaintively added, 
 after enumerating all these, and several more, con- 
 ceivably impending calamities to her husband. 
 The latter, on the other hand, was enjoying him- 
 self so much, and liked Switzerland so well, that 
 he would willingly have stayed longer and seen 
 every place marked down in his plan of travel. 
 He did not share in the misgivings of his wife, and 
 his confidence in his luck, which had stood him in 
 such good stead at London, Paris, and Geneva, 
 was as strong as ever. Nevertheless, he so far 
 yielded to Mrs. Briggs' importunities as slightly 
 to shorten what he had described to Herr von 
 Foozielmwiecksky as their "bit of a tower in 
 Switzerland," by at least a week ; and a month 
 after they had made the acquaintance of that 
 gentleman in the Hotel de la Paix at Geneva, they 
 arrived at Romanshorn, on the lake of Constance, 
 and took their passage to Lindau, the Bavarian 
 port and railway station on the opposite side. 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 299 
 
 Among the passengers on the boat by which 
 our Boltonians crossed over were several other 
 English tourists, some of whom Mr. Briggs 
 identified as Londoners. 
 
 " How do yo' know as they're Londoners ? " 
 asked his wife, when he communicated to her 
 this opinion. 
 
 "By their twang, to be sure ; just hearken to 'em." 
 
 "This being the lake of Constance/' was 
 saying one of the supposed cockneys to the 
 other, "the town of Constance is somewhere 
 in the neighbourhood, I imagine." 
 
 " Yes, it's in that direction/' observed cockney 
 No. 2, pointing westward. " I was just looking at 
 a map ; but I do not think we can see it, it's too 
 far away." 
 
 "Let me see/' said No. 1, as if trying to recall 
 something. " Did not something once happen at 
 Constance — some great man was either hanged or 
 burnt alive there ? Oh yes, I remember now, it 
 was Luther — Luther was burnt there by order — 
 yes — by order of the Council of Constance." 
 
 " Luther ! " interrupted the other ; " what are 
 you thinking about, Robinson ? How could it be 
 Luther ? Luther had nothing to do with Switzer- 
 land — it was Calvin. Calvin was the leader of the 
 
300 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 reformation in Switzerland — what a memory you 
 must have, to be sure ! " 
 
 " Perhaps you are right, Jones. Now I think 
 of it, I believe you are right. But it was the 
 Council of Constance that ordered him to be burnt 
 — you cannot deny that, Robinson ? " 
 
 " Who wants to deny it ? " answered Robinson, 
 with a touch of scorn in his voice. " If Calvin was 
 burnt at Constance, does it not stand to reason 
 that it was done by order of the Council of 
 Constance ? " 
 
 " That's summut new to me/' observed Briggs 
 thoughtfully to his wife in an undertone. " I never 
 knew afore as Calvin wor burnt alive at Constance ; 
 they didn't tell us that when they showed us his 
 pulpit at Geneva." 
 
 " Them Londoners is maybe mistaken, Sam." 
 
 " Well, I don't know ; that little red-whiskered 
 chap talks as if he wor uncommon cocksure about 
 it. Anyhow, I'll find it out when we get back to 
 Bolton. I'll ask Mr. Tubthumper — he's a parson, 
 and it's his business to know. But aren't we at 
 the far end ? Yon's Lindau, I think, and that's 
 the train waiting for us. Let's get wer things 
 together and make ready to land." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Leaving Lindau by the train which, as Mr. Briggs 
 rightly conjectured, had been waiting for them, he 
 and his wife went on to the ancient and picturesque 
 city of Nuremberg, which they made their first 
 halting-place in Germany. Having been recom- 
 mended by the proprietor of the Schweizorhof at 
 Lucerne to put up at the Drei Krone (Three 
 Crowns) hotel, they proceeded thither accordingly, 
 and asked for a bedroom. 
 
 The hotel secretary, who was the very pink of 
 politeness, preceding them upstairs, led the way 
 into a large chamber on the second-floor. As 
 touching chairs, tables, carpets, and mirrors it was 
 handsomely furnished, but when Mr. Briggs saw 
 the beds he started back in dismay. They were 
 about the width of babies' cribs, and very little 
 longer. 
 
302 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " Is them all th' beds as you've got ? " he 
 exclaimed, in a voice of mingled indignation and 
 despair. 
 
 The secretary, thinking he was not satisfied 
 with the apartment, asked if he would like to see 
 another. Mr. Briggs answered that he rather 
 Avould. The secretary thereupon conducted him 
 to the opposite side of the house, and, showing 
 him a still larger, and more finely furnished room, 
 inquired with a profusion of smiles if he liked 
 that any better. 
 
 " The room's right enough," replied Mr. Briggs, 
 " so is t'other. It's them beds I'm thinking about. 
 How is a man like me — I weigh nearly eleven 
 score — to lie in a thing like that, no bigger than a 
 craddle ; and it's waur than a craddle, for a craddle 
 has sides to it and them beds has not. Have you 
 nowt else ? " 
 
 "I am really very sorry, sir, but we have no 
 larger beds than these. No other sort is used in 
 Germany.' , 
 
 "Well, if I lie i' one o' them I shall want 
 roouping in." (Suddenly to the secretary.) " Have 
 you any rooups, mounseer ? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," said the secretary, 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 303 
 
 with a puzzled air, as he tried to develop from his 
 consciousness the meaning of " rooups." 
 
 " Have you any ropes ? " repeated Mr. Briggs 
 slowly, and in his best English, "to rope us on 
 with when we go to bed, to keep us from falling 
 off and breaking wer bones/" 
 
 " I understand now, sir," broke in the secretary, 
 with the look of a man struck by a happy thought ; 
 "but I think we can manage better than that. 
 We will put two beds close together and then 
 they will be large enough, don't you think, sir ? " 
 
 " For one, maybe, but not for two." 
 
 "For one, of course; that was what I meant, 
 sir." 
 
 So Mr. and Mrs. Briggs occupied one room and 
 four beds in the Three Crowns hotel at Nuremberg. 
 And at all the houses of entertainment at which 
 they subsequently stayed during their continental 
 wanderings (where the beds were of equally 
 lilliputian dimensions), they insisted on a similar 
 arrangement, and thus became known far and 
 wide as the " four-bedded couple." 
 
 The next stage in their journey was Dresden, 
 where Mr. Briggs found awaiting him, at the Hotel 
 de Bellevue, a letter from his bankers at Bolton, 
 
304 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 containing some circular notes, and another from 
 home with the satisfactory news that all was well 
 with their children and grandchildren, and that 
 Mrs. Fillcradle, their married daughter, had just 
 rejoiced the heart of her husband by the production 
 of her seventh infant annual. 
 
 The day after their arrival, Mr. Briggs, ac- 
 companied by the boots of the hotel to show him 
 the way, went to Thode's bank in Wildsruffer 
 Strasse, for the purpose of melting one of his 
 circular notes. When his business was despatched 
 he was shown by one of the members of the firm 
 into a spacious inner room, well-furnished, and 
 supplied with an ample assortment of English 
 newspapers, and courteously informed that, so long 
 as he remained at Dresden, he was free to use it as 
 often as he liked. So he sat down, and began 
 greedily to devour The Times ; for Mr. Briggs was 
 a strong politician, and an omnivorous reader of 
 newspapers. He was deep in the thrilling descrip- 
 tion of a desperate murder when he thought he 
 heard his name spoken. Looking up in some 
 surprise, who should he see but his quondam 
 acquaintance — Mr. Friederich Ferdinand von 
 Foozielmwiecksky, who instantly came forward, 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 305 
 
 shook him warmly by the hand, and expressed the 
 greatest delight at their so opportune meeting. 
 
 " I thought I should find you, or hear of you, at 
 Thode's bank," he said, "all the English and 
 Americans come here sooner or later. And where 
 are you staying ? Ah, at the Bellevue, a capital 
 house ; you could not have done better. We are 
 at the Saxe. How is Mrs. Briggs ? How do you 
 like Dresden ? Have you seen any of the collec- 
 tions ? Not yet. Then, if you like, we'll visit them 
 together. I've seen them all before, of course, but 
 it's so many years since that I shall be glad to see 
 them again. The picture gallery is the finest out 
 of Italy, you know, and the Green Vault contains 
 the most magnificent jewellery, gems, and articles 
 of vertu, in Europe. And I'll tell you what, as it's 
 so fine, we'll go to-night, if you like, to the Grosse 
 Garten — we can get supper there ; there's a concert, 
 and Wagner will play some of his best pieces. 
 What do ypu say — shall we go ? " 
 
 "Ay, to be sure, lets go. But what is it like, 
 this Grosse Garten — a concert-room, did you say ? " 
 
 " Oh dear no ! it is a large garden — a park, I 
 daresay you'd call it in England — quite a fine 
 place — tall trees, grass, flowers, moonlight, music, 
 
 x 
 
306 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND, 
 
 chops, steaks, beer, and all that sort of thing. 
 You'll enjoy it amazingly, I'm sure you will." 
 
 " All right, I'll go and tell my missus, and then 
 I'll take her a bit of a walk out." 
 
 "Well, look here, Til go with you, if you'll let 
 me. We can perhaps arrange an excursion — 
 Dresden is a capital place for excursions — or a 
 visit to one of the collections, and then I'll fetch 
 my wife, and we can go together, you know. But 
 would not you like a glass of beer first ? " 
 
 " Well, I do feel rayther dry; what sort of a tap 
 have they here ? " 
 
 " You shall try it. Come along. I know a 
 place we'll go to — the Trompeterschloessen." 
 
 " Trump — trump — trumpayterschluss — what's 
 that when its fried, Mister Foozlumwhisky ! They 
 have the most rummest names i' this country as 
 ever I heard on." 
 
 " It means the Little Trumpeter's Castle. 
 See, here it is," said the Austrian, leading the way 
 into a restauratiofty over the door of which hung the 
 sign of a herald on horseback. Inside they found 
 a spacious and well-lighted, if somewhat old- 
 fashioned, room, filled with small tables, at most of 
 which sat thirsty Dresdeners, restoring themselves 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 307 
 
 with beer, and reading the news of the day. As 
 Mr. Briggs mentally remarked, nothing was being 
 drunk but beer — nothing either stronger or weaker. 
 " Zwei lager" said Foozielmwiecksky to an atten- 
 dant nymph, as he and the Boltonian seated 
 themselves near an unoccupied table. 
 
 "Zwei lager ; that means beer, does it?" in- 
 quired Briggs, as the girl returned with two immense 
 crystal tankards with pewter lids. 
 
 " No ; beer's beer, just as in English. Taste it 
 now, while it's fresh, and tell me how you like it." 
 
 " Stunning ! " exclaimed Mr. Briggs, taking the 
 glass from his lips after a long pull. "Bithmon 
 I'll come here again. What do you say they call 
 it — zwei lager ? Gradely good beer, I call it." 
 
 "It's lager beer — the beer of the house — the 
 brew — the entire, don't you see ? One says lager 
 for short ; zwei means two ; so that zwei lager 
 simply means two glasses of beer." 
 
 "Oh,* that's it, is it? Here, young woman" 
 (beckoning to the waitress), " zwei lager moor." 
 
 The girl understood, and taking the two glasses 
 away, brought them back filled to the brim with 
 foaming nut-brown nectar. 
 
 Mr. Briggs was delighted. 
 
 x 2 
 
308 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " There," he said, " I can order a glass of beer 
 i' German, anyhow. If I was to stop here two or 
 three weeks I should pick it up fast; I'm sure I 
 should. It sounds very like rank Bolton when they 
 talken it. A language isn't so hard to learn if you 
 nobbut know it, I can see that. But it's time to be 
 going ; my missus '11' think I've lost mysel. What's 
 th' choke, Mister Foozlumwhisky ? " 
 
 The Austrian did not seem exactly to under- 
 stand. 
 
 " What's the joke ? " he said. " I did not hear 
 any joke made; I was not speaking, Mr. Briggs." 
 
 " I didn't say joke, I said choke. You happen 
 don't know what th' choke means. It means what's 
 th' shot — how much is there to pay ? Because I'm 
 going to be th' paymaster this time." 
 
 To this proposal Foozielmwiecksky made a 
 slight show of opposition ; but he did not insist, and 
 Mr. Briggs was allowed to discharge the reckoning, 
 which, to his surprise, amounted only to about 
 eightpence — half the amount, as he remarked, it 
 would have been in England, for beer not half so 
 good. 
 
 They went to the Grosse Garten, and Mr. and 
 Mrs. Briggs* delight with the entertainment and the 
 
LUCKY SAM BR1GGS, 
 
 309 
 
 refreshments (ordered by Herr Foozielmwiecksky) 
 was unbounded. 
 
 They seated themselves round a large table 
 under the widespreading branches of an ancient 
 lime-tree ; and when the band struck up a lively 
 air, and Kappelmeister Wagner came to the front 
 of the orchestra and joined in with his silver 
 bugle — a present from the king — and a bright 
 young moon shone upon the scene with her 
 mellow light, Mrs. B. became quite enraptured, 
 declaring that she had not believed anything 
 could be so nice ; and Mr. B. informed Foozielm- 
 wiecksky (in an aside) that in his opinion not 
 heaven itself could be more enchanting. This 
 enthusiasm was probably, in part at least, attri- 
 butable to the lager beer, of which they all drank 
 rather freely. They finished up the evening with 
 a bottle of Saxon champagne, and only went away 
 when the last piece of music had been played 
 and the lamps in the orchestra were being put out. 
 Again Mr. Briggs insisted on paying the " choke/ - 
 nor did he find the Austrian's objections to his 
 doing so more difficult to overcome than earlier 
 in the day. They drove to their hotels in the 
 same cab, and, before separating, agreed to go 
 
3io TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 up the river next day to Schandau. Mrs. Foozielm- 
 wiecksky and Mrs. Briggs got on wonderfully well 
 together ; for the farmer lady was an American 
 born, though she spoke German fluently, and, 
 being very lively and intelligent, added much to 
 the enjoyment of the party. 
 
 For several days after their visit to the Grosse 
 Garten the Briggses led what was for them a 
 decidedly riotous life. They were always going 
 somewhere — to Pillnitz, to Koenigstein, or to 
 Loschwitz. They went to see the Bastei, and 
 spent a glorious day at Moritzburg, whither they 
 drove in a carriage and pair. The evenings they 
 generally spent at one of the gardens, or on the 
 Bruhl Terrace, where there was also a nightly 
 concert, and Mr. Briggs tasted the tap of almost 
 every brewery in Dresden. He generally paid 
 the reckoning, by way, as he thought, of making 
 some slight return to Foozielmwiecksky for his 
 trouble in taking them about and talking for 
 them ; and, so far as money matters went, he put 
 himself almost entirely into that gentleman's 
 hands. What could he do else ? He knew as 
 little of thalers, grosschen, and pfennige as of the 
 customs and language of the country. In these 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 circumstances it was perhaps not to be wondered 
 at that at the end of a week the proceeds of the 
 circular note he had cashed at Thode's bank had 
 melted away, and that he was compelled to cash 
 another. This rather took the edge off his enjoy- 
 ment, and caused him to inform his Austrian 
 friend that he had spent almost as much time in 
 Dresden as he could well spare, and must shortly 
 continue his journey to Prague and Vienna. 
 
 " Very good," said Mr. Foozielmwiecksky, " I 
 am ready when you are. When shall we start ? " 
 
 "Suppose we say the day after to-morrow ?" 
 
 " The day after to-morrow let it be then. You 
 want to make a halt at Prague, I suppose ? " 
 
 "I do ; Mr. Rovings has put it down in my 
 itinerary. He said it was one of the remarkablest 
 places on th' Continent, and I should not like 
 to miss it." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The last evening of their stay in Dresden 
 Mrs. Briggs was occupied in packing up, and the 
 Foozielmwieckskys went to the opera, whither 
 Briggs did not care to accompany them. Left in 
 this way to his own resources, he determined to 
 pay a farewell visit to the Grosse Garten. He had 
 by this time picked up two or three words of 
 German, and having been at the Garten once or 
 twice before, felt quite sure he could manage quite 
 well alone. So off he set, and as many other people 
 were going in the same direction, and it was broad 
 daylight, he had no difficulty in finding his way, 
 and arrived safely at his destination. The music 
 had already begun ; and sitting down under a 
 tree, he proceeded to con over, and try to make 
 out, the bill of fare which he found lying on the 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 313 
 
 table before him, thinking the while what he should 
 order for supper. As he was thus occupied a 
 waiter approached him and politely asked if he 
 wanted anything. 
 
 " Zwei lager" said Mr. Briggs, forgetting that 
 he was alone and that zwei meant two. 
 
 " Ich bitte Sie" (I beg your pardon) — the man 
 began. 
 
 "Bitter beer? No, zwei lager" interrupted 
 Briggs. 
 
 " Jah wohl" returned the waiter, thinking the 
 English Herr was expecting a friend. Wollen Sie 
 anch Essen ? v 
 
 Sam, knowing that Essen meant something to 
 eat, gave an affirmative nod, and pointed to an 
 item in the bill of fare which he had previously 
 marked in his mind as denoting a dish he might 
 safely order. Braten he had been told meant 
 " roast meat ; " ein meant " one ; " so in signifying 
 to the waiter to bring him ein gebratenes Hukn, 
 he thought he was ordering a plate of some sort 
 of roast — what sort, he did not exactly know, nor 
 much care. 
 
 The waiter being now more than ever sure that 
 the Herr Englander expected a friend, answered 
 
3H 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 with his eternal " Jah wohl" and went off at a run 
 to execute the order. 
 
 More than half-an-hour passed away, and 
 Briggs, who was both hungry and thirsty, was 
 beginning to think that the waiter had forgotten 
 all about his glass of beer and plate of roast meat, 
 when he beheld that functionary coming towards 
 him with a large tray, on which appeared a roasted 
 fowl as big as a small goose, flanked by two im- 
 mense tankards of beer, half a pound or so of fried 
 potatoes, and a big loaf of bread. 
 
 " God bless me," said Mr. Briggs to himself, 
 " the fellow has surely gone mad ! " 
 
 Then it flashed upon his mind that he had 
 asked for zwei lager instead of ein glass bier, and 
 the moment after it occurred to him that he 
 might possibly have made a similar mistake in 
 the ordering of his roast meat. 
 
 The waiter placed his tray on the table, and 
 as there was just then a call for his services 
 elsewhere, he vanished before our Boltonian 
 had sufficiently recovered from his bewilderment, 
 and mustered up enough German to request an 
 explanation. So there was clearly nothing for 
 it, he thought, but to make the best of a bad 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 315 
 
 job — drink the beer and eat as much of the 
 roast fowl and etceteras as he might. The shot 
 would have to be paid anyhow, and he resolved 
 to take all the value for his money he could 
 comfortably stow away. 
 
 Every eye was now directed towards him. 
 Germans, for the most part, are large eaters, and 
 like to see a man feed well ; yet a single English- 
 man, with a table, two tankards of beer, and a 
 roast fowl all to himself, was a sufficiently novel 
 spectacle to cause general curiosity, and the 
 people in Mr. Briggs' immediate neighbourhood 
 gave considerably more attention to his proceed- 
 ings than to the music of the band. But this 
 suddenly-acquired notoriety did not trouble him 
 much, and he tackled his ample supper with 
 such energy, determination, and appetite, that in 
 a short time two-thirds of the gebratenes Huhn 
 and most of the potatoes had vanished from 
 sight. Then he paused, poured down his throat 
 all that remained of the second pot of beer, and 
 feeling thereafter tolerably well satisfied with 
 himself and the state of things in general, leaned 
 back in his chair and listened with much com- 
 placency to the enlivening strains of the orchestra. 
 
3i 6 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 From supping to sleeping there is only a 
 step, and it was not long before the pose of 
 Mr. Briggs' body, his closed eyes, and an 
 occasional loud snore, showed that he was in 
 a condition of happy oblivion. There he remained 
 for a good hour or more, until he was aroused 
 by Nemesis in the shape of the head-waiter (not 
 the same that had served him) asking for the 
 payment of his small account. 
 
 "How much? — Wie viel?" — demanded Mr. 
 Briggs. And, not understanding the answer, he 
 put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a 
 number of coins. " Here, help yourself," he said. 
 The man did help himself — so effectually indeed, 
 that only a few copper pieces returned to their 
 owner's possession. 
 
 " Please remember the waiter, sir," said the 
 attendant, with an obsequious grin, using the 
 only English phrase he knew, but which, on 
 similar previous occasions, had produced results 
 agreeable to his feelings, 
 
 "Ay," replied Briggs grimly, as he buttoned 
 up his pocket, and rose to take his departure, " 111 
 remember thee when I get hooum, my lad." 
 
 The concert was over, the lamps were being 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 317 
 
 put out, and soon the park was plunged in darkness 
 and silence. But our hero, having marked well 
 the path by which he had come, experienced no 
 difficulty in finding his way back as far as the 
 quarter known as the Burgerwiese. There, how- 
 ever, he was at fault, and taking a wrong turn, 
 went a long distance astray before he discovered 
 his mistake. Then he was sorely puzzled. People 
 go to bed early in Dresden; the streets were 
 nearly deserted ; there were no cabs about. He 
 accosted several wayfarers, but he did not succeed 
 in making them understand what he wanted. They 
 would listen to him with the utmost politeness, 
 speak to him volubly in German (which might as 
 well have been Sanskrit), and pass on. He next 
 tried to retrace his steps, and, as he afterwards said, 
 " went up and down all macks o" streets." He 
 thought he must have walked at least twenty miles, 
 when, utterly worn out and almost desperate, he 
 sat down on a doorstep to rest himself. As he thus 
 sat, he perceived coming briskly towards him three 
 or four men, seemingly young and in good spirits, 
 for they were talking loudly, and now and then 
 one of them would sing a stave or two of a jovial 
 song. Mr. Briggs thought this was an oppor- 
 
3i8 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 tunity not to be lost, and rising, hat in hand 
 (he had observed that Dresdeners were always 
 either raising their hats or smoking, or both), he 
 asked in supplicatory accents : 
 
 a Could you tell me, please, which is the way 
 nach the Belle Vue Hotel." 
 
 " You are English ? " said one of the strangers, 
 all of whom also raised their hats, the moment 
 Briggs accosted them. 
 
 " I am, and right glad I am to hear it spoken 
 once moor. IVe been walking up and down these 
 streets a matter of two hours, and could make 
 nobody understand as I'd lost mysel'." 
 
 "And you want to go to the Hotel Belle Vue? " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "Well, it's a long way from here, and I am 
 afraid you could not very well find it alone. But 
 I'll tell you what — I am an Englishman myself, 
 and if you will come into this restaurant for a few 
 minutes, where we have to meet some friends, Fll 
 see you safely home/' 
 
 Mr. Briggs joyfully accepted this timely offer, 
 and, surrendering himself to the guidance of his 
 new-found friend, entered a dark passage, a few 
 yards farther on, at the end of which was a door, 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 319 
 
 opening on an equally dark staircase. Up this 
 staircase they mounted, and opening another door 
 on the first-floor they found themselves in a large 
 low room, the air of which was so thick with 
 tobacco smoke, that the objects and persons it 
 contained were at first hardly discernible. But 
 if not very visible, the latter were not slow in 
 making themselves heard. The appearance of 
 the new-comers was the signal for an uproarious 
 shout, followed by a series of energetic hand- 
 shakings, and, to the retired waste-dealer's un- 
 speakable surprise, embracings and kissings. As 
 his eyes became accustomed to the obscurity, he 
 saw that the inmates of the room were all young 
 men, all were smoking long pipes, all had little 
 coloured caps stuck on the sides of their heads, 
 and several wore long boots outside their trousers. 
 The cheeks and noses of many of these interesting 
 youths were covered with sticking-plaster, two or 
 three had their heads bandaged, the faces of nearly 
 all were more or less scarred ; and one tall fellow, 
 with a black patch over his eye, was making fierce 
 cuts in the air with a long rapier. Inquisitive, and, 
 as he thought, bloodthirsty glances were shot at 
 Mr . Briggs through the smoke, and that estimable 
 
32o TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 gentleman began greatly to fear that he had fallen 
 among thieves, and he wished very much that he 
 was in bed with Mrs. Briggs, or even sitting on the 
 doorstep which he had so lately left. 
 
 "Allow me," said the young fellow who had 
 brought him in — a chubby-faced blue-eyed lad, 
 with long boots, a long scar on his left cheek, and 
 two or three more on his head — " allow me to 
 present to this honourable society my distinguished 
 countryman " (sotto voce to Briggs : " What is your 
 name, please ? " ) " Mr. Briggs of Bolton. He has 
 lost his way, and doesn't know how to find it; 
 but as he proposes to celebrate his admission to 
 our merry meeting by paying for beers and 
 champagne, I vote that we escort him to his 
 lodgings with all the honours. Is it agreed ? " 
 
 M Agreed ! agreed ! agreed ! " shouted twenty 
 voices. 
 
 Then the chubby-faced youth explained to his 
 countryman what was expected of him, and the 
 latter, albeit rather ruefully, agreeing thereto, the 
 liquor was ordered. 
 
 "What are they?" whispered Mr. Briggs 
 anxiously to his companion. 
 
 " Burschen (students). We are from the Mining 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 321 
 
 Academy of Freiberg, the others are mostly from 
 Leipsic, and we meet here occasionally for 
 intellectual conversation and a little relaxation 
 from our studies. It's a sort of club, you know." 
 
 "Oh, that's it, is it," said the other, greatly 
 relieved. " But what's the matter wF your faces ? " 
 
 " Those marks, you mean ? They are only 
 Scibelhiebe — scars got in fighting." 
 
 " And what do you fight with — knives ? " 
 
 " No, rapiers — swords — but we are not allowed 
 to cut anywhere but the face ; there is no danger, 
 you know." 
 
 Well, for my part, I'd a good deal liefer see 
 you fight with your fists than them long skewers, 
 if fight you must." 
 
 At this point the beer was brought in ; then 
 glasses were filled, and the students, crowding 
 round their guest, touched his glass with theirs, 
 and drank his health with a hundred " /ioc/is" 
 
 Next- came the champagne, followed by more 
 beer ; songs were sung ; Mr. Briggs tried to sing 
 one himself, but broke down lamentably. After 
 this sort of thing had gone on for an hour or two 
 the chubby-faced student with the big boots sug- 
 gested that it was about time they were escorting 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 his distinguished countryman to his hotel. On 
 this hint the bill was called for and paid, and the 
 respectable Mr. Briggs sallied forth into the night, 
 surrounded by a score of reckless, harum-scarum, 
 half-tipsy burscken. They went singing and 
 shouting through the streets, to the great alarm 
 of sober citizens, numbers of whom rose from their 
 beds and stuck their night -capped heads out of the 
 window to see what was the matter. More than 
 once the roysterers were chased by the police, and 
 escaped only by dint of dodging and hard running, 
 on which occasions, Mr. Briggs was forced along at 
 such a rate that he feared every moment he would 
 drop down in a fit of apoplexy. At length they 
 arrived before the Hotel Belle Vue, whereupon the 
 chubby-faced youth and another bursck, led our 
 hero up the steps— for he really required leading — 
 shook him warmly by the hand, gave a terrific 
 ring at the door-bell, and then rejoined their com- 
 panions, who, as the astonished porter admitted 
 the belated Briggs, saluted him with a war-whoop- 
 like yell that almost frightened the poor fellow out 
 of his wits, and so startled the landlord that, think- 
 ing all his guests were being murdered in their 
 beds, he rushed to the alarm-bell and rang it like 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 323 
 
 mad, a proceeding which had the effect of 
 bringing on the scene in hot haste all the 
 gendarmes and fire-engines of the quarter. A 
 terrific row ensued, to the great delight of the 
 iurscken, who, after dispersing in various direc- 
 tions, returned to the hotel, mixed with the crowd 
 which had already assembled, and were profuse in 
 their offers of assistance to work the engines and 
 put out the fire. 
 
 Y 2 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 UNDER cover of the confusion Briggs crept quietly 
 off to bed, but he never remembered exactly how 
 he got there. He awoke in the morning with a 
 terrible headache, and as he opened his eyes he 
 encountered the still more terrible looks of his 
 better-half, who told him he ought to feel ashamed 
 of himself— carrying on in that way at his time 
 of life — whatever he was thinking of she could not 
 tell — where had he been and what had he been 
 doing? she asked, and, cruellest question of all, 
 how much brass had he spent ? Fortunately for 
 Briggs the packing up, which was still going on, 
 took up so much of his wife's attention that the 
 storm soon blew over, and a cup of tea, followed by 
 a few sodas and brandy, restored him to his wonted 
 spirits, if they did not quite cure his headache 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 325 
 
 and settle his inward qualms. But he never forgot 
 his last evening in Dresden, the Grosse Garten, 
 the burschen> with their big boots, plaistered faces, 
 and intellectual conversation, and, above all, the 
 nice little reckoning they made him pay for beer 
 and champagne, the amount whereof he has never 
 disclosed even to his dearest friend, much less to 
 the wife of his bosom. The travellers left Dresden 
 the same day, as arranged, and arriving at Prague 
 in due course, took up their quarters at the 
 Schwartzer Ross — the Black Horse. They visited 
 the principal lions of the place, passed a whole day 
 in the wonderful Hradschin, wandered about the 
 quaint streets of the historic city, and admired the 
 wonderful views from its walls. Mr. Briggs was 
 delighted to observe several tall chimneys vomiting 
 forth clouds of black smoke, and the industrial 
 uses to which the river Moldau is so extensively 
 put. The number of mills and manufactories on 
 its banks pleased him greatly — he said it was like 
 being at " hooum " — they had got to a place at 
 last where there was some life. 
 
 Then they started for Vienna. When the bill 
 was called for at the Black Horse, Mr. Foozielm- 
 wiecksky, in the most natural manner possible, 
 
326 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 asked Mr. Briggs to let the whole amount be 
 included in one reckoning, remarking that he had 
 directed his remittances to be sent to Vienna, and 
 that, pending their arrival thither, he was just a 
 little short of the needful. 
 
 "All right," said Mr. Briggs carelessly. " Take 
 this five-hundred thaler note {£7$), and settle, 
 and get th' tickets at th' railway. You can give 
 me what change there is out in th' train, and 
 t'other can stand o'er till we get to Vienna." 
 
 The tickets were taken, the luggage registered, 
 and, thanks to the address of Mr. Foozielmwieck- 
 sky — aided by a tip judiciously administered to the 
 conductor — the four friends secured a second-class 
 compartment all to themselves — " a deal comfort- 
 abler," as Mrs. Briggs observed, than many an 
 English first. They travelled by the night express, 
 and no sooner was the train fairly on its way than 
 Mr. Foozielmwiecksky, remarking that he had a 
 touch of headache, leaned back in the corner, 
 pulled his cap over his eyes, and composed himself 
 to sleep. Mr. Briggs thought about his change, 
 but in view of the Austrian's headache and his 
 ardent desire to be undisturbed, concluded not 
 to remind him of it just then. There would be 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 327 
 
 plenty of time before they reached Vienna ; so, 
 after smoking a cigar, he also cushioned himself 
 up in his corner and made an excursion into the 
 land of dreams. The ladies did likewise, and in 
 a short time the only sounds to be heard in the com- 
 partment were the snoring of its four occupants. 
 
 Mr. Briggs slept for several hours. When he 
 opened his eyes the train was still rushing onward 
 through the darkness, the lamp in the roof of the 
 carriage, flickering feebly, gave a dim uncertain 
 light, and he had to make a vigorous mental effort 
 before he could remember where he was and 
 who were his companions. He heard voices in 
 conversation, and distinguished, or thought he 
 distinguished — for he was not even yet fully 
 awake — that of Mrs. Foozelum saying to Mr. 
 Foozelum (as he and Mrs. Briggs had lately begun 
 to call their new friends between themselves, for 
 short) in English : 
 
 " Did you get anything out of the old softy ? " 
 
 And the other answered in German : "Jah 
 wohl" and something more that our Boltonian 
 could not make out. But he had been long 
 enough in Germany to learn that Jah wohl is a 
 very strong affirmative — a sort of double-barrelled 
 
328 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " Yes " — and Foozelum doubtless meant his wife 
 to understand that he had got something out of 
 the old "softy," and no mistake. It occurred to 
 Mr. Briggs that he might possibly be the old 
 " softy " in question, an idea that roused him to 
 the most intense wakefulness in a moment, and 
 made him resolve to broach the subject of his 
 change forthwith. 
 
 "I hope youVe enjoyed your snooze/' said 
 Foozielmwiecksky loudly, on seeing him move, " I 
 feel all the better for mine. Here, take a soupqon 
 of this cognac ; it will do you good." 
 
 Mr. Briggs accepted the invitation, albeit he 
 did not much lessen the contents of the Austrian's 
 spirit-flask. 
 
 "Now," he said, returning it to him, "as you 
 feel so much better, you can perhaps settle that 
 little matter, and give me my change." 
 
 " I should only be too happy, my dear sir, if 
 there were sufficient light ; but, as you see, we are 
 almost in complete darkness. The change I re- 
 ceived for your five-hundred thaler note is all in 
 Austrian paper money of various amounts ; more- 
 over, I have not made out my account ; and if we 
 begin to meddle with the business now we shall be 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 329 
 
 sure to make a muddle of it. Better wait until we 
 arrive at Vienna, or, at any rate, until sunrise. " 
 
 The plea was reasonable ; moreover Briggs, 
 whose confidence in the good faith of his com- 
 panion was beginning to be shaken, reflected that 
 he did not understand Austrian money, and were 
 he to insist on a settlement there and then, he 
 could neither check the figures of the account nor, 
 by that obscure light, examine his change, and 
 might thus be beguiled into taking much less than 
 his due. He therefore decided to let the matter 
 alone for the present, as Foozielmwiecksky had 
 suggested. Nevertheless his thoughts were none of 
 the pleasantest, and kept him effectually awake 
 during the remainder of the journey. Shortly 
 after sunrise, and before there was light enough to 
 read by, the compartment was invaded by four 
 more passengers, two of whom placed themselves 
 between Briggs and Foozielmwiekcsky ; hence all 
 hope of a settlement before they reached Vienna 
 had to be abandoned. 
 
 " I'll take you to a good place I know of," said 
 Foozielmwiecksky, on arrival at their destination ; 
 " it's a private hotel, very comfortable, and a deal 
 cheaper than the Imperial and other swell places." 
 
330 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 "All right," says Mr. Briggs; "go ahead." 
 
 They all got into one carriage, the Austrian 
 directed the driver whither to go, and after passing 
 through a bewildering labyrinth of streets they 
 pulled up before a house of somewhat unprepos- 
 sessing exterior, and, as Briggs judged, in a poor 
 quarter of the city. 
 
 But the retired waste-dealer had his wits about 
 him ; he was not going to be led quite like a lamb 
 to the slaughter. 
 
 " Just stop a minute," he said to the Austrian, 
 as the latter was ordering the luggage to be 
 unloaded, " let's see inside first. My missus is 
 rayther particular about beds. We always looks 
 at wer rooms before we makes up our minds 
 —don't we, Mary Ann ? " 
 
 This suggestion was evidently not altogether 
 to Foozielmwiecksky's mind ; nevertheless, he led 
 the way into the house ; his wife and the Briggses 
 following. 
 
 The "hotel" was situated on the second- 
 floor, and, as the door opened, their noses were 
 saluted with a smell that seemed to be com- 
 pounded in about equal proportions of foul air, 
 onions and garlic, and stale tobacco. After a 
 few words from the Austrian the Briggses were 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 33* 
 
 shown into one bedroom while the " Foozelums " 
 were being ushered into another. 
 
 " Them windows has never been opened sin* 
 they were made, in my opinion/' remarked Mr. 
 Briggs, sniffing the impure air, "and they are 
 so nasty you can hardly see through 'em." 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. B. was examining the beds. 
 " Why, the sheets is not clean," she exclaimed, 
 
 " and the blankets is that black " and then, 
 
 with almost a shriek, she threw the bedclothes 
 from her and sprang hastily backwards — in her 
 excitement capsizing her husband, who happened 
 at the same moment to be stooping in order 
 to get a better look under the other bed. 
 
 " Bless me, Mary Ann, whatever' s to do ? " 
 he exclaimed, as he scrambled to his feet ; " have 
 you seen a ghost ? " 
 
 " I've seen waur, there's them things i' th' beds." 
 
 " I thowt as much by th' look on 'em. Let's 
 be off. I say" (going to the door and raising 
 his voice), " Mister Foozilumwhisky, this shop will 
 not do, you must find another." 
 
 " Why, what's the matter ? " 
 
 " Matter ! there's them tilings V th' house — 
 beds is full on 'em." 
 
 "What things?" 
 
332 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " Sowdgers." 
 
 "Soldiers," said the other, looking rather 
 alarmed, "soldiers in the house — what do you 
 mean, Mr. Briggs ? " 
 
 " Bugs ! " shouted the retired waste-dealer ex- 
 citedly. " There's regiments ; I never seed moor in a 
 rag warehouse. Come, let's get out o' this barracks." 
 
 " It's very awkward to go now," answered the 
 Austrian, "after Fve bespoke apartments and all. 
 Fll ask them to find you another bedroom." 
 
 " Not in this shop. And my wife will not stop 
 at any price ; cart-ropes would not keep her." 
 
 Whereupon Mr. and Mrs. Briggs hurried down- 
 stairs, the Austrian with his wife reluctantly and 
 sulkily following them. A second time- Foozielm- 
 wiecksky told the coachman whither to drive. It 
 was to another private hotel they were going, he 
 said, which, when he lived in Vienna, was both 
 clean and respectable. 
 
 They were soon there, and its outside appear- 
 ance was decidedly more promising than that of 
 the first, while inside not the most minute researches 
 of Mrs. Briggs nor the prying eyes of her husband 
 could discover anything objectionable. The house 
 was small, so was the bedroom, but they were clean; 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 333 
 
 the landlady was pleasant-spoken and of cheerful 
 countenance, and, to the great delight of our 
 travellers, she spoke excellent English. 
 
 After they had washed off the traces of their 
 journey, they sat down to a substantial breakfast, 
 and Mr. Briggs took an early opportunity to press 
 Mr. Foozielmwiecksky for the change out of his 
 five-hundred thaler note, and the "little explanatory 
 statement he had been good enough to promise him." 
 
 " Certainly," replied Mr. Foozielmwiecksky, 
 cc certainly. Just let me finish this chop — what 
 an excellent chop it is, to be sure — and I'll go into 
 my room and make the account out." 
 
 The chop was finished, and the eater of it 
 withdrew, seemingly very eager to comply with 
 Mr. Briggs' request. But at the end of an hour 
 — during which time he smoked at least three 
 cigars — the Austrian had not returned ; whereupon 
 Mr. Briggs went- to his room and, knocking at the 
 door, asked how much longer Mr. Foozielmwiecksky 
 meant to keep him waiting. 
 
 " Oh, didn't he tell you ? " said Mrs. F., with 
 the most innocent air imaginable. " He has gone 
 out ; but he'll be back before dinner-time. He 
 has gone to call on his mother. He has not seen 
 
334 
 
 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 her for ten years, and she'd naturally be annoyed if 
 he did not call upon her before doing anything else." 
 
 " Damn his mother ! " exclaimed Mr. Briggs, 
 now fully roused. " I want my change. What 
 does he mean by humbugging me in this way ? Is 
 he going to run away?" 
 
 " Don't be insulting, Mr. Briggs," said the lady 
 severely; " you forget yourself. My husband will 
 settle with you the moment he returns. " 
 
 Mr. Briggs went back disconsolately to his wife, 
 and told her how matters stood. Conscious that 
 he had been rather indiscreet, he had refrained 
 hitherto from making full confession of his folly. 
 Mrs. Briggs knew the Austrian had to give him some 
 change, but she thought the amount was only trifling. 
 
 " How much did you say it was ? " 
 
 " Five hundred thalers." 
 
 "That's?" 
 
 " Seventy-four pounds." 
 
 " Seventy-four pounds ! seventy-four pounds ! " 
 she almost screamed. 
 
 u Ay, but then there's the hotel bill at Prague, 
 and the railway fare here to come off. It is maybe 
 sixty pounds altogether as I want on him." 
 
 " Well, you have done it now ! — sixty pounds 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 335 
 
 clean gone — we'se never see it no more. Where's 
 your luck now, as you talk so much about ? Why, 
 you have no proof as you ever gave it him — no 
 receipt nor nowt." 
 
 " How could I get a receipt ? He was going 
 to give me th' change next minute. But it's not 
 lost yet whatever you think. I always was lucky, 
 and you'll see." 
 
 " Lucky ! " exclaimed the lady, with ineffable 
 disdain. " And you call it lucky to let a foreigner 
 diddle you out o' sixty pounds. If that's being 
 lucky, let me be unlucky." 
 
 Poor Mr. Briggs did not reply. In a contest of 
 words with his better-half he generally got the 
 worst of it, and in the present instance he had so 
 little to say for himself that he probably exercised 
 a wise discretion in leaving it unsaid. He hung 
 about the house all day, waiting for the return of 
 Foozielmwiecksky, only descending into the street 
 at intervals — just to stretch his legs, as he observed 
 to his wife — and weary work he found it. At 
 length, long after dinner, and when he had begun 
 to fear that his man was gone away for good, his 
 patience was rewarded by seeing him cross the 
 corridor and enter his bedroom. 
 
336 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Briggs followed him. 
 
 " How about my change ? " he asked in an 
 indignant voice. 
 
 " Your what ?" said the other. 
 
 " My change/' roared Briggs, "the change out of 
 that five-hundred thaler note I gave you at Prague." 
 
 "You are mistaken, Mr. Briggs, you did not 
 give me a five-hundred thaler note, it was only 
 fifty thalers, and instead of being your debtor — as 
 you will see by this statement — you owe me eighty 
 florins, which I shall be glad if you can give me, as 
 I have not had time to cash any of my American 
 money." 
 
 " You infernal scoundrel ! " exclaimed Mr. 
 Briggs, as soon as he could speak, having for 
 the space of half a minute been struck dumb with 
 rage and ^surprise. " You gallows-looking black- 
 guard — you — you 33 
 
 " Come now, stop that, Mr. Briggs, there's law 
 in this country, and if you don't mind what you 
 are doing I will have you arrested for defamation 
 of character. But 33 — drawing him towards the 
 door — u come out of earshot of my wife, she's in 
 the next room." 
 
 And before the Englishman could recover his 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS, 
 
 337 
 
 breath a second time, or regain his presence of 
 mind, he was out in the corridor, and Foozielm- 
 wiecksky, shutting the door in his face, double 
 bolted himself inside. 
 
 What was to be done now ? Submit to be 
 swindled out of sixty pounds in that audacious 
 way he would not — yet how could he help him- 
 self ? He had no receipt and no witness, for his 
 wife had not seen the note he had entrusted to the 
 Austrian, and he and his wife were doubtless quite 
 ready to swear anything. Briggs did not see his 
 way clearly at all. " It was a gradely awkward 
 do," he said to himself. Still, he did not despair ; 
 there might be a way. As he thought thus, he 
 caught sight of the landlady, Frau Jordan, at the 
 other end of the passage. Acting on the impulse 
 of the moment, he followed her into her room. 
 
 " Can I speak to you on a matter of business, 
 ma'am ? " said he.. 
 
 " Certainly, take a seat; what can I do for you ? " 
 
 " It's about this Foozlumwhisky." 
 
 "Indeed ! I thought he was a friend of yours." 
 
 " Not he ; he's only a chance acquaintance as 
 we picked up at Dresden." 
 
 "Well, if I had known that, Mr. Briggs, he 
 
 z 
 
338 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 would not have been long in this house, I can 
 tell you. It was only because he came with you, 
 and I saw you were a thorough English gentleman, 
 that I did not turn him from my door or hand him 
 over to the police.^ 
 
 On hearing this Mr. Briggs gave a long dismal 
 whistle, and looked particularly blue. 
 
 " What has he been up to ? Who is he ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " As it happens, I can tell you all about him. 
 My porter — the man who carried your things in, 
 you know — Traugott Taeglich, used to be in the 
 police, and the moment he set eyes on this Herr 
 von Foozielmwiecksky, as he calls himself, he 
 recognised him. His name is not Foozielmwiecksky 
 at all — it is Spitzbube. He was once in the army, 
 but was turned out for misconduct; and then he 
 was a man about town here in Vienna and lived 
 by his wits, became a cardsharper, and I don't 
 know what besides ; was mixed up with a bad 
 case of cheating, and would have been arrested 
 and locked up if he had not shown a clean pair of 
 heels. This is nearly ten years since, but I have 
 only to say a single word to the police and they 
 would arrest him to-night. It is no business of 
 
LUCKY SAM BR1GGS. 
 
 339 
 
 mine, however ; and to have a man arrested in the 
 house would create a commotion and make it 
 unpleasant for the other lodgers/' 
 
 " Pm afraid it's all up with my sixty pounds," 
 said Mr. Briggs dolefully. 
 
 " I'm afraid it is/' said Frau Jordan, when she 
 had heard his story ; " but if you like I'll send for 
 the gendarmes and give him in charge at once." 
 
 "No, no," answered Briggs, who had just 
 thought of a plan, " that would ruin everything. 
 Anyhow I'll have another try to come by my 
 own. Will you, please, lend me a chair, Mrs. 
 Jordan, and, whatever I do, don't say anything, or 
 seem to take any notice." 
 
 Mr. Briggs took the chair, and placed it before 
 Foozielmwiecksky's, alias Spitzbube's, door, and 
 peered through the keyhole. All was in darkness ; 
 he and his wife had evidently withdrawn to their 
 sleeping apartment — a small room adjacent to the 
 one that served them as a parlour, but having no 
 direct communication with the corridor. Never- 
 theless Briggs kept his post — sat there the night 
 through — like a sentinel in face of the enemy. 
 Now and then he dozed a little, but his chair 
 was so placed that nobody could enter or quit 
 
TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Mr. Spitzbube's room without his leave. People 
 rise early in Austria, and before six o'clock he 
 heard the sounds of voices and footsteps in the 
 parlour. Then the key was turned, the door 
 moved slowly, very slowly, on its hinges, and 
 the night-capped and curl-papered locks of 
 Mrs. Spitzbube were protruded into the passage. 
 This was enough for our hero. With an im- 
 petuosity that can only be compared to Roderick 
 Dhu's onslaught on James Fitzjames — likened by 
 the poet to " adder darting from the coil " and 
 " mountain-cat that guards her young" — he dashed 
 at the door, and the lady, bewildered by the sudden- 
 ness of the onslaught, and conscious of extremely 
 scanty clothing, ran shrieking to her husband. 
 
 As the latter rushed out in his shirt sleeves to 
 the rescue, Briggs quietly shut the outer door and 
 put the key in his pocket. 
 
 " What means this violence, Mr. Briggs ? " 
 sternly asked Mr. Spitzbube. " I'd have you 
 know, sir, this is my private apartment ; you are 
 surely drunk. I'll summon the police." 
 
 " Come now, none o ? that there gammon ; I'se 
 not stir out of here till I get my change." 
 
 " Upon my word, this is past bearing. If you 
 don't go out quietly, sir, I'll kick you out/' 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 34i 
 
 "You will, will you, you beggar? I'd like to 
 see you try ; I'm an old fellow, I know ; but I'm 
 man for two like you yet ; and if you offer to touch 
 me I'll take you by the scruft o' th' neck and throw 
 you out of the window." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " But me no buts, you raskil. Let's have no 
 more o' this nonsense. I know who you are, my 
 lad. You were once i' th' army — you have been 
 a card-sharper — the police wants you badly, Mr. 
 Ooozleum, Boozleum, Foozleumwhisky, and it is 
 not your right name — Spitzbube is your name. If 
 you don't fork out that brass I'll open the window 
 and shout for th' police ; but pay up like a man 
 and you shall go free." 
 
 " Do you promise that ? " said Spitzbube 
 eagerly. He had become terribly crestfallen 
 during Mr. Briggs' speech. 
 
 " I do, and the sooner you stump up the sooner 
 you'll get away." 
 
 " Just one minute — I won't keep you longer." 
 
 Spitzbube went into the bedroom, exchanged a 
 few whispered words with his wife, and returned 
 with a bundle of bank-notes. 
 
 " Here," said he, " count them ; there are six 
 hundred florins, the full amount of your change." 
 
342 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " Are they good 'uns — not foorged, I mean ? " 
 asked Mr. Briggs suspiciously. 
 
 " Quite good, they are what I got at Prague." 
 
 " If they are, you can go as soon as you like ; 
 but HI make sure, HI ask Mrs. Jordan." 
 
 He opened the door. The landlady was in the 
 corridor. She assured him that the notes were 
 perfectly good, and heartily congratulated him on 
 the so miraculous recovery of his money. 
 
 " Good-day to you," he said, nodding pleasantly 
 to the discomfited Spitzbube, " I wish you a pleasant 
 journey." 
 
 Then he went into his own room and found 
 Mrs. Briggs still in bed. 
 
 " Wherever have you bin ? " she asked, in a que- 
 rulous voice, "you have not bin i' bed of all night " 
 
 " Look here, owd lass, look here," he shouted, 
 as he waved the bank-notes over his head like a 
 flag of victory. " I've got the brass ; didn't I tell 
 you I was always lucky ? " 
 
 Whereupon he executed a pyrrhic dance round 
 the room, until, striking his shins against the sharp 
 bar of a chair, his song of triumph was changed 
 into a howl of anguish. Then he told his wife all 
 that had happened. 
 
LUCKY SAM BRIGGS. 
 
 343 
 
 "Well, you really are lucky, Sam," was her 
 admiring comment, for she was sincerely rejoiced 
 at the recovery of the lost notes, " I never said it 
 before, but you are." 
 
 " More luckier than clever, you once said, I 
 think." 
 
 " Ay, but youVe bin clever too, this time, Sam 
 — both clever and lucky." 
 
 The day following these events, Mr. Briggs 
 was strolling in the Prater, when he felt himself 
 struck smartly on the back, as a familiar voice 
 exclaimed : " Hallo, Briggs, you here ! " 
 
 " God bless us, Mr. Rovings, is it you ? I thowt 
 you was in Bolton." 
 
 " And so I was four days ago ; but I was called 
 away on business, and am now en route for Bohemia." 
 (Mr. Rovings was partner in a large machine- 
 making firm.) " And how have you been going on 
 all this time ? Come into this cafe, and let us 
 have a talk." 
 
 So they went into the cafe, and, while they 
 discussed a few glasses of Vienna's unequalled 
 beer, Briggs told his friend all that had befallen 
 him and his wife on their journey. 
 
 "Well, all that I can say, Briggs," said Mr. 
 
344 TALES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Rovings, when the former had finished his narration, 
 "is that you are the most fortunate man I know. 
 The way you get into and out of scrapes is really 
 extraordinary. But just take my advice, and don't 
 trust a chance travelling acquaintance with your 
 money another time. ,, 
 
 " I won't that, Mr. Rovings, I can tell you ; I've 
 had a lesson as I shall not soon forget." 
 
 And then they parted ; for Mr. Roving's 
 business was pressing, and he left Vienna for the 
 place to which he was bound the same afternoon. 
 When, two months later, Mr. Briggs returned to 
 Bolton, he found that his reputation had preceded 
 him — everybody had heard of his adventures and 
 of the good fortune that had always attended him 
 on his travels, and he has ever since been known 
 amongst his friends as " Lucky Sam Briggs." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. 
 
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