went through the crowd, and a number of forefingers were
levelled at it, and the head moved toward me, marked of them all. Its
voice was answered by a dull puling scream from women, and the men
gaped. When it descended from the saddle, the act was not performed with
one bound, as I fancied, but difficultly; and it walked up to me like
a figure dragging logs at its heels. Half-a-dozen workmen ran to arrest
it; some townswomen fainted. There was a heavy altercation in German
between the statue and the superintendent of the arrangements. The sun
shone brilliantly on our march to the line of carriages where the Prince
of Eppenwelzen was talking to the margravine in a fury, and he dashed
away on his horse, after bellowing certain directions to his foresters
and the workmen, by whom we were surrounded; while the margravine talked
loudly and amiably, as though everything had gone well. Her watch was
out. She acknowledged my father's bow, and overlooked him. She seemed to
have made her courtiers smile. The ladies and gentlemen obeyed the wave
of her hand by quitting the ground; the band headed a long line of the
commoner sort, and a body of foresters gathered the remnants and joined
them to the rear of the procession. A liveried groom led away Temple's
horse and mine. Temple declared he could not sit after seeing the statue
descend from its pedestal.

Her Highness's behaviour roughened as soon as the place was clear of
company. She spoke at my father impetuously, with manifest scorn and
reproach, struck her silver-mounted stick on the carriage panels,
again and again stamped her foot, lifting a most variable emphatic
countenance. Princess Ottilia tried to intercede. The margravine
clenched her hands, and, to one not understanding her speech, appeared
literally to blow the little lady off with the breath of her mouth.
Her whole bearing consisted of volleys of abuse, closed by magisterial
interrogations. Temple compared her Highness's language to the running
out of Captain Welsh's chaincable, and my father's replies to the
hauling in: his sentences were short, they sounded like manful
protestations; I barely noticed them. Temple's version of it went: 'And
there was your father apologizing, and the margravine rating him,' etc.
My father, as it happened, was careful not to open his lips wide on
account of the plaster, or thick coating of paint on his face. No one
would have supposed that he was burning with indignation; the fact
b