the summer vacation was about to begin.

About five leagues from Gottingen, on the road towards Nordheim, there
is a little village called Meissner, a favourite resort of the students,
in all their festivals; while, at something less than a mile distant,
stands a water-mill, on a little rivulet among the hills--a wild,
sequestered spot, overgrown with stunted oak and brushwood. A narrow
bridle-path leads to it from the village, and this was the most approved
place for settling all those affairs of honour whose character was too
serious to make it safe to decide nearer the University: for, strangely
enough, while by the laws of the University duelling was rigidly
denounced, yet whenever the quarrel was decided by the sword, the
authorities never or almost never interfered, but if a pistol was the
weapon, the thing at once took a more serious aspect.

For what reasons the mills have been always selected as the appropriate
scenes for such encounters, I never could discover; but the fact is
unquestionable, and I never knew a University town that did not possess
its 'water-privileges' in this manner.

Towards the mill I was journeying at the easy pace of my pony, early on
a summer's morning, preferring the rural breakfast with the miller--for
they are always a kind of innkeepers--to the fare of the village. I
entered the little bridle-path that conducted to his door, and was
sauntering listlessly along, dreaming pleasantly, as one does, when the
song of the lark and the heavy odour of dew-pressed flowers steep the
heart in happiness all its own, when, behind me, I heard the regular
tramp of marching. I listened; had I been a stranger to the sound,
I should have thought them soldiers, but I knew too well the measured
tread of the student, and I heard the jingling of their heavy sabres--a
peculiar clank a student's ear cannot be deceived in. I guessed at once
the object of their coming, and grew sick at heart to think that the
storm of men's stubborn passions and the strife of their revengeful
nature should desecrate a peaceful spot like this. I was about to turn
back, disgusted at the thought, when I remembered I must return by the
same path, and meet them; but even this I shrank from. The footsteps
came nearer and nearer, and I had barely time to move off the path into
the brushwood, and lead my pony after, when they turned the angle of
the way. They who walked first were muffled in their cloaks, whose
high collars conceal