short cloak did not confine his
long fair locks, which fell in waves upon his shoulders, waves with
which the morning breeze played caressingly, as the youth stopped on
the crest of a low grassy hill that afforded a view of the lake.

Resting his right arm upon the oak handle of his spear, he leaned
forward, shading his eyes with his left hand from the glare of the
sunbeams on the smooth surface of the water, as he gazed intently
toward the southern shore. It was an eagle glance, proud, bold, and
keen, and the color of the eye was a light golden brown.

The red-tiled roofs of the Roman watchtowers and citadels opposite in
Arbon and the other stations (Constantia, etc.) shone brightly in the
morning sunlight. The utmost repose pervaded the whole scene. Neither
sail nor row-boat was visible: a huge kite, with an occasional stroke
of its broad pinions, was soaring in wide circles above the shallows
near the shore.

The young German turned his eyes in the direction of the gently rising
ground before him northwest of Friedrichshafen, now occupied by the
village of Jettenhausen. At that time the land had been cleared and
brought under cultivation. The hill was crowned by a stately wooden
structure, surrounded by a fence built breast-high for purposes of
defence; a pair of superb antlers adorned the ridge-pole. From the main
building itself and a small one adjoining it smoke circled upward
through holes in the roof: the inmates were doubtless preparing the
morning meal.

The youth made a movement in the direction of the hall, on which his
eyes had rested proudly, yet with an expression of almost sorrowful
earnestness, then he paused suddenly, saying to himself: "No! I will go
first to _her_." He hastened eastward through what was then a tract of
marshy woodland--now bearing the name of Seewald--crossing it in the
direction of the Tettnang forests. Often he was forced to leap from
rock to rock or from one mossy hillock to another, that he might not
sink waist-deep in the morass. But the young German seemed perfectly
familiar with the almost invisible path which, sometimes in the form of
a ford, sometimes as a bridge, led through the bog and the dense
underbrush. Swinging himself with a daring leap, aided by the handle of
his spear, across a tolerably wide stream which flowed through moss and
sedges to the lake--a startled red grouse flew upward with a shrill
cry--he soon saw before him the nearest settlement to his own stat