by a
deep ditch, fenced with luxuriant underwood, Katherine was keeping a man,
unknown to me, at bay: he was above the middle size, and in his beard and
costume affected the fashion of the military. He faced me as I approached,
and my sister, with disordered dress and agitated frame, flew to my side.
Defenseless as I was, my first impulse was to chastise the ruffian, though
he wore a sabre; but consideration for the terrified girl, who clung to me
imploringly, induced me to forego my purpose. We had not receded many
paces, when Katherine relinquished her hold, and uttered a warning cry:
the hand of violence was already at my throat; and a harsh voice, unsteady
from rage or intemperance, demanded why a contemptible slave dared to
interfere with the representative of Count Rainer.

Unequal to my opponent in bulk and inert force, I was far above him in
activity and the resources of a vigorous constitution. A sudden jerk freed
me from his hold, and a well-applied push sent him reeling to the verge of
the ditch. He drew his weapon with a rapidity on which I had not
calculated; Katherine's coolness saved my life: she arrested his arm in
its sweep. Ere he could disengage himself, I collected all my energy for
one buffet, and laid him supine in the reservoir of mud.

III.

Count Rainer was greeted at St. Michael with the show of rustic rejoicing
usual on the appearance of a new master. He was accompanied by a train of
riotous associates. The roar of Bacchanalian merriment shook the dusky
halls of his patrimonial fabric, which, in the blaze of unwonted
festivity, seemed to have renewed its youth. Naught, from the evening of
the rencounter, had we heard or seen of Ludolf. His rudeness might have
originated in the coarse jocularity of a soldier, stimulated by too fervid
an application to the bottle. Prudence required that I should abstain from
needlessly irritating a man whose enmity might mar my father's
arrangements with his lord: I therefore avoided the chance of collision.

I was strolling about the fields with my gun on my shoulder, when a pet
pigeon of Katherine's whirred past me, pursued by a hawk. I fired at the
bird of prey, which dropped in an adjoining meadow. Springing across the
intervening hedge, I found myself in the presence of a group of mounted
sportsmen and their attendants. One of the horsemen was examining the dead
hawk; his attention was directed toward me by a retainer, in whose brawny
proportions