, husky voice, and ferocious mustaches, I recognized my
adversary, Ludolf.

My gun was demanded, in the name of Count Rainer: I refused to surrender
it. The party formed a circle around, pinioned me, and wrested it from me,
ere I could attempt resistance. "Mr. Steward," said the count, "you may
now acquaint your friend with the consequences of destroying a nobleman's
falcon."

The ready villain and his servile followers dragged me to the earth; they
profaned my person by stripes. When they left me in my abasement, the air
felt pestilent with their brutal laughter.

I lay with my face to the greensward long after their departure. My brain
was eddying in a hell-whirl. I could have welcomed the return of chaos,
that the circumstance of my shame might be obliterated in the clash of
contending elements. Had the sun been blotted from the heavens, and the
summer earth turned to blackness and desolation, I should have thought
them fit and natural occurrences. I raised my burning brow; but the orb of
day was riding high in his glory, and the meadow-grass and wild flowers
were fresh and fragrant as if they had not witnessed the act of
degradation. I discovered that a stranger had been regarding me with a
vigilant eye. I confronted him, and darted at him a devouring glance; his
firm, contemplative look remained unaltered. Placing a hand on my
shoulder, he said, "Albert Reding, consider me your friend."

"I know you not," I answered, "nor care to know you." He smiled
benevolently:

"Young man, I am no Austrian. I shall be with you to-morrow."

IV.

The stranger kept his word: on the ensuing day he came to our dwelling.
Making, he said, a tour through the north of Italy, the picturesque
scenery tempted him to prolong his sojourn at St. Michael. In his
excursions, he had chanced to hold random converse with my father, whom he
professed to value as the worthy descendant of an independent and
intelligent people.

I had forborne to grieve my family by the story of my disgrace, nor had it
yet been detailed to them by the officious communicativeness of pretended
friends. Our visitor made no allusion to it, but expatiated very agreeably
on topics of general interest. He described the passes of the Alps with
the accuracy of a mountaineer, and displayed an intimacy with the
localities of the cantons that filled my parents with pleasure and
surprise. In pursuit of knowledge he had traversed the most remarkable
sections of th