strap for your escape,"
said Dalton, contemptuously, as he threw towards him the fragments of
broken leather.

"I will have de law, and de polizei, and de Gericht. I will have you
in de Kerker, in chains, for dis!" screamed Gregoire, half choked with
passion.

"May I never see peace, but if you don't hold your prate I 'll put you
in it! Sit up there, and mind your business; and, above all, be civil,
and do what you 're bid."

"I will fort; I will away. Noting make me remain in de service," said
Gregoire, brushing off the dirt from his sleeve, and shaking his cap.
"I am respectable courier travel wid de Fursten vom Koniglichen Hatisen
mit Russen, Franzosen, Ostereichen; never mit barbaren, never mit de
wilde animalen."

"Don't, now don't, I tell you," said Dalton, with another of those
treacherous smiles whose expression the courier began to comprehend. "No
balderdash! no nonsense! but go to your work, like a decent servant."

"I am no Diener; no serve anybody," cried the courier, indignantly.

[Illustration: 222]

But somehow there was that in old Dalton's face that gave no
encouragement to an open resistance, and Monsieur Gregoire knew well the
case where compliance was the wisest policy. He also knew that in his
vocation there lay a hundred petty vengeances more than sufficient to
pay off any indignity that could be inflicted upon him. "I will wait
my times," was the reflection with which he soothed down his rage, and
affected to forget the insult he had just suffered under.

Dalton, whose mind was cast in a very different mould, and who could
forgive either himself or his neighbor without any great exertion of
temper, turned now coolly away, and sauntered out into the street. The
flush of momentary anger that colored his cheek had fled, and a cast of
pale and melancholy meaning sat upon his features, for his eye rested
on the little wooden bridge which crossed the stream, and where now two
muffled figures were standing, that he recognized as his daughters.

They were leaning on the balustrade, and gazing at the mountain that,
covered with its dense pine-wood, rose abruptly from the river-side.
It had been the scene of many a happy ramble in the autumn, of many a
delightful excursion, when, with Frank, they used to seek for fragments
of wood that suited Nelly's sculptures. How often had they carried their
little basket up yonder steep path, to eat their humble supper upon the
rock, from which the setting