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, 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 [pg 467] 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.”