fragments of timber, and even furniture, in its muddy
tide; farm produce, and implements too, came
floating by, showing what destruction had been
effected higher up the river. As I stood gazing
on the current, I saw, at a little distance from
me, a man, standing motionless beside the
river, and apparently lost in thought; so at
least he seemed, for though not at all clad in a
way to resist the storm, he remained there, wet
and soaked through, totally regardless of the
weather. On inquiring at the inn, I learned
that this was the lohnkutscher—the 'vetturino'
—of the travellers, and who, in attempting to
ascertain if the stream were fordable, had lost
one of his best horses, and barely escaped being
carried away himself. Until that, I had
forgotten all about the strangers, whom, it now
appeared, were close prisoners like myself.
While the host was yet speaking, the
lohnkutscher came up, and in a tone of equality
that showed me he thought I was in his own
line of business, asked if I would sell him one
of my nags then in the stable.

"Not caring to disabuse him of his error
regarding my rank, I did not refuse him so flatly
as I might, and he pressed the negotiation very
warmly in consequence. At last, to get rid of
him, I declared that I would not break up my
team, and retired into the house. I was not
many minutes in my room, when a courier came
with a polite message from his mistress, to beg
I would speak with her. I went at once, and
found an old lady—she was English, as her
French bespoke—very well mannered and well
bred, who apologised for troubling me, but
having heard from her vetturino that my horses
were disengaged, and that I might, if not
disposed to sell one of them, hire out the entire
team, to take their carriage as far as Andeer—
By the time she got thus far, I perceived that
she, too, mistook me for a lohnkutscher. It
just struck me what good fun it would be to
carry on the joke. To be sure, the lady herself
presented no inducement to the enterprise, and
as I thus balanced the case, there came into the
room one of the prettiest girls I ever saw. She
never turned a look towards where I was
standing, nor deigned to notice me at all, but
passed out of the room as rapidly as she
entered; still, I remembered that I had already
seen her before, and passed a delightful evening
in her company at a little inn in the Black
Forest."

When the narrator had got thus far in his
story, I leaned forward to catch a full view
of him, and saw, to my surprise, and I own to
my misery, that he was the German count we
had met at the Titi–See. So overwhelming was
this discovery to me, that I heard nothing for
many minutes after. All of that wretched scene
between us on the last evening at the inn came
full to my memory, and I bethought me of lying
the whole night on the hard table, fevered with
rage and terror alternately. If it were not that
his narrative regarded Miss Herbert now, I
would have skulked out of the room and out of
the inn, and out of the town itself, never again
to come under the insolent stare of those wicked
grey eyes, but in that name there was a fascination
—not to say that a sense of jealousy burned
at my heart like a furnace.

The turmoil of my thoughts lost me a great
deal of his story, and might have lost me more,
had not the hearty laughter of his comrades
recalled me once again to attention.

He was describing how, as a "vetturino," he
drove their carriage with his own spanking grey
horses to Coire, and thence to Andeer. He had
bargained, it seems, that Miss Herbert should
travel outside in the cabriolet, but she failed to
keep her pledge, so that they only met at stray
moments during the journey. It was in one
of these she said laughingly to him,

"'Nothing would surprise me less than to
learn, some fine morning, that you were a prince
in disguise, or a great count of the empire at
least. It was only the other day we were
honoured with the incognito presence of a royal
personage; I do not exactly know who, but
Mrs. Keats could tell you. He left us abruptly
at Schaffhausen.'

"'You can't mean the creature,' said I, 'that
I saw in your company at the Titi–See.'

"'The same,' said she, rather angrily.

"'Why, he is a saltimbanque: I saw him the
morning I came through Constance with some
others of his troop dragged before the maire for
causing a disturbance in a cabaret; one of the
most consummate impostors, they told me, in
Europe.'"

"An infamous falsehood, and a base liar the
man who says it," cried I, springing to my legs,
and standing revealed before the company in an
attitude of haughty defiance. "I am the person
you have dared to defame. I have never
assumed to be a prince, and as little am I a rope–
dancer. I am an English gentleman travelling
for his pleasure, and I hurl back every word
you have said of me with contempt and
defiance."

Before I had finished this insolent speech,
some half–dozen swords were drawn and
brandishing in the air, very eager, as it seemed, to
cut me to pieces, and the count himself required
all the united strength of the party to save me
from his hands. At last, I was pushed, hustled,
and dragged out of the room to another smaller
one on the same floor, and the key being turned
on me, left to my very happy reflections.

A DAY'S RIDE: A LIFE'S ROMANCE,
will be
CONCLUDED
With the present volume, in No. 100 of ALL THE
YEAR ROUND, for the 23rd of March, 1861.

The right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.