had to apprehend from my well-known prowess
and daring, so palpable a confession that every
precaution was necessary against the bold
intrepidity of a man of my stamp! At times, I
almost wished they had put chains upon me.
I thought how well it would read in my
Memoirs; how I was heavily " manacled"—a great
word that—" orders being given to the escort to
shoot me if I showed the slightest intention to
escape." It was an intense pleasure to me to
imagine myself a sort of Nana Sahib, and whenever
we halted at some way-side public, and the
idle loungers would draw aside the canvass
covering and stare in at me, I did my utmost
to call up an expression of ogre-like ferocity and
wildness, and it was with a thrill of ecstasy I
saw a little child clasp its mother by the neck,
and scream out to come away as it beheld me.

On the second night of our journey we halted
at a little village at the foot of the Arlberg,
called Steuben, where, in default of a regular
prison, they lodged me in an old tower, the
lower part of which was used for a stable. It
stood in the very centre of the town, and from
its narrow and barred windows I could catch
glimpses of the little world that moved about in
happy freedom beneath me. I could see the
Marktplatz, from which the booths were now
being taken down, and could mark that
preparations for some approaching ceremony were
going on, but of what nature I could not guess,
A large space was neatly swept out, and at last
strewn with sawdust—signs unerring of some
exhibition of legerdemain or conjuring, of which
the Tyrolese are warm admirers. The arrangements
were somewhat more pretentious than
are usually observed in open air representations,
for I saw seats prepared for the dignitaries of
the village, and an evident design to mark the
entertainment as under the most distinguished
protection. The crowd—now considerable—
observed all the decorous bearing of citizens in
presence of their authorities.

I nestled myself snugly in the deep recess of
the window to watch the proceedings, nor had
I long to wait; some half-dozen gaily-dressed
individuals having now pierced their way
through the throng, and commenced those
peculiar gambols which bespeak backbones of
gristle and legs of pasteboard. It is a class of
performance I enjoy vastly. The two fellows
who lap over each other like the links of a
chain, and the creature who rolls himself about
like a ball, and the licensed freedoms of that
man of the world—the clown—never weary me,
and I believe I laugh at them with all the more
zest that I have so often laughed at them before.
It was plain, after a while, that a more brilliant
part of the spectacle was yet to come, for a large
bluff-looking man, in cocked-hat and jack-boots,
now entered the ring and indignantly ejected
the clowns by sundry admonitions with a lash-
whip, which I perceived were not merely make-
believes.

"Ah, here he comes! here he is!" was now
uttered in accents of eager interest, and an
avenue was quickly made through the crowd
for the new performer. There was delay after
this, and though doubtless the crowd below
could satisfy their curiosity, I was so highly
perched and so straitened in my embrasure that
I had to wait, with what patience I might, the
new arrival. I was deep in my guesses what
sort of " artist" he might prove, when I saw the
head of a horse peering over the shoulders of
the audience, and then the entire figure of the
quadruped as he emerged into the circle, all
sheeted and shrouded from gaze. With one
dexterous sweep the groom removed all the
clothing, and there stood before me my own
lost treasure—Blondel himself! I would have
known him among ten thousand. He was thinner,
perhaps, certainly thinner, but in all other
respects the same; his silky mane and his long
tassel of a tail hung just as gracefully as of yore,
and, as he ambled round, he moved his head with
a courteous inclination, as though to acknowledge
the plaudits he met with.

There was in his air the dignity that said, " I
am one who has seen better days. It was not
always thus with me. Applaud if you must,
and if you will; but remember that I accept
your plaudits with reserve, perhaps with even
reluctance." Poor fellow, my heart bled for him!
I felt as though I saw a cathedral canon cutting
somersaults, and all this while, by some strange
inconsistency, I had not a sympathy to bestow
on the human actors in the scene. "As for
them," thought I, " they have accepted this
degradation of their own free will. If they had
not shirked honest labour they need never have
been clowns or pantaloons; but Blondel—
Blondel, whom fate had stamped as the palfrey of
some high-born maiden, or at least as the
favourite steed of one who would know how to
lavish care on an object of such perfection—
Blondel, who had borne himself so proudly in
high places, and who even in his declining
fortunes had been the friend and fellow-traveller
of—Yes, why should I shame to say it?
Posterity will speak of Potts without the
detracting malice and envious rancour of
contemporaries, and when in some future age a great
philanthropist or statesman shall claim the credit
of some marvellous discovery, some wondrous
secret by which humanity may be bettered, a
learned critic will tell the world how this great
invention was evidently known to Potts, how at
such a line, or such a page, we shall find that
Potts knew it all."

The wild cheering of the crowd beneath cut
short these speculations, and now I saw Blondel
cantering gaily round the circle, with a
handkerchief in his mouth. If in sportive levity it
chanced to fall, he would instantly wheel about,
and seize it, and then, whisking his tail and
shaking his long forelock, resume his course
again. It was fine, too, to mark the haughty
indifference he manifested towards that whip-
cracking monster who stood in the centre, and
affected to direct his motions. Not alone did
he reject his suggestions, but in a spirit of
proud defiance did he canter up behind him, and
alight with his fore-legs on the fellow's shoulders.