University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

Rogers.

The year was in its fall, according to a poetical
expression of our own, and the morning bright, as
the fairest and swiftest bark that navigated the
Leman lay at the quay of the ancient and historical
town of Geneva, ready to depart for the country
of Vaud. This vessel was called the Winkelried,
in commemoration of Arnold of that name, who
had so generously sacrificed life and hopes to the
good of his country, and who deservedly ranks
among the truest of those heroes of whom we have
well-authenticated legends. She had been launched
at the commencement of the summer, and still
bore at the fore-top-mast-head a bunch of evergreens,
profusely ornamented with knots and
streamers of riband, the offerings of the patron's
female friends, and the fancied gage of success.
The use of steam, and the presence of unemployed
seamen of various nations, in this idle season of
the warlike, are slowly leading to innovations and
improvements in the navigation of the lakes of
Italy and Switzerland, it is true; but time, even at
this hour, has done little towards changing the habits
and opinions of those who ply on these inland
waters for a subsistence. The Winkelreid had the
two low, diverging masts; the attenuated and picturesquely-poised

latine yards; the light, triangular
sails; the sweeping and projecting gangways; the
receding and falling stern; the high and peaked
prow, with, in general, the classical and quaint air
of those vessels that are seen in the older paintings
and engravings. A gilded ball glittered on the
summit of each mast, for no canvass was set higher
than the slender and well-balanced yards, and it
was above one of these that the wilted bush, with
its gay appendages, trembled and fluttered in a
fresh western wind. The hull was worthy of so
much goodly apparel, being spacious, commodious,
and, according to the wants of the navigation, of
approved mould. The freight, which was sufficiently
obvious, much the greatest part being piled
on the ample deck, consisted of what our own
watermen would term an assorted cargo. It was,
however, chiefly composed of those foreign luxuries,
as they were then called, though use has now
rendered them nearly indispensable to domestic
economy, which were consumed, in singular moderation,
by the more affluent of those who dwelt
deeper among the mountains, and of the two principal
products of the dairy; the latter being destined
to a market in the less verdant countries of
the south. To these must be added the personal
effects of an unusual number of passengers, which
were stowed on the top of the heavier part of the
cargo, with an order and care that their value
would scarcely seem to require. The arrangement,
however, was necessary to the convenience
and even to the security of the bark, having been
made by the patron with a view to posting each
individual by his particular wallet, in a manner to
prevent confusion in the crowd, and to leave the
crew space and opportunity to discharge the necessary
duties of the navigation.

With a vessel stowed, sails ready to drop, the

wind fair, and the day drawing on apace, the
patron of the Winkelried, who was also her owner,
felt a very natural wish to depart. But an unlooked-for
obstacle had just presented itself at the
water-gate, where the officer charged with the
duty of looking into the characters of all who went
and came was posted, and around whom some fifty
representatives of half as many nations were now
clustered in a clamorous throng, filling the air with
a confusion of tongues that had some probable affinity
to the noises which deranged the workmen
of Babel. It appeared, by parts of sentences and broken
remonstrances, equally addressed to the patron,
whose name was Baptiste, and to the guardian of
the Genevese laws, a rumor was rife among these
truculent travellers, that Balthazar, the headsman,
or executioner, of the powerful and aristocratical
canton of Berne, was about to be smuggled into
their company by the cupidity of the former, contrary,
not only to what was due to the feelings and
rights of men of more creditable callings, but, as it
was vehemently and plausibly insisted, to the very
safety of those who were about to trust their fortunes
to the vicissitudes of the elements.

Chance and the ingenuity of Baptiste had collected,
on this occasion, as party-colored and
heterogeneous an assemblage of human passions,
interests, dialects, wishes, and opinions, as any admirer
of diversity of character could desire. There
were several small traders, some returning from
adventures in Germany and France, and some
bound southward, with their scanty stock of wares;
a few poor scholars, bent on a literary pilgrimage
to Rome; an artist or two, better provided with
enthusiasm than with either knowledge or taste,
journeying with poetical longings towards skies
and tints of Italy; a troupe of street jugglers, who
had been turning their Neapolitan buffoonery to

account among the duller and less sophisticated
inhabitants of Swabia; divers lacqueys out of
place; some six or eight capitalists who lived on
their wits, and a nameless herd of that set which
the French call bad “subjects;” a title that is just
now, oddly enough, disputed between the dregs of
society and a class that would fain become its exclusive
leaders and lords.

These with some slight qualifications that it is
not yet necessary to particularise, composed that
essential requisite of all fair representation—the
majority. Those who remained were of a different
caste. Near the noisy crowd of tossing heads and
brandished arms, in and around the gate, was a
party containing the venerable and still fine figure
of a man in the travelling dress of one of superior
condition, and who did not need the testimony of
the two or three liveried menials that stood near
his person, to give an assurance of his belonging to
the more fortunate of his fellow-creatures, as good
and evil are usually estimated in calculating the
chances of life. On his arm leaned a female, so
young, and yet so lovely, as to cause regret in all
who observed her fading color, the sweet but
melancholy smile that occasionally lighted her mild
and pleasing features, at some of the more marked
exuberances of folly among the crowd, and a form
which, notwithstanding her lessened bloom, was
nearly perfect. If these symptoms of delicate
health, did not prevent this fair girl from being
amused at the volubility and arguments of the different
orators, she oftener manifested apprehension
at finding herself the companion of creatures so
untrained, so violent, so exacting, and so grossly
ignorant. A young man, wearing the roquelaure
and other similar appendages of a Swiss in foreign
military service, a character to excite neither observation
nor comment in that age, stood at her

elbow, answering the questions that from time to
time were addressed to him by the others, in a
manner to show he was an intimate acquaintance,
though there were signs about his travelling equipage
to prove he was not exactly of their ordinary
society. Of all who were not immediately engaged
in the boisterous discussion at the gate, this
young soldier, who was commonly addressed by
those near him as Monsieur Sigismund, was much
the most interested in its progress. Though of
herculean frame, and evidently of unusual physical
force, he was singularly agitated. His cheek,
which had not yet lost the freshness due to the
mountain air, would, at times, become pale as
that of the wilting flower near him; while at others,
the blood rushed across his brow in a torrent
that seemed to threaten a rupture of the starting
vessels in which it so tumultuously flowed. Unless
addressed, however, he said nothing; his distress
gradually subsiding, until it was merely betrayed
by the convulsive writhings of his fingers, which
unconsciously grasped the hilt of his sword.

The uproar had now continued for some time;
throats were getting sore, tongues clammy, voices
hoarse, and words incoherent, when a sudden check
was given to the useless clamor by an incident
quite in unison with the disturbance itself. Two
enormous dogs were in attendance hard by, apparently
awaiting the movements of their respective
masters, who were lost to view in the mass of
heads and bodies that stopped the passage of the
gate. One of these animals was covered with a
short, thick coating of hair, whose prevailing color
was a dingy yellow, but whose throat and
legs, with most of the inferior parts of the body,
were of a dull white. Nature, on the other hand,
had given a dusky, brownish, shaggy dress to his
rival, though his general hue was relieved by a few

shades of a more decided black. As respects
weight and force of body, the difference between
the brutes was not very obvious, though perhaps it
slightly inclined in favor of the former, who in
length, if not in strength, of limb, however, had
more manifestly the advantage.

It would much exceed the intelligence we have
brought to this task to explain how far the instincts
of the dogs sympathised in the savage passions of
the human beings around them, or whether they
were conscious that their masters had espoused
opposite sides in the quarrel, and that it became
them, as faithful esquires, to tilt together by way of
supporting the honor of those they followed; but,
after measuring each other for the usual period
with the eye, they came violently together, body to
body, in the manner of their species. The collision
was fearful, and the struggle, being between two
creatures of so great size and strength, of the
fiercest kind. The roar resembled that of lions,
effectually drowning the clamor of human voices.
Every tongue was mute, and each head was turned
in the direction of the combatants. The trembling
girl recoiled with averted face, while the
young man stepped eagerly forward to protect
her, for the conflict was near the place they occupied;
but powerful and active as was his frame,
he hesitated about mingling in an affray so ferocious.
At this critical moment, when it seemed
that the furious brutes were on the point of tearing
each other in pieces, the crowd was pushed violently
open, and two men burst, side by side, out of
the mass. One wore the black robes, the conical,
Asiatic-looking, tufted cap, and the white belt of an
Augustine monk, and the other had the attire of a
man addicted to the seas, without, however, being
so decidedly maritime as to leave his character a
matter that was quite beyond dispute. The former

was fair, ruddy, with an oval, happy face, of which
internal peace and good-will to his fellows were the
principal characteristics, while the latter had the
swarthy hue, bold lineaments, and glittering eye,
of an Italian.

“Uberto!” said the monk reproachfully, affecting
the sort of offended manner that one would be
apt to show to a more intelligent creature, willing,
but at the same time afraid, to trust his person
nearer to the furious conflict, “shame on thee, old
Uberto! Hast forgotten thy schooling—hast no
respect for thine own good name?”

On the other hand, the Italian did not stop to
expostulate; but throwing himself with reckless
hardihood on the dogs, by dint of kicks and blows,
of which much the heaviest portion fell on the follower
of the Augustine, he succeeded in separating
the combatants.

“Ha, Nettuno!” he exclaimed, with the severity
of one accustomed to exercise a stern and absolute
authority, so soon as this daring exploit was
achieved, and he had recovered a little of the
breath lost in the violent exertion—“what dost
mean? Canst find no better amusement than quarrelling
with a dog of San Bernardo! Fie upon thee,
foolish Nettuno! I am ashamed of thee, dog: thou,
that hast discreetly navigated so many seas, to
lose thy temper on a bit of fresh water!”

The dog, which was in truth no other than a
noble animal of the well-known Newfoundland
breed, hung his head, and made signs of contrition,
by drawing nearer to his master with a tail that
swept the ground, while his late adversary quietly
seated himself with a species of monastic dignity,
looking from the speaker to his foe, as if endeavoring
to comprehend the rebuke which his powerful
and gallant antagonist took so meekly.

“Father,” said the Italian, “our dogs are both

too useful, in their several ways, and both of too
good character to be enemies. I know Uberto
of old, for the paths of St. Bernard and I are no
strangers, and, if report does the animal no more
than justice, he hath not been an idle cur among
the snows.”

“He hath been the instrument of saving seven
Christians from death,” answered the monk, beginning
again to regard his mastiff with friendly looks,
for at first there had been keen reproach and severe
displeasure in his manner—“not to speak
of the bodies that have been found by his activity,
after the vital spark had fled.”

“As for the latter, father, we can count little
more in favor of the dog than a good intention.
Valuing services on this scale, I might ere this
have been the holy father himself, or at least a cardinal;
but seven lives saved, for their owners to
die quietly in their beds, and with opportunity to
make their peace with heaven, is no bad recommendation
for a dog. Nettuno, here, is every way
worthy to be the friend of old Uberto, for thirteen
drowning men have I myself seen him draw from
the greedy jaws of sharks and other monsters of
deep water. What dost thou say, father; shall
we make peace between the brutes?”

The Augustine expressed his readiness, as well
as his desire, to aid in an effort so laudable, and by
dint of commands and persuasion, the dogs, who
were predisposed to peace from having had a mutual
taste of the bitterness of war, and who now
felt for each other the respect which courage and
force are apt to create, were soon on the usual
terms of animals of their kind that have no particular
grounds for contention.

The guardian of the city improved the calm produced
by this little incident, to regain a portion of
his lost authority. Beating back the crowd with

his cane, he cleared a space around the gate into
which but one of the travellers could enter at a
time, while he professed himself not only ready but
determined to proceed with his duty, without further
procrastination. Baptiste, the patron, who
beheld the precious moments wasting, and who, in
the delay, foresaw a loss of wind, which, to one of
his pursuits, was loss of money, now earnestly
pressed the travellers to comply with the necessary
forms, and to take their stations in his bark with
all convenient speed.

“Of what matter is it,” continued the calculating
waterman, who was rather conspicuously
known for the love of thrift that is usually attributed
to most of the inhabitants of that region,
“whether there be one headsman or twenty in the
bark, so long as the good vessel can float and
steer? Our Leman winds are fickle friends, and
the wise take them while in the humor. Give me
the breeze at west, and I will load the Winkelried
to the water's edge with executioners, or any other
pernicious creatures thou wilt, and thou mayest
take the lightest bark that ever swam in the bise,
and let us see who will first make the haven of
Vévey!”

The loudest, and in a sense that is very important
in all such discussions, the principal, speaker
in the dispute, was the leader of the Neapolitan
troupe, who, in virtue of good lungs, an agility that
had no competitor in any present, and a certain
mixture of superstition and bravado, that formed
nearly equal ingredients in his character, was a
man likely to gain great influence with those who,
from their ignorance and habits, had an inherent
love of the marvellous, and a profound respect for
all who possessed, in acting, more audacity, and,
in believing, more credulity than themselves. The
vulgar like an excess, even if it be of folly; for, in

their eyes, the abundance of any particular quality
is very apt to be taken as the standard of its excellence.

“This is well for him who receives, but it may
be death to him that pays,” cried the son of the
south, gaining not a little among his auditors by
the distinction, for the argument was sufficiently
wily, as between the buyer and the seller. “Thou
wilt get thy silver for the risk, and we may get
watery graves for our weakness. Nought but
mishaps can come of wicked company, and accursed
will they be, in the evil hour, that are found
in brotherly communion with one whose trade is
hurrying Christians into eternity, before the time
that has been lent by nature is fairly up. Santa
Madre! I would not be the fellow-traveller of such
a wretch, across this wild and changeable lake, for
the honor of leaping and showing my poor powers
in the presence of the Holy Father, and the whole
of the learned conclave!”

This solemn declaration, which was made with
suitable gesticulation, and an action of the countenance
that was well adapted to prove the speaker's
sincerity, produced a corresponding effect on most
of the listeners, who murmured their applause in a
manner sufficiently significant to convince the
patron he was not about to dispose of the difficulty,
simply by virtue of fair words. In this dilemma,
he bethought him of a plan of overcoming the
scruples of all present, in which he was warmly
seconded by the agent of the police, and to which,
after the usual number of cavilling objections that
were generated by distrust, heated blood, and the
obstinacy of disputation, the other parties were
finally induced to give their consent. It was
agreed that the examination should no longer be
delayed, but that a species of deputation from the
crowd might take their stand within the gate,

where all who passed would necessarily be subject
to their scrutiny, and, in the event of their vigilance
detecting the abhorred and proscribed Balthazar,
that the patron should return his money to
the headsman, and preclude him from forming one
of a party that was so scrupulous of its association,
and, apparently, with so little reason. The
Neapolitan, whose name was Pippo; one of the
indigent scholars, for a century since learning was
rather the auxiliary than the foe of superstition;
and a certain Nicklaus Wagner, a fat Bernese,
who was the owner of most of the cheeses in the
bark, were the chosen of the multitude on this occasion.
The first owed his election to his vehemence
and volubility, qualities that the ignoble
vulgar are very apt to mistake for conviction and
knowledge; the second to his silence and a demureness
of air which pass with another class for
the stillness of deep water; and the last to his substance,
as a man of known wealth, an advantage
which, in spite of all that alarmists predict on one
side and enthusiasts affirm on the other, will always
carry greater weight with those who are
less fortunate in this respect, than is either reasonable
or morally healthful, provided it is not abused
by arrogance or by the assumption of very extravagant
and oppressive privileges. As a matter of
course, these deputed guardians of the common
rights were first obliged to submit their own papers
to the eye of the Genevese.[1]

The Neapolitan, than whom an archer knave,
or one that had committed more petty wrongs, did
not present himself that day at the water-gate, was
regularly fortified by every precaution that the
long experience of a vagabond could suggest, and
he was permitted to pass forthwith. The poor
Westphalian student presented an instrument fairly
written out in scholastic Latin, and escaped further
trouble by the vanity of the unlettered agent of the
police, who hastily affirmed it was a pleasure to
encounter documents so perfectly in form. But
the Bernese was about to take his station by the
side of the other two, appearing to think inquiry,
in his case, unnecessary. While moving through
the passage in stately silence, Nicklaus Wagner
was occupied in securing the strings of a well-filled
purse, which he had just lightened of a small
copper coin, to reward the varlet of the hostelry
in which he had passed the night, and who had
been obliged to follow him to the port to obtain
even this scanty boon; and the Genevese was fain
to believe that, in the urgency of this important
concern, he had overlooked those forms which all
were, just then, obliged to respect, on quitting the
town.

“Thou hast a name and character?” observed
the latter, with official brevity.

“God help thee, friend!—I did not think Geneva
had been so particular with a Swiss;—and a
Swiss who is so favorably known on the Aar, and
indeed over the whole of the great canton! I am
Nicklaus Wagner, a name of little account, perhaps,
but which is well esteemed among men of
substance, and which has a right even to the Burgerschaft—Nicklaus
Wagner of Berne—thou wilt
scarce need more?”

“Naught but proof of its truth. Thou wilt remember
this is Geneva; the laws of a small and

exposed state need be particular in affairs of this
nature.”

“I never questioned thy state being Geneva; I
only wonder thou shouldst doubt my being Nicklaus
Wagner! I can journey the darkest night that
ever threw a shadow from the mountains, anywhere
between the Jura and the Oberland, and
none shall say my word is to be disputed. Look
'ee, there is the patron, Baptiste, who will tell thee,
that if he were to land the freight which is shipped
in my name, his bark would float greatly the
lighter.”

All this time Nicklaus was nothing loth to show
his papers, which were quite in rule. He even
held them, with a thumb and finger separating the
folds, ready to be presented to his questioner. The
hesitation came from a feeling of wounded vanity,
which would gladly show that one of his local importance
and known substance was to be exempt
from the exactions required from men of smaller
means. The officer, who had great practice in
this species of collision with his fellow-creatures,
understood the character with which he had to
deal, and, seeing no good reason for refusing to
gratify a feeling which was innocent, though sufficiently
silly, he yielded to the Bernese pride.

“Thou canst proceed,” he said, turning the indulgence
to account, with a ready knowledge of
his duty; “and when thou gettest again among
thy burghers, do us of Geneva the grace to say,
we treat our allies fairly.”

“I thought thy question hasty!” exclaimed the
wealthy peasant, swelling like one who gets justice,
though tardily. “Now let us to this knotty
affair of the headsman.”

Taking his place with the Neapolitan and the
Westphalian, Nicklaus assumed the grave air of
a judge, and an austerity of manner which proved

that he entered on his duty with a firm resolution
to do justice.

“Thou art well known here, pilgrim,” observed
the officer, with some severity of tone, to the next
that came to the gate.

“St. Francis to speed, master, it were else
wonderful! I should be so, for the seasons scarce
come and go more regularly.”

“There must be a sore conscience somewhere,
that Rome and thou should need each other so
often?”

The pilgrim, who was enveloped in a tattered
coat, sprinkled with cockle-shells, who wore his
beard, and was altogether a disgusting picture
of human depravity, rendered still more revolting
by an ill-concealed hypocrisy, laughed openly
and recklessly at the remark.

“Thou art a follower of Calvin, master,” he
replied, “or thou would'st not have said this. My
own failings give me little trouble. I am engaged
by certain parishes of Germany to take upon my
poor person their physical pains, and it is not easy
to name another that hath done as many messages
of this kind as myself, with better proofs of fidelity.
If thou hast any little offering to make, thou
shalt see fair papers to prove what I say;—papers
that would pass at St. Peter's itself!”

The officer perceived that he had to do with one
of those unequivocal hypocrites—if such a word can
properly be applied to him who scarcely thought
deception necessary—who then made a traffic of
expiations of this nature; a pursuit that was common
enough at the close of the close of the seventeenth and in
the commencement of the eighteenth centuries, and
which has not even yet entirely disappeared from
Europe. He threw the pass with unconcealed
aversion towards the profligate, who, recovering
his document, assumed unasked his station by the

side of the three who had been selected to decide
on the fitness of those who were to be allowed to
embark.

“Go to!” cried the officer, as he permitted this
ebullition of disgust to escape him; “thou hast
well said that we are followers of Calvin. Geneva
has little in common with her of the scarlet mantle,
and thou wilt do well to remember this, in thy
next pilgrimage, lest the beadle make acquaintance
with thy back.—Hold! who art thou?”

“A heretic, hopelessly damned by anticipation,
if that of yonder travelling prayer-monger be
the true faith;” answered one who was pressing
past, with a quiet assurance that had near carried
its point without incurring the risks of the usual
investigation into his name and character. It was
the owner of Nettuno, whose aquatic air and perfect
self-possession now caused the officer to doubt
whether he had not stopped a waterman of the
lake—a class privileged to come and go at will.

“Thou knowest our usages,” said the half-satisfied
Genevese.

“I were a fool else! Even the ass that often
travels the same path comes in time to tell its
turns and windings. Art not satisfied with touching
the pride of the worthy Nicklaus Wagner, by
putting the well-warmed burgher to his proofs, but
thou would'st e'en question me! Come hither,
Nettuno; thou shalt answer for both, being a dog
of discretion. We are no go-betweens of heaven
and earth, thou knowest, but creatures that come
part of the water and part of the land!”

The Italian spoke loud and confidently, and in
the manner of one who addressed himself more to
the humors of those near than to the understanding
of the Genevese. He laughed, and looked
about him in a manner to extract an echo from
the crowd, though not one among them all could

probably have given a sufficient reason why he
had so readily taken part with the stranger against
the authorities of the town, unless it might have
been from the instinct of opposition to the law.

“Thou hast a name?” continued the half-yielding,
half-doubting guardian of the port.

“Dost take me to be worse off than the bark of
Baptiste, there? I have papers, too, if thou wilt that
I go to the vessel in order to seek them. This dog
is Nettuno, a brute from a far country, where
brutes swim like fishes, and my name is Maso,
though wicked-minded men call me oftener Il
Maledetto than by any other title.”

All in the throng, who understood the signification
of what the Italian said, laughed aloud, and
apparently with great glee, for, to the grossly
vulgar, extreme audacity has an irresistible charm.
The officer felt that the merriment was against
him, though he scarce knew why; and ignorant
of the language in which the other had given his
extraordinary appellation, he yielded to the contagion,
and laughed with the others, like one who
understood the joke to the bottom. The Italian
profited by this advantage, nodded familiarly with
a good-natured and knowing smile, and proceeded.
Whistling the dog to his side, he walked leisurely
to the bark, into which he was the first that entered,
always preserving the deliberation and calm
of a man who felt himself privileged, and safe from
farther molestation. This cool audacity effected
its purpose, though one long and closely hunted
by the law evaded the authorities of the town,
when this singular being took his seat by the little
package which contained his scanty wardrobe.