As I have already remarked, I used frequently to take long rides into

the country, and sometimes I did not return till the following day. My

clerk was always on duty, and the work never appeared to make him

round-shouldered.

I had ridden horses for years, and to throw a leg over a good mount was

to me one of the greatest pleasures in the world. I delighted in

stopping at the old feudal inns, of studying the stolid German peasant,

of drinking from steins uncracked these hundred years, of inspecting

ancient armor and gathering trifling romances attached thereto. And

often I have had the courage to stop at some quaint, crumbling

_Schloss_ or castle and ask for a night's lodging for myself and horse.

Seldom, if ever, did I meet with a refusal.

I possessed the whimsical habit of picking out strange roads and riding

on till night swooped down from the snow-capped mountains. I had a bit

of poetry in my system that had never been completely worked out, and I

was always imagining that at the very next _Schloss_ or inn I was to

hit upon some delectable adventure. I was only twenty-eight, and

inordinately fond of my Dumas.

I rode in grey whipcord breeches, tan boots, a blue serge coat, white

stock, and never a hat or cap till the snow blew. I used to laugh when

the peasants asked leave to lend me a cap or to run back and find the

one I had presumably lost.

One night the delectable adventure for which I was always seeking came

my way, and I was wholly unprepared for it.

I had taken the south highway: that which seeks the valley beyond the

lake. The moon-film lay mistily upon everything: on the far-off lake,

on the great upheavals of stone and glacier above me, on the long white

road that stretched out before me, ribbon-wise. High up the snow on

the mountains resembled huge opals set in amethyst. I was easily

twenty-five miles from the city; that is to say, I had been in the

saddle some six hours. Nobody but a king's messenger will ride a horse

more than five miles an hour. I cast about for a place to spend the

night. There was no tavern in sight, and the hovels I had passed

during the last hour offered no shelter for my horse. Suddenly, around

a bend in the road, I saw the haven I was seeking. It was a rambling,

tottering old castle, standing in the center of a cluster of firs; and

the tiles of the roofs and the ivy of the towers were shining silver

with the heavy fall of dew.




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