“On our return from dining with the Prestowitz family, Rossworm, thinking to oblige me, engaged me in a rather unfortunate affair. He had bargained with an innkeeper of the New Town that, for two hundred ducats, he should surrender to him his two daughters, who were very beautiful. I am of opinion, as will appear from the sequel, that he had taken advantage of this poor man when he was drunk to obtain such a promise from him. When we had arrived within some two hundred paces of this inn, we alighted from our coach, which we ordered to turn round and await our return; and Rossworm and I, with a page of his, who was to act as interpreter, went the rest of the way on foot. “We found the father in the room where the stove stood, and with him his two daughters, who were going about their work. He was very astonished to see us, and still more so when Rossworm made him understand that each of us had brought him a hundred ducats for what the innkeeper had promised him. Thereupon the man cried out that he had never promised any such thing, and, opening the window, shouted twice: ‘_Mortriau! Mortriau!_’ that is to say, ‘Murder!’ Then Rossworm held his poniard to the innkeeper’s throat, and directed the page to tell him that if he spoke to the neighbours or did not order his daughters to do our will, he was a dead man, and told me to take away one of the girls.... But I, who had been at first under the impression that I was engaged in an affair in which all the parties were in accord, answered that I did not intend to touch the girls. Rossworm then said that, if I did not wish to do so, I must come and hold my poniard to the father’s throat, and that he would take one of the girls away.... This I did very reluctantly; and the poor girls wept.”