“Rue won’t meet us to-day, she says,” his friend answered with a yawn. “Her nerves are tired after her walk of yesterday. So, for my part, I vote we go and see Schloss Tyrol. It inspires me, that place,” Florian went on, warming up—for he had been reading his guide-book. “It has the interest of a germ, a nucleus, a growing point. I like to think that here we stand before the embryo of a State—the very heart and core of the evolving Tyrol. We watch its development, so to speak, from its central cell. It’s the evolution of law, of order, of authority. The robber chiefs of that high stronghold perched aloft on the hills”—and Florian extended one small white hand, as was his wont when he perorated—“are the centre round which clusters by successive degrees the whole Tyrolese and Austrian history. I see them pushing their power in concentric rings from their eagle’s eyrie on the crags above the valley of the Adige, to Botzen and the Brenner, the basin of the Inn, the Bavarian March, the entire Eastern Alps, from the Engadine to the Dolomites. Their Schloss there is the original and only genuine Tyrol. By successful robbery, which is the basis of all the divine rights of governments, they become the masters and lords of a mighty province; they dictate peace and justice to obedient villagers; they stand out in course of time as an earthly providence. But what were they at first? Why, a den of thieves! There you have the whole evolution of morality in a nutshell—the rule of the strong, established and maintained by continued aggression. So I will see Schloss Tyrol; I will be a pilgrim at the shrine; I will refresh myself at the fount of law and order as it exists and envisages itself for these innocent mountains.” “It’s an interesting place,” Will replied, taking no notice of Florian’s gush, “and it’s well worth visiting. I’ve seen it before. I’ll sit on the rocks outside and write, while you go in and look at it.”