“Good heavens!” cried Hamilton, springing on his feet, “they are searching for me. I must go to them directly.” “It will do just as well if I send Peter to let them know you are here,” said the peasant calling one of his sons, and giving him the necessary directions: after which, murmuring the words, “with your leave,” he seated himself at a little distance, and glancing towards Hamilton’s outstretched feet, he observed with a smile, “You would never have got up and down the alp again with those boots!” “I believe you are right,” answered Hamilton, listlessly moving them so as to have a better view; “they certainly do look the worse for wear. I never was so ill shod in my life!” “I dare say yesterday you might have danced at a wedding in them, but for the mountains they are not the right sort.” “Most true,” said Hamilton; “and if I ever make an excursion of this kind again, I shall not forget it. This is the first time in my life that I have been in a mountainous country.” “And yet England is a fine country, they say?” observed the peasant, interrogatively. Hamilton assented with a nod. “I have heard it said at the Golden Lion in the town, that there is no end to the riches of the English!” “Some are very rich, and some are very poor,” answered Hamilton. “I believe the means of living—the necessaries of life—are more equally divided among the inhabitants of Germany.” “Well, that I have heard too,” said the man: “and now that you tell me there are no mountains——” “Stay,” cried Hamilton, laughing. “I did not say there were no mountains; I only said that I had never seen them.” “But all the Englishmen I have ever spoken to——” “Are not very many,” said Hamilton, interrupting him. “More than you think, perhaps. Before my father gave up the house and ground to me, I was for many years with a relation in Berchtesgaden, and used to row most of the strangers across the lake. Queer people they were, too, sometimes! One gentleman used to sit for hours under a tree near the back lake, and went there regularly every day for several summers. The last time I saw him, he said when he died his spirit would hover around that tree—or something of that sort. I made inquiries about him lately, and as he has not been seen for a long time, I suppose he is dead, and should not at all like to go to that part of the lake alone of an evening; for though I don’t mind taking my chance against living men, I am mortally afraid of the dead—and that Englishman always looked half dead, with his pale face and sunken cheeks. It was dreadful to hear him cough; and the people at the inn said he never was quiet at night, but wandered incessantly up and down his room. They said he must have been crossed in love——” “Most probably he was dying of consumption,” said Hamilton.