They adjourned to the garden and dined under the trees. Hamilton studiously avoided Crescenz’s vicinity, although he saw she was half disposed to be angry at his neglect. She endeavoured, in her simplicity, to pique him by listening with affected complaisance to Major Stultz’s commonplace remarks. She laughed, and encouraged him to give her brothers beer when her mother was not watching them. This childish conduct, perhaps, Hamilton would have forgotten, had not the consequences been somewhat remarkable. The boys, unaccustomed to drink anything but water or milk, soon became almost intoxicated, and on their way to the boat Fritz, a good-humoured, handsome boy, swaggered, sang, and shouted most boisterously; Gustle became quarrelsome, and pinched and pummelled him unmercifully. It was in vain Madame Rosenberg scolded and threatened punishment; they had not left the shore more than ten minutes when a regular scuffle took place; Gustle flung Fritz’s cap into the water, and Fritz, merely taking time to knock down the offender, leaned over the side of the boat, snapped at his cap, and went heels over head into the lake! The screams of the ladies were beyond all conception piercing; Zedwitz, with an exclamation of horror, and regretting that he could not swim, leaned anxiously and with outstretched arms over the side of the boat. Madame Rosenberg started up and, with clasped hands, called for help in a voice of agony. The danger was imminent. Hamilton sprang into the water and caught the boy, as he rose for the second time, at some distance from the boat; he was still conscious, and grasped his preserver’s arm manfully. The scene which ensued it is impossible to describe. Gustle was boxed, and Fritz was kissed, and Hamilton was thanked and blessed alternately. He declined entering the boat again, but partly held it and partly swam to the shore, where he heard with some surprise that the fishers who had rowed them, although they had spent half their lives on the lake, could not swim, so that had he not been there Fritz would inevitably have been drowned. From the commencement of his acquaintance with Madame Rosenberg, she had been disposed to like him; but from this event may be dated a sort of implicit reliance on her part which afterwards caused him occasional qualms of conscience, as he felt that he was trusted sometimes beyond his deserts.