148 The Brothers ofGoschenen. 



and Karl were cold-hearted, and proud, and self-conceited ; and they 

 sneered, when either name was mentioned, and tossed their pretty 

 heads, and thought that either Franz or Karl might do worse than 

 make an offer to they knew who. 



" One day the two brothers had started in pursuit of a herd of cha- 

 mois that had crossed the furka towards the Gallenstock. Franz 

 never returned. After the lapse of two days Karl re-entered his fa- 

 ther's cottage, haggard and famished. What had become of Franz 

 he knew not. They had parted, he said, about half-way up the 

 mountain for the purpose of intercepting the game. He himself had 

 been benighted in the midst of one of those lourmentes or snow- 

 storms which are so fatal among the Alps sweeping down from the 

 snow-peaks laden with a small impalpable drift that blinds and be- 

 numbs the traveller. Day after day passed away ; still Franz came 

 not. Day by day his poor old father sunk deeper and deeper in de- 

 spair, until in utter hopelessness he felt that his son his first born, 

 was gone for ever. For hours would he weep uncomforted over his 

 remaining children, as he called them, and Louise mingled her tears 

 with his. Karl shed no tear ; but misery was written on his brow, and 

 every fibre of his strong frame quivered as if under the torture, when 

 his cousin Louise, in the abandonment of her anguish, flung her arms 

 round his neck and wept her long dark curls wet upon his shoulder. 

 As time in some degree diminished the acuteness of their feelings, the 

 loss they had sustained seemed the more to endear the remaining 

 members of the family to one another. Karl rarely went to the cha- 

 mois hunting, perhaps because he cared not to pursue the sport alone, 

 perhaps on account of the unhappiness his absence caused to his fa- 

 ther and Louise. With her he would walk for hours in the avenue of 

 broad walnut trees which extended from the cottage to the banks of 

 the brawling Reuss, or read to her some old German legend of un- 

 happy love from the two or three shelves of black-letter volumes 

 which graced the wall of the best room." 



" I am sorry to interrupt your tale, good Frate," said I, " but you 

 are forgetting to pay your respects like a loyal subject to the royal 

 Montepulciano. Come ! story-telling was never spoiled by a glass of 

 good wine." 



" Nay, I have but a weak head, and we must use these blessings 

 in moderation, you know,'' said the Capuchin, emptying his glass. 

 " But as you say, wine is the oil of story-telling ; it makes it run 

 without creaking. So to proceed : 



" Louise had since become the wife of Karl Basler, and they had 

 grown old together. His father died a few years after their mar- 

 riage. Karl became year by year more and more haughty and re- 

 served, with occasionally a hasty fierceness of temper which he 

 eeemed unable to control, and which broke out on the most trifling 

 occasions. To Louise alone he was all gentleness. Year after year 

 in the summer evenings would they walk together under the old wal- 

 nut trees that budded and blossomed just as they did in the days of 

 their childhood, save that here and there a large leafless bough stood 

 out, skeleton-like, from amid the rich foliage. Year after year, even 

 when his own eye began to grow dim with time, did he watch hers 



