600 Stauenbach, the Sharpshooter. [June, 



the time of Moreau's march into Swabia, and was a soldier all over. 

 The idea that his communications should be intercepted by a " mountain 

 thief, a pedlar, a goat-hunter," was at once intolerable and ludicrous ; 

 and he promised the civic council that, before twelve hours were over, 

 they should see the " robber" with a rope round his neck. For the 

 purpose of more complete surprise, the expedition was to wait for 

 nightfall. About seven in the evening a patrol which had been 

 ordered to search the market peasants as they passed out of the gates, 

 (for the honest Carniolans were strongly suspected of carrying on the 

 correspondence of the disaffected within and without), brought in an old 

 seller of eggs, in whose basket they had fovind some gunpowder. This 

 was of course contraband of war, and the peasant was brought to head- 

 quarters. A further search discovered a letter to the " Mountain King." 

 He was extremely decrepid, and so deaf, that he could be scarcely made 

 to understand that a court-martial was about to be held upon him. His 

 Carniolan jargon was equally lost upon the Colonel To shoot him, 

 however, required some consideration. Trial was impossible, with a man 

 destitute of all faculty of explanation or understanding ; his age ren- 

 dered him harmless ; and cruelty might have irritated the country people, 

 (who had crowded back on his seizure,^ and deprived the city of its 

 provisions. Finally, as the best alternative, it was determined to make 

 use of the old man as a guide to the haunt of the insurgent chief. 



This, however, he positively refused to be, under fifty pleas of 

 ignorance, feeblenes, and fear ; he was, at last induced to give 

 way, was seated on a baggage mule, and with a bayonet at his back 

 was marched out with the troops. The peasantry hung their heads, 

 with no very measured expressions of wrath at the hoary traitor; but as 

 the French never condescend to know any language but their own, all 

 this was lost upon them. Night fell — the expedition proceeded — and the 

 old man and his ass were put in front of the column, watched by half-a- 

 dozen Chasseurs as the advance of the whole. 



The mountain-range that overhangs the Idrian Mine country is, though 

 not very elevated, remarkably rugged. Short, sharp descents, and heights 

 where every rock seems pointed for the express purpose of repulsion, 

 make it an extremely arduous business to work one's way through it in 

 the day-time — what must it be in the night ! To add to its difficulties, 

 one of those storms, so common and so violent in the summer of the south 

 of Germany, came on. The whole expedition, the " general camp, 

 pioneers and all," were drenched in a moment, and after a faint struggle 

 to get on, the whole scattered themselves under the pine trees that 

 cover every spot where a root can cling. The Colonel, fearful of losing 

 his guide, now ordered him to be doubly watched ; but he was so far 

 from attempting escape, that, to avoid the storm, he was already making 

 his way back to the clump where the Colonel had taken his stand. 



The storm had now risen to a pitch of fury that made the shelter of 

 the forest more perilous than even the open air ; the trees were torn up 

 by the roots — huge; branches were flying about, to the infinite peril of 

 every one who came in their way — sheets of gravel, and the lighter 

 stones from the sides of the limestone cliffs, filled the air ; and when to 

 this were added thunder, that absolutely deafened the ear, and flashes 

 that burst like shells from rock to rock, splitting whatever they touched, 

 it may be believed, that the French wished themselves far enough that 

 night from the mountains of Idria. 



