48 A CONTINENTAL TOUR 



maintained by the postilion, that a payment of one half 

 must be made before he could take his departure. In the 

 meantime, the knight of the sabre became sober, and the 

 interposition of magisterial authority being talked of, he 

 thought it better to decamp ; so, yielding to the impor- 

 tunities of m,ne host, who feared the disgust which his 

 conduct might occasion to the other guests, he suffered 

 himself to be half conducted, half dragged, into the chaise, 

 and was soon whirled out of sight by the triumphant 

 postilion, amid the shouts of a dozen or two of idle 

 people, whom his noisy protestations had assembled at 

 the door. 



" I sat in the window of my bed-room for some hours 

 after the inhabitants of the house had retired to rest. It 

 was a heavenly night — the moon just appearing from the 

 side of a dark and steejj mountain. She threw her pale 

 light over a beautiful valley, in the centre of which there 

 flowed a rapid stream, the rushing sound of which was 

 distinctly audible. One or two white cottages were visible 

 on the opposite side of the valley, near the outskirts of a 

 thick wood, which extended upwards to the base of a long 

 range of irregular and broken cliffs. These terminated 

 the view ; and above their highest peak, there was one 

 brilliant star which, though lovely as any among the in- 

 numerable constellations which surrounded it, appeared to 

 belong more to earth than to heaven ; and but for its clear 



