I Wanderings in Central Eitrope 1 5 



Mariechen up to Bekrantz mit Laub. He could 

 talk about guns with the foresters ; he could crack 

 jokes with the Herr Wirth and flirt with his rosy- 

 cheeked daughters ; and doubtless, even in those 

 immature days, he put into practice his favourite 

 precept for travellers, and also for men who stay at 

 home : " Always make love to the old ladies." Many 

 and marv^ellous to behold were the trophies he brought 

 home, to a home not always grateful, that he won 

 at Scheiben-Scheissen — jovial assemblies where men 

 shot for prizes and drank good beer all the day 

 long, and then danced, with occasional very frequent 

 intervals for Sause und Brause, all the night long to 

 the music of the village band. Fish he caught when- 

 ever and wherever there were fish to be caught ; and 

 in one of his subsequent articles he tells how he joined 

 an hilarious shooting party, and bowled over a couple 

 of roe, and felt his brow burn, for the first and last 

 time, with the brand of vulpicide in the beech woods 

 of the Eifel ; and in another how he nearly broke 

 his neck, but brought down his chamois in the 

 Wildgrad Kogle. 



Those days that he spent in wandering through 

 the mountains and the forests of Central Europe, 

 when for the first time he tasted the wine of perfect 

 freedom, were assuredly among the happiest days of 

 his whole life. In after years his mother used to be 

 fond of telling her grandchildren how another lady 

 and herself had been extremely terrified, when they 

 were once walking together in the vicinity of Dresden, 



