ANIGHT ON THE BORDERSOF THEBLACK FOREST
BY
AMELIA B. EDWARDS
AUTHOR OF "BARBARA'S HISTORY," "DEBENHAM'S VOW," ETC.
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
1890
CONTENTS.
[7]
A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS OF THE BLACK FOREST.
[9]
My story (if story it can be called, being anepisode in my own early life) carries me back to atime when the world and I were better friends thanwe are likely, perhaps, ever to be again. I wasyoung then. I had good health, good spirits, andtolerably good looks. I had lately come into asnug little patrimony, which I have long since dissipated;and I was in love, or fancied myself inlove, with a charming coquette, who afterwardsthrew me over for a West-country baronet withseven thousand a year.
So much for myself. The subject is not onethat I particularly care to dwell upon; but as Ihappen to be the hero of my own narrative, somesort of self-introduction is, I suppose, necessary.
To begin then—Time: seventeen years ago.
Hour:—three o'clock p.m., on a broiling, cloudlessSeptember afternoon.
Scene:—a long, straight, dusty road, borderedwith young trees; a far-stretching, undulating plain,yellow for the most part with corn-stubble; singularlybarren of wood and water; sprinkled here and[10]there with vineyards, farmsteads, and hamlets; andbounded in the extreme distance by a low chain ofpurple hills.
Place—a certain dull, unfrequented district inthe little kingdom of Würtemberg, about twelvemiles north of Heilbronn, and six south-east of theNeckar.
Dramatis Personæ:—myself, tall, sunburnt, dusty;in grey suit, straw hat, knapsack and gaiters. Inthe distance, a broad-backed pedestrian wielding along stick like an old English quarter-staff.
Now, not being sure that I took the right turningat the cross-roads a mile or two back, and havingplodded on alone all day, I resolved to overtakethis same pedestrian, and increased my paceaccordingly. He, meanwhile, unconscious of thevicinity of another traveller, kept on at an easy"sling-trot," his head well up, his staff swinging idlyin his hand—a practised ped