Fast and rebukingly rang the matins from the
towers of St. Etienne, and, though unused to wake,
much less to pray, at that sunrise hour, I felt a compunctious
visiting as my postillion cracked his whip
and flew past the sacred threshold, over which tripped,
as if every stroke would be the last, the tardy yet
light-footed mass-goers of Vienna. It was my first
entrance into this Paris of Germany, and I stretched
my head from the window to look back with delight
upon the fretted gothic pile, so cumbered with ornament,
yet so light and airy—so vast in the area it
covered, yet so crusted in every part with delicate device
and sculpture. On sped the merciless postillion,
and the next moment we rattled into the court-yard of
the hotel.

I gave my keys to the most faithful and intelligent
of valets—an English boy of sixteen, promoted from
white top-boots and a cabriolet in London, to a plain
coat and almost his master's friendship upon the continent—
and leaving him to find rooms to my taste,
make them habitable and get breakfast, I retraced my
way to ramble a half hour through the aisles of St.
Etienne.

The lingering bell was still beating its quick and
monotonous call, and just before me, followed closely
by a female domestic, a veiled and slightly-formed lady
stepped over the threshold of the cathedral, and took
her way by the least-frequented aisle to the altar. I
gave a passing glance of admiration at the small ankle
and dainty chaussure betrayed by her hurried step;
but remembering with a slight effort that I had sought

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the church with at least some feeble intentions of religious
worship, I crossed the broad nave to the opposite
side, and was soon leaning against a pillar, and
listening to the heavenly-breathed music of the voluntary,
with a confused, but I trust, not altogether unprofitable
feeling of devotion.

The peasants, with their baskets standing beside
them on the tesselated floor, counted their beads upon
their knees; the murmur, low-toned and universal,
rose through the vibrations of the anthem with an accompaniment
upon which I have always thought the
great composers calculated, no less than upon the
echoing arches, and atmosphere thickened with incense;
and the deep-throated priest muttered his
Latin prayer, more edifying to me that it left my
thoughts to their own impulses of worship, undemeaned
by the irresistible littleness of criticism, and
unchecked by the narrow bounds of another's comprehension
of the Divinity. Without being in any
leaning of opinion a son of the church of Rome, I
confess my soul gets nearer to heaven; and my religious
tendencies, dulled and diverted from improvement
by a life of travel and excitement, are more
gratefully ministered to, in the indistinct worship of
the catholics. It seems to me that no man can pray
well through the hesitating lips of another. The
inflated style or rhetorical efforts of many, addressing
Heaven with difficult grammar and embarrassed
logic—and the weary monotony of others, repeating
without interest and apparently without
thought, the most solemn appeals to the mercy of
the Almighty—are imperfect vehicles, at least to
me, for a fresh and apprehensive spirit of worship.
The religious architecture of the catholics favors the
solitary prayer of the heart. The vast floor of the
cathedral, the far receding aisles with their solemn
light, to which penetrate only the indistinct murmur
of priest and penitent, and the affecting wail or triumphant
hallelujah of the choir; the touching attitudes
and utter abandonment of all around to their
unarticulated devotions; the freedom to enter and depart,
unquestioned and unnoticed, and the wonderful
impressiveness of the lofty architecture, clustered
with mementoes of death, and presenting through
every sense, some unobtrusive persuasion to the duties
of the spot—all these, I can not but think, are aids,
not unimportant to devout feeling, nor to the most
careless keeper of his creed and conscience, entirely
without salutary use.

My eye had been resting unconsciously on the
drapery of a statue, upon which the light of a painted
oriel window threw the mingled dyes of a peacock.
It was the figure of an apostle; and curious at last to
see whence the colors came which turned the saintly
garb into a mantle of shot silk, I strayed toward the
eastern window, and was studying the gorgeous dyes
and grotesque drawing of an art lost to the world, when
I discovered that I was in the neighborhood of the
pretty figure that had tripped into church so lightly
before me. She knelt near the altar, a little forward
from one of the heavy gothic pillars, with her maid
beside her, and, close behind knelt a gentleman, who
I observed at a second glance, was paying his devotions
exclusively to the small foot that peeped from
the edge of a snowy peignoir, the dishabille of which
was covered and betrayed by a lace-veil and mantle.
As I stood thinking what a graceful study her figure
would make for a sculptor, and what an irreligious impertinence
was visible in the air of the gentleman behind,
he leaned forward as if to prostrate his face upon
the pavement, and pressed his lips upon the slender
sole of (I have no doubt) the prettiest shoe in Vienna.
The natural aversion which all men have for each
other as strangers, was quickened in my bosom by a
feeling much more vivid, and said to be quite as natural—
resentment at any demonstration by another of
preference for the woman one has admired. If I have
not mistaken human nature, there is a sort of imaginary
property which every man feels in a woman he has
looked upon with even the most transient regard,
which is violated malgré lui, by a similar feeling on
the part of any other individual.

Not sure that the gentleman, who had so suddenly
become my enemy, had any warrant in the lady's connivance
for his attentions, I retreated to the shelter
of the pillar, and was presently satisfied that he was as
much a stranger to her as myself, and was decidedly
annoying her. A slight advance in her position to
escape his contact gave me the opportunity I wished,
and stepping upon the small space between the skirt
of her dress and the outpost of his ebony cane, I began
to study the architecture of the roof with great seriousness.
The gothic order, it is said, sprang from the
first attempts at constructing roofs from the branches
of trees, and is more perfect as it imitates more closely
the natural wilderness with its tall tree-shafts and interlacing
limbs. With my eyes half shut I endeavored
to transport myself to an American forest, and convert
the beams and angles of this vast gothic structure
into a primitive temple of pines, with the sunshine
coming brokingly through; but the delusion, otherwise
easy enough, was destroyed by the cherubs roosting
on the cornices, and the apostles and saints perched
as it were in the branches; and, spite of myself, I
thought it represented best Shylock's “wilderness of
monkeys.”

“S'il vous plait, monsieur!” said the gentleman,
pulling me by the pantaloons as I was losing myself
in these ill-timed speculations.

I looked down.

“Vous me génez, monsiéur!”

“J'en suis bien sure, monsieur!”—and I resumed my
study of the roof, turning gradually round till my heels
were against his knees, and backing peu-à-peu.

It has often occurred to me as a defect in the system
of civil justice, that the time of the day at which a
crime is committed is never taken into account by judge
or jury. The humors of an empty stomach act so energetically
on the judgment and temper of a man, and
the same act appears so differently to him, fasting and
full, that I presume an inquiry into the subject would
prove that few offences against law and human pity
were ever perpetrated by villains who had dined. In
the adventure before us, the best-disposed reader will
condemn my interference in a stranger's gallantries as
impertinent and quixotic. Later in the day, I should
as soon have thought of ordering water-cresses for the
gentleman's dindon aux truffes.

I was calling myself to account something after the
above fashion, the gentleman in question standing near
me, drumming on his boot with his ebony cane, when
the lady rose, threw her rosary over her neck, and
turning to me with a graceful smile, courtesied slightly
and disappeared. I was struck so exceedingly with
the intense melancholy in the expression of the face—
an expression so totally at variance with the elasticity
of the step, and the promise of the slight and riante
figure and air—that I quite forgot I had drawn a
quarrel on myself, and was loitering slowly toward the
door of the church, when the gentleman I had offended
touched me on the arm, and in the politest manner
possible requested my address. We exchanged cards,
and I hastened home to breakfast, musing on the
facility with which the current of our daily life may be
thickened. I fancied I had a new love on my hands,
and I was tolerably sure of a quarrel—yet I had been
in Vienna but fifty-four minutes by Bréguet.

My breakfast was waiting, and Percie had found
time to turn a comb through his brown curls, and get
the dust off his gaiters. He was tall for his age, and
(unaware to himself, poor boy!) every word and action
reflected upon the handsome seamstress in Cranbourne

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Alley, whom he called his mother—for he showed
blood. His father was a gentleman, or there is no
truth in thorough-breeding. As I looked at him, a
difficulty vanished from my mind.

“Percie!”

“Sir!”

“Get into your best suit of plain clothes, and if a
foreigner calls on me this morning, come in and forget
that you are a valet. I have occasion to use you for
a gentleman.”

“Yes, sir!”

“My pistols are clean, I presume?”

“Yes, sir!”

I wrote a letter or two, read a volume of “Ni
jamais, ni toujours,” and about noon a captain of
dragoons was announced, bringing me the expected
cartel. Percie came in, treading gingerly in a pair
of tight French boots, but behaving exceedingly like
a gentleman, and after a little conversation, managed on
his part strictly according to my instructions, he took
his cane and walked off with his friend of the steel
scabbard to become acquainted with the ground.

The gray of a heavenly summer morning was
brightening above the chimneys of the fair city of
Vienna as I stepped into a caléche, followed by Percie.
With a special passport (procured by the politeness
of my antagonist) we made our sortie at that early
hour from the gates, and crossing the glacis, took the
road to the banks of the Danube. It was but a mile
from the city, and the mist lay low on the face of the
troubled current of the river, while the towers and
pinnacles of the silent capital cut the sky in clear and
sharp lines—as if tranquillity and purity, those immaculate
hand-maidens of nature, had tired of innocence
and their mistress—and slept in town!

I had taken some coffee and broiled chicken before
starting, and (removed thus from the category of the
savage unbreakfasted) I was in one of those moods of
universal benevolence, said (erroneously) to be produced
only by a clean breast and milk diet. I could
have wept, with Wordsworth, over a violet.

My opponent was there with his dragoon, and Percie,
cool and gentlemanlike, like a man who “had
served,” looked on at the loading of the pistols, and
gave me mine with a very firm hand, but with a moisture
and anxiety in his eye which I have remembered
since. We were to fire any time after the counting
of three, and having no malice against my friend,
whose impertinence to a lady was (really!) no business
of mine, I intended, of course, to throw away my fire.

The first word was given and I looked at my antagonist,
who, I saw at a glance, had no such gentle
intentions. He was taking deliberate aim, and in the
four seconds that elapsed between the remaining two
words, I changed my mind (one thinks so fast when
his leisure is limited!) at least twenty times whether I
should fire at him or no.

“Trois!” pronounced the dragoon, from a throat
like a trombone, and with the last thought, up flew
my hand, and as my pistol discharged in the air, my
friend's shot struck upon a large turquoise which I
wore on my third finger, and drew a slight pencil-line
across my left organ of causality. It was well aimed
for my temple, but the ring had saved me.

Friend of those days, regretted and unforgotten!
days of the deepest sadness and heart-heaviness, yet
somehow dearer in remembrance than all the joys I
can recall—there was a talisman in thy parting gift thou
didst not think would be, one day, my angel!

“You will be able to wear your hair over the scar,
sir!” said Percie, coming up and putting his finger on
the wound.

“Monsieur!” said the dragoon, advancing to Percie
after a short conference with his principal, and
looking twice as fierce as before.

“Monsieur!” said Percie, wheeling short upon him.

“My friend is not satisfied. He presumes that
monsieur l'Anglais wishes to trifle with him.”

“Then let your friend take care of himself,” said I,
roused by the unprovoked murderousness of the feeling.
Load the pistols, Percie! In my country,” I
continued, turning to the dragoon, “a man is disgraced
who fires twice upon an antagonist who has spared
him! Your friend is a ruffian, and the consequences
be on his own hand!”

We took our places and the first word was given,
when a man dashed between us on horseback at topspeed.
The violence with which he drew rein brought
his horse upon his haunches, and he was on his feet in
half a breath.

The idea that he was an officer of the police was
immediately dissipated by his step and air. Of the
finest athletic form I had ever seen, agile, graceful,
and dressed pointedly well, there was still an indefinable
something about him, either above or below
a gentleman—which, it was difficult to say. His
features were slight, fair, and, except a brow too
heavy for them and a lip of singular and (I thought)
habitual defiance, almost feminine. His hair grew
long and had been soigné, probably by more caressing
fingers than his own, and his rather silken mustache
was glossy with some odorent oil. As he
approached me and took my hand, with a clasp like a
smith's vice, I observed these circumstances, and could
have drawn his portrait without ever seeing him again—
so marked a man was he, in every point and feature.

His business was soon explained. He was the
husband of the lady my opponent had insulted, and
that pleasant gentleman could, of course, make no objection
to his taking my place. I officiated as tèmoin,
and, as they took their position, I anticipated for the
dragoon and myself the trouble of carrying them both
off the field. I had a practical assurance of my friend's
pistol, and the stranger was not the looking man to
miss a hair's breadth of his aim.

The word was not fairly off my lips when both
pistols cracked like one discharge, and high into the
air sprang my revengeful opponent, and dropped like
a clod upon the grass. The stranger opened his
waistcoat, thrust his fore-finger into a wound in his
left breast, and slightly closing his teeth, pushed a
bullet through, which had been checked by the bone
and lodged in the flesh near the skin. The surgeon
who had accompanied my unfortunate antagonist, left
the body, which he had found beyond his art, and
readily gave his assistance to stanch the blood of my
preserver; and jumping with the latter into my caléche,
I put Percie upon the stranger's horse, and we drove
back to Vienna.

The market people were crowding in at the gate,
the merry peasant girls glanced at us with their blue,
German eyes, the shopmen laid out their gay wares
to the street, and the tide of life ran on as busily and
as gayly, though a drop had been extracted, within
scarce ten minutes, from its quickest vein. I felt a
revulsion at my heart, and grew faint and sick. Is a
human life—is my life worth anything, even a thought,
to my fellow-creatures? was the bitter question forced
upon my soul. How icily and keenly the unconscious
indifference of the world penetrates to the nerve and
marrow of him who suddenly realizes it.

We dashed through the kohl-market, and driving
into the porte-cochére of a dark-looking house in one
of the cross streets of that quarter, were ushered into
apartments of extraordinary magnificence.