night when the stranger returned, and drove up to the gate; there was now, however, another person with him in the carriage, who had his hat drawn down over his face, and a silk handkerchief bound over his mouth and ears. The clerk at the gate considered it his duty to address the other stranger, and demand his passport, but the latter answered very roughly, grumbling something in a language altogether unintelligible to him.

"It is my nephew," said the strange gentleman to the clerk, in a very friendly manner, while he slipped some silver into his hand, "it is my nephew, he understands very little German, as yet. He has only cursed a little in his language, because we are detained in this way.'

“Ah! if it is your nephew, sir," answered the clerk, "he can, indeed, enter without a pass-he will live with you, without doubt ?"

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Certainly," said the stranger," and he will, probably, remain here for a long time."

The clerk had no farther objections, and the stranger, with his nephew, rode into the town. The burgomaster, and the whole village, were not very well pleased with the conduct of the clerk; he ought, at least, to have remarked some words of the nephew's language, as by that means they could easily have found out of what country he and his uncle were. The clerk declared that it was neither French nor Italian, but it sounded broad like the English, and if he was not mistaken the young gentleman had said “ G— d-." Thus the clerk helped himself out of his difficulty, and the young man to a name, for they now spoke in the village of hardly anything else but the young Englishman.

But this young Englishman also was never visible, neither upon the bowlinggreen nor in the tavern; he gave the people, however, enough to do in another way. It happened often, to wit, that a frightful noise and screaming came from the dwelling of the stranger, which was formerly so still, so that the people would collect in crowds, and look up at the house. They could see the young Englishman in a red frockcoat and green pantaloons, with hair erect and fright ful countenance, running with incredible quickness by the windows, backward and forward, from chamber to chamber, while the old stranger would

run after him in a red dressing-gown, and with a hunting-whip in his hand. It was evident that he often missed him, but sometimes it seemed to the crowd in the street, as if he must have struck the young man, for they heard pitiful cries of distress, and the lashes of the whip sound very distinctly. The ladies of the village took such a lively interest in this cruel treatment of the young stranger, that they at last induced the burgomaster to take a step in the affair. He wrote a note to the strange gentleman, in which he upbraided him with his rigorous treatment of his nephew in tolerably strong terms, and threatened, that if such scenes were to occur again, he would take the young man under his especial protection.

But who could be more astonished than the burgomaster, when he saw the stranger himself enter the house, for the first time in ten years? The old gentleman excused his conduct, with the plea, that such had been the particular charge of the parents of the young man, who had committed him to his care to be educated; he was, in other respects, a ready and apt youth, he declared, but languages he learned with surprising slowness; he wished anxiously, he added, "to bring his nephew to speak the German with fluency, in order that he might then take the liberty of introducing him to the society of Grünwiesel, and yet he caught this language with such extreme difficulty, that oftentimes he could take no better course than to beat it into him with a hunting-whip. The burgomaster was perfectly satisfied with this explanation, counselled the old gentleman to moderation, and declared that evening in the tavern, "that he had rarely known so agreeable and well-informed a man as the stranger. only a pity," he added, "that he goes so little into society, but I think that when his nephew can once speak a little German, he will visit our circle often."

"Tis

The opinion of the whole village was entirely altered by this occurrence. They now looked upon the stranger as an agreeable man, longed for a more intimate acquaintance with him, and found it perfectly in order, when, at times, a frightful screaming was heard in the dreary house. "He is giving his nephew instructions in the German," said the people of Grünwiesel, and remained no more standing before the

Both entered the carriage, the servant sprang up behind, and-only imagine it-they had driven straight to the burgomaster's!

When the ladies heard this from their maids, they hastily tore off their kitchen aprons, and their somewhat soiled caps, and placed themselves in state. "Nothing can be more certain," they said to their families, while they hurried around to arrange the drawing-rooms; "nothing can be more certain than that the old gentleman is now about to introduce his nephew into the world. The old fool has not for these ten years been so polite as to set foot in our house, but we will pardon him for the sake of his nephew, who must be a charming young man." So they said, and directed their sons and daughters to behave themselves with great propriety when the strangers came, to hold themselves erect, and to make use of more select language than at other times. And the shrewd ladies of the town had not guessed amiss, for the old gentleman drove around with his nephew to all in their turn, to introduce him and himself to the favor of their families.

They were now everywhere completely taken up with the strangers, and regretted that they had not earlier made such agreeable acquaintances. The old gentleman showed himself a worthy, sensible man, who, it is true, smiled a little every time he spoke, so that it was not certain whether he was in earnest or otherwise; but still he talked so sensibly and judiciously about the weather, the country, the pleasures of the summer, the inn upon the mountain, that every one was delighted with him. But the nephew! he enchanted everybody; he won all hearts to himself. As to his exterior, they could not indeed call his face handsome; the lower part of it, especially the jaw-bone, projected altogether too far, and his complexion was quite brown; at times also he made various singular grimaces, winked with his eyes, and grinned with his teeth, but still they found the general expression of his features uncommonly interesting. Nothing could be more flexible or active than his figure. His clothes, it is true, fitted somewhat singularly to his body, yet, notwithstanding this, they became him on the whole remarkably well. He would also run about the room with great activity,

throw himself now upon a sofa, then upon a chair, stretching out his legs with the utmost carelessness. But what would have been considered as extremely vulgar and improper in any other young man, was, in the nephew, looked upon as originality. "He is an Englishman," they said; "they are all so; an Englishman will stretch himself upon a sofa, and go to sleep, while ten ladies have no place, and must stand around. Such things are not to be found fault with in an Englishman." Towards his uncle he was very careful and complying, for when he commenced leaping about the room, or to draw up his feet upon the seat, which he liked to do, a grave look from the former was sufficient to put him in order. And how could they blame him moreover, when the uncle said to the ladies in each house, "My nephew is still a little rough and unpolished, but I promise myself everything from society, which will form and improve him, and for this purpose, allow me to present him to you, ladies, as the most perfect school which he can find."

Thus was the nephew introduced into the world; and on this and the following day, all Grunwiesel spoke of nothing but this event. The old gentleman did not stop here; he seemed to have entirely altered his mode of thinking and of living. In the afternoon he would go with his nephew to the inn on the mountain, where the first gentlemen in Grünwiesel drank their beer, and amused themselves with nine-pins. The nephew proved himself a dexterous hand at this game, for he never knocked down less than five or six. Now and then, indeed, a singular humor seemed to come over him, and he would take it into his head to throw the balls like lightning among the pins, and jump about and make a great noise; sometimes, as if overjoyed at a good cast which he had made, he would suddenly stand upon his beautifully curled head, and stick his legs up in the air, or if a carriage happened to drive by, he would seat himself with a leap upon the roof before they were aware of it, make grimaces down at them, ride a little way, and then come leaping back to the company.

At such scenes, the old stranger would beg pardon of the burgomaster and the other gentlemen, for the ill-behavior of his nephew; but they

laughed, ascribed it to his youth, maintained that they themselves had once been as light-footed, and declared that they loved the young "Rattle-brains," as they called him, uncommonly well. But there were times also when they were not a little angry at him, and still they ventured to say nothing, for the young Englishman was universally considered as a pattern of politeness and good sense. The old gentleman, to wit, was accustomed to go with his nephew in the evening to the "Golden Stag," the village tavern. Although the nephew was still a very young man, yet he conducted himself there exactly like an old one; he placed himself behind his tankard, put on an enormous pair of spectacles, took out a monstrous pipe, lighted it, and smoked away with the others at a most furious rate. If they spoke over the newspapers of war or of peace-if the doctor gave this opinion, the burgomaster that, and all the men sat wondering at their deep political knowledge-it would suddenly occur to the nephew to be of an entirely different way of thinking. He would strike upon the table with his hands, from which he never laid aside his gloves, and give the doctor and the burgomaster pretty distinctly to understand, that they knew little of such matters, that he understood the business differently, and possessed a deeper insight. He would then endeavor to explain his opinion in a strangely broken German, which, to the extreme dissatisfaction of the burgomaster, all thought admirable, for, as an Englishman, he must naturally know better than anybody else.

If in their anger, which they durst not give vent to, the burgomaster and the doctor sat down to a game at chess, the nephew followed them, looked with his great spectacles over the burgomaster's shoulder, found fault with this or that move, told the doctor he should play so and so, until they both became pretty well enraged. If the burgomaster, in his vexation, challenged him to a game, thinking to mate him without trouble, for he considered himself a second Philidor, the old gentleman would buckle his nephew's cravat tighter, upon which he became perfectly gentle and sedate, and in a few moves would check-mate the burgomaster.

Until now, they had played at cards, almost every evening in Grünwiesel, or half a kreutzer a game; the nephew

thought this contemptible; he ventured crowns and ducats, and maintained that no one played so well as he. But he commonly reconciled those whom he thus offended by losing great sums to them; they made no scruple to win his money, for "he is an Englishman," they said, "and of course rich," and crammed the ducats into their pockets.

Thus, in a short time, the odd nephew of the strange gentleman had acquired universal respect, both in the village and surrounding country. Since the memory of man, they could not call to mind having seen a young gentleman of this description in Grünwiesel; he was the most singular character they had ever known. It could not be said that the nephew had learned anything, unless, perhaps, to dance. Latin and Greek were "Bohemian villages" to him, as they say. At a round game at the burgomaster's, he was called upon to write something, but it was found that he could not even write his own name; in geography he made the most dreadful blunders; he did not hesitate to transport a German city into France, a Danish city into Poland; he had read nothing, studied nothing, and the parson often shook his head considerately at the great ignorance of the young man. But still they thought everything excellent which he said or did; for he was impudent enough to insist always that he was in the right, and the winding up of all his discourse was, "I understand that much better."

The winter drew on, and now the nephew appeared in still greater glory. All society was found wearisome, if he were not present; they gaped if a reasonable man said anything, but when the nephew uttered the most foolish trash in miserable German, they were all ear. It was now discovered that this excellent young man was a poet; scarcely an evening went by that he did not draw a paper from his pocket, and read to the company a sonnet. It is true there were some who asserted of these poems, on the one hand, that they were wretched and without sense; and on the other, that they had already seen them somewhere in print; but the nephew was not to be put out of countenance. He read and read, called the attention of the young ladies to his verses, and always received a murmur of applause.

His triumph, however, was at the

village balls. There was no one who could dance so nimbly, so unweariedly as he; no one ventured upon such bold, such extraordinarily ornamental pirouettes as this young man. On these occasions, his uncle always dressed him most elegantly in the newest fashion, and although his garments would not sit exactly right upon his figure, yet every one thought him dressed in the most tasteful manner. The gentlemen, it is true, were somewhat displeased at the new way in which he commenced on these occasions. Formerly, the burgomaster in his own person had always opened the ball, and the most respectable young people were then entitled to regulate the remaining dances, but since this strange young man had appeared, all this was changed. Without a question, he took the first lady he encountered, placed himself at the head, was lord, and master, and king of the ball. As the ladies found these manners agreeable and charming, the gentlemen dared not object to them, and the nephew was able to maintain his selfchosen dignity.

These balls seemed to afford the old gentleman the greatest delight: he scarcely turned his eyes from his nephew; he smiled to himself, and when the company crowded around to congratulate him upon having such an agreeable and well-bred nephew, he could scarcely contain himself for joy; he broke out into merry laughter, and behaved himself almost foolishly. The people of Grünwiesel ascribed these singular bursts of delight to the great love he bore his nephew, and thought it all in order. Now and then, however, he was obliged to exercise his paternal care towards the young man, for, in the midst of the most elegant dances, the nephew would take it into his head to seat himself with a bold leap upon the desk where the musicians were placed; or to snatch the double-bass from the hands of the player, and grate frightfully upon it; or he would change at once, and dance upon his hands with his legs in the air. His uncle would then take him aside, make the most serious remonstrances, and buckle his cravat tighter, upon which he became perfectly orderly again.

In this way did the nephew conduct himself in company and at the balls. But it is generally the case with manners, that the bad gain ground much

more easily than the good, and a new striking fashion, although in the highest degree ridiculous, has always something contagious for young people, who have not yet learned to reflect upon themselves and the world. Thus it was also in Grünwiesel with the nephew and his singular habits. When the young people saw that he was rather caressed than blamed, for his awkward behavior, his rude laughing and chattering, his rough answers to his elders, and that all this was even thought original and striking, they said to themselves, "It will be very easy for us also to become geniuses." Formerly they had been industrious, clever young people-"now," thought they," of what assistance is learning when one gets along better with ignorance?" They left their books, and ran about the streets and squares. Formerly they had been courteous towards everybody, had waited until they were spoken to, and then answered civilly and modestly; but now they stood up among the men, chattered, gave their opinions, laughed under the nose of the burgomaster himself when he said anything, and maintained "that they understood all that much better."

The young people of Grünwiesel had formerly entertained an aversion for rude and vulgar behavior; now they sang bad songs, smoked tobacco out of monstrous pipes, and frequented the common taverns. They purchased also great spectacles, although they saw perfectly well, set them upon their noses, and believed themselves accomplished young people, for now they looked just like the renowned nephew. At home, or when on a visit, they threw themselves with their boots and spurs upon the sofa, hitched along upon their chairs when in good company, or leaned their cheeks upon both hands, and their elbows upon the table, which was now considered very attractive. vain did their mothers and friends tell them how foolish, how improper such conduct was; they appealed to the shining example of the nephew. It was of no avail to represent to them that a certain national rudeness must be pardoned in the nephew as a young Englishman; the young people of Grünwiesel declared that they had as good a right as the best Englishman, to be striking and original in a rude way. In short, it was a pity to see how the

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