Albert hoped to add to his stock of knowledge, when an accident, which happened to one of the carriages, obliged them to stop for a few days at a village not many leagues distant from the principal mine.

The second day after their arrival at this place, Albert and his tutor, accompanied by Frederic and a person of the name of Snakeroot, a college friend of Frederic's, who had, apparently by accident, joined his party at the Hague, set out upon a long walk, to which Mr. Milner was unequal. The country was moun tainous; but the scenery was romantic, and amply repaid them for the trouble they had taken in exploring it. As they were returning from their ramble, they were attracted by the roar of a water-fall, of which they determined to have a view; and, directed by the noise of the cataract, proceeded

proceeded through a deep valley into a narrow rocky glen, where they beheld the entrance into several mines. The whole appeared to them to have been long deserted. Nor did they observe the track of human footstep, except at one particular place, and in following it, they were led to the mouth of a deep and horrible pit, which Albert immediately conjectured to be the shaft of one of the

copper mines, with which that part of the country abounded. Near the top of the dark abyss, a bucket, half filled with ore, was suspended by a strong rope from a windlass, which appeared to be worked by a wheel of complicated machinery. The construction of it was not understood by any of the party. A wish for information on the part of Albert, and a vague curiosity on the part of his companions, rendered them equally

VQL. I.

K

eager

eager to discover the secret spring by which the machine was to be set in motion; and in a fatal moment the discovery was made by both the young gentlemen in the same in

stant.

Albert would have paused for reflec tion, but Frederic was impetuously urgent to try the experiment without delay. The tutor and Snakeroot lent their assistance. The hasp was lifted. The bucket began instantly to descend with violence. The wheel turned furiously round. They had no means of stopping the frightful velocity of its movement, nor a moment's time to escape the consequences of its destructive force. It broke to pieces with a dreadful crash, and sent about the fragments of its broken limbs in every direction but that in which the travellers stood; so that they were saved almost by miracle

from

from destruction. They all in the same moment thought they heard a groan issue from the bottom of the pit; but as no answer was returned to the earnest inquiries of Albert, they imagined they had been mistaken; and, greatly agitated by their adventure, hastened to quit the scene of their achievement.

On coming to the narrow pass by which they had entered the glen, and which indeed seemed to be no other than a fissure opened in the rock by some convulsion of nature, they observed a placard, which had before escaped their notice.

It began by enumerating the many titles of the high and puissant baron to whom these mountains and their mines belonged; and then prohibited, upon pain of confiscation of goods, and loss of life and limb, all persons, of whatever rank or degree, from entering

K 2

entering that pass without a special licence.

Of this many-titled baron they had already heard, and knew him to be represented as one of the most impracticable of all the petty tyrants that pride, power, and property, ever produced. On discovering to whom the place belonged, Albert, who had at first determined to give immediate information of what had been done, in order to reimburse the proprietor for the damage, agreed to postpone offering the compensation, till they were out of the reach of his jurisdiction, and proceeded with his companions to the inn, where they had left Mr. Milner.

Here Albert found letters, forwarded by express from Vienna, the contents of which left him but faint hopes of being able, with all the speed he could use, to reach England