Had it not been for the fierce conflict around the German throne, in which the family of Habsburg became involved immediately after Rudolf's death, the Forest States would probably at this time have experienced the full resentment which their independent action was calculated to provoke, but as it was they escaped untouched for more than twenty years. Adolf of Nassau, Albrecht of Habsburg-Austria, Henry of Luxemburg, and Ludwig of Bavaria succeeded each other upon the throne, and still the day of reckoning did not come. Adolf and Henry confirmed the charters issued by Frederic II., and Albrecht, in spite of what the sixteenth century chronicles say, does not seem to have interfered with the liberties of the people. It is true that Henry ordered an exhaustive investigation to be made into the rights of Habsburg in the Forest States, but he died before the promised inquiry could be made, and the whole subject was pressed into the background by the difficulties experienced in finding a successor to the crown.

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It is impossible to judge how long this mutual hostility between the Forest States and their traditional enemy might have lain dormant, had not the men of Schwyz, in the next reign, under Frederic of Habsburg-Austria, committed unpardonable outrage upon the neighboring abbey of Einsiedeln, an institution which was under the protection of Habsburg. During the night of the 6th of January, 1314, a marauding band from Schwyz attacked the monastery, took the sleeping monks prisoners, penetrated into the cellars, broke open the doors of the sanctuary, and in drunken fury overthrew

ments and relics. At daybreak they departed with their prisoners and the cattle they had found on the place. The whole story of this raid has been told in a Latin poem by one of the suffering monks, and though the narrative cannot be considered as impartial evidence, still, when we have made due allowance for some very natural exaggerations, we are forced to acknowledge that the incident reflects but little credit on the men of Schwyz.

In fact a dispute had existed from the earliest times between the markgenossenschaft of Schwyz and the abbey of Einsiedeln, in regard to certain forests and Alpine pastures, lying on the confines of their respective territories. For the better part of two centuries the rivals had robbed, burned, and retaliated upon each other. Several German sovereigns had been obliged to interfere in order to bring about even temporary cessations of hostilities, and this outbreak was a final spurt of the slumbering quarrel.

Habsburg's exasperation was complete. The failure of the investigation ordered by Henry VII., and now this outrageous behavior of Schwyz, made it impossible to arrive at a peaceful solution of the question of Habsburg's rights. Day by day the conviction forced itself upon the parties involved that the relations which existed between them could not continue, and that the final decision must be reached in a resort to arms. Of course this struggle was only an incident in a much wider conflict, which was going on everywhere at this time, between the peasants and nobles. Each side followed the dictates of self-interest, with no more reference to general principles of equity than we find amongst semi-barbaric nations of to-day, so that it would be unfair to stigmatize the conduct of the ducal house too severely as tyrannical, and to exalt that of the peasants unreservedly as holy and righteous. Undoubtedly the patriots were fighting for the cause of popular liberty, but as far as the law was concerned, Habsburg had a right to resist their attempts at independence.

Both sides made ready for the struggle. In the autumn of 1315, Duke Leopold,

the king's brother, rallied about him a formidable army in the Aargau, composed of vassal knights and infantry recruited from the towns subject to him. Says Johannes Vitoduranus, a contemporary chronicler, to whom we are indebted for the best account of the battle of Morgarten: "The men of this army came together with one purpose, to utterly subdue and humiliate those peasants who were surrounded with mountains as with walls." Leopold's plan of attack was in every way an admirable one, but carelessly carried out. His main force was to march upon Schwyz, over the Sattel Pass and skirting the ridge of Morgarten, while minor detachments operated against Unterwalden, so as to involve the Forest States in a network from which there could be no escape.

In the meantime, the confederates fortified their frontiers, and got ready their famous halberds, formidable weapons of their own invention, to be used in striking, thrusting and dragging men from their horses; nor did they forget to offer public prayers for heavenly aid, according to their custom before setting out on any undertaking.

So few people have ever taken the trouble to visit the battleground of Morgarten, that a general ignorance of its position and strategic points prevails even among the Swiss.

After having studied

the course of this battle in the pages of Swiss historians, without obtaining a very clear conception of its different phases, I determined to settle the matter by examining the ground in person.

Morgarten is not a terrifying, craggy, Alpine pass, as popular imagination has painted it, but the ridge of a chain of hills, situated in the rolling country which lies between the lakes of Lucerne and Zürich. If the scenery can be said to be remarkable at all, it is by reason of a certain gentle charm, due to the absence of the higher Alps, and the softness of the velvet slopes. An impress of profound peace rests upon the land, in strange contrast to the warlike reminiscences which it evokes. I lunched upon the green where the early confederates had routed the invaders nigh upon six centuries before, and questioned a few peasants who

were haying in the brilliant sunshine, about the positions occupied by the contending forces. After studying the ground, and coming to a satisfactory solution of the questions involved, with the help of Dändliker's "Geschichte der Schweiz." I shouldered the knapsack in which I carried my meagre tourist effects, and followed the carriage road along the little lake of Ægeri, rejoicing in the exquisite coloring which made even this comparatively magnificent sheet of water a jewel of priceless worth. At nightfall I reached the little village of Unter-geri, from whence the main force of the Austrian knights advanced upon Schwyz on the memorable 15th of November, 1315.

On that day the forces of Schwyz, with reinforcements from Uri and Unterwalden were posted on the Sattel pass, to dispute the passage of the Austrians. The noble knights rode towards them in the best of spirits along the road which skirts the lake, jesting as though out for a day's sport, and never for one moment doubting that they would return victorious. At the other end of the lake, the old path, the one in use at the time of the battle, branches off to the left of the modern carriage road, leading along the slope of the ridge of Morgarten to join the modern road again at an old piece of fortification, called the Tower of Schorne. Keep this old path in mind, for it alone reveals the secret of the Swiss victory. As the knights were riding up the path, weighed down by heavy accoutrements, their line of battle necessarily broken, they came to a spot which suddenly placed them at a great disadvantage if they should be attacked. hind them was the steep path which they had mounted, on their right flank a detached hillock, and on their left the ridge of Morgarten. Here the battle must have been fought, if the early accounts of the course of events are to have any meaning. When thus hemmed in, the Austrians suddenly heard a loud, roaring noise, and looking up beheld an avalanche of rocks and trees rolling down upon them from the Figlerfluh, a prominent spur of the ridges of Morgarten. A somewhat mistrusted tradition says that this first blow was dealt by a detachment

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of fifty men of Schwyz, who had been banished from their country, and were desirous of proving their loyalty by some act of patriotism. Be that as it may, the effect of their plan was instantaneous: the Austrians were thrown into the wildest confusion, and at this moment, the main force of the Confederates rushed from their position further up the path, swing ing their deadly halberds, and hurled themselves against the invaders with a momentum made irresistible by their descent. Unable to deploy their mounted force in this natural trap, the Austrians were obliged to yield in the direction of the lake, whence they had come. The retreat turned into flight, the battle into slaughter. Some were crushed by the falling masses, some hewn down, and others crowded into the lake, where they were drowned in their armor; the rest fled to the friendly shelter of the towns which were under Austria's protection. Amongst the knights who reached Winterthur that night, our chronicler, John of Winterthur, saw "Lupold, who seemed half-dead with overpowering sorrow. That I saw with my own eyes," he assures us, "for I was a schoolboy at that time, and ran in great glee to meet my father at the gate, with other older schoolboys." Many a noble family in those parts mourned a father, son, or brother, on that day, but the loss of the Confederates was insignificant. "When the fight was over, the men of Schwyz pulled off the weapons of the killed and drowned, robbed them also of their other possessions, and enriched themselves with arms and money." In order to commemorate the victory, a chapel was erected near by, dedicated to St. Jacob, where I found a rude, but exceed ingly graphic picture of the battle to guide me in studying the topographical features.

Morgarten was one of the first occasions in the Middle Ages, perhaps the very first, on which an army of mounted knights was conquered by peasants on foot; so that for this reason, if for no other, it deserves an important place in the annals of military tactics. The Bernese chronicler, Justinger, supplies an

anecdote which, if true, shows that one person at least in the Austrian camp was not without apprehensions. Jenni von Stocken, the duke's fool, when asked what he thought of the plan of invasion, remarked that he did not like it: "You have all taken counsel how best to get into the country, but have given no explanation of how you are going to get out again!"

As in the league of 1291 we heralded the birth of the Confederation, so in this battle we can recognize its martial, baptismal day; for henceforth the Forest States were admitted to membership in the company of the nations, modest newcomers occupying humble positions, but none the less worthy of admiration and respect. We can therefore leave our subject at this point with the satisfaction of knowing that the young nation had taken its first step successfully, and stood armed at all points to maintain its independence. The future was to bring many a storm to be braved, invasions of foreign foes to be repulsed, and internal dissensions to be quelled. There was to be the critical battle at Sempach; each new state, as it sought admission into the Confederation, was to have its own war of independence to fight before it could become a member; the struggle with Habsburg was not finally laid aside until 1474, when a permanent peace was at length concluded; there were the bloody Burgundian wars, the so-called Swabian war against the German emperor himself, the troubles produced by the Reformation, and the crop of little wars which sprang up from this soil fertile in dissensions, the last of which was actually fought in 1847-48. From all these trials the young Confederation emerged victorious, and the perpetual league, "decreed for the common weal and health," has justified the faith which the early patriots reposed in it; for after six centuries of growth from the rudiments of liberty to its full flower, the Swiss Confederation in the present day displays the inspiring spectacle of the best governed and the best organized of all the democratic states in existence.

HE spring sunshine was coming in at the west window of Professor Bainbridge's room, and making a painful glare across the papers which scattered on the

were

table

that was drawn up to the slippery horse-hair sofa upon which he was lying. The room was ugly and commonplace, and the professor had an insuperable objection to both of these characteristics. He sighed as he glanced at the impossible brick-colored roses with arsenic-green leaves, that formed the pattern of the wall-paper, which, to make it still more unendurable, was divided into diamond-shaped compartments by heavy black lines supposed to indicate a lattice. There were six roses and three buds in each diamond; how many times he had counted them! The walls were adorned with uninteresting engravings and portraits of the class that are banished to the attic in houses where respect for art outweighs respect for family. The professor sighed once more when he thought of the dreary weeks that he must pass in these uncongenial surroundings. But at this point his attention was arested by the sound of voices in the porch Delow him; one was the familiar treble of the daughter of the house, while the other was that of an elderly neighbor.

"Do tell me something about your new boarder, Professor Bainbridge," she was asking. "Hannah Harwood says that he has written learned books and clever short stories that have made a great stir. Is that a fact?"

Fame is sweet, no matter from how humble a source it is awarded. The professor smiled complacently.

"Mr. Bainbridge is a professor at a Western college," the younger voice answered indifferently," and I believe he has written some stories."

"So Hannah was right," Mrs. Brown responded. "I thought she must be

mistaken, for I caught a glimpse of him. the day he came to town as he drove past our house, and I thought he looked very insignificant."

At this juncture, the professor began to be troubled by doubts as to whether he ought to listen to a conversation which evidently had not been designed for his amusement.

"What's the matter with him?" inquired Mrs. Brown.

"He has overworked, and had a low, nervous fever, which has left him -- out of spirits, to put it mildly. You know he came here to be under Uncle Frank's care, but the Sanitarium is full, so we have taken him in."

"What does he say, and do? Tell me everything; it is so interesting to hear about nervous patients."

"He doesn't say anything, that is just the trouble," Carrie Swift replied. "He sat perfectly silent at table for the first four days after he came, when to the relief of the family he took to his room with water on the knee."

"The poor man must have melancholia. Does he literally never speak?"

"He can talk enough to ask for fifty things he wants, and to send me up and down stairs twenty times a day to get them, but not enough to be polite. I don't see any excuse for his looking like a funeral; I believe people can be cheerful if they choose; but Uncle Frank says"here the speaker's voice was lowered, and the professor became doubly sure that it was dishonorable to listen any longer. He tortured himself with vain speculations as to the revelations that followed, which he knew only too well must be inimical to himself. The thoughts thus suggested followed him into the night, and banished sleep effectually from his eyelids.

The next morning he awaited Miss Swift's arrival with feverish impatience. She came at last, bringing him his breakfast, as usual.

"I hope you had a good night," she said, as she deposited the tray on the table by his side.

"Thank you, I did not sleep at all," he replied coldly.

Carrie Swift gave him a glance at once compassionate and contemptuous. She was a little creature, with a slight undeveloped figure, and a careworn expression that seemed unsuited to her nineteen years.

"Sit down," said the professor in a peremptory tone. "There is something that I wish to say to you."

Carrie obeyed.

"I could not help overhearing a part of your conversation with your friend last evening," he went on swiftly," and I regret exceedingly to have given you so much trouble. I beg you to believe that I shall be more considerate in future; but in return I will request you to abstain from talking me over."

His manner was haughty, even stern, for there was nothing about the sharp-featured, freckled young person before him to arouse either his interest or consideration. He thought her face one of the plainest that he had ever seen, and its lack of physical attraction was not atoned for by any charm of expression.

As she listened to his words a painful flush mounted to her cheeks. “I—I— am sorry that you heard me," she stammered.

"I am glad, that as such observations were made, I overheard them."

"After all," and she faced him with a look half appealing, half defiant, "it was the truth."

"Did that justify you in gossiping about me? Put yourself in my place. Imagine yourself confined to your room, with your nervous system in a shattered condition, and little occupation but your morbid fancies, and ask yourself if, under these conditions, it would be easy to retain your cheerfulness? If you became depressed and silent, would you enjoy being held up to ridicule to the whole neighborhood?" Professor Bainbridge had grown angry under the recapitulation of his wrongs. "Will you promise to desist from discussing me in future?" he concluded in an authoritative and superior

tone that roused his companion, who would gladly have agreed to anything had he been more considerate.

"I will promise nothing," she said with a flash from her gray eyes. "Do you think you have a harder time than the rest of us? Put yourself in my place. Imagine yourself washing dishes and sweeping rooms until you were ready to drop, and having to stay at home from drives and sewing-circles in the afternoon because somebody might want to have the window open, and then find that there was a draught and want it shut again. Somebody who never spoke to you except to say thank you,' shortly, as if he thought he should die if he said anything more. Do you suppose I find it easy to be cheerful? And yet I manage it."

Greatly to Carrie's surprise, the professor laughed softly.

"Poor girl, you do have a hard time," he said pleasantly. "Suppose we each try to do what we can toward the amelioration of the conditions of the other?"

self.

His genial manner recalled her to her

"Oh, what have I said!" she exclaimed ruefully. "How rude I have been to talk in this way to you, who are a professor, and so old! Please forgive

me.

Ethel is always telling me that I must not say whatever comes into my head, without stopping to think. Ethel Sandford is my most intimate friend. She used to live in Longfield. Ethel is not a bit like me. She is lovely to everybody, even to Mrs. Brown, whom she hates. I will never say another word to Mrs. Brown about you, although it will be hard, for she asks so many questions. It must be dreadful to be shut up in one's room all day. When you have had your breakfast, and I have done the housework, perhaps there is something that I could do to amuse you?”

"Would you read to me?" he asked eagerly.

"Yes. Mother says that I read awfully, but as she has a cold, I will do the best I can."

Mr. Bainbridge awaited her return with absolute impatience. Her flash of anger had done what her fortnight of