Meantime, the gentlemen sat outside enjoying their cigars by moonlight, and relating their hunting adventures.  “Ah,” said the Baron, after one of the stories, “that reminds me of a northern friend of mine who was staying with us some years ago.  He was very short-sighted, but passionately fond of a hunt, so we made up several parties, at which he appeared in spectacles, to the great amusement of us all.  He took our jokes in good part, and enjoyed himself without doing any mischief for a time.  One unlucky day, however, I missed our path, and had to descend the mountain in search of some landmark from which to start afresh.  Suddenly, with the exclamation:  ‘Hush! a chamois!’ he leveled his rifle, and before I could say one word he had shot——­a goat!  He was too much vexed to laugh, so I had it all to myself, and it was some minutes before I could assist him to raise the little animal, whose leg was broken.  The flock was not far off, and the herd-boy was evidently searching the wood, having heard the shot.  Now it never would have done to let such an unsportsmanlike event get wind, so we carried the goat to some distance, when, meeting a peasant, we paid him to leave it at a hut on a neighboring Alp, and request it should be taken down to the valley at the first opportunity.  I never mentioned the subject to any one but my brother Heinrich.  Some time after, he was hunting in the same locality, and came upon a lad who was crying, with a regular mountain voice, for the loss of that very goat, for which it seemed his mother had to pay.  I must confess, the consequence of kidnapping the animal for a time had never struck me, and I was therefore glad to know that my brother had given the lad money enough to pay all damages.  But come, it is time we tried our hay-berths, for if we can’t sleep we can rest.”

Stephan, who had been eagerly listening, exclaimed:  “Oh, please sir, wait a moment.  I was that boy to whom the gentleman gave the money, and he told me he should expect it returned if I ever found the goat.  Some time afterward I did find it, and I have always carried the money sewn into my coat-pocket in case I should meet the gentleman again when I am away from home, but I never did so; perhaps, sir, you will be kind enough to give it to him,” he added, beginning to unfasten the little packet from the lining of his side-pocket.

Turning to Brand, the Baron asked if he knew anything of this romantic goat story.

“Yes, indeed, sir, and so does every one in the village, for the boy got into trouble with the neighbors, who all thought he had been throwing stones at the animal, and they even turned him out of his situation, but, as luck would have it, something else was offered the same day, so that it did not hurt him or his mother either.”

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me.  I had always wished to make violins and zithers, and owing to that accident I got my wish,” said Stephan, in reply to the Baron’s expressions of regret.