Chapter 8 - Page 2

performed not only so well, but for so long a period,
by an unbroken succession of patriots descended from the same stock. They
who judged of the value attached to the possession of this charge, by the
animation with which all attempts to relieve them of the burthen were
repelled, must have been in error; for, to hear their friends descant on
the difficulties of the duties, of the utter impossibility that they
should be properly discharged by any family that had not been in their
exercise just one hundred and seventy-two years and a half, the precise
period of the hard servitude of the Hofmeisters, and the rare merit of
their self-devotion to the common good, it would seem that they were so
many modern Curtii, anxious to leap into the chasm of uncertain and
endless toil, to save the Republic from the ignorance and peculations of
certain interested and selfish knaves, who wished to enjoy the same high
trusts, for a motive so unworthy as that of their own particular
advantage. This subject apart, however, and with a strong reservation in
favor of the supremacy of Berne, on whom his importance depended, a better
or a more philanthropic man than Peter Hofmeister would not have been
easily found. He was a hearty laugher, a hard drinker, a common and
peculiar failing of the age, a great respecter of the law, as was meet in
one so situated, and a bachelor of sixty-eight, a time of life that, by
referring his education to a period more remote by half a century, than
that in which the incidents of our legend took place, was not at all in
favor of any very romantic predilection in behalf of the rest of the human
race. In short, the Herr Hofmeister was a bailiff, much as Balthazar was a
headsman, on account of some particular merit or demerit, (it might now be
difficult to say which,) of one of his ancestors, by the laws of the
canton, and by the opinions of men. The only material difference between
them was in the fact, that the one greatly enjoyed his station, while the
other had but an indifferent relish for his trust.

When Roger de Blonay, by the aid of a good glass, had assured himself that
the bark which lay off St. Saphorin, in the even tide, with yards
a-cock-bill, and sails pendent in their picturesque drapery, contained a
party of gentle travellers who occupied the stern, and saw by the plumes
and robes that a female of condition was among them, he gave an order to
prepare the beacon-fire, and descended to the port, in order to be in
readiness to receive his friend. Here he found the bailiff, pacing the
public promenade, which is washed by the limpid water of the lake, with
the air of a man who had more on his mind than the daily cares of office.
Although the Baron de Blonay was a Vaudois, and looked upon all the