ly upon
his hands. He thought the old reaper weary and sluggish, for the scythe
flies fast only when we employ or enjoy the moments. The autumn blast
was beginning to lend a thousand bright colors to the trees, and the
giddy leaves, like giddy mortals, threw off their simple green for the
gaudy livery that was but a prelude to their fall--for the beauty that,
like the dying note of the swan, was but the beauty of death. It was the
season of all others for the chase, that health-giving but dangerous
pastime, which our ancestors pursued with almost incredible eagerness,
hunting the stag or the boar, over hill and dale, bog and jungle,
through every twist and turn, as their Anglo-Saxon descendants now
pursue the flying dollar.

But Gilbert often declined the invitation of the forester to fly the
falcon, rarely indulging in his favorite amusement. He preferred to
wander along the borders of the magnificent Lake of Constance, or to
loiter among the neighboring hills, and watch, from some bare peak, the
broad-winged vulture sailing slowly and steadily through the skies. He
would watch it until it became a mere speck in the blue distance: we may
often catch ourselves gazing after receding objects as though they were
bearing away a thought we had fixed upon them. His wound was nearly
well, and the freshness of health was again in his cheeks; but his
spirit had lost a part of its sprightliness, and he seemed to have grown
older. He did not evince his former relish for the manuscripts of
Herman, but his visits to the chapel were more frequent and lasted
longer. Thus, day after day, he would study the lake, the clouds, and
the cliffs, neither fearing an attack from the men of Stramen, nor
meditating one against them.

We shall leave him in his inactivity, to trace the progress of events
which form one of the most important and exciting periods in history.

Rodolph was not a moment too soon in concentrating his power; for Henry
IV, flushed with his recent victory over the Saxons, had called at
Goslar a diet of the princes of the empire, under the pretext of
deciding, in their presence, the fate of their Saxon prisoners. Only a
small minority of the princes obeyed the summons; but the real object of
the king became evident when he made them swear to exalt, upon his own
death, Conrad his son, a minor, to the throne. In the meantime, the news
of the nomination of Hidolph, as successor to the sainted Anno, had
spread to Rome. The Po