een
listening.

"Oh, that must have been my steward, Hans Gingel. I know he plays the
fiddle," observed Mynheer Bunckum, "and he sometimes goes to some
out-of-the-way corner that he may not disturb the rest of the household,
who are not generally inclined to be enraptured by his music."

"But he must, I assure you, be a very good player," urged the fair
Isabelle.

"I dare say he can manage to produce a few good notes sometimes," said
Mynheer Bunckum, in a careless tone. "Probably distance lent
enchantment to the sound. I will not advise you to allow him to play
very near at hand."

Vrouw Isabelle looked puzzled, and began to fancy that her ears had
deceived her; at all events, the Count had not obtained the advocate he
might have gained, had she known who was the hidden musician to whom she
had been listening. Mynheer Bunckum waited till his guests were gone,
when he summoned his steward, Hans Gingel. "Has anything been heard of
the other stranger?" he asked.

"I have him safe enough in the dungeon," answered the steward. "He is
not a bad fellow after all, as he takes the way he has been treated with
wonderful good humour." And the steward described the mode in which he
had hauled the Count out of the well. "He is a rare player, too, on the
violin, and I lent him mine to amuse himself with."

"Then it was not your music with which Vrouw Isabelle was so delighted
just now," observed Mynheer Bunckum.

"No, no, no!" answered the steward laughing, "my strains are not
calculated to draw tears from a lady's eyes; to tell you the truth,
Mynheer, I believe he is a Count after all."

"His playing only agrees with the story of his being a travelling
musician," observed Mynheer Bunckum.

"But travelling musicians are not as polite and well-mannered as our
prisoner," said the steward. "I know a gentleman when I meet him."

"But supposing he is a real Count, and the other fellow who was so
unceremoniously kicked out of the place is a Baron, I may be somewhat in
a scrape," said Mynheer Bunckum.

"I will enable you to get out of it, then," said Hans Gingel. "Let me
visit the prisoner, and propose to him to make his escape. He has
really won my regard, and I should be glad, were it not displeasing to
you, to set him at liberty. He will only be too happy, I suspect, to
get away, and will probably not trouble you, or the family of Mynheer
Van Arent, any longer by his presence."

"But I accused him and his comp