ll not bring it down."

All his pride arose; his sunken face became full; his form seemed to
grow larger. The judge's wife did not know what more to say; and she
would have been heard no longer, for a thousand voices cried:

"Walderjoergli! The Master of Justice! Walderjoergli!"

The cry spread, the girls and children on the further meadow took it
up; crying, "Walderjoergli!"

A man appeared, who stood head and shoulders above all who surrounded
him. His head was covered with soft, snow-white hair; his snow-white
beard fell far down to his breast, and his face, with its heavy
contracted brows and its large nose, looked as if chiseled with an axe.

"Hutadi! Hutadi!" screamed Landolin, springing up as if in a frenzy,
and dashing into the crowd. "Hutadi!" he screamed, stretching out his
arms, and clenching his fist in Titus' face.

CHAPTER LII.

"Be quiet, Landolin! The time for that has gone by," said Walderjoergli
in a commanding tone; and laid his broad hand between the combatants.
They stood still; but their chests heaved, and they looked down at the
ground like chidden boys.

The ancient cry of defiance, "Hutadi!"--no one knows exactly what it
means; probably 'Beware' or 'Take care of yourself'--was formerly
regarded as a challenge which no one could refuse. When it rang out,
whether from forest or from meadow, whoever heard it must give battle
to him who called.

In his youth, Walderjoergli had been considered the readiest and most
powerful of combatants; but in his riper years he had become one of the
most even-tempered and circumspect of men, so that he was elected
Master of Justice for the forest republic in the mountain; which, as an
independent peasant state, acknowledged no lord but the emperor.

Joergli settled lawsuits, decreed punishments, and in conjunction with
the council, apportioned the taxes; and all without appeal.

Joergli was the only survivor of that last embassy which the forest
peasants sent to the emperor at Vienna, to protest against being made
subject to any prince. They desired to remain a free peasantry of the
empire. Joergli insisted that he was ninety-three years of age, but it
was universally believed that he was already over a hundred; for the
church registers had been burned with the church and parsonage in
Napoleon's time.

The thought flashed through Landolin's mind that Walderjoergli could,
with one stroke, reinstate him in all his