ghly exasperated. Reconciliation was held to be impossible.
Disunion and civil war, that most wretched, most shameful warfare, were
declared inevitable.

The canton of Unterwalden was divided into two districts, each including
one of the two great gorges of that region. Each of these valleys had
its own towering mountains, with rocky summits, wooded heights, and
green alpine pastures. Through each flowed a stream, or rather wild
torrent, and the more level lands on their banks were thickly sprinkled
with rustic dwellings, in near neighborhood. Stantz, the seat of the
Diet, and a mere village, was the principal town of Lower Unterwalden.
The sister valley of Upper Unterwalden was the most fertile and
beautiful. Its chief village was Sarnen. A stream called the Melch ran
through a branch of the valley, to which it gave its name of Melchthal.
This dale was already noted ground in Swiss history, as the native spot
of two of their heroes. Arnold von Melchthal, the companion of Tell,
was a peasant of this valley, as his name denotes; and Arnold von
Winkelried, to whose heroic self-sacrifice they owed the victory of
Sempach, was also born and lived on the banks of the Melch. During the
time of the critical Diet of Stantz, there lived in this valley a family
by the name of Loewenbrugger. They were among the most important
peasants of the dale. Ten children, five sons and five daughters, had
been born in the paternal cottage. Some were living there at the time,
with their mother, others had married and gone to different homes. The
father was absent. Nicholas Loewenbrugger had for many years held a
conspicuous position in his native district. He had served his country
faithfully on many occasions by his wisdom and his courage. During their
wars he had distinguished himself highly, not only for bravery, but also
for humanity. When still in middle life, however, he had retired from
the little world about him, leaving his paternal estate to the care of
his wife, and choosing a cliff on one of the neighboring mountains, he
there built himself a hermitage, in which he gave up his whole time to
devotion and religious services. So great was the simplicity of his
ascetic life, that it is said his only bed was the floor of his cell,
and his pillow a stone. It was even believed that for years he had taken
no other nourishment than the blessed elements of the holy sacrament.
Whatever exaggerations may have been credited in that superstitious