A very pandemonium of sounds saluted our ears as we emerged from the
forest--lowings and roarings and shriekings of fighting cattle, wild
hoots from hoarse masculine throats, the shrill tones of a woman's
angry voice, the discordant notes of an accordion, the shuffle of heavy
dancing feet. We had but happened upon a band of cow-hunters returning
homeward with their spoils, and the fightings of their imprisoned
cattle were only less frightful than their own wild orgies. If we had
often before been reminded of Italian skies and of the freshness and
brightness of Swiss mountain-air, now thoughts of the Black Forest,
with all of weird or horrible that we had ever read of that storied
country, rushed to our minds--robber-haunted mills, murderous inns,
treacherous hosts, "terribly-strange beds." Not that we apprehended
real danger, but to our unfranchised and infant minds the chills and
fevers which mayhap lurked in the mist-clothed forest, or even a
wandering "cat," seemed less to be dreaded than the wild bacchanals who
surrounded us. We would fain have returned, but it was too late. Barney
was already in the power of unseen hands, which had seized upon him in
the darkness; an old virago had ordered us into the house; and when we
had declined to partake of the relics of a feast which strewed the
table, we were ignominiously consigned to a den of a lean-to opening
upon the piazza.
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