The guardian of the city improved the calm produced by this little
incident, to regain a portion of his lost authority. Beating back the
crowd with his cane, he cleared a space around the gate into which but
one of the travellers could enter at a time, while he professed himself
not only ready but determined to proceed with his duty, without further
procrastination. Baptiste, the patron, who beheld the precious moments
wasting, and who, in the delay, foresaw a loss of wind, which, to one of
his pursuits, was loss of money, now earnestly pressed the travellers to
comply with the necessary forms, and to take their stations in his bark
with all convenient speed.

"Of what matter is it," continued the calculating waterman, who was rather
conspicuously known for the love of thrift that is usually attributed to
most of the inhabitants of that region, "whether there be one headsman or
twenty in the bark, so long as the good vessel can float and steer? Our
Leman winds are fickle friends, and the wise take them while in the humor.
Give me the breeze at west, and I will load the Winkelried to the water's
edge with executioners, or any other pernicious creatures thou wilt, and
thou mayest take the lightest bark that ever swam in the _bise_, and let
us see who will first make the haven of Vévey!"

The loudest, and in a sense that is very important in all such
discussions, the principal, speaker in the dispute, was the leader of the
Neapolitan _troupe_, who, in virtue of good lungs, an agility that had no
competitor in any present, and a certain mixture of superstition and
bravado, that formed nearly equal ingredients in his character, was a man
likely to gain great influence with those who, from their ignorance and
habits, had an inherent love of the marvellous, and a profound respect for
all who possessed, in acting, more audacity, and, in believing, more
credulity than themselves. The vulgar like an excess, even if it be of