company of his equals; and ride when he did not wish to ride, since
he preferred the society of a horse." This to be sure was a very
silly explosion of hereditary pique; and merely proved how singularly
unmeaning our sayings are apt to become, when we desire to be
unusually energetic.

The charitable, nevertheless, attributed the alteration in the
conduct of the young nobleman to the natural sorrow of a son for the
untimely loss of his parents - forgetting, however, his atrocious and
reckless behavior during the short period immediately succeeding that
bereavement. Some there were, indeed, who suggested a too haughty
idea of self-consequence and dignity. Others again (among them may be
mentioned the family physician) did not hesitate in speaking of
morbid melancholy, and hereditary ill-health; while dark hints, of a
more equivocal nature, were current among the multitude.

Indeed, the Baron's perverse attachment to his lately-acquired
charger - an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from
every fresh example of the animal's ferocious and demon-like
propensities - at length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men, a
hideous and unnatural fervor. In the glare of noon - at the dead hour
of night - in sickness or in health - in calm or in tempest - the
young Metzengerstein seemed rivetted to the saddle of that colossal
horse, whose intractable audacities so well accorded with his own
spirit.

There were circumstances, moreover, which coupled with late
events, gave an unearthly and portentous character to the mania of
the rider, and to the capabilities of the steed. The space passed
over in a single leap had been accurately measured, and was found to