By their own account they were young men from the villages, who had
Recently taken up this line of life in the mere wild caprice of youth.
They talked of their exploits as a sportsman talks of his amusements.
To shoot down a traveller seemed of little more consequence to them
than to shoot a hare. They spoke with rapture of the glorious roving
life they led; free as birds; here to-day, gone to-morrow; ranging the
forests, climbing the rocks, scouring the valleys; the world their own
wherever they could lay hold of it; full purses, merry companions;
pretty women.--The little antiquary got fuddled with their talk and
their wine, for they did not spare bumpers. He half forgot his fears,
his seal ring, and his family watch; even the treatise on the Pelasgian
cities which was warming under him, for a time faded from his memory,
in the glowing picture which they drew. He declares that he no longer
wonders at the prevalence of this robber mania among the mountains; for
he felt at the time, that had he been a young man and a strong man, and
had there been no danger of the galleys in the background, he should
have been half tempted himself to turn bandit.
At length the fearful hour of separating arrived. The doctor was
suddenly called to himself and his fears, by seeing the robbers resume
their weapons. He now quaked for his valuables, and above all for his
antiquarian treatise. He endeavored, however, to look cool and
unconcerned; and drew from out of his deep pocket a long, lank,
leathern purse, far gone in consumption, at the bottom of which a few
coin chinked with the trembling of his hand.
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