While this impudent evasion of vigilance was successfully practised by so old an offender, the trio of sentinels, with their volunteer assistant the pilgrim, manifested the greatest anxiety to prevent the contamination of admitting the highest executioner of the law to form one of the strangely assorted company.  No sooner did the Genevese permit a traveller to pass, than they commenced their private and particular examination, which was sufficiently fierce, for more than once had they threatened to turn back the trembling, ignorant applicant on mere suspicion.  The cunning Baptiste lent himself to their feelings with the skill of a demagogue, affecting a zeal equal to their own, while, at the same time, he took care most to excite their suspicions where there was the smallest danger of their being rewarded with success.  Through this fiery ordeal one passed after another, until most of the nameless vagabonds had been found innocent, and the throng around the gate was so far lessened as to allow a freer circulation in the thoroughfare.  The opening permitted the venerable noble, who has already been presented to the reader, to advance to the gate, accompanied by the female, and closely followed by the menials.  The servitor of the police saluted the stranger with deference, for his calm exterior and imposing presence were in singular contrast with the noisy declamation and rude deportment of the rabble that had preceded.

“I am Melchior de Willading, of Berne,” said the traveller, quietly offering the proofs of what he said, with the ease of one sure of his impunity; “this is my child—­my only child,” the old man repeated the latter words with melancholy emphasis, “and these, that wear my livery, are old and faithful followers of my house.  We go by the St. Bernard, to change the ruder side of our Alps for that which is more grateful to the weak—­to see if there be a sun in Italy that hath warmth enough to revive this drooping flower, and to cause it once more to raise its head joyously, as until lately, it did ever in its native halls.”

The officer smiled and repeated his reverences, always declining to receive the offered papers; for the aged father indulged the overflowing of his feelings in a manner that would have awakened even duller sympathies.

“The lady has youth and a tender parent of her side,” he said; “these are much when health fails us.”

“She is indeed too young to sink so early!” returned the father, who had apparently forgotten his immediate business, and was gazing with a tearful eye at the faded but still eminently attractive features of the young female, who rewarded his solicitude with a look of love; “but thou hast not seen I am the man I represent myself to be.”

“It is not necessary, noble baron; the city knows of your presence, and I have it, in especial charge, to do all that may be grateful to render the passage through Geneva, of one so honored among our allies, agreeable to his recollections.”