“Over I went into the water, head and heels both submerged.  Strangling, puffing, battling for my life, I rose to the surface.  I had fallen just where the water was shallow, but where grasses and water-plants so entangled my feet that I could not swim, and should certainly have been drowned had not one of the boatmen thrown me a rope and drawn me to the shore.

“‘Hang her!’ ‘Drown her for an old witch!’ were the exclamations I heard from the rough by-standers, and also, ‘Take her to the jail at Geneva.’  This aroused me.  Now I knew the name of the fine town towards which so many were wending their way.

  “’When you get to Geneva,
  Then you must leave her.’

“Oh, joy!  Then I need no longer follow my dreadful guide!  And there were people about who spoke English.

“As soon as I could discover who these English people were I made inquiries of them, and found they were servants of some persons travelling in their own conveyance.  Tattered and draggled and wet, I dared not do more than run after the carriage at a respectful distance, with my fox in my arms, and so fearful was I of being overtaken by old Fuss that I darted into the woods whenever a wayfarer approached.  But my fears were needless, for so alarmed had the witch been at the threats of the boatmen that she disappeared suddenly.  Some said they saw her flying over the woods on a broomstick, with all her wretched rags and tags fluttering behind her like the tail of a kite.

“After this I toiled on, often hungry, always weary, but frequently meeting with kindness.  I only wanted to find some place of shelter from the cold until the warm weather should return again, and I could renew my search for your flower.

“At last, one bitter day, striving to reach a convent where I had found out they received poor people like myself, I fell, during a blinding storm, and had neither the courage nor the wish to make the effort to rise.  Gradually a heavy sleep came on.  I forgot my woes, and dreamed of a garden of roses, among which floated brilliant butterflies and golden bees.

“I was aroused from this sleep by a barking and scratching, and the forcing open of my mouth to make me swallow some warm milk.  A goatherd had found me, and putting me on the back of his great dog, carried me home.  From that moment my troubles ended.  Franz, the boy who found me, had a warm heart.  His home became mine.  I was ill, but all did what they could to make my sufferings less.  I had only the one word, ‘Edelweiss,’ at my command, and but the one hope—­that of procuring the flower.