And then splitting a mountain to catch one miller would be something like firing a columbiad at a cock sparrow. It would be a great waste of ammunition. He could safely have depended upon Caspar’s own toll-dish.
He may have made the gorge knowing it would be used, as time rolled on, by guides and hotel-keepers, but the legend of the miller will not do.
However, it is the legend of the place, and so I have to give it. The only lesson I can draw from it is not a good one. The virtuous Balthazar lost his property just the same as the wicked Caspar, and as he probably starved to death immediately, while Caspar had a good time for twenty years, his virtue counted him nothing, so far as this world goes. I have found that out, however, in my own experience.
In every country in the world that has rocks, there is some frightfully high one from which a great many years ago a maiden leaped. Indian maidens were addicted to this in America, and so were maidens in Switzerland.
You are compelled to climb to the very top of the mountain on one side of the gorge to see the place where a maiden threw herself over. The guide said she was crossed in love by her parents, while our landlord had it that she was deserted by her lover. Thus you had two stories at the price of one, and could believe which you chose.
Tibbitts looked calmly down the frightful chasm.
“The maiden leaped from this spot?”
“Yes, sare.”
“How under Heaven did she ever get back!”
“She did not get back.”