CHAPTER III.
[THE CASTLE'S LORD AND LADY].
Herr Fritz Von Osternau, the lord of the castle, was seated in his room at the open window looking discontentedly out upon the court-yard. In consequence of over-exertion he had suffered for some days from a violent attack of the spasmodic cough which many years previously ignorant physicians had pronounced consumption. These attacks of a chronic malady were not dangerous. The famous Mitterwurz, of Berlin, when consulted by Herr von Osternau, had assured him that with care he might regard his cough as a warrant for length of life, but care he must take. In stormy or very warm weather he must stay in the house, he must avoid violent exercise, and never ride far afield even in fair weather after an attack of coughing, as physical exertion might provoke a return of it. Since this verdict of the famous physician's, Frau von Osternau never had allowed her husband to indulge in his agricultural mania when he had coughed during the night. She would permit him to take a short walk, upon which she always accompanied him that he might not be induced to prolong it, and he was obliged to return to the castle after an hour at most of sauntering. He obeyed her at such times reluctantly, but still he obeyed, and thus he was sitting to-day at the open window instead of being where he longed to be, out in the fields superintending the harvesting. It was so tiresome to gaze out into the sunlit court-yard, where not a person was to be seen, every man and maid, as well as a host of day-labourers, being busy with the harvest.
Profound quiet reigned in the spacious quadrangle: even the poultry had retired to the barns out of the glowing sunshine and were silent. The court-yard was so lonely and deserted that its master grew tired of looking out of the window, and taking up a book he tried to read. But it would not do, his thoughts were with the harvesters, and the book did not interest him. He laid it down with a sigh of impatience.
"This sitting idly here is intolerable," he said to his wife, who was seated near him knitting diligently. "I detest laziness. Everybody is busy in the fields, and I sit here doing nothing. I cannot bear it any longer, Emma, I must go out, and besides there is no use in taking care of myself any longer, I have not coughed once for two hours."
Frau von Osternau dropped her knitting in her lap and looked at her husband with a smile. She was not beautiful, but her smile was wonderfully lovely and lent a charm to her face, revealing such simple kindness of heart that one forgot, in looking at it, its irregularity of feature, and in spite of her forty years she was still youthfully attractive. Her smile was really irresistible: it was sure to overcome any rebellion against her wishes upon her husband's part; when he would have obstinately resisted any severity of manner, he was powerless against his wife's smile.
"Dear Fritz, you forget your wretched night," she said, gently. "You coughed so terribly that neither of us slept an hour, and now you want to go out into the hot sun with the harvesters. For my sake, dear, stay quietly in your arm-chair. It will soon be noon, and the men will be back in the court-yard."
Herr von Osternau muttered some unintelligible words, but resigned himself to his fate with a sigh, and made another fruitless attempt to read.
"Emma," he said, after a pause, "do you know that to-day is the 6th of July?"
"I believe it is; but what makes you think of it?"