"The devil is at his pranks again in the castle," the peasants in Tausens would say, and they avoided the haunted tower as far as was possible,--crossing themselves with a muttered prayer if they were ever near enough to it to hear any inexplicable sounds.
Thus far their superstition had shielded Herr von Heydeck; but who could say when some man, more courageous than his fellows, might not attempt to explore the source whence the ghostly cries proceeded? And then? Why, then discovery, disgrace, and misery were the inevitable consequences.
The wretched man had almost made up his mind to have recourse once more to the doctor's aid, when chance pointed a way of release for him. He saw an advertisement in a paper offering a child for adoption. An unnatural mother, pleading extreme poverty, appealed to the compassion of any generous individual who would adopt her child, and consented, if any such were found, to relinquish all her maternal rights.
As Heydeck read he thought of the hidden child. If this woman had been successful in only appealing to human compassion, could he not be far more sure of success in invoking the aid of man's cupidity? And he devised the scheme which he proceeded to carry into execution.
He put an advertisement in a Berlin newspaper offering a sum of ten thousand thalers to any one who would adopt an orphan boy and so educate him as his own that the child should never learn that he was not the genuine offspring of his adopted parent.
He used every caution with regard to this advertisement. He went to Berlin, and there, under an assumed name, he himself received all the answers to his offer,--destroying them after he had read them.
Among these one seemed especially desirable. A merchant by the name of Delmar, residing in a distant provincial town, declared himself ready to take the boy. He wrote that he had had the misfortune a short time before to lose his wife and only child, Paul. The care of another child would soothe his grief, and by a judicious outlay of the promised capital he trusted he might insure the boy's future welfare.
That this letter seemed less than the rest the result of greed of gain would hardly alone have decided Heydeck to accept it as the answer to his offer, but he was also moved thereto by the consideration that it came from a small provincial town so distant from the Tyrol that it could never have had the slightest cognizance of Castle Reifenstein.
Herr von Heydeck went to H----, and made inquiries at the inn there concerning the man who had written to him. The intelligence that he received was satisfactory. Delmar was a small tradesman, living very quietly, but with an excellent reputation. He was a solid, sensible man, but had been very unfortunate. He had not only lost his wife and only child, but the bankruptcy of a large Berlin house had so imperilled his business that his townsfolk were afraid he would be obliged to dispose of his stock in trade to satisfy his creditors.
After learning these particulars, Herr von Heydeck called upon Delmar. He introduced himself as a Herr Steineck, commissioned by a lady of rank to provide for her illegitimate child. If Herr Delmar would bind himself never to inquire after the child's parents, but to bring him up as his own son, giving him his own name,--if further, in order that the boy might never learn from strangers that he was an adopted child, he would consent to leave H---- and establish himself in another place, whither he could take the child as his son Paul, the boy should be immediately handed over to him and also the ten thousand thalers.