Only one-third of the tower had apertures for light; the rest was solid stone wall.
The whole region had made use of the castle as a stone-quarry, and the corners had especially suffered, because they contained the best stones. The whole was grown over with shrubbery, the castle-dwelling had wholly disappeared, and the castle itself, originally Roman, had probably been rebuilt in the style of the tenth century. From a drawing found in the archives only a few additional characteristics could be made out; but from single stones and angles much of the general structure could be copied, and the architect showed how he had planned the whole, and he was particularly glad to have discovered the spring, out of which they had taken, to use his own expression, "a great deal of rubbish and dirt."
The insight into the inner mystery of a man's active calling produced a deep impression upon the youth, and he followed out the whole plan of construction with great diligence; and he and Eric always placed before them, as a reward for actual work accomplished, this instructive conversation with the architect, and even frequently a permission to be actively employed. It was a favorite thought of Roland's to live here at some future time alone at the castle, and he wanted to have had some hand in the building.
Roland and Eric were regularly but not accidently, at the castle when the masons and the laborers engaged in excavation were paid off on Saturday, evening. The time for leaving off work being an hour earlier than usual, the barber came from the town and shaved the masons, and then they, washed themselves at the fountain; a baker-woman with bread also came out from the town, and the workmen placed themselves, one after another, under the porch of a small house that had been temporarily erected. Roland frequently stood inside the room, with the foremen, and heard only the brief words,—
"You receive so much, and you, so much."
He saw the hard hands which received the pay. Frequently he stood outside among the workmen themselves, or by their side, observing them; and the boys of his own age received his particular notice, and he thanked all heartily, when they saluted him. Most of them had a loaf of bread wrapped up in a cloth under their arm, and they went off to the villages where they lived, often singing until they were out of hearing.
Eric knew that it was not in accordance with Sonnenkamp's ideas for Roland thus to become familiar with different modes of life, for he had once heard him say,—
"He who wishes to build a castle need not know all the carters and quarrymen in the stone-pits around."
But Eric considered it his duty to let Roland have an unprejudiced, acquaintance with a mode of life different from his own. He saw the expression of Roland's large eyes while they were sitting upon a projecting point of the castle; where the thyme sent up its sweet odor around them, and they looked out over mountain and valley; with the bells sending out their peal for the Sunday-eve; and he felt happy, for he knew that an eye which so looked upon the hard-working hands, and a thought which so followed the laborers returning to their homes, was forming, an internal state that could not be hardheartedly unmindful of one's fellow-men. Thus was a moral and intellectual foundation laid in the soul of the youth. Eric took good heed not to disturb the germinating seed by exposing it to the light.
One evening, when they were sitting upon the castle, the sun had already gone down, and the tops of the mountains only were tinged with the glowing sunset, while the village, with its blue slate-roofs and the evening smoke rising straight in the air, seemed like a dream—Roland said,—