Our little tour of inspection was just in time, for at twelve that night, the castle servants told us, the king would come dashing up to his own door, after which there can be of course no admittance to visitors.
Hohenschwangau is most beautifully situated, but the Neu Schwanstein is still more striking. It is founded upon a rock. You climb to reach it, and you can climb far higher on the mountains that tower behind it. It stands directly by a deep ravine, and the view from it is magnificent. The young king here by his own hearthstone has wild and abrupt mountain scenery,—a rocky gorge, crossed by a delicate wire bridge, an impetuous waterfall; and looking far, far off from the battlements he sees villages, many lakes, dense woods, winding streams, Hohenschwangau looking proudly towards its royal neighbor, and the glorious mountains circling and guarding the valley. Living here, one would feel like a god on high Olympus looking down upon humanity toiling on the plains below.
The king likes this place, and it is said wishes to remain here when the queen, his mother, comes to Hohenschwangau. But this is an unwarrantable intrusion upon their little family differences, which they should enjoy unmolested, like you and me. Schwanstein in its exterior form and character resembles a mediæval castle, and the appointments in the servants' wing, the only part of the interior as yet finished, are strictly in keeping. There are solid oaken benches and tables, carved cases and chests, oaken bedsteads as simply made as possible, and windows with tiny oval or diamond panes.
The room occupied temporarily by the king is very small and simple,—has a plain oak bedstead and dressing-table. Across the bed were thrown blankets, on which were blue swans and blue lions, and in the dining-room adjoining the carpet was blue, with golden Bavarian lions, and the all-pervading swans. This was a pretty room, the frescos illustrating the story of a life in mediæval times,—the life of a warrior from the moment when he starts forth from his father's door, a fair-haired boy, to seek his fortunes in the great world. Mountain scenery, village life, his first service to a knight, battle, gallant deeds, receiving knighthood, betrayal, imprisonment, escape, victory,—all the eventful story until he sits with men old like himself, and over their wine they tell of the doughty deeds of the past; and then, older still, and frail and feeble and alone, he leans upon his staff as he rests under a tree where careless children play around him.
A charming road, through the woods belonging to the Schwanstein park, leads to the castle, past the lovely Alpsee, which looks deep and calm, and lies lovingly nestled among the beautiful woods that surround it and that rise high above it, as if striving to conceal its loveliness from profane eyes.
We saw forty of the royal horses—pretty creatures they were too—each with the name painted over the stall. We were reading them aloud, they were so odd and fanciful, when, as one of us said Fenella, the little horse that claimed that name turned her pretty head and tried to come to us. However gently we would call her, she always heard and looked at us. Encouraged by this gracious condescension on the part of a royal animal, we ventured to make friends with her; and if ever a horse smiled with good-will and delight it was Fenella when we gave her sugar.
His majesty's carriages were also shown to us, and received our approval. They are plain and elegant, but do not differ from high-toned equipages in general. A narrow little phaeton, low, and large enough to hold but one person, we were told was a favorite of the king. In it, with a man at each side of the horse's head leading him, and bearing a torch, the king amuses himself by ascending dangerous mountain-roads at night. They say it is astonishing where he will go in this manner. Fancy meeting that scowling but interesting young man, his torches and his funny little vehicle, on a lonely peak at midnight!
[pg!137]
LIFE IN SCHATTWALD.
We have been in the Tyrol many days, in villages among the mountains, living in simplicity, content, and charity to all mankind. We have believed that our condition was as thoroughly rural as anything that could possibly be attained by people who only want to be rural temporarily as an experiment. But our present experience so far transcends all that we have known in the past, that the other villages seem like bustling, important towns, unpleasantly copying city ways, compared with this funny little quiet Schattwald.