THE CASTLE ON THE RHINE.
In one of those old feudal castles, which, perched, like eagle nests, upon the picturesque hills that overhang
"The wide and winding Rhine,"
and with their crumbling and ivy-grown towers, arrest the eyes of the delighted traveller, as he views them from the deck of the gliding steamer, there dwelt, some years ago, the Baron Von Rosenburg and his lady Mathilde. The baron was a very proud man, and continually boasting of his descent from a "long and noble line of martial ancestors," gentlemen who were wont, in the "good old times," to wear steel on head, back, and breast, and each of whom supported a score of retainers in his feudal castle. Where the money comes from to support a princely housekeeping, when the head of the family has no property or employment, is sometimes a mystery nowadays; but no such doubt attached to the resources of the baron's ancestors. These gentlemen, when short of provisions, would sally forth at the head of their followers, and capture the first drove of cattle they encountered, without stopping to inquire into the ownership. Sometimes they made excursions on the river, and levied contributions on the little barks of traders who often carried valuable cargoes from one Rhine town to another.
But the privileges of the robber knights and bandit nobles were sadly shorn by the progressive spirit of modern civilization. With a total disregard of the immunities of chivalry, modern legislators declared that it was as great a crime for a baron to seize on a herd of cattle as for a peasant to steal a sheep. Hence the great families along the Rhine went into decay. The castles were dismantled, many noble names died out, very few remained, the representatives of the ancestral glory of olden times.
Among them was the baron. He had been a soldier and a courtier in his youth, had spent some time abroad, and was about forty when he married a lady of the same age, and settled down in the old family castle of Rosenberg. Here he lorded it over the surrounding valley, the simple inhabitants of which, though exempt from all feudal obligations, yet in some sort regarded themselves as vassals of the baron. They made him presents of fish, accompanied him to the chase, and lent him a willing hand, whenever he required assistance at the castle.
The baron, though he had the wherewithal to live comfortably enough, was yet a poor representative of the race he sprang from. His army consisted of a few farm servants, his cavalry of a ploughboy on a cart-horse, and his navy of a fishing boat. But, on the whole, he was happy. He passed his days either in trimming his vines or hunting, and his evenings in poring over mildewed parchments or books of heraldry, hunting up long pedigrees, and puffing a monstrous meerschaum till the atmosphere was as dense as the interior of a smokehouse. The lady Mathilde embroidered from morning till night.
They had, however, a common source of grief. Fate had not blessed them with children. The lady yearned for the companionship of a daughter; the baron mourned at the prospect of the extinction of his name for want of a male heir.
It was while pondering on this subject one day, as they were strolling out together, that the baron and his lady came upon the cottage of an old soldier named Karl Mueller, who cultivated a little vineyard not far from the castle.
The old man was seated on a bench before his door, smoking, and so deeply plunged in revery, that he was not aware of the approach of visitors till the baron touched him on the shoulder.