The road followed the bluffs above the beach,--at times coming quite near to the brink, so that the roaring of the breakers among the great rocks below could be distinctly heard,--then again receding for some distance. On the right the eye swept over enormous grain-fields, which covered the whole table-land. The tall, strong stalks bent under the burden of the full ears, and waved to and fro in the mild breezes which came from the sea. Here and there a lark was fluttering, whose nest was close by the road, and then winged its way singing up into the blue sky.
Then the road descended into a low valley, through which a considerable brook, the outlet of the Fashwitz moor, was hurrying towards the sea. A village extended along the brook and close down to the sea, in which mostly fishermen lived, who paid rent to Baron Grenwitz, The carriage had to pass through the village, which looked very pretty with its small, tidy cottages, and the little gardens before the doors, in which all the flower-beds were edged with shells. At the door of one of the larger houses, which bore a sign with a large ship sailing swiftly through the green waves, and thus announced itself as an inn, a horseman was stopping. He was on a marvellously beautiful thoroughbred. He wore a long overcoat, and Oswald could not see his face, as he was just bending down to take a glass of brandy, which a pretty blue-eyed girl with a charming little snub nose held up to him.
"That horse is worth his two hundred pounds," said the coachman, who was a connoisseur.
"Who is the gentleman?" asked Oswald.
"Can't tell; I could not see his face."
Behind the fishermen's village the road ascended quite suddenly to a greater height than before. The landscape also changed its aspect entirely. The ground was less level; instead of golden grain, russet heather covered the soil--a desert, with large and small stones here and there, and at times with large plains of sand, on which a few spare signs of turf appeared at intervals. The air even seemed to be less mild, and where the road approached nearer to the brink of the steep bluff one could hear the roaring of the sea very distinctly. A sea-eagle was drawing its vast circles on high, and at times its blue shadow would darken for a moment the sunlit, rocky road.
"Is it far to Cona?" asked Oswald.
"The farm lies in that direction," said the coachman, pointing with his whip to the right across the heath; "you cannot see it from here. I have orders to drive you to the Swiss cottage."
"And where is that?"
"Straight before us, in the pines."