"This is wretched," said he, sitting down again; "much worse than they told us in Rosmin."
"The village looks as if under a curse," cried Karl; "no teams working in the fields—not a cow or a sheep to be seen."
The farm-servant flogged his horses into an irregular gallop, and so they passed through the rows of mud huts which constituted the village, and arrived at the public house. Karl sprang from the carriage, opened the tavern door, and called for the landlord. A Jew slowly rose from his seat by the stove and came to the threshold. "Is the gendarme from Rosmin come?" He is gone into the village. "Which is the way to the farm-yard?"
The landlord, an elderly man with an intelligent countenance, described the way in German and Polish, and remained standing at the door—bewildered, Karl declared, by the sight of two human beings. The carriage turned into a cross-road, planted on both sides with thick bushes, the remains of a fallen avenue. Over holes, stones, and puddles, it rattled on to a group of mud huts, which still had a remnant of whitewash upon them. "The barns and stables are empty," cried Karl, "for I see gaps in the roofs large enough to drive our carriage through."
Anton said no more; he was prepared for every thing. They drove through a break between the stables into the farm-yard, a large irregular space, surrounded on three sides by tumble-down buildings, and open to the fields on the fourth. A heap of débris lay there—lime and rotten timber, the remains of a ruined barn. The yard was empty; no trace of farm implements or human labor to be seen. "Which is the inspector's house," inquired Anton, in dismay. The driver looked round, and at last made up his mind that it was a small one-storied building, with straw thatch and dirty windows.
At the noise of the wheels a man appeared on the threshold, and waited phlegmatically till the travelers had dismounted, and were standing close before him. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, with a bloated, brandy-drinking face, dressed in a jacket of shaggy cloth, while behind him peered the muzzle of an equally shaggy dog, who snarled at the strangers. "Are you the steward of this property?"
"I am," replied the man, in broken German, without stirring from where he was.
"And I am the agent of the new proprietor," said Anton.
"That does not concern me," growled the shaggy man, turning sharp round, entering the house, and bolting the door within.
Anton was thoroughly roused. "Break the window in, and help me to catch the rascal," cried he to Karl, who coolly seized a piece of wood, struck the panes so as to make the rotten framework give way, and cleared the opening at one leap. Anton followed him. The room was empty, so was the next, and in it an open window—the man was gone.