The Kammerjunker conducted the friends up the winding stone stairs into the old tower.
“All solid and good!” said he. “We no longer build in this manner. The loop-holes here, close under the roof, were walled up already in my father’s time. But only notice this timber!”
The whole loft appeared a gigantic skeleton composed of beams, one crossing the other. On either side of the loft was a small vaulted chamber, with a brick fire-place. Probably these chambers had been used as guard-rooms; a kind of warder’s walk led from these, between the beam-palisade and the broad wall.
“Yes, here,” said the Kammerjunker, “they could have had a good lookout toward the enemy. Look through my telescope. You have here the whole country from Vissenberg to Munkebobanke, the Belt, and the heights of Svendborg. Only see! The air is clear. We see both Langeland and Zealand. Here one could, in 1807, have well observed the English fleet.”
The three climbed up the narrow ladder and came past the great clock, the leaden weights of which, had they fallen, would have dashed through the stone steps, and soon the gentlemen sat on the highest point. The Kammerjunker requested the telescope, placed it and exclaimed:—
“Did I not think so? If one has not them always under one’s eyes they begin playing pranks! Yes, I see it very well! There, now, the fellows who are working at the fences have begun to romp with the girls! they do nothing! Yes, they don’t believe that I am sitting here in the tower and looking at them!”
“Then a telescope is, after all, a dangerous weapon!” exclaimed Wilhelm. “You can look at people when they least expect it. Fortunately, our seat lies hidden behind the wood: we are, at all events, safe.”
“Yes, that it is, my friend,” returned the other; “the outer sides of the garden are still bare. Did I not, last autumn, see Miss Sophie quite distinctly, when she was gathering service-berries in her little basket? And then, what tricks did she not play? She certainly did not think that I sat here and watched tier pretty gambols!”
They quitted the tower, and passed through the so-called Knight’s Hall, where immense beams, laid one on the other, supported the roof. At either end of the hall was a huge fireplace, with armorial bearings painted above: the hall was now used as a granary; they were obliged to step over a heap of corn before reaching the family pew in the little chapel, which was no longer used for divine service.
“This might become a pretty little room,” said the Kammerjunker, “but we have enough, and therefore we let this, for curiosity’s sake, remain in its old state. The moon is worth its money!” and he pointed toward the vaulted ceiling, where the moon was represented as a white disk, in which the painter, with much naïveté, had introduced a man bearing a load of coals upon his back; in faithful representation of the popular belief regarding the black spot in the moon, which supposes this to be a man whom the Lord has sent up there because he stole his neighbor’s coal. “That great picture on the right, there,” pursued he, “is Mrs. Ellen Marsviin; I purchased it at an auction. One of the peasants put up for it; I asked him what he would do with this big piece of furniture—he could never get it in through his door. But do you know what a speculation he had? It was not such a bad one, after all. See! the rain runs so beautifully off the painted canvas, he would have a pair of breeches made out of it, to wear in rainy weather behind the plough; they would keep the rain off! I thought, however, I ought to prevent the portrait of the highly honorable Mrs. Ellen Marsviin being so profaned. I bought it: now she hangs there, and looks tolerably well pleased. The peasant got a knight instead—perhaps one of my own ancestors, who was now cut up into breeches. See, that is what one gets by being painted!”