"What place is this?" inquired Paul, at a point where the course of the river seemed to be obstructed by rocks and hills.
"Bingen on the Rhine," said the surgeon. "Here the waters of the river are crowded in a narrow space. Look upon the hills around you, and see how every foot of ground is economized for the vineyards. Where the hill-sides are too steep for cultivation, they are formed into terraces, as you see them."
The steamer stopped a few moments at Bingen, which contains about seventy-five hundred inhabitants.
"On our left, now, are the dominions of the King of Prussia—the Rhenish provinces. On our right, as before, is the Duchy of Nassau. What do you think of the Rhine now?" asked Dr. Winstock.
"It is improving, certainly," laughed Paul. "The scenery is really very grand and very fine. I will give it up now. It is finer than the Hudson. But where are the old castles?"
"There is one of them," answered the doctor, pointing to a ruin which crowned a hill on the right. "That is the Castle of Ehrenfels. There is a legend connected with about every one of them. There is the Mouse Tower."
The doctor pointed to a stone structure rising from the river a short distance from the shore. It was certainly a very romantic building, and in a very romantic situation.
"What is the story about this tower?" asked Paul.
"If you take Southey's works when you return to the ship, you will find in them, 'The Tradition of Bishop Hatto.' He was the Archbishop of Mayence, and during a famine kept his granaries, well filled with food, locked, and, by his own profusion and high living, excited his starving subjects to revolt. The prelate ordered the rebels to be arrested, confined them in a building, and set it on fire. Not content with this outrage, he added insult to injury by mocking the wail of the sufferers, and comparing their cries with the squeaking of mice. In the night which followed the diabolical deed, a swarm of mice penetrated to the apartments of the archbishop's palace, attacked him, and tried to tear the flesh from his bones. Appalled by this poetic justice, the cruel prelate fled, and, taking to the river, reached this insulated tower. Suspending his bed in the upper part of the structure, he struggled to escape from the mice, as merciless as he had himself been. But the mice followed him, and he could not avoid the doom that was in store for him. Vainly he resisted. The rats attacked him, and he suffered a lingering and horrible death. It is but fair to add that history gives the archbishop a different character. Do you happen to know the meaning of the German word mauth?"
"A duty, or a toll," replied Grace.