"Because," said Hugh, "we are not eagles outright. Seest thou not,
just beyond the castle court, this whole crag of ours breaks off
short, falls like the town wall straight down into the plain? Even
this cleft that we are crossing by, the only road a horse can pass,
breaks off short and sudden too, so that the river is obliged to take
leaps which nought else but a chamois could compass. A footpath
there is, and Freiherr Eberhard takes it at all times, being born to
it; but even I am too stiff for the like. Ha! ha! Thy uncle may
talk of the Kaiser and his League, but he would change his note if we
had him here."
"Yet castles have been taken by hunger," said Christina.
"What, knowest thou so much?--True! But look you," pointing to a
white foamy thread that descended the opposite steeps, "yonder beck
dashes through the castle court, and it never dries; and see you the
ledge the castle stands on? It winds on out of your sight, and forms
a path which leads to the village of Adlerstein, out on the other
slope of the mountains; and ill were it for the serfs if they
victualled not the castle well.
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