This poor maiden-
dying, perhaps; and oh! how unfit to live or die!--might it be her
part to do some good work by her, and infuse some Christian hope,
some godly fear? Could it be for this that the saints had led her
hither?
CHAPTER III: THE FLOTSAM AND JETSAM OF THE DEBATEABLE FORD
Life in Schloss Adlerstein was little less intolerable than
Christina's imagination had depicted it. It was entirely devoid of
all the graces of chivalry, and its squalor and coarseness, magnified
into absurdity by haughtiness and violence, were almost
inconceivable. Fortunately for her, the inmates of the castle
resided almost wholly below stairs in the hall and kitchen, and in
some dismal dens in the thickness of their walls. The height of the
keep was intended for dignity and defence, rather than for
habitation; and the upper chamber, with its great state-bed, where
everybody of the house of Adlerstein was born and died, was not
otherwise used, except when Ermentrude, unable to bear the oppressive
confusion below stairs, had escaped thither for quietness' sake.
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