As to submission to the Kaiser, that was mere
folly and weakness--kaisers, kings, dukes, and counts had broken
their teeth against the rock of Adlerstein before now! What had come
over her husband and her son to make them cravens?
For Freiherr Eberhard was more strongly convinced than was his father
of the untenableness of their present position. Hugh Sorel's reports
of what he heard at Ulm had shown that the league that had been
discussed at Regensburg was far more formidable than anything that
had ever previously threatened Schloss Adlerstein, and that if the
Graf von Schlangenwald joined in the coalition, there would be
private malice to direct its efforts against the Adlerstein family.
Feud-letters or challenges had been made unlawful for ten years, and
was not Adlerstein at feud with the world?
Nor did Eberhard look on the submission with the sullen rage and
grief that his father felt in bringing himself to such a declension
from the pride of his ancestors. What the young Baron heard up
stairs was awakening in him a sense of the poorness and narrowness of
his present life.
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