" And her terrified earnest eyes impelled Ursel to hasten to do
her bidding; but whether it had been executed, there was no knowing,
for almost immediately the Freiherrinn and Father Norbert entered,
and Ursel returned with them. Nay, the message given, who could tell
if Heinz would be able to act upon it? In the ordinary condition of
the castle, he was indeed its most efficient inmate; Matz did not
approach him in strength, Hans was a cripple, Hatto would be on the
right side; but Jobst the Kohler, and the other serfs who had been
called in for the defence, were more likely to hold with the elder
than the younger lady. And Frau Kunigunde herself, knowing well that
the five-and-twenty men outside would be incompetent to avenge their
master, confident in her narrow-minded, ignorant pride that no one
could take Schloss Adlerstein, and incapable of understanding the
changes in society that were rendering her isolated condition
untenable, was certain to scout any representation of the dire
consequences that the crime would entail. Kasimir had no near
kindred, and private revenge was the only justice the Baroness
believed in; she only saw in her crime the satisfaction of an old
feud, and the union of the Wildschloss property with the parent stem.
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