The youths held aloof from these burghers, for Master Gottfried
wisely desired to give them time to be tamed before running risk of
offence, either to, or by, their wild shy pride; and their mother
contrived to time her meetings with her old companions when her sons
were otherwise occupied. Master Gottfried made it known that the
marriage portion he had designed for his niece had been intrusted to
a merchant trading in peltry to Muscovy, and the sum thus realized
was larger than any bride had yet brought to Adlerstein. Master
Gottfried would have liked to continue the same profitable
speculations with it; but this would have been beyond the young
Baron's endurance, and his eyes sparkled when his mother spoke of
repairing the castle, refitting the chapel, having a resident
chaplain, cultivating more land, increasing the scanty stock of
cattle, and attempting the improvements hitherto prevented by lack of
means. He fervently declared that the motherling was more than equal
to the wise spinning Queen Bertha of legend and lay; and the first
pleasant sense of wealth came in the acquisition of horses, weapons,
and braveries.
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