l into which Otto had made his way, now long since
fallen out of use excepting as a burial place of the race.

At another time he clambered up into the loft under the high peaked
roof, where lay numberless forgotten things covered with the dim dust
of years. There a flock of pigeons had made their roost, and flapped
noisily out into the sunlight when he pushed open the door from below.
Here he hunted among the mouldering things of the past until, oh, joy
of joys! in an ancient oaken chest he found a great lot of worm-eaten
books, that had belonged to some old chaplain of the castle in days gone
by. They were not precious and beautiful volumes, such as the Father
Abbot had showed him, but all the same they had their quaint painted
pictures of the blessed saints and angels.

Again, at another time, going into the court-yard, Otto had found
the door of Melchior's tower standing invitingly open, for old Hilda,
Schwartz Carl's wife, had come down below upon some business or other.

Then upon the shaky wooden steps Otto ran without waiting for a second
thought, for he had often gazed at those curious buildings hanging so
far up in the air, and had wondered what they were like. Round and round
and up and up Otto climbed, until his head spun. At last he reached
a landing-stage, and gazing over the edge and down, beheld the stone
pavement far, far below, lit by a faint glimmer of light that entered
through the arched doorway. Otto clutched tight hold of the wooden rail,
he had no thought that he had climbed so far.

Upon the other side of the landing was a window that pierced the thick
stone walls of the tower; out of the window he looked, and then drew
suddenly back again with a gasp, for it was through the outer wall he
peered, and down, down below in the dizzy depths he saw the hard
gray rocks, where the black swine, looking no larger than ants in the
distance, fed upon the refuse thrown out over the walls of the castle.
There lay the moving tree-tops like a billowy green sea, and the coarse
thatched roofs of the peasant cottages, round which crawled the little
children like tiny human specks.

Then Otto turned and crept down the stairs, frightened at the height to
which he had climbed.

At the doorway he met Mother Hilda. "Bless us," she cried, starting back
and crossing herself, and then, seeing who it was, ducked him a courtesy
with as pleasant a smile as her forbidding face, with its little
deep-set eyes, was able t