priest, Father
Adolf, had his flock.

Those had been hard years for the old priest and Marget. They had been
favorites, but of course that changed when they came under the shadow
of the bishop's frown. Many of their friends fell away entirely, and the
rest became cool and distant. Marget was a lovely girl of eighteen when
the trouble came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most
in it. She taught the harp, and earned all her clothes and pocket money
by her own industry. But her scholars fell off one by one now; she was
forgotten when there were dances and parties among the youth of the
village; the young fellows stopped coming to the house, all except
Wilhelm Meidling--and he could have been spared; she and her uncle were
sad and forlorn in their neglect and disgrace, and the sunshine was gone
out of their lives. Matters went worse and worse, all through the two
years. Clothes were wearing out, bread was harder and harder to get.
And now, at last, the very end was come. Solomon Isaacs had lent all the
money he was willing to put on the house, and gave notice that to-morrow
he would foreclose.

Chapter 2

Three of us boys were always together, and had been so from the cradle,
being fond of one another from the beginning, and this affection
deepened as the years went on--Nikolaus Bauman, son of the principal
judge of the local court; Seppi Wohlmeyer, son of the keeper of the
principal inn, the "Golden Stag," which had a nice garden, with shade
trees reaching down to the riverside, and pleasure boats for hire; and I
was the third--Theodor Fischer, son of the church organist, who was
also leader of the village musicians, teacher of the violin, composer,
tax-collector of the commune, sexton, and in other ways a useful
citizen, and respected by all. We knew the hills and the woods as well
as the birds knew them; for we were always roaming them when we had
leisure--at least, when we were not swimming or boating or fishing, or
playing on the ice or sliding down hill.

And we had the run of the castle park, and very few had that. It was
because we were pets of the oldest servingman in the castle--Felix
Brandt; and often we went there, nights, to hear him talk about old
times and strange things, and to smoke with him (he taught us that) and
to drink coffee; for he had served in the wars, and was at the siege of
Vienna; and there, when the Turks were defeated and driven away, among
the captured things we