been faithful to us in this season of distress;
as long as we have bread you shall not want."

After a quarter of an hour of extreme exertion Anton returned to the
castle. The servants drove the carts to the back door, the troop of
fugitives followed. People still poured in from the German villages
around, and soon the smith of Kunau, with some of his near neighbors,
stood at the castle gate. The whole party was now got into order, the
horses unharnessed, the carts unloaded. The women and children were led
by Anton into two rooms on the lower floor, which, were dark indeed, but
far more comfortable than the guard-house in the soaked fields. The
bringing in the horses was the most troublesome part of the matter;
about a dozen of them had to crowd up beneath an open shed, poorly
protected from rain or bullets. The water-butt was placed in the middle
of the yard, and the potato-carts pushed up to the paling, to serve, in
case of need, as a position for the guard. Next, all the men capable of
bearing arms were assembled by the smith, and, besides Fink's laborers
and four servants, fifteen German peasants were mustered, the larger
number of them armed. Their footsteps sounded heavy in the long
passages, and joining the laborers in the hall, the whole force was seen
at once, Fink in his hunting-coat walking quietly up and down before his
own corps. Anton now went up to him and gave in his report.

"You bring us men," replied Fink; "that is all very well; but we did not
want a whole clan of women and children into the bargain; the castle is
as full as a bee-hive--more than sixty mouths; to say nothing of a dozen
horses; spite of your potato-carts, we shall have to gnaw the stones
before twenty-four hours are over."

"Could I leave them outside?" asked Anton, dryly.

"They would have been just as safe in the wood as here," said Fink, with
a shrug.

"Possibly," replied Anton; "but to send off people to the forest in rain
like this, without provisions, and in deadly terror, would have been
barbarity for which I could not be responsible. Besides, do you think we
should have got the men without their wives and children?"

"At all events, we can make use of the men," concluded Fink, "and you
may manage the commissariat as you can."

Fink next gave arms to those who wanted them, and divided the forces
into four sections, one for the yard, two for the upper and lower
stories, and one as a reserve in the guard-room. Next he had