astle lingered long over the newly-kindled fire; they hovered in
the smoke wreaths, they knocked at doors and windows in amazement at the
proceedings of the strangers. At length they assembled in a corner of
the old tower, and began to dispute as to whether or not the flames
lighted this evening would continue to burn, and to cast henceforth
their cheerful glow on meadow, fields, and woods; and as they doubted
whether the new order of things had strength enough to endure, the smoke
drove the bats from their home in the chimney, and they came flapping
down stupefied on the summit of the tower, while the owls in its
crevices shook their round heads and hooted in the new era.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

He who has always trodden life's macadamized ways, hedged in by law,
moulded by order, custom, form, handed down from generation to
generation habits a thousand years old, and who finds himself suddenly
thrown among strangers, where law can but imperfectly protect him, and
where he must assert by daily struggles his right to exist--such a one
realizes for the first time the full blessing of the holy circle woven
round each individual by his fellow-men, his family, his companions in
labor, his race, his country. Whether he lose or gain in foreign parts,
he must needs change. If he is a weakling, he will sacrifice his own
_maniere d'etre_ to the external influences around him; if he has the
making of a man in him, he will become one now. The possessions, perhaps
the prejudices, that he has grown up with, will wax dearer to him than
ever; and much that once he looked upon as things of course, like air
and sunshine, will become his most prized treasures. It is in foreign
countries that we first enjoy the dialect of home, and in absence that
we learn how dear to us is our fatherland.

Our Anton had now to find out what he possessed and what he wanted.

The following morning they proceeded to view the entire property. It
consisted of the mansion-house, with the lands and buildings adjacent,
and of three farms. About half the land was arable, a small part laid
down in meadow; about half was wood, bordered with barren sand. The
castle and the village lay about the middle of the great clearing; two
of the farms were at opposite points of the compass, east and west, and
both were hid by projections of the forest. The third farm lay toward
the south, and was entirely divided by a wood from the rest of the
estate. It joined on to anot