rs and partisans, differing
little sometimes from highway robbers. During the war they had laid
out their booty in the purchase of some small estate, on which they
dwelt, restless and discontented. These fortunate individuals received
frequent visits from old comrades, and then ventured to make raids from
their property on their own account, which seldom ended without
bloodshed. After the war they ceased plundering; but the lawlessness,
the craving for excitement, the restless roving, and the inclination
for wild revelry and quarrels remained in the next generation. They
united themselves into a large company, which, in spite of endless
brawls, continued to hold together, like entangled water-plants on a
marsh. This family connection became a ceaseless plague to the better
disposed, and a misfortune for the whole class; and more than any other
evil retarded, during the following century, the culture, civilisation,
and prosperity of the landed nobility.

The sons of these poor landowners learnt to ride, dance, and fence, and
perhaps the first rudiments of Latin from a poor candidate; then, if
the father had connections, they served as pages at some small court,
or to a distinguished nobleman. There they learnt, to a certain extent,
good manners; and, more certainly, the weaknesses and vices of the
higher orders. If they remained some years in noble service they were,
according to old usage, declared capable of bearing arms, and released
as Junkers with a gracious box on the ear. Then they returned to the
parental estate, or the parents sold what they could spare to procure
them an outfit befitting a gentleman, and sent them as aspirants for
subaltern places in the Imperial army. Few of them prospered in the
inglorious wars of that period; most returned home, after some
campaigns, corrupted and poor both in honour and booty, to share with
their sisters the paternal inheritance. Soon they differed little from
the relations who had remained at home.

These landowners dwelt in buildings of clay and wood, roofed with straw
or shingles,--a sufficient number of casual descriptions and drawings
have been preserved to us; across the roof lay the great fire-ladders;
the front and back doors of the hall were provided with crossbars for
closing them at night. On the ground-floor was the large sitting-room;
near it the spacious kitchen, which was a warm abode for the servants;
next the sitting-room there was a walled vault, with ir