ellent fat land, excellent deep soil. You should see my wheat in
the ten-acre field. There is not a farm in Gruenewald, no, nor many in
Gerolstein, to match the River Farm. Some sixty--I keep thinking when I
sow--some sixty, and some seventy, and some an hundredfold; and my own
place, six score! But that, sir, is partly the farming."

"And the stream has fish?" asked Otto.

"A fish-pond," said the farmer. "Ay, it is a pleasant bit. It is
pleasant even here, if one had time, with the brook drumming in that
black pool, and the green things hanging all about the rocks, and, dear
heart, to see the very pebbles! all turned to gold and precious stones!
But you have come to that time of life, sir, when, if you will excuse
me, you must look to have the rheumatism set in. Thirty to forty is, as
one may say, their seed-time. And this is a damp, cold corner for the
early morning and an empty stomach. If I might humbly advise you, sir, I
would be moving."

"With all my heart," said Otto gravely. "And so you have lived your life
here?" he added, as they turned to go.

"Here I was born," replied the farmer, "and here I wish I could say I
was to die. But fortune, sir, fortune turns the wheel. They say she is
blind, but we will hope she only sees a little farther on. My
grandfather and my father and I, we have all tilled these acres, my
furrow following theirs. All the three names are on the garden bench,
two Killians and one Johann. Yes, sir, good men have prepared themselves
for the great change in my old garden. Well do I mind my father, in a
woollen night-cap, the good soul, going round and round to see the last
of it, 'Killian,' said he, 'do you see the smoke of my tobacco? Why,'
said he, 'that is man's life.' It was his last pipe, and I believe he
knew it; and it was a strange thing, without doubt, to leave the trees
that he had planted, and the son that he had begotten, ay, sir, and even
the old pipe with the Turk's head that he had smoked since he was a lad
and went a-courting. But here we have no continuing city; and as for the
eternal, it's a comfortable thought that we have other merits than our
own. And yet you would hardly think how sore it goes against the grain
with me, to die in a strange bed."

"And must you do so? For what reason?" Otto asked.

"The reason? The place is to be sold: three thousand crowns," replied
Mr. Gottesheim. "Had it been a third of that, I may say without boasting
that, what with my credit a