liberty our course
suggests, rise free and untrammelled from the doubts and cares of
every-day life.

Onward I went, and soon the old mill came in sight, rearing its ruined
head amid the black desolation of the plain. I could not resist the
impulse to see what had become of De Beauvais; and leading my horse into
the kitchen, I hastened up the stairs and through the rooms. But all
were deserted; the little chamber lay open, the granary too; but no one
was there.

With a mind relieved, in a great measure, from anxiety, I remounted
and continued my way; and soon entered the dark woods of Holitsch. The
chateau and demesne were a private estate of the Emperor Francis,
and once formed a favorite resort of Joseph the Second in his hunting
excursions. The chateau itself was a large, irregular mass of building,
but still, with all its incongruity of architecture, not devoid of
picturesque effect,--and the older portion of it was even handsome.
While I stood in front of a long terrace, on which several windows
opened from a gallery that ran along one side of the chateau, I was
somewhat surprised that no guard was to be seen, nor even a single
sentinel on duty. I dismounted, and leading my horse, approached the
avenue that led up between a double range of statues to the door. An
old man, dressed in the slouched hat and light blue jacket of a Bohemian
peasant, was busily engaged in wrapping matting around some shrubs,
to protect them from the frost. A little boy--his second self in
costume--stood beside him with his pruning-knife, and stared at me with
a kind of stupid wonder as I approached. With some difficulty I made out
from the old man that the Emperor occupied a smaller building called
the Kaiser-Lust, about half a league distant in the forest, having given
strict orders that no one was to approach the chateau nor its immediate
grounds. It was his favorite retreat, and perhaps he did not wish it
should be associated in his mind with a period of such misfortune. The
old peasant continued his occupation while he spoke, never lifting his
head from his work, and seeming all absorbed in the necessity of what he
was engaged in. As I inquired the nearest road to the imperial quarters,
he employed me to assist him for a moment in his task by holding one end
of the matting, with which he was now about to envelop a marble statue
of Maria Theresa.

I could not refuse a request so naturally proffered; and while I did
so, a little wic