transfer, or
perhaps it would have gone with the remainder. The castle had fallen
sadly into disrepair, through his protracted absence from home, and
his continual neglect of it,--indeed there was scarcely a habitable
room within its precincts, and he now had no means to make it the
fitting abode of any one, still less of a nobleman of his rank and
consequence. All without, as well as all within it, was desolate and
dreary to the last degree. The splendid garden, previously the pride
of his ancestors, was overrun with weeds, and tangled with parasites
and creepers. The stately trees, which once afforded shelter and
shade, as well as fruits of the finest quality and rarest kinds, were
all dying or withered, or had their growth obstructed by destroying
plants. The outer walls were in a ruinous condition, the
fortifications were everywhere fallen into decay, and the alcoves and
summer-houses had dropped down, or were roofless, and exposed to the
weather. It was a cheerless prospect to contemplate, but he could not
now help himself, even if he had the will to do so. Day after day the
same scene of desolation presented itself to his eyes, night after
night did the same cheerless chamber present itself to his view. It
was his own doing. That he could not deny, and bitterly he rued it. To
crown his helplessness and misery, his vassals and domestic servants
abandoned him by degrees, one after another, and at last he was left
entirely alone in the house of his fathers--a hermit in that most
dismal of all solitudes, the desolate scene of one's childish, one's
happiest recollections.

One evening about twilight, as he sat at the outer gate, looking
sadly on the broad, bright river which flowed calmly beneath, he
became aware of the presence of a stranger, who seemed to toil wearily
up the steep acclivity on the summit of which the castle is situated.
The stranger--an unusual sight within those walls then--soon reached
the spot where Ulric sat, and, greeting the youth in the fashion of
the times, prayed him for shelter during the night, and refreshment
after his most painful journey.

"I am," quoth the stranger, "a poor pilgrim on my way to Cologne,
where, by the merits of the three wise kings--to whose shrine I am
bound--I hope to succeed in the object of my journey."

Graf Ulric von Rheineck at once accorded him the hospitality he
required, for though he had but scant cheer for himself, and nought of
comfort to bestow, he ha