ike the swallows quitting our cold country, to return again
some time. France has been pretty well used up, so now we fall upon
Germany. Stalkenberg was that year particularly full, for its size--you
might have put it in a nutshell; and it derived its importance, name,
and most else belonging to it, from its lord of the soil, the Baron
von Stalkenberg. A stalwart old man was the baron, with grizzly hair, a
grizzled beard, and manners as loutish as those of the boars he hunted.
He had four sons as stalwart as himself, and who promised to be in time
as grizzled. They were all styled the Counts von Stalkenberg, being
distinguished by their Christian names--all save the eldest son, and he
was generally called the young baron. Two of them were away--soldiers;
and two, the eldest and the youngest, lived with their father in the
tumble-down castle of Stalkenberg, situated about a mile from the
village to which it gave its name. The young Baron von Stalkenberg was
at liberty to marry; the three Counts von Stalkenberg were not--unless
they could pick up a wife with enough money to keep herself and her
husband. In this creed they had been brought up. It was a perfectly
understood creed, and not rebelled against.

The young Baron von Stalkenberg, who was only styled young in
contradistinction to his father, being in his forty-first year, was
famous for a handsome person, and for his passionate love of the chase:
of wild boars and wolves he was the deadly enemy. The Count Otto von
Stalkenberg, eleven years his brother's junior, was famous for nothing
but his fiercely-ringed moustache, a habit of eating, and an undue
addiction to draughts of Marcobrunen. Somewhat meager fare, so report
ran, was the fashion in the Castle of Stalkenberg--neither the old baron
nor his heir cared for luxury; therefore Count von Otto was sure to be
seen at the _table d' hote_ as often as anybody would invite him,
and that was nearly every day, for the Count von Stalkenberg was
a high-sounding title, and his baronial father, proprietor of all
Stalkenberg, lorded it in the baronial castle close by, all of which
appeared very grand and great, and that the English bow down to with an
idol's worship.

Stopping at the Ludwig Bad, the chief hotel in the place, was a family
of the name of Crosby. It consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Crosby, an only
daughter, her governess, and two or three servants. What Mr. Crosby had
done to England, or England to him, I can't say, b