him, and we were
driving along a white road with a wild kind of country spreading
round--moorland stretches, and rich deep woods. Up and down, for the way
was uneven, till we entered a kind of park, and to the right, high
above, I saw the great red pile with its little pointed towers crowned
with things like extinguishers ending in a lightning-rod, and which
seemed to spring from all parts of the heavy mass of the main building.

That, then, was Schloss Rothenfels. It looked the very image of an
aristocratic, ancient feste burg, grim and grand; it brooded over us
like a frown, and dominated the landscape for miles around. I was deeply
impressed; such a place had always been like a dream to me.

There was something so imposingly conservative about it; it looked as if
it had weathered so many storms; defying such paltry forces as wind and
weather, and would through so many more, quite untouched by the roar of
life and progress outside--a fit and firm keeping-place for old shields,
for weapons honorably hacked and dinted, for tattered loyal flags--for
art treasures and for proud beauties.

As we gained the height, I perceived the huge scale on which the schloss
was constructed. It was a little town in itself. I saw, too, that
plateau on the other side, of which I had heard; later I explored it. It
was a natural plain--a kind of table-land, and was laid out in what have
always, since I was a child, impressed me more than any other kind of
surroundings to a house--mile-long avenues of great trees, stretching
perfectly straight, like lines of marching troops in every direction.

Long, melancholy alleys and avenues, with huge, moss-grown stone figures
and groups guarding the terraces or keeping fantastic watch over the
stone tanks, on whose surfaces floated the lazy water-lilies. Great
moss-grown gods and goddesses, and strange hybrid beasts, and fauns and
satyrs, and all so silent and forlorn, with the lush grass and heavy
fern growing rank and thick under the stately trees. To right they
stretched and to left; and straightaway westward was one long, wide,
vast, deserted avenue, at the end of which was an opening, and in the
opening a huge stone myth or figure of a runner, who in the act of
racing receives an arrow in his heart, and, with arms madly tossed in
the air, staggers.

Behind this terrible figure the sun used to set, flaming, or mild, or
sullen, and the vast arms of it were outlined against the gorgeous sky,
o