ring battlements, peered over the field.
"Is the old master dead?" "Of an apoplexy," answered the collector, as
he lifted up the bar. "That's a pity!" said Kohlhaas. "He was a
worthy old gentleman, who took delight in the intercourse of men, and
helped business when he could. Aye, once he had a dam built of stone,
because a mare of mine broke her leg yonder, where the way leads to the
village. Now, how much?" he asked, and with difficulty drew out from
his mantle, which fluttered in the wind, the _groschen_ required by the
collector. "Aye, old man," said he, as the other muttered, "make
haste," and cursed the weather.--"If the tree from which this bar was
fashioned had remained in the wood, it would have been better for both
of us." Having paid the money, he would have pursued his journey, but
scarcely had he passed the bar than he heard behind him a new voice
calling from the tower:

"Ho, there, horse-dealer!" and saw the castellan shut the window, and
hasten down to him. "Now, something else new!" said Kohlhaas to
himself, stopping with his horses. The castellan, buttoning a
waistcoat over his spacious stomach, came, and standing aslant against
the rain, asked for his passport. "Passport!" cried Kohlhaas; adding,
a little puzzled, that he had not one about him, to his knowledge; but
that he should like to be told what sort of a thing it was as he might
perchance be provided with one, notwithstanding. The castellan, eyeing
him askance, remarked, that without a written permission no
horse-dealer, with horses, would be allowed to pass the border. The
horse-dealer asserted that he had crossed the border seventeen times in
the course of his life without any such paper; that he knew perfectly
all the seignorial privileges which belonged to his business; that this
would only prove a mistake, and that he, therefore, hoped he might be
allowed to think it over; and, as his journey was long, not be detained
thus uselessly any further. The castellan answered that he would not
escape the eighteenth time; that the regulation had but lately
appeared, and that he must either take a passport here or return whence
he had come. The horse-dealer, who began to be nettled at these
illegal exactions, dismounted from his horse, after reflecting for a
while, and said he would speak to the Squire von Tronka himself. He
accordingly went up to the castle, followed by the castellan, who
muttered something about stingy money-scraper