on gratings to
the window, and if possible with iron doors, as a protection against
thieves and fire,--whatever valuables a landowner possessed were kept
there, and if a sum of money was deposited there, a special watchman
was placed before the house. Above this vault, in the upper floor, was
the bedroom of the master of the house; there was the marriage-bed, and
there also was a concealed safe, either in the wall or floor, wherein
some plate and the jewellery of the women were kept. The children, the
tutor, and the housekeeper slept in small closets, which could not be
warmed, divided by trellis-work. Sometimes a wooden gallery was
attached to the upper floor, the "little pleasure walk;" there the
linen was dried, the farmyard inspected, and the work of the women
done. The house was under the special care of some old trooper, or poor
cousin, who slept within as watcher. Wild dogs roamed about the
farmyard and round the house during the night; these were specially
intended to guard against beggars and vagrants. But all these measures
of precaution could not entirely hinder the inroads of armed bands.
Even a good-sized estate was an unsatisfactory possession. Most of the
landowners were deeply in debt; ruinous lawsuits, which had begun
during the war, were pending over hearth and hill. The farm was carried
on wretchedly under the superintendence of a poor relation or
untrustworthy bailiff; the farm-buildings were bad and falling into
ruins, and there was no money, and frequently no good wood wherewith to
renew them. For the woods had suffered much from the war; where there
was an opportunity of sale, the foreign commanders had caused large
forests to be felled and sold. In the neighbourhood of fortified places
the stems were employed for fortifications, which then required large
quantities of wood; and after the peace much was felled for the
necessary erection of villages and suburbs. The farm also bore little
produce. Not only teams, but hands, were wanting for the tillage; and
the average price of corn, after the war, was so low that the product
hardly paid for the carriage, and in consequence they kept few horses.
New capital was difficult to acquire; money was dear, and mortgages on
the properties of nobles were not considered an advantageous
investment. They, undoubtedly, gave a certain amount of security; but
the interest was too often irregularly payed, and the capital could not
easily be recovered. The acquisition