, my god-son! I taught you that, but now we must start," said the
uncle, extending his hand to the little boy. "Where shall we go?"

"Up to the castle," Kurt quickly suggested. Everybody was satisfied with
the plan and the mother assented eagerly, as she had intended the same
thing.

"We shall go up towards the castle hill," the uncle remarked as he set
out after taking the two little ones by the hand. "We shall have to go
around the castle, won't we? If cross Mr. Trius is keeping watch, we
won't get very close to it, because the property is fenced in for a long
way around."

"Oh, we can go up on the road to the entrance," said Kurt with animation.
"We can look into the garden from there, but everything is overgrown. On
the right is a wooden fence which we can easily climb. From there we can
run all the way up through the meadows to a thick hawthorn hedge; on the
other side of that begin the bushes and behind that the woods with the
old fir and pine trees, but we can't climb over it. We could easily
enough get to the castle from the woods."

"You seem to have a very minute knowledge of the place," said the uncle.
"What does Mr. Trius say to the climbing of hedges? In the meadows there
are beautiful apple-trees as far as I remember."

"He beats everybody he can catch," was Kurt's information, "even if they
have no intention of taking the apples. Whenever he sees anyone in the
neighborhood of the hedge, he begins to strike out at them."

"His intention is probably to show everybody who tries to nose around
that the fences are not to be climbed. Let us wait for your mother, who
knows all the little ways. She will tell us where to go."

Uncle Philip glanced back for his sister, who had remained behind with
Mea and Bruno. While the uncle was amusing the younger ones, the two
others were eagerly talking over their special problems with her, so that
they got ahead very slowly.

"To which side shall we go now? As you know the way so well, please tell
us where to go," said the uncle when the three had approached.

The mother replied that Uncle Philip knew the paths as well as she, if
not even better. As long as the decision lay with her, however, she
chose the height to the left from which there was a clear view of the
castle.

"Then we'll pass by Apollonie's cottage," said Kurt. "I am glad! Then we
can see what Loneli is doing after yesterday's trouble. She is the
nicest child in school."

"Let us go there," the un