he followed out the whole plan of
construction with great diligence; and he and Eric always placed before
them, as a reward for actual work accomplished, this instructive
conversation with the architect, and even frequently a permission to be
actively employed. It was a favorite thought of Roland's to live here
at some future time alone at the castle, and he wanted to have had some
hand in the building.

Roland and Eric were regularly but not accidently, at the castle when
the masons and the laborers engaged in excavation were paid off on
Saturday, evening. The time for leaving off work being an hour earlier
than usual, the barber came from the town and shaved the masons, and
then they, washed themselves at the fountain; a baker-woman with bread
also came out from the town, and the workmen placed themselves, one
after another, under the porch of a small house that had been
temporarily erected. Roland frequently stood inside the room, with the
foremen, and heard only the brief words,--

"You receive so much, and you, so much."

He saw the hard hands which received the pay. Frequently he stood
outside among the workmen themselves, or by their side, observing them;
and the boys of his own age received his particular notice, and he
thanked all heartily, when they saluted him. Most of them had a loaf of
bread wrapped up in a cloth under their arm, and they went off to the
villages where they lived, often singing until they were out of
hearing.

Eric knew that it was not in accordance with Sonnenkamp's ideas for
Roland thus to become familiar with different modes of life, for he had
once heard him say,--

"He who wishes to build a castle need not know all the carters and
quarrymen in the stone-pits around."

But Eric considered it his duty to let Roland have an unprejudiced,
acquaintance with a mode of life different from his own. He saw the
expression of Roland's large eyes while they were sitting upon a
projecting point of the castle; where the thyme sent up its sweet odor
around them, and they looked out over mountain and valley; with the
bells sending out their peal for the Sunday-eve; and he felt happy, for
he knew that an eye which so looked upon the hard-working hands, and a
thought which so followed the laborers returning to their homes, was
forming, an internal state that could not be hardheartedly unmindful of
one's fellow-men. Thus was a moral and intellectual foundation laid in
the soul of the youth. Eric