CHAPTER V.


The chateau of Falkenberg, which the travellers reached with the
decline of light, had the usual dependences of offices and gardens,
which may be supposed essential to a prince's hunting establishment in
that period. It stood at a distance of eighteen miles from Klosterheim,
and presented the sole _oasis_ of culture and artificial beauty
throughout the vast extent of those wild tracts of sylvan ground.

The great central pile of the building was dismantled of furniture; but
the travellers carried with them, as was usual in the heat of war, all
the means of fencing against the cold, and giving even a luxurious
equipment to their dormitories. In so large a party, the deficiencies
of one were compensated by the redundant contributions of another. And
so long as they were not under the old Roman interdict, excluding them
from seeking fire and water of those on whom their day's journey had
thrown them, their own travelling stores enabled them to accommodate
themselves to all other privations. On this occasion, however, they
found more than they had expected; for there was at Falkenberg a store
of all the game in season, constantly kept up for the use of the
Landgrave's household, and the more favored monasteries at Klosterheim.
The small establishment of keepers, foresters, and other servants, who
occupied the chateau, had received no orders to refuse the hospitality
usually practised in the Landgrave's name; or thought proper to
dissemble them in their present circumstances of inability to resist.
And having from necessity permitted so much, they were led by a sense
of their master's honor, or their own sympathy with the condition of so
many women and children, to do more. Rations of game were distributed