not many generations since. Poor people had broken up the ground,
and worn themselves out, one set after another, to keep it in
cultivation. Round about Stone Farm lived only cottagers and men
owning two horses, who had bought their land with toil and hunger,
and would as soon have thought of selling their parents' grave as
their little property; they stuck to it until they died or some
misfortune overtook them.

But the Stone Farm family were always wanting to buy and extend
their property, and their chance only came through their neighbors'
misfortunes. Wherever a bad harvest or sickness or ill luck with his
beasts hit a man hard enough to make him reel, the Kollers bought.
Thus Stone Farm grew, and acquired numerous buildings and much
importance; it became as hard a neighbor as the sea is, when it eats
up the farmer's land, field by field, and nothing can be done to
check it. First one was eaten up and then another. Every one knew
that his turn would come sooner or later. No one goes to law with
the sea; but all the ills and discomfort that brooded over the poor
man's life came from Stone Farm. The powers of darkness dwelt there,
and frightened souls pointed to it always. "That's well-manured
land," the people of the district would say, with a peculiar
intonation that held a curse; but they ventured no further.

The Koller family was not sentimental; it throve capitally in the
sinister light that fell upon the farm from so many frightened
minds, and felt it as power. The men were hard drinkers and
card-players; but they never drank so much as to lose sight and
feeling; and if they played away a horse early in the evening,
they very likely won two in the course of the night.