United States or Cuba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"He had been told," he continued, taking up the pail again and propping it between the pole of the cart and his knee "he had been told by the messenger of the court at Wilsdruf to take the horses to the house of the Tronkas in Dresden, but the Squire to whom he had been directed was named Kunz."
Sir Wenzel Tronka, therefore, in his capacity as hereditary feudal lord with the right of judicature, addressed a letter to the magistrates at Wilsdruf, in which, after a minute description of the black horses, which, as he said, had been intrusted to his care and lost through an accident, he begged them to be so obliging as to ascertain their present whereabouts, and to urge and admonish the owner, whoever he might be, to deliver them at the stables of the Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, in Dresden, and be generously reimbursed for all costs.
He asked the fellow, who was standing there with his legs apart, pulling up his trousers, whether he did not know something about all this. Had not the swineherd of Hainichen, he went on, perhaps purchased these horses from the shepherd at Wilsdruf, or from a third person, who in turn had bought them from the latter? for everything depended on this circumstance.
The Squire who had gone around the cart and gazed at the miserable animals, which seemed every moment about to expire, said in an embarrassed way that those were not the horses which he had taken from Kohlhaas; but Sir Kunz, the Chamberlain, casting at him a look of speechless rage which, had it been of iron, would have dashed him to pieces, and throwing back his cloak to disclose his orders and chain, stepped up to the knacker and asked if those were the black horses which the shepherd at Wilsdruf had gained possession of, and for which Squire Wenzel Tronka, to whom they belonged, had made requisition through the magistrate of that place.
Our four columns, therefore, lie all night, under arms, about Rohrsdorf: and again by morrow's dawn are astir in the old order, crunching far and wide the frozen ground; and advance, charged to the muzzle with potential battle. Slightly upwards always, to the actual watershed of the country; leaving Wilsdruf a little to their right.
At Wilsdruf, Friedrich first learns for certain, that the Saxon Army, with King, with Bruhl and other chief personages, are withdrawn to Pirna, to the inexpugnable Konigstein and Rock-Country.
A post both safe and comfortable; only you must not loiter in making up your mind as to Finck; for Friedrich has followed on the instant. Friedrich's head-quarter is already Wilsdruf, which an hour or two ago was Daun's: at Kesselsdorf vigilant Ziethen is vanguard. So that Friedrich looks over on you from the northern brow of your Chasm; delays are not good near such a neighbor.
For a variety of reasons it seemed very probable that these were the black horses for which search was being made, but persons coming from Wilsdruf declared that the shepherd had already traded them off again, no one knew to whom; and a third rumor, the originator of which could not be discovered, even asserted that the two horses had in the mean time passed peacefully away and been buried in the carrion pit at Wilsdruf.
Then he put down the pail, took the bit out of the horse's mouth, and explained that the black horses which were tied to the tailboard of the cart had been sold to him by the swineherd in Hainichen; where the latter had obtained them and whether they came from the shepherd at Wilsdruf that he did not know.
Some men from Dresden, who had been in Wilsdruf a few days after the burning of Tronka Castle, declared that, at the time named, a groom had arrived in that place, leading two horses by the halter, and, as the animals were very sick and could go no further, he had left them in the cow-stable of a shepherd who had offered to restore them to good condition.
Word Of The Day