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The best crop was on the bank of the Braunwasser, by the Debateable Ford, but this was cut and carried on the backs of the serfs, much earlier than the mountain grass, and never without much vigilance against the Schlangenwaldern; but this year the Count was absent at his Styrian castle, and little had been seen or heard of his people.
Thenceforth began a petty border warfare such as had existed when Christina first knew Adlerstein, but had of late died out. The shepherd lad came home weeping with wrath. Three mounted Schlangenwaldern had driven off his four best sheep, and beaten himself with their halberds, though he was safe on Adlerstein ground. Then a light thrown by a Schlangenwald reiter consumed all Jobst's pile of wood.
He understood her at once, coloured, and spoke hastily and in defiance. "It was in the river, mother, the horses fell; it is our right." "Fairly, Ebbo?" she asked in a low voice. "Nay, mother, if Jobst DID hide a branch in midstream, it was no doing of mine; and the horses fell. The Schlangenwaldern don't even wait to let them fall. We cannot live, if we are to be so nice and dainty."
Ursel and Else helping one another out, tried to tell her, but they were much confused; all they knew was that the party had been surprised at night in a village hostel by the Schlangenwaldern, and all slain, though the young Baron had lived long enough to charge the Schneiderlein with his commendation of his wife to his mother; but all particulars had been lost in the general confusion.
We have been set upon by the accursed Schlangenwaldern, and I am the only living man left." Christina scarce heard even these last words; senses and powers alike failed her, and she sank back on the stone steps in a deathlike swoon. When she came to herself she was lying on her bed, Ursel and Else, another of the women, busy over her, and Ursel's voice was saying, "Ah, she is coming round.
Yet it was well that the snow came early, for it was the best defence of the lonely castle from any attack on the part of the Schlangenwaldern, the Swabian League, or the next heir, Freiherr Kasimir von Adlerstein Wildschloss. The elder Baroness had, at least, the merit of a stout heart, and, even with her sadly-reduced garrison, feared none of them.
But the Schlangenwaldern got the last before ever we could get down. Jobst was so stupid. He did not give us warning in time; but he is to be hanged next time if he does not." Christina's blood curdled as she heard this speech in a weak little complaining tone, that otherwise put her sadly in mind of Barbara Schmidt's little sister, who had pined and wasted to death.
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