The younger man shook his head. "A remarkable woman, but a most dangerous one! We Government men have proofs of it. I tell you, Herr Frank, that Princess Baratowska is a source of danger to the whole province."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said the agent, irritably; "but she is a source of danger to Wilicza. She has contrived now to get the whole property under her dominion. I was the last stumbling-block in her way; and, at last, she is ridding herself of me. You may believe me, Herr Assessor, when I say I have held out as long as I possibly could; not for the sake of the post--thank God, I am sufficiently before the world to stand on my own feet any day--but I don't like to think of all I have worked for and accomplished these last twenty years going to the dogs now because the old Polish management is to the fore again. When I came to the place, Herr Nordeck had been dead a few years, his son was living with his guardian at Altenhof, and farmers, foresters, and agents were working the concern merrily as best suited themselves. Here at Wilicza things were worst of all. My predecessor had robbed so openly and audaciously that it grew too strong even for Herr Witold, who, one fine day, dismissed him summarily. The Castle, the magnificence of which was talked of far and wide, stood shut up and deserted. Of the state of things in the village and on the farms about, I can give you no idea. Miserable wood and clay huts tumbling down over one's head, dirt and disorder whichever way one turned; the lower orders cringing, false, and full of pious national hatred to the 'German'; the fields in a condition to make a good farmer's heart sick within him. There was need, truly, of a pair of strong fists to the rescue. It was a good six months before I could send for my wife and children, because, outside the Castle, there was not what to our notions would seem a single habitable house to be found anywhere about. How could it be otherwise? The deceased Nordeck had never done anything but hunt and shoot, and quarrel with his wife, and Herr Witold did nothing at all. There were a few rows regularly each time he came; but, in general, he let himself be led by the nose, and that was pretty well known throughout the place. If the accounts were down on paper in black and white, and the figures added up right, then all was as it should be; whether the expenditure were real or fictitious, he never troubled himself to inquire. What sums I had to ask for at first to bring the concern into anything like order! They were granted me without delay or difficulty; and the fact that I really employed them on the estate, instead of putting them into my own pockets like my worthy colleagues, was a mere hazard. Mine was an exceptional case. But the old gentleman had some glimmering of the fact that I was the only honest man of the whole set, for at the end of the first year he raised my salary and commission, so that I, with my honesty, fared just as well as the others with their thieving; and if he had lived, I should never have left Wilicza, in spite of the Princess's intrigues. She was too wise to attack me in those days. She knew I had only to write to Altenhof and put Heir Witold up to what was going on, and there would have been an explosion. He had still influence enough over his adopted son to procure me liberty of action. During his lifetime I was left in peace; but when he died, all that was over. What good does it do me that my contract guarantees me a free and independent position? When these continual encroachments proceed from the Castle itself and are authorised by the owner's mother, there is nothing for me but either to bear them, or to go. I have borne them long enough, and now I shall go."