All those days I had not been idle, but had roved a good deal, trying to get friends, and had explored, too, round about the castle by land and river. There were quite thirty to fifty dwellings within two miles, but I found all these people very reserved, given up to their swine and agrarian cares, and looking upon me as a needless phenomenon. Swine abounded! a pig was in every life. However, I won some of them into saying something, and gathered, on the whole, that probably no one _knew_ what had become of Dees, but that all probably had a guess that he was, or had been, a prisoner in the castle, in which case they were pleased, with a feeling of "serve him right"; also that no one had, or wished to say that he had, any intuition whereabouts in the world his lordship then was. This, too, was strange, that on that Sunday when Langler and I at last walked down through the forest towards the river and burg no sound of bell called the people to worship; Europe was on its knees, but this one valley of Europe had washed its hands of the Christian Church.
And everyone had only one excuse to offer for this--namely, that "it was enough to do to keep body and soul together."
How clear and new-made was the air in there that Sunday afternoon! "Up here," wrote Langler to his sister, "it is never hot nor muggy, I think, for the breezes rest not day nor night, breathing eras of music through the timber." He said that he had never felt better, though bitterly like Don Quixote before the windmill! Old Lossow (our host) and two boys came along with us, but they left us in a flurry at the outwork barbacan; then we two stood before the gate, dressed to our gloves, and Langler said to me: "you know, Arthur, that Christ of Castagno in the gallery at Christ Church? it rises before me now as an expression of the languishment of mind which I feel in the presence of this stronghold." So I, too, felt; nor was I at all sure that, once in, we should ever come out again; but there we were, and I summoned the castle--the knocker being a cannon-ball hanging on a chain, whereat a woman opened, we stepped into the bailey-court, and a somewhat loosely-dressed man, with a tasselled smoking-cap on his head hurried towards us, followed by a brown bear. "Kiss the hand, sirs," said he, "you are without doubt the two English acquaintances of the baron from whom I have received a communication." "Yes, sir," said I. "I am the burgvogt, Jan Tschudi," said he; "I take it that you still wish to inspect the burg?" "Still, yes," said I, for I had a weapon on me. "Willingly from the heart will I show you over the fortress," said he, "be so good as to come this way."