In this paper it was set forth that the most learned Doctor of Law, Leonard Schmidt, with his servant Johann, were on their way to Ratisbon to dispute concerning the Practice of Law and Reason with another most learned Doctor of the Empire, and that, desiring to remain a day of two in Thorn, they were by the Abbot Tobias of Wolgast commended to Bishop Peter's kind hospitality.
For indeed the inns of Germany, and especially of the North, were not at that time such as wise and learned men could readily submit to--neither abide in, to be herded with dull, landward peasants and all the tankard-swilling gutter-knaves of the town.
Of the remainder of our journey I need not speak, seeing that more than once I have had to tell of that journey from Thorn to Plassenburg.

It is sufficient that by evening the dark, frowning mass of the Wolfsberg lay imminent before us, each tower black against the sky.

For even the new portions which Casimir had builded were of intention blackened with soot--mingled with the plaster and mortar, so that they should be of one piece of grim terror with the rest of the building.
"After all it is not strange," said I to the Councillor, for when there was no one in sight or very near us I rode with him instead of behind him, "that the man who shakes at every breeze among the aspens should take such pains to create the fiction and shadow of terror about him, when the substance and reality is dominant all the while in his own bosom." Since we had come within the distressed and depopulated territory of the Wolfmark we had not spoken to any soul.

Indeed, except a few poor, desolate peasant folk, burned black with the sun, scuttling from den to den at the sight of mounted men, we had not seen any living creatures.
The cruelty which had marked the reign of the Black Duke seemed to have afflicted the very face of the country with a visible curse.
But the day of deliverance was at hand.
As we came nearer to Thorn, there before us was the Red Tower, at first dimly apparent, then prominent, then commanding, finally rising higher than all the buildings of the Wolfsberg.

How many days had I not looked down from those windows! And my father was even now up there in his grim garret, his heart stirring calm and kindly within him, in spite of all the atmosphere of blood in which his life had moved, as untouched as though he had been a gardener working among the flowers of the parterre.
Also the block was there, and against it the Red Axe was leaning.
Then I called to mind the prophecy of the Lady Ysolinde, that I should return to take up my father's dreadful trade.