New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-03-23
SUNDAY MAGAZINE FOR MARCh ]' i9''

Forgive! fOrgVe! oolildu Biodieu' l nave done
only what was best.
produce the keys!'
"But not tonight, not tonight he pleaded aShe
will be very angry Ach GoM She will drive us out.
she will shame us all! AoM and she who is gentle
and unhappy and 500 kind to all OF u.s. Il can
mott cannot"
Poopendykes commonsense came in very handily at
this critical juncture He counseed to let the mat
ter until the next morning when 1t was reasonable
to expect the lady herself would explain everything
Before they finished they had convinced me that was
meek futile suppliant and not the master Of eudal
stronghold. Somehow | was made to feel that il l
didn't behave myself stood III considerable danger Of
being turned off the place
However. we forced something out of Schmick before
his stalwart sons came trampng up the stairs to rescue
him. The old man gave us touch OF inside history
concerning SchosS Rothhoeen and Its erSt"he power
full BaronS.
ABOUT the middle of the nineteenth century the
"A last of the odtmc BaronS came 70 the end Of his
four years and ten and was lad away with great
pomp and glee by the people of the town the
river His two daughters had married Austrian noble
men and neither of them produced male descendant
The estate already in a state OF financial IS well
physical disintegration fell into the hands Of women
and went from bad to rapidly that long before
the last quarter of the century fairly begun the
castle and the reduced holdings slipped away from the
Rohhoefens altogether and into the control Of the father
of the Count from whom | purchased the property
The Counts father was dstiller Of great wealth in his
dav and a man Of action. Unfortunately he died be-
fore he had the chance to carry out his project IN
nection with the rehabilitation of Schloss Rot hoefen,
even then a deserted, ramshacke for paying
tourists and Mecca for antique and picture dealers.
The new Count my immediate predecessor. was not
long in dssipatng the fortune left by his father lie
had run through the bulk Of his patrimony by the time
he was twenty-five, and was pretty much run Gown at
the heel when he married in the hope Of recouing his
lost fortune.
TWAS aroused from my belated sleep by the sound
Il nj .Ln of 0.,p-ae
elephants Too late | realized that the tourists
unon me- Too late remembered that the door to my
room had been left unlocked. The hundred and sixty
nine were huddled outside my door, drinkng IN the
rnonotonous drive Of the guide who had sarl pene
trang voice and not the fantest notion Of Conscience
listened in dismay for moment and then, actuated
by something more than fury, leaped out ~ bed and
nreDared for dash across the room 70 lock the door,
On the third stride whrled and made flying leap into
the bed scuttlng beneath the with the speed
and accuracy of a crawfish. Just in time too; tor the
heavy door swung slowly open second later and the
shrl. explanatory voice projected loudly into my
lofty bedchamber.
Some a little closer please" said the morose man
with the cap "This room was occupied Tor centuries
by the masters Of Schoss Rothhoeten It's oedcham-
Der See the great baronia bed 1t has MT been slept
in for more than two hundred years. The later Barons
refused TO sleep in it because Of their ancestors had
been assassinaed between its sheets a. the tender age
of six He was stabbed by stepunce who played him
false This room is haunted. Observe the curtains OF
the bed They Of the rareSt silk and have been there
for three hundred years, coming from Damascus IN the
year 1886 Now We will pass on to the room coupled
by all OF the great Baronesses up 70 the nineeenth-
resolute beholder spoke up. Cant We step insde!
III YOU choose Madam. But We mus, waste no
time"
81 do so want to see where the old Barons sicpt.'
"Please do not handle the bedsprcads and curtains.
They will fall to pieces
heard no more; for the vanguard had pushed him
aside and was swooping down upon me. starp-nosed
woman led the way She within three feet Of the
bed and was stretching out her hand 70 touch The pro-
scribed fabrics when | sat bolt upright and yelled:
sect out"
Aftcrward | was told that the guide the first to
reach the bottom Of the stairs AMI that be- narrowly
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