The sons of these poor landowners learnt to ride, dance, and fence, and perhaps the first rudiments of Latin from a poor candidate; then, if the father had connections, they served as pages at some small court, or to a distinguished nobleman. There they learnt, to a certain extent, good manners; and, more certainly, the weaknesses and vices of the higher orders. If they remained some years in noble service they were, according to old usage, declared capable of bearing arms, and released as Junkers with a gracious box on the ear. Then they returned to the parental estate, or the parents sold what they could spare to procure them an outfit befitting a gentleman, and sent them as aspirants for subaltern places in the Imperial army. Few of them prospered in the inglorious wars of that period; most returned home, after some campaigns, corrupted and poor both in honour and booty, to share with their sisters the paternal inheritance. Soon they differed little from the relations who had remained at home. These landowners dwelt in buildings of clay and wood, roofed with straw or shingles,--a sufficient number of casual descriptions and drawings have been preserved to us; across the roof lay the great fire-ladders; the front and back doors of the hall were provided with crossbars for closing them at night. On the ground-floor was the large sitting-room; near it the spacious kitchen, which was a warm abode for the servants; next the sitting-room there was a walled vault, with iron gratings to the window, and if possible with iron doors, as a protection against thieves and fire,--whatever valuables a landowner possessed were kept there, and if a sum of money was deposited there, a special watchman was placed before the house. Above this vault, in the upper floor, was the bedroom of the master of the house; there was the marriage-bed, and there also was a concealed safe, either in the wall or floor, wherein some plate and the jewellery of the women were kept. The children, the tutor, and the housekeeper slept in small closets, which could not be warmed, divided by trellis-work. Sometimes a wooden gallery was attached to the upper floor, the "little pleasure walk;" there the linen was dried, the farmyard inspected, and the work of the women done. The house was under the special care of some old trooper, or poor cousin, who slept within as watcher. Wild dogs roamed about the farmyard and round the house during the night; these were specially intended to guard against beggars and vagrants. But all these measures of precaution could not entirely hinder the inroads of armed bands. Even a good-sized estate was an unsatisfactory possession. Most of the landowners were deeply in debt; ruinous lawsuits, which had begun during the war, were pending over hearth and hill. The farm was carried on wretchedly under the superintendence of a poor relation or untrustworthy bailiff; the farm-buildings were bad and falling into