The calamities of war which the large armies marching to and fro brought upon the country did not press with particular weight upon the inhabitants of the castle. For this they were indebted to the colonel who was quartered within it with his company. But it soon became evident that his services were not altogether disinterested, for he daily made nearer and more evident advances towards the beautiful daughter of the house, and ventured many a time to storm her heart with tender, chivalrous courtesy. His noble demeanour and manly beauty, in addition to his high rank as a soldier, his birth and his fortune, powerfully supported his suit. But an invincible antagonist was in Tugendreich’s heart; the image of poor Axel and the half-copper dollar were to her a more precious treasure than the rich necklace which Baron Grotta ordered from Dresden, and which she was forced to accept by the command of her father. A dim foreboding seemed to tell the proud colonel what rival he had to contend with, and the recollection of the handsome insolent groom and the scene with the spur began to assume the shape of a suspicion which produced ill humour. This was expressed in many contemptuous observations concerning low-born persons, and his scorn at their desire to force their way into the upper classes daily wearied the patience of old Talander, who entertained very high notions of his own worth as a man. When it happened upon one occasion that the colonel in his presence boasted rather too complacently to the Fräulein of his hereditary privileges, the old man commenced reading a passage from a poem which an old collegian had sent him from Halle, running thus:[3] “Ye who prefer your dross to silver pure and fine, And think your glass as good as diamonds from the mine; I mean you, who in lists of ancestors take pride, And seem so many noughts set other noughts beside; Who worship that vain idol--old nobilitié, Ye truly are besotted--I pray ye, pardon me.” The colonel looked with eyes of wonder, which, in spite of the _captatio benevolentiæ_ in the concluding line, expressed no forgiveness, at the daring magister who, however, was not silent, but continued reading. “The flags your sires have left, of what avail are they? And what avails the plume that decks your arms so gay? The helm and shield bequeath’d by men who liv’d of yore, The burnish’d arms ye keep a thousand years in store, Are vanities; and he that’s wise will say, indeed, When real worth appears they must perforce recede.” At this the colonel left the room in a blustering manner as if he anticipated the sixteen lines of the poem which were yet to come, and with which Talander intended to treat him. The door closed after him with a great noise, and a pressure of the Fräulein’s hand thanked the grey knight who had so victoriously beaten that powerful enemy of her secret wishes out of the field.