As they promenaded on the gravelled terrace that lay before the Count's residence, Balgonie could see the domains of Mierowitz that lay for miles around: the patrimonial village of the Count, nestling among the coppice, containing a dozen or so of stone houses, and double that number of quaint tumble-down edifices of wood, and a church with a little gilt cupola, where his serfs said their prayers, and thanked God and him for permission to live and breathe, and to hoard their roubles in secret--for wealth in a serf was a sure source of misery, extortion, and perhaps of torture, if discovered. In the immediate foreground were wharves, where the wood for masts and spars from his forests were launched, and formed into great rafts for conveyance to the Gulf of Finland. The din of axes and the crash of falling timber, with the cheerful voices of the woodmen and labourers, were heard rising from the echoing woods, as they lopped and trimmed the giant pines for conveyance to the Baltic coast; for his forest trees were one of the chief sources of revenue to Count Mierowitz. "Your father's mansion is indeed a noble one!" said Balgonie, who after surveying the landscape from the terrace, ran his eyes over the façade of the castle, as it was named, though by no means so well fortified as his patrimonial tower in Strathearn, which dated from the days of the Sixth James. "So noble that the first Count of our name who built it, when Ivan Basilovitch--Ivan the Terrible--was Czar, put out the eyes of the architect, who was, of course, one of his serfs," said Natalie. "For what reason?" asked Balgonie, starting. "Lest he should repeat the work for another," replied Natalie; "but then the Count was a fierce soldier, who had served under Yermack in the conquest of Siberia. I fear you think us very barbarous, Captain Balgonie; but I can assure you, that even in the remote forests of Yakoutsk, on the banks of the Lena, there is more regard for human life and divine laws now, than existed when my father was a boy. He has, indeed, seen terrible things!" Balgonie did not see much of the Count, who was generally occupied among his people, to whom he was alternately a source of reverence and of terror.