In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II | Page 3

been a properly
regulated young lady. I only know she was a dear little pet, worth
twenty model young ladies, and that she loved Carl very dearly.
And then consider what a dreadful old tyrant of a papa she had! My
dear girl, it's not the slightest use your looking so provokingly correct;
it's my deliberate belief that if you had been in her shoes (they'd have
been at least three sizes too small for you, but that doesn't matter) you
would have done precisely the same.
Such was the state of things on Christmas eve in the year----Stay! fairy
tales never have a year to them, so, on second thoughts, I wouldn't tell
the date if I knew,--but I don't.
Such was the state of things, however, on the particular 24th of
December to which our story refers--only, if anything, rather more so.
The baron had got up in the morning in an exceedingly bad temper; and
those about him had felt its effects all through the day.
His two favorite wolf-hounds, Lutzow and Teufel, had received so
many kicks from the baron's heavy boots that they hardly knew at
which end their tails were; and even Klootz himself scarcely dared to
approach his master.

In the middle of the day two of the principal tenants came to say that
they were unprepared with their rent, and to beg for a little delay. The
poor fellows represented that their families were starving, and entreated
for mercy; but the baron was only too glad that he had at last found so
fair an excuse for venting his ill-humor.
He loaded the unhappy defaulters with every abusive epithet he could
devise (and being called names in German is no joke, I can tell you);
and, lastly, he swore by everything he could think of that, if their rent
was not paid on the morrow, themselves and their families should be
turned out of doors to sleep on the snow, which was then many inches
deep on the ground. They still continued to beg for mercy, till the baron
became so exasperated that he determined to put them out of the castle
himself. He pursued them for that purpose as far as the outer door,
when fresh fuel was added to his anger.
Carl, who, as I have hinted, still managed, notwithstanding the paternal
prohibition, to see Bertha occasionally, and had come to wish her a
merry Christmas, chanced at this identical moment to be saying
good-bye at the door, above which, in accordance with immemorial
usage, a huge bush of mistletoe was suspended. What they were doing
under it at the moment of the baron's appearance, I never knew exactly;
but his wrath was tremendous!
I regret to say that his language was unparliamentary in the extreme. He
swore until he was mauve in the face; and if he had not providentially
been seized with a fit of coughing, and sat down in the
coal-scuttle,--mistaking it for a three-legged stool,--it is impossible to
say to what lengths his feelings might have carried him.
Carl and Bertha picked him up, rather black behind, but otherwise not
much the worse for his accident.
In fact, the diversion of his thoughts seemed to have done him good;
for, having sworn a little more, and Carl having left the castle, he
appeared rather better.
II.

After enduring so many and various emotions, it is hardly to be
wondered at that the baron required some consolation; so, after having
changed his trousers, he took himself off to his favorite turret to allay,
by copious potations, the irritations of his mind.
Bottle after bottle was emptied, and pipe after pipe was filled and
smoked. The fine old Burgundy was gradually getting into the baron's
head; and, altogether, he was beginning to feel more comfortable.
The shades of the winter afternoon had deepened into the evening
twilight, made dimmer still by the aromatic clouds that came, with
dignified deliberation, from the baron's lips, and curled and floated up
to the carved ceiling of the turret, where they spread themselves into a
dim canopy, which every successive cloud brought lower and lower.
The fire, which had been piled up mountain-high earlier in the
afternoon, and had flamed and roared to its heart's content ever since,
had now got to that state--the perfection of a fire to a lazy man--when it
requires no poking or attention of any kind, but just burns itself hollow,
and then tumbles in, and blazes jovially for a little time, and then settles
down to a genial glow, and gets hollow, and tumbles in again.
The baron's fire was just in this delightful da capo condition, most
favorable of all to the enjoyment of the dolce far niente.
For a little while it would glow and kindle