Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/170

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA. Praslok is a primitive old place. It stands on an abrupt mound, or knob, of ground by the roadside. So steep and sudden is the ascent, that it was necessary to build a massive causeway of wood—an inclined plane—to lead up from the road to the gate of the square tower which forms the front of the building; the causeway has cross-bars at short intervals, to give foothold to the horses which, in old days, were stabled within the walls. Recently, however, modern stables had been built on the other side of the road, and it had become the custom to mount the causeway and enter the Castle on foot.

Within, the arrangements were quaint and very simple. Besides the tower already mentioned, which contained the dining-room and two bedrooms above it, the whole building, strictly conditioned by the shape of the hill on which it stood, consisted of three rows of small rooms on the ground-floor. In one row lived the Prince and his male guests, in the second the servants, in the third the guard. The ladies were to be accommodated in the tower above the dining-room. The rows of rooms opened on a covered walk or cloister, which ran round the inner court of the Castle. The whole was solidly built of gray stone—a business-like old hill-fortress, strong by reason of its massive masonry and of the position in which it stood. Considered as a modern residence—it had to be treated humorously—so Max declared, and found much pleasure in it from that point of view. The Prince, always indifferent to physical comfort, and ever averse from luxury, probably did not realize how much his ancestral stronghold demanded of his guests' indulgence. Old Vassip, Peter's father, was major-domo—always in his sheepskin coat and high boots. His old wife was cook. Half a dozen 152