Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/25

 huge proportions: over six feet in height, with powerful chest and shoulders, and massive features to correspond; square chin; a firm mouth and full lips; large straight nose; fiery dark eyes with bushy eyebrows; a broad forehead, shadowed with curly brown hair. His strength of muscle was astounding. Once, at a kirmess festival, when several other halfen were his guests, my grandfather accepted a challenge to lift in his arms the great anvil which stood in the blacksmith's forge on the other side of the moat, and to carry it over the drawbridge, through the gate, into the house, up the stairs to the loft, and back again to the forge. I can see him now, striding along, up and down the creaking stairs, with the heavy block of iron in his arms, as though he were carrying a little child.

Wonderful were the stories told about him: that once a mad bull which had broken loose from the barn into the courtyard and driven all the stablemen under cover, was confronted by him, single-handed, and felled to the ground with one blow of a hammer; and that when heavily laden wagons were stuck in the ruts of bad country roads he would lift them up and out with his shoulders; and various other similar feats. It is not unlikely that such tales, as they passed from mouth to mouth, may have gone a little beyond the boundary line of fact, and swelled into legendary grandeur; but they were recounted with every assurance of authenticity; and certain it is that the Burghalfen was the strongest man of his day in the neighborhood of Liblar.

His education had been elementary only. He could read and write, though with books he had little concern. But he was a man of great authority with the people. From the village and surrounding country men and women came to seek the Burghalfen's advice, and to lay their troubles before him; and whenever report reached him of a quarrel among neighbors,