Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/36

 the wonderful tales about the game I had bagged and the adventures in the forest and field I had encountered.

Suddenly a terrible misfortune befell the family. My grandfather had a stroke of paralysis. The upper part of his body remained sound, but he could no longer walk or stand. And thus, alas! the Burghalfen's bustling activity came to a sudden end; no more feats of strength; no more merry rides to the bird-shooting and to the kirmess. The robust man, yesterday still proud of his vigor, was now obliged to sit still from morning until night, his legs swathed in flannel. During the daytime his great armchair stood at the sitting-room window with the outward-curved grating, so that he might overlook the courtyard. He attempted to conduct farm affairs in this way, but he soon had to delegate his authority to a younger brother. And now the suddenly aged man did not know what to do with himself nor with his time. The Cologne Gazette was daily brought to him, but reading had never been much to his liking. It being summer and fly-time, a movable table attached to his armchair was sprinkled with sugar to attract the flies that swarmed into the room. He would sit for hours with a short leathern-flapped stick in his hand killing flies, now and then giving the table a terrible whack.

“This is all that I am still fit for,” sighed the once useful man. Often I was taken to him to entertain him with my boyish prattle and to make him laugh. Then he began to tell me about bygone days, especially about the “French times,” and the experiences of landed proprietors and peasants during those terrible years of war and pillage. As he talked I could see the merry “sans-culottes” swarming over the land, indulging in their wild pranks. I saw, as they approached, Count Wolf Metternich one night flying from the castle in a hurry, after having buried and walled his treasures, including the family