You approach the castle by a path cut through
the rock for about thirty or forty feet. At last I stood under a low
archway of solid stone masonry, about twenty feet thick. There had
evidently been three successive doors; the outer one was gone, and the
two inner were wonderfully massive, braced with iron, and having each
a smaller wicket door swung back on its hinges.
As my party were a little behind, I had time to stop and meditate. I
fancied a dark, misty night, and the tramp of a party of horsemen
coming up the rocky path to the gateway; the parley at the wicket; the
unbarred doors, creaking on their rusty hinges,--one, two, three,--are
opened; in clatters the cavalcade. In the midst of armed men with
visors down, a monk in cowl and gown, and with that firm look about
the lips which is so characteristic in Luther's portraits. But here
our party came up, and the vision was dispelled. As none of us knew a
word of German, we stood rather irresolutely looking at the buildings
which, in all shapes and varieties, surround the court. I went into
one room--it was a pantry; into another--it was a wash room; into a
third--it was a sitting room, garnished with antlers, and hung round
with hard old portraits of princes and electors, and occupied by
Germans smoking and drinking beer.
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