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THE DEED OF ENTAIL.
CHAPTER I.
On the bleak shore of the Baltic sea, between the towns of Bernburg and Rovienne, is situated the old family mansion of the Barons von Rolandsitten. The immediate environs are wild and desolate. Scarely here and there a single blade of grass rises out of the bottomless drift-sand, and instead of a garden,—the usual adjunct of a baronial castle, Rolandsitten has, on the landward side, only a frightful wood of Scotch firs, that, with their never changing gloom, seem to mock the beautiful garniture of the spring, and from whose dark umbrage, instead of the delightful songs of the blackbird and nightingale, nothing is heard but the croaking of ravens, and the storm-boding screams of the sea-fowl.
