“Hum!  Too bad!” rejoined Kohlhaas.  “An estimable old gentleman he was, who liked to watch people come and go, and helped along trade and traffic wherever he could.  He once had a causeway built because a mare of mine had broken her leg out there on the road leading to the village.  Well, how much is it?” he asked, and with some trouble got out the few groschen demanded by the gate keeper from under his cloak, which was fluttering in the wind.  “Yes, old man,” he added, picking up the leading reins as the latter muttered “Quick, quick!” and cursed the weather; “if this tree had remained standing in the forest it would have been better for me and for you.”  With this he gave him the money, and started to ride on.

He had hardly passed under the toll-bar, however, when a new voice cried out from the tower behind him, “Stop there, horse-dealer!” and he saw the castellan close a window and come hurrying down to him.  “Well, I wonder what he wants!” Kohlhaas asked himself, and halted with his horses.  Buttoning another waistcoat over his ample body, the castellan came up to him and, standing with his back to the storm, demanded his passport.

“My passport?” queried Kohlhaas.  Somewhat disconcerted, he replied that he had none, so far as he knew, but that, if some one would just describe to him what in the name of goodness this was, perhaps he might accidentally happen to have one about him.  The castellan, eying him askance, retorted that without an official permit no horse-dealer was allowed to cross the border with horses.  The horse-dealer assured him that seventeen times in his life he had crossed the border without such a permit; that he was well acquainted with all the official regulations which applied to his trade; that this would probably prove to be only a mistake; the castellan would please consider the matter and, since he had a long day’s journey before him, not detain him here unnecessarily any longer.  But the castellan answered that he was not going to slip through the eighteenth time, that the ordinance concerning this matter had been only recently issued, and that he must either procure the passport here or go back to the place from which he had come.  After a moment’s reflection, the horse-dealer, who was beginning to feel bitter, got down from his horse, turned it over to a groom, and said that he would speak to Squire Tronka himself on the subject.  He really did walk toward the castle; the castellan followed him, muttering something about niggardly money-grubbers, and what a good thing it was to bleed them; and, measuring each other with their glances, the two entered the castle-hall.