Thus in a general way we account for the origin of the first association and the first judicial arrangement of the Westphalian Estates or peasant communities.  It is the less surprising when we consider that the former condition of Westphalia permitted only a slow increase of population and a gradual development of agriculture; and precisely this gradual progress led to those simple and uniform arrangements, as also to the similarity of culture, manners and customs, which we find among the ancient inhabitants of Westphalia.”

[Illustration:  THE OBERHOF BY BENJAMIN VAUTIER]

This passage from Kindlinger’s Contributions to the History of the Diocese of Muenster conducts us to the scene of our story.  It throws a light on our hero, the Justice.  He was the owner of one of the largest and wealthiest of the Main Estates, or Oberhofs, which still exist in those regions, but which, to be sure, have now fused together to a small number.

There is something remarkable about the first traditions of a tribe, and the people as a whole have just as long a memory as the individual persons, who are wont to retain faithfully to extreme old age the impressions of early childhood.  When now we consider that an individual human life may last as long as ninety years, and, furthermore, that the years of a people are as centuries, it is no longer a matter of wonder to us that, in the regions where the events of our story took place, we still here and there come across much that points back to the time when the great Emperor of the Franks succeeded, by means of fire and sword, in converting the obstinate inhabitants.

And so if, in the place where once the Supreme Justice and the heir of the region lived, Nature once more awakens special qualities in a person, there may grow up amid these thousand-year-old memories and between the boundaries and ditches which are, after all, still recognizable, a figure like our Justice, whose right of existence is not acknowledged by the powers of the present, to be sure, but which for its own self, and among its own kind, may temporarily restore a condition which disappeared long ago.

Let us look around in the Oberhof itself.  If the praise of a friend is always very ambiguous, then surely one may trust the envy of an enemy; and the person most worthy of credit is a horse-dealer, who calls special attention to the comfortable circumstances of a peasant with whom he could not agree in a matter of business.  To be sure, one could not say, as the horse-dealer Marx did, that the surroundings reminded one of a count’s estate; on the other hand, in whatever direction one looked there was an atmosphere of peasant prosperity and opulence which could not but call out to the hungriest stranger:  Here you can eat your fill; the plate is never empty.

The estate lay entirely alone on the border of the fertile plain, at the point where it passes over into hilly woodland; indeed, the Justice’s last fields lay on a gentle slope, and a mile away were the mountains.  The nearest neighbor in the peasant community lived a quarter of an hour away from the estate, around which were spread out all the possessions which a large country household had need of—­fields, woods and meadows, all in compact uninterrupted continuity.