Easter came round, and with it the migration of the family to Friesenmoor House.  Wilhelm would have liked to seize this opportunity for withdrawing himself from a hospitality which weighed heavily on him, but Paul put down his timid revolt with a high hand.

“None of that now.  You are coming with us, and can see what country life is like for a whole summer,” he declared, and there the matter rested.

The estate and its surroundings possessed no picturesque charms.  The land stretched in uniform flatness from the sluggish Suderelbe to the equally sleepy Seeve, and the Fuchsberg at Ronneburg, with its height of two hundred feet, was a giant of the Alps or Cordilloras, compared to the floor-like evenness of the country round about.  From the platform of the tower which Paul had built on to his house, giving it quite a baronial appearance, one could see for miles across country, almost to Hamburg, the spires of which were plainly visible on a clear day.  But far and near one saw nothing but cornfields and meadows, that had the regularity of a carpet pattern, intersected by clay-colored dikes, straight ditches full of stagnant brown water, here and there a busy windmill, and in the distance the smooth-flowing watercourses which bounded the landscape.  The picture was laid on from a meager palette; a few browns and greens, slightly relieved and enlivened by the vigorous tones of the whitewashed walls of the laborers’ cottages, some standing apart, some collected together like a little village.

And yet, though the view from the tower might not seem very attractive, a walk through the country revealed many a peculiar charm to the observant and divining eye.  Here one stood upon ground where man had wrestled with Nature and subdued her.  At every step one encountered the marks of that struggle and victory, reminding one of Jacob’s mysterious encounter with the angel.  The waters of the marsh were now forced within the prescribed limits of a system of drains and canals.  Luxuriant crops triumphed over reeds and rushes, which were now only permitted to fringe the edges of the ditches.  Sleek, mild-eyed cows grazed and ruminated where formerly the wildfowl built her nest.  Chaos was vanquished, and had to own man for her lord and master.

Here, upon the scene of his labors, Paul’s figure assumed a certain epic dignity.  As a stern lord with a handful of armed followers keeps down a subjugated people, so Paul, at the head of a few hundred workmen, held sway over the unruly forces of Nature always more or less ready to revolt.  There were always dikes to be repaired, ditches to be deepened, drain-pipes to be laid or improved, or artificial manure to be carted, and Paul was active from break of day till nightfall, either on foot or on horseback, hurrying from one end of the estate to the other, everywhere ordering or giving a helping hand, and always leading his troops himself to fresh onslaughts against the resisting elements.  He did it all quietly, without any fuss or attempt to reflect credit on himself, and left it to others—­to strangers, poetically inclined pupils or students on their travels—­to say that his conquest of the Friesenmoor was a Faust-like achievement.