Hares rustled among the covert; here and there a statue stood glimmering, with its eternal gesture; here and there the echo of an imitation temple clattered ghostly to the trampling of the mare.

Ten minutes brought him to the upper end of his own home garden, where the small stables opened, over a bridge, upon the park.

The yard clock was striking the hour of ten; so was the big bell in the palace bell-tower; and, farther off, the belfries of the town.

About the stable all else was silent but the stamping of stalled horses and the rattle of halters.
Otto dismounted; and as he did so a memory came back to him: a whisper of dishonest grooms and stolen corn, once heard, long forgotten, and now recurring in the nick of opportunity.

He crossed the bridge, and, going up to a window, knocked six or seven heavy blows in a particular cadence, and, as he did so, smiled.