{"product_id":"2940013773165","title":"In Kropsberg Keep and Other Stories","description":"To the traveller from Innsbrück to Munich, up the lovely valley of the\u003cbr\u003esilver Inn, many castles appear, one after another, each on its\u003cbr\u003ebeetling cliff or gentle hill,--appear and disappear, melting into the\u003cbr\u003edark fir trees that grow so thickly on every side,--Laneck, Lichtwer,\u003cbr\u003eRatholtz, Tratzberg, Matzen, Kropfsberg, gathering close around the\u003cbr\u003eentrance to the dark and wonderful Zillerthal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut to us--Tom Rendel and myself--there are two castles only: not the\u003cbr\u003egorgeous and princely Ambras, nor the noble old Tratzberg, with its\u003cbr\u003ecrowded treasures of solemn and splendid mediævalism; but little\u003cbr\u003eMatzen, where eager hospitality forms the new life of a never-dead\u003cbr\u003echivalry, and Kropfsberg, ruined, tottering, blasted by fire and\u003cbr\u003esmitten with grievous years,--a dead thing, and haunted,--full of\u003cbr\u003estrange legends, and eloquent of mystery and tragedy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were visiting the von C--s at Matzen, and gaining our first\u003cbr\u003ewondering knowledge of the courtly, cordial castle life in the\u003cbr\u003eTyrol,--of the gentle and delicate hospitality of noble Austrians.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBrixleg had ceased to be but a mark on a map, and had become a place\u003cbr\u003eof rest and delight, a home for homeless wanderers on the face of\u003cbr\u003eEurope, while Schloss Matzen was a synonym for all that was gracious\u003cbr\u003eand kindly and beautiful in life. The days moved on in a golden round\u003cbr\u003eof riding and driving and shooting: down to Landl and Thiersee for\u003cbr\u003echamois, across the river to the magic Achensec, up the Zillerthal,\u003cbr\u003eacross the Schmerner Joch, even to the railway station at Steinach.\u003cbr\u003eAnd in the evenings after the late dinners in the upper hall where the\u003cbr\u003esleepy hounds leaned against our chairs looking at us with suppliant\u003cbr\u003eeyes, in the evenings when the fire was dying away in the hooded\u003cbr\u003efireplace in the library, stories. Stories, and legends, and fairy\u003cbr\u003etales, while the stiff old portraits changed countenance constantly\u003cbr\u003eunder the flickering firelight, and the sound of the drifting Inn came\u003cbr\u003esoftly across the meadows far below.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf ever I tell the Story of Schloss Matzen, then will be the time to\u003cbr\u003epaint the too inadequate picture of this fair oasis in the desert of\u003cbr\u003etravel and tourists and hotels; but just now it is Kropfsberg the\u003cbr\u003eSilent that is of greater importance, for it was only in Matzen that\u003cbr\u003ethe story was told by Fräulein E--, the gold-haired niece of Frau von\u003cbr\u003eC--, one hot evening in July, when we were sitting in the great west\u003cbr\u003ewindow of the drawing-room after a long ride up the Stallenthal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll the windows were open to catch the faint wind, and we had sat for\u003cbr\u003ea long time watching the Otzethaler Alps turn rose-color over distant\u003cbr\u003eInnsbrück, then deepen to violet as the sun went down and the white\u003cbr\u003emists rose slowly until Lichtwer and Laneck and Kropfsberg rose like\u003cbr\u003ecraggy islands in a silver sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd this is the story as Fräulein E---told it to us,--the Story of\u003cbr\u003eKropfsberg Keep.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA great many years ago, soon after my grandfather died, and Matzen\u003cbr\u003ecame to us, when I was a little girl, and so young that I remember\u003cbr\u003enothing of the affair except as something dreadful that frightened me\u003cbr\u003every much, two young men who had studied painting with my grandfather\u003cbr\u003ecame down to Brixleg from Munich, partly to paint, and partly to amuse\u003cbr\u003ethemselves,--\"ghost-hunting\" as they said, for they were very sensible\u003cbr\u003eyoung men and prided themselves on it, laughing at all kinds of\u003cbr\u003e\"superstition,\" and particularly at that form which believed in ghosts\u003cbr\u003eand feared them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey had never seen a real ghost, you know, and they belonged to a\u003cbr\u003ecertain set of people who believed nothing they had not seen\u003cbr\u003ethemselves,--which always seemed to me very conceited.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070268850416,"sku":"2940013773165","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013773165_p0.jpg?v=1763590079","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013773165","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}