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.
He had built a whole village for his laborers, to right and left of
the highroad leading to Friesenmoor House. The cheerful, clean,
whitewashed cottages, with their green-painted window-frames, were
thatched with rushes and surrounded by gardens in which young fruit
trees, not yet sufficiently strong to forego the support of poles,
already gave promise of their first harvest of apples and pears. The
village hall and the school-house were distinguished by superior
size and green-glazed tile roofs; nor was a church, with a pointed
belfry and weathercock, missing. For Paul was a model landowner, who
took ample thought for the welfare of his dependents, and as soon as
his means permitted it, had hastened to build a church and appoint a
pastor, providing thereby, at the same time, for one of his numerous
relatives. In his ardent loyalty to his king, he had expressed the
wish to call his village Kaiser-Wilhelm's Dorf, and had received the
desired permission.
In Kaiser-Wilhelm's Dorf, it was evident, content and comparative
prosperity reigned supreme.
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