The Sowers by Henry Seton Merriman — Read

At daybreak the next morning Karl Steinmetz was awakened by the familiar cry of the wolf beneath his window. He rose and dressed hastily. The eastern sky was faintly pink; a rosy twilight moved among the pines. He went downstairs and opened the little door at the back of the castle.

It was, of course, the starosta, shivering and bleached in the chilly dawn.