bishop, you would leave the farther proceedings to him?"
Erasmus was about to answer at once, but again bethought himself, and
said wrathfully, "You are an old fox, with whom one must not use too
many words, lest you should turn them into snares. It does not become a
counsellor to talk of what he would do if things stood otherwise.
Enough if we know what we have to do '_rebus sic stantibus_.' We owe an
account of our proceedings only to the emperor, next under God; and we
will account for them when it is demanded of us, either on earth, or
before the Eternal judgment-seat."
"You have spoken a word of deep import, Mr. Burgomaster: God grant that
you may be able one day to stand by it. I would only once again impress
this upon you; Tausdorf is universally beloved; all will take part with
him and against you; and if you were as right in your proceeding, as,
by Heavens! you are wrong, you would still plunge this town into
unutterable grief and ruin."
"_Fiat justitia et pereat mundus!_" cried the burgomaster, and left
him.
* * * * *
The first gray of morning contended strangely with the yellow light of
the candles in the room wherein the judges had assembled to hold a
criminal court. The city serjeant was just leading out Martin
Heubert, Tausdorf's boy, whom they had been interrogating, and the
town-advocate, Kernicher, entered with Melchior Lange and Paul Reimann,
who had been viewing the wounds of the body. The advocate laid before
the chief-judge, in silence, the book in which was entered the result
of his inquiry. Behind him came Tausdorf in chains, surrounded by
gens-d'armes; his face was pale, and his clothes soiled and torn by the
violence at Saltzbrunn, but still he bore himself with knightly
dignity. The procurator arose and lifted up the accusation of blood
against him; and he was summoned once--and again twice--after the
ancient custom. Upon this the examination began, and Tausdorf related
the unfortunate affair frankly and honestly as it had really happened.
"Francis Friend," he said in conclusion, "enticed me to the place where
the misfortune occurred, reviled me, and at last fell upon me with his
naked sword. Hereupon I defended myself as a soldier, to save my
honour, my body, my life,--and that which then happened I was forced to
do. I understand not the law, and therefore be not precipitate, but
allow me an advocate to conduct my cause: I will reward him richly."
The chief judge rang his bell. "The procurator, Hans Reimann!" he
exclaimed to the serjeant who answered the summons. The latter went
out, and the procurator appeared.
"We have given you to the accused as his defender," said the judge.
"Consult with him."
"Your pardon, gentlemen," replied the procurator; "I have no
inclination for the task. Francis Friend was always on a good footing
with me: and besides, I should not like to plead for a manifest
assassin."
"The council will be hardly satisfied with this. Such defence belongs
to your office, and you cannot refuse it without giving up the office
itself. But come with me to the gentlemen of the council; you may have
their answer from themselves."
He went away with the procurator. The silence of expectation prevailed
through the room. Tausdorf went to the window, leaned upon the
breast-work, and, gazing upon the dark gray clouds, which had already
received golden edges from the rising sun, he sighed "Althea!"
At last the two returned.
"You submit, then?" said the judge to the procurator, as they retired.
"What one must, one must!" replied the procurator.
Tausdorf went up to him, and said with friendly dignity, "I pray you,
sir, conduct my defence truly; I do not understand this matter, and
will reward your labour. If the business were the ordering of a battle,
I should know better what I was about."
"Say on, then," replied the procurator, gaping: "how am I to defend
you?"
"In God's name!" cried Tausdorf angrily, "how should I, who have been
devoted to arms from my youth, teach you what you are to say for me
before the tribunal? The little Latin which I learnt at Gitschin is of
no use here. But you are a studied man, well informed in the law, and
must best know what will conduce to my advantage."
"It will all be of no use," muttered the procurator; "but relate the
tale to me circumstantially, that I may thoroughly comprehend it."
Again poor Tausdorf undertook the sad labour of narrating the tale of
blood. The procurator listened to him, gaping, and then briefly
repeated what he had heard to the tribunal, concluding with, "You have
now heard Tausdorf's statement of the affair, gentlemen, and I submit
it to your decision."
"Is that your whole defence?" cried the knight indignantly, while this
statement was being protocolled. "May our Saviour one day speak for
your sins before the judgment-seat of God, as you have spoken for me in
this hour before the tribunal of man!"
"Have you any thing else to advance?" said the judge to the accused and
his defender; and as they were silent, he rang the bell, saying, "The
audit is closed.--Let the knight be conveyed back again to the
Hildebrand," he added to the serjeant, who then entered.
"Gentlemen," said Tausdorf, with manly firmness, "I do not believe that
you have a right to pronounce judgment on me; but if you do hold
yourselves so empowered, I warn you honestly, when you give your votes,
to keep your conscience and your dying hour before your eyes. It is an
easy thing for you to slay me, for I am in your power; but innocent
blood cries with a thousand voices to Heaven, and God is just."
He went away with his guard, followed by his model of a defender, and
the judges laid their heads together in anxious whisperings.
* * * * *
In the meantime the day had fully broken, and a bright July sun shone
upon the overwatched faces of the council, who were still collected in
the Sessions'-chamber, and had reclined themselves against the windows
to prevent their going to sleep. The iron old Erasmus alone sat at the
green table with bright wakeful eyes, and played with the golden medal
appended to his chain of honour. By his side stood the vice-consul,
Christopher Drescher, behind a chair, which he rocked to and fro
impatiently.
"The judges must have come to a decision by this time," said Erasmus,
as if to himself.
"If they only come to a right one," replied Drescher emphatically.
"No fear of that; although parties may at times run high amongst
ourselves, yet against the outward enemy we all stand as one man; and
if----Then we are at the goal, brother."
"I only wish you had not forced poor Reimann to defend him. If he
should happen to bring forward things which we can't answer?"
"Some defender Tausdorf could not but have; the forms of the law
demanded so much, and to forms we must strictly adhere on this
occasion. Between ourselves, too, could you in all Schweidnitz have
hunted out a worse advocate than this Reimann?"
"You have seen farther than I have," cried the vice-consul, after a
pause: "_Concedo_."
A servant now brought in a letter to the burgomaster, which he opened
and read--
"An _Intercessionale_ in favour of the prisoner by the Herr von
Schindel, resident of this place, and now laid up with the gout," said
Erasmus to the council. "The petitioner presumes to defend the accused,
uncalled for, and to impugn the competency of our tribunal. _Ad acta!_"
"The Frau von Netz, too, waits below in great trouble," added the
servitor, "and implores, in Heaven's name, a secret audience of your
excellency."
"The proud nobles can now stoop themselves to entreaties," exclaimed
the burgomaster triumphantly; "but it's all of no use."
He went out. The poor Althea stood there, her face in a veil wet with
tears, and she approached him with clasped and uplifted hands.
"Will it please you to walk in?" asked Erasmus with cold politeness,
and opened the door of the little audience-chamber.
She tottered after him. He placed a chair f motioned to her to sit
down, and placed himself opposite.
"What is your pleasure, noble lady?" he asked, after a short time,
during which she was unable to speak from sobbing. "Our time is
peculiarly valuable to-day."
"Mercy!" at length cried the poor petitioner in the most moving tones
of anguish; "Mercy for my intended husband!"
"That is with God!" replied Erasmus. "In my weighty office I recognize
but the duty of justice. If such a crime were to remain unpunished, I
should have to account hereafter to the Highest for the innocent
victims, which might in future be sacrificed to the arrogance of the
nobles."
"I do not pray for the absolution of the unfortunate one; I only pray
that the business may be brought before the bishop or the emperor, and
I offer to be his security till then with my whole property."
"The murder has been committed within our jurisdiction, and must be
punished by our tribunal."
"And do you call it a murder that Tausdorf, to defend his own life,
slew your son against his will?"
"It is not for us two to decide upon this point, Frau von Netz; for I
am the father of the murdered, and you are the intended of the
murderer. The judges will settle it upon their oaths."
"Mr. Burgomaster, we are alone; I would not--by Heavens I would not,
offend you; but the terrors of death give me courage for the question;
can money save Tausdorf? My uncle, von Schindel, is rich; we have
friends amongst the nobles of the country. Fix the sum."
"If you were not a woman," exclaimed the burgomaster furiously; "if you
were not a woman, you should fare ill with this twofold insult,--to the
dignity of my office, and to my heart as a father. Gold for blood! That
is one of the maxims of you nobles, when the question, is of a
citizen's life. But the Polish times are over, when the high-born
murderer had only to fling the price of blood upon the corse of the
murdered, and thus remain free from all retribution. When the nobleman
of Siegwitz shot the citizen's daughter, his drinking companions
thought that such a girl might well be paid for; but the council there
did not think so, and the head of the assassin fell."
"Oh my heart!" sighed Althea, and stood for a time struck with grief
and horror at these words of wrath; then on a sudden, collecting her
spirits, she flung herself before the burgomaster and embraced his
knees.
"Mercy!" she cried, and lifted up her beautiful blue eyes to the
inexorable one with so much fervour, that in spite of his iron
resolution an unpleasant feeling oppressed his heart, and he was
leaning down to her with pity, when the marshal entered to announce
that the judges had presented themselves to the council and waited for
the worshipful burgomaster. At this the old evil spirit returned in
him. He started up with vehemence, and sought to disengage Althea's
hands from his knees.
"For Heaven's sake, what will you do?" cried the unhappy victim.
"My duty!" replied the man of the stony heart, and walked away with
firm and echoing steps.
The sufferer breathed a deep and piercing sigh, as if in that moment
the tender thread of her life was broken, and her head fell in a kind
swoon upon the seat of the chair before which she had been kneeling.
* * * * *
The criminal court had laid its sentence before the council. Its
adoption and immediate execution were unanimously resolved upon, the
judges were again collected in their sessions' chamber, and the pale,
fettered Tausdorf stood before them with his guard, while the chief of
the court read thus:--
"As the noble and honourable Kaspar Sparrenberger, surnamed Tausdorf,
hath stabbed, and thus brought from life to death the in like manner
noble and honourable Francis Friend,--and as this deed is open and
manifest,--and he himself cannot, and does not, deny it,--therefore the
imperial town-court of Schweidnitz adjudges that Tausdorf,
notwithstanding his defence, has forfeited his life for such murder,
and consequently, according to the law and custom of the land, shall be
executed with the sword."
With this the provost took up a white-peeled willow wand which lay
before him on the table, broke it in two, and throwing the pieces at
the feet of the condemned, cried,
"The sentence is spoken,
The staff is broken."
"You must die, and the Lord have mercy on your soul!" exclaimed the
provosts, and overturned their seats with a heavy clatter.
"I appeal from this unjust sentence to the prince palatine of Silesia
and the emperor," cried Tausdorf in a loud voice unshaken by this
horrid ceremony.
"Such appeal cannot be made according to our privileges and customs,"
replied the chief provost. "The execution follows here upon the heels
of the sentence."
"Then I appeal to the tribunal of God," said Tausdorf, without losing
his presence of mind--"to the tribunal of God, before which we must one
day all meet again. When am I to die?"
"In two hours."
"You are very quick, you gentlemen of Schweidnitz. But I suppose I may
see my bride again?"
"The council has forbidden it, as well on account of the loss of time
connected with it as of the unavoidable lamentation and disturbance."
"Ay, indeed! You gentlemen have true hangmen's hearts, with room
therein for barbarity as well as injustice. Yet I hope the time will be
just sufficient to prepare me fittingly for my departure. I wish to
confess first, and receive the holy sacrament. Have the goodness to
send me a priest of my persuasion, and afterwards a notary to draw up
my last will."
"Both shall be done," replied the provost, and made a sign to the
city-marshal, who went out.
"Moreover I was put into a bad plight in my arrest at Salzbrunn by your
runners, and their rabble," continued Tausdorf, surveying his person
indignantly; "and it is not fitting that a knight should die publicly
in so unworthy a state, as a mockery to your people; therefore send to
the Frau von Netz, that she may forward to me my red velvet suit of
ceremony for my last travel."
"It shall be done according to your desire," said the chief provost,
confounded by the proud calmness of the condemned.
"The chaplain is ready for you below, Herr von Tausdorf, in my little
room below the custom-house," announced the city-marshal.
"Then I must first reconcile myself with my enemies according to the
duty of a Christian. I pray you, therefore, gentlemen, to forgive me
for having through my unlucky deed given you occasion for the sin of
injustice. On my part I willingly and freely pardon you my death. God
favour you with an early repentance! May my blood be the last which
shall flow in this unhappy feud betwixt the nobility and citizens."
He departed with the city-marshal; the gens-d'armes followed.
The provosts looked at each other sadly troubled, and from the
provost-chief escaped the exclamation, "The business will not be over
with the head that is to fall here. Heaven turn all to the best!"
* * * * *
The burgomaster had for a short time betaken himself to his house to
give orders for the burial of his son. He had just dismissed the
church-servants, and looked from the bow-window of his audience-chamber
with silent anguish on the black-mantled undertakers who were carrying
out Francis's coffin to the customhouse, where the body still lay, when
doctor Heidenreich came in unsummoned. Erasmus received him with angry
exclamations.
"So, you will not cease to torment me? I thought that the contested
point had been sufficiently discussed between us last night; as to any
change, that is past all question now, since the sentence has been
pronounced."
"I know it," said Heidenreich, troubled. "You have condemned Tausdorf
to the sword!"
"Not I," interrupted Erasmus vehemently; "but the provost's court at
Schweidnitz. The council has, indeed, approved the sentence; but in
regard to that personal interest which I take in the affair, I did not
even deem it proper to subscribe my name."
"I neither ask of you generosity nor favour. But I demand justice of
you for your own sake; you are on the point of committing a crying act
of injustice, and of thereby rending the honourable garland that a long
active life has wound about your brows. Your sentence is not only
against all equity, but against the laws."
"Against the laws? Mr. Doctor, put a guard upon your tongue, that it
may not bring your body into trouble."
"I have heard the murderous story from Tausdorf's servant. Your son was
killed by the accused in his just defence. Does not the penal code of
Charles the Fifth expressly state, that if any one falls upon,
assaults, or strikes another with deadly weapons, and the person so
attacked cannot escape without risk and jeopardy to his body, life,
honour, or good report, he may then peril life and limb in his just
defence without incurring any punishment--and if, moreover, he kills
the aggressor, he is not to be, therefore, deemed guilty, nor is he
bound to delay with his defence till he is struck, although otherwise
against written laws and usages?"
"You have long been known to me as a shrewd advocate," answered Erasmus
with mockery; "but the _Carolina_[3] has not yet been formally
published to us, and above all things the act of self-defence should
have been proved. The mouth of my poor son is shut, the declaration of
the accused and of his servant proves nothing."
"There was also a page of Tausdorf's present; and a woman saw the
battle from the garden-wall. In the testimony of three witnesses
consists truth."
"The witnesses of whom you speak," replied the burgomaster, confused,
"did not present themselves for examination. It was, besides, for the
judges to decide whether their examination was requisite."
"But I think, Mr. Burgomaster, it was for your own honour to seek out
these witnesses, and to defer the execution of the sentence till then,
that it might not be said you wished to destroy the accused from a
wretched spirit of revenge."
"I am weary of your insolence; instantly take yourself out of my four
walls, Mr. Doctor, or I shall give you lodgings in the Hildebrand as a
malcontent and fomenter of discord; they are just now vacant."
"You thrust your better angel from your side," replied Heidenreich
sadly. "I have not spoken out of favour to the accused, whom I do not
know, but from old friendship to yourself. You will not listen to me,
and I wash my hands in innocence. But I tell you a day will come when
you will think of my words and of this hour with repentance, alas, too
late!"
He left the room. Erasmus went to the window to cool the angry glow
upon his face in the fresh air, when he saw the gouty Schindel, who was
being carried in a chair by servants towards the burgomaster's house.
"Nothing was wanting but the old gossip with his tedious conciliatory
efforts," exclaimed Erasmus, and running out he gave the servant strict
orders to show the door to Schindel.
The servant went, and when the burgomaster returned to his room, the
preacher Samuel, of St. Mary's church, a gloomy zealot, forced himself
upon him to condole with the powerful regent on the death of his son.
With infinite unction he groaned out, "If, worthy sir, it is sad,
mournful, pitiable, and most grievous to lose a dear, beloved child by
a natural death, how much more sad, mournful, pitiable, and grievous
must it be for a father when a healthful son is snatched from him
through God's severe, though wise and gracious dispensation, by so
sudden, violent, and horrid a death, without first having time to
confess and repent his errors, so that in the full flower of his sins
he is hurried away before the eternal judgment-seat!"
"For God's sake, comfort better, Mr. Preacher," cried Erasmus angrily:
"You pour aqua-fortis instead of balsam into the wounds of a father's
heart."
"The heart of man is an obstinate thing," replied the preacher; "it
must be utterly torn and crushed that it may become truly sensible of
the consolation of the Gospel; and if you will only allow me a short
time, I will undertake so to work upon you, that you shall with
pleasure kiss the hand which has struck you thus hardly, and, like a
true Christian, shall attune a rejoicing Hosannah on the grave of your
murdered son."
During this harangue the brow of Erasmus grew mightily wrinkled, and he
was about to answer the wretched comforter in no very friendly way,
when the door opened, and Althea entered, leading her boy.
"This is not to be borne!" he exclaimed to her. "We have nothing more
to say to each other, Frau von Netz, and I consider it highly indecent
that you should force yourself upon me in this way, unannounced, only
to burthen me with entreaties, which my oath forbids my hearkening to."
"Misfortune has its peculiar privileges," replied Althea in a faint and
tuneless voice; "I was prepared for all harshness when I resolved to
come here, and you can treat me as seems good and proper to yourself;
but you must hear me once again; I will not stir from this spot first."
"Speak, then, that I may at last get quit of this torment."
"My intended husband is condemned to die. I will no longer contend with
you whether he has deserved death, or whether you have a right to
inflict it; but the power of pardon belongs incontestably to the
emperor. I, therefore, only implore you to defer the execution of the
sentence till the return of a messenger whom I will despatch to Vienna
with my supplication. That cannot militate against your office. On the
contrary, it would become you not to anticipate the clemency of your
master in a business wherein you must yourself confess you are a party.
In the meantime let the condemned remain in your power, and if the
emperor pronounces the dreadful NO, we must submit to what cannot be
avoided."
"Let the Herr von Tausdorf live, dear burgomaster," said the little
Henry, at other times so defying, but now in tears, and kissed the hand
of Erasmus with humility. "I am a fatherless orphan, and he would be so
good a father to me!"
But the burgomaster withdrew his hand from the child, and eyed now him,
now Althea, with piercing glances.
"Take our share in Bogendorf for the brief respite," cried Althea,
observing the inveteracy in the eyes of Erasmus. "I will readily make
it over to you this very day, and support myself and my son by the
labour of my hands, if by that I can only purchase the slightest hope
for the safety of the man whom my soul loves."
"You are a fair and a wise lady, Frau von Netz," said the burgomaster
at last; "but the old Erasmus is yet too wise for you. You will not
find in him the fool you seek."
"Let mercy prevail!" cried Althea in despair, and embraced his knees
with wild energy. "Let mercy prevail, as you would that God should one
day be merciful to you!"
"Back!" exclaimed the burgomaster indignantly, and pushed her from him.
"My son is dead. Neither your wealth nor your tears can make him alive
again. Blood demands blood, and Tausdorf must die!"
"Not another word of supplication," cried the little Henry to his
mother, who was exhausted by her agony; "tis a pity you offered any to
the wicked man. Has not uncle Netz told you a hundred times that the
rich burgomaster is as cold and as hard as the dollars of which he is
always boasting so much? Come, mother; we cannot beg the good man free,
and therefore we will weep for him as long as we have eyes. But this
house is not worthy of your tears;"--and then turning to Erasmus, he
said, with a dignity and spirit beyond his years, "You have heavily
vexed and offended the Frau von Netz, Mr. Burgomaster, and it is the
duty of a good son to avenge every insult which his mother has had to
endure. At present my arm is not strong enough for my inclination; but,
please God, I shall grow every day larger and stouter, and I think to
be able to wield the sword shortly. For this time I denounce feud
against you, and whatever may come of it, murder or fire, I shall have
set my honour above your impeachment."
He pulled away his mother with him, and Erasmus said to the preacher,
"Do you hear how the young snake can hiss already? But follow the lady,
if you will be so good, comfort her by virtue of your holy office, and
exhort her to betake herself to her own house, that she may not excite
the people by her lamentations in the streets, and force me to send her
home by a couple of gens-d'armes."