the diffident into life and energy, failed to inspire the timid Florian
with that external ardour and prompt assiduity so essential to success;
and although the fair object of his regard did not appear insensible to
his silent and gentle homage, he never could collect resolution to
reveal his feelings. His diffidence was increased, too, by the unmeaning
gallantry of two young and lively officers of the garrison, who,
although precluded by their nobility from marriage with the daughter of
a citizen, employed a portion of their abundant leisure in making
skirmishing experiments upon the affections of the lovely Angelique.
While these military butterflies were fluttering round the woman he
loved, poor Florian, daunted by the painful consciousness of his
comparative disadvantages, rarely presumed to enter the villa in which
her father resided, about half a league beyond the city gates, and
endeavoured to console himself by wandering in a pleasant grove
immediately contiguous. Here a majestic elm was endeared to him by the
knowledge that his beloved Angelique often took her work to a turf seat
beneath its spreading branches. Here, too, he sometimes left a flower,
or other silent token of his regard, the ascertained acceptance of which
did not, however, encourage him to any decisive measure. At length
arrived the autumnal vacation, which closed his academic studies; and he
determined to pass the winter in his native province, where he thought
the influence of his guardians, and the favourable testimony of his
Jesuit teachers, would procure for him such recommendations as might
render his extensive legal knowledge available for his future support.
He proposed to return in the ensuing spring to D.; and should his
mistress have stood the test of six months' absence, and still regard
him with an eye of favour, he would then openly declare himself. He
called upon her father at his counting-house, and after explaining to
him the probable advantages of his visit to Normandy, bade him farewell,
and hastened with a beating heart to the villa, where he had the good
fortune to find his Angelique alone. Always timid and irresolute in her
presence, the fear of betraying his feelings on this occasion made him
tremble as he approached her. Her young cheek glowed with unaffected
blushes, as she observed a confusion which led her to anticipate an
avowal of his attachment; and when he merely told her that he was going
to pass the winter in Normandy, and had called to say farewell, her fine
eyes became humid with the starting tears of sudden and uncontrollable
emotion. Yet even this obvious proof of sympathy failed to encourage
the timid and ever-doubting Florian. Persuaded that he had nothing but
his sincerity to recommend him, he dreaded a repulse; and, pressing with
gentle fervour her proffered hand, he hastily quitted the apartment
without daring to take another look.
After having secured a place in the diligence for the following morning,
he called upon the few acquaintances he had in D., and late in the
afternoon repaired with eager haste to the grove behind the abode of
Angelique. He had determined that his favourite elm, hitherto the only
witness of his love, should become the medium of a more palpable
declaration of his feelings than he had hitherto dared to convey.
Intending to carve in the bark the initial letters of his own and his
fair one's names within the outline of a heart, he drew from his pocket
the ivory clasp-knife of Bartholdy, which, after seven years of faithful
custody, he had begun to consider as his own; and, kneeling on the bank
of turf, he was enabled, by the sharpness of the point, to cut in deep
and firm characters the initials of the name so dear to him. Laying down
the knife upon the seat, he gazed, with folded arms, upon the beloved
cipher, and fell into one of his accustomed reveries. An hour had thus
elapsed, when suddenly he was roused from his dream of bliss by tones of
loud and vehement contention at no great distance from the elm.
Prompted by his natural aversion for scenes of violence, he concealed
himself behind the tree, from whence he was enabled to discern his two
military rivals, out of uniform, approaching the elm, and indicating, by
furious tones and gestures, feelings of mutual and deadly animosity.
Florian, whose sense of the awkwardness of his situation was increased
by his timidity, fancied that he should be accused of listening to their
conversation, and, retreating unobserved into the wood, he had gained
the high-road before he recollected that he had left his knife on the
seat of turf. Ashamed of his cowardice, he determined to return and
claim it, in the event of its having been discovered and taken by one of
the contending parties. He was solicitous, also, to complete the
intended cipher on the bark of the elm, while there was light enough for
his purpose; and concluding that his angry rivals had walked on in
another direction, he hastily retraced his steps. Looking over some tall
evergreen shrubs, which were separated by a footpath from the elm, he
observed that the turf-seat was unoccupied. Supposing, from the total
silence, that the hostile youths had quitted the grove, he emerged from
the evergreens with confidence, and approached the tree, but recoiled in
sudden horror, as he almost stepped upon the body of one of his rivals,
who lay dead on his back, while the blood was issuing in torrents from a
wound in his throat, inflicted by the knife of Bartholdy, the
remarkable handle of which protruded from the deep incision. His blood
froze as he gazed on this sad spectacle; and covering his face with his
hands, he stood for some moments over the body in stolid and sickening
horror. Soon, however, his strong antipathy to scenes of bloodshed and
violence impelled him to rush, with headlong precipitation, from the
fatal spot. Leaving his knife in the wound, he darted forward through
the wood, and fortunately without meeting any one within or near it.
When he reached the high-road, the darkness had so much increased as to
render his features undistinguishable to the passengers, and, running
towards the city, he soon reached the public promenade without the
barriers, where he threw himself upon a bench, exhausted with terror and
fatigue. Looking fearfully around him through the darkness, he
endeavoured to collect his reasoning faculties, and immediately the
recollection that he had left his knife in the throat of the murdered
officer flashed upon him. With this fatal weapon were connected many old
associations, which now crowded with sickening potency upon his memory.
Again he saw the sarcastic grin with which his friend had said, "What we
most carefully shun, is most likely to befall us." And would not the
remarkable knife of Bartholdy too probably verify the malignant prophecy
of its owner? Forgetful of the improbability that any one had seen in
his possession a knife which, before that evening, he had never used,
his senses yielded to an irresistible conviction, that this instrument
of another's guilt would betray and lead him to the scaffold. Immediate
flight was the only resource which presented itself to his bewildered
judgment; and, rising from the bench, he hastened to his lodgings, to
complete his preparations for departure the following morning. After a
sleepless night, during which he started at every sound with
apprehension of a nocturnal visit from the police, he proceeded at
daybreak, with a heavy heart, to the post-house, where, observing a
carrier's waggon on the point of departure for Normandy, he availed
himself of the opportunity to facilitate his escape, by putting a few
essentials into a cloak-bag, and forwarding his heavy trunk by the
carrier. After some delay, of which every moment appeared an age, the
diligence departed; and when the church-towers were lost in distance,
the goading terrors of the unhappy fugitive yielded for a time to
feelings of comparative security. His apprehensions, however, were
renewed by every rising cloud of dust behind the diligence, and by every
equestrian who followed and passed the vehicle. In vain did he endeavour
to console himself with the consciousness that he was innocent, and
under the protection of a just and merciful Providence. The judicial
murder of Calas, and of other innocent sufferers, detailed in the
_Causes Celebres_ of Pitaval, were ever present to his fevered fancy;
and when he closed his eyes and assumed the semblance of sleep, to avoid
the conversation of his fellow-travellers, his imagination conjured up
the staring orbs and satanic smile of Bartholdy, who pointed at him
jeeringly, and exclaimed, "In vain you seek to shun your destiny! In
France, the innocent and the guilty bleed alike upon the scaffold." And
then he shouted in the ear of Florian, "Why did you part with the knife
I confided to you? Why provoke me to become your evil genius?" Or, with
a hoarse and fiendish laugh, he seemed to whisper to the shrinking
fugitive--"You are a doomed man, Florian! doomed to the scaffold!"
Thus busily did the frenzied fancy of the unhappy youth call up a
succession of imaginary terrors, until at dusk the diligence stopped at
a solitary inn, and Florian heard, with new alarm, that here the
passengers were to remain the night. "And here," thought the timid
fugitive, "I shall certainly be overtaken and arrested by the
gens-d'armes." A traveller, who arrived soon after the diligence, and
supped with the passengers, afforded him, however, another chance of
escape. This man was lamenting that, at a neighbouring fair, he had not
been able to sell an excellent horse, and Florian, watching his
opportunity, concluded the purchase with little bargaining. Pleading the
necessity of going forward on urgent business, he mounted his purchase,
and quitted the inn-yard, with a heart lightened by the certainty that
he should gain a night upon his pursuers. At that time France was at
peace both abroad and at home; passports were not essential to the
native traveller; and Florian, turning down the first cross-road,
proceeded rapidly all night, and the four following days; pausing
occasionally to refresh his wearied steed, changing his name whenever he
was required to declare it, and observing a zigzag direction to blind
his pursuers. On the fifth morning he found himself in a fertile
district of central France; and, considering himself safe from all
immediate danger, he pursued his journey more leisurely between the
vine-covered and gently-swelling hills, until the noonday heat and dusty
road made him sensibly feel the want of refreshment. While gazing around
him for some hamlet or cottage to pause at, his attention was caught by
sounds of lamentation at no great distance, and a sudden turn in the
road revealed to him a prostrate mule, vainly endeavouring to regain his
legs, one of which was broken. A tall boy, in peasant garb, was
scratching his head in rustic embarrassment at this dilemma, and near
him stood a young and very lovely woman, wringing her hands in
perplexity, and lamenting over the unfortunate mule, a remarkably fine
animal, and caparisoned with a completeness which indicated the easy
circumstances of his owner. Florian immediately stopped his horse, and,
with his wonted kindness, dismounted to offer his assistance. The young
woman said nothing as he approached, but her beautiful dark eyes
appealed to him for aid and counsel with an eloquence which reached
his heart in a moment. Examining the mule, he said, after some
consideration, "There is no hope for the poor animal; and the most
humane expedient will be to shoot him as soon as possible. Your
side-saddle can be strapped on my horse, which shall convey you to the
next village, or as much farther as you like, if you have no objection
to the conveyance."
Expressing her thanks with engaging frankness and cordiality, the
fair traveller told him that she was returning from a visit to some
relations, and that she was still four leagues from her father's house.
She would gladly, she said, avail herself of his kind offer, but
insisted that her servant should not kill her favourite mule until she
was out of sight and hearing. Then turning briskly towards Florian,
she told him that she was ready to proceed, but objected to the exchange
of saddles; and, as she was accustomed to ride on a pillion, would
rather sit behind him as well as she could, than give him the trouble
of walking four leagues. Finding all opposition fruitless, Florian
remounted; and, with the assistance of her servant, the fair unknown was
soon seated behind him. Blushing and laughing at the necessity, she put
an arm around his waist to support herself, and then begged him to
proceed without delay, as she was anxious to reach home before night.
Conversing as they journeyed onward, their communications became every
moment more cordial and interesting; and as Florian felt the warm hand
of his lovely companion near his heart, he began to feel a soothing
sense of gratification, which cheered and elevated his perturbed
spirits. He had never before found himself in such near and agreeable
relation to a beautiful and lively woman; and whenever he turned his
head to speak or listen, he found the finest black eyes, and the most
lovely mouth he had ever seen, within a few inches of his own. So
potent, indeed, was the charm of her look and language, that he forgot,
for a time, the timid graces and less sparkling beauty of her he had
lost for ever, and was insensibly beguiled of all his fears and sorrows
as he listened to the lively sallies of this laughter-loving fair one.
Meanwhile they had quitted the cross-road in which he had discovered
her, and pursued, by her direction, the great road from Paris towards
eastern France. Here, however, he remarked, with surprise, that she
invariably drew the large hood of her cloak over her face when any
travellers passed them; and his surprise was converted into uneasiness
and suspicion, when, after commencing the last league of their journey,
she drew the hood entirely over her face; and her conversation, before
so animated and flowing, was succeeded by total silence, or by replies
so brief and disjointed as to indicate that her thoughts were intensely
preoccupied.
The sun had reached the horizon when they arrived within a short
half-league of the town before them, and here she suddenly asked her
conductor whether he intended to travel farther before morning. Florian,
hoping to obtain some clue to her name and residence, replied that he
was undetermined; on which she advised him to give a night's rest to his
jaded horse, and strongly recommended to him an hotel, the name and
situation of which she minutely described. He promised to comply with
her recommendations; and immediately, by a prompt and vigorous effort,
she threw herself from the horse to the ground. Hastily arranging her
disordered travelling-dress, she approached him, clasped his hand in
both her own and thanked him, in brief but fervent terms, for the
important service he had rendered her. "And now," added she, in visible
embarrassment, as she raised her hood, and looked fearfully around, "I
have another favour to request. My father would not approve of your
accompanying me home, nor must the town gossips see me at this hour with
a young man and a stranger: you will, therefore, oblige me by resting
your horse here for half an hour, that I may reach the town before you.
Will you do me this favour?" she repeated, with a pleading look. "Most
certainly I will," replied the good-natured but disappointed Florian.
"Farewell, then," she cordially rejoined, "and may Heaven reward your
kindness!"
Bounding forward with a light and rapid step, she soon disappeared round
a sharp angle in the road, occasioned by a sudden bend of the adjacent
river. Florian, dismounting to relieve his horse, gazed admiringly upon
her elastic step and well-turned figure, until she was out of sight. He
recollected, with a sigh of regret, the sprightly graces and artless
intelligence of her conversation; again the sense of his desolate and
perilous condition smote him; he felt himself more than ever forlorn and
unhappy, and reproached himself for the helpless bashfulness which had
prevented him from inquiring more urgently the name and residence of
this charming stranger. While thus painfully musing, the time she had
prescribed elapsed; and Florian, remounting, let the bridle fall upon
the neck of the exhausted animal, which paced towards the town as
deliberately as the unknown fair one could have wished. At a short
distance from the town-gate the high-road passed under an archway,
composing part of a detached house of Gothic and ancient structure;
and on the town side of the arch was a toll-bar, at which a boy was
stationed, who held out his hat to Florian, and demanded half a sous.
"For what?" asked Florian.
"A long-established toll, sir," said the boy; "and if you have a
compassionate heart, you will give another half-sous to the condemned
criminals," he continued, as he pointed to an iron box, placed near the
house door, under a figure of the Virgin. Shuddering at the words,
Florian threw some copper coins into the box; and, as he hastened
forward, endeavoured to banish the painful association of ideas, by
fixing his thoughts upon the mysterious fair one. Suspecting, from the
pressing manner in which she had recommended a particular hotel to his
preference, that, if he went there, he might possibly see or hear from
her in the morning, he proceeded to the Henri Quatre, which proved to be
an hotel of third-rate importance, but well suited to his limited means,
and recommending itself by an air of cleanliness and comfort. The
evenings at this season were cool; and as it would have required some
time to heat the parlour, the landlord proposed to him to sit down and
take some refreshment in his well-warmed kitchen. Florian complied with
this invitation, but not without some apprehension of the presence of
strangers; and, stepping into the kitchen, was relieved by the discovery
that it was occupied only by servants, who were too busily engaged in
preparing supper to take notice of him.
Sitting down in a corner near the fire, the combined effects of a genial
warmth and excessive fatigue threw him into a sound sleep, which lasted
several hours, and would have continued much longer, had he not been
roused by the landlord, who told him that his supper had been ready some
time, but that he had been unwilling to disturb a slumber so profound.
In fact, the repose of the unfortunate fugitive had not, during the five
preceding nights, been so continuous and refreshing, so free from
painful and menacing visions. Rising drowsily from his chair, he
followed the landlord to a table where a roasted capon and a glass jug
of bright wine waited his arrival. The servants had all retired for the
night,--the landlord quitted the kitchen, and Florian, busily engaged in
dissecting the fowl, thought himself the sole tenant of the spacious
apartment, when, looking accidentally towards the fire, he saw with
surprise that the chair he had just quitted was occupied. Looking more
intently, he distinguished a short man of more than middle age, whose
square and sturdy figure was partially concealed by a capacious mantle.
His hair was grey, his forehead seamed with broad wrinkles, and his
bushy brows beetled over a set of features stern and massive as if cast
in iron. His eyes were small and deep-set, but of a lustrous black; and
Florian observed with dismay that they were fixed upon his countenance
with a look of searching scrutiny. It was near midnight, and in the
deep silence which reigned through the house, this motionless attitude,
and marble fixedness of look, gave to the stranger's appearance a
character so appalling, that, had he not broken the spell by stooping
to light his pipe, the excited Florian would ere long have thought him
an unearthly object. The stranger now quitted his seat by the fire,
took from a table near him a jug of wine, and approached the wondering
Florian. "With your leave, my good sir," he began, "I will take a chair
by your table. A little friendly gossip is the best of all seasoning to
a glass of wine."
Without waiting for a reply, the old man seated himself directly
opposite to Florian, and again fixed a scrutinising gaze upon
his countenance. The conscious fugitive, who felt a growing and
unaccountable dread of this singular intruder, muttered a brief assent,
and continued to eat his supper in silent but obvious embarrassment;
stealing now and then a timid look at the stranger, but hastily
withdrawing his furtive glances as he felt the beams of the old man's
small and vivid eyes penetrating his very soul. He observed that the
features of his tormentor were cast in a vulgar mould, but his gaze was
widely different from that of clownish curiosity, and there was in his
deportment a stern and steady self-possession, which suggested to the
alarmed Florian a suspicion that he was an agent of the police, who had
probably tracked him through the cross-roads he had traversed in his
flight from D. The rich colour of his cheeks turned to an ashy paleness
at this appalling conjecture; and, leaving his supper unfinished, he
rose abruptly from the table to quit the room, when the old man,
starting suddenly from his chair, seized the shaking hand of Florian,
and, looking cautiously around him, said in subdued but impressive
tones--"It is not accident, young man, which brings us together at this
hour. I came in while you were asleep, and begged the landlord would not
awaken you, that I might say a few words to you in confidence, after the
servants had gone to bed."
"To me?" exclaimed Florian, in anxious wonder.
"Hush!" said the old man, again looking round the kitchen. "My object
is to give you a friendly warning; for, if I am not for the first time
mistaken in these matters, you are menaced with a formidable danger."
"Danger?" repeated the pallid Florian, in a voice scarcely audible.
"And have you not good reason to expect this danger?" continued the
stranger. "Your sudden paleness tells me that you know it. I am an old
man, and my life has been a rough pilgrimage, but I have still a warm
heart, and can make large allowances for the headlong impetuosities
which too often plunge a young man into crime. You may safely trust
one," he continued, placing his hand upon his heart, "in whose bosom
the confessions of many hapless fugitives repose, and will repose, so
long as life beats in my pulses. I betray no man who confides in me,
were he stained even with _blood_."
Pausing a little, he fixed a keenly searching look upon the shrinking
youth, and then whispered in his ear--"Young man! you have a _murder_
on your conscience!"
For a moment the apprehensions of Florian yielded to a lofty sense of
indignation at this groundless charge. "It is false, old man!" he
exclaimed with energy. "I swear by the just God who searches all hearts,
that I am not conscious of _any_ crime."
"I shall rejoice to learn that I am mistaken," replied the old man, with
evident gratification, as again he fixed his searching orbs upon the
indignant Florian. "If you are innocent, it will be all the better for
both of us; but," he continued, after a hasty look around him, "the
danger I alluded to still hangs over your head. I trust, however, that
with God's help I shall be able to shield you from it."
Florian, too much alarmed to reply, looked at him doubtingly. "I will
deal candidly with you," resumed the old man, after a pause of
reflection. "When you rode by my house this evening"----
"Who and what are you?" exclaimed Florian, in new astonishment.
"Have a little patience, young man!" replied the stranger, while his
iron features relaxed into a good-natured smile. "Do you recollect the
tall archway under an old house where a toll of half a sous was demanded
from you? That house is mine; and I was sitting by the window as you
threw an alms into the box for the condemned criminals. Had you then
looked upward, you would have seen a naked sword and a bright axe
suspended over your head."
At these words Florian shuddered, and involuntarily retreated some paces
from his companion. "I see by your flinching," sternly resumed the old
man, "that you guess who is before you. You are right, young man! I _am_
the town executioner, but an honest man withal, and well inclined to
render you essential service. Now, mark me! When you stopped beneath the
broad blade, it quivered, and jarred against the axe. Whoever is thus
greeted by the headsman's sword is inevitably doomed to come in contact
with it. I heard the boding jar, which every executioner in France well
knows how to interpret, and I immediately determined to follow and to
warn you."
The unhappy youth, who had listened in disheartening emotion to this
strange communication, now yielded to a sense of ungovernable terror.
Covering with both his hands his pallid face, he exclaimed, in nameless
agony--"O God! in thy infinite mercy, save me!"
"Hah!" ejaculated the headsman sternly, "have I then roused your
sleeping conscience? However, whether you conclude to open or to shut
your heart, is now immaterial. In either case, I will never betray
you--for accusation and judgment belong not to my office. Profit,
therefore, as you best may, by my well-intended warning. Alas! alas!"
he muttered between his closed teeth, "that one so young should dip
his hands in blood!"
"By all that is sacred!" exclaimed Florian, with trembling eagerness, "I
am innocent of murder, and incapable of falsehood; and yet so disastrous
is my destiny, that I am beset with peril and suspicion. You are an
utter stranger to me, but you appear to have benevolence and worldly
wisdom. Listen to my tale, and then in mercy give me aid and counsel."
He now unfolded to the executioner the extraordinary chain of
circumstances which had compelled him to seek security in flight, and
told his tale of trials with an artless and single-hearted simplicity
of language, look, and gesture, which carried with it irresistible
conviction of his innocence. The rigid features of the headsman
gradually relaxed, as he listened, into a cheerful and even cordial
expression; then warmly grasping the hand of Florian as he concluded,
he said, "Well! well! I see how it is. In my profession we learn how to
read human nature. When I watched your slumber, I thought your sleep
looked very like the sleep of innocence; and now I believe from my soul
that you are as guiltless of this murder as I am. With God's help I will
yet save you from this peril; and, indeed, had you killed your rival in
sudden quarrel, I would have done as much for you, for I well know that
sudden wrath has made many a good man blood-guilty. There was certainly
some danger of your being implicated by the singular circumstances you
have detailed; but the real and formidable peril has grown out of your
flight. That was a blunder, young man! but I see no reason to despair.
'Tis true, the broad blade has denounced you, and my grandfather and
father, as well as myself, have traced criminals by its guidance; but I
know that the sword will speak alike to its master and its victim. You
have yet to learn, young man, that in this life every man is either an
anvil or a hammer, a tool or a victim; and that he who boldly grasps the
blade will never be its victim. Briefly, then, I feel a regard for you.
I have no sons, but I have a young and lovely daughter. Marry her, and I
will adopt you as my successor. You will then fulfil your destiny by
coming in contact with the sword; and, if you clutch it firmly, I will
pledge myself that you never die by it."
At this strange proposal Florian started on his feet with indignant
abhorrence. "Hold!" continued the headsman coolly. "Why hurry your
decision? The night is long, and favourable to reflection. Bestow a full
and fair consideration upon my proposal, and recollect that your neck is
in peril; that all your prospects in life are blasted; and that my offer
of a safe asylum, and a competent support, can alone preserve you from
despair and destruction. The sword has sent you a helper in the hour of
need, and if you reject the friendly warning, you will soon discover
that the consciousness of innocence will not protect a blushing and
irresolute fugitive from the proverbial ubiquity and prompt severity of
the French police."
The headsman now emptied his glass, and with a friendly nod left
the kitchen. Soon after his departure the landlord appeared with a
night-lamp, and conducted Florian to his apartment. Without undressing,
the bewildered youth extinguished his lamp, and threw himself on the
bed, hoping that the darkness would accelerate the approach of sleep,
and of that oblivion which in his happier days had always accompanied
it. Vain, however, for some hours, was every attempt to lull his senses
into forgetfulness. The revolting proposal of the old man haunted him
incessantly.
"I become an"----he muttered indignantly, but could never utter the
hateful word. The shrinking diffidence which had been a fertile source
of difficulty to him through life, had been increased tenfold by his
recent calamities; he was conscious even to agony of his total inability
to contend with the consequences of his imprudent and cowardly flight;
but from _such_ means of escape he recoiled with unutterable loathing.
He felt that he should never have resolution to grasp the sword which
was to save him from being numbered with its victims, and yet his
invincible abhorrence of this alternative failed to rouse in him the
moral courage which would have promptly rescued him from the toils of
the cunning headsman. The broken slumber into which he fell before
morning was haunted by boding forms and tragic incidents. The sword, the
axe, the scaffold, and the rack, flitted around him in quick procession,
and seemed to close every avenue to escape. He awoke from these visions
of horror at daybreak, and left his bed as wearied in body, and as
irresolute in mind, as when he entered it. Dreading alike a renewal of
the executioner's proposal, and the risk of being arrested and tried for
murder, he saw no alternative but flight--immediate flight beyond the
bounds of France. While pondering over the best means of accomplishing
this now settled purpose, the tin weathercock upon the roof of his
bedroom creaked in the morning breeze. Florian, to whose excited fancy
the headsman's sword was ever present, thought he heard it jar against
the axe, and started in sudden terror. "Whither shall I fly?" he
exclaimed, as tears of agony rolled down his cheeks--"where find
a refuge from the sword of justice? Alas! my doom is fixed and
unalterable. Anvil or hammer I must be, and I have not courage to
become either."
Again the weathercock creaked above him, and more intelligibly than
before. Florian, discovering the simple cause of his terrors, rallied
his drooping spirits, and hastened down-stairs to order his horse, that
he might leave the hotel and the town before the promised visit of the
fearful headsman. Notwithstanding his urgency, he found his departure
unaccountably delayed. The servants were not visible, and the landlord,
insisting that he should take a warm breakfast before his departure, was
so dilatory in preparing it, that a full hour elapsed before Florian
rode out of the stable-yard. His officious host then persisted in
sending a boy to show him the nearest way to the town gate; and the
impatient traveller, who would gladly have declined the offer, found
himself obliged to submit. His guide accompanied him to the extremity
of the small suburb beyond the eastern gate, and quitted him; while
Florian, whose ever-ready apprehensions had been roused by the tenacious
civility of the landlord, rode slowly forward, looking around
occasionally at his returning guide, and determining to take the first
cross-road he could find. A little farther he discovered the entrance
of a narrow lane, shaded by a double row of lofty chestnuts; and as he
turned towards it his horse's head, he saw the old man, whose promised
visit he was endeavouring to escape, issuing from the lane on horseback.
"I guessed as much," said the headsman, smiling, as he rode up to the
startled fugitive. "I knew you would try to escape me, but I cannot
consent that you should thus run headlong into certain destruction. You
have neither sanguine hopes nor a fixed purpose to support you, and you
want firmness to answer with discretion the trying questions which will
everywhere assail you. You are silent--you feel the full extent of your
danger--why not then embrace the certain protection I offer you? Fear
not that I shall either repeat or allude to my last night's proposal. My
sole object is your immediate protection at this critical period, when
you are doubtless tracked in all directions by the blood-hounds of the
police. At the frontiers you will inevitably be stopped and identified;
but under my roof you will be safe from all pursuit and suspicion. I
live secluded from the world; I have no visitors; and your presence will
not be suspected by any one. In a few weeks the heat of pursuit will
abate, and you may then take your departure with renewed courage and
confidence."
"Courage and confidence!" repeated to himself the timid Florian; "would
Heaven I had either!" The good sense, however, of the old man's advice
was so obvious, that he determined to avail himself of so kind an offer.
Gratefully pressing his hand, he dismissed all doubts of his sincerity,
and said, "I will accompany you; and may God reward your benevolence,
for I cannot."
"We must return by the road I came," said the headsman, turning his
horse. "It will take us outside the town to my house; and, at this hour,
we shall arrive there unperceived. Your landlord, who is under
obligations to me, sent you this road at my request. He supposes that
you are my distant relative, and that, unwilling to appear in public
with an executioner, you had made an appointment with me for this early
hour on your way homeward."
After a ride of half an hour through the shady lanes which skirted the
ramparts, they reached the back entrance of the Gothic building before
mentioned, and Florian entered this singular sanctuary with emotions not
easily described. The old headsman was in high spirits; and the blunt
but genuine kindness and cordiality of his manners soon removed from the
mind of his guest every lurking suspicion that some treachery was
intended. The table was promptly covered with an excellent breakfast,
and the old man sent a message to his daughter, requesting that she
would bring a bottle of the best wine in the cellar.
Florian fixed his eyes upon the door in shrinking anticipation. He
suspected new attempts to ensnare him to the headsman's purpose; and
notwithstanding his firm determination to resist them, he recoiled with
fastidious disgust from the possible necessity of contending with the
meretricious advances of a bold and reckless female, whose limited
opportunities of marriage would impel her to lure him by any means to
her father's object. How widely different were his emotions when the
door opened, and his lovely travelling-companion, whom, in the terrors
of the past night, he had forgotten, entered, in blushing embarrassment,
with the bottle of wine. In a tumult of mingled apprehension and
delight, he started from his chair, but the cordial greeting he intended
was checked by a significant wink from the lively fair one as she passed
behind her father to the table. It was obvious to Florian that she
wished to conceal their previous acquaintance, and with a silent bow he
resumed his seat, while the smiling maid, whom her father introduced to
his guest by the name of Madelon, took a chair between them, and the
conversation soon became general and exhilarating.
The continued fever of apprehension which had almost unhinged the reason
of the timid Florian, now rapidly subsided. The cordial hospitality of
the old headsman soon made him feel at home in an abode which he had
once contemplated with horror and disgust; while the artless attentions
and fascinating vivacity of the pretty Madelon soon wove around him a
magic spell, and invested the Gothic chambers of her father's antique
mansion with all the splendours of Aladdin's palace.
Motherless from the age of fourteen, and secluded by her father's
vocation from all society save occasional intercourse with relatives of
the same degraded caste, the headsman's daughter had been early
accustomed to rely upon her own resources.
Most of her leisure hours had been devoted to a comprehensive course of
historical reading, from which her unpolished but strong-minded father
conceived that she would derive not only amusement and instruction, but
that sustaining fortitude so essential to the station in which her
lot was cast. Thus her innocent and active mind, untainted by the
licentiousness and infidelity of French romance, acquired concentration
and strength; the study of sacred and profane history induced habits of
salutary reflection, and her character gradually developed a masculine
yet unpretending energy, which admirably fitted her to become the
helpmate of a man so timid and indecisive as Florian. Her mother was a
Parisian, of good manners and education, but an orphan and defenceless.
Persecuted by a licentious nobleman, who, in revenge for her firm
rejection of his dishonourable addresses, had accused her of theft,
she had effected her escape from the chateau in which she resided as
governess to his daughters, to the same town in which Florian had been
discovered by the headsman. Circumstances somewhat similar, but not
essential to my narrative, had induced her to accept a temporary asylum
in the house of the executioner, whose mother was then living; and here,
in a moment of despair at her destitute and hopeless condition, she
accepted the often-tendered addresses of the enamoured headsman, and
became his wife. The life of this amiable and accomplished woman was
shortened by her calamities, and by a sense of degradation which she
could never subdue. Secluded from all human society save that of an
uncultivated husband, who but imperfectly understood her value, she
loved her only child with more than a mother's idolatry; and, while her
strength permitted, devoted herself, with unceasing solicitude, to the
formation of her mind, and to the regulation of her untamable vivacity.
Thus happily moulded in her early youth, and judiciously cultivated
after her mother's death, Madelon combined, with clear and vigorous
perceptions, a degree of personal attraction rarely seen in France, and
no small portion of the feminine grace and fascination peculiar to
well-educated Frenchwomen, while to these advantages were superadded
eyes of radiant lustre, a voice rich in soft and musical inflections,
and a smile of irresistible archness and witchery. Accustomed, from her
limited opportunities of observation, to regard men as collectively
coarse and uncultivated, she had been immediately and powerfully
attracted by the elegant person, the refined and gentle manners, of
Florian, during their four leagues' journey; and to one who felt the
value of knowledge, and eagerly sought to extend her means of pursuing
it, there was, on farther acquaintance, a charm in his comprehensive
attainments and in the classic elegance of his diction, which
compensated for the unmanly timidity and morbid infirmity of purpose,
so easily distinguishable in his character and conduct.
In Florian, whose feelings were fortified by reminiscences of a prior
attachment, the progress of sentiment was slower, but not less certain
in its tendency. His silent worship of Angelique had always been
accompanied by doubts and misgivings innumerable. He thought her lost to
him for ever; he felt that all his prospects of professional advancement
were blighted by the disastrous incident at D., and his consequent
flight; and insensibly he yielded to the charm of daily and hourly
intercourse with the bewitching Madelon. The consciousness of her
admiring prepossession, and of his own superior attainments, gave to
him, while conversing with her, a soothing self-possession, an expansion
of thought and feeling, and a glowing facility of elocution, which he
had never yet experienced, and which proved a source of exquisite and
inexhaustible gratification. Her unceasing sympathy and kindness, her
flattering anticipation of his wishes, lulled the anguish of his
recollections, and her sparkling gaiety never failed to rouse his
drooping spirits. He soon learned to estimate at its true value the rare
combination of gentleness and energy which her character displayed;
while her courageous self-possession and unfailing resources under every
difficulty, made him regard her as a woman gifted beyond her sex with
those qualities in which he felt himself most deficient. In short,
feelings of deep and lasting attachment stole insensibly into the hearts
of the youthful pair. Florian had surrendered all his sympathies to
Madelon before he was conscious of the power she had gained over his
happiness, and their mutual affection was betrayed and sealed by word
and pledge before he reflected upon the inevitable consequences. Too
soon, alas! he was awakened from this dream of bliss to a long reality
of terror and anguish. The spell which bound him was broken, and the
scene of enchantment was abruptly changed into a chaos of interminable
dismay and anxiety.
Some weeks after his arrival in this asylum, the headsman had advised
him to prolong his stay until all danger of pursuit had subsided, and
the fears of the fugitive soon gave way to cheering sensations of
security and confidence. To lovers the present is everything: Florian
forgot alike the trying past and the menacing future; weeks and months
flitted past unobserved by the youthful pair, while the crafty headsman,
who had silently watched their growing intelligence, crowed in secret
over the now certain success of his stratagem.
Several months had thus elapsed, and the old man, after ascertaining
from his daughter that the affections and the honour of Florian were
irredeemably plighted, took an opportunity to address him one morning as
soon as Madelon had quitted the breakfast-room.
"I think it is high time, young man," he said, smiling, "that you should
proceed to business. Come along with me into my workshop."
Florian looked at him in silent wonder, but unhesitatingly followed him
into the capacious cellars, where the old man unlocked a door which his
guest had never before observed. Florian entered with his conductor, but
started back in dismay as he saw a number of executioner's swords and
axes hanging round the walls of a low vaulted room, in the centre of
which several cabbage-heads were fixed with pegs upon an oblong block of
wood. The headsman took one of the swords from the wall, drew it from
the scabbard, carefully wiped the glittering blade, and then offered
it to Florian. "Now, my son," he began, "try your strength upon these
cabbage-heads. It is easy work, and requires nothing but a steady hand."
"Gracious heaven! you cannot be in earnest!" exclaimed Florian,
retreating from him in deadly terror.
"Not in earnest?" rejoined the headsman, sternly; "I consider your
compliance as a matter of course. You love my daughter--you have won her
affections--and surely, Florian, you are not the man to play her false!"
"God forbid!" exclaimed Florian with honest fervour. "I dearly love her,
and seek no happier lot than to become her husband."
"I offered her to you, my son!" said the other with returning kindness;
"but you did not like the conditions, and declined her. You have since,
without my permission, sought and won her affections, and you have no
right to flinch from the implied consequences. It is high time to come
to a conclusion, and to apply yourself in good faith to the only pursuit
through which you can ever obtain my Madelon."
"The only one?" timidly repeated Florian. "I have, 'tis true, abandoned
for your daughter's sake the world, and the world's prejudices; but I am
young and industrious; I possess valuable knowledge, and surely I may
find some employment which will maintain a wife and family. Do, my good
father, relinquish this dreadful vocation"----
"And my daughter!" exclaimed the headsman, with loud and bitter
emphasis. "What is to become _her_? If even you could step back within
the pale of society, _she_ would for ever be excluded. But you have
neither moral courage nor animal bravery enough for any worldly
pursuit--your original station in society is irrecoverably gone--and if
you attempt to leave this safe asylum, the sword of justice will face
you at every turn. No, no, Florian! I love my future son-in-law too well
to expose him to such imminent and deadly peril. There, read that paper!
The contents will bring you to your senses."
With these words, which struck like a wintry chill into the heart of
Florian, he took an old newspaper from his pocket-book. The unhappy
fugitive received it with a shaking hand, and read a judicial summons
from the authorities of D., seeking intelligence of a student, who had
on a certain day quitted the university by the diligence for Normandy,
and unaccountably disappeared. His Christian and surname, with an
accurate description of his dress and person, were appended. Glancing
fearfully down the page, he distinguished some particulars of a murder;
his sight grew dim with terror; and after a vain attempt to read
farther, he dropped the fatal document, and reeled back, breathless, and
almost fainting, against the wall.
"He is the very man!" muttered the headsman, whose keen eye had been
intently fixed upon him during the perusal. "I never asked your real
name, young man," he continued, "but now I know it. Your terrors would
betray it to a child. How then are you, without fortitude to face the
common evils of life, and bearing in every feature a betrayer, to escape
the giant-grasp of the French police? And had this calamity never
befallen you, how could you gain a support in a world, which, by your
own confession, you have ever found ungenial and repulsive? Believe me,
Florian! here, and here only, will you find safety, support, and
happiness."
"Happiness?" mournfully repeated Florian.
"Yes, happiness!" rejoined the tempter. "You and Madelon love each
other, and in every station, from the highest to the lowest, love is
the salt of life, the balm and cordial of existence. My office descends
from generation to generation; it insures to the holder not only a good
house and landed property, but an income of no mean amount. Every
traveller who passes my house pays me a toll, because fifty years
since an inundation compelled the town to cut a high-road through my
grandfather's garden. Of all these benefits I shall be deprived, when
old and disabled, if my children disdain to follow my vocation; and if
Madelon were to marry within the pale of that society which regards her
father with abhorrence, my house and vineyard would be destroyed by the
bigoted and furious populace, and too probably my innocent child along
with them. Have you the heart, Florian, to hazard her destruction and
your own, in preference to an office essential to the existence of civil
society, and from which that obedience to the laws, which is the first
duty of a good citizen, removes all self-reproach? With a due sense of
the importance of your official duties, you will find yourself sustained
in the performance of them; and a practised hand will soon give you
firmness enough to follow a vocation attended with no personal risk; but
if you determine to leave me, where will you find resolution to face the
perils which surround you? and if you escape them, how are you to
compete in the race of life with the daring and the fleet?"
The appalling alternatives held out to Florian by the politic headsman,
and the consciousness of his own inability either to escape the police,
or to steer his way successfully through the shoals and quicksands of
life, rendered him incapable of argument or reply. He had for some
months been cut off from all that freedom has to bestow--he had neither
relations nor friends on whose interposition he could firmly rely--he
recollected with agony that every heart beyond the limits of his present
home was steeled against him--that every hand was ready to seize and
betray him. Should he quit this safe asylum, and even establish his
innocence of the imputed murder, his ignorance of the world, and his
invincible timidity and self-distrust, would make him the prey of any
plausible knavery. Bewildered and stupified by contending emotions, his
mind became palsied by despair, and his powers of resistance began to
fail him. The headsman saw his advantage; but, satisfied with the
impression he had made upon his hapless victim, he ceased to press any
immediate decision, told him to consider of the proposal, and went to
his vineyard; while Florian, hastening to his Madelon, was assailed by
all the witchery of sighs and tears; by looks, which alternately pleaded
and upbraided; and by inspiriting and cogent arguments, which shamed him
into temporary resolution. Thus alternately intimidated by the deep
tones and stern denunciations of the father, encouraged by the specious
reasonings of the daughter, or soothed by her resistless fascinations;
assured, too, by the headsman, that for some years sentences of
decapitation, with rare exceptions, had been commuted for the galleys,
his power to contend with his tempter abandoned him: he dropped, like
the fascinated bird, into the jaws of the serpent; and, yielding to
his destiny, he commenced his training in a vocation from which every
feeling in his nature, and every dictate of his understanding, recoiled
with abhorrence.
It was no sacrifice, to one of his timid and fastidious habits, to
abandon a world in which he had ever found himself an alien, and which
he now thought confederated to persecute and destroy him. He submitted
in uncomplaining resignation to his fate, and ere long found relief in
the growing attachment of the headsman and his daughter. His pure and
affectionate heart, and the undeviating rectitude of his principles
and conduct, soon won the entire esteem of the old man, whose better
feelings had not been blunted by his official duties; while the
light-hearted and bewitching Madelon, who now loved almost to idolatry a
man so incomparably superior to any she had hitherto known, delighted to
cheer his hours of sadness, and watched his every wish with intense and
unwearied solicitude. Meanwhile, the old man had quietly made every
requisite preparation, and a month after the assent of Florian to his
proposal, the lovers were united. The official appointment of Florian,
as adopted successor to the headsman, took place some days before the
marriage, and it was stipulated by the town authorities that, on the
next ensuing condemnation of a criminal to death, he should prove on the
scaffold his competency to succeed the executioner.
For many months after this appointment, every arrival of a criminal in
the town prison struck terror into the heart of Florian. Happily,
however, the assertion of the headsman that it was a growing practice
of the judicial authorities to substitute the galleys for decapitation,
was verified by the fact, and Florian enjoyed several years of domestic
happiness, disturbed only by apprehensions which he could never subdue,
that sooner or later the evil he so much dreaded would certainly befall
him. Meanwhile his beloved Madelon had made him the happy father
of three promising boys, and he began to experience a degree of
tranquillity to which he had long been a stranger; when, at a period in
which the town-prison was untenanted, the long-dreaded calamity burst
upon his devoted head like a bolt of lightning from a cloudless sky.
His father-in-law received one morning at breakfast an order from the
town authorities to repair early on the following day to a city at ten
leagues distance, and there to behead a criminal whose execution had
been delayed by the illness and death of the resident headsman. At this
unexpected intelligence, the features of Florian were blanched with
horror, but the iron visage of the old executioner betrayed not the
slightest emotion. Regardless of his son-in-law's terrors, he viewed
this unexpected summons as a fortunate incident, and maintained that any
unskilfulness in decapitation would be of less importance at a distance
than in his native town. He regarded also this brief summons as much
more favourable to Florian's success than a longer foreknowledge, and
urged in strong and decisive terms the necessity of submission to
the call of duty. The blood of Florian froze as he listened, but he
acquiesced, as usual, in timid silence. In the afternoon he yielded to
the old man's wish, that he should give what the headsman termed a
master-proof of his skill in the science of decapitation, and with cold
sweat on his brow severed a number of cabbage-heads to the satisfaction
of his teacher. Meanwhile the sympathising but energetic Madelon
prepared a palatable meal, and endeavoured, more successfully than her
uncompromising parent, to sustain and cheer the drooping spirits of the
husband she so entirely loved. She could not, however, always suppress
her starting tears; and as the night approached, even the firm nature of
the old headsman betrayed symptoms of growing anxiety, notwithstanding
his endeavours to exhilarate himself by deep potations of his favourite
wine.
After a night of wearying vigilance and internal conflict, the miserable
Florian entered at daybreak the vehicle which awaited him and his
father-in-law under the arched gateway. With a view to prevent his
trembling substitute from witnessing all the preparations for the
approaching catastrophe, the old man so measured his progress as to
enter the city a few minutes before the appointed hour, and drove
immediately to the scene of action, without pausing at the church,
to attend, as customary, the mass then performing in presence of
the criminal. Soon after their arrival, the melancholy procession
approached, and Florian, unable to face the criminal, turned hastily
away, ascended the ladder with unsteady steps, and concealed himself
behind the massive person of the old headsman, as the victim of offended
justice, with a firm and measured step, mounted the scaffold. The old
man felt for his shrinking son-in-law, but kept a stern eye upon him,
in hopes to counteract the disabling effects of his rising agony.
When, however, the decisive moment approached, he whispered to him
encouragingly--"Be a man, Florian! Beware of looking at the criminal
before you strike; but when his head is lifted, look him boldly in the
face, or the people will doubt your courage."
Florian fixed on him a vacant stare, but these kindly-meant instructions
reached not his inward ear. The remembrance of the execution he had
witnessed with his friend Bartholdy had flashed upon him, and he
recollected the taunting prediction--that he might himself be condemned
to the scaffold. His agony rose almost to suffocation; he compared his
own destiny with that of the being whom he was about to deprive of life,
and he felt that he could not unwillingly have taken his place. At this
moment his attention was caught by the admiring comments of the crowd
upon the courageous bearing and firm unflinching features of the
criminal. Roused by these exclamations to a stinging consciousness of
his own unmanly timidity, he made a powerful effort, and rallied his
expiring energies into temporary life and action. The headsman now
approached him with the broad axe, and whispered, "Courage, my son!
'tis nothing but a cabbage-head."
With a desperate effort, Florian seized the weapon, fixed his dim gaze
upon the white neck of the criminal, and, guided more by long practice
than by any estimate of place and distance, he struck the death-stroke.
The head fell upon the hollow flooring of the scaffold with an appalling
bounce, which petrified the unfortunate executioner. The consciousness
that he had deprived a fellow-creature of life now smote him with a
withering power, which for some moments deprived him of all volition,
and he stood in passive stupor, gazing wildly upon the blood which
streamed in torrents from the headless trunk. Immediately, however, his
father-in-law again approached him, with a whisper. "Admirably done, my
son! I give you joy! But recollect my warning, and look boldly at your
work, or the mob will hoot you as a craven headsman from the scaffold."
The old man was obliged to repeat his admonition before it reached
the senses of his unconscious son-in-law. Long accustomed to yield
unresisting obedience, Florian slowly raised his eyes, at the moment
when the executioner's assistant, after showing the criminal's head to
the multitude, turned round and held out to him the bleeding and ghastly
object.--Gracious Heaven! what were his feelings when he encountered a
well-known face--when he saw the yellow pock-marked visage of Bartholdy,
whose widely-opened milk-blue eyes were fixed upon him in the glassy,
dim, and vacant stare of death!
Paralysed with sudden and overwhelming horror, he fell senseless into
the arms of the headsman, who had watched this critical moment, and,
with ready self-possession, loudly attributed to recent illness an
incident so puzzling to the spectators. He succeeded ere long in rousing
Florian to an imperfect sense of his critical situation, and, supporting
his tottering frame, led him to the house of the deceased executioner.
For an hour after their arrival, the unhappy youth sat mute and
motionless--the living image of despair. Agony in him had passed
its wildest paroxysm, and settled down into a blind and mechanical
unconsciousness. The old man, who began to suspect some extraordinary
reason for emotion so excessive, compelled him to swallow several
glasses of wine, and anxiously besought him to explain the cause of his
impassioned deportment. It was long, however, before the disconsolate
Florian regained the power of utterance. At length a burst of tears
relieved him. "I knew him!" he began, in a voice broken by convulsive
sobs. "He was once my friend. Oh, my father! there is no hope for me! I
am a doomed man--a murderer! He stands before me ever, and demands my
blood in atonement for his destruction. How can I justify such guilt? I
never knew his crime--I cannot even fancy him a criminal--but I well
remember that he loved and cherished me. Away, my father, if you love
me, to the judges! I _must_ know his crime, or the pangs I feel will
never depart from me."
The executioner, in whose stern and inflexible nature feelings of pity,
and even of repentance, were now at work, hastened to obtain some
information, and returned in half an hour, with indications of anxiety
and doubt too obvious to escape the unhappy Florian, who, with folded
hands, exclaimed, "For God-sake, father, tell me all--I must know it,
sooner or later. Your anxiety prepares me for the worst. If you, a man
of iron, are thus shaken"----
"I? Nonsense!" retorted the old man, somewhat disconcerted. "The fellow
was a notorious villain, and was executed for two murders."
Florian, relieved by this intelligence, began to breathe more freely,
and gazed upon the headsman with looks which sought farther explanation,
"Florian," continued the old man, fixing upon him his stern and
searching look, "when you told me the tale of your calamities at D.,
did you tell me _all_? Had you _no_ reservations?"
"None, father, by all I hold most sacred!" replied Florian, with
emphatic earnestness.
"One of Bartholdy's crimes," resumed the headsman, "was connected with
your story. He is said to have slain the officer in whose murder you
thought yourself implicated by suspicious appearances."
"_He_?" exclaimed Florian, gasping with horror. "No! by the Almighty
God, he did _not_ slay him! I have beheaded an innocent man, and the
remembrance will cleave to me like a curse!"
"Can you _prove_ that he had no share in that murder?" now sternly
demanded the headsman, whose suspicions had been roused by Florian's
acknowledgment of former intimacy with Bartholdy.
"I can swear to his innocence of _that_ murder," vehemently replied
Florian, whose energies rose with his excitement. "And the other crime?"
he eagerly continued. "In mercy, father, tell me whom else he is said to
have murdered?"
"_Yourself!_" said the old man, turning pale as he anticipated the
effect of this communication,--"if the name inserted in the judicial
summons from D. was really yours."
For some moments Florian gazed upon him in speechless despair--his eyes
became fixed and glassy--his jaw dropped--and he would have fallen from
his chair, had not the old man supported him. The headsman looked with
anxious and growing perplexity upon his unfortunate victim. "After
all," he muttered, "he is my daughter's husband, and a good husband. I
forced him to the task, and must, if possible, save him from the
consequences."
By an abundant application of cold water to the face of Florian, he
succeeded at length in restoring him to consciousness. The miserable
youth opened his eyes, and, leaning on the old man's shoulders, burst
into a passion of tears. When in some measure tranquillised, the
headsman asked him soothingly if he was sufficiently collected to listen
to him.
"Yes, father, I am," he replied, with an effort.
"Recollect, then, my son," continued the old man, "that you are under
the assured protection of the sword, and that you may open your heart to
me without fear of consequences. Say, then, in the first place, who are
you?"
"I am no other, father," answered Florian, with returning energy, "than
I have already acknowledged to you; and I was the early friend and
schoolfellow of the man whose blood I have shed upon the scaffold. But I
must and will have clear proof of _every_ crime imputed to Bartholdy,"
he exclaimed in wild emotion. "Again I see his large dim eyes fixed on
me in reproach; and if you cannot give me evidence that he deserved his
fate, my remorse will goad me on to suicide or madness."
It was now evident to the old man that the suspicions he had founded
on Florian's acknowledged intimacy with Bartholdy were groundless.
Recollecting, too, the undeviating truth and honesty of Florian's
character, he felt all the injustice of his suspicions; and his
compassion for the tortured feelings of his son-in-law became actively
excited. He clearly saw that nothing but the truth, and the whole truth,
would satisfy him; he determined, therefore, to call upon the criminal's
confessor; and, after prevailing upon the exhausted Florian to go to
bed, he watched by him until he saw his wearied senses sealed up in
sleep, and then departed in quest of farther intelligence.
After three hours of undisturbed repose, which restored, in some
measure, the exhausted strength of Florian, he awoke, and saw his
father-in-law sitting by his bed, with a confident and cheerful
composure of look, which spoke comfort to his wounded spirit.
"Florian," he began, "I have cheering news for you. I have seen the
confessor of Bartholdy, a good old man, who feels for, and wishes to
console you. He has long known the habits and character of the criminal.
More he would not say, but he will receive you this evening at his
convent, and will not only impart to you the consolations of religion,
but reveal as much of the criminal's previous life as the sacred
obligations of a confessor will permit. Meanwhile, my son, you must
rouse yourself from this stupor, and accompany me in a walk round the
city ramparts."
After a restorative excursion, they repaired, at the appointed hour, to
the Jesuit convent, and were immediately conducted to the cell of the
confessor, an aged and venerable priest, who gazed for some seconds in
silent wonder on the dejected Florian, and then, laying a hand upon his
shoulder, exclaimed, "Gracious Heaven! Florian, is it possible that I
see you alive?"
The startled youth raised his downcast eyes at this exclamation, and
recognised in the Jesuit before him the worthy superior of the school at
which he had been educated, and the same who had congratulated him on
the disappearance of Bartholdy. This discovery imparted instant and
unspeakable relief to the harassed feelings of Florian. The years he had
passed under the paternal care of this benevolent old man arose with
healing influence in his memory, and losing, in the sudden glow of
filial regard and entire confidence, all his wonted timidity, he poured
his tale of misery and remorse into the sympathising ear of the good
father, with the artless and irresistible eloquence of a mind pure from
all offence. The confessor, who listened with warm interest to his
recital, forbore to interrupt its progress by questions. "I rejoice to
learn," he afterwards replied, "that Bartholdy, although deeply stained
with crime, quitted this life with less of guilt than he was charged
with on his conscience. The details of his confession I cannot reveal,
without a breach of the sacred trust reposed in me. It is enough to
state, that he was deeply criminal. Without reference, however, to his
more recent transgressions, I can impart to you some particulars of his
earlier life, and of his implication in the murder you have detailed,
which will be sufficient to relieve your conscience, and reconcile you
to the will of Him who, for wise purposes, made you the blind instrument
of well-merited punishment. Know then, my son, that when Bartholdy was
supposed by yourself and others to have absconded from the seminary, he
was a prisoner within its walls. Certain evidence had reached the
presiding fathers, that this reckless youth was connected with a band
of plundering incendiaries, who had for some months infested the
neighbouring districts. Odious alike to his teachers and schoolfellows,
repulsed by every one but you, and almost daily subjected to punishment
or remonstrance, he sought and found more congenial associates beyond
our walls; and, with a view to raise money for the gratification of his
vicious propensities, he contrived to scale our gates at night, and took
an active part in the plunder of several unprotected dwellings. At the
same time, we received a friendly intimation from the police, that he
was implicated in a projected scheme to fire and plunder a neighbouring
chateau, and that the ensuing night was fixed upon for the perpetration
of this atrocity. Upon inquiry it was discovered that Bartholdy had been
out all night, and it was now feared that he had finally absconded.
Happily, however, for the good name of the seminary, he returned soon
after the arrival of this intelligence, and, as I now conjecture, with a
view to repossess himself of the knife he had left in your custody. He
was immediately secured and committed to close confinement, in the hope
that his solitary reflections, aided by our admonitions, would have
gradually wrought a salutary change in his character. This confinement,
which was sanctioned by his relations, was prolonged three years without
any beneficial result; and at length, after many fruitless attempts, he
succeeded in making his escape. Joining the scattered remnant of the
band of villains dispersed by the police, he soon became their leader in
the contrivance and execution of atrocities which I must not reveal, but
which I cannot recollect without a shudder. In consequence of high winds
and clouds of dust, the public walk and grove beyond the gate of D. had
been some days deserted by the inhabitants, and the body of the murdered
officer was not discovered until the fourth morning after your departure
from the university. A catastrophe so dreadful had not for many years
occurred in that peaceful district: a proportionate degree of abhorrence
was roused in the public mind, and the excited people rushed in crowds
to view the corpse, in which, by order of the police, the fatal knife
was left as when first discovered; while secret agents mingled with the
crowd, to watch the various emotions of the spectators. Guided by a
retributive providence, Bartholdy, who had that morning arrived in D.,
approached the body, and gazed upon it with callous indifference, until
the remarkable handle of his long-lost knife caught his eye. Starting at
the well-remembered object, a deep flush darkened his yellow visage, and
immediately the police-officers darted forward and seized him. At first
he denied all knowledge of the knife, and, when again brought close to
the body, he gazed upon it with all his wonted hardihood; but when told
to take the bloody weapon from the wound, he grasped the handle with a
shudder, drew it forth with sudden effort, and, as he gazed on the
discoloured blade, his joints shook with terror, and the knife fell from
his trembling hand. Superstition was ever largely blended with the
settled ferocity of Bartholdy's character, and I now attribute this
emotion to a fear that his destiny was in some way connected with this
fatal weapon, which had already caused his long imprisonment, and would
now too probably endanger his life. This ungovernable agitation
confirmed the general suspicion excited by his forbidding and savage
exterior. He was immediately conveyed to the hotel of the police, and
the knife was placed before him; but when again interrogated, he long
persisted in denying all knowledge of it. When questioned, however, as
to his name and occupation, and his object in the city of D., his
embarrassment increased, his replies involved him in contradictions, and
at length he admitted that he _had_ seen the knife before, and in _your_
possession. This attempt to criminate you by implication, failed,
however, to point any suspicion against one whose unblemished life and
character were so well known in the university. Your gentle and retiring
habits, your shrinking aversion from scenes of strife and bloodshed,
were recollected by many present: their indignation was loudly uttered,
and a friend of yours expressed his belief that you had quitted the city
some days before the murder was committed. In short, this base and
groundless insinuation of Bartholdy created an impression highly
disadvantageous to him. A few hours later, intelligence arrived that the
diligence in which you had left D. had been attacked by a band of
robbers, while passing through a forest, the day after your departure.
Several of the passengers had been wounded; some killed; others had
saved themselves by flight; and, as you had disappeared, it was now
conjectured that Bartholdy had murdered you, and taken from your person
the knife with which he had afterwards stabbed the young man in the
grove. This presumptive evidence against him was so much strengthened by
his sudden emotion at the sight of the weapon, and by the apparent
probability that the murder of the young officer had succeeded the
robbery of the diligence, that the watch and money found upon the body
failed to create any impression in his favour, as it was conjectured, by
the strongly excited people, that he had been alarmed by passing
footsteps before he had succeeded in rifling his victim. He was put into
close confinement until farther evidence could be obtained; and, ere
long, a letter arrived to your address from Normandy, stating the
arrival of your trunk by the carrier, and expressing surprise at your
non-appearance. A judicial summons, detailing your name and person, and
citing you to appear and give evidence against the supposed murderer,
led to no discovery of your retreat, and the evidence of your wounded
fellow-travellers was obscure and contradictory. Meanwhile, however,
several of the robbers who had attacked the diligence were captured by
the _gens-d'armes_. When confronted with Bartholdy, their intelligence
was sufficiently obvious, and he at length confessed his co-operation in
the murderous assault upon the travellers; but stoutly denied that he
had either injured or even seen you amongst the passengers, and as
tenaciously maintained his innocence of the murder committed in the
grove. Your entire disappearance however, his emotion on beholding the
knife, and his admission that he knew it, still operated so strongly
against him that he was tried and pronounced guilty of three crimes,
each of which was punishable with death. During the week succeeding his
trial, he was supplied by a confederate with tools, which enabled him to
escape and resume his predatory habits; nor was he retaken until a month
before his execution, while engaged in a robbery of singular boldness
and atrocity. He was recognised as the hardened criminal who had escaped
from confinement at D.; and as the authorities were apprehensive that no
prison would long hold so expert and desperate a villain, an order was
obtained from Paris for the immediate execution of the sentence already
passed upon him at D. Thus, although guilty of one only of the three
crimes for which he suffered, the forfeiture of ten lives would not have
atoned for his multiplied transgressions. From boyhood even he had
preyed upon society with the insatiable ferocity of a tiger; and you, my
son, ought not to murmur at the decree which made your early
acquaintance with him the means of stopping his savage career, and your
hand the instrument of retribution."
The concluding words of the venerable priest fell like healing balm upon
the wounded spirit of Florian, who returned home an altered and a
saddened, but a sustained and a devout man: deeply conscious that the
ways of Providence, however intricate, are just; and more resigned to a
vocation, to which he now conceived that he had been for especial
purposes appointed. He followed, too, the advice of the friendly priest,
in leaving the public belief of his own death uncontradicted; and, as he
had not actually witnessed the murder in the grove near D., he felt
himself justified in withholding his evidence against an individual, of
whose innocence there was a remote possibility.
The mental agony of the unfortunate young headsman had been so acute,
that a reaction upon his bodily health was inevitable. Symptoms of
serious indisposition appeared the next day, and were followed by a long
and critical malady, which, however, eventually increased his domestic
happiness, by unfolding in his Madelon nobler and higher attributes than
he had yet discovered in her character. No longer the giddy and
laughter-loving Frenchwoman, she had, for some years, become a devoted
wife and mother; but it was not until she saw her husband's gentle
spirit for ever blighted, and his life endangered for some weeks by a
wasting fever, that she felt all his claims upon her, and bitterly
reproached herself as the sole cause of his heaviest calamities. During
this long period of sickness, when all worldly objects were waning
around this man of sorrows, she watched, and wept, and prayed over him
with an untiring assiduity and self-oblivion, which developed to the
grateful Florian all the unfathomable depths of woman's love, and proved
her consummate skill and patience in all the tender offices and trying
duties of a sick-chamber. Her health was undermined, and her fine eyes
were dimmed for ever by long-continued vigilance; but her assiduities
were at length rewarded by a favourable crisis; and when the patient
sufferer was sufficiently restored to bear the disclosure, she kneeled
to him in deep humility, and acknowledged, what the reader has doubtless
long conjectured, that _she_ had, from an upper window, caused that
ominous jarring of the sword and axe which induced her father to suspect
and follow him, and which eventually led to their marriage.
Florian started in sudden indignation; but his gentle nature, and the
hallowed influences of recent sickness and calamity, soon prevailed over
his wrath. What _could_ he say? How could he chide the lovely and
devoted woman, whose fraud had grown out of her affection for him! In an
instant he forgot his own sorrows; and, as he listened to the mournful
and beseeching accents of her who was the mother of his children, and
had been unto him, in sickness and in health, a ministering angel, his
anger melted into love. He had no words; but, like the father of the
humbled prodigal, he had compassion, and fell upon her neck and kissed
her, and forgave her entirely, and for ever.
The old headsman survived these events several years; and, while his
strength continued equal to the effort, he spared his son-in-law from
the trying duties of his office. After his death, however, his successor
was compelled to encounter the dreadful task. For some time before and
after each execution, sadness sat heavy on his soul, but yielded
gradually to the sustaining influence of fervent prayer, and to the
caresses of his wife and children. In the intervening periods he
regained comparative tranquillity, and devoted himself unceasingly to
the education of his boys, and to the labours of his field and vineyard.
I have been told, however, that since the execution of Bartholdy he was
never seen to smile; and that, when gazing on the joyous sports of his
unconscious children, his eyes would often fill with tears of sorrowing
anticipation. Thus many years elapsed: his boys have become men, and the
recent training and nomination of one of them as his successor, have
renewed in the heart of the fond father all those bitter pangs which the
soothing agency of time and occupation had lulled to comparative repose.
* * * * *
Here the interesting narrator paused. Towards the conclusion of his
recital his mournful voice had quivered with suppressed emotion; and, as
he finished, his eyes were clouded with tears.
His companions had listened to this affecting narrative with a sympathy
which, for some moments, subdued all power of utterance, and the silence
which ensued was interrupted only by involuntary and deep-drawn sighs.
At length the Professor roused himself, and, prompted by a friendly wish
to draw out a more explanatory conclusion, he put the leading question,
"Had he, then, _no_ alternative?"
"You forget, my dear sir," replied Julius, rallying with sudden effort,
"that by the French laws the son of an executioner _must_ succeed his
father, or see the family estate transferred to strangers. When the old
headsman was near his end, his son-in-law pledged himself by oath to
train a son as his own successor. His eldest boy, who blended with his
father's gentle manners some portion of his mother's courage, evinced,
from an early age, such determined antipathy to this vocation, that the
appointment was transferred to the second son, who had inherited the
masculine spirit and prompt decision of his mother. Unhappily, however,
soon after his nomination, he died of a malignant fever. His sorrowing
mother, who had for some time observed symptoms of declining health in
her husband, and was indescribably solicitous to see him relieved from
his official duties, prevailed upon her youngest son, in absence of her
first-born, to accept the appointment. But this youth, not then
nineteen, and in mind and person the counterpart of his timid father,
was equally unsuited to this formidable calling. Well knowing, however,
that his refusal would deprive his parents of the home and the support
so essential to their growing infirmities, he strung his nerves to the
appalling task, and, at the next execution, he mounted the scaffold as
his father's substitute. But, alas! at the decisive moment his strength
and resolution failed him. His sight grew dim with horror, and he
performed his trying duty so unskilfully, that the people groaned with
indignation at the protracted sufferings of the unfortunate criminal,
and the town authorities pronounced him unqualified. The consequence of
this disastrous failure was an immediate summons to the eldest son, who
had for several years thought himself finally released from this
terrible appointment. So unexpected a change in his destination fell
upon him like a death-blow; and, as he read the fatal summons, he felt
the sword and axe grating on his very soul."
"And do you think it possible," exclaimed one of the students, "that
after such long exemption he will submit to a life so horrible?"
"Too probably," replied Julius, mournfully, "he _must_ submit to it.
Indeed, I see no alternative. His refusal would not only deprive his
drooping and unhappy parents of every means of support, but too probably
expose their lives to the fury of a bigoted and ferocious populace. None
but a childless headsman can hold his property during life without a
qualified successor; and, when he dies, the magistrates appoint
another."
Here Julius paused again. He gazed for some moments in melancholy
abstraction upon the dying embers in the stove--the tears again started
to his eyes, and he rose abruptly to depart; nor could the joint efforts
of the kind Professor, and the now warmly-interested students, prevail
on him to stay out another bowl of punch.
"To-morrow early," said he, in unsteady tones, to the Professor, "I will
claim your promised introduction to the lieutenant. Till then,
farewell!"
"Promise me, then, my dear Julius," rejoined his host, "that you will
give us your company to-morrow evening. After so trying a spectacle, a
bowl of punch, and the society of four friends, will recruit and cheer
you."
The students successively grasped his hand, and cordially urged him to
comply. Overcome by this unexpected sympathy, the agitated youth could
not restrain his tears, and in a voice tremulous with emotion, he said,
"I shall never forget your kindness, and, if I know my heart, I shall
prove myself not unworthy of it. If in my power, I will join your
friendly circle to-morrow night; but"--he hesitatingly added--"I have
never yet faced an execution, and I know not how far such strong
excitement may unfit me for society."
The Professor and his friends accompanied him to the street, where they
again shook hands and separated.
* * * * *
On the following evening the three students were again assembled in the
Professor's study, and the conversation turned more upon their new
friend and his interesting narrative, than upon the tragedy of that
morning. The Professor told them that Julius had called early, and been
introduced by him to the lieutenant, since which he had not seen or
heard of him. One of the students said, that his curiosity to observe
the deportment of their mysterious friend had led him early to the
ground, where he had seen Julius standing, with folded arms, and pale as
death, within a few feet of the scaffold; but that, unable to subdue his
own loathing of the approaching catastrophe, he had left the ground
before the arrival of the criminal.
An hour elapsed in momentary expectation of the young student's arrival,
but he came not. The conversation gradually dropped into monosyllables,
and the Professor could no longer disguise his anxiety, when a gentle
tap was heard, like that of the preceding night, and without any
previous sound of approaching footsteps. "Come in!" cheerfully shouted
the relieved Professor, but the door was not unclosed. Again he called,
but vainly as before. Then starting from his chair, he opened the door,
but discovered no one. The students, who also fancied they had heard a
gentle knock, looked at each other in silent amazement; and the
warm-hearted Professor, unable to reason down his boding fears,
determined to seek Julius at his lodgings, and requested one of the
students to accompany him.
He knew the street, but not the house, in which the young man resided;
and as soon as they had entered the street, their attention was excited
by a tumultuous assemblage of people at no great distance. Hastening to
the spot, the Professor ascertained from a bystander that the crowd had
been collected by the loud report of a gun or pistol in the apartments
of a student. Struck with an appalling presentiment, the Professor and
his companion forced a passage to the house-door, and were admitted by
the landlord, to whom the former was well known. "Tell me!" exclaimed
the Professor, gasping with terror and suspense--"Is it Julius
Arenbourg?"
"Alas! it is indeed," replied the other. "Follow me up-stairs, and you
shall see him."
They found the body of the ill-fated youth extended on the bed, and a
pistol near him, the ball of which had gone through his heart. His fine
features, although somewhat contracted by the peculiar action of a
gunshot wound, still retained much of their bland and melancholy
character. The landlord and his family wept as they related that
Julius, who was their favourite lodger, had returned home after the
execution with hurried steps, and a countenance of death-like paleness.
Without speaking to the children, as was his wont, he had locked the
door of his apartment, where he remained several hours, and then
hastened with some letters to the post-office. In a few minutes after
his return, the fatal shot summoned them to his room, where they found
him dying and speechless. "But I had nearly forgotten," concluded the
landlord, "that he left upon his table a letter addressed to Professor
N."
The worthy man opened the letter with a trembling hand, and, in a voice
husky with emotion, read the contents to his companion.
"From you, my dear Professor, and from my younger friends,
although but friends of yesterday, I venture to solicit the
last kindness which human sympathy can offer. If, as I dare to
hope, I have some hold upon your good opinion, you will not
refuse to see my remains interred with as much decency as the
magistrates will permit. In my purse will be found enough to
meet the amount of this and every other claim upon me.
"I have yet another boon to ask, and one of vital moment to my
unhappy relatives. I have prepared them to expect intelligence
of my death by fever; and surely my request, that the subjoined
notice of my decease may be inserted in the papers of Metz and
Strasbourg, will not be disregarded by those whose kindness
taught me the value of existence when I had no alternative but
to resign it.
"That those earthly blessings, which were denied to me and
mine, may be abundantly vouchsafed to you, is the fervent
prayer of the unhappy
"JULIUS.
"Died of fever, at ----, in Germany, Julius Florian Laroche, a
native of Champagne, aged 22."
"Alas!" exclaimed the deeply affected Professor, "the mystery is solved,
and my suspicions were too well founded. Sad indeed was thy destiny, my
Julius, and sacred shall be thy last wishes."
Kissing the cold brow of the deceased, he hung over his remains in
silent sorrow, and breathed a fervent prayer for mercy to the suicide;
then giving brief directions for the funeral, the Professor and his
friend paced slowly homeward, in silence and in tears.
THE WEARYFUL WOMAN.
BY JOHN GALT.
[_MAGA._ MAY 1821.]
"It happened," said Mr M'Waft, "that there were in the smack
many passengers, and among others a talkative gentlewoman of no
great capacity, sadly troubled with a weakness of parts about her
intellectuals. She was indeed a real weak woman; I think I never met
with her like for weakness, just as weak as water. Oh but she was a weak
creature as ever the hand of the Lord put the breath of life in, and
from morning to night, even between the bockings of the sea-sickness,
she was aye speaking; na, for that matter, it's a God's truth, that at
the dead hour of midnight, when I happened to be wakened by a noise on
the decks, I heard her speaking to herself for want of other companions;
and yet for all that, she was vastly entertaining, and in her day had
seen many a thing that was curious, so that it was no wonder she spoke
a great deal, having seen so much; but she had no command of her
judgment, so that her mind was always going round and round and
pointing to nothing, like a weathercock in a squally day.
"'Mrs M'Adam,' quoth I to her one day, 'I am greatly surprised at your
ability in the way of speaking.' But I was well afflicted for the
hypocritical compliment, for she then fastened upon me, and whether it
was at meal-time or on the deck, she would come and sit beside me, and
talk as if she was trying how many words her tongue could utter without
a single grain of sense. I was for a time as civil to her as I could be,
but the more civility I showed, the more she talked, and the weather
being calm, the vessel made but little way. Such a prospect in a long
voyage as I had before me!
"Seeing that my civility had produced such a vexatious effect, I
endeavoured to shun the woman, but she singled me out, and even when I
pretended to be overwhelmed with the sickness, she would sit beside me,
and never cease from talking. If I went below to my bed, she would come
down and sit in the cabin, and tell a thousand stories about remedies
for the sea-sickness, for her husband had been a doctor, and had a great
reputation for skill. 'He was a worthy man,' quoth she, 'and had a world
of practice, so that he was seldom at home, and I was obliged to sit by
myself for hours in the day, without a living creature to speak to, and
obliged to make the iron tongs my companions, by which silence and
solitude I fell into low spirits; in the end, however, I broke out of
them, and from that day to this, I have enjoyed what the doctor called a
cheerful fecundity of words; but when he, in the winter following, was
laid up with the gout, he fashed at my spirits, and worked himself into
such a state of irritation against my endeavours to entertain him, that
the gout took his head, and he went out of the world like a pluff of
pouther, leaving me a very disconsolate widow; in which condition, it is
not every woman who can demean herself with the discretion that I have
done. Thanks be and praise, however, I have not been tempted beyond my
strength; for when Mr Pawkie, the seceder minister, came shortly after
the interment to catch me with the tear in my e'e, I saw through his
exhortations, and I told him upon the spot that he might refrain, for
it was my intent to spend the remainder of my days in sorrow and
lamentation for my dear deceased husband. Don't you think, sir,
it was a very proper rebuke to the first putting forth of his cloven
foot? But I had soon occasion to fear that I might stand in need of a
male protector; for what could I, a simple woman, do with the doctor's
bottles and pots, pills and other doses, to say nothing of his brazen
pestle and mortar, which of itself was a thing of value, and might be
coined, as I was told, into a firlot of farthings; not however that
farthings are now much in circulation, the pennies and new bawbees have
quite supplanted them, greatly, as I think, to the advantage of the poor
folk, who now get the one or the other, where, in former days, they
would have been thankful for a farthing; and yet, for all that, there is
a visible increase in the number of beggars, a thing which I cannot
understand, and far less thankfulness on their part than of old, when
alms were given with a scantier hand; but this, no doubt, comes of the
spreading wickedness of the times. Don't you think so, sir? It's a
mystery that I cannot fathom, for there was never a more evident passion
for church-building than at present; but I doubt there is great truth in
the old saying, "The nearer the kirk, the farther from grace," which was
well exemplified in the case of Provost Pedigree of our town, a decent
man in his externals, and he keepit a hardware shop; he was indeed a
merchant of "a' things," from a needle and a thimble down to a rattle
and a spade. Poor man! he ran at last a ram-race, and was taken before
the session; but I had always a jealousy of him, for he used to say very
comical things to me in the doctor's lifetime; not that I gave him any
encouragement farther than in the way of an innocent joke, for he was a
jocose and jocular man, but he never got the better of that exploit with
the session, and dwining away, died the year following of a decay, a
disease for which my dear deceased husband used to say no satisfactory
remedy exists in nature, except gentle laxatives, before it has taken
root: but although I have been the wife of a doctor, and spent the best
part of my life in the smell of drugs, I cannot say that I approve of
them, except in a case of necessity, where, to be sure, they must be
taken, if we intend the doctor's skill to take effect upon us; but many
a word me and my dear deceased husband had about my taking of his pills,
after my long affliction with the hypochondriacal affection, for I could
never swallow them, but always gave them a check between the teeth, and
their taste was so odious that I could not help spitting them out. It is
indeed a great pity, that the Faculty cannot make their nostrums more
palatable, and I used to tell the doctor, when he was making up doses
for his patients, that I wondered how he could expect sick folk, unable
to swallow savoury food, would ever take his nauseous medicines, which
he never could abide to hear, for he had great confidence in many of his
prescriptions, especially a bolus of flour of brimstone and treacle for
the cold, one of the few of his compounds I could ever take with any
pleasure.'
"In this way," said Mr M'Waft, "did that endless woman rain her words
into my ear, till I began to fear that something like a gout would also
take my head; at last I fell on a device, and, lying in bed, began to
snore with great vehemence, as if I had been sound asleep, by which,
for a time, I got rid of her; but being afraid to go on deck lest she
should attack me again, I continued in bed, and soon after fell asleep
in earnest. How long I had slept I know not, but when I awoke, there was
she chattering to the steward, whom she instantly left the moment she
saw my eye open, and was at me again. Never was there such a plague
invented as that woman; she absolutely worked me into a state of
despair, and I fled from her presence as from a serpent; but she would
pursue me up and down, back and fore, till everybody aboard was like to
die with laughing at us, and all the time she was as serious and polite
as any gentlewoman could well be.
"When we got to London, I was terrified she would fasten herself on
me there, and therefore, the moment we reached the wharf, I leapt
on shore, and ran as fast as I could for shelter to a public-house,
till the steward had despatched her in a hackney. Then I breathed at
liberty--never was I so sensible of the blessing before, and I made all
my acquaintance laugh very heartily at the story; but my trouble was not
ended. Two nights after, I went to see a tragedy, and was seated in an
excellent place, when I heard her tongue going among a number of ladies
and gentlemen that were coming in. I was seized with a horror, and would
have fled, but a friend that was with me held me fast; in that same
moment she recognised me, and before I could draw my breath, she was at
my side, and her tongue rattling in my lug. This was more than I could
withstand, so I got up and left the play-house. Shortly after, I was
invited to dinner, and among other guests, in came that afflicting
woman, for she was a friend of the family. Oh Lord! such an afternoon I
suffered--but the worst was yet to happen.
"I went to St James's to see the drawing-room on the birthday, and among
the crowd I fell in with her again, when, to make the matter complete,
I found she had been separated from her friends. I am sure they had
left her to shift for herself; she took hold of my arm as an old
acquaintance, and humanity would not allow me to cast her off; but
although I staid till the end of the ceremonies, I saw nothing; I only
heard the continual murmur of her words, like the sound of a running
river.
"When I got home to my lodging, I was just like a demented man; my head
was bizzing like a bee-skep, and I could hear of nothing but the birr of
that wearyful woman's tongue. It was terrible; and I took so ill that
night, and felt such a loss of appetite and lack of spirit the next day,
that I was advised by a friend to take advice; and accordingly, in the
London fashion, I went to a doctor's door to do so, but just as I put
up my hand to the knocker, there within was the wearyful woman in the
passage, talking away to the servant-man. The moment I saw her I was
seized with a terror, and ran off like one that has been bitten by a wud
dog, at the sight and the sound of running water. It is indeed no to be
described what I suffered from that woman; and I met her so often, that
I began to think she had been ordained to torment me; and the dread of
her in consequence so worked upon me, that I grew frightened to leave my
lodgings, and I walked the streets only from necessity, and then I was
as a man hunted by an evil spirit.
"But the worst of all was to come. I went out to dine with a friend that
lives at a town they call Richmond, some six or eight miles from London,
and there being a pleasant company, and me no in any terror of the
wearyful woman, I sat wi' them as easy as you please, till the
stage-coach was ready to take me back to London. When the stage-coach
came to the door, it was empty, and I got in; it was a wet night, and
the wind blew strong, but, tozy wi' what I had gotten, I laid mysel up
in a corner, and soon fell fast asleep. I know not how long I had
slumbered, but I was awakened by the coach stopping, and presently I
heard the din of a tongue coming towards the coach. It was the wearyful
woman; and before I had time to come to mysel, the door was opened, and
she was in, chatting away at my side, the coach driving off.
"As it was dark, I resolved to say nothing, but to sleep on, and never
heed her. But we hadna travelled half a mile, when a gentleman's
carriage going by with lamps, one of them gleamed on my face, and the
wearyful woman, with a great shout of gladness, discovered her victim.
"For a time, I verily thought that my soul would have leapt out at the
croun of my head like a vapour; and when we got to a turn of the road,
where was a public-house, I cried to the coachman for Heaven's sake to
let me out, and out I jumped. But O waes me! that deevil thought I was
taken ill, and as I was a stranger, the moment I was out and in the
house, out came she likewise, and came talking into the kitchen, into
which I had ran, perspiring with vexation.
"At the sight, I ran back to the door, determined to prefer the wet and
wind on the outside of the coach to the clatter within. But the coach
was off, and far beyond call. I could have had the heart, I verily
believe, to have quenched the breath of life in that wearyful woman; for
when she found the coach was off without us, her alarm was a perfect
frenzy, and she fastened on me worse than ever--I thought my heart would
have broken.
"By-and-by came another coach, and we got into it. Fortunately twa young
London lads, clerks or siclike, were within. They endured her tongue for
a time, but at last they whispered each other, and one of them giving me
a nodge or sign, taught me to expect they would try to silence her.
Accordingly the other broke suddenly out into an immoderate doff-like
laugh that was really awful. The mistress paused for a minute, wondering
what it could be at; anon, however, her tongue got under way, and off
she went; presently again the younker gave another gaffaw, still more
dreadful than the first. His companion, seeing the effect it produced on
Madam, said, 'Don't be apprehensive; he has only been for some time in a
sort of deranged state; he is quite harmless, I can assure you.' This
had the desired effect, and from that moment till I got her safe off
in a hackney-coach from where the stage stoppit, there was nae word
out of her head; she was as quiet as pussy, and cowered in to me in
terrification o' the madman breaking out. I thought it a souple trick o'
the Londoners. In short," said Mr M'Waft, "though my adventures with the
wearyful woman is a story now to laugh at, it was in its time nothing
short of a calamity."
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
every effort has been made to remain true to the authors' words and
intent.
End of Project Gutenberg's Tales from "Blackwood," Volume 3, by Various