"And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."--TWELFTH
NIGHT.
My friend Jameson, the lawyer, has frequently whiled away an evening in
relating incidents which occurred in his practice during his residence
in a Western State. On one occasion he gave a sketch of a criminal
trial in which he was employed as counsel; the story, as developed in
court and completed by one of the parties subsequently, made so
indelible an impression on my mind that I am constrained to write down
its leading features. At the same time, I must say, that, if I had
heard it without a voucher for its authenticity, I should have regarded
it as the most improbable of fictions. But the observing reader will
remember that remarkable coincidences, and the signal triumph of the
right, called poetical justice, are sometimes seen in actual life as
well as in novels.
The tale must begin in Saxony. Carl Proch was an honest farmer, who
tilled a small tract of crown land and thereby supported his aged
mother. Faithful to his duties, he had never a thought of discontent,
but was willing to plod on in the way his father had gone before him.
Filial affection, however, did not so far engross him as to prevent his
casting admiring glances on the lovely Katrine, daughter of old
Rauchen, the miller; and no wonder, for she was as fascinating a damsel
as ever dazzled and perplexed a bashful lover. She had admiration
enough, for to see her was to love her; many of the village youngsters
had looked unutterable things as they met her at May-feasts and
holidays, but up to this time she had received no poetical epistles nor
direct proposals, and was as cheerful and heart-free as the birds that
sang around her windows. Her father was the traditional guardian of
beauty, surly as the mastiff that watched his sacks of flour and his
hoard of thalers; and though he doted on his darling Katrine, his heart
to all the world beside seemed to be only a chip from one of his old
mill-stones. When Carl thought of the severe gray eyes that shot such
glances at all lingering youths, the difficulty of winning the pretty
heiress seemed to be quite enough, even with a field clear of rivals.
But two other suitors now made advances, more or less openly, and poor
Carl thought himself entirely overshadowed. One was Schönfeld, the most
considerable farmer in the neighborhood, a widower, with hair beginning
to show threads of silver, and a fierce man withal, who was supposed to
have once slain a rival, wearing thereafter a seam in his cheek as a
souvenir of the encounter. The other was Hans Stolzen, a carpenter,
past thirty, a shrewd, well-to-do fellow, with nearly a thousand
thalers saved from his earnings. Carl had never fought a duel,--and he
had not saved so much as a thousand groschen, to say nothing of
thalers; he had only a manly figure, a cheery, open face, the freshness
of one-and-twenty, and a heart incapable of guile. Katrine was not long
in discovering these excellences, and, if his boldness had equalled his
passion, she would have shown him how little she esteemed the
pretensions of the proud landholder or the miserly carpenter. But he
took it for granted that he was a fool to contend against such odds,
and, buttoning his jacket tightly over his throbbing heart, toiled away
in his little fields, thinking that the whole world had never contained
so miserable a man.
Hans Stolzen was the first to propose. He began by paying court to the
jealous Rauchen himself, set forth his property and prospects, and
asked to become his son-in-law. The miller heard him, puffed long
whiffs, and answered civilly, but without committing himself. He was in
no hurry to part with the only joy he had, and, as Katrine was barely
eighteen, he naturally thought there would be time enough to consider
of her marriage hereafter. Hans hardly expected anything more decisive,
and, as he had not been flatly refused, came frequently to the house
and chatted with her father, while his eyes followed the vivacious
Katrine as she tripped about her household duties. But Hans was
perpetually kept at a distance; the humming-bird would never alight
upon the outstretched hand. He had not the wit to see that their
natures had nothing in common, although he did know that Katrine was
utterly indifferent towards him, and after some months of hopeless
pursuit he began to grow sullenly angry. He was not long without an
object on which to vent his rage.
One evening, as Katrine was returning homeward, she chanced to pass
Carl's cottage. Carl was loitering under a tree hard by, listening to
the quick footsteps to which his heart kept time. It was the coming of
Fate to him, for he had made up his mind to tell her of the love that
was consuming him. Two days before, with tears on his bashful face, he
had confided all to his mother; and, at her suggestion, he had now
provided a little present by way of introduction. Katrine smiled
sweetly as she approached, for, with a woman's quick eye, she had read
his glances long before. His lips at first rebelled, but he struggled
out a salutation, and, the ice once broken, he found himself strangely
unembarrassed. He breathed freely. It seemed to him that their
relations must have been fixed in some previous state of existence, so
natural was it to be in familiar and almost affectionate communication
with the woman whom before he had loved afar off, as a page might sigh
for a queen.
"Stay, Katrine," he said,--"I had nearly forgotten." He ran hastily
into the cottage, and soon returned with a covered basket. "See,
Katrine, these white rabbits!--are they not pretty?"
"Oh, the little pets!" exclaimed Katrine. "Are they yours?"
"No, Katrinchen,--that is, they were mine; now they are yours."
"Thank you, Carl. I shall love them dearly."
"For my sake?"
"For their own, Carl, certainly; for yours also,--a little."
"Good-bye, Bunny," said he, patting the head of one of the rabbits.
"Love your mistress; and, mind, little whitey, don't keep those long
ears of yours for nothing; tell me if you ever hear anything about me."
"Perhaps Carl had better come and hear for himself,--don't you think
so, Bunny?" said Katrine, taking the basket.
The tone and manner said more than the words. Carl's pulses bounded; he
seized her unresisting hand and covered it with kisses. "So! this is
the bashful young man!" thought Katrine. "I shall not need to encourage
him any more, surely."
The night was coming on; Katrine remembered her father, and started
towards the mill, whose broad arms could scarcely be seen through the
twilight. Carl accompanied her to the gate, and, after a furtive glance
upward to the house-windows, bade her farewell, with a kiss, and turned
homeward, feeling himself a man for the first time in his life.
Frau Proch had seen the pantomime through the flowers that stood on the
window-sill, not ill-pleased, and was waiting her son's return. An hour
passed, and he did not come. Another hour, and she began to grow
anxious. When it was near midnight, she roused her nearest neighbor and
asked him to go towards the mill and look for Carl. An hour of terrible
suspense ensued. It was worse than she had even feared. Carl lay by the
roadside, not far from the mill, insensible, covered with blood,
moaning feebly at first, and afterwards silent, if not breathless.
Ghastly wounds covered his head, and his arms and shoulders were livid
with bruises. The neighboring peasants surrounded the apparently
lifeless body, and listened with awe to the frenzied imprecations of
Frau Proch upon the murderer of her son. "May he die in a foreign
land," said she, lifting her withered hands to Heaven, "without wife to
nurse him or priest to speak peace to his soul! May his body lie
unburied, a prey for wolves and vultures! May his inheritance pass into
the hands of strangers, and his name perish from the earth!" They
muttered their prayers, as they encountered her bloodshot, but tearless
eyes, and left her with her son.
For a whole day and night he did not speak; then a violent brain-fever
set in, and he raved continually. He fancied himself pursued by Hans
Stolzen, and recoiled as from the blows of his staff. When this was
reported, suspicion was directed at once to Stolzen as the criminal;
but before an arrest could be made, it was found that he had fled. His
disappearance confirmed the belief of his guilt. In truth, it was the
rejected suitor, who, in a fit of jealous rage, had waylaid his rival
in the dark, beat him, and left him for dead.
Katrine, who had always disliked Stolzen, especially after he had
pursued her with his coarse and awkward gallantry, now naturally felt a
warmer affection for the victim of his brutality. She threw off all
disguise, and went frequently to Frau Proch's cottage, to aid in
nursing the invalid during his slow and painful recovery. She had, one
day, the unspeakable pleasure of catching the first gleam of returning
sanity in her hapless lover, as she bent over him and with gentle
fingers smoothed his knotted forehead and temples. An indissoluble tie
now bound them together; their mutual love was consecrated by suffering
and sacrifice; and they vowed to be faithful in life and in death.
When Carl at length became strong and commenced labor, he hoped
speedily to claim his betrothed, and was waiting a favorable
opportunity to obtain her father's consent to their marriage. The scars
were the only evidence of the suffering he had endured. No bones had
been broken, and he was as erect and as vigorous as before the assault.
But Carl, most unfortunate of men, was not destined so soon to enjoy
the happiness for which he hoped,--the love that had called him back to
life. As the robber eagle sits on his cliff, waiting till the hawk has
seized the ring-dove, then darts down and beats off the captor, that he
may secure for himself the prize,--so Schönfeld, not uninformed of what
was going on, stood ready to pounce upon the suitor who should gain
Katrine's favor, and sweep the last rival out of the way. An officer in
the king's service appeared in the village to draw the conscripts for
the army, and the young men trembled like penned-up sheep at the
entrance of the blood-stained butcher, not knowing who would be seized
for the shambles. The officer had apparently been a friend and
companion of Schönfeld's in former days, and passed some time at his
house. It was perhaps only a coincidence, but it struck the neighbors
as very odd at least, that Carl Proch was the first man drawn for the
army. He had no money to hire a substitute, and there was no
alternative; he must serve his three years. This last blow was too much
for his poor mother. Worn down by her constant assiduity in nursing
him, and overcome by the sense of utter desolation, she sunk into her
grave, and was buried on the very day that Carl, with the other
recruits, was marched off.
What new torture the betrothed Katrine felt is not to be told. Three
years were to her an eternity; and her imagination called up such
visions of danger from wounds, privations, and disease, that she parted
from her lover as though it were forever. The miller found that the
light and the melody of his house were gone. Katrine was silent and
sorrowful; her frame wasted and her step grew feeble. To all his offers
of condolence she made no reply, except to remind him how with tears
she had besought his interference in Carl's behalf. She would not be
comforted. The father little knew the feeling she possessed; he had
thought that her attachment to her rustic lover was only a girlish
fancy, and that she would speedily forget him; but now her despairing
look frightened him. To the neighbors, who looked inquisitively as he
sat by the mill-door, smoking, he complained of the quality of his
tobacco, vowing that it made his eyes so tender that they watered upon
the slightest whiff.
For six months Schönfeld wisely kept away; that period, he thought,
would be long enough to efface any recollection of the absent soldier.
Then he presented himself, and, in his usual imperious way, offered his
hand to Katrine. The miller was inclined to favor his suit. In wealth
and position Schönfeld was first in the village; he would be a powerful
ally, and a very disagreeable enemy. In fact, Rauchen really feared to
refuse the demand; and he plied his daughter with such argument as he
could command, hoping to move her to accept the offer. Katrine,
however, was convinced of the truth of her former suspicion, that Carl
was a victim of Schönfeld's craft; and her rejection of his proposal
was pointed with an indignation which she took no pains to conceal. The
old scar showed strangely white in his purple face, as he left the
mill, vowing vengeance for the affront.
Rauchen and his daughter were now more solitary than ever. The father
had forgotten the roaring stories he used to tell to the neighboring
peasants, over foaming flagons of ale, at the little inn; he sat at his
mill-door and smoked incessantly. Katrine shunned the festivities in
which she was once queen, and her manner, though kindly, was silent and
reserved; she went to church, it is true, but she wore a look of
settled sorrow that awed curiosity and even repelled sympathy. But
scandal is a plant that needs no root in the earth; like the houseleek,
it can thrive upon air; and those who separate themselves the most
entirely from the world are apt, for that very reason, to receive the
larger share of its attention. The village girls looked first with
pity, then with wonder, and at length with aversion, upon the gentle
and unfortunate Katrine. Careless as she was with regard to public
opinion, she saw not without pain the altered looks of her old
associates, and before long she came to know the cause. A cruel
suspicion had been whispered about, touching her in a most tender
point. It was not without reason, so the gossip ran, that she had
refused so eligible an offer of marriage Schönfeld's. The story reached
the ears of Rauchen, at last. With a fierce energy, such as he had
never exhibited before, he tracked it from cottage to cottage, until he
came to Schönfeld's housekeeper, who refused to give her authority. The
next market-day Rauchen encountered the former suitor and publicly
charged him with the slander, in such terms as his baseness deserved.
Schönfeld, thrown off his guard by the sudden attack, struck his
adversary a heavy blow; but the miller rushed upon him, and left him to
be carried home, a bundle of aches and bruises. After this the tongues
of the gossips were quiet; no one was willing to answer for guesses or
rumors at the end of Rauchen's staff; and the father and daughter
resumed their monotonous mode of life.
The three years at length passed, and Carl Proch returned home,--a
trifle more sedate, perhaps, but the same noble, manly fellow. How
warmly he was received by the constant Katrine it is not necessary to
relate. Rauchen was not disposed to thwart his long-suffering daughter
any further; and with his consent the young couple were speedily
married, and lived in his house. The gayety of former years came back;
cheerful songs and merry laughter were heard in the lately silent
rooms. Rauchen himself grew younger, especially after the birth of a
grandson, and often resumed his old place at the inn, telling the old
stories with the old _gusto_ over the ever-welcome ale. But one
morning, not long after, he was found dead in his bed; a smile was on
his face, and his limbs were stretched out as in peaceful repose.
There was no longer any tie to bind Carl to his native village. All his
kin, as well as Katrine's, were in the grave. He was not bred a miller,
and did not feel competent to manage the mill. Besides, his mind had
received new ideas while he was in the army. He had heard of countries
where men were equal before the laws, where the peasant owed no
allegiance but to society. The germ of liberty had been planted in his
breast, and he could no longer live contented with the rank in which he
had been born. At least he wished that his children might grow up free
from the chilling influences that had fallen upon him. At his earnest
persuasion, Katrine consented that the mill should be sold, and soon
after, with his wife and child, he went to Bremen and embarked for
America.
* * * * *
We must now follow the absconding Stolzen, who, with his bag of
thalers, had made good his escape into England. He lived in London,
where he found society among his countrymen. His habitual shrewdness
never deserted him, and from small beginnings he gradually amassed a
moderate fortune. His first experiment in proposing for a wife
satisfied him, but in a great city his sensual nature was fully
developed. His brutal passions were unchecked; conscience seemed to
have left him utterly. At length he began to think about quitting
London. He was afraid to return to Germany, for, as he had left Carl to
all appearance dead, he thought the officers of the law would seize
him. He determined to go to Australia, and secured a berth in a clipper
ship bound for Melbourne, but some accident prevented his reaching the
pier in season; the vessel sailed without him, and was never heard of
afterwards. Then he proposed to buy an estate in Canada; but the owner
failed to make his appearance at the time appointed for the
negotiation, and the bargain was not completed. At last he took passage
for New York, whither a Hebrew acquaintance of his had gone, a year or
two before, and was established as a broker. Upon arriving in that
city, Stolzen purchased of an agent a tract of land in a Western State,
situated on the shore of Lake Michigan; and after reserving a sum of
money for immediate purposes, he deposited his funds with his friend,
the broker, and started westward. He travelled the usual route by rail,
then a short distance in a mail-coach, which carried him within six
miles of his farm. Leaving his luggage to be sent for, he started to
walk the remaining distance. It was a sultry day, and the prairie road
was anything but pleasant to a pedestrian unaccustomed to heat and
dust. After walking less than an hour, he determined to stop at a small
house near the road, for rest, and some water to quench his thirst; but
as he approached, the baying hounds, no less than the squalid children
about the door, repelled him, and he went on to the next house. He now
turned down a green lane, between rows of thrifty trees, to a neat
log-cabin, whose nicely-plastered walls and the regular fence inclosing
it testified to the thrift and good taste of the owner. He knocked; all
was still. Again, and thirsty as he was, he was on the point of
leaving, when he heard a step within. He waited; the door opened, and
before him stood----Katrine!
She did not know him; but he had not forgotten that voluptuous figure
nor those melting blue eyes. He preferred his requests, looking through
the doorway at the same time to make sure that she had no protector.
Katrine brought the stranger a gourd of water, and offered him a chair.
She did not see the baleful eyes he threw after her as she went about
her household duties. Stolzen had dropped from her firmament like a
fallen and forgotten star. Secure in her unsuspecting innocence, she
chirruped to her baby and resumed her sewing.
That evening, when Carl Proch returned from his field, after his usual
hard day's labor, he found his wife on the floor, sobbing, speechless,
and the child, unnoticed, crying in his cradle. His dog sat by the
hearth with a look of almost intelligent sympathy, and whined as his
master entered the room. He raised Katrine and held her in his arms
like a child, covered her face with kisses, and implored her to speak.
She seemed to be in a fearful dream, and shrunk from some imagined
danger in the extremest terror. Gradually her sobs became less
frequent, her tremors ceased, and she smiled upon the manly face that
met hers, as though she had only suffered from an imaginary fright. But
when she felt her hair floating upon her shoulders, saw the almost
speaking face of the dog, Bruno, and became conscious of the cries of
the neglected child, the wave of agony swept over her again, and she
could utter only broken ejaculations. As word after word came from her
lips, the unhappy husband's flesh tingled; his hair stiffened with
horror; every nerve seemed to be strung with a new and maddening
tension. There was for him no such thing as fatigue, no distance, no
danger,--no law, no hereafter, no God. All thought and feeling were
drowned in one wild desire for vengeance,--vengeance swift, terrible,
and final.
He first caressed the dog as though he had been a brother; he put his
arms about the shaggy neck, and shook each faithful paw; he made his
wife caress him also. "God be praised, dear Katrine, for your
protector, the dog!" said he. "Come, now, Bruno!"
Katrine saw him depart with his dog and gun; but if she guessed his
errand, she did not dare remonstrate. He walked off rapidly,--the dog
in advance, now and then baying as though he were on a trail.
In the night he returned, and he smiled grimly as he set down the rifle
in its accustomed corner. His wife was waiting for him with intense
anxiety. It was marvellous to her that he was so cheerful. He trotted
her upon his knee, pressed her a hundred times to his bosom, kissed her
forehead, lips, and cheeks, called her his pretty Kate, his dear wife,
and every endearing name he knew. So they sat, like lovers in their
teens, till the purpling east told of a new day.
The luggage of one Stolzen, a stagecoach passenger, remained at the
tavern uncalled-for, for nearly a year. No one knew the man, and his
disappearance, though a profound mystery, was not an uncommon thing in
a new country. The Hebrew broker in New York received no answers to his
letters, though he had carefully preserved the post-office address
which Stolzen had given him. He began to fear lest he should be obliged
to fulfil the duty of heirship to the property deposited with him. To
quiet his natural apprehensions in view of this event, he determined to
follow Stolzen's track, as much of it as lay in _this_ world, at least,
and find out what had become of him. Upon arriving in the neighborhood,
the Jew had a thorough search made. The country was scoured, and on the
third day there was a discovery. A man walking on the sandy margin of a
river, about two or three miles from Carl's house, saw a skull before
him. As the steep bluff nearly overhung the spot where he stood, he
conjectured that the body to which the skull belonged was to be found
above on its verge. He climbed up, and there saw a headless skeleton.
It was the body of Stolzen, as his memorandum-book and other articles
showed. His pistol was in his pocket, and still loaded; that fact
precluded the idea of suicide. Moreover, upon examining more closely, a
bullet-hole was found in his breast-bone, around which the parts were
broken _outwardly_, showing that the ball must have entered from
behind. It was clear that Stolzen had been murdered.
The curse of Frau Proch had been most terribly fulfilled.
Circumstances soon pointed to Carl Proch as the perpetrator. A
stranger, corresponding to the deceased in size and dress, had been
seen, about the time of his disappearance, by the neighboring family,
walking towards Proch's house; and on the evening of the same day an
Irishman met Carl going at a rapid rate, with a gun on his shoulder, as
though in furious pursuit of some one. A warrant for his arrest was
issued, and he was lodged in jail to await his trial. If now the Hebrew
had followed the _lex talionis_, after the manner of his race in
ancient times, it might have fared badly with poor Carl. But as soon as
the broker was satisfied beyond a peradventure that the depositor was
actually dead, he hastened back to New York, joyful as a crow over a
newly-found carcass, to administer upon the estate, leaving the law to
take its own course with regard to the murderer.
Beyond the two facts just mentioned as implicating Carl, nothing was
proved at the trial. Jameson, the lawyer, whom I mentioned at the
beginning of this story, was engaged for the defence. He found Carl
singularly uncommunicative; and though the government failed to make
out a shadow of a case against his client, he was yet puzzled in his
own mind by Carl's silence, and his real or assumed indifference.
Katrine was in court with her child in her arms, watching the
proceedings with the closest attention; though she, as well as Carl,
was unable to understand any but the most familiar and colloquial
English. The case was speedily decided; the few facts presented to the
jury appeared to have no necessary connection, and there was no known
motive for the deed. The jury unanimously acquitted Carl, and with his
wife and boy he left the court-room. The verdict was approved by the
spectators, for no man in the neighborhood was more universally loved
and respected than Carl Proch.
Having paid Jameson his fee for his services, Carl was about to depart,
when the lawyer's curiosity could be restrained no longer, and he
called his client back to the private room of his office.
"Carl," said he, "you look like a good fellow, above anything mean or
wicked; but yet I don't know what to make of you. Now you are entirely
through with this scrape; you are acquitted; and I want to know what is
the meaning of it all. I will keep it secret from all your neighbors.
Did you kill Stolzen, or not?"
"Well, if I did," he answered, "can they do anything with me?"
"No," said Jameson.
"Not if I acknowledge?"
"No, you have been acquitted by a jury; and by our law a man can never
be tried twice for the same offence. You are safe, even if you should
go into court and confess the deed."
"Well, then, I did kill him,--and I would again!"
For the moment, a fierce light gleamed upon the calm and kindly face.
Then, feeling that his answer would give a false view of the case,
without the previous history of the parties, Carl sat down and in his
broken English told to his lawyer the story I have here attempted to
record. It was impossible to doubt a word of it; for the simplicity and
pathos of the narrative were above all art. Here was a simple case,
which the boldest inventor of schemes to punish villany would have been
afraid to use. Its truth is the thing that most startles the mind
accustomed to deal with fictions.
We leave Carl to return to his farm with his wife, for whom he had
suffered so much, and with the hope that no further temptation may come
to him in such a guise as almost to make murder a virtue.