"'Come, come!' said the unexpected friend, 'this isn't fair. Klaus is a

very worthy fellow, though things are going against him, because, as I

believe, his old father bore too hard upon that imp Stringstriker. If

Klaus were only a clever fellow, and knew how to say a private word or

so to his godfather, he would soon make it all right with him again.

Dwarfs must be managed. Bless you, I have one in my own mill. Every

ninth night he hammers away on the twenty-first cog of the third wheel;

and as soon as he begins, three honey cells must be put upon the

millstone for him, if I don't wish the mill to stand still immediately,

and all the grain to breed worms. It is nothing but Dwarf's roguery, and

so I say let Klaus go quietly his way. I'll wager what you like, if the

fellow asks the Dwarf's pardon, and makes it up with him, he'll be as

rich as ever again. For you see, masters, Dwarfs must sometimes play all

sorts of pranks with poor mortals, that they may so have occasion to

help them at a future time, and secure for themselves a place in Heaven

at last.'

"This learned address so dumbfoundered the peasants, that they retreated

by degrees further and further from their intended victim, who, like a

shrewd fellow, seized his opportunity, and made his escape. He was not

long in harnessing his hack, mounting his cart, and driving from the

inhospitable spot. The words of the miller had made a deep impression on

his mind. The wish to hold communion by any means with the world of

spirits, which had been closed upon him from the moment that he had

hurled his curse against one of them--grew strong and lively within him.

His miserable condition subdued him into sorrow and repentance, and, in

a loud and earnest voice, he implored his godfather to take pity upon

him, to forgive him, and to show him the means by which he might be

reconciled again to _him_, and made worthy of the regard and

consideration of his people.

"He had reached _Hörnitz_ when his stricken heart indulged itself in

such outpourings. _Breiteberg_ arose at a short distance before him,

with the few acres of land that still belonged to him lying waste for

want of hands. Klaus threw a look of sullen discontent towards the land,

and lo--he beheld there the figure of the Dwarf gliding along, and

surrounded by countless sparkling lights. The lad stood still, and

stared with astonishment at the apparition. Dissevered tones, as of a

violin, floated in the disturbed air; and when the phantom lifted his

fiddlestick, it seemed as if he sent a recognising nod towards his

godchild. Klaus urged his beast forward, and at the same moment the

Dwarf turned off at a cross-road, and with the speed of an arrow swept

towards the neighbourhood of the Dwarf's well.

"Klaus lay awake half the night dwelling upon this encounter, and when

he fell to sleep, it was the subject of his dreams. 'The miller,'

thought he, 'is right, after all! Godfather may be pacified yet, if he

is properly and becomingly spoken to. How kindly he nodded to me! O, if

I could get only half my fortune back!' Before Klaus was out of bed

again, he resolved to have a trial, and, on the very next day, humbly to

present himself to his godfather, if that great personage would deign

him an interview. He had to go to the wood for sticks, and time and

place were both favourable to a meeting with the spirit.

"The road to the wood lay hard by the Dwarf's well. Klaus, arriving

there, reined his horse up, and looked upon the spring with profoundly

cogitative eyes. It was clear and still. Pearly bright the water

ascended from the rent basaltic bottom, and rippled in a small

thread-like rill through whispering rushes, across meadows and fields,

until it reached the village.

"'Now, this is the strangest well!' quoth Klaus, knocking out the ashes

from his short stump of a pipe--'always humming and brumming when I take

my way by it--and when I have passed it, it is just as though I had

loaded on another hundred-weight. The poor thing regularly gasps, and

plants her hoof as if she were pulling the church after her. Now, wo-ho,

Whiteface!--wo-ho!"

As Klaus spoke, the horse snorted, gasped, and stamped, without making

any way. It was as though the devil had tied a hair about the spokes.

After fearful struggling and long agony, the wood was at length reached.

Klaus fell manfully to work. A sheaf of young trees were presently down

before his axe. In the haste of the felling, he cut down some shrubbery,

of no use in the manufacture of twirling-sticks, but trees and shrubs

were heaped together on his cart; he stopped his pipe, and with

provision at least for the next week, he gaily pushed towards home.

"It was a fine warm evening of autumn. The moon stood in the cloudless

heavens above the blue hills, and the rich region lay in her splendour.

Klaus hummed a careless tune; smoked and hummed, hummed and smoked. In

the swampy marsh meadows to the right and left of him, number of social

frogs joined in the concert; the streams were steaming in the valleys,

and silvery mists strayed, catching the radiance, along the mountain

forests.

"'Wo-ho, Blässe!' growled Klaus, as his favourite began to snort and

caracole. 'No shying, Whiteface! It is only the night-fog bubbling up a

bit. 'Twon't singe thy poor bones, wo-ho!' and then he cracked his whip,

and made it sing about the ears of the mulish beast. At the same moment,

a bright flame sprang up before him--but only like a flash of lightning;

for in an instant all was again hushed, dim, and lonely. The moon was

visible through the mist, and in Hörnitz the lights were seen

glimmering.

"'Oho!' thought Klaus, 'godfather is lighting his pipe, is he? We shall

soon see, then, how the world wags with him. Hollo! Godfather

Stringstriker, be good and kind to your child, and show yourself. Tell

me, dear godfather, how I am to fill my money-bags again; for you know

who had the emptying of them! There's a nice dear old gentleman, come

out to me--I do so long to see you!'

"It was all very proper for Klaus to evince such amiability, but it had

not the effect intended. Not a sound could he hear in reply. He waited

for a space; then bellowed again into the open air--waited again, and

holloed again. But all was quiet save the water of the spring which

purled amongst the pebbles, and the grassy reeds that rustled and sighed

through the mist, now reeking thicker and thicker around the speaker and

his sorry jade. Klaus waxed spiteful.

"'Godfather!' he cried, striking poor Whiteface in his wrath, 'thou art

a thick-lipped, crooked-legged lubber; that's what you are! Every

question is worth an answer; it is a rule that holds good with man and

beast; and why not amongst ghosts? Why did you beckon to me yesterday if

you did not mean to show? You invited me here, and now that I have come,

the tortoise creeps into his hole. You are a cruel, hard-hearted

godfather. But never mind--good-night, Dwarf-piper Here's a present for

thee. I bear thee no malice!'

"So speaking, Klaus threw a pocket-knife into the well, which he passed

at the moment. The knife dropped into the water; a flame shot suddenly

up, and was as quickly out. Klaus pressed his nag again; but the poor

beast reared, snorted, and dragged at the gearing, without being able to

move the cart an inch. The fog severed a little, and the moonbeams lay

in great beauty upon a hundred acres. Klaus attempted to give his animal

ease; but let Whiteface tug as she would, the cart stood still as if it

had been frost-bound.

"'That ugly thick head of godfather's has certainly caught amongst the

felloes," said Klaus, almost worried to death, and looking about him

half-curiously, half-timorously. It wanted very little to pitch him

backwards out of the vehicle, so astonished and affrighted was he with

all that he beheld. The ghost-seer had seen many sights, but this

beggared them all. His cart, in length and breadth, was covered with

millions of dwarfs; every fir-spray, every dark green spike of a leaf,

every pole, nay, even wheels and wheelspokes to the nave itself, were

beset with the creatures. And what were they all about? Tiny, miraculous

beings! labouring with unexampled diligence at the prettiest

dancing-pumps ever seen! The Lilliput shoelings glistered like Spelt in

the tiny brown hands of the workmen, as, turned to and fro, they came

under the numerous and almost invisible hammers and awls. Every

brilliant pair finished, and out of hand, was briskly strung up on

cobwebs, with which the cart, vaultwise, was overwoven; and upon which,

at the very first glance, Klaus himself could count more than three

hundred thousand finished shoes. The astounded waggoner could for a long

time do nothing more than fold his arms, and stare on in silence. The

little rogues looked inexpressibly comical, it must be confessed. They

were exactly half an inch in length, with great thick heads, on which

were fixed leathern-coloured caps, at least six times the size, every

one being decorated in front, by way of clasp, with a tiny glow-worm.

Their legs were very slender and very crooked, although their feet were

delicate and beautifully formed. Their little bodies, endowed in excess

with high shoulders, were clad in fine dark-brown satin jackets, and about

the waist were girdles of glistening silver, from which jingled the

needful workman's apparatus. As soon as one of the little fellows had to

hammer a sole, he adroitly tucked round his left leg, and, upon his tiny

heel, beat out the bit of leather into order.

"'This must be profitable work any how!' quoth Klaus, breaking out at

length, and, at the instant, the busy workers raised their headikins,

and goggled so drolly at the young boor, that the latter was seized with

a laughter which he found it impossible to control. The Dwarfs were set

off also, and for some time they roared together; that is to say, Klaus

roared, but the voicelets of the Dwarfs sounded only like a light

whisper. Their laughing, however, did not prevent the smoking of their

twirling-stick pipes, which they seemed to take much delight in; each

Dwarf, it must be known, carrying in his mouth the strangest little

twirling-stick, the four little arms of which reeked like pipe-heads.

"'If it is quite allowable, gentlemen!' said Klaus, taking off his hat--

a politeness which was immediately responded to by every dwarf--'I

should be glad to have a minute's chat with you; and to ask, first and

foremost, for whom all this tremendous stock is that you are finishing

off so busily and magnificently?'

"One of the cordwainers fastened the shoe that he had just finished,

close before the young boor's eyes, upon the cobweb; then he folded his

arms in imitation of Klaus, stared at him roguishly, and answered,

"'They are dancing-pumps for thy wedding, Klaus!'

"'For my what?' exclaimed the youth.

"'Thy wedding, Klaus!'

"'Ah, my pretty shoemakers, that's a long way off, I fear. Annie has no

great longing to milk the spiders in my stalls, and who can blame her?

But who gave you the order? Who took the measures? I guess our Marthas

and Marys will want a considerable shoe-horn to get the pumps on, if the

greater number don't prove misfits!'

"The Dwarfs laughed and clapped their hands for joy, nodding to one

another with such vivacity, that the glow-worms upon their bonnets flew

one amongst another.

"'Don't believe it, gossip--don't believe it,' rejoined the spokesman.

'We work for ourselves only. We mean to dance at thy wedding--every one

of us, regularly one after the other, with thy virtuous bride."

"'What! all of you?' asked Nicholas, hurriedly.

"'All, all! as many of us as there are pairs of shoes!'

"'Thank you for nothing!' returned Klaus. 'Why, you would make me a

widower before my wedding was over. Annie is a good strapping girl I

know, and she carries her bushel of winter wheat, in defiance of

Geordie, the miller's man, up three flights without stop or sigh; and

that, from old time, has always been with us a sign of sound lungs: but

a man can't drink, my little cobblers, beyond his thirst. You

understand? Now would it not be better--mind you I am much obliged to

you for the honour, all the same--if you sent a few delegates, say two

or three; wouldn't that be more considerate to the lady, and show your

politeness just as well?'

"'Not a bit of it, not a bit of it!' screamed the broad-bonnets. 'We

must all eat, and all dance!'

"'Just like all the world!' muttered Klaus to himself. 'If you invite

one of the townsfolk to a church ale he'll take three cakes for one, and

stuff himself till the steps groan as he goes down again. I say,

gentlemen,' he continued, turning to the Dwarfs, 'are you aware that I

am your king's godson, and on the most intimate terms with him?'

"'And that thy father made him fiddle himself to death?' answered the

little one resentfully; 'and that thou hast grown a good-for-nought,

ready to bung up our whole gracious kingdom in a mouse-hole, had'st thou

thy will? Eh, Master Nicholas?"

'Ah, don't be too hard now! Recollect what your king did to my father,

and all that I have suffered for the last six months. Look at me! Hasn't

Gossip Crookleg stripped me of money, field, and house?'

Again the dwarfs laughed.

'Ha, Klaus!' said the speaker, "Tell us, now, wouldn't you like to see

all that went out at the doors fly in again, ere to-morrow, at the

windows?"

'Only tell me,' said Klaus quickly, 'how to fill my bags again, and I

invite you all, every man Jack of you, to the wedding. There's nothing

like shaking hands and being friends again. Forget and forgive, say I!'

'And Annie dances with us?' interposed the Dwarf with eagerness,

swinging a pair of newly-made shoes at the same time so impetuously that

they slipped out of his hand, and dropped just into the young boor's

lap.

'Hollo! I didn't say that!' cried Klaus. 'I'll turn that over in my

mind, and give you an answer in the morning.'

A marvellous kind of whining interrupted the discourse. The innumerable

band of dwarfs pulled the drollest faces, folded their handikins, and

made the most lamentable gesticulations; but the speaker slid like a

spider, upon one of the threads which canopied over the cart, down into

Klaus's lap; thence he clambered up his jacket, and mounted until he

reached the youngster's hand--'Give me the shoes!' he exclaimed

maliciously, snatching and catching at the lost property.

"'Not so, not so, dear cousin Broadcap. This bit of workmanship will I

hoard up against my marriage, when I promise to put them on you myself,

if you will visit me.'

"'No, no, no--give me the shoes!' said the Dwarf fiercely, stamping with

both feet, and lifting his manikin fists in menace against Klaus. 'I

must and will have the shoes!'

"The remaining dwarfs again set up their sorrowful whine; and then Klaus

became aware that an accident had happened which, with prudence, might

be turned to great account.

"'Now, fine fellows, listen to me!' said he. 'The shoes you don't have

back. But if you will promise to set me to rights again with your king

and people, and to give me only the neediest livelihood, then are you

welcome to my wedding, to eat and dance as much as you like.

"'Well, Klaus!' answered the Dwarf, 'I see thou hast the best of us; and

we have no time to spend in disputation. In thirteen hours from this, we

must breathe upon the silver veins of the earth, that they may keep

nicely fresh, and in good growth. But an thou wilt hold faith with us,

hear my proposal. Come hither again to-morrow evening, and strike with

that sprig of yew, that hangs down below thee, into the well water. So,

perchance, shalt thou learn what is best to do. Quick, yea or nay?'

"'There can be little harm in that!' returned the farmer. 'I

answer--_yea!_'

"'Brrrr----!' snarled and whizzled behind him all over the cart. The

dwarfs tumbled down from every twig, bough, spoke, and felloe, and

vanished in one large pointed flame, that could be seen for a second

blazing from the well.

"Baldface took fright, tore from the spot, and galloped as if for life

and death, over stock and stone, until the village was reached. As for

Klaus, he did not recover his senses until he found himself again in his

own farmyard.

"It was with solicitude and a beating heart that Nicholas awaited the

arrival of the next evening. In the meanwhile, he took another and more

exact survey of his already half-ruined house; and the result was so

melancholy that he felt he must stake life itself for the chance of

bettering his fortune. There was not a beam, a board, a rafter, a lath,

in the whole house that was not ready, upon the slightest assault, to go

to wreck. Of glass windows the rumour was long since extinct. All stood

open; and had Klaus been a student of meteorology, a better observatory

than his loopholed, tumble-down homestead could not have been to be had.

He returned from his tour of inspection more firmly resolved than ever

to risk his adventure; and as soon as the sun was set, and the moon

traced darker shadows upon the ground, he took his yew-branch and

dwarfs' shoes, and set out.

"Klaus made a long circuit, and lingered a long time in the fields,

before he could summon courage to approach the spring. He plucked up a

heart at last, struck a light, and lit his pipe. Thus armed, he advanced

to the well. The yew-twig struck the bright motionless water, and

strongly agitated it. The stream exundated on every side; kindled as it

mounted, and, tumbling and commingling, in a few seconds, like an

enormous flame of fire, rolled forwards and backwards round the margin

of the fountain.

"Klaus steadily regarded the mysterious phantasm. The flame enringed the

whole well, and at length falling back, in an incomprehensible manner,

into itself, began to darken, and to emit vapour. In the midst of the

smoke, the young boor recognized Godfather Stringstriker. He was sitting

upon a crystal throne, a-squat, with his crooked legs tucked under him,

smoking with exquisite complacency a pipe as thick as his arm,

terminating in a bowl as large as his head. He seemed wholly occupied in

tracing the progress of the massive curls of smoke, which gushed

abundantly from his capacious mouth, and took no notice of his godchild.

It was left to young Nicholas, therefore, to commence the colloquy.

"'Good even, godfather!' said the lad, not quite at ease. 'I hope you

enjoy your evening pipe. You need something to keep yourself warm and

comfortable. The air strikes chilly hereabouts!'

"A smile diffused itself over the whole breadth of the dwarf's face, and

he puffed away for his life.

"'You're i' th' right, Godson Klaus. I like my bit of pipe! That I can

say, and honestly. It's good tobacco, too; a little dear, no doubt, but

fairly earned. Wilt try a Whiff?'

"'I--I--I am much obliged, Godfather Stringstriker, but I am no great

smoker, and I like to stick to one sort--Porto-rico--threepence a

packet. Would you like to taste it?'

"'Cabbage!' rejoined the Dwarf, contemptuously. 'Tobacco, to be good,

must smell like mine. Here, put your nose to it. It's Hungarian of the

best!'

"The Dwarf pushed out his broad hand, and Klaus stooped towards it. His

heart leaped into his throat as he gazed upon a dozen or two of the

purest Kremnitz ducats. He darted at them like a tiger; but the Dwarf

was prepared for him.

"'Not so, not so!' replied the latter, drawing his hand back. 'Ere thou

have them, we must strike a bargain.'

"And with these words the Dwarf took up his pipe, which only a moment

before he had laid aside. The attention of young Nicholas was drawn more

closely to it by the movement, and he perceived, for the first time,

that the colossal bowl was neither more nor less than a bald, smooth,

and perfectly white human skull. A closer inspection convinced him that

it was that of his own deceased and venerated parent. Above, upon the

forehead, there was a moveable clapper, through which the superfluous

smoke ascended; the tube was fixed in the mouth, and the eye-holes were

continually supplied with gold pieces by a couple of thousand of

indefatigable dwarfs, twenty or thirty of whom tugged along one ducat,

and were sorely put to it to bring it to the proper place. Klaus was

almost unsettled by the discovery.

"'I see,' he said with an unsteady, tremulous voice--'I see, godfather,

you have quite a new-fashioned headpiece there. Is it your own

particular fancy, or a new French mode?'

"'Quite my own private and individual _goût_, godson Klaus!' answered

the Dwarf proudly. 'The flavour is perfect out of an old rogue's skull,

that has been danced to death. When it is thoroughly smoke-seasoned, I

expect the Grand Turk will give me a million piasters for it. Before

then I must look about, and get me another. Heark'ee, godson! how clear

it rings already!' And before Klaus could get in a word, the Dwarf gave

the well-smoked skull a dozen unmerciful kicks with his heavy topboots.

"'For God's sake, godfather Stringstriker,' exclaimed Klaus, 'have some

discretion, or I shall forget myself, and fall foul of you! What! do you

think a child has no feeling for his dead parents? and is that a

respectable way of treating your friends?'

"'Spare your breath, child!' interposed the Dwarf; 'talking makes no

headway with men of my stamp. Let us come to an understanding! Tell me,

Klaus--art thou content that, in ten years' time, when this pipe-head is

handed over to the Grand Turk, to give up thy numskull for my evening

pipe? I own to thee, I envy it. It is of first-rate thickness, and would

smoke a pretty while, for thou dost hold, I think, a good quantity.'

"'Come to an end--out with it all, godfather!' said Klaus in a tone of

wretchedness. 'What do you wish me to do? I am willing to fast till I

die of hunger, and whatever is humanly possible to perform, I will do;

but as to your cursed head-smoking, I tell you, once for all, it's out

of the question. The thing must be put an end to; for it is a disgrace

to me, and a shame to all Christendom!'

"As Klaus spoke in sheer vexation, he smote several times with his

yew-slip into the water of the well, without noticing that the clear

flood swelled over upon all sides like a lightning fire-glow; whilst a

whining moan was plainly audible. The Dwarf put on a very serious

countenance, his pipe slipped from his mouth, and, in a completely

altered tone, he rejoined--

"'Godchild Klaus, take heed to me! I like your ways, and will make you a

well-meant offer. As for this head here,' and he knocked the ducat-ashes

out of Simon's skull--'it shall be transferred to thee, and thou shalt

keep thine own too, provided thou wilt give me back the two shoes which

yesterday one of my merry pages lost. What say you to it?'

"'Eh! what?' said Nicholas, in doubt.

"'Give me the shoes!' repeated Stringstriker.

"'Now look you, godfather!' said Klaus determinedly, 'what if I accept

your proposal! Here are your shoes, and you are welcome to them. But I

ask you, is life worth having, if I am to be for ever a poor eschewed,

scoffed, and scorned castaway? The devil a bit you care for what the

world says; but one of us, who is a mere man, spitted upon by a whole

village, feels what it is to be poor and contemned. I tell you boldly,

godfather, and on my very heart, you must put an end to my misery--for

you can do it. Give me back my money and land, and make me honourable

amongst my neighbours. I can't sit alone like a night-owl in my hovel. I

like to have my fellow-creatures about me, to eat bread and drink water,

or it may be a draught of beer with me. I can't live the life of a

blessed hermit. I am, as you know, but a simple plain fellow, a boor, a

foolish forlorn lad, the unhappy son of poor Mike, danced to death for

his sins.'

"Here Nicholas stopped, sobbing piteously, and dropping big and heavy

tears, that found their way to the well beneath him.

"'Have you done?' said Stringstriker.

"'I have nothing more to say, godfather,' sighed the lad; 'only be kind,

and put all to rights again. I have paid dearly for cursing you upon

occasion, and now I humbly ask your pardon for my fault. Give me a

handful or two of ducats, that I may get my barn repaired, marry my poor

Annie, and again set up for an honest boor. If you will do this,

Godfather Stringstriker, your children shall dance at my marriage, and

here are your shoes!'

"'A bargain, godson!' said the Dwarf. 'Thou art a right sort of lad, and

I will help thee. My children must have their shoes too; for by the loss

of them they have gone already a great stride back in their education.

Thou canst hear how they cry and beg, the poor things! Come here, and

dip into thy father's head. The poor dog no longer feels it. So! that'll

do. For the skull, concern thee no further. In a quarter of an hour, it

shall be where it should be. But now, I rede thee, look that thou art

presently ready to marry, and neglect not bidding good plenty of guests;

but invite especially those that have hitherto tightly toused, mocked,

and scorned thee. If thou hast lack of coin, thou wottest where

Godfather Stringstriker dwells. On thy wedding-day, send hither thy

three largest waggons, and to each a team of four strong horses, for I

shall load them heavily--and hear'st, Godson Klaus? they shall drive

nice and slowly round about the springlet, and then away again at a good

gallop back to thy farm-yard. As to thyself, mark me, Klaus! upon thy

wedding-day thou shalt stick a yew-leaf in thy left ear, and, as soon as

I sign to thee, throw some handfuls of the like upon all the tables.

Now, at once, good-night!'

"The shoes were already delivered up. There was a hissing in the air,

the water in the well moved in luminous circles, and a hearty laughter

seemed to force its way out of all the fissures of the earth. All was

then still. The moon burst forth, and shone so brightly that one might

have looked for a pin. Klaus felt his good gold in his pockets, and

returned gleesome, and in ease of heart, back to his ruinous house.

"After a night spent in pleasant dreams, Klaus reckoned up his cash, and

found it sufficient to procure some horses, a few cows, waggon, and

gearing. As to the repairs of the mansion, his notion was to do at first

only the indispensable, clearly discerning that, in order to live

comfortably in future, an entire pulling down and rebuilding was

inevitable. He was much more bent upon reappearing as a man of money and

estate in the eyes of his fellow farmers. His first care, accordingly,

was to hire domestics, male and female, to rig himself out a little, and

then, without delay, to push on the preparations for his marriage.

"In less than a fortnight, every thing requisite was done, and the

neighbours opened their eyes to thrice their usual size as they suddenly

saw life moving again in Nicholas's farmhouse--active labourers once

more in his fields. Their astonishment increased upon hearing, next

Sunday, the banns published from the pulpit. But when, a week

afterwards, the functionary whose office it was, with silver-headed

cane, velvet waistcoat and frill, to bid the guests to the approaching

wedding, appeared upon the farms of those who, a little before, were

Klaus's most memorable calumniators, and invited all, without exception,

to the merry-making, then indeed, as if by magic, did the despised Lying

Klaus become 'a worthy creature after all,' 'a capital fellow at last,'

and have his praises echoed from every beer-bench in the parish. Nobody

ever thought of asking how Klaus got possessed of his new money. He had

it; that fact was all-sufficient for the multitude. One or two might

itch to make their comments upon the quick metamorphosis, but self-love

kept them quiet; for every man already licked his lips in anticipation

of the marriage-feast that awaited all.

"The preparations for the wedding were busily pushed on. Joiners and

carpenters were closing windows, and fastening tottering beams from

morning till night. Walls were broken down, and kitchens built up.

Nothing had been seen like it by 'the oldest inhabitant.'

"Well, time ran on, and the banns were three times called; there was the

spousal at the parsonage, the fetching of the bride by the bridegroom,

with an escort of musicians, and at length there was the marriage

ceremony itself--all happily got through. The guests, men and women,

were numerous, and amongst them not a few who, for a sennight, had lived

on half-allowance, the better and more steadily to devour at Klaus's

marriage.

"In due time, orders were given to take the three largest waggons to the

Dwarf's well, to drive slowly round this thrice, and then to push back

at a gallop. The servants did not dare to refuse their master's bidding;

but they shook their heads significantly when they received their

strange commission, and suspected, firm and fast, that Klaus, in his

excessive joy, had already drunk a cup or two beyond his thirst.

"The pastor, sitting at the right hand of the bride, had said grace, and

the schoolmaster and the marriage-entreater were about commencing the

distribution of the enormous masses of carp, beneath which the tables

fairly groaned, when the rattle of the three returning waggons made

known to Klaus the arrival of his subterranean guests. His heart beat

violently, for at the same instant a well-known whispering and humming

met his ear. In obedience to command, he secured the yew-leaf in his

left ear, and prepared himself for what might follow. He expected much,

but what he saw almost threw him from his seat with astonishment.

"Wherever there was an aperture, a split, or a rent in walls, windows,

doors, there came in the dwarfs by hundreds: so as that in a few minutes

the whole space was swarming with the little ones. They were most

smartly dressed, just as Klaus had previously seen them, only that now,

instead of the top boots, they wore those delicate dancing-pumps, upon

which the young husbandman had at first caught them at work.

"Klaus attentively noted whether any of his guests had a suspicion of

the apparition of these earth mannikins, but there was not a sign of it.

The gentlemen forked away gallantly, and the tankards were not running

over. As the bridegroom saw the spiritual company still gliding in, so

that their number amounted already to hundreds of thousands, and

stove-cornices, window-sills, joint-stools, and backs of chairs were

thickly beset with the comical companions, he began to be uneasy. He

feared lest the brothers of the bride, who were waiting upon the guests,

might trample the small brood into fine dust; and in order to divert at

least all blame from himself, he addressed himself to his godfather,

then approaching him.

"'You do me great honour, respected godfather, by your presence--but

please remember, I cannot answer for dwarf slaughter--and murderous

crushings. Only look at the quantity of spruce vermin you have done me

the favour to bring with you!'

"Stringstriker waved his hand magnanimously, and told his godson that it

was of little consequence. Then with a bold leap, the king mounted the

long table, picked his way to the middle of it, and there, with legs

astride, fast planted himself. Not one of all the guests perceived the

larger Dwarf, any more than they could see the countless little ones.

Even Annie and the clergyman were stone-blind: so that Klaus, speaking

unintelligibly at every turn, had to bear the jokes of all; for young

and old, woman and man, chimed readily in with the tone of sportive

raillery, as soon as it was once pitched.

"The company indeed persisted in laughing and rioting so loudly at the

bridegroom's expense, that the pastor of the flock at length felt

himself called upon to assume his face of office--to put a damper, as it

were, upon the unseemly proceeding. Just as he began, a new dish, soup

with crabs' noses, (hotchpotch,) engaged exclusively the regard of the

whole of the guests. A full plate was set before every visitor, but

scarcely set before him, before, with the speed of lightning, from

chair-backs, window-sills, stove-cornices, nay, from the floor itself,

innumerable dwarfs bounded on to the table, and, taking their places by

all the plates, in three seconds consumed the savoury viand. To complete

the astonishment, the confusion, the wrath, the fury of the voracious

boors, Stringstriker himself galloped up and down the whole length of

the table, breaking all the vessels, and draining all the beer and

brandy with wonderful celerity.

"Had the most precious jewels of the Holy Roman Empire been plundered by

the Turks, there could not have been a greater commotion than arose

among the wedding-guests. Every man jumped up, turned in anger and

disgust towards his neighbour, sate down again, and again began to reach

after the food, without being able, of course, to get a morsel. Then

every man swore his neighbour was making a fool of him, and, from the

coarsest words, it came, without loss of time, to dreadful menaces and

blows. So greedy were some after the liquorish cookery that they gave

themselves good smart punctures in lip and tongue; inasmuch as the

mischievous dwarfs, as soon as any in his haste forked up a piece of

meat, incontinently had it down their own throats. With such

provocation, the blows, on all sides, came down in showers; more ears

were peppered, backs thumped, ribs punched, than the prize-ring of

England had ever seen. And, as if it were not enough for the men to be

sparring, the women, seeing their husbands covered with blood and

bruises, must needs take up the cudgels, and fall to fighting too! A

hundred arms were a-kimbo in a twinkling. Caps were dragged off, and

nails shown with amazonian spirit. There was a general mêlée; every soul

at the table was engaged in the contest. Marriage and bridal pair were

forgotten; and Klaus roared at the droll uproar till his throat smarted

again: for, not much to his regret, he soon enough became aware that his

enemies and his calumniators were the parties who were coming off second

best.

"This mutual threshing had lasted a good quarter of an hour, when a sign

from Stringstriker directed the bride-groom to scatter the yew-leaves.

In an instant the table was covered with them; and the guests, as if

bewitched, dispersed in grotesque groups, and remained transfixed. Every

eye was on the busy dwarfs. Klaus's godfather, crossing his legs, seated

himself upon the table, and began to scrape his fiddle. The earth

mannikins then arranged themselves in order, swung their broad hats

gracefully, and, one stepping upon the shoulder of another, built up a

living pyramid above the bride. A number clambered up to the very top of

her tinsel crown, where, still two and two, they took possession of a

spangle, fixed themselves upon it, and rocking to and fro, set up a soft

and tender song. The bride danced to its tune, the pyramid of dwarfs

along with her; and it was enchanting to see how their shining silvery

girdles, and the bright clasps upon their caps, flashed and sparkled in

the varying figure. Three times the dwarfs changed in the building of

this pyramid, and three times, attended by it, must the bride dance

round the table, through the gaping groups of guests. This done,

Stringstriker played a lively march, broke through a window with his

fiddlestick, and leapt out through the opening--whilst the whole dwarf

brotherhood, waltzing, laughing, tumbling, in a countless crowd,

prepared to follow him. For a time the procession fluctuated through the

air, where the girdles yet sparkled. Soon, like a dissolving gleam, all

vanished!

"The stupified boors were now able to stir themselves again. Doubtless

there were many bumps, black and blue faces, and bloody noses: but the

sight of all could not suppress the most extravagant merriment. All that

had happened was looked upon as a prank of the fiddler, and many in

their hearts felt that they had only received a just punishment for

their coarse and unchristian calumnies.

"Klaus Stringstriker's fame lived upon every tongue. The dwarfs obtained

no mean eulogies: and when it was at last discovered that the small

mannikins had, close before the window, one and all thrown down their

broad brown capkins with the brilliant clasps, the company for joy was

almost mad. The bridegroom was importuned, in remembrance of this

marvellous festival, to bestow upon each guest one such dwarf-hatkin,

and Klaus did not need a long begging. Each one acquired a hatkin with

its agraffe: some of a greedy nature, by stealth, possessed themselves

of two. The presents given, the company returned to the board, and drank

and uproared far into the night.

"Upon the morrow, Klaus found the Dwarf-hatkins turned into so many

Kremnitz double ducats, and upon each there lay, glittering in the

sunshine, a fine diamond. As he gathered them, a delicate voice from

unseen lips whispered to him that these were his father's hairs. All the

gift-receivers had the same wonder to tell. Those, however, who had

secretly taken away the second dwarf's cap were punished for the theft--

for they got nothing from the transformation but a wet and worthless

beech-leaf.

"From that hour all haunting upon Klaus's estate ceased. Even at the

Dwarf's well nothing remarkable was seen, save once a-year--upon the

anniversary of the young boor's wedding-day--when a great gamboling

flame appeared upon the waters, in which a singing and ringing might be

heard, like the voices of the smallest beings. The fortunate Klaus built

himself a great house, repurchased the tavern, and upon the pillar where

Stringstriker, tied up by his father, had had to fiddle so long, he

carved an inscription which published the Dwarf's praise to every guest

And his father's grave he surrounded with a fair iron grating. As for

himself, his intercourse with the Dwarf had made him prudent. He ruled

his substance discreetly, helped the poor, and cautioned the

light-witted by the relation of his own history. So he became the

richest and most respected man of the whole neighbourhood; and at length

acquired the name of the _Dwarf's advocate_: because, as Klaus

maintained, and as it was generally believed, a most important service

had been rendered, by the passages of Klaus's history, to these singular

and benevolent earth-spirits themselves."

SOME REMARKS ON SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS.

Perhaps there is no play of Schiller's which is read with more general

pleasure than the _Maid of Orleans_, nor one against which so many

critical objections have been raised. Some of these we wish to examine,

in order either to remove, or with greater accuracy to re-state them. It

will be seen at once that we have no intention of entering into any

general review or estimate of this great dramatic poet. Too much has

been written, and especially in this place, on Schiller, to permit us to

be tempted into any such design. We shall not wander from the single

play we have selected for our criticism.

On recalling to mind the story of Joan d'Arc, what is the point of view

in which that singular person presents herself to us? Joan d'Arc--whom

we shall call, after her title in the play, Johanna--a village maiden,

and a fugitive from her home, turned the tide of victory in the great

war which, in her time, was raging in France. As she effected this

through the influence which a belief in her supernatural power and

celestial inspiration exerted upon the army of Charles; and as, on the

other hand, the cruel fate she herself personally encountered from her

enemies, was the consequence of an opposite belief in her witchcraft, or

possession by the devil; the unhappy maiden presents herself to us, in a

strictly historical point of view, as one of those wild visionaries whom

solitude occasionally rears, become suddenly the sport of the tumultuous

feelings of two rival hosts, elevated by the one to a saint and the

companion of angels, and by the other blackened into a witch and the

associate of demons. History has relieved her moral character from the

aspersions thrown upon it, and philosophy has quite denuded her of the

least claims to supernatural power, whether derived from above or from

below: nothing remains but the enthusiast and the visionary, and the

strange position into which circumstances conducted her. And this

position of the thought-bewildered maid is rendered the more striking,

when we consider that it was her own countrymen who judged of her in so

contradictory a manner; for the war which raged around her was rather a

civil war, in which one of the parties had formed an alliance with

England, than a national war between France and England. It was by

Frenchmen that she was extolled and reverenced, and by Frenchmen that

she was condemned and executed: it was under the auspices, and with the

blessings, of the church that she conquered; it was the church that

execrated her, and sent her as an abomination to the stake.

This point of view is not only historically true, but replete, we think,

with poetic interest. The maiden is not, indeed, invested with any

supernatural attributes; we see her here neither more nor less than the

pious and day-dreaming enthusiast; but an enthusiast for her country--an

enthusiast for a young prince whom she has been taught to honour, and

whose reverse of fortune has deeply affected her. We see this young

enthusiast--her imagination swarming with visions, her heart beating

with generous aspirations--thrown out from her village retirement upon

the tumult of war; we see her snatched up, as by a whirlwind, by the

fanaticism of the multitude, who bear her, as she bears her banner,

onwards in their career, and conquer under this new standard they have

reared. We see her arriving at a success which, notwithstanding her own

prophecies, must have astonished herself. When the king has been crowned

at Rheims, something whispers to her that she ought now to retreat into

her native village, or, what was the only fitting termination for her

course, into some religious house, and find there a harbour from the

tempest on which she is tossing. But the selfish men around her will not

let her go. She may guide them a little yet. They bear the torch while

there is an ember left. Then comes the changeful fortune of war, defeat

and imprisonment; and now we see the same poor human heart, its visions

soiled and clouded, its courage beaten down, surrounded only by enemies

and scoffers, beginning even to suspect itself of imposture and impiety.

She who had felt as a saint, hears herself exorcised as a sorcerer; and,

by and by, a crowd of men, churchmen and civilians, stand round in

triumph to see her burnt and consumed as a thing unholy and impure,

whose life had been, not, as she had deemed, a perpetual devotion, but a

perpetual blasphemy.

But although it appears to us that this, which is the true historical

point of view, is also the most replete with poetic interest, it may not

be an interest so well adapted to the drama as to other species of

poetry. The heroine is here made the prey of the two rival factions, who

appear to contend, not only for the possession of her person, but for

the domination over her mind; not enough is attributed to her individual

will and character; the action of the piece does not immediately flow

from her; and the people, with its strange faiths and monstrous

caprices, becomes the veritable hero. It was for this reason, we

presume, that Schiller rejected what, in our days, is the simple and

natural manner of considering his subject, and adopted a different point

of view. Designating his play as a _romantic_ tragedy, he resolved to

represent the maid as really inspired by Heaven--as veritably

commissioned by the Virgin--as endowed, _bonâ fide_, with miraculous

powers. She is thus the living centre of the action. Whatever is

effected by the appearance of the Maid of Orleans, is effected by her

individual prowess, or the aid of heaven administered through her.

This was a bold attempt, and very boldly has Schiller executed it. He

has stopped at no middle point. He has not scrupled to represent the

fabulous miracles of a superstitious age as actually taking place before

us. Johanna gives proofs of her faculty of second-sight; she sees, while

at the camp of the Dauphin, the death of Salisbury before Orleans; she

performs in our presence those miracles by which she is said to have

first established her reputation at the court--recognising the Dauphin

at once, although he had purposely resigned his post of dignity to

another, and reciting to him the secret prayer which he had, the night

before, offered up to God in the solitude of his own chamber. And not

only are the fables, which the chronicles of the times have handed down

to us, enacted as veritable facts, but the poet has added miracles and

prodigies of his own invention; and in particular, a certain spectre of

a black knight--who appears to us to have been introduced as much for

the sake of supporting the supernatural character of the piece as for

any other purpose.

This hardihood of the poet has by some critics been censured. For

ourselves, we have a lingering and obstinate regret that Schiller ever

thought it necessary to forsake the true for the fabulous; that he did

not restrict himself to representing the faith of the age in the

dialogue of his personages; that he did not content himself with marvels

related only in the imitated conversation of superstitious persons. The

most sceptical of men admit the reality and fervour of superstitious

beliefs; and in depicting _them_ in all their vitality, the poet is

still adhering rigidly to truth: it is for the reader to sympathize with

them or not at his pleasure. But Schiller having resolved to represent

as fact the superstitious faith of the times, instead of building upon

that faith as his _fact_; having determined that Johanna should be

verily inspired, and see visions, and be the champion of the Holy Virgin

for the salvation of France--we think he was quite right in casting

aside all timidity, all remaining scruples of reason, and freely giving

up his scene to prodigies and marvels. If you must lie, lie boldly--is a

good maxim for poets as well as rogues. Above all, do we dislike that

dubious and pitiful position which a narrator of supernatural events

sometimes falls into, where the reader is perpetually asking himself

whether the author seriously intends to task his credulity or not.

We must here, however, remark that, even when the poet represents the

supernatural as the faith only of others, he must still, in order to do

this effectively, awaken some degree of superstitious feeling in

ourselves. To understand the belief or delusion of another without more

or less participating in it, is a state of mind in which the philosopher

might be very well content to place us, but which by no means suits the

purposes of the poet. We must be made to partake for the moment, to some

slight degree, in the superstitious feelings of the past age which is

brought before us, or we can no longer feel that sympathetic interest

which the poet seeks to create. The spectacle presented to us becomes

one of mere curiosity. As well might we look through a microscope, and

watch the world of _animalculae_ it reveals. Very curious that little

world; but we take no part in any of its proceedings, violent as they

evidently are. And here lies the reason, we apprehend, why dramatic

representations of insanity are so generally unsuccessful. We cannot

participate in the capricious delusions of the maniac, who becomes,

therefore, a mere object of wonder or curiosity. The moment when the

lunatic affects us most deeply is, when he approaches nearest to the

ordinary current of human thought--it is the moment when he comes _back_

to reason, and its too frequent companion, the sense of pain.

We make this observation, because it probably had its weight in

determining the poet in the course he pursued. Schiller probably

reflected that, whether he _related_ his marvels in the dialogue of his

personages, or represented them as _facts_ in his drama, he must in both

cases depend, for the impression he should produce, on a successful

appeal to the superstitious feelings of his contemporaries. In whatever

era a poet may find his materials, his authority for using them must lie

in the age he writes for--in the interest they are capable of exciting

in that age. His success as a dramatic poet required that he should

kindle the love of the marvellous; and he may have thought that, in an

artistical point of view, the question resolved itself into one of

policy, of means to an end--whether it were better to assail our

credulity by open force, and so take it by storm, or to content himself

with a less advantage, gained by more insidious but surer approaches.

With all his boldness, and all his genius, has Schiller succeeded in his

treatment of the miraculous? We hesitate to reply. There is a peculiar

difficulty in deciding how far a poet has been successful in an appeal

to superstitious feelings; it is this, that in such cases every

intelligent reader feels that he must be aidant and assistant in the

subjection of his own rebellious reason, prompt at every moment to turn

with impatience and derision from the utterly incredible. This necessity

to be a party concerned in the business, leaves him in doubt how far he

has been compelled by the poet, and how far he has, or _ought to have_,

voluntarily surrendered. After all, the use of the marvellous in poetry

is not so much itself to impress us with awe and astonishment, as to

supply novel and striking situations for the display of human feelings.

When Johanna, for instance, describes the visitation by the Virgin, and

declares her sacred mission, we listen unmoved. Not so, when, having

felt the touch of human passion, she sighs to re-enter into the common

rank of mortals, and laments the dreadful honour that has been imposed

upon her. Yet this latter sentiment, so natural and so affecting, could

not be separated from the previous fable. In this lies the difference

between the poetry of a rude and a cultivated age. In the first, the

supernatural is for itself sought for and admired; in the second, it is

admitted for the sake of the singular opportunities it affords for the

display of natural and powerful emotions.

There is another point in the tragedy of _The Maid of Orleans_, on which

we feel no hesitation whatever in expressing a decisive opinion--

namely, the violent departure from history in the catastrophe. But in

order to make our remarks on this and some other points intelligible, we

must enter a little further into the plot of the drama. Our detail shall

be as brief as possible.[1]

[1] In the few extracts we shall have occasion to make, we would have

willingly had recourse at once to an English translation, if such had

been within our reach. That not being the case, the reader must accept

our own attempts at translation.

The drama opens with a scenic prologue. The scene is the village of Dom

Remi; on the left is the Druid oak--on the right, the image of the

Virgin in a small chapel. Thibaut d'Arc enters with his three daughters,

Margaret, Louison, and Johanna, together with their three suitors,

Etienne, Claude Marie, and Raimond. Thibaut deplores the state of his

fatherland. Young Henry VI. of England has just been crowned at Paris,

and Charles, the hereditary prince, is wandering a fugitive through his

own kingdom. They themselves are in danger every day of seeing the enemy

pour down into their own quiet valleys. Nevertheless, partly from this

very cause, he determines upon giving his daughters in marriage without

further delay. He bestows Margaret upon Etienne. Then, turning to the

second daughter, Louison, and to her suitor, who, it seems, can lay

little claim to worldly possessions, he says--

"Shall I, because ye proffer me no wealth,

Sunder two hearts that seem so well attuned?

Who _has_ wealth now? Home and homestead now

Are booty for the robber and the flames:

The strong heart of a brave and constant man

Is the sole roof-tree which these stormy times

Must pass unshaken."

Hitherto father Thibaut seems an amiable personage, but he turns out to

be one of the most disagreeable atrabilious parents that ever made his

appearance on the stage. He next addresses and reproaches his daughter

Johanna, who is beloved by Raimond, but who rejects the ties of earthly

affection. He has taken an exceedingly morose view of the character of

his daughter; a circumstance which becomes of great importance in the

progress of the piece; for Johanna's reverse of fortune is brought about

by the strange intervention of this dark and sinister parent. He

believes his child more prone to ally herself with evil spirits, through

a vain and sinful ambition, than, inspired by piety, to emulate the

lives of saints. Raimond combats this gloomy notion. He thinks that the

love of Johanna, like the most costly fruits, is only late in ripening.

"_Raimond._--As yet she loves to dwell upon the hills,

And trembles to descend from the free heath

To man's low roof, beset with narrow cares.

_Thibaut._--Ay, that it is displeases me. She flies

Her sisters' frolicsome companionship

For the bare hills--deserts her sleepless couch

Before the cock-crow--in that fearful hour

When man so willingly his shelter seeks,

Housed with his kind, within familiar walls,

She, like a solitary bird, hies forth

Into the gloomy, spirit-haunted, night,

Stands on the cross-way, holding with the air

Mysterious intercourse. Why will she choose

Perpetually _this_ place? Why will she drive

Her flocks for ever _here?_ I've seen her sit

Musing whole hours together underneath

This Druid oak, which all good Christians shun;

There's nothing blest beneath it; a foul spirit

Has made his refuge in it ever since

The old and sinful times of Paganism.

The old men of the village can relate

Horrible tales of this same tree: one hears

Oft, in its thick dark branches, whisperings

Of strange unearthly voices. I, myself,

As once my way led past the tree at night,

Saw sitting at its trunk a spectral woman,

Who slowly, from her wide enfolding robe,

Stretch'd a thin hand and beckon'd me."

Raimond points to the sacred image of the Virgin, which stands opposite

the oak, and replies that _it_ is the attraction which brings Johanna to

this spot. But the old man persists in his own interpretation. Because

his daughter is more beautiful than any other maiden in the valley, she

is proud, and disdains her humble condition. He has had, moreover,

ominous dreams. The entrance of Bertrand, a countryman just arrived from

the neighbouring town of Vaucouleurs, interrupts the conversation. He

carries a helmet in his hand, which has been forced upon him, in the

marketplace, by a strange woman. Johanna, who has all this while

remained quite silent, not answering a word to the rebuke of her parent,

comes suddenly forward, and claims the helmet as having been sent for

her. Through the interposition of her lover, it is granted to her.

Bertrand, being asked what news of the war he has heard at Vaucouleurs,

gives a desponding account of the king's cause, and brings the report

that Orleans, pressed by the besiegers, is on the point of surrendering.

Johanna now breaks forth:--

"Of treaty, of surrender not a word!

A saviour comes and arms her for the fight.

At Orleans wrecks the fortune of the foe!

His measure full, he is for harvest ripe,

And with her sickle shall the virgin come,

And reap the rank luxuriance of his pride.

Down from the heavens she tears that blazon'd fame

These English knights have hung about the stars.

Fly not! droop not!

Before the corn is yellow in the fields,

Before this moon has fill'd her globe of light,

There shall not drink an English horse

Of the sweet-flowing waters of the Loire.

_Bertrand._--Alas! the age of miracles is past.

_Johanna._--Not past! ye shall behold a miracle.

Lo! a white dove with eagle courage flies

Down on the vulture that still rends his prey,

Our mangled country. The traitor Burgundy,

The haughty Talbot that would storm the skies,

This Salisbury, scandal of the Temple's order,

And all these insolent proud islanders

Shall fly before her like a herd of lambs."

Of this prologue it has been justly said, that it might as well have

been the first scene of the first act: for it is as essential to the

progress of the piece as any one scene in the play; and the speakers

re-appear, and for very important purposes, in the body of the drama.

For our part, we look upon prologues of this description as little else

than a device of the poet to gain more space than his five acts afforded

him. When it has no connexion with the action of the piece, we wish to

know what claim it has to be there at all; and when it is so connected,

we are at a loss to perceive what end it answers, which could not be as

legitimately prosecuted under the old title of Act I. Scene 1.

The nominal first act opens with the little court of Charles at Chinon.

Here all is verging towards a state of desperation. Finances exhausted,

troops threatening to disband, and a deputation from Orleans to inform

the king that the town had agreed to surrender, if, within fourteen

days, effectual succour was not sent to relieve it. Charles answers in

despair:--

"Can I by stamping with my feet

Raise armies from the ground? Can I

Pour granaries from this bare and naked palm?

Rend me in pieces! Tear me out this heart,

And coin it for gold! Blood have I for you,

But silver have I none, nor corn, nor soldiers."

Agnes Sorel enters with a casket of jewels in her hand. Although she has

always refused to accept of the king any more costly present than a rare

flower, or an early fruit, she now comes to devote all her wealth and

possessions to his service. But her aid affords him little more than a

noble proof of her love and generosity: it can effect nothing to the

restoration of his shattered fortunes. He dismisses the deputies from

Orleans with permission to make the best terms they can for themselves.

Dunois, the bastard of Orleans, who has eloquently protested against

this desponding desertion, as he deems it, of his own cause, quits the

king in anger. Sorel dispatches La Hire after him to persuade him to

return. La Hire re-enters.

"_Sorel_. You come alone, you bring him not with you.

_[then observing him more closely._

La Hire! What is it? What means this kindled look?

Alas! Some new misfortune.

_La Hire_. Misfortunes

Are overblown--'tis sunshine, lady, sunshine!

_Sorel_. What is it?--I entreat--

_La Hire to the King_. Call back the embassy,

The deputies from Orleans!

_Charles_. Why? What is this?

_La Hire_. Haste! call them back! Thy fortunes change,

A battle has been fought, and thine the victory.

_Sorel_. Victory! Oh, heavenly music!

_Charles_. La Hire,

Some fabulous report has cheated you.

Victory! I believe no more in victories.

_La Hire_. You will believe--in greater wonders still

Here comes the archbishop, and with him Dunois.

And with them comes also a knight, who relates how this victory has been

won by the sudden appearance of an armed virgin, who scattered dismay

and terror amongst their enemies. Shouts are heard from without, and

Johanna enters. Here the course of history is followed in the account

the maid gives of herself, and the proofs she affords of her divine

mission.

At the opening of the second act, we find that Orleans has been relieved

by the inspired Johanna. Talbot and Lionel, the English leaders,

attribute the late defeat to the Burgundians; the Duke of Burgundy

retorts. These angry chiefs are on the point of separating, and

terminating their alliance, when the queen-mother Isabeau enters, and

reconciles them. But when Isabeau, who, from her unnatural hatred to her

son Charles, and a certain coarseness of temper, is altogether a very

disagreeable personage, offers, woman against woman, to lead her own

party against Johanna, they all unite in bidding her return forthwith to

Paris. The army, they say, is dispirited when it thinks it fights for

_her_ cause--the cause of the mother against the son. Isabeau says:--

"Ye know not, weak souls, that ye are the rights

Of a wrong'd mother. I, for my part, love

Who honours me; who injures me, I hate;

And should this be my own begotten son,

He is for this more hateful. I gave life,

And I will take--if he, with shameless rage,

Scandal the womb that bore him. Ye proud nobles

Who war against my son, ye have no right

To pillage him. What injury has he done

To you? what duty violated?

Ambition and low envy spur ye on:

I, who begot him, have a right to hate."

While the English are still in their camp, little dreaming of surprise,

the maiden rushes on them, conquers and disperses them. Here passes a

scene between Johanna and Montgomery, a young Welsh knight, who begs for

his life in a truly Homeric manner--pleading his youth, the anguish of

his mother, and the sweet bride he had left upon the Severn. It is quite

Homeric, professedly and successfully so, and therefore quite out of

place. The Welsh knight speaks in a most unknightly strain. And the

change of metre that is adopted assists in giving to the whole the air

of a mere poetical exercise. The scene is not, however, without its

purpose in the development of the character of the maid, because it

shows how utterly she is at this time engrossed in her warlike mission;

she is not a moment affected by the entreaties of Montgomery, and dooms

him to death without pity.

The war still continues fatal to the English. Talbot is slain. In the

next scene, the ghost of this warrior appears to Johanna, under the form

of a black knight with the visor closed. The apparition lures her away

from the heat of the contest, and then addresses to her this solemn

warning:--

"Johanna d'Arc!

Up to the gates of Rheims hast thou been borne

Upon the wings of victory. Now pause.

Content thee with the fame that thou hast won.

Let fortune go, whom thou hast held in bonds,

Ere it in anger shall break loose from thee;

For never is it constant to the end."

Johanna, however, who can hear of nothing, and think of nothing, but of

fighting for her country, and who has a particular detestation for this

black knight, strikes at it with her sword. It vanishes with the

appropriate accompaniments of thunder and lightning.

The apparition of the black knight has occasioned some embarrassment and

discussion among the critics. It was at first quite plain that it was

the ghost of Talbot; and when there was no longer any doubt on this

head, it was not easy to decide what brought the ghost of Talbot there,

and why he should give what, knowing as we do the history of Johanna,

has the appearance of very sound advice. But in that lay the very snare

of Satan. It was wise counsel that the devil, through this ghost, gave

to Johanna; but it was _worldly_ wise. It was well suited to some

ambitious person engaged in a career of conquest. Had such a black

knight appeared, for example, to Napoleon, on the eve of entering on his

war with Russia, and warned him to furl his banner of conquest, it would

have been a friendly and intelligent ghost, though we do not believe it

would have been listened to for a moment. A human passion is stronger

than a whole regiment of ghosts. But such advice addressed to Johanna,

the missionary of heaven, who fought from duty, not ambition, could have

no other effect than to infuse into her mind ideas of vain-glory and

love of fame, a selfish regard to personal consequences, and a distrust

of the protection of her divine mistress. The ghost of Talbot,

therefore, was evidently in league with her enemies, the devils, in the

insidious counsel it gave. But the counsel was rejected with disdain,

and Johanna went on still victorious over all.

But the maiden next encounters a more pernicious apparition than the

black knight. She contends with the gallant Lionel. Here, as elsewhere,

she is the victor; she raises her sword to strike, but, fatally for her

peace, she looks twice before she deals the blow. She cannot strike.

Now follows--but in vain for Johanna--the full accomplishment of her

glorious enterprise, in the coronation of the king at Rheims. Contrary

to the obligation of her high mission, she has received into her heart a

human passion. Her peace is gone. Here the poet, in order to express the

rapid alternations of feeling to which she is a prey, breaks from the

even tenor of blank verse into a lyrical effusion of remarkable beauty

and pathos. She is sought for to take her part in the ceremony of the

coronation; it is now with a feeling of horror that she receives into

her hands the sacred banner, which she had borne triumphantly to so many

victories.

Amongst the crowd who have flocked from all parts to witness the

ceremony, are the family of Johanna, and her old lover Raimond. Her

father Thibaut is also there. He has come to save, if yet possible, his

child from perdition, whom he still persists in thinking under the

influence of wicked spirits, and to have wrought all her wonders by the

aid of diabolic enchantments. Now, therefore, when the king, after his

coronation, turns towards Johanna, and, in the presence of all his

nobility, addresses her as the deliverer of France, this melancholy

father rushes forward to reproach and to blaspheme his child. She,

heartstricken, and conscious of a secret error, though of a quite

different kind from what is laid to her charge, receives in submissive

silence, as the chastisement of heaven, the strange inculpations of her

parent:--

"_Thibaut, to the King_. Thou deem'st thyself deliver'd by

God's power. Thou art abused--this people of France are

blinded! Thou art deliver'd by the devil's craft!

_Dunois_. Does this man rave?

_Thibaut_. Not I, but thou art raving; All these, the wise

archbishop at their head, Rave, in believing that the voice

of heaven Speaks in this wicked girl. Mark, if she dare

Maintain, before her father's face, the juggle With which

she cheats the people and her king. In the name of the Holy

Trinity! Speak! I conjure thee! Dost thou serve with saints,

And with the pure in heart?

[_A universal silence. Every eye

is strained towards Johanna, who stands motionless._

_Sorel_. God! she is mute!

_Thibaut_. So must she be before that awful name Which, in

the depth of hell itself, is fear'd. She--she a saint! she

sent from God! No, in a cursed spot--our magic tree Where

devils from of yore their Sabbath keep--Has all this been

contrived; there did she sell Her soul to the eternal Fiend,

to be With brief vain-glory honour'd in this world. Bid her

stretch forth her arm, and ye will see The punctures by

which hell has mark'd its own.

_Burgundy_. Horrible! Yet must the father be believed Who

thus against his own child testifies.

_Dunois_. No, no, the madman shall not be believed Who in

his own child vilifies himself.

_Sorel to Johanna_. O speak! break this disastrous

silence! we Believe in _thee_. We have firm trust in thee.

One word from thy own mouth, one only word, Shall be enough.

But speak! Denounce, confound This hideous accusation. Do

but say That thou art innocent, and we believe it.

[_Johanna remains motionless. Agnes

Sorel steps back with horror._

_La Hire_. She is amazed! Astonishment and terror Have

closed her mouth. Before such hellish charge Must purity

itself recoil with fright.

[_Approaches her._

Take courage! Be thyself! The innocent Have their own proper

language, and their look Is lightning to consume foul

calumny. In noble scorn, arouse thyself--look up--Confound

with shame this most unworthy doubt, Which wrongs thy sacred

virtue.

[_Johanna remains motionless. La Hire steps

back. The general horror increases._

_Dunois_. What scares the people? What dismays the king?

Oh, she is innocent! I pledge myself, I pledge for her my

honour as a prince. Here do I throw my gauntlet down. Who

dares To slander her with guilt?

[_A violent peal of thunder is heard. All

start back terrified._

_Thibaut_. God answers! God, Who thunders from above.

Pronounce thyself, Child of perdition, guiltless, if thou

dar'st--

[_A second peal of thunder is heard. The

people fly on all sides._

_Burgundy_. God shield us! What an awful signal!

_Du Chatel_. Come, come, my sovereign, let us fly this

place!

_Archbishop to Johanna_. In the name of God, I speak to

thee. Art silent From pride of innocence, or shame of guilt?

If now this voice of thunder testify _For_ thee,--in sign

thereof embrace this cross.

[_Johanna remains motionless. Repeated

peals of thunder. All leave the church

except Dunois._

_Dunois._ Thou art my own bride, Johanna! I

Have from the first believed, and still believe.

Thee will I rather trust than all these signs,

Than even this thunder speaking from above.

'Tis noble pride withholds thee, thou disdain'st

Wrapt in thy sacred innocence, these mad

Outrageous charges to refute.

Disdain so still; confide alone in me,

Who of thy purity have doubted never,

I ask no word; place but thy hand in mine,

In token that thou wilt confide in me,

In this arm and thy own good cause.

[_He extends his hand. She turns away with

convulsive start._

(_Du Chatel re-enters, and afterwards Raimond._)

_Du Chatel_. Johanna d'Arc! The king permits

That undisturb'd you quit the town of Rheims.

The gates stand open; no man shall molest you.

Count Dumois, follow me--you gain no honour in lingering here.

[_Du Chatel and Dunois leave_

_Raimond_. Seize on this moment! The streets are empty--give me

your hand.

[_Johanna looks upwards to heaven, then

hastily taking his hand, goes out_.

Under the guidance of Raimond, the prophetess and champion, deserted it

seems by man and heaven, enters a wood, where she is taken prisoner by a

party of English. She is sent a captive to _Lionel_. But adversity has

now reinstated her in all the primitive austerity of her heart; the

weakness she has so severely expiated, has left her; she has no heart

now but for her country. In vain Lionel promises all--for Lionel, as

well as Dunois, loves her; she answers only by denouncing the enemies of

France.

A battle is joined under the walls of the tower in which she is

imprisoned; she has been bound in fetters of threefold strength; Lionel

has gone forth to lead his army, and the fierce Isabeau is her jailer.

She holds a drawn dagger over her head. If the king of France conquers,

Johanna dies. Nevertheless, she ceases not to pray for his success; and

when she hears that the king is so closely beset by his enemies that he

is in danger of his life, she implores heaven with such fervour, that

power is given her to rend asunder her chains. Snatching a sword from

one of her guards, she makes from the tower, and appears on the field of

battle in time to rescue her monarch. But she herself has received a

mortal wound; she sinks on the ground, and expires in the moment of

victory. They cover her with the banners of the victorious army. The

curtain falls.

Now, this violent departure from history, in the latter part of the

play, is what we chiefly regret in the tragedy of Schiller. The

melancholy fate of Joan d'Arc is so inseparably connected with her

memory, that we cease to identify the portrait of Schiller with the

personage of history. As the tragedy proceeds, we feel that it is no

longer our Joan d'Arc that it concerns--so impossible is it for us to

forget, that the village maiden of Dom Remi expiated her pious and

visionary patriotism in the flames at Rouen. Only half her tragedy has

been written; the other half remains for some future Schiller. Nor can

we conceive of a better opportunity for the display of the peculiar

powers of this poet, than would have been afforded by that catastrophe

he has chosen to alter. Was the opportunity felt to be _too great_? Had

the poet become wearied and exhausted with his theme, and did he feel

indisposed to nerve himself afresh for scenes which called for the

strenuous efforts of his genius? We know that it was not his original

intention to make this violent departure from history, and that he came

to the determination with regret.

We wish to state distinctly on what grounds we make our objection;

because there is current among a class of critics a censure for the mere

departure from historical truth--made, it would seem, out of a sensitive

regard for history--in which we by no means acquiesce. We have no desire

to bind a poet to history, merely because it is history. He has his own

ends to accomplish, and by those shall he be judged. As, assuredly, we

should not accept it as the least excuse for the least measure of

dulness, on the part of the poet, that he had followed faithfully the

historical narrative, so neither do we impose upon him a very close

adherence to it. We censure the course which Schiller has here pursued,

not because he has marred history, but because he has marred his own

poem. The objection lies entirely within the boundary of his own art. He

has selected a personage for his drama with whom a certain fate is so

indissolubly associated, that it is impossible to think of her without

recalling it to mind; and this ineffaceable trait in her history he has

attempted, for the time, to obliterate from our memory. By this

procedure, the imagination of the reader is divided and distracted. The

picture presented by the poet _is and is not_ a portrait of the

historical figure which lives in our recollection. There are many points

of resemblance; but the chief is omitted. And we always feel that it is

omitted; for history here is too strong for the poet: he cannot expel

her from the territory he wishes to enclose for himself. As well might

one describe a Socrates who did not drink the hemlock--as well a

Napoleon who did not die at St Helena, as a Joan d'Arc who did not

suffer in the flames of Rouen.

_Von Hinrich_, in his critical work upon Schiller, gives a curious

defence of this departure from history:--"The martyrdom," he says, "of

the forlorn maiden could hardly satisfy us on the stage. In history it

is different; we see these events in their connexion with the past and

the future, and we do not abstract some single fact, and judge of it

apart from all others. The history of the world is the tribunal of the

world. It has justified Johanna; posterity has restored to her the fame

and honour of which a malicious fate had for a season deprived her. The

poet was obliged to change his catastrophe, in order to introduce, in

his own epoch, that finger of justice which, in reality, revealed itself

only at a subsequent period."[1]

[1] Part II., p. 183.

But who sees not that, in all such cases, the poet sufficiently and

completely reverses the unjust sentence of contemporaries, by

representing the sufferer as undeserving of it?--that, by depicting her

as innocent, he anticipates and introduces the equitable judgment of

posterity? When Schiller had described the Maid of Orleans as pious in

heart--as the chosen of Heaven, he had at once reversed the sentence of

the court of Rouen. It was assuredly not necessary that he should

conceal the fact of any such sentence having been passed, in order to

exculpate Johanna: and to exculpate, or to spare, the august judges, was

no part of the business of the poet. Socrates dies in prison, denounced

as a corrupter of youth. He himself is sufficiently vindicated when he

is shown to be no corrupter of youth. Is there any sentiment of equity

that would prompt us to suppress the fact, that he died by the public

executioner of Athens? Or would it be doing honour to history--to this

great tribunal of appeal--to stifle our indignation against the unjust

and criminal sentences which she has had to repeal?

No doubt the poet would have had difficulties to contend with, in

following the course of history. In particular, as he had chosen to

represent Johanna as veritably inspired, he would have been tasked to

reconcile this severity of her fate, on the one hand, with the justice

of Heaven towards its own missionary; or on the other, with the

unblemished character of his heroine. Either Heaven must appear

forgetful of Johanna, or Johanna must be represented as having forfeited

a right to its protection. But this difficulty Schiller has not entirely

escaped in his own plot, and he has shown how it may be encountered.

Johanna might well yield to the tenderness of a human passion without

forfeiting our sympathy, or incurring a stain upon her moral character;

and yet this aberration of heart--this dereliction from the austere

purity required by her sacred mission--might, in a theological point of

view, be supposed to have forfeited her claim to the miraculous

interposition of Heaven in her behalf. So that, in the closing scenes,

though Johanna might have no claim on the miraculous favours of Heaven,

she would still be a saint at heart, and entitled to our deepest

sympathy; and Heaven would receive back, if not its prophetess and

champion, yet a noble child of earth, still further purified by more

than expiatory sufferings.

This species of difficulty meets us, in one instance, in the tragedy of

Schiller, in an unexpected and unnecessary manner. How are we to

understand the thunder which is heard in apparent confirmation of the

cruel accusation of Thibaut? As a mere coincidence, as a mere natural

phenomenon, we can hardly view it; appearing as it does in this

atmosphere of wonders. The archbishop seems to think that possibly the

thunder might testify _for_ Johanna. But as the effect is to produce her

condemnation, it is impossible it could have been _intended_ by Heaven

for her acquittal. And yet, if we are to look upon it as corroborating

the accusation of the father, it not only passes a very severe sentence

upon Johanna, but it sanctions the gross falsehood of this atrabilious

parent.

Amongst the continental critics, Schiller's _Maid of Orleans_ has been

especially commended as a vindication of the character of Johanna from

the vile representation it had endured from the hands of Voltaire. But

here, in England, _La Pucelle_ was never more popular than it deserved

to be--was never popular at all; no one had taken his impression of Joan

d'Arc from this tawdry performance; and we find a difficulty in

understanding how Schiller, writing to Wieland, could represent the poem

of Voltaire as a great obstacle in his way. As little had we received

our impression of Joan d'Arc from Shakspeare's tragedy of the _First

Part of Henry VI_., where she is represented as a mere witch and

courtesan, represented, in fact, in the vulgar aspect in which she still

probably appeared to an English populace. The subject was with us, when

Schiller wrote, new and open; we had received our impression only from

history, and history had spoken well of Johanna.[1]

[1] It is thus that Hume concludes his account of her:--"This admirable

heroine, to whom the more generous superstition of the ancients would

have erected altars, was, on pretence of heresy and magic, delivered

over alive to the flames, and expiated by that dreadful punishment the

signal services she had rendered to her prince and her native country."

Madame de Staël, after applauding Schiller's tragedy for the restoration

it effected of the character of the French heroine, adds:--"The French

alone have consented to this degradation of the character of the maiden;

even an Englishman, Shakspeare, represents her in the beginning as

inspired by Heaven, and afterwards led astray by the demons of

ambition." The delineation of the Maid of Orleans, in the _first Part of

Henry VI_., is associated with the greatest name in our literature, and

therefore, we presume, must be treated with respect; but it is the only

title to respect we can discover in it. We cannot, with Madame de Staël,

trace the inspired maid in any part of the play. La Pucelle gives us, it

is true, in the commencement, a very good account of herself; as she was

playing the part of an impostor, it was not probable she would do

otherwise: but her own manner very soon betrays the courtesan; and, when

alone, we find her in the Company of no other spirits than such as

witches are accustomed to raise.

We were still more surprised to find Schlegel describing the Maid of

Orlean of _Henry VI_. as more _historical_ than the portraiture of

Schiller. There is the same amount of fable in both. In _Henry VI_., we

have an echo of the coarse superstition and vulgar scandal of the

English camp--in Schiller, the fable is beautiful, and assists to

develop a character of exquisite purity.

THE STOLEN CHILD.

A TRUE TALE OF THE BACK-WOODS.

It was towards the commencement of the month December 1825, that I was

going down the Mississippi in the steam-boat Feliciana. We had arrived

in the neighbourhood of Hopefield, Hampstead county, when one of our

paddles struck against a sawyer,[1] and was broken to pieces. We were

obliged in consequence to cast anchor before the town.

[1] The local name for large tree-trunks which get partially buried in

the mud, one end sticking, up just below the surface of the water. They

cause frequent accidents to the steam-boats on the Mississippi.

Hopefield is a small town on the west bank of the river, about six

hundred miles above New Orleans, and five hundred below the junction of

the Ohio and Mississippi. It consisted, at the time of which I speak, of

about fifteen houses, two of which were taverns and shops of the usual

kind found in such places--their stock in trade consisting of a cask or

two of whisky, a couple of dozen knives and forks, a few coloured

handkerchiefs, some earthenware, lead, powder, and the like. Our party

was composed of ten ladies, the same number of young men, and several

elderly gentlemen. Nothing appears so desirable, during a long voyage in

a river steam-boat, as a stroll upon shore; and, as there was nothing to

be done at Hopefield, the proposal of one of our number to take a ramble

in the forest, was met with unqualified approbation by all the young

men. We equipped ourselves each with a rifle, and a bottle of wine or

brandy, to keep the vapours of the swamps out of our throats; the son of

one of the tavern-keepers, who offered himself for a guide, was loaded

with a mighty ham and a bag of biscuits, which we procured from the

steam-boat; and, thus provided, we sallied forth on our expedition,

attended by the good wishes of the ladies, who accompanied us a few

hundred yards into the wood, and then left us to pursue our march.

I have often had the occasion to notice, that the first entrance into

one of our vast American forests is apt to reduce the greatest talker to

silence. In the present instance, I found the truth of this remark fully

confirmed. Whether it was the subdued half-light of the luxuriant

wilderness through which we were passing, the solemn stillness, only

broken by the rustling of the dead leaves under our feet, or the

colossal dimensions of the mighty trees, that rose like so many giants

around us, that wrought upon the imagination, I cannot say; but it is

certain that my companions, who were mostly on the northern states, and

had never before been beyond Albany or the Saratoga springs, became at

once silent, and almost sad. The leaves of the cotton-tree, that giant

of the south-western forests, had already assumed the tawny hues of

latter autumn; only here and there a streak of sunbeam, breaking through

the canopy of branches that spread over our heads, brought out the last

tints of green now fast fading away, and threw a strange sparkling ray,

a bar of light, across our path. Here was a magnolia with its snow-white

blossoms, or a catalpa with its long cucumber-shaped fruit, amongst

which the bright-hued red birds and paroquets glanced and fluttered.

We walked for some time through the forest, amused more than once by the

proceedings of two young clerks from Boston, who saw a wild animal in

every thicket, and repeatedly leveled their guns at some bear or

panther, which turned out to be neither more nor less than a bush or

tree-stump. They pestered our guide with all sorts of simple questions,

which he, with a true backwoodsman's indifference, left for the most

part unanswered. After about an hour, we found ourselves on the borders

of a long and tolerably wide swamp, formed by the overflowings of the

river, and which stretched for some five miles from north to south, with

a broad patch of clear bright-green water in the centre. The western

bank was covered with a thick growth of palmettos, the favourite cover

of deer; bears, and even panthers; and this cover we resolved to beat.

We divided ourselves into two parties, the first of which, consisting of

the New Englanders, and accompanied by the guide, was to go round the

northern extremity of the swamp, while we were to take a southerly

direction, and both to meet behind the marsh, on a certain path which

led through a thicket of wild plum-trees and acacias. Our guide's

instructions were not of the clearest, and the landmarks he gave us were

only intelligible to a thorough backwoodsman; but as too many questions

would probably have puzzled him, without making matters clearer to us,

we set off, trusting to our eyes and ears, and to the pocket-compasses

with which several of us were provided.

After another hour's walk, during which we had seen nothing but wild

pigeons and squirrels, and a few mocassin snakes warming themselves in

the sunbeams, which latter, on our approach, drew hastily back under the

heaps of dry leaves, we arrived at the southern extremity of the swamp.

Proceeding a short distance westward, we then took a northerly

direction, along the edge of the palmetto field, with the marsh upon our

right hand. It was a sort of cane-brake we were passing through, firm

footing, and with grass up to our knees; the shore of the swamp or lake

was overgrown with lofty cedars, shooting out of water four or five feet

deep, which reflected their circular crowns. The broad streak of water

looked like a huge band of satin, and the slightest motion of the leaves

was immediately perceptible in the mirror beneath them. From time to

time, the least possible breeze rustled through the trees, and curled

the water with a tiny ripple. The water itself was of the brightest

emerald-green; and the forest of palmetto stems that grew along the

edge, was reflected in it like myriads of swords and lances. In the

small creeks and inlets, flocks of swans, pelicans, and wild geese, were

sunning themselves, and pluming their feathers for their winter flight.

They allowed us to come within a score of paces of them, and then flew

away with a rushing, whirring noise.

We had been for some time plodding patiently along, when our attention

was suddenly attracted by a slow but continued rustling amongst the

palmettos. Something was evidently cautiously approaching us, but

whether panther, stag, or bear we could not tell--probably the last. We

gave a glance at our rifles, cocked them, and pressed a few paces

forward amongst the canes; when suddenly a bound and a cracking noise,

which grew rapidly more distant, warned us that the animal had taken the

alarm. One of our companions, who had as yet never seen a bear-hunt, ran

forward as fast as the palmettos would allow him, and was soon out of

sight. Unfortunately we had no dogs, and after half an hour's fruitless

beating about, during which we started another animal, within sight or

shot of which we were unable to get, we became convinced that we should

have to meet our friends empty-handed. It was now time to proceed to the

place of rendezvous, on the further side of the palmetto field, which

was about half a mile wide. The man who had gone after the bear, had

rejoined us, and from him we learned that the brake was bordered on the

western side by a dense thicket of wild-plum, apple, and acacia trees,

through which there was not the least sign of a path. On arriving there

we saw that his account was a correct one; and, to add to our

difficulties, the nature of the ground in our front now changed, and the

cane-brake sank down into sort of swampy bottom, extending to the

northern extremity of the lake. Our situation was an embarrassing one.

Before us, an impassable swamp; to our right, water; to our left, an

impenetrable thicket; and four hours out of the eight that had been

allotted to us already elapsed. There seemed nothing to be done but to

retrace our steps; but, before doing so, we resolved to make a last

effort to find a path. To this end we separated, taking different

directions, and for nearly half an hour we wandered through the thicket,

amongst bushes and brambles, tearing and scratching ourselves to no

purpose. At last, when I for one was about to abandon the search in

despair, a loud hurrah gave notice that the path was found. We were soon

all grouped around the lucky discoverer; but to our considerable

disappointment, instead of finding him at the entrance of the wished-for

road, we beheld him gravely contemplating a cow, which was cropping the

grass quite undisturbed by our approach. Nevertheless, this was no bad

find, if we could only ascertain whether it was a strayed cow that had

wandered far from its home, or a beast of regular habits that passed

each night in its master's cow-house. An Ohioman solved the question, by

pointing out that the animal had evidently been milked that morning; and

as we were debating how we should induce Brindle to proceed in the

direction of its domicile, he settled that difficulty also, by firing

off his rifle so close to the beast's tail, that the bullet carried off

a patch of hair, and grazed the skin. The cow gave a tremendous spring,

and rushed through a thicket, as if a score of wolves had been at its

heels. We followed, and the brute led us to a tolerably good path

through the wilderness, which we had thought impenetrable. It was

doubtless the path that was to take us to the appointed place of

meeting; and we now slackened our pace, and followed the cow's trail

more leisurely. We had proceeded about a mile, when a strong light in

the distance made us aware that we were coming to a clearing; and on

arriving at the place, we found several maize fields enclosed by hedges,

and a log-house, the smoking chimney of which bespoke the presence of

inhabitants.

The dwelling was pleasantly situated on a gentle slope, roofed with

clapboards, and having stables and other out-houses in its rear, such as

one usually finds in backwood settlements of the more comfortable kind.

Peach-trees were trailed against the house, in front of which stood some

groups of papaws. The whole place had a rural and agreeable aspect.

We were scarcely within the hedge that surrounded the domain, when a

brace of bull-dogs rushed upon us with open jaws. We were keeping off

the furious brutes with some difficulty, when a man came out of the

barn, and, upon seeing us, again entered it. After a few moments, he

appeared for a second time, in company with two negroes, who were

leading by the horns the very same cow which we had so unceremoniously

compelled to become our guide. We greeted the man with a "good-morning;"

but he made no answer, merely gazing hard at us with a cold sullen look.

He was a tall, broad-shouldered, powerful man, with an expressive but

extraordinarily sad, gloomy, and almost repulsive countenance. There was

a restless excitement of manner about him, which struck us at the very

first glance.

"A fine morning," said I, approaching the stranger.

No answer. The man was holding the cow by one horn, and staring at the

tail, from which a drop or two of blood was falling.

"How far is it from here to Hopefield?" asked I.

"Far enough for you never to get there, if it's you who've been drivin'

my cow," was the threatening reply.

"And if we had driven your cow," said I, "you would surely not take it

amiss? It was a mere accident."

"Such accidents don't often happen. People don't shoot cows, if they

haven't a mind to eat other folk's beef."

"You do not suppose," said the Ohioman, "that we should wish to hurt

your cow--we, who have no other intention but to shoot a few turkeys for

the voyage. We are passengers by the Feliciana--one of our paddles is

broken; and that is the reason that our boat is at anchor in front of

Hopefield, and that we are here."

This circumstantial explanation seemed to produce little effect on the

backwoodsman. He made no reply. We walked towards the house, and, on

stepping in, found a woman there, who scarcely looked at us, or seemed

aware of our entrance. There was the same appearance of fixed grief upon

her countenance that we had remarked in the man; only with the

difference, that the expression was less morose and fierce, but on the

other hand more mournful.

"Can we have something to eat?" said I to the woman.

"We don't keep a tavern," was the answer.

"The other party cannot be far off," said one of my companions. "We will

give them a sign of our whereabout." And so saying, he passed out at the

door and walked a few paces in the direction of a cotton field.

"Stop!" cried the backwoodsman, suddenly placing himself before him.

"Not a step further shall you go, till you satisfy me who you are, and

where from."

"Who and where from?" replied our comrade, a young doctor of medicine

from Tennessee. "That is what neither you nor any other man shall know

who asks after such a fashion. If I'm not mistaken we are in a free

country." And as he spoke he fired off his rifle.

The report of the piece was echoed so magnificently from the deep

forests which surrounded the plantation, that my other companions raised

their guns to their shoulders with the intention of firing also. I made

them a sign in time to prevent it. Although there could hardly be any

real danger to be apprehended, it appeared to me advisable to hold

ourselves prepared for whatever might happen. The next moment a shot was

heard--the answer to our signal.

"Keep yourself quiet," said I to the backwoodsman; "our companions and

their guide will soon be here. As to your cow, you can hardly have so

little common sense as to suppose that five travellers would shoot a

beast that must be perfectly useless to them."

As I left off speaking, there emerged from the forest our other

detachment and the guide, the latter carrying two fat turkeys. He

greeted the backwoodsman as an old acquaintance, but with a degree of

sympathy and compassion in the tone of his salutation which contrasted

strangely with his usual rough dry manner.

"Well, Mr Clarke," said he, "heard nothing yet? I'm sorry for it--very

sorry."

The backwoodsman made no reply, but his rigid sturdy mien softened, and

his eyes, as I thought, glistened with moisture.

"Mistress Clarke," said our guide to the woman, who was standing at the

house-door, "these gentlemen here wish for a snack. They've plenty of

every thing, if you'll be so good as to cook it."

The woman stood without making any reply: the man was equally silent.

There was a sort of stubborn surly manner about them, which I had never

before witnessed in backwoodspeople.

"Well," said the doctor, "we need expect nothing here. We are only

losing time. Let us sit down on a tree-trunk, and eat our ham, and

biscuits."

The guide made us a significant sign, and then stepping up to the woman,

spoke to her in a low and urgent tone. She did not, however, utter a

word.

"Mistress," said the doctor, "something must have happened to you or

your family, to put you so out of sorts. We are strangers, but we are

not without feeling. Tell us what is wrong. There may be means of

helping you."

The man looked up; the woman shook her head.

"What is it that troubles you?" said I, approaching her. "Speak out.

Help often comes when least expected."

The woman made me no answer, but stepped up to our guide, took a turkey

and the ham from him, and went into the house. We followed, sat down at

the table, and produced our bottles. The backwoodsman placed glasses

before us. We pressed him to join us, but he obstinately declined our

invitation, and we at last became weary of wasting good words on him.

Our party consisted, as before mentioned, of ten persons: two bottles

were soon emptied and we were beginning to get somewhat merry whilst

talking over our morning's ramble, when our host suddenly got up from

his seat in the chimney-corner, and approached the table.

"Gemmen," said he, "you mus'n't think me uncivil if I tell ye plainly,

that I can have no noise made in my house. It aint a house to larf in--

that it aint, by G--!" And having so spoken he resumed his seat, leant

his head upon both hands, and relapsed into his previous state of gloomy

reverie.

"We ask pardon," said we; "but really we had no idea that our

cheerfulness could annoy you."

The man made no reply, and half an hour passed away in whisperings and

conjectures. At the end of that time, a negro girl came in to spread the

table for our meal.

After much entreaty, our host and hostess were prevailed on to sit down

with us. The former took a glass of brandy, and emptied it at a draught.

We filled it again, he drank it off, and it was again replenished. After

the third glass, a deep sigh escaped him. The cordial had evidently

revived him.

"Gemmen," said he, "you will have thought me rough and stubborn enough,

when I met you as you had been huntin' my cow; but I see now who I have

to do with. But may I be shot myself, if, whenever I find _him_, I don't

send a bullet through his body; and I'll be warrant it shall hinder his

stealin' any more children."

"Steal children!" repeated I. "Has one of your negroes been stolen?"

"One of my niggers, man! My son, my only son! Her child!" continued he

pointing to his wife. "Our boy, the only one remaining to us out of

five, whom the fever carried off before our eyes. As bold and smart a

boy as any in the back woods! Here we set ourselves down in the

wilderness, worked day and night, went through toil and danger, hunger

and thirst, heat and cold. And for what? Here we are alone, deserted,

childless; with nothin' left for us but to pray and cry, to curse and

groan. No help; all in vain. I shall go out of my mind, I expect. If he

were dead!--if he were lyin' under the hillock yonder beside his

brothers, I would say nothing. _He_ gave, and He has a right to take

away! But, Almighty God!"---And the man uttered a cry so frightful, so

heartrending, that the knives and forks fell from our hands, and a

number of negro women and children came rushing in to see what was the

matter. We gazed at him in silence.

"God only knows," continued he, and his head sank upon his breast; then

suddenly starting up, he drank off glass after glass of brandy, as fast

as he could pour it out.

"And how and when did this horrible theft occur?" asked we.

"The woman can tell you about it," was the answer.

The woman had left the table, and now sat sobbing and weeping upon the

bed. It was really a heartbreaking scene. The doctor got up, and led her

to the table. We waited till she became more composed, anxiously

expecting her account of this horrible calamity.

"It was four weeks yesterday," she began; "Mister Clarke was in the

forest; I was in the fields, looking after the people, who were

gathering in the maize. I had been there some time, and by the sun it

was already pretty near eleven; but it was as fine a morning as ever was

seen on the Mississippi, and the niggers don't work well if there's not

somebody to look after them--so I remained. At last it was time to get

the people's dinner ready, and I left the field. I don't know what it

was, but I had scarcely turned towards the house, when it seemed as if

somebody called to me to run as fast as I could; a sort of fear and

uneasiness came over me, and I ran all the way to the house. When I got

there I saw little Cesy, our black boy, sitting on the threshold, and

playing all alone. I thought nothing of this, but went into the kitchen,

without suspecting any thing wrong. As I was turning about amongst the

pots and kettles, I thought suddenly of my Dougal. I threw down what I

had in my hand, and ran to the door. Cesy came to meet me:" "Missi," said

he, "Dougal is gone!"

"Dougal is gone!" cried I. "Where is he gone to, Cesy?"

"Don't know," said Cesy; "gone away with a man on horseback."

"With a man on horseback?" said I. "In God's name, where can he be gone

to? What does all this mean, Cesy?"

"Don't know," said Cesy.

"And who was the man? Did he go willingly?"

"No! he didn't go willingly!" said Cesy: "but the man got off his horse,

put Dougal upon it, and then jumped up behind him, and rode away."

"And you don't know the man?"

"No, missi!"

"Think again, Cesy," cried I; "for God's sake, remember. Don't you know

the man?"

"No," said the child, "I don't know him."

"Didn't you see what he looked like? Was he black or white?"

"I don't know," said Cesy, crying; "he had a red flannel shirt over his

face!"

"Was it neighbour Syms, or Banks, or Medling, or Barnes?"

"No!" whined Cesy.

"Gracious God!" cried I. "What is this? What is become of my poor

child?" I ran backwards and forwards into the forest, through the

fields. I called out. I looked every where. At last I ran to where the

people were at work, and fetched Cesy's mother. I thought she would be

able to make him tell something more about my child. She ran to the

house with me, promised him cakes, new clothes, every thing in the

world; but he could tell nothing more than he had already told me. At

last Mister Clarke came.

Here the woman paused, and looked at her husband.

"When I came home," continued the latter, "the woman was nearly

distracted; and I saw directly that some great misfortune had happened.

But I should never have guessed what it really was. When she told me, I

said, to comfort her, that one of the neighbours must have taken the

child away, though I didn't think it myself; for none of the neighbours

would have allowed themselves such a freedom with my only child. I

shouldn't have thanked 'em for it, I can tell you. I called Cesy, and

asked him again what the man was like; if he had a blue or a black coat?

He said it was blue. 'What sort of horse?' 'A brown one.' 'What road he

had taken?' 'That road!' answered the boy, pointing to the swamp. I sent

all my niggers, men, women, and children, round to the neighbours, to

seek for the child, and tell them what had happened. I myself followed

the path that the robber had taken, and found hoof-prints upon it. I

tracked them to the creek, but there I lost the trail. The man must have

got into a boat, with his horse and the child, had perhaps crossed the

Mississippi, or perhaps gone down the stream. Who could tell where he

would land! It might be ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred miles lower

down. I was terribly frightened, and I rode on the Hopefield. There

nothing had been seen or heard of my child; but all the men got on their

horses to help me to find him. The neighbours came also, and we sought

about for a whole day and night. No trace or track was to be found.

Nobody had seen either the child or the man who had carried him off. We

beat the woods for thirty miles round my house, crossed the Mississippi,

went up as far as Memphis, and down to Helena and the Yazoo river;

nothing was to be seen or heard. We came back as we went out,

empty-handed and discouraged. When I got home, I found the whole county

assembled at my house. Again we set out; again we searched the forest

through; every hollow tree, every bush and thicket, was looked into. Of

bears, stags, and panthers there were plenty, but no signs of my boy. On

the sixth day I came home again; but my home was become hateful to me--

every thing vexed and disgusted me. My clothes and skin were torn off by

the thorns and briers, my very bones ached; but I didn't feel it. It was

nothing to what I suffered in my mind."

On the second day after my return, I was lying heart and body sick in

bed, when one of the neighbours came in, and told me that he had just

seen, at Hopefield, a man from Muller county, who told him that a

stranger had been seen on the road to New Madrid, whose description

answered to that which Cesy had given of the child-stealer. It was a man

with a blue coat and a brown horse, and a child upon his saddle. I

forgot my sickness and my sore bones, bought a new horse--for I had

ridden mine nearly to death--and set out directly, rode day and night,

three hundred miles, to New Madrid, and when I arrived there, sure

enough I found the man who had been described to me, and a child with

him. But it was not my child! The man belonged to New Madrid, and had

been on a journey with his son into Muller county.

I don't know how I got home again. Some people found me near Hopefield,

and brought me to my house. I had fever, and was raving for ten days;

and during that time the neighbours advertised the thing in all the

papers in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. We had ridden

altogether thousands of miles, but it was no use. "No!" continued he,

with a deep groan; "if my child had died of the fever, if he had fallen

in with a bear or panther, and been killed, it would be bitter, bitter

sorrow--he was my last child. But, merciful God--stolen! My son, my

poor child, stolen!"

And the man cried aloud, sprang from his seat, and wrung his hands and

wept like an infant. Even his wife had not shown such utter agony of

grief.

"When I go to work," continued he after a pause, "my little Dougal seems

to stand before me, and my hands fall by my sides, as stiff and heavy as

though they were lead. I look round, but no Dougal is there. When I go

to bed, I put his bed beside mine, and call him, but no one answers.

Sleeping or waking, my poor boy is always before me. Would to God I were

dead! I have cursed and sworn, prayed and supplicated, wept and groaned,

but all--all in vain!"

I have seen many persons suffering from distress of mind, but never did

I meet with one whose sorrow was so violent and overpowering as that of

this backwoodsman. We did our utmost to console him, and to inspire him

with new hope, but he was inconsolable; his eyes were fixed, he had

fallen into a sort of apathy, and I doubt if he even heard what was said

to him. We ourselves were so affected that our words seemed almost to

choke us. Time pressed, however; it was impossible for us to remain any

longer, nor could we have done any good by so doing. We shook the

unfortunate couple by the hand, promised to do all in our power to learn

something of their child's fate, and took our departure.

It was six weeks after the time above referred to, that I found myself

compelled by business to make a journey to Natchez. I had often thought

of poor Clarke's misfortune, and, in conjunction with my friends, had

done all in my power to discover the villain who had robbed him of his

child. Hitherto all our endeavours had been fruitless. The facts were

circulated in every newspaper, were matter of conversation at every

teatable in the country; rewards were offered, researches made, but not

the smallest trace of the boy or his stealer was to be found.

It was a bright January afternoon when I landed at Natchez. In company

with some acquaintances, I was ascending the little hill between the

lower and upper town, when we heard an unusual noise and bustle; and on

reaching the summit, we saw a crowd assembled before the door of Justice

Bonner's house. Upon going to see what was the matter, we found that the

mob consisted of the better class of people in Natchez, both women and

men, but especially the former. Every face wore an expression of

interest and anxiety; and upon making enquiry, we learned that the

child-stealer had been at length discovered--or rather, that a man had

been taken up on strong suspicion of his having stolen Mr Clarke's son,

of Hampstead county. I was heartily rejoiced at the news and endeavoured

to press forward through the throng, in hopes of hearing some

particulars; but the crowd was so dense that it was impossible to get

through. I stood there for nearly two hours, the concourse all the while

increasing, none stirring from the places they occupied, while every

adjacent window was filled with eager, anxious faces.

At last the door opened, and the prisoner, guarded by two constables,

and followed by the sheriff, came out of the house, and took the

direction of the town prison. "That is he!" whispered the women to one

another, with pale faces and trembling voices, clasping their children

tighter, as though fearful they would be snatched from them. The

countenance of the culprit was the most repulsive I had ever seen--a

mixture of brutal obstinacy and low cunning, with a sort of sneering,

grinning, expression. His small green-grey eyes were fixed upon the

ground; but as he passed through the lane opened by the crowd, he from

time to time partially raised them, and threw sidelong and malicious

glances at the bystanders. He was rather above the middle height, his

complexion of a dirty greyish colour, his cheeks hollow, his lips

remarkably thick and coarse, his whole appearance in the highest degree

wild and disgusting. His dress consisted of an old worn-out blue frock,

trousers of the same colour, a high-crowned shabby hat, and tattered

shoes. The impression which his appearance made might be read in the

pale faces of the spectators. They gazed after him with a sort of

hopeless look as he walked away. "If that is the man who stole the

child," murmured several, "there is no hope. The boy is lost!" I

extricated myself from the throng, and hastened to Justice Bonner, with

whom I was acquainted, and who gave me the following particulars.

About four weeks after our excursion in the neighbourhood of Hopefield,

Clarke had received a letter, signed Thomas Tully, and stamped with the

Natchez postmark. The contents were to the effect that his child was

still living, that the writer of the letter knew where he was, and that,

if Mr Clarke would enclose a fifty-dollar bank-note in his answer, he

should receive further information. On receipt of the said sum, the

writer said he would indicate a place to which Mrs Clarke might repair,

unaccompanied, and there, upon payment of two hundred dollars more, the

child should be delivered up.

Upon receiving this letter, the unfortunate father consulted with his

friends and neighbours; and, by their advice, he wrote immediately to

the postmaster at Natchez, informing him of the circumstances, and

requesting that the person who applied for his answer might be detained.

Four days afterwards, a man came to the window of the post-office, and

enquired if there was any letter to the address of Thomas Tully. The

postmaster pretended to be searching for the letter amongst a pile of

others, and meanwhile a constable, who was in attendance, went round and

captured the applicant. Upon the examination of the letter, it appeared

that he was an Irishman, who had some time previously been hanging about

Natchez, and had endeavoured to establish a school there. As he,

however, had been unable to give any satisfactory account of himself, of

where he came from, or what he had been doing up to that time, and as

his manner and appearance were moreover in the highest degree suspicious

and repulsive, he had not succeeded in his plan, and the few parents who

sent their children to him had speedily withdrawn them. He was known at

Natchez by the name of Thomas Tully, nor did he now deny that that was

his name, or that he had sent the letter, which was written in a

practised schoolmasterlike hand. It was further elicited that he was

perfectly acquainted with the paths and roads between Natchez and

Hopefield, and in the neighbourhood of those two places, as well as with

the swamps, creeks, and rivers there adjacent. He was fully committed,

till such time as the father of the stolen child should be made

acquainted with the result of the examination.

In five days Clarke arrived with the negro boy Caesar. The whole town

showed the greatest sympathy with the poor man's misfortune, the lawyers

offered him their services free of charge, and a second examination of

the prisoner took place. Every thing possible was done to induce the

latter to confess what had become of the child; but to all questions he

opposed an obstinate silence. The negro boy did not recognize him. At

last he declared that he knew nothing of the stolen child, and that he

had only written the letter in the hope of extorting money from the

father. Hardly, however, had this been written down, when he turned to

Clarke, with an infernal grin upon his countenance, and said, "You have

persecuted and hunted me like a wild beast, but I will make you yet more

wretched than you are able to make me." He then proceeded to inform him

of a certain place where he would find his child's clothes.

Clarke immediately set out with a constable to the indicated spot, found

the clothes, as he had been told he would do, and returned to Natchez.

The accused was again put at the bar, and said, after frequently

contradicting himself, that the child was still alive, but that, if they

kept him longer in prison, it would inevitably die of hunger. Nothing

could persuade him to say where the boy was, or to give one syllable of

further explanation.