PART I.

Transcribed from the 1825 Hurst, Robinson and Co. edition by David Price.

Many thanks to the Bodleian Library for making their copy available.

TALES

OF THE

WILD AND THE WONDERFUL.

* * * * *

“Messer, dovete havete pigliate tante coglionerie?” quoth the Reader.

CARDINAL IPPOLITO D’ESTE TO ARIOSTO.

* * * * *

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO.

5 WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL MALL;

AND A. CONSTABLE AND CO. EDINBURGH.

* * * * *

M.DCCC.XXV.

* * * * *

TO

JOANNA BAILLIE,

AS A SLIGHT TRIBUTE OF ADMIRATION TO HER

RESPLENDENT TALENTS,

THIS VOLUME

IS DEDICATED,

BY

THE AUTHOR.

TO THE READER.

PAUSE one moment, gentle Reader—only one little moment will I detain you,

while I reply to the question which I have supposed you to ask in the

title-page. Blame not me, I beseech you, if you are compelled to make

the usual accusation against authors, that there is nothing new in the

pages which I diffidently present to you: I am sorry for it, but I cannot

help it. Solomon asserted that all things under the sun were aged in his

time; and if the wisest of old gentlemen could find nothing new in that

early stage of his empire, what can be expected from a poor scribbler

like me, near three thousand years after him? Consider too, dear Reader,

that this is the first time I have appeared before you in the character

of a story-teller; and that I am a timid, nervous subject, and very

easily discouraged. Accept me then upon the score of wishing to amuse

you, and permit me to say something for my Tales, after having said so

much for myself.

Of the stories, “Der Freischütz,” as every body knows, is from the

German. “The Fortunes of De la Pole” is original; so is “The

Prediction,” and “The Yellow Dwarf,” if I may be allowed that claim for

such a “thing of shreds and patches;” it is an _olla podrida_ of odds and

ends, a snip of the garment of every fairy tale written since the days of

King Arthur. The last story, “The Lord of the Maelstrom,” is also

original, though, as in that of “The Yellow Dwarf,” I have raised my

structure upon an old nursery foundation; but it appeared to me an

excellent vehicle for the beautiful mythology of the North, and the

introduction of Odin and his exploits,—whose history, by the way, I

believe, has been extracted from the Talmud, or from the rabbinical

traditions of the events previous to the creation, and the deeds of Moses

and others. I, moreover, designed to have given thee a little poetry for

thy money, gentle Reader, but the booksellers shook their heads when I

mentioned my design, and told me it was out of fashion; so I returned my

treasures in that way to my desk, there to remain, among many other

excellent things, I assure thee, until it should again be the taste in

England; and, in the meantime, offer these Tales of _diablerie_ for your

amusement. Entreat me kindly, gentle Reader, I beseech you, for two

reasons;—first, because it will entirely depend, upon your reception of

this, whether I shall ever write a second volume—and secondly, because

there has been a sad sweep lately among those who used to cater for your

diversion: many who were most deserving have been snatched from your

admiration and regard. “Shelley is not—Lord Byron is not—and Maturin

have they taken away.” For myself, I am not a long-lived man, and

therefore advise you to make much of me while I am with you; and as an

example, look upon these “_coglionerie_” with a milder eye than their

merits may seem to deserve from your judgment.

I am, dear Reader, truly yours,

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE PREDICTION 1

THE YELLOW DWARF 48

DER FREISCHÜTZ 128

THE FORTUNES OF DE LA POLE 167

THE LORD OF THE MAELSTROM 233

NOTES TO THE LORD OF THE MAELSTROM 352

THE PREDICTION.

“Let’s talk of Graves.”—SHAKSPEARE.

ON the south-west coast of the principality of Wales stands a romantic

little village, inhabited chiefly by the poorer class of people,

consisting of small farmers and oyster dredgers, whose estates are the

wide ocean, and whose ploughs are the small craft, in which they glide

over its interminable fields in search of the treasures which they wring

from its bosom; it is built on the very top of a hill, commanding on the

one side, a view of an immense bay, and on the other, of the peaceful

green fields and valleys, cultivated by the greater number of its quiet

inhabitants. The approach to it from the nearest town was by a road

which branched away into lanes and wooded walks, and from the sea by a

beautiful little bay, running up far into the land; both sides of which,

and indeed all the rest of the coast, were guarded by craggy and gigantic

rocks, some of them hollowed into caverns, into which none of the

inhabitants, from motives of superstition, reverence, and fear, had ever

dared to penetrate. There were, at the period of which we are about to

treat, no better sort of inhabitants in the little village just

described, none of those so emphatically distinguished as “quality” by

the country people; they had neither parson, lawyer, nor doctor, among

them, and of course there was a tolerable equality among the residents.

The farmer, who followed his own plough in the spring, singing the sweet

wild national chaunt of the season, and bound up with his own hands his

sheaves in the autumn, was not richer, greater, nor finer, than he who,

bare-legged on the strand, gathered in the hoar weed for the farmer in

the spring, or dared the wild winds of autumn and the wrath of the winter

in his little boat, to earn with his dredging net a yet harder

subsistence for his family. Distinctions were unknown in the village,

every man was the equal of his neighbour.

But, though rank and its polished distinctions were strange in the

village of N—, the superiority of talent was felt and acknowledged almost

without a pause or a murmur. There was one who was as a king amongst

them, by the mere force of a mightier spirit than those with whom he

sojourned had been accustomed to feel among them: he was a dark and moody

man, a stranger, evidently of a higher order than those around him, who

had but a few months before, without any apparent object, settled among

them: he was poor, but had no occupation—he lived frugally, but quite

alone—and his sole employments were to read during the day, and wander

out unaccompanied into the fields or by the beach during the night.

Sometimes indeed he would relieve a suffering child or rheumatic old man

by medicinal herbs, reprove idleness and drunkenness in the youth, and

predict to all the good and evil consequences of their conduct; and his

success in some cases, his foresight in others, and his wisdom in all,

won for him a high reputation among the cottagers, to which his taciturn

habits contributed not a little, for, with the vulgar as with the

educated, no talker was ever seriously taken for a conjuror, though a

silent man is often decided to be a wise one.

There was but one person in N— at all disposed to rebel against the

despotic sovereignty which Rhys Meredith was silently establishing over

the quiet village, and that was precisely the person most likely to

effect a revolution; she was a beautiful maiden, the glory and boast of

the village, who had been the favourite of, and to a certain degree

educated by, the late lady of the lord of the manor; but she had died,

and her pupil, with a full consciousness of her intellectual superiority,

had returned to her native village, where she determined to have an

empire of her own, which no rival should dispute: she laughed at the

maidens who listened to the predictions of Rhys, and she refused her

smiles to the youths who consulted him upon their affairs and their

prospects; and as the beautiful Ruth was generally beloved, the silent

Rhys was soon in danger of being abandoned by all, save doting men and

paralytic women, and feeling himself an outcast in the village of N—.

But to be such was not the object of Meredith; he was an idle man, and

the gifts of the villagers contributed to spare him from exertion; he

knew too, that in another point of view this ascendancy was necessary to

his purposes; and as he had failed to establish it by wisdom and

benevolence, he determined to try the effect of fear. The character of

the people with whom he sojourned was admirably calculated to assist his

projects; his predictions were now uttered more clearly, and his threats

denounced in sterner tones and stronger and plainer words; and when he

predicted that old Morgan Williams, who had been stricken with the palsy,

would die at the turn of tide, three days from that on which he spoke,

and that the light little boat of gay Griffy Morris, which sailed from

the bay in a bright winter’s morning, should never again make the shore;

and the man died, and the storm arose, even as he had said; men’s hearts

died within them, and they bowed down before his words, as if he had been

their general fate and the individual destiny of each.

Ruth’s rosy lip grew pale for a moment as she heard of these things; in

the next her spirit returned, and “I will make him tell my fortune,” she

said, as she went with a party of laughers to search out and deride the

conjuror. He was alone when they broke in upon him, and their mockeries

goaded his spirit; but his anger was deep, not loud; and while burning

with wrath, he yet could calmly consider the means of vengeance: he knew

the master spirit with which he had to contend; it was no ordinary mind,

and would have smiled at ordinary terrors. To have threatened her with

sickness, misfortune, or death, would have been to call forth the

energies of that lofty spirit, and prepare it to endure, and it would

have gloried in manifesting its powers of endurance; he must humble it

therefore by debasement; he must ruin its confidence in itself; and to

this end he resolved to threaten her with crime. His resolution was

taken and effected; his credit was at stake; he must daunt his enemy, or

surrender to her power: he foretold sorrows and joys to the listening

throng, not according to his passion, but his judgment, and he drew a

blush upon the cheek of one, by revealing a secret which Ruth herself,

and another, alone knew, and which prepared the former to doubt of her

own judgment, as it related to this extraordinary man.

Ruth was the last who approached to hear the secret of her destiny. The

wizard paused as he looked upon her,—opened his book,—shut

it,—paused,—and again looked sadly and fearfully upon her; she tried to

smile, but felt startled, she knew not why; the bright inquiring glance

of her dark eye could not change the purpose of her enemy. Her smile

could not melt, nor even temper, the hardness of his deep-seated malice:

he again looked sternly upon her brow, and then coldly wrung out the slow

soul-withering words, “Maiden, thou art doomed to be a murderer!”

From that hour Rhys Meredith became the destiny of Ruth Tudor. At first

she spurned at his prediction, and alternately cursed and laughed at him

for the malice of his falsehood: but when she found that none laughed

with her, that men looked upon her with suspicious eyes, women shrunk

from her society, and children shrieked at her presence, she felt that

these were signs of truth, and her high spirit no longer struggled

against the conviction; a change came over her mind when she had known

how horrid it was to be alone. Abhorring the prophet, she yet clung to

his footsteps, and while she sat by his side, felt as if he alone could

avert that evil destiny which he alone had foreseen. With him only was

she seen to smile; elsewhere, sad, silent, stern; it seemed as if she

were ever occupied in nerving her mind for that which she had to do, and

her beauty, already of the majestic cast, grew absolutely awful, as her

perfect features assumed an expression which might have belonged to the

angel of vengeance or death.

But there were moments when her naturally strong spirit, not yet wholly

subdued, struggled against her conviction, and endeavoured to find modes

of averting her fate: it was in one of these, perhaps, that she gave her

hand to a wooer, from a distant part of the country, a sailor, who either

had not heard, or did not regard the prediction of Rhys, upon condition

that he should remove her far from her native village to the home of his

family and friends, for she sometimes felt as if the decree which had

gone forth against her, could not be fulfilled except upon the spot where

she had heard it, and that her heart would be lighter if men’s eyes would

again look upon her in kindliness, and she no longer sate beneath the

glare of those that knew so well the secret of her soul. Thus thinking,

she quitted N— with her husband; and the tormentor, who had poisoned her

repose, soon after her departure, left the village as secretly and as

suddenly as he had entered it.

But, though Ruth could depart from his corporeal presence, and look upon

his cruel visage no more, yet the eye of her soul was fixed upon his

shadow, and his airy form, the creation of her sorrow, still sat by her

side; the blight that he had breathed upon her peace had withered her

heart, and it was in vain that she sought to forget or banish the

recollection from her brain. Men and women smiled upon her as before in

the days of her joy, the friends of her husband welcomed her to their

bosoms, but they could give no peace to her heart: she shrunk from their

friendship, she shivered equally at their neglect, she dreaded any cause

that might lead to that which, it had been said, she must do; nightly she

sat alone and thought, she dwelt upon the characters of those around her,

and shuddered that in some she saw violence and selfishness enough to

cause injury, which she might be supposed to resent to blood. Then she

wept bitter tears and thought of her native village, whose inhabitants

were so mild, and whose previous knowledge of her hapless destiny might

induce them to avoid all that might hasten its completion, and sighed to

think she had ever left it in the mistaken hope of finding peace

elsewhere. Again, her sick fancy would ponder upon the modes of murder,

and wonder how her victim would fall. Against the use of actual violence

she had disabled herself; she had never struck a blow, her small hand

would have suffered injury in the attempt; she understood not the usage

of fire-arms, she was ignorant of what were poisons, and a knife she

never allowed herself, even for the most necessary purposes: how then

could she slay? At times she took comfort from thoughts like these, and

at others, in the blackness of her despair, she would cry, “If it must

be, O let it come, and these miserable anticipations cease; then I shall,

at least, destroy but one; now, in my incertitude, I am the murderer of

many!”

Her husband went forth and returned upon the voyages which made up the

avocation and felicity of his life, without noticing the deep-rooted

sorrow of his wife; he was a common man, and of a common mind; his eye

had not seen the awful beauty of her whom he had chosen; his spirit had

not felt her power; and, if he had marked, he would not have understood

her grief; so she ministered to him as a duty. She was a silent and

obedient wife, but she saw him come home without joy, and witnessed his

departure without regret; he neither added to nor diminished her sorrow:

but destiny had one solitary blessing in store for the victim of its

decrees,—a child was born to the hapless Ruth, a lovely little girl soon

slept upon her bosom, and, coming as it did, the one lone and lovely

rose-bud in her desolate garden, she welcomed it with a warmer joy and

cherished it with a kindlier hope.

A few years went by unsoiled by the wretchedness which had marked the

preceding; the joy of the mother softened the anguish of the condemned,

and sometimes when she looked upon her daughter she ceased to despair:

but destiny had not forgotten her claim, and soon her hand pressed

heavily upon her victim; the giant ocean rolled over the body of her

husband, poverty visited the cottage of the widow, and famine’s gaunt

figure was visible in the distance. Oppression came with these, for

arrears of rent were demanded, and he who asked was brutal in his anger

and harsh in his language to the sufferers. Ruth shuddered as she heard

him speak, and trembled for him and for herself; the unforgotten prophecy

arose in her mind, and she preferred even witnesses to his brutality and

her degradation, rather than encounter his anger and her own dark

thoughts alone.

Thus goaded, she saw but one thing that could save her, she fled from her

persecutors to the home of her youth, and, leading her little Rachel by

the hand, threw herself into the arms of her kin: they received her with

distant kindness, and assured her that she should not want: in this they

kept their promise, but it was all they did for Ruth and her daughter; a

miserable subsistence was given to them, and that was embittered by

distrust, and the knowledge that it was yielded unwillingly.

Among the villagers, although she was no longer shunned as formerly, her

story was not forgotten; if it had been, her terrific beauty, the awful

flashing of her eyes, her large black curls hanging like thunder-clouds

over her stern and stately brow and marble throat, her majestic stature,

and solemn movements, would have recalled it to their recollections. She

was a marked being, and all believed (though each would have pitied her,

had they not been afraid) that her evil destiny was not to be averted;

she looked like one fated to some wonderful deed. They saw she was not

of them, and though they did not directly avoid her, yet they never threw

themselves in her way, and thus the hapless Ruth had ample leisure to

contemplate and grieve over her fate. One night she sat alone in her

wretched hovel, and, with many bitter ruminations, was watching the happy

sleep of her child, who slumbered tranquilly on their only bed: midnight

had long passed, yet Ruth was not disposed to rest; she trimmed her dull

light, and said mentally, “Were I not poor, such a temptation might not

assail me, riches would procure me deference; but poverty, or the wrongs

it brings, may drive me to this evil; were I above want it would be less

likely to be. O, my child, for thy sake would I avoid this doom more

than for mine own, for if it should bring death to me, what will it not

hurl on thee?—infamy, agony, scorn.”

She wept aloud as she spoke, and scarcely seemed to notice the

singularity (at that late hour) of some one without, attempting to open

the door; she heard, but the circumstance made little impression; she

knew that as yet her doom was unfulfilled, and that, therefore, no danger

could reach her; she was no coward at any time, but now despair had made

her brave; the door opened and a stranger entered, without either

alarming or disturbing her, and it was not till he had stood face to face

with Ruth, and discovered his features to be those of Rhys Meredith, that

she sprung up from her seat and gazed wildly and earnestly upon him.

Meredith gave her no time to question; “Ruth Tudor,” said he, “behold the

cruelest of thy foes comes sueing to thy pity and mercy; I have

embittered thy existence, and doomed thee to a terrible lot; what first

was dictated by vengeance and malice became truth as I uttered it, for

what I spoke I believed. Yet, take comfort, some of my predictions have

failed, and why may not this be false? In my own fate I have ever been

deceived, perhaps I may be equally so in thine; in the mean time have

pity upon him who was thy enemy, but who, when his vengeance was uttered,

instantly became thy friend. I was poor, and thy scorn might have robbed

me of subsistence in danger, and thy contempt might have given me up.

Beggared by many disastrous events, hunted by creditors, I fled from my

wife and son because I could no longer bear to contemplate their

suffering; I sought fortune all ways since we parted, and always has she

eluded my grasp till last night, when she rather tempted than smiled upon

me. At an idle fair I met the steward of this estate drunk and stupid,

but loaded with gold; he travelled towards home alone; I could not, did

not wrestle with the fiend that possessed me, but hastened to overtake

him in his lonely ride.—Start not! no hair of his head was harmed by me;

of his gold I robbed him, but not of his life, though, had I been the

greater villain, I should now be in less danger, since he saw and marked

my person: three hundred pounds is the meed of my daring, and I must keep

it now or die. Ruth, thou too art poor and forsaken, but thou art

faithful and kind, and wilt not betray me to justice; save me, and I will

not enjoy my riches alone; thou knowest all the caves in the rocks, those

hideous hiding places, where no foot, save thine, has dared to tread;

conceal me in these till the pursuit be past, and I will give thee one

half my wealth, and return with the other to gladden my wife and son.”

The hand of Ruth was already opened, and in imagination she grasped the

wealth he promised; oppression and poverty had somewhat clouded the

nobleness, but not the fierceness of her spirit. She saw that riches

would save her from wrath, perhaps from blood, and, as the means to

escape so mighty an evil, she was not scrupulous respecting a lesser:

independently of this, she felt a great interest in the safety of Rhys;

her own fate seemed to hang upon his; she hid the ruffian in the caves

and supplied him with light and food.

There was a happiness now in the heart of Ruth—a joy in her thoughts as

she sat all the long day upon the deserted settle of her wretched

fire-side, to which they had for many years been strangers. Many times

during the past years of her sorrow she hath thought of Rhys, and longed

to look upon his face and sit beneath his shadow, as one whose presence

could preserve her from the evil fate which he himself had predicted.

She had long since forgiven him his prophecy; she believed he had spoken

truth, and this gave her a wild confidence in his power; a confidence

that sometimes thought, “if he can foreknow, can he not also avert?” She

said mentally, without any reference to the temporal good he had promised

her, “I have a treasure in those caves; _he_ is there; he who hath

foreseen and may oppose my destiny; he hath shadowed my days with sorrow,

and forbidden me, like ordinary beings, to hope: yet he is now in my

power; his life is in my hands; he says so, yet I believe him not, for I

cannot betray him if I would; were I to lead the officers of justice to

the spot where he lies crouching, he would be invisible to their sight or

to mine; or I should become speechless ere I could say, ‘Behold him.’

No, he cannot die by me!”

And she thought she would deserve his confidence, and support him in his

suffering; she had concealed him in a deep dark cave, hewn far in the

rock, to which she alone knew the entrance from the beach; there was

another (if a huge aperture in the top of the rock might be so called),

which, far from attempting to descend, the peasants and seekers for the

culprit had scarcely dared to look into, so perpendicular, dark, and

uncertain was the hideous descent into what justly appeared to them a

bottomless abyss; they passed over his head in their search through the

fields above, and before the mouth of his den upon the beach below, yet

they left him in safety, though in incertitude and fear.

It was less wonderful, the suspicionless conduct of the villagers towards

Ruth, than the calm prudence with which she conducted all the details

relating to her secret; her poverty was well known, yet she daily

procured a double portion of food, which was won by double labour; she

toiled in the fields for the meed of oaten cake and potatoes, or she

dashed out in a crazy boat on the wide ocean to win with the dredgers the

spoils of the oyster beds that lie on its bosom; the daintier fare was

for the unhappy guest, and daily did she wander among the rocks, when the

tides were retiring, for the shell-fish which they had flung among the

fissures in their retreat, which she bore, exhausted with fatigue, to her

home—and which her lovely child, now rising into womanhood, prepared for

the luxurious meal; it was wonderful too, the settled prudence of the

little maiden, who spoke nothing of the food which was borne from their

frugal board; if she suspected the secret of her mother, she respected it

too much to allow others to discover that she did so.

Many sad hours did Ruth pass in the robber’s cave; and many times, by

conversing with him upon the subject of her destiny, did she seek to

alleviate the pangs its recollection gave her; but the result of such

discussions were by no means favourable to her hopes; Rhys had

acknowledged that his threat had originated in malice, and that he

intended to alarm and subdue, but not to the extent that he had effected:

“I knew well,” said he, “that disgrace alone would operate upon you as I

wished, for I foresaw you would glory in the thought of nobly sustained

misfortune; I meant to degrade you with the lowest; I meant to attribute

to you what I now painfully experience to be the vilest of the vices; I

intended to tell you, you were destined to be a thief, but I could not

utter the words I had arranged, and I was struck with horror at those I

heard involuntarily proceeding from my lips; I would have recalled them

but I could not; I would have said, ‘Maiden, I did but jest,’ but there

was something that seemed to withhold my speech and press upon my soul,

‘so as thou hast said shall this thing be’—yet take comfort, my own

fortunes have ever deceived me, and doubtlessly ever will, for I feel as

if I should one day return to this cave and make it my final home.”

He spoke solemnly and wept,—but the awful eye of his companion was

unmoved as she looked on in wonder and contempt at his grief. “Thou

knowest not how to endure,” said she to him, “and as soon as night shall

again fall upon our mountains, I will lead thee forth on thy escape; the

danger of pursuit is now past; at midnight be ready for thy journey,

leave the cave, and ascend the rocks by the path I shewed thee, to the

field in which its mouth is situated; wait me there a few moments, and I

will bring thee a fleet horse, ready saddled for the journey, for which

thy gold must pay, since I must declare to the owner that I have sold it

at a distance, and for more than its rated value.”

That midnight came, and Meredith waited with trembling anxiety for the

haughty step of Ruth; at length he saw her, she had ascended the rock,

and, standing on its verge, was looking around for her guest; as she was

thus alone in the clear moonlight, standing between rock and sky, and

scarcely seeming to touch the earth, her dark locks and loose garments

scattered by the wind, she looked like some giant spirit of the older

time, preparing to ascend into the mighty black cloud which singly hung

from the empyreum, and upon which she already appeared to recline;

Meredith beheld her and shuddered,—but she approached and he recovered

his recollection.

“You must be speedy in your movements,” said she, “when you leave me;

your horse waits on the other side of this field, and I would have you

hasten lest his neighings should betray your purpose. But, before you

depart, Rhys Meredith, there is an account to be settled between us: I

have dared danger and privations for you; that the temptations of the

poor may not assail me, give me my reward and go.”

Rhys pressed his leathern bag to his bosom, but answered nothing to the

speech of Ruth: he seemed to be studying some evasion, for he looked upon

the ground, and there was trouble in the working of his lip. At length

he said cautiously, “I have it not with me; I buried it, lest it should

betray me, in a field some miles distant; thither will I go, dig it up,

and send it to thee from B—, which is, as thou knowest, my first

destination.”

Ruth gave him one glance of her awful eye when he had spoken; she had

detected his meanness, and smiled at his incapacity to deceive. “What

dost thou press to thy bosom so earnestly?” she demanded; “surely thou

art not the wise man I deemed thee, thus to defraud _my_ claim: thy

friend alone thou mightest cheat, and safely; but I have been made

wretched by thee, guilty by thee, and thy life is in my power; I could,

as thou knowest; easily raise the village, and win half thy wealth by

giving thee up to justice; but I prefer reward from thy wisdom and

gratitude; give, therefore, and be gone.”

But Rhys knew too well the value of the metal of sin to yield one half of

it to Ruth; he tried many miserable shifts and lies, and at last, baffled

by the calm penetration of his antagonist, boldly avowed his intention of

keeping all the spoil he had won with so much hazard. Ruth looked at him

with scorn: “Keep thy gold,” she said; “if it thus can harden hearts, I

covet not its possession; but there is one thing thou must do, and that

ere thou stir one foot. I have supported thee with hard earned industry,

_that_ I give thee; more proud, it should seem, in bestowing than I could

be, from such as thee, in receiving: but the horse that is to bear thee

hence to-night I borrowed for a distant journey; I must return with it,

or with its value; open thy bag, pay me for that, and go.”

But Rhys seemed afraid to open his bag in the presence of her he had

wronged. Ruth understood his fears; but, scorning vindication of _her_

principles, contented herself with entreating him to be honest. “Be more

just to thyself and me,” she persisted: “the debt of gratitude I pardon

thee; but, I beseech thee, leave me not to encounter the consequence of

having stolen from my friend the animal which is his only means of

subsistence: I pray thee, Rhys, not to condemn me to scorn.”

It was to no avail that Ruth humbled herself to entreaties; Meredith

answered not, and while she was yet speaking, cast side-long looks

towards the gate where the horse was waiting for his service, and seemed

meditating, whether he should not dart from Ruth, and escape her

entreaties and demands by dint of speed. Her stern eye detected his

purpose; and, indignant at his baseness, and ashamed of her own

degradation, she sprung suddenly towards him, made a desperate clutch at

the leathern bag, and tore it from the grasp of the deceiver. Meredith

made an attempt to recover it, and a fierce struggle ensued, which drove

them both back towards the yawning mouth of the cave from which he had

just ascended to the world. On its very verge, on its very extreme edge,

the demon who had so long ruled his spirit now instigated him to

mischief, and abandoned him to his natural brutality: he struck the

unhappy Ruth a revengeful and tremendous blow. At that moment a horrible

thought glanced like lightning through her soul; he was to her no longer

what he had been; he was a robber, ruffian, liar; one whom to destroy was

justice, and perhaps it was he—. “Villain!” she cried, “thou—thou didst

predict that I was doomed to be a murderer! art thou—art thou destined to

be the victim?” She flung him from her with terrific force, as he stood

close to the abyss, and the next instant heard him dash against its

sides, as he was whirled headlong into the darkness.

It was an awful feeling, the next that passed over the soul of Ruth

Tudor, as she stood alone in the pale sorrowful-looking moonlight,

endeavouring to remember what had chanced. She gazed on the purse, on

the chasm, wiped the drops of agony from her heated brow, and then, with

a sudden pang of recollection, rushed down to the cavern. The light was

still burning, as Rhys had left it, and served to shew her the wretch

extended helplessly beneath the chasm. Though his body was crushed, his

bones splintered, and his blood was on the cavern’s sides, he was yet

living, and raised his head to look upon her, as she darkened the narrow

entrance in her passage: he glared upon her with the visage of a demon,

and spoke like a fiend in pain. “Me hast thou murdered!” he said, “but I

shall be avenged in all thy life to come. Deem not that thy doom is

fulfilled, that the deed to which thou art fated is done: in my dying

hour I know, I feel what is to come upon thee; thou art yet again to do a

deed of blood!” “Liar!” shrieked the infuriated victim. “Thou art yet

doomed to be a murderer!” “Liar!” “Thou art—and of—thine only child!”

She rushed to him, but he was dead.

Ruth Tudor stood for a moment by the corpse blind, stupefied, deaf, and

dumb; in the next she laughed aloud, till the cavern rung with her

ghastly mirth, and many voices mingled with and answered it; but the

noises scared and displeased her, and in an instant she became stupidly

grave; she threw back her dark locks with an air of offended dignity, and

walked forth majestically from the cave. She took the horse by his rein,

and led him back to his stable: with the same unvarying calmness she

entered her cottage, and listened to the quiet breathings of her sleeping

child; she longed to approach her nearer, but some new and horrid fear

restrained her, and held back her anxious step: suddenly remembrance and

reason returned, and she uttered a shriek so full of agony, so loud and

shrill, that her daughter sprung from her bed, and threw herself into her

arms.

It was in vain that the gentle Rachel supplicated her mother to find rest

in sleep. “Not here,” she muttered, “it must not be here; the deep cave

and the hard rock, these shall be my resting place; and the bedfellow,

lo! now, he waits my coming.” Then she would cry aloud, clasp her Rachel

to her beating heart, and as suddenly, in horror thrust her from it.

The next midnight beheld Ruth Tudor in the cave, seated upon a point of

rock, at the head of the corpse, her chin resting upon her hands, gazing

earnestly upon the distorted face. Decay had already begun its work; and

Ruth sat there watching the progress of mortality, as if she intended

that her stern eye should quicken and facilitate its operation. The next

night also beheld her there, but the current of her thoughts had changed,

and the dismal interval which had passed appeared to be forgotten. She

stood with her basket of food: “Wilt thou not eat?” she demanded; “arise,

strengthen thee for thy journey; eat, eat, thou sleeper; wilt thou never

awaken? look, here is the meat thou lovest;” and as she raised his head,

and put the food to his lips, the frail remnant of mortality shattered at

her touch, and again she knew that he was dead.

It was evident to all that a shadow and a change was over the senses of

Ruth; till this period she had been only wretched, but now madness was

mingled with her grief. It was in no instance more apparent than in her

conduct towards her beloved child: indulgent to all her wishes,

ministering to all her wants with a liberal hand, till men wondered from

whence she derived the means of indulgence, she yet seized every

opportunity to send her from her presence. The gentle-hearted Rachel

wept at her conduct, yet did not complain, for she believed it the effect

of the disease, that had for so many years been preying upon her soul.

Her nights were passed in roaming abroad, her days in the solitude of her

hut; and even this became painful, when the step of her child broke upon

it. At length she signified that a relative of her husband had died and

left her wealth, and that it should enable her to dispose of herself as

she had long wished; so leaving Rachel with her relatives in N—, she

retired to a hut upon a lonely heath, where she was less wretched,

because abandoned to her wretchedness.

In many of her ravings she had frequently spoken darkly of her crime, and

her nightly visits to the cave; and more frequently still she addressed

some unseen thing, which she asserted was for ever at her side. But few

heard these horrors, and those who did, called to mind the early

prophecy, and deemed them the workings of insanity in a fierce and

imaginative mind. So thought also the beloved Rachel, who hastened daily

to embrace her mother, but not now alone as formerly; a youth of the

village was her companion and protector, one who had offered her worth

and love, and whose gentle offers were not rejected. Ruth, with a

hurried gladness, gave her consent, and a blessing to her child; and it

was remarked that she received her daughter more kindly, and detained her

longer at the cottage, when Evan was by her side, than when she went to

the gloomy heath alone. Rachel herself soon made this observation, and

as she could depend upon the honesty and prudence of him she loved, she

felt less fear at his being a frequent witness of her mother’s terrific

ravings. Thus all that human consolation was capable to afford was

offered to the sufferer by her sympathising children.

But the delirium of Ruth Tudor appeared to increase with every nightly

visit to the cave of secret blood; some hideous shadow seemed to follow

her steps in the darkness, and sit by her side in the light. Sometimes

she held strange parley with this creation of her phrensy, and at others

smiled upon it in scornful silence; now, her language was in the tones of

entreaty, pity, and forgiveness; anon, it was the burst of execration,

curses, and scorn. To the gentle listeners her words were blasphemy;

and, shuddering at her boldness, they deemed, in the simple holiness of

their own hearts, that the evil one was besetting her, and that religion

alone could banish him. Possessed by this idea, Evan one day suddenly

interrupted her tremendous denunciations upon her fate, and him who, she

said, stood over her to fulfil it, with imploring her to open the book

which he held in his hand, and seek consolation from its words and its

promises. She listened, and grew calm in a moment; with an awful smile

she bade him open, and read at the first place which should meet his eye:

“from that, the word of truth, as thou sayest, I shall know my fate; what

is there written I will believe.” He opened the book, and read—

“_Whither shall I go from thy spirit_, _or whither shall I flee from thy

presence_? _If I go up into heaven_, _thou art there_; _if I make my bed

in hell_, _thou art there_; _If I take the wings of the morning_, _and

dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea_, _even there shall thy hand lead

me_, _and thy right hand shall hold me_.”

Ruth laid her hand upon the book: “it is enough; its words are truth; it

hath said there is no hope, and I find comfort in my despair: I have

already spoken thus in the secrecy of my heart, and I know that he will

be obeyed; the unnamed sin must be—.” Evan knew not how to comfort, so

he shut up his book and retired; and Rachel kissed the cheek of her

mother, as she bade her a tender good night. Another month and she was

to be the bride of Evan, and she passed over the heath with a light step,

for the thought of her bridal seemed to give joy to her mother. “We

shall all be happy then,” said the smiling girl, as the youth of her

heart parted from her hand for the night; “and heaven kindly grant that

happiness may last.”

The time appointed for the marriage of Rachel Tudor and Evan Edwards had

long passed away, and winter had set in with unusual sternness even on

that stormy coast; when, during a land tempest, on a dark November

afternoon, a stranger to the country, journeying on foot, lost his way in

endeavouring to find a short route to his destination, over stubble

fields and meadow lands, by following the footmarks of those who had

preceded him. The stranger was a young man, of a bright eye and a hardy

look, and he went on buffeting the elements, and buffeted by them,

without a thought of weariness, or a single expression of impatience.

Night descended upon him as he walked, and the snow storm came down with

unusual violence, as if to try the temper of his mind, a mind cultivated

and enlightened, though cased in a frame accustomed to hardships, and

veiled by a plain, nay almost rustic exterior. The thunder roared loudly

above him, and the wind blowing tremendously, raised the new-fallen snow

from the earth, which, mingling with the showers as they fell, raised a

clatter about his head which bewildered and blinded the traveller, who,

finding himself near some leafless brambles and a few clustered bushes of

the mountain broom, took shelter under them to recover his senses, and

reconnoitre his position. “Of all these ingredients for a storm,” said

he smilingly to himself, “the lightning is the most endurable after all;

for if it does not kill, it may at least cure, by lighting the way out of

a labyrinth, and by its bright flashes I hope to discover where I am.”

In this hope he was not mistaken: the brilliant and beautiful gleam

shewed him, when the snow shower had somewhat abated, every stunted bush

and blade of grass for some miles, and something, about the distance of

one, that looked like a white-washed cottage of some poor encloser of the

miserable heath upon which he was now standing. Full of hope of a

shelter from the storm, and, lit onwards by the magnificent torch of

heaven, the stranger trod cheerily forwards, and in less than half an

hour, making full allowance for his retrograding between the flashes,

arrived at his beacon the white cottage, which, from the low wall of

loose limestones by which it was surrounded, he judged to be, as he had

already imagined, the humble residence of some poor tenant of the manor.

He opened the little gate, and was proceeding to knock at the door, when

his steps were arrested by a singular and unexpected sound; it was a

choral burst of many voices, singing slowly and solemnly that magnificent

dirge of the church of England the 104th psalm. The stranger loved

music, and the sombrous melody of that fine air had an instant effect

upon his feelings; he lingered in solemn and silent admiration till the

majestic strain had ceased; he then knocked gently at the door, which was

instantly and courteously opened to his inquiry.

On entering, he found himself in a cottage of a more respectable interior

than from its outward appearance he had been led to expect: but he had

little leisure or inclination for the survey of its effects, for his

senses and imagination were immediately and entirely occupied by the

scene which presented itself on his entrance. In the centre of the room

into which he had been so readily admitted, stood, on its tressels, an

open coffin; lights were at its head and foot, and on each side sat many

persons of both sexes, who appeared to be engaged in the customary

ceremony of watching the corse previous to its interment in the morning.

There were many who appeared to the stranger to be watchers, but there

were but two who, in his eye, bore the appearance of mourners, and they

had faces of grief which spoke too plainly of the anguish that was

mingling within: one, at the foot of the coffin, was a pale youth just

blooming into manhood, who covered his dewy eyes with trembling fingers

that ill concealed the tears which trickled down his wan cheeks beneath:

the other—; but why should we again describe that still unbowed and lofty

form? The awful marble brow upon which the stranger gazed, was that of

Ruth Tudor.

There was much whispering and quiet talk among the people while

refreshments were handed amongst them; and so little curiosity was

excited by the appearance of the traveller, that he naturally concluded

that it must be no common loss that could deaden a feeling usually so

intense in the bosoms of Welsh peasants: he was even checked for an

attempt to question; but one man,—he who had given him admittance, and

seemed to possess authority in the circle,—told him he would answer his

questions when the guests should depart, but till then he must keep

silence. The traveller endeavoured to obey, and sat down in quiet

contemplation of the figure who most interested his attention, and who

sat at the coffin’s head. Ruth Tudor spoke nothing, nor did she appear

to heed aught of the business that was passing around her. Absorbed by

reflection, her eyes were generally cast to the ground; but when they

were raised, the traveller looked in vain for that expression of grief

which had struck him so forcibly on his entrance; there was something

wonderfully strange in the character of her perfect features: could he

have found words for his thought, and might have been permitted the

expression, he would have called it triumphant despair; so deeply

agonised, so proudly stern; looked the mourner who sat by the dead.

The interest which the traveller took in the scene became more intense

the longer he gazed upon its action; unable to resist the anxiety which

had begun to prey upon his spirit, he arose and walked towards the

coffin, with the purpose of contemplating its inhabitant: a sad

explanation was given, by its appearance, of the grief and the anguish he

had witnessed; a beautiful girl was reposing in the narrow house, with a

face as calm and lovely as if she but slept a deep and refreshing sleep,

and the morning sun would again smile upon her awakening: salt, the

emblem of the immortal soul, was placed upon her breast; and, in her pale

and perishing fingers, a branch of living flowers were struggling for

life in the grasp of death, and diffusing their sweet and gracious

fragrance over the cold odour of mortality. These images, so opposite,

yet so alike, affected the spirit of the gazer, and he almost wept as he

continued looking upon them, till he was aroused from his trance by the

strange conduct of Ruth Tudor, who had caught a glimpse of his face as he

bent in sorrow over the coffin. She sprung up from her seat, and darting

at him a terrible glance of recognition, pointed down to the corse, and

then, with a hollow burst of frantic laughter, shouted—“Behold, thou

liar!”

The startled stranger was relieved from the necessity of speaking by some

one taking his arm and gently leading him to the farther end of the

cottage: the eyes of Ruth followed him, and it was not till he had done

violence to himself in turning from her to his conductor, that he could

escape their singular fascination. When he did so, he beheld a venerable

man, the pastor of a distant village, who had come that night to speak

comfort to the mourners, and perform the last sad duty to the dead on the

morrow. “Be not alarmed at what you have witnessed, my young friend,”

said he; “these ravings are not uncommon: this unhappy woman, at an early

period of her life, gave ear to the miserable superstitions of her

country, and a wretched pretender to wisdom predicted that she should

become a shedder of blood: madness has been the inevitable consequence in

an ardent spirit, and in its ravings she dreams she has committed one

sin, and is still tempted to add to it another.”

“You may say what you please, parson,” said the old man who had given

admittance to the stranger, and who now, after dismissing all the guests

save the youth, joined the talkers, and seated himself on the settle by

their side; “you may say what you please about madness and superstition;

but I know Ruth Tudor was a fated woman, and the deed that was to be I

believe she has done: ay, ay, her madness is conscience; and if the deep

sea and the jagged rocks could speak, they might tell us a tale of other

things than that: but she is judged now; her only child is gone—her

pretty Rachel. Poor Evan! he was her suitor: ah, he little thought two

months ago, when he was preparing for a gay bridal, that her slight

sickness would end thus: _he_ does not deserve it; but for her—God

forgive me if I do her wrong, but I think it is the hand of God, and it

lies heavy, as it should.” And the grey-haired old man hobbled away,

satisfied that in thus thinking he was shewing his zeal for virtue.

“Alas, that so white a head should acknowledge so hard a heart!” said the

pastor; “Ruth is condemned, according to his system, for committing that

which a mightier hand compelled her to do; how harsh and misjudging is

age! But we must not speak so loud,” continued he; “for see, the youth

Evan is retiring for the night, and the miserable mother has thrown

herself on the floor to sleep; the sole domestic is rocking on her stool,

and therefore I will do the honours of this poor cottage to you. There

is a chamber above this, containing the only bed in the hut; thither you

may go and rest, for otherwise it will certainly be vacant to-night: I

shall find a bed in the village; and Evan sleeps near you with some of

the guests in the barn. But, before I go, if my question be not

unwelcome and intrusive, tell me who you are, and whither you are bound.”

“I was ever somewhat of a subscriber to the old man’s creed of fatalism,”

said the stranger, smiling, “and I believe I am more confirmed in it by

the singular events of this day. My father was a man of a certain rank

in society, but of selfish and disorderly habits. A course of

extravagance and idleness was succeeded by difficulties and distress.

Harassed by creditors, he was pained by their demands, and his

selfishness was unable to endure the sufferings of his wife and children.

Instead of exertion, he had recourse to flight, and left us to face the

difficulties from which he shrunk. He was absent for years, while his

family toiled and struggled with success. Suddenly we heard that he was

concealed in this part of the coast; the cause which made that

concealment necessary I forbear to mention; but he as suddenly

disappeared from the eyes of men, though we never could trace him beyond

this part of the country. I have always believed that I should one day

find my father, and have lately, though with difficulty, prevailed upon

my mother to allow me to make my inquiries in this neighbourhood; but my

search is at an end to-day,—I believe that I have found my father.

Roaming along the beach, I penetrated into several of those dark caverns

of the rocks, which might well, by their rugged aspects, deter the idle

and the timid from entering. Through the fissures of one I discovered,

in the interior, a light. Surprised, I penetrated to its concealment,

and discovered a man sleeping on the ground. I advanced to awake him,

and found but a fleshless skeleton, cased in tattered and decaying

garments. He had probably met his death by accident, for exactly over

the corpse I observed, at a terrific distance, the daylight, as if

streaming down from an aperture above. Thus the wretched man must have

fallen, but how long since, or who had discovered his body, and left the

light which I beheld, I knew not, though I cannot help cherishing a

strong conviction that it was the body of Rhys Meredith that I saw.”

“Who talks of Rhys Meredith,” said a stern voice near the coffin, “and of

the cave where the outcast rots?” They turned quickly at the sound, and

beheld Ruth Tudor standing up, as if she had been intently listening to

the story. “It was I who spoke, dame,” said the stranger gently, “and my

speech was of my father, of Rhys Meredith; I am Owen his son.”

“Son! Owen Rhys!” said the bewildered Ruth, passing her hand over her

forehead, as if to enable her to recover the combinations of these names;

“and who art thou, that thus givest human ties to him who is no more of

humanity? why speakest thou of living things as pertaining to the dead?

Father! he is father to nought save sin, and murder is his only

begotten!”

She advanced to the traveller as she spoke, and again caught a view of

his face; again he saw the wild look of recognition, and an unearthly

shriek followed the convulsive horror of her face. “There! there!” she

said, “I knew it must be thyself; once before to-night have I beheld

thee, yet what can thy coming bode? Back with thee, ruffian! for is not

thy dark work done?”

“Let us leave her,” said the good pastor, “to the care of her attendant;

do not continue to meet her gaze your presence may increase, but cannot

allay her malady: go up to your bed and rest.”

He retired as he spoke; and Owen, in compliance with his wish, ascended

the ruinous stair which led to his chamber, after he had beheld Ruth

Tudor quietly place herself in her seat at the open coffin’s head. The

room to which he mounted was not of the most cheering aspect, yet he felt

that he had often slept soundly in a worse. It was a gloomy unfinished

chamber, and the wind was whistling coldly and drearily through the

uncovered rafters above his head. Like many of the cottages in that part

of the country, it appeared to have grown old and ruinous before it had

been finished; for the flooring was so crazy as scarcely to support the

huge wooden bedstead, and in many instances the boards were entirely

separated from each other, and in the centre, time, or the rot, had so

completely devoured the larger half of one, that through the gaping

aperture Owen had an entire command of the room and the party below,

looking down immediately above the coffin. Ruth was in the same attitude

as when he left her, and the servant girl was dozing by her side. Every

thing being perfectly tranquil, Owen threw himself upon his hard couch,

and endeavoured to compose himself to rest for the night, but this had

become a task, and one of no easy nature to surmount; his thoughts still

wandered to the events of the day, and he felt there was some strange

connexion between the scene he had just witnessed, and the darker one of

the secret cave. He was an imaginative man, and of a quick and feverish

temperament, and he thought of Ruth Tudor’s ravings, and the wretched

skeleton of the rock, till he had worked out in his brain the chain of

events that linked one consequence with the other: he grew restless and

wretched, and amidst the tossings of impatient anxiety, fatigue

overpowered him, and he sunk into a perturbed and heated sleep. His

slumber was broken by dreams that might well be the shadows of his waking

reveries. He was alone (as in reality) upon his humble bed, when

imagination brought to his ear the sound of many voices again singing the

slow and monotonous psalm; it was interrupted by the outcries of some

unseen things who attempted to enter his chamber, and, amid yells of fear

and execrations of anger, bade him “Arise, and come forth, and aid:” then

the coffined form which slept so quietly below, stood by his side, and in

beseeching accents, bade him “Arise and save her.” In his sleep he

attempted to spring up, but a horrid fear restrained him, a fear that he

should be too late; then he crouched like a coward beneath his coverings,

to hide from the reproaches of the spectre, while shouts of laughter and

shrieks of agony were poured like a tempest around him: he sprung from

his bed and awoke.

It was some moments ere he could recover recollection, or shake off the

horror which had seized upon his soul. He listened, and with infinite

satisfaction observed an unbroken silence throughout the house. He

smiled at his own terrors, attributed them to the events of the day, or

the presence of a corse, and determined not to look down into the lower

room till he should be summoned thither in the morning. He walked to the

casement, and looked abroad to the night; the clouds were many, black,

and lowering, and the face of the sky looked angrily at the wind, and

glared portentously upon the earth; the _sleet_ was still falling;

distant thunder announced the approach or departure of a storm, and Owen

marked the clouds coming from afar towards him, laden with the rapid and

destructive lightning: he shut the casement and returned towards his bed;

but the light from below attracted his eye, and he could not pass the

aperture without taking one glance at the party.

They were in the same attitude in which he had left them; the servant was

sleeping, but Ruth was earnestly gazing on the lower end of the room upon

something, without the sight of Owen; his attention was next fixed upon

the corpse, and he thought he had never seen any living thing so lovely;

and so calm was the aspect of her last repose, that Meredith thought it

more resembled a temporary suspension of the faculties, than the eternal

stupor of death: her features were pale, but not distorted, and there was

none of the livid hue of death in her beautiful mouth and lips; but the

flowers in her hand gave stronger demonstration of the presence of the

power, before whose potency their little strength was fading; drooping

with a mortal sickness, they bowed down their heads in submission, as one

by one they dropped from her pale and perishing fingers. Owen gazed,

till he thought he saw the grasp of her hand relax, and a convulsive

smile pass over her cold and rigid features; he looked again; the

eye-lids shook and vibrated like the string of some fine-strung

instrument; the hair rose, and the head cloth moved: he started up

ashamed: “Does the madness of this woman affect all who would sleep

beneath her roof?” said he; “what is this that disturbs me—or am I yet in

a dream? Hark! what is that?” It was the voice of Ruth; she had risen

from her seat, and was standing near the coffin, apparently addressing

some one who stood at the lower end of the room: “To what purpose is thy

coming now?” said she, in a low and melancholy voice, “and at what dost

thou laugh and gibe? lo! you; she is here, and the sin you know of,

cannot be; how can I take the life which another hath already withdrawn?

Go, go, hence to thy cave of night, for this is no place of safety for

thee.” Her thoughts now took another turn; she seemed to hide one from

the pursuit of others; “Lie still! lie still!” she whispered; “put out

thy light! so, so, they pass by and mark thee not; thou art safe; good

night, good night! now will I home to sleep;” and she seated herself in

her chair, as if composing her senses to rest.

Owen was again bewildered in the chaos of thought, but for this time he

determined to subdue his imagination, and, throwing himself upon his bed,

again gave himself up to sleep; but the images of his former dreams still

haunted him, and their hideous phantasms were more powerfully renewed;

again he heard the solemn psalm of death, but unsung by mortals—it was

pealed through earth up to the high heaven, by myriads of the viewless

and the mighty: again he heard the execrations of millions for some

unremembered sin, and the wrath and the hatred of a world was rushing

upon him: “Come forth! come forth!” was the cry; and amid yells and howls

they were darting upon him, when the pale form of the beautiful dead

arose between them, and shielded him from their malice; but he heard her

say aloud, “It is for this, that thou wilt not save me; arise, arise, and

help!”

He sprung up as he was commanded; sleeping or waking he never knew; but

he started from his bed to look down into the chamber, as he heard the

voice of Ruth loud in terrific denunciation: he looked; she was standing,

uttering yells of madness and rage, and close to her was a well-known

form of appalling recollection—his father, as he had seen him last; he

arose and darted to the door: “I am mad,” said he; “I am surely mad, or

this is still a continuation of my dream:” he looked again; Ruth was

still there, but alone.

But, though no visible form stood by the maniac, some fiend had entered

her soul, and mastered her mighty spirit; she had armed herself with an

axe, and shouting, “Liar, liar, hence!” was pursuing some imaginary foe

to the darker side of the cottage: Owen strove hard to trace her motions,

but as she had retreated under the space occupied by his bed, he could no

longer see her, and his eyes involuntarily fastened themselves upon the

coffin; there a new horror met them; the dead corpse had risen, and with

wild and glaring eyes was watching the scene before her. Owen distrusted

his senses till he heard the terrific voice of Ruth, as she marked the

miracle he had witnessed; “The fiend, the robber!” she yelled, “it is he

who hath entered the pure body of my child. Back to thy cave of blood,

thou lost one! back to thine own dark hell!” Owen flew to the door; it

was too late; he heard the shriek—the blow: he _fell_ into the room, but

only in time to hear the second blow, and see the cleft hand of the

hapless Rachel fall back upon its bloody pillow; his terrible cries

brought in the sleepers from the barn, headed by the wretched Evan, and,

for a time, the thunders of heaven were drowned in the clamorous grief of

man. No one dared to approach the miserable Ruth, who now, in utter

frenzy, strode around the room, brandishing, with diabolical grandeur,

the bloody axe, and singing a wild song of triumph and joy. All fell

back as she approached, and shrunk from the infernal majesty of her

terrific form; and the thunders of heaven rolling above their heads, and

the flashings of the fires of eternity in their eyes, were less terrible

than the savage glare and desperate wrath of the maniac:—suddenly, the

house rocked to its foundation; its inmates were blinded for a moment,

and sunk, felled by a stunning blow, to the earth;—slowly each man

recovered and arose, wondering he was yet alive;—all were unhurt, save

one. Ruth Tudor was on the earth, her blackened limbs prostrate beneath

the coffin of her child, and her dead cheek resting on the rent and

bloody axe;—it had been the destroyer of both.

THE YELLOW DWARF.

A TALE OF THE ORANGE TREE.

Oranges and Lemons.

EVERY body knows, or at least ought to know, with what an uproar of

delight the birth of an heir to any noble family was celebrated in the

old baronial times of fisty-cuff memory; exactly such a festival would

we, the humble historian of the illustrious house of Tecklenburgh,

describe, if we knew how to render justice to the outrageous mirth which

shook the old castle to its very foundation, on the day of the eventful

morn on which the lady of the eldest son of the family had presented her

lord, and his no less expecting father the count, with a new prop to the

seat of their ancient dignities. It was amid the mingled uproar of

trumpets, bells, soldiers, women, horses, and dogs, that the respectable

purple-nosed dominican, who was confessor to the family, gave a blessing

and a name to its future representative; and immediately after the

ceremony, the knights and nobles, wearied by the blows given and received

in the jousts, retired to the dining hall with the threefold intention of

filling their empty stomachs with something better than the east wind,

solacing their spirits with the biting jests of the count’s fool, and

curing their wounds and bruises of the morning by bathing them in flagons

of rhenish, till the moon should look down upon the evening.

But happiness will not endure for ever; like riches, she maketh herself

wings and fleeth away: the company, after picking the flesh of the huge

wild boar to the bone, began to stare at each other with bleared eyes,

ask querulous questions with stuttering tongues, and reply with solemn

and important visages; and the count of Tecklenburgh, fearing that his

youngest son, the handsome Sir Ludolph, would soon grow as wise as the

rest of the party, and of course utterly unfit for business, withdrew him

quietly from the table and conducted him to his private apartment; there,

seating himself in his state chair and enrobing his person, with an air

of paternal dignity he solemnly demanded of his son, if he had, according

to his particular order, considered the subject of their last conference.

The young knight answered, without any hesitation, that he had not, for

that the subject was so disagreeable to him that he had never suffered it

to enter his mind since; that he was determined not to become a monk,

that he thought the tonsure excessively unbecoming, and that he had no

inclination to pray every time St. Benedict’s bells should ring; and he

added moreover, that he was resolved to carve himself out a fortune with

his sword, and for that purpose intended to set off immediately for the

court of the injured princes of Thuringia, whose cause was a just and

honourable one, and make them an offer of his services: all this was said

with an air of so much determination and composure, as partly to disturb,

and partly to amuse the gravity of the count of Tecklenburgh; but

considering within himself for a few moments, he thought this last

project of his son was not quite so foolish as he had at first been

willing to imagine it. In addition to high courage and many knightly

acquirements, Ludolph possessed a very handsome person, and this idea

connecting itself with the beautiful sister of the princes of Thuringia,

he began to think that it would be a pity to hide that fine form under a

greasy cassock; he reflected that should the three sons of Albert the

Depraved get their brains knocked out in the skirmish, (a consummation

devoutly to be wished, and, from their warlike character and powerful

enemies, very likely to happen,) their possessions would descend to their

sister, who might possibly fall in love with his handsome son, and then

possibly the margraviate of Thuringia might finally centre in his family.

These, and many other possibilities working in the brain of father

Tecklenburgh, worked a change in his countenance also; and Ludolph seeing

a smile, or something like one, hovering over his iron features, judged

it a favourable opportunity for re-enforcing his petition, which he did

with all the zeal and eloquence he could muster—eloquence which touched

the heart of his tender father, for he assured him that if he would

permit him to depart, he would not draw the smallest piece of copper from

his treasury to fit him out for the expedition, but would make his aunt’s

legacy of relics answer every purpose. This last remonstrance settled

the business; count Tecklenburgh, finding it was to cost him nothing,

gave his consent to the measure, and made his son happy in his own way,

though, if that happiness had cost him a single cruitzner, he would have

held fast to the tonsure in spite of all the repugnance of poor Ludolph;

as it was, he gave him his blessing, and dismissed him with much good

advice, but not a single coin, and the knight was too happy in the

granted permission to grieve at his father’s lack of liberality. With a

lightened heart he went for his holy legacy, which he found much heavier

than he had expected; every bone and rag was carefully marked with the

name of its original owner, and, after getting the monk to read him their

titles, and affix a value to each article, he hastened to dispose of his

sanctified treasure. He imagined the most likely persons to bid

handsomely for his commodities would be the monks, who paid such

respectful and humble reverence to cargoes of that description; but,

after visiting a convent of Dominicans situated near the castle, in this

instance he found himself most grievously mistaken; these holy pedlars

were much too wise to buy what they had long found their account in

selling: they had already a good stock on hand, and, when this should be

exhausted, they could manufacture others at a much cheaper rate than they

could purchase them of count Ludolph: so he carried his legacy to the

nuns, who rejected it instantaneously, doubting whether the articles were

genuine. From the nuns he went to all the orders of mendicants, who

treated him and his relics with great contempt, cried down his cargo, and

impudently asserted that the leg of St. Bridget, which he had considered

the most valuable article in the pious collection, was the leg of a woman

who was hung some years before for sorcery in Nuremburg, as they

themselves had the real original limb of the saint in their possession.

Thus disappointed among the shorn lambs of the fold, Ludolph determined

to seek for purchasers among the laity, and accordingly found them in the

persons of priest-ridden princes, crusading nobles, pilgrim knights, and

convent-founding ladies: the great variety of his good aunt’s collection

enabled him to gratify the tastes of all, for his box contained one

member or other of every saint mentioned in the monk of Treves’s

martyrology. St. Bridget’s leg he sold at a high price to a miserable

old noble who had grown rich by rapine, and who trusted by this measure

to scare away the goblins and spectres who nightly kept their revels

round his bed. The thumb of St. Austin was purchased by a beautiful

princess, as the guard of her chastity amid the allurements of a court,

and was suspended like a camphor bag around her delicate neck; while the

illustrious mother of a reprobate young knight earnestly hoped, by

tacking a piece of the hair shirt of St. Jerome to the shirt of her son,

to effect a reformation in his morals, and an amendment in his manners.

There were always abundance of fools in the world, and in those

unlettered times it did not require the light of a lantern to look for

them. Ludolph thought so, as, with a lightened box but a heavy purse, he

returned to Tecklenburgh to fit out for his expedition. Hosen, boots,

vests, tunics, hoods, harness, and arms, were all ready in a short time;

for when a man has money, every thing else under the sun is very much at

his service. His appointments were all of the handsomest kind; his

device was a boar, and his colours were blue and scarlet. And thus,

having equipped the knight and sent him forward, let us look back for a

little, to ascertain whither he is going, and for what purpose when he

shall arrive there.

The cause of the princes of Thuringia was, as count Ludolph had truly

stated, a just and honourable one: their father, Albert the Depraved, had

disinherited them, and banished their mother, in favour of a worthless

mistress and his illegitimate son, for whom he anxiously endeavoured to

procure the investiture of his dominions after his decease. Not

succeeding in this notable project, and bent upon the ruin of his own

children, he sold his landgraviate of Misnia to the emperor Adolphus, who

dying before he could be benefited by his purchase, bequeathed this

right, to which he had no right at all, to his brother Philip of Nassau,

who, poor in character, and still poorer in purse, was now levying an

army, aided by the emperor Albert, to deprive the legitimate heir,

Frederic with the Bite, and his brother Dictman, of their rights and

possessions. To this project they were by no means disposed to consent,

more especially as their mother, Margaret, daughter of Frederic the

Redbeard, continually kept alive their resentment against their worthless

father and his abandoned associates. This princess, on being years

before separated from her children by her husband, had requested

permission to take leave of them ere their departure, which being

granted, she, in the frenzy of rage and grief, left a singular memorial

of her wrongs with her eldest son; she bit a piece out of his cheek, and

the impression remaining upon his face for ever, inflamed his indignation

against the original author of this disfigurement; so that, when capable

of bearing arms, he deposed his father and assumed his place, to thrust

him from which Philip of Nassau was now threatening, and to oppose whom

half Germany was rising in arms to assist the cheek-bitten Frederic, and

among many others the handsome knight of Tecklenburgh.

Margaret of Suabia, the mother of the princes, during the early part of

her life, had been confined by her husband in the castle of Wartzburg, in

order that she might be removed the more readily into a still smaller

abode, whenever the proper opportunity should occur, and which he piously

determined not to neglect. She was at this period in a situation which

might have interested any man but such a husband, for she promised to

increase his illustrious family by an additional son or daughter; but as

he cared for no children but the son of his mistress Cunegunda, this

circumstance rather operated against the poor princess, who was left to

amuse herself as well as she could in superintending the infancy of her

sons, and hunting in the haunted forest of Eisenac. One day, while thus

diverting her attention from the many anxieties which oppressed her, she

found herself suddenly separated from her attendants; but hearing a horn

sound to the right, she spurred on her palfrey in that direction, till,

after an hour’s hard riding, she began to fear she was removing still

further from her people, for no sound could she hear but that of the

eternal bugle, no hoof-tramp but that of her own steed. Still the horn

sounded, and still the princess galloped, till at length, wearied by her

exercise, and finding herself in a large open plain, she dismounted to

reconnoitre; at the same moment she remarked the silence of the horn, and

the appearance of a gigantic orange tree, loaded with fine fruit, in the

centre of the tranquil plain. Astonishment she certainly felt on

beholding so extraordinary and beautiful an object; but hunger and

fatigue had entirely banished all notions of fear; besides, dame

Margaret, having no small share of the curiosity of her grandmother Eve,

could no more resist the temptation of tasting these oranges, than the

first woman did the apple; so climbing up into the tree, she regaled

herself to her heart’s content with this fine fruit of the forest. By

the time she had fairly dined, and was as weary of eating as she had

previously been of riding, she bethought her of the boys at home, and

with what glee they would have marched to the sack of the orange tree;

but as that was not possible, she determined they should not be without

share of the spoil, and therefore began to fill her huge pockets with the

ripest and largest of the fruit. But this action displeased the

hospitable master of the table at which she had been so plentifully

regaled; “Eat, but take nothing away,” had been one of his maxims, and he

was mortally offended to see this honest rule set at nought in the person

of a princess, a lady who, he thought, ought to have understood better

manners. Before, therefore, she had laid up provisions for the march, a

little shrill voice from the tree commanded her highness “not to steal

his fruit,” and, at the same instant, there issued from the trunk, which

opened to give him a passage, a figure which effectually satisfied the

curiosity of the princess of Suabia. The animal which now quickly

ascended the tree, and placed himself _vis à vis_ with her highness, was

a little deformed man, about three feet and a half high, with a face as

yellow as the oranges upon which he lived, hair of the same hue hanging

down to his heels, and a monstrous beard, of the same bilious complexion,

gracefully descending to his feet; if you add to this, the gaiety of his

yellow doublet, short cloak, and hose, you will not wonder that Margaret

did not altogether relish the _tête à tête_ in which she found herself so

suddenly and singularly placed, independent of the awkwardness of paying

a first visit in the boughs of a tree. “Princess,” said the little

yellow devil, after staring at her some time with his two huge goggling

yellow eyes, “what business have you here?” “I have lost my way,” she

replied, “and being fatigued, was going to gather an orange to appease my

hunger:” but he, without the least respect for his guest, or the rank of

an emperor’s daughter, rudely answered, “Woman, you lie! you were

stealing my property to carry away.” At this insolent reproach,

Margaret, whose patience was never proverbial, felt a strong inclination

to treat the demon as she afterwards did her son; but fearing that the

little gentleman might not endure it quite so temperately, prudently

restrained this effort of her indignation, and only said, “I did not know

the tree had any other owner than myself, or I would not have gathered

any; what I have eaten I cannot restore, but here is the last I have

taken;” and she threw it rather roughly at the Dwarf, who, irritated

excessively at this behaviour, told her, grinning hideously, and

exhibiting for her admiration his monstrous overgrown yellow claws, that

he had a strong temptation to tear her to pieces, which nothing but his

wish to be allied to the blood of the emperors should have prevented.

“My oranges,” said he, “which you have stolen, I estimate above all

price, except that which I am going to demand: I am a powerful demon, and

rule with unbounded sway many thousand spirits; but I am unhappy in not

having a wife with whom to share my power; as Adam was not delighted in

Paradise, neither am I in my Orange Tree, without a companion. You are

about to present an infant to your lord, who is utterly indifferent about

the matter; it will be a girl, and I demand her in marriage on the day

she will be twenty years old: consent to be my mother, and I will avenge

your injuries upon your husband, and load you with honours and riches;

refuse, and I will tear you in pieces this moment, and furnish my supper

table with your carcase.” Margaret, who had never been so terrified in

all her life, and would not only have given her daughter, but her sons

and husband into the bargain, to have got away, readily promised to agree

with the Dwarf’s wishes, who now became exceedingly polite, embraced his

dear mother, and assured her of his devotion. He then informed her he

would give her notice some months before he should claim his wife, placed

her carefully and tenderly upon her palfrey, and mounting behind, spurred

on the animal, who flew like the wind to the entrance of the forest;

where again embracing his good mother, he dismounted and disappeared.

Margaret, freed from the odious company of the Yellow Dwarf, began to

reflect with no very pleasant feelings upon her present adventure and

future prospects. She was, indeed, safe out of the orange-coloured

clutches of her dutiful and well-beloved son; and, vexed as she was by

the horrible promise she had been obliged to make, she could not help

congratulating herself with great sincerity upon this circumstance, and

began, like all who have just escaped a present danger, to make light of

the evils in the distance. The farther she cantered from the Orange

Tree, the easier her mind became; and taking a few hints from “Time, the

comforter,” she reflected that many things might occur before the

expiration of twenty years: it was a long period to look forward; the

little yellow devil might die, (and, indeed, she could not but allow that

he looked most miserably ill,) or he might forget his bargain, or he

might be conquered and killed by some black, pea-green, or true blue

devil, who might be stronger or more powerful than himself; or, in case

of the worst, she could secure her daughter in some strong castle or

convent, or marry her, before the expiration of the term, to some prince

capable of protecting her; at all events, thought Margaret, “sufficient

to the day is the evil thereof;” and, delighted by these soothing

reflections, and charmed to find herself in a whole skin, she trotted

along with great complacency, and arrived quite comforted before the

gates of Wartzburg.

CHAPTER II.

“These yellow cowslip cheeks,

And eyes as green as leeks.”

TWENTY years is indeed a long period to look forward, but a very short

one to look back, and so thought the now widowed princess, when, nineteen

years and some months after her adventure in the forest, she sat beside

her lovely daughter in the palace of Erfurt, listening with earnest and

tender attention to the plans of her warlike sons, for wresting their

dominions from the iron grasp of Albert the One-eyed and Philip of

Nassau. It was necessary that they should give battle to their enemies;

and as the margrave of Misnia intended to fight for his country in

person, this would unavoidably deprive her beloved daughter of that

powerful protection which hitherto had been her security against the

threats of the Yellow Dwarf. It now wanted but six months of the period

when he had determined to claim his bride; and as he had not hitherto

given any indication, according to his word, of his appearance for this

purpose, she trusted he might have forgotten it altogether, and, quietly

resolving not to complain of this breach of promise, forbore to mention

the subject to her children.

One day, during the bustle of preparation for the approaching warfare, a

knight, splendidly attired, arrived at the palace, and demanded to be

introduced to the princess Margaret, who no sooner beheld him, than she

recognised in the colour of his arms the livery of her dear son-in-law,

the Dwarf of the Orange Tree. He announced himself as the knight of the

king of the oranges, and his embassy was to place abundance of gold at

the feet of the princess Margaret, and to carry away her daughter as the

bride of his master. Concealment was no longer possible, so sending for

her children, she informed them of her forest adventure, and its

unfortunate result. Poor Brunilda fainted away; her brothers swore as

lustily as ever queen Elizabeth did, and fairly bullied the knight

ambassador for his presumption in daring to think of their sister as a

helpmate for the little dirty low-lived sorcerer his master; and

Margaret, who before their entrance had been absolutely terrified to

death by his presence, now finding herself protected, suffered her tongue

to wag at a most unconscionable rate against the poor ambassador. She

told him she had a great mind to cut off his ears, for bringing her such

a message; that his master was a little conceited monster; that if, with

all this gold and silver, he would buy a fine castle, cut off his beard,

and live like a gentleman, he should not want her interest with one of

the dairy-maids, but as it was, the thing was utterly impossible, he

would not succeed even with the lowest scullion. “Madam,” replied the

knight, with a grim kind of gravity, which was not half relished by the

princess, “I would have you to understand I came not hither to bandy

words with you, nor to listen to a catalogue of my master’s perfections:

I must, however, inform you, that he would not part from his Orange Tree,

nor with his beard, for all the princesses in the universe, the fair

Brunilda included. If you do not think proper to keep your promise, he

will find means to oblige you: neither does he require human aid to

obtain his betrothed bride; but his gallantry and good nature will not

allow him to force the will of the fair princess, if he can relinquish

his determination with honour. He is fully aware of your present

repugnance to his nuptials, and he is now whispering me to say, that if

the princess herself declines his vows (which he can hardly believe), he

will release her upon condition of her finding a champion that shall

conquer me, and afterwards my invincible master, before the six months

have expired, in single combat on horseback, on foot, with lance or

sword, according to his highness’s good pleasure at the time of meeting:

shall I say these terms are accepted?” “You may,” replied the margrave,

to whom these conditions did not appear very hard, and who thought it

better to comply with than refuse them, as he was not aware of the

strength of the enemy to whom his mother’s promise had really been given;

and he remembered he should probably be compelled to leave his lovely

sister unprotected, while absent on his distant wars. The arrangements

were, therefore, soon made, and the yellow champion was satisfied.

And now a splendid scene opened to view in the territories of Frederic

with the bitten cheek. No sooner each day had the bells rung out the

hour of prime, than the trumpet sounded to proclaim the challenge of the

yellow knight, and the promise of the margrave of Misnia, that the

successful champion of the fair Brunilda should obtain her hand for his

reward. Day after day did some knight essay the adventure; and day after

day did the noble Margaret enter the lists, attended by her lovely

daughter, who looked, through her fan of peacock’s feathers, as charming,

and carried herself as “daintily,” as whilom did the beauteous Esther,

when she entered into the presence of the loving Ahasuerus. But not like

that beautiful daughter of the scorners of pork did she obtain her

petition; for day after day was she compelled to witness the ruin of her

hopes in the repeated triumphs of the yellow Haman over her own black,

brown, or party-coloured champions: knight after knight fell beneath his

ponderous arm, and were obliged to resign their claims to the fair

Brunilda, to her infinite regret, and their bitter mortification.

Already had the counts of Wartzburg, Oettingen, Henneberg, Hanau, and

Conrad of Reida, been compelled to acknowledge the superiority of his

powerful arm, when the arrival of the handsome knight of Tecklenburgh,

who just came in time to hear a week’s rest proclaimed, in order to gain

time for the approach of other knights from the more distant parts of

Germany to the aid of the endangered princess, revived the hopes of

Brunilda. He came, he saw, he conquered—not the sword of the yellow

champion, but the heart of the charming princess, which was formed of too

tender materials to hold out against so well-looking and redoubted a

warrior: she fell instantly in love with him to distraction, and he, on

his part, was too well bred to be behind-hand. In the extravagance of

her fondness, she thought all things possible to her lover, and made no

doubt that he would be victorious in the combat. Ludolph was precisely

of the same opinion, and, to manifest its justice, was most irritably

impatient for the day of combat, which was still at the distance of

several halting sun-risings and sun-settings, which that long-legged old

ragamuffin Time did not carry off, in the opinion of the lovers, quite so

rapidly as he ought to have done.

But it came at last, that day, that morning of miracles; it came, and

brought nothing with it to daunt the brave spirit of the knight of

Tecklenburgh. Light as the plume in his casque, gay as the colours of

his harness, he entered the lists, and gallantly opposed his person

against the ponderous carcase of the yellow-coloured champion. Blow

after blow was freely given, and as freely received, till the spectators

began to doubt whether either of the men before them was really made of

flesh and blood. Proof decisive, however, was soon given, for the sword

of Ludolph cleft the helmet of his antagonist, and dashed his weapon from

his hand, so that, defenceless and at the mercy of his conqueror, he

yielded up his claim to victory, and was content to beg his life. The

acclamations of the people proved to Ludolph the difficulty of the

conquest he had just achieved. The nobles were all anxious to testify

their esteem and admiration, though some in their hearts were bursting

with envy, and felt themselves almost choked by the fine things they

thought it necessary to utter. Ludolph took them all in good faith, with

perfect confidence in their sincerity, for he was too happy and too

honest to suspect; and then turning to the poor champion, whom he hardly

allowed time to recover breath, recommended him to return to his little

lord, and bear his defiance, as he should quietly wait to fulfil the last

condition ere he received the hand of the beautiful Brunilda. The Yellow

Champion took the advice thus kindly offered him, and quitted the palace

of Erfurt, leaving his conqueror busy enough in accepting those

disinterested professions of service which are seldom offered except to

those who do not want them, or from whom an adequate return may not

unreasonably be expected.

Ludolph waited with great impatience the Dwarf’s reply to his challenge.

His time was passed, meanwhile, in making love to the princess (who on

her part was tolerably well disposed to listen to him), and laying up a

stock of devotion, by prayer and fasting, to serve, as occasion should

warrant, in the approaching combat with the demon, of whose power he had

formed other notions, since his residence in the Misnian court, than

either thinking him so harmless or so insignificant as he had formerly

done. But the days rolled on, and no dwarf appeared. Margaret, who

sincerely admired the valour of Ludolph, was anxious to end his suspense,

and Brunilda’s terrors, by uniting him at once to her daughter, without

waiting for the presence of the Lord of the Orange Tree, of whom she

could never think without shuddering; but the margrave, who, much as he

loved his sister and her noble deliverer, was too much of a gentleman to

break his word, even with a dwarf, determined they should stay the full

time allotted by the demon. The latter was too gallant, and too much in

love with the princess, to forget his engagement, and accordingly one

morning, as the trumpets were sounding the usual summons to the lists,

the Dwarf himself entered them in his customary dress, mounted upon a

yellow steed, and surrounded by a large troop of knights in his colours.

The nobles and ladies of the margrave’s court, struck by the oddity of

his appearance, entirely forgot their politeness, and burst into as

hearty and unanimous a laugh as ever was heard in our lower House at any

of Joe H—’s blunders. But it was no laughing matter to Brunilda: she

saw, for the first time, her intended husband, and she felt that his

ugliness even exceeded her mother’s report, and heaven knows that had not

been flattering. She cast a look of tender entreaty upon Ludolph, who,

impatient to punish his rival and relieve her anxiety, couched his lance,

and spurred forward to meet the demon, who, not to be behind-hand in

courtesy, advanced to receive him. But the knight suddenly sprung back,

on observing the singular dress of his adversary, the extraordinary

lightness of whose accoutrements struck him with astonishment. “Sir

knight of the Orange Tree,” said he, “except the lance in your hand and

the sword in your belt, I see no sort of preparation for a combat;

sheathe your person in harness, I pray you, that so at least the chances

may be more equal between us.” “What is that to thee?” replied the

Dwarf; “it is my pleasure to fight in these garments: thief as thou art,

conquer me in them if thou canst. For thee, sweet lady, I am here, to

prove my right to thy hand, to rescue it from this craven, and fear not

but I shall deserve it: my palace is ready, thy dowry is ready, and twice

a thousand slaves wait to obey thy wishes.” Ludolph could not endure

this insolence, so rushing forward as the yellow knights retired from the

person of their leader, he began a most furious attack upon the animal

who pretended to rival him in the affections of his lady. Alas! poor

Brunilda! if she had trembled before, during the combats with the yellow

knight, what anxiety must not have filled her bosom now! The lances were

soon shivered to pieces: the champions drew their swords, but seemed to

make very little impression with them. Ludolph had not yet received a

wound, and yellow-jacket seemed determined to make good his boast, and

hold the knight of Tecklenburgh a tug. Vain was all the skill and

strength of the latter; though he struck with all his might and main, and

heart and soul, he could not cut through a single hair of the Dwarf’s

long beard, which seemed to wag at him in derision. Poor Brunilda sat as

uneasily upon her canopied throne as if she had been upon a bed of

nettles. She prayed to all the saints in heaven, and St. Henry the

Limper in particular, to assist her dear knight in this terrible combat:

but St. Henry the Limper was not in good humour, or was otherwise

engaged, for he did not appear to pay the least attention to her request,

and Ludolph was left to fight it out by himself as he could. In truth,

he did not want inclination to put an end to the business. After pegging

and poking at every inch of the Dwarf’s invulnerable carcase, he espied a

little unguarded spot on the left side of his throat, exactly open to his

right hand. Delighted by the prospect of slicing off his ragamuffin

head, he aimed a mighty blow with all his force, which the little demon

parried; he struck a second with no better success; but the third was

triumphant, for it sent the yellow head flying from the shoulders, and

bounding to another part of the area. The knight leaped from his saddle

to seize the head and hold it up to the view of the people; but in this

race, to his horror, he was outstripped by the Dwarf himself, who

likewise, darting from his horse, flew to the head, grasped it firmly,

gave it a shake, clapped it upon his shoulders, and fixed it again as

firmly and steadily as ever. Then, ere the spectators could recover from

the stupor into which this unexpected contretemps had thrown them, he

struck the staring Ludolph to the ground, seized the princess by her

flowing locks, swung her behind him, and bolted out of the area. His

knights wheeled round to follow him, but the Misnian nobles, recovering

from their confusion, surrounded them with drawn swords, and began a

desperate battle, in which it appeared they clearly had the worst, only

hacking and hewing each other; for the knights, squires, pages, and

horses of the enemy suddenly vanished from their sight, and in their

places appeared a waggon load of oranges bowling and rolling about the

area in the most amusing manner possible. It was some time ere the

nobles could direct their attention to the unfortunate count of

Tecklenburgh, who, stunned by the blow given to him as the parting

blessing of the spiteful Dwarf, was lying insensible on the ground: the

moment he recovered, he declared his intention of pursuing the enemy, in

which he was seconded by all the knights present, who, headed by Margaret

as guide and commander, resolved to storm the Orange Tree itself, and

liberate the captive damsel. They set forward with great courage and in

good order; but they might just as effectively have stayed at home, for,

after wandering about the forest for three days, they returned

crestfallen enough, not only being unable to discover the Orange Tree,

but even the plain in which it stood! Poor Ludolph, whom the princes had

vainly endeavoured to comfort with the assurance that he had fairly

gained the victory, though he had lost the fruit of it, did not return

with them. They lost him from their company the first day of their

search, and they firmly and devoutly believed the yellow devil had hooked

him also in his infernal claws. Margaret gave herself up to grief, and

her sons, finding nothing else was to be done, endeavoured to forget

theirs in the bustle of the approaching war.

CHAPTER III.

Ha!—sure a pair!

_S. Dro_. I, Sir, am Dromio! command him away.

_E. Dro_. I, Sir, am Dromio; pray let me stay.

IN the meantime Brunilda was jogging on at no easy rate behind the Yellow

Dwarf, who, when arrived at the Orange Tree, opened the trunk by a sign,

and, dismounting, bore his lovely burthen into it. She felt herself,

immediately after, descending a flight of steps, which, from the duration

of time, appeared to be endless. They did terminate, however, at last,

and the Dwarf, placing her roughly upon her feet, retired swiftly from

the place, closing the entrance at the bottom of the stairs carefully

after him. It was some time after his departure ere Brunilda took

courage to open her eyes and look around her; when she did, she found

herself in a subterraneous apartment as large as the bed-chamber of the

empress Constance. {77} Every article about it was of silver, and there

was a magnificence about this underground palace, which made her conclude

it to be the castle and principal residence of her intended husband, the

Yellow Dwarf, whose company she did not covet, and who, to do him

justice, did not appear to torment her. Food was supplied, and every

attention paid to her wishes by many attendants of both sexes, who,

however, never exchanged one single word in her hearing. Wearied out by

this continual taciturnity, she began to wish for the sound of a human

voice, and, thinking she might probably learn something of the Dwarf’s

intentions from himself, she one day, instead of questioning her dumb

attendants as usual about her lover, demanded some tidings of their

master. “He cannot approach your presence, madam,” replied one of the

mutes, breaking his hateful silence, “unless you request his appearance.

A mighty spirit, one of the enemies of my master’s and your felicity, has

contrived this misfortune by his spells, but, if you command it, he is

permitted to attend you.” Brunilda, who, in giving this required

permission, never dreamed of any thing more than making inquiries after

her family and lover, was confounded to hear the Dwarf, with the most

rapturous impertinence, volubly thank her for this approval of his, and

generous acknowledgment of her passion. Putting aside his long beard

lest it should throw him down, he knelt fantastically at her feet, seized

her white hand, and declared himself the happiest of all demon-born

beings. It was in vain that Brunilda reasoned, entreated, and scolded:

he protested he was satisfied with the proofs she had given of her love,

and, in order to spare her modesty the pain of appearing to yield too

soon, he should put a gentle restraint upon her liberty, and not suffer

her to quit his palace till she became his wife. At this avowal the poor

princess grew outrageous; she asked the little monster how he had dared

to select a princess of her exalted rank to share his hole under ground,

and burrow like rats in the earth? why he had not rather chosen some

humble cast-away maiden, who, having nothing in the world to lose, might

be contented out of it? “Rank!” replied the irritated little demon, “and

what is this rank of which you are so vain? An imaginary splendour

bestowed upon some men by the cringing servility of others,—the weak

fancy that decks one with this supremacy, gives birth to the slavish fear

that ensures to him its possession. Rank!” continued the atrabilious

little viper, swelling into a respectable width by the overflowing of his

angry venom, “rank! it is power gained by force, won by the sword, by

fraud, by oppression! The strongest is the noblest; and if so, I am more

than your equal, beautiful Brunilda, for, princess as you are, you are my

captive, and I am your master.” Brunilda wept at this insolence, and,

like all who know not how to controvert what they yet cannot bear to

acknowledge, hated the Dwarf more than ever, and resolved to prove it to

him by seizing every opportunity of annoying him. With this laudable

intention, she renewed the attack by commenting with great severity upon

his frightful little person: she sneered at his long beard, short legs,

and large head. She demanded if he had ever looked in a mirror, and, if

he had, how he could presume to imagine he could captivate any woman

under such a detestable form? In no age have ugly people borne to be

laughed at, for, however hideous they may happen to be, they seldom find

it out themselves, and are, in consequence, very much surprised and

offended when informed of it by others; and, as vanity is usually the

reigning passion of the most disfigured, they seldom pardon an offence

which is mortal. The Dwarf, the ugliest animal the eyes of Brunilda had

ever encountered, could hardly believe this possible, and saw no joke in

her mirth at his expense, and, as he had his full share of that precious

commodity, vanity, he raved, stormed, and became so insolent, that

Brunilda was compelled to order him out of her presence. This command,

which he was obliged to obey, irritated the little creature to madness,

and he swore, that, since he could not enter her presence without her

permission, he would find a mode of making her give it whenever he should

condescend to require it. This threat had more of truth in it than

Brunilda imagined. A few days after this animated conversation, the

Dwarf sent to ask leave to be allowed to pay his visit to the princess,

which was immediately refused. This threw him into a rage, and he

informed the princess, by one of his mutes, “that her lover Ludolph of

Tecklenburgh was in his power, and that his head should pay for the scorn

with which she thought proper to treat her lord and husband.” Poor

Brunilda hastily gave the required permission, upon condition that

Ludolph should accompany him; and her “lord and husband,” as he styled

himself, entered a few moments after, followed by the knight, whom his

demons had seized in the forest. “There, madam,” said he, grinning like

Grimaldi, but not so merrily, “I found this stranger in the neighbourhood

of my Orange Tree, and I have brought him hither to secure a welcome for

myself. Did I not tell you I would make you glad to receive me? Here

shall this valorous knight remain, a hostage for your good behaviour; and

never shall you receive him without admitting me at the same moment.”

Brunilda, who would have been delighted, in her present condition, to

have seen any human being whatever, was in raptures at the sight of

Ludolph, who, on his part, was content with his captivity, since he

shared it with her; and, unrestrained by the presence of the Dwarf, they

so often and so tenderly repeated their mutual delight to each other,

that their grim jailer could not endure the sight of their happiness,

and, rather than witness it, withdrew himself and Ludolph from the

company of Brunilda, which he did not again seek for some time. When,

attended by Ludolph, he next entered her apartment, his jealous tortures

were increased by the renewed endearments of the lovers, and, resolving

in his own mind not to endure what he flattered himself he could easily

remedy, he threw a spell over the unlucky Brunilda, which he generously

hoped would destroy all the little tranquillity she enjoyed. The charm

operated upon the sight of the princess, who no longer beheld her lover,

but a hideous negro advancing towards her. Brunilda was terrified, but,

reassured by the explanation of the Dwarf, who felicitated himself on her

mortification, she resolved to punish him in kind; so collecting all the

woman in her soul, and conquering her dislike of the ugly shape he

presented to her, she gave it a most affectionate welcome, and caressed

it as her dear Ludolph. The Dwarf would willingly have annihilated him;

but, obliged to keep him in existence to ensure himself admittance to

Brunilda, he resolved to embitter that existence as much as lay in his

power, and, having once more recourse to his spells, the handsome

Ludolph, unchanged to himself, appeared to the eyes of the fascinated

princess a furious and monstrous tiger, armed with tremendous fangs and

claws. But love penetrates all disguises, and the princess was now a

match for the sorcerer. She knew that the fangs and claws, however

terrible to others, had no danger for her, and she suffered him to lie at

her feet, kiss her snowy hand, and put his shaggy head upon her lap,

without manifesting the slightest apprehension, to the great annoyance of

the Dwarf, whose dull wit was sharpened by his jealousy, and he now

contrived the master-piece of spells, to the increased misery of poor

Brunilda, over whose clouded senses the charm once more operating,

presented her beloved Ludolph only under the form of the Yellow Dwarf

himself. This transformation was horrible to both the sufferers, for

each of the figures maintained that he was the knight, and persisted in

execrating the other as the impostor, while Brunilda, wearied with gazing

on their hateful countenances, dared not afford the slightest notice to

either, lest she should bestow the tenderness designed for Ludolph upon

his detestable rival. In vain did she weep, threaten, and supplicate the

Dwarf to give her lover “any shape but that.” She knew not even to which

of the pair she ought to address her petition. But the demon was

inexorable, listened unmoved to her sorrows, for his heart was as hard as

Pharaoh’s, and even inwardly laughed at her agonies. In vain did she

examine their features in the hope of discovering some slight difference

that might point out her lover: both grinned the same ghastly smile,—both

exhibited the same unvarying ugliness of feature. Alas, poor Brunilda!

Lavater himself could not have assisted thee, though, hadst thou lived in

our days, or Dr. Spurzheim in thine, some professional examination of the

cerebral organisation of the two dwarfs might have set the question at

rest. Doubtless, some bump extraordinary, some wonderful dilation of the

organ of self-esteem in the skull of the true dwarf, or amativeness or

combativeness in that of the false one, might have aided thee to discover

the unbrutified soul confined in the brutified body. But, as it was,

they were both brutes to Brunilda, and, as she had no wish to charm the

Yellow Dwarf, she wept her disappointment incessantly. Nor was Ludolph

less busy than the princess in employing threats and prayers by turns to

mollify the Dwarf, though one was to as little purpose as the other, in

the presence of the princess. The cunning demon reiterated the same

whining petition, used the same arguments, and denounced the same

vengeance as the unhappy Ludolph; and when retired from her apartment,

laughed at his success, and replied to every threat with mingled hate and

defiance. It was in vain that Ludolph accused him of having broken all

the laws of chivalry, held even by demons so sacred. He told him he

regarded no laws, except those which he had made himself. It was to no

purpose he argued his right to be set at liberty at least. The Dwarf,

who was a philosopher in his way, replied that men had no rights, and

that “_might_,” which he possessed, was a much better argument, and a

more effective weapon. All this was unluckily true, but it did not

convince the Westphalian. Zeno, the stoic, said, “that we had two ears,

and but one tongue, that we might hear much and say little.” It was a

wise observation, and happy are those who profit thereby: our two

captives might, if they had had the good luck ever to have heard it; but

as they had not, they acted directly counter, for they so heartily used

their two tongues, and so entirely spared their four ears, that their

jailer grew outrageous, and therefore, except when he went to torment

Brunilda, he resolved to free himself from the society of the count of

Tecklenburgh, who paid for his garrulity by being condemned to talk to

himself in one of the most dreary dungeons of the cavern. Here he had

full leisure to think of his misfortunes, and execrate the contriver of

them. He prayed night and morning with all the strength of lungs he

could command, to all the saints in the calendar, to give him a lift out

of this purgatory. He was too good a Christian not to abhor all thought

of magic; but, finding how little notice was taken of his petition by the

higher powers, he could not help thinking of the lower, and wishing and

vowing, that if some sorcerer, witch, or even devil, would but come to

his assistance now, he would find time enough for repentance hereafter,

and heal his conscience, and propitiate Heaven by many good deeds to be

done in perspective. “I would walk to Jerusalem, for a penance,” said

he, “or give the spoils I shall take in my next battle to the church, or

I would, when I shall be able, endow an abbey. Either of these designs

would be satisfactory,” continued he, “and oh that I had the good luck to

be able to put them into execution! Oh that some friendly spirit, some

gnome of these caverns, or demon of this forest, would but come to my

assistance!” No sooner said than done: the sinner trembled at the

instant fulfilment of his wicked wish, and began with real alarm to

suspect that he was a bit of a conjurer himself; for there arose in a

moment, from the bosom of the earth, a gigantic dusky-looking figure in

the human shape, inquiring his commands. “I could not come to your

assistance,” said the object, “till you summoned me, or you should not

have suffered so long. I am the mortal foe of the Yellow Dwarf, and the

legitimate prince of these mines, into which he has intruded himself,

during my absence on a short journey I made to the centre. He has fixed

himself pretty firmly in my palace by his spells, but I shall contrive to

dispossess him. I will begin by assisting you: speak, knight of

Tecklenburgh, how can I serve you?” Ludolph, who, recovered from his

first fright, desired nothing better, immediately struck a bargain with

the friendly gnome; the first article of which was, that he should

liberate himself and the princess. “I can free you instantly,” replied

the gnome, “but the spells around the princess are too powerful to be

suddenly broken; nevertheless, with your help it may finally be done. We

must possess ourselves of the charm in which lies the power of the Dwarf,

this, unfortunately, is his beard; for it will be a work of difficulty to

master it. Could you, in your combat, have cut off that, instead of his

head, all would have been well: but, as long as that beard hangs to his

chin, his body is invulnerable, for, cut him into fifty pieces, and he

will unite together again. Notwithstanding all these difficulties,

observe faithfully all my directions, and, ultimately, we may accomplish

our wishes. Beneath those mountains of Bohemia which bound the

marquisate of Misnia, there is a diamond mine, as yet unknown to the

human race, whose sacrilegious hands have not there torn open the heart

of their mother earth and disturbed the spirits who sleep in her bosom.

There, concealed many fathoms beneath the mountain, has been hidden for

centuries the magic weapon which alone can conquer the Yellow Dwarf. It

is that identical pair of scissors with which the demon Fate cuts asunder

your mortal destinies; these, and these only, can secure our enemy. It

will be in vain to cut off his head so long as he retains his beard, and

that beard is unapproachable, except to the magic scissors of fate: the

chief difficulty will be in obtaining possession of this wonderful

instrument, since only a knight of unstained loyalty, pure, spotless,

free from all taint of libertinism, drunkenness, and bloodshed, can take

them from the hands of the statue which holds them, without incurring the

severe penalty of instant death. When such a knight shall be found, the

scissors must be put into the hands of a spotless virgin, for only such

can use them in cutting off the formidable beard; should any other woman

attempt it, the inevitable consequences would be also death from the

scissors themselves.” Poor Ludolph was as much depressed by the end of

this discourse as he had been elevated by the beginning. Such a knight

it was indeed next to impossible to find. He himself was as good and

true as most; his loyalty was indeed unstained, he had not shed blood in

a murderous or treacherous manner; but he had been too frequently engaged

in his father’s petty, and often unjustifiable wars, to undertake an

enterprise that demanded hands free from stain. Then, as for

drunkenness, alas! for poor Ludolph, though naturally a very sober man,

he knew he had too often shared many a “t’other flask,” and too

frequently drowned his fears of the abbot of Fulda in the big bowl of

Tecklenburgh, to permit him any chance of success in the achievement. In

his own person, therefore, he gave it directly up, satisfied of his

incapacity from the fore-mentioned weaknesses, without carrying his

self-examination any further, but at the same time almost despairing of

finding a substitute. “For the spotless virgin, friendly gnome,” said

the honest Westphalian, “there I have better hopes, since there are

enough at court, and I shall find this part of my task easy enough.”

“Not quite so easy as you imagine, knight,” replied the gnome, “since

there is not an unmarried lady in all Thuringia who will not lay claim to

that honour, and you may thus be the innocent cause of the death of many;

but I can assist you here, and make this part of the undertaking much

less difficult. Here is a magic girdle; obtain permission to try it,

without speaking of its virtues, upon the ladies of the margrave’s court.

Should the dame who shall buckle it on be a deceiver, the girdle, though

now appearing of a large size, will shrink into the smallest compass, and

will not even encircle her slender waist: should the lady be the object

of your search, it will set closely and gracefully to her form.” “A

thousand thanks,” replied the honest knight; “I have no fears for my

success in this point, and perhaps I may be more fortunate than I expect

in the other. Now then, generous friend, accomplish your kind intention,

release me from this dungeon, and I will immediately hasten to Eisenac

and seek a maiden who may assist to break these abominable enchantments.”

“I will,” replied the spirit, “but do not forget that to other eyes as

well as Brunilda’s, you still wear the form of the Yellow Dwarf; this is

occasioned by three orange-coloured hairs, from his formidable beard,

tied round your right arm; unloose them, and you will appear to others as

you do to yourself and me. Be under no alarm for the safety of the

princess, since I have already prevented your enemy’s entering her

presence without her permission, and will still continue to watch over

her.” The knight again thanked the gnome for his friendly care, and

shutting his eyes, by command of his companion, and opening them again

the next instant, found himself, to his infinite joy, standing near the

Orange Tree, round which his horse was quietly grazing. He soon sprang

lightly into his saddle, and turned his head from the wood, determined to

reach Eisenac ere daybreak. With this resolution he spurred on gaily,

thinking of the joy he should feel upon liberating his beloved Brunilda,

when, in a turn of the wood, he suddenly encountered a troop of knights

in the livery of the Yellow Dwarf. A cold shivering seized him, for he

expected to be dragged back again neck and heels to the Orange Tree,

when, to his utter astonishment, they all lowly saluted and respectfully

made way for him to pass. He now remembered that he had not yet removed

the orange-coloured hairs from his arm, and, feeling himself indebted to

this circumstance for his safety, resolved to let them remain till he

should be quite out of the infernal forest. Dwelling fondly upon his

hopes and brightening prospects, the young morning sun found him entering

Eisenac, where he was greeted with a loud shout by a troop of boys, who

seemed to recognise an old acquaintance. Soon the boy crowd was

augmented by a multitude of citizens, who surrounded Ludolph, yelling

like fiends, seized his bridle, pinioned his arms, and saluted him with a

volley of dreadful curses. “Sorcerer, robber, demon!” rung in his ears

in all directions, and, while the uproar raged in its greatest violence,

he was dragged from his horse, and thrown on the ground. At this

extraordinary treatment, the count demanded to be conducted to the

margrave, to the princess Margaret. He was told that the court had

quitted Eisenac, but they were resolved to burn him alive in revenge for

his treatment of their beloved princess, and the noble count Ludolph, her

destined husband. Solomon said, that “fear is nothing else than a

betraying the succours which reason offereth;” and, in this case, it was

most truly so, for the knight’s agitation, in the first part of the

attack, had made him forget in time to remove the orange-coloured hairs

from his arm. Their last exclamation had shewn him their mistake, and

his own fatal imprudence. Now he found that he was in danger of being

burnt alive for the sins of the execrable Dwarf, unless he could

immediately free himself from the charm. “Hear me, dear friends,” he

cried, “I am truly the unhappy Ludolph, but your eyes are bewitched by

the sorceries of that abominable demon, and you see me only under his

resemblance; release my arms for one moment, and I will convince you.”

At this insult to their understandings, the wise men of Eisenac set up a

most tremendous howl, and were still more anxious to collect faggots for

his service. They kicked, buffeted, and reviled his person till he was

almost delirious with rage, and the foamings of his indignation confirmed

them in their belief that he really was, what he appeared, the demon of

the Orange Tree. During one of the pauses made by his guards to listen

to his earnest entreaties for a moment’s liberty, he found means to

disengage his hands from their grasp, tore open his sleeve, and furiously

rending away the slight bandage of hair, stood before them in his own

proper person. Astonishment for a moment tied up the tongues of the

assembly, but quickly recovering themselves before Ludolph could gain

time to explain, they declared it a new piece of sorcery, and swore that

the form of their gallant favourite should not shield the wizard who they

firmly believed was his murderer. The magistrates and officers of

Eisenac, aroused by the news of the seizure of the demon Dwarf, had

assembled upon the spot, and startled by the wonders they now heard,

trembled to think of the consequences of the unbridled fury of the mob,

should the story told by the equivocal knight be really true. Anxious to

avoid the spilling of innocent blood, they proposed conveying him to

prison, and awaiting the decision of the margrave; but the people

anticipated a sight, and rather than lose so excellent a joke as that of

roasting a sorcerer, they would willingly have run the hazard of

sacrificing even Ludolph himself. But the magistrates, much to their

honour, continued firm, and, through their interference, poor Ludolph,

who already felt the flames crackling under him, with much difficulty

obtained permission to say a few words to them in his defence. “Noble

magistrates and discerning judges,” said the mob-hunted count of

Tecklenburgh, “I trust that you will believe that I am really myself, as

I declare to you by my knighthood I am. As for the Yellow Dwarf, a curse

on him, I am his victim, not his ally; since it is from his infernal

enchantments, and still more infernal malice, all my misfortunes have

arisen. How you can for a moment imagine that I could be his friend

because I have been unlucky enough to appear under his odious form, I am

at a loss to imagine, since nobody surely can possibly believe such a

transformation to be a matter of choice.” The female part of the

audience perfectly agreed with this last observation of Ludolph, and the

magistrates, puzzled by the sincerity with which he had delivered his

remonstrance, determined to save him, at least from the fire and the

faggots. But, as the people had expected a show, thought the wise men of

Eisenac, “a show they must have,” or the consequences, they knew, of

their disappointment in an affair so essential to their well-being, might

not be entirely insignificant to their betters. So, while acquitting

him, in their consciences, of being the Yellow Dwarf, and forbidding the

animating use of fire and faggots, they condemned him to be put to the

ban, as a nobleman, for dabbling in a little private sorcery in

conjunction with the demon, in whose villainous shape he had just

appeared. No sooner was this righteous sentence pronounced against the

unlucky Ludolph, than he was seized by the soldiers and followed by all

the crowd, who, anxious to join in the fun, exhibited many a practical

witticism at his expense, and cracked all their superfluous jokes upon

his unfortunate person: then stripping him of his armour and knightly

accoutrements, and clothing him in raw and filthy goatskins, they set him

upon a sorry mule with his face towards the tail, and led him through the

town, the herald proclaiming before him, “We declare thy wife, if thou

hast one, a widow, thy children, if thou hast any, orphans, and we send

thee, in the name of the devil, to the four corners of the earth.” Thus

sent upon a long voyage, with such a friendly benediction, it would not

have been wonderful if the heart of the knight had sunk with his

circumstances, which any heart would have done except a Westphalian one,

but that was employed in swelling with indignation, and meditating the

best mode of returning the compliments of the Eisenac nobility. While

thus occupied, he heard a voice close to his ear, which whispered,

“Attend to my orders, and you are safe.” He looked earnestly in the

direction of the sound, and saw, to his infinite satisfaction, the dusky

face of his friend the gnome beneath the helmet of a soldier. “Let these

people continue to believe you the Yellow Dwarf,” continued the spirit;

“it is the only way to preserve you from suspicion in your real

character; here are the hairs which, in your haste, you threw away.

Resist not while I tie them round your arm, and leave the rest to me.”

Ludolph sat silent while, under the appearance of a new insult, his

instructor twisted the light band round his arm, and the shrieks of the

people a moment after announced that the charm had taken effect upon

their senses. “It is the sorcerer,” they cried, “the horrible

Dwarf—seize him, tear him, burn him!” But, for this time, their kind

intentions were completely frustrated, for the gnome, entering into the

sorry mule which carried the prisoner, communicated to his worn-out frame

such inconceivable vigour and rapidity, that a few minutes were

sufficient to bear his rider far beyond the pursuit of his enemies, who

remained in the market-place, staring after the beast and cursing the

Yellow Dwarf. The representative of that malignant little demon was

meanwhile receiving a few drops of a powerful cordial from the hands of

his friend the gnome of the mine, who politely apologised for not knowing

earlier the mischiefs into which his dear crony had fallen,—owing,

however, entirely to his own excessive carelessness, which he should

never have suspected. “And, in truth,” continued the friendly spirit, “I

concluded you were safe at the margrave’s court which is at Weimar, and

whither I had intended to follow you. Passing over Eisenac, I rested to

know the meaning of the tumult I witnessed, and was just in time to

rescue you from the rage of the mob, who would not have quitted their

prey, even after the soldiers should have set you at liberty. Here,”

continued the gnome, giving him a heavy bag of coin, a most welcome

present to a half-naked knight errant, “hasten to equip yourself

according to your rank, and lose no time in joining the court at Weimar,

where you must select a damsel to conclude the adventure ere Brunilda can

recover her liberty, or you be freed from the malice of the Yellow

Dwarf.” Ludolph heartily thanked his good friend, though he could not

help thinking it would have been as well if his assistance had been

tendered some few hours earlier. But still, better late than never,

thought the knight; and, though he had received a few cuffs and many

bitter curses, yet hard words break no bones, and the cuffs he hoped one

day to repay with interest. In the interim his honour was preserved by

the contrivance of the gnome, as no man in Eisenac, no, not even the

sapient magistrates themselves, would ever believe the creature they had

pounded and worried so unmercifully, was any other than the Yellow Dwarf

himself. Receiving from his hands once more the magic girdle which he

had lost in the confusion, he bade farewell to the gnome, who promised to

meet him in the forest, when he should have obtained the magic scissors,

upon which their success depended; and, after accoutring himself as

became his condition, not this time forgetting the three red hairs, he

set forward once more for the court of the margrave; and, as he was by no

means of a melancholy complexion, his past misfortunes had no other

effect upon his spirits than elevating them to a joyous pitch for glee,

that he had so well escaped the dangers which he believed would have

ended more tragically. And thus gay, and hoping much from the future, he

arrived, without any further adventure, at the palace of Weimar.

CHAPTER IV.

Ane gat a twist o’ the craig,

Ane gat a bunch o’ the wame,

Anither gat lam’d o’ a leg,

And syne he went bellowing hame.

THE princess Margaret was overjoyed once more to see her Brunilda’s

lover, and she welcomed him with the sincerest regard. She listened with

burning indignation to the account of the Dwarf’s treatment of his

captives, and to such other parts of his history as he thought proper to

relate; for he carefully suppressed, in the presence of the court, his

adventures at Eisenac and his release by the gnome, lest the friendship

of this good-natured spirit should again subject him to the charge of

sorcery; and as he had already smelt fire at Eisenac, he was particularly

anxious to avoid so warm a reception elsewhere. He informed the good

princess that the girdle would only fit the damsel appointed by destiny

to break the enchantment, and of consequence all were anxious to try it.

Three of the most beautiful ladies in Misnia attempted, but, strange to

relate, in vain, to fix on the magic cestus: it shrunk to nothing round

their forms, and Ludolph began again to tremble for the fate of his poor

Brunilda. In vain did the most prudish ladies of the court present their

slim forms to the girdle,—it would not meet around them. Several of

those who had been most rigid in their own conduct, and most bitterly

virtuous in regard to that of others, took the girdle with a devout air

and a blushing modesty, that quite revived the hope of the Westphalian

knight. Alas! the cestus not only refused to clasp the waists of these

fair ones, but even flew right out of their hands the moment they touched

it; and this circumstance so disheartened Ludolph, that he foolishly

enough, ere above twenty ladies had made the attempt, gossiped out the

secret of its virtues in the delighted ear of the princess Margaret.

That good lady thought the joke too excellent to be confined to so few

persons; and there being among the unlucky twenty some whose beauty

rivalled that of her beloved Brunilda, she lost no time in publishing the

secret, which had all the effect of making them abhor Ludolph, and

defeating the plans he was so anxious to carry into effect; for now, not

a single woman acquainted with the virtue of the cestus would even try it

on, and, instead of laughing with the princess and Ludolph at the unlucky

discoveries made by the twenty, they made, much to their honour, common

cause against them, and vowed to smother the mischievous knight whenever

they could conveniently catch hold of him. It required all the authority

of the margrave, who at this juncture arrived at Weimar from the camp, to

protect the unfortunate knight from their vengeance, who began to be as

much afraid of these beautiful destroying angels as he had been of the

fire-loving devils of Eisenac, or even the Yellow Dwarf himself. “Alas!

I am surely the most unfortunate of men,” said he to the margrave; “I

have been transformed to the detested shape of the Yellow Dwarf, for

wishing to deliver your sister out of his hands. I have been very near

roasting alive for killing myself. I have been put to the ban for

suffering myself to be tormented by my powerful enemy, and now I am in

danger of being torn to pieces by the loveliest women in the world, only

for being anxious to find one virgin in their company. Ah, my poor

Brunilda! what will become of thee?” The margrave comforted the knight

with the assurance that he would certainly be successful, if he could but

prevail upon the ladies only to try on the girdle, and, in case of their

obstinacy, he advised him to put the magic scissors into the hands of

Brunilda herself, “For, if she be not worthy to use them,” said the proud

Frederic with the bitten cheek, “she is not worthy of liberty, nor the

tender love you bear her. For the other conditions, I fear we must

despair, since I do not believe there is a knight in my court, no, nor in

all the courts of Germany, that will venture to accept the challenge;

though, against mortal foes, they are the bravest men in the universe.”

The margrave was right. Each knight knew his own secret weaknesses too

well to accept the office, when the conditions were stated to them, no

one being willing, as they honestly avowed, to hazard an ignominious

death, by disregarding the injunctions of the gnome. There was not a man

among them who had not, at some time or other, offended by drunkenness,

licentiousness, or breaking heads in an unjust quarrel: indeed, with

regard to the latter peccadillo, it was scarcely possible, in the time of

which I am treating, for it to be otherwise, since not only disputes of

chivalry, and all injuries, whether public or private, were settled by

the sword, but even cases of felony and suits of law were arranged by the

same expeditious decision; so that he of the strongest arm and stoutest

heart infallibly gained his cause, whether right or wrong, as his

adversary could no longer contend, either for reputation or property,

after the dagger of mercy had been struck into his heart, or drawn

quietly across his throat.

But, to return to our good Westphalian and his difficulties. After many

objections, disputings, hopings, and fearings, the margrave at last found

a salvo for Ludolph, and a stainless knight for the service of the king

of the oranges. This was his own son, a boy of ten years old, upon whom,

finding all other hope fail, he conferred the honour of knighthood, and

released him from his martial studies, in which the gallant child spent

all his time, and sent him to handle the shears of Atropus, and share in

the glory of shaving the orange-coloured beard of the execrable Dwarf.

The little knight Herman of Misnia was highly delighted by his admittance

to this post of honour, and attached himself fondly to his good cousin

Ludolph, who now began making preparations for his march. So great was

the terror inspired among the people by the Yellow Dwarf, that it was

with much difficulty he could collect troops sufficient to defend the son

of the margrave upon this voyage of discovery, as all the nobles,

knights, and regulars of Thuringia, were gone to the camp in daily

expectation of an attack from the emperor Albert, who, having been just

overreached in his views upon Bohemia, by his good cousin Henry of

Carinthia, was advancing in no very good humour upon the troops of the

margrave of Misnia. After a proclamation of some days, in which Ludolph

puffed the vast riches of the diamond mine with almost as much skill as

Day and Martin puff their blacking, a number of strays from all parts of

the empire gathered themselves together under his standard; and though he

could not boast of commanding many of the nobles of Misnia, yet, upon the

whole, his troop was about as respectable as David’s at the cave of

Adullam, when only those who were in debt, or distress, or discontented,

enrolled themselves in his service. But great endings spring from small

beginnings. From a captain of half-starved ragamuffins David became a

king; and Ludolph hoped that his regiment of black guards would finally

conduct him to the feet of a princess. With this notion he set forward,

full of expectation, with the youthful knight committed to his charge.

On their road, fearful of any other delays, he inspirited his companions

by dwelling, with affected rapture, upon the spoils of the diamonds,

which were so soon to be at their service, in the sack of the mine.

These observations acted like electricity upon his respectable warriors,

and sent them galloping towards the confines so rapidly, that before he

had either hoped or expected it, they had arrived at the foot of the

mystic mountain, where the whole troop made a halt, to await the return

of Ludolph, who, with his young companion, was to descend first into the

caves, seize the scissors, and then leave the coast clear for the

plunderers to attack the mine. Matters were soon settled. The two

knights found the entrance with some difficulty, and boldly descended

into these dismal abodes, the residence of the infernal spirits who were

in the pay of the Yellow Dwarf. After traversing many dreary caverns,

they entered the last, where, elevated on a golden pedestal, stood the

gigantic statue which held the scissors of fate, and was the guardian of

the life of the Yellow Dwarf. Forgetting, in his joy at the sight, the

caution of the gnome, he was advancing towards the statue, when a

tremendous box on the ear from the marble fist taught him to know his

distance. He fell back accordingly, and, young Herman of Misnia

approaching, the statue grinned as hideously as his protégé, but made no

attempt to injure the boy, as fearlessly he climbed the pedestal, and,

without any regard to the rights of property, grasped the magic scissors,

and brought them away in triumph. Ludolph received them from his hands

with the wildest sensation of delight; but, prudence conquering his

emotions, he took his young preserver in his arms and retraced his way to

daylight. Here he was greeted with shouts of applause by the soldiers,

who, in spite of the entreaties of Ludolph, persisted to ransack the

caves, pursuant to their original agreement. In vain did he assure them

the margrave’s enemies would furnish more spoils for them than the

vaults, and that his share should be divided among them. Vainly did he

describe the threatening looks of the statue, and assure them he still

felt the tingling of the marble thump in his ear, with which it had

complimented him. It was talking to the winds, or, as old Baker quaintly

saith, “to as little purpose as if he had gone about to call back

yesterday.” Down they all dashed together, neck and heels, with

tremendous outcries, into the diamond caverns. But their return was

silent and orderly enough. The cave of Trophonius could not have

effected a better or more expeditious change. They were all as grave as

judges, and every man appeared with his mouth twisted exactly under his

left ear. Ludolph could gain but little information as to what had

befallen them; all he understood was, that they had seen the statue, who

had given the first man such a thundering slap of the face that its shock

was felt by all the rest of his companions, and left the consequences

which he now beheld, and which they had such good reasons to deplore.

But, while the knights of the scissors and their wry-mouthed confederates

are pursuing their road to Weimar, let us pop our heads under ground and

see what has become of Brunilda.

The poor princess, much disconcerted by the diabolical contrivance of the

Yellow Dwarf, gave way, when alone, to that indulgence of grief which she

resolutely suppressed in his presence. She had encouraged the visits of

the two Dwarfs, in the tender hope that, though they afforded no

consolation to herself, they might yield some satisfaction to the bosom

of her tormented lover. This being the real state of her feelings, she

was deeply distressed when, the day after Ludolph’s release by the gnome,

they neglected to pay her the customary visit, and therefore sent to

request the presence of her tyrant. He came, and in no very good humour,

for he had just failed in the effect of a spell, which he hoped would

discover the runaway. He told her, even more brutally than usual, that

Ludolph had escaped, that he was endeavouring to discover him, and that,

in case he succeeded, of which he had no doubt, he would immediately hang

him, unless the princess would save his life by giving her hand to his

rival. Delighted by the escape of the knight, Brunilda could not keep

her joy to herself, but expressed it so imprudently, and with such

heartfelt glee at the Dwarf’s vexation, that it irritated all the bile in

his little yellow body, and provoked him to have recourse to his most

powerful spells to discover the abode of Ludolph. It was, luckily for

the knight, a work of time and difficulty, since the gnome of the mine

was at hand to unravel all his charms as fast as the other wrought them;

and he was, by this means, obliged to desist, in order to find the

invisible enemy who thus thwarted his plans and protected his victim.

The indefatigable gnome was still at his elbow, and poor yellow-beard

continued as much in the dark at the end of his spells, as he had been at

the beginning. All this gave the knight time, which was what the gnome

wanted, and the Dwarf remained in ignorance of his movements, till the

spirits, who were the guardians of his talisman in the mountain caves,

informed him of his danger and the seizure of the magic scissors. Such a

contrivance as that of knighting a child the demon had never

contemplated, but finding one half of the adventure accomplished, he

determined, as far as in him lay, to prevent the achievement of the

other. Learning by his fiends, that he was threatened with danger from

Brunilda, he made it his principal care that the magic scissors should

not be wielded by her, and accordingly penned her up more closely than

ever, surrounding her by spells, not only inaccessible to mortals, but

even to his own attendant spirits, whom he would not trust too far, lest

his tyranny should have inspired them with hatred to his person, and

laxity in his service. Among his equals in the demon world he well knew,

and feared the indignation of the gnome of the silver mines, whose

territories he had invaded, and before whose power, if joined to that of

other enemies, he would have good reasons to tremble. These

considerations determined his conduct, and, to prevent Brunilda from

handling the scissors, and the scissors from approaching his beard, he

devised a spell so potent, that he fondly hoped and believed he was safe

from the attacks of, and might bid defiance to, all sorts of enemies,

natural and supernatural.

In the mean time, Ludolph and his companions had arrived at the court of

Weimar, to the great joy of the margrave and his mother, who, looking

upon the adventure as nearly finished, entreated Ludolph to lose no time

in joining his friend the gnome in the enchanted forest. He himself had

no wish to delay the business, and, after making one more unsuccessful

attempt to prevail upon the ladies of Misnia to try on the girdle, he set

off to present it to his lovely Brunilda; and, arriving near the Orange

Tree, was met by the friendly gnome. “It is not yet in my power to

introduce you to the presence of the princess,” said he to the count, “as

I have not yet conquered the spells by which our enemy has surrounded

her: the cavern is inaccessible at present to any human foot, but it is

not in the power of the demon to limit my steps in the territory of which

I am the legitimate lord. His spirits are as powerful as mine, and thus

I am obliged to have recourse to artifice to conquer him, which I should

not be able to effect, if he had not, by obtruding into my dominions,

placed the secret of his spells in my power. Unlike the free spirits who

have existed from the beginning of the world, and who will probably

survive its demolition, the Dwarf is mortal born, though, by magic

spells, he has lengthened his life many hundred years; but his birth

subjects him to death, which will be inevitable, should the infernal

power by which he has accomplished his purposes be defeated. To prevent

this catastrophe, he has placed his life in a talisman, which he believes

unconquerable, but which, I trust, we shall overthrow. Caution is,

however, necessary, for his spells are mighty, and the spirits subjected

to his command are many. In the interim you shall rest here, and I will

provide for your necessities till I shall be able to conduct you to

Brunilda, to whom you must explain the virtues of the scissors of fate,

for, by an immutable decree which no spirit dares violate, I am

restrained from appearing before her till she herself shall summon me.”

The gnome then raised a comfortable tent for Ludolph, loaded it with

provisions, drew a line of protection about it, and vanished.

Three days passed tranquilly enough with Ludolph, while patiently

awaiting the re-appearance of his friend the gnome, but the fourth was

beginning to hang very heavy, when the spirit entered the tent in the

middle of the night. “I triumph,” said he; “I have unloosed the spell

that kept you from the presence of Brunilda. The Dwarf, being mortal

born, is subject to mortal necessities, and at this hour he sleeps; rise

and throw yourself at the feet of the princess; give me your hand, and

close your eyes.” Ludolph obeyed, and the next moment found himself in

the apartment of Brunilda. As I, the honest chronicler of the loves of

the Westphalian knight and Misnian princess, am no great dealer in

sentiment, I shall omit all the particulars of the meeting, and only say

how truly happy Brunilda was to receive him, and how grateful she felt

towards the obliging gnome, whom she gladly summoned to her presence. To

the great relief of Ludolph, who trembled and doubted grievously while

making the proposal, she had not the slightest objection, even after she

was made acquainted with its virtues, to try on the enchanted girdle,

which fitted her graceful form as if it had been purposely made for her:

her lover could not help commending the taste of the Yellow Dwarf, and

was as much overjoyed at this earnest of success as if he already held

the demon’s beard in his hand. The gnome then gave Brunilda the fatal

scissors, and telling them that the spirits of their enemy could not

perceive them, from the powerful spells by which they were surrounded,

desired them to follow his footsteps fearlessly to the inner caverns,

where slept the demon, and whom sleep would probably render defenceless.

Stretching out their necks and stepping on tiptoe, the lovers followed

the gnome to the private apartment of the Dwarf, whom Brunilda anxiously

hoped to serve in quality of barber extraordinary. With beating hearts

they beheld their guide throw open the door of his chamber, and desire

the princess to advance, at the same time approaching the couch of the

demon, and drawing back his curtain. Brunilda obeyed; mustering all her

courage, and collecting a little army of disagreeable remembrances to her

aid, she found herself so strengthened that, like Judith, she resolved to

finish the business with a single snip. But the Holofernes of Germany

had had more wit than his drunken predecessor, and had taken much better

care of his shaggy head; for the Judith of Misnia looked in vain for the

yellow beard that was to fall beneath the fatal scissors. That _that_

had disappeared was not wonderful, since the face to which it formed such

a remarkable appendage had entirely vanished from the body. There lay

the carcase of the Dwarf, sleeping, it might be, but his head was dozing

in some other place, for the body was very quietly reposing without it.

Poor Brunilda shed tears of vexation, and the gnome looked silly enough

to find himself thus completely outwitted; but knowing that he could find

no remedy for the disappointment by standing gaping at the demon’s trunk,

he drew the lovers from the chamber, conducted Ludolph back to his tent,

and again had recourse to his spells, which told him that the Dwarf,

fearful of surprise while disarmed by sleep, took off his head every

night, and concealed it in some place of safety, but where he could not

discover. This was a vexatious incident; but “_ruse contre ruse_,”

thought the gnome, and to work he went with a fresh resolution to

outspell the yellow conjuror and liberate the lovers. In the mean time

the demon awoke from his invigorating slumber, and hastened to replace

his ugly head upon his shoulders, and then, head and tail once more

united, sat down to consider the possibility of recapturing the knight of

Tecklenburgh, in whose hands, notwithstanding the success of his spells,

he did not like to leave the magic scissors. Brunilda, it is true, was

safe enough; but the Dwarf knew (though Ludolph could not discover them)

that there were more virgins than one in the Misnian court; and that the

count wanted neither eloquence to persuade such to assist him, nor

resolution to attack his enemy, when that difficulty should be conquered.

In the midst of these cogitations he was aroused by a summons from the

princess, who had not permitted him to approach her since the day after

Ludolph’s departure: the little coxcomb was enchanted by the message, and

hastened to arrange his looks in the most becoming manner possible, ere

he presented himself before the eyes of his lovely captive. Brunilda was

in tears when he entered her apartment, and no sooner did she behold him

than she poured upon him such a torrent of reproach and abuse, that the

Dwarf, though in general tolerably well skilled in the use of that

cutting weapon the tongue, stood utterly confounded, and knew not what to

reply. She accused him vehemently of the murder of her lover, her dear

Ludolph, which secret, she said, had been revealed to her in a dream by

her patron saint that very night, and she had therefore sent for him to

accuse him to his guilty face. The Dwarf listened in surprise; but this

time, far from retorting with his usual bitterness upon Brunilda, he was

hugging himself in the notion that the patron saint might have told the

truth, and that Ludolph, whom all his arts had failed to discover, might

really be no longer an inhabitant of the earth, in which case he

flattered himself he might possibly succeed him in the affections of the

fair Brunilda, whose hand he coveted no less than her brother’s lands, of

which he resolved to dispossess him whenever he should become the husband

of his sister. Full of these agreeable hopes and ideas, he soothed the

weeping princess as well as the ruggedness of his nature would permit,

and assured her, that though her lover was dead, (a circumstance of which

he averred he was well aware, though compassion had hitherto prevented

his informing her,) yet he had no hand in his death, and would endeavour

by every mark of tenderness and attention to reconcile her to this

inevitable loss. Brunilda suffered herself to be comforted, and even

allowed his yellow lips to press her fair hand, which so delighted the

lover, that he released her from her severe confinement, and permitted

her to roam at large through the caverns, and occupy her former

apartment, where he continued to visit her daily, and daily quitted her

with the flattering hope that he had at length discovered the mode of

making himself agreeable. Brunilda encouraged this delightful dream by

her changed method of conduct; she ceased, after the first two

interviews, entirely to reproach the Dwarf, and permitted his attentions

without any ill humour. From permitting his devotions, she gradually

appeared to desire them, and even frequently condescended to rally him

upon the oddity of his dress, and the old-fashioned cut of his hood: he

immediately adopted another to gratify her taste, and was exceedingly

vain of the notice she took of him. She admired his flowing hair, and

even his long beard had ceased to be an object of disgust to her: every

thing became beautiful by custom, she said; and she now discovered, what

her indignation before had prevented her from observing, that the colour

of his beard was the same as that of her great grandfather the emperor

Frederic II., who was universally accounted a very handsome man. The

Dwarf smirked, bridled, and was equally delighted with Brunilda and

himself, since he now hoped no further opposition on her part would be

offered to his proposals: he grew excessively fond of, and very indulgent

to the princess, suffering her to command in his caverns, and taking

great delight in exhibiting to her the riches of which she was so soon to

be the mistress. In all ages, among all nations, flattery has ever been

the shortest and the surest road to the human heart; and men, however

they may affect to smile at this weakness in the gentler sex, are not,

whether giants, middle-sized men, or dwarfs, one whit less subject to

this poor human frailty than the ladies themselves, in whom it is so

pardonable. If Eve yielded to the compliments of the serpent, Sampson

was subdued by the witching coaxing of Dalilah; the sage Solomon drank

flattery from the lips of seven hundred wives (Heaven pardon the old

monopoliser!) and three hundred concubines; Holofernes lost his head for

listening to the seducing tongue of Judith; and the mighty Nebuchadnezzar

was not sent to grass for any other reason than swallowing down too

plentiful a dose of this bewitching opiate: of all these gentlefolks, Eve

was certainly least blameable; for it required diabolical power to turn

her from the path of right, but the men sunk their virtue before the

lustre of black eyes or the gorgeousness of costly attire. As for

profane story—O the tens and the fifties that might be enumerated!—but as

this is not our present business, let us leave them to see what effect

this pleasant medicine, so gently administered, had upon the mind of the

little Dwarf. He was, in truth, the happiest of all yellow men; for,

deceived by the tranquillity of his life and the strength of his spells,

he believed his enemy had given up the task of conquering him, and left

him to wear his beard in quiet. Brunilda still continued amiable, and

heard him frequently, without any marks of indignation, express his hope

that, when the time of her sorrowful mourning for the count of

Tecklenburgh should be over, she would listen with compassion to the

sufferings of a truer lover. She neither checked nor encouraged these

expectations; and the happy demon determined not to forfeit her affection

by any precipitation on his part. All this amiable conduct, however, on

the part of Brunilda, was, in fact, but a contrivance of the friendly

gnome, who thus hoped to extort by her means the secret of his nightly

pillow from himself. According to the plan agreed upon by the allies,

the gnome, at this period of his enemy’s courtship, began again to

disturb and puzzle him by his enchantments; and he succeeded in

discomposing the harmony of his feelings so much, that he was obliged to

have recourse to Brunilda, and (secure of her attachment to his person)

vent all his complaints and vexations in her compassionating bosom.

_She_ was all astonishment at the cruel designs projected against her

Dwarf by his ungenerous enemies; she implored him pathetically to take

care of his head, (a request with which he graciously promised to comply,

more for her sake than his own,) and exhibited such anxiety to know if

his precautions were sufficient, that the Dwarf almost betrayed his

secret, overcome by the excessive vanity her conduct was so well

calculated to inspire. Relaxing from his habitual caution, he was about

to inform her of some arrangements of his spells, when Brunilda,

overacting the part assigned to her, entreated him, if he valued her

happiness, to commit his precious head every night to her keeping,

promising to guard it with her utmost tenderness and care. At this

imprudent request, all his suspicions returned; he eyed Brunilda askance,

and gravely told her that, even were she his bride, he could not grant

her desire, as it had always been his opinion that the less wives were

trusted with the care of their husbands’ heads the better. He left her

surlily: he had himself told her of his headless rest, but he did not

expect such a request would follow his information; and Brunilda, alarmed

by the consequences of her ill-timed petition, summoned the gnome of the

mine to her presence. He chid her precipitation, but gave her a small

vial containing a delicious cordial, which should repair the mischief.

“You may have observed,” said he, “that the Dwarf neither eats nor drinks

of your food: prevail upon him once to sup at your table, and pour a few

drops of this cordial into his drink: he must take it willingly, or it

will have no effect. In the sleep which follows the enchanted draught,

he will be partly in my power, and compelled to answer any question you

may propose to him. I need not direct you what to ask; but should he

reply according to our wishes, summon me to your side, and the business

is done.” The gnome gave her the potion, and vanished; while Brunilda

diligently applied herself to remove the suspicions of the Dwarf. In a

few days she completely succeeded; and the flattered demon, on hearing

her frequently complain of the insipidity of supping alone, requested

permission to attend her at table during her supper. This request was

readily granted, and the visit constantly repeated by the Dwarf, who at

length, at her earnest entreaty, consented to partake of her repast.

This was continued till all suspicion was removed from the mind of the

Dwarf; and in one of his happiest moods she insisted upon his pledging

her in wine: he obeyed, and, with the contents of the bowl, swallowed the

magic cordial. With what anxiety did Brunilda count the hours till she

deemed the Dwarf had retired to rest; how she trembled as she quitted her

chamber for that of her tyrant, whose beard, ere day-break, she hoped,

would be the reward of her courage! With a beating heart she entered his

apartment, and stepping up to him, demanded in a trembling voice—“Dwarf

of the Orange Tree, where hast thou hidden thy head?” The stubborn

carcase made no reply to this straight-forward question; and Brunilda

shivered from head to foot as she considered the possibility of his not

yet being asleep, and both hearing and understanding her question.

“Should it be so, I am indeed utterly undone,” said poor Brunilda; “for

how shall I ever be able to deceive him again, since he must now be aware

of my motives.” Another reflection brought more comfort: she

recollected, that as the head only can hear, so the head only can answer

questions; and she determined to walk quietly through all the caverns,

and repeat the question in each. She had but a short time allowed her

for action, as the Dwarf was an early riser, and she lost none in putting

her scheme in execution. Away she sallied, quick as anxiety would allow

her; unwearied she pursued her task, but ranged through every apartment

of the subterranean palace without obtaining an answer. She almost

thought the Dwarf had removed his head further off, when, passing through

a dismal-looking hole in which were two iron pillars, she paused to

repeat the charm—“Dwarf of the Orange Tree, where hast thou hidden thy

head?” “Here,” replied a well-known voice; “here, in the pillar on your

left hand.” Brunilda started at the sound, but quickly recovered her

spirits, and turning to the east, summoned, as agreed upon, her

coadjutors to her assistance—“Gnome of this mine, I call thee hither:

bring with thee my lover, and the magic scissors of fate.” In the next

instant her friends were at her side, and the scissors glittered in her

hand. She explained in few words the happy result of her enterprise; the

gnome struck the pillar with his mace, the massy substance divided, and

the ugly head of her detested jailer rolled at the feet of the delighted

Brunilda, who, without any apology, seized it, and began most nimbly to

ply the magic scissors. At that moment, the Dwarf, awakened by the near

approach of morning, flew to replace his head upon his shoulders, and

discovered, with the utmost rage and alarm, the intruders upon his

premises. The opened eyes of the head now directed the motions of the

body, which rushed forward and bounced upon them so suddenly, that

Brunilda shrieked and dropped the head, only retaining a grasp of the

beard. The Dwarf as nimbly caught it, and endeavoured to wrest it from

her; but the princess, invigorated by despair and the exclamations of her

friends, kept fast hold of it, and struggled stoutly with the demon. The

gnome lent her his assistance, in holding the head for her scissors,

while Ludolph kept shoving, thrusting, and hacking with his sword at the

invulnerable demon, in the hope of obliging him to loosen his grasp of

his head. The struggle continued some minutes, the Dwarf pulling,

Ludolph shoving, and Brunilda, utterly regardless of the scratches he was

liberally bestowing upon her lover, cutting away at the yellow beard with

all her might and main. At length she observed, that the longer she cut,

the weaker grew the resistance of the demon, and this gave new force to

her delicate fingers; she snipped on till the last hair was separated

from the chin, and the yellow head and deformed body both fell senseless

together upon the ground. Brunilda was quietly looking upon her fallen

enemy, when the magic instrument of her success suddenly sprung from her

hand, and she beheld the scissors of fate gliding away rapidly through

the air, as if borne off by an invisible spirit. The friendly gnome then

conducted the lovers to the margrave’s court, (after demanding from

Brunilda the magic belt, which he said would be too dangerous a weapon in

the hand of a lady,) and a few weeks after the battle of Luckow, in which

the margrave was successful, they were united, to the great joy of all

parties, but more particularly of those who expected to be invited to the

wedding dinner. But that dinner! O that dinner! why what a glory of

gastronomy were the dishes! There was the porpoise stewed in his own

oil; beeves roasted whole; and proudly pre-eminent, even among them, the

noble wild boar, the standard dish of Germany, showed his grinning tusks,

now no longer formidable; roasted cranes, standing upon their long legs,

seemed just stepping out of their platters, making a “pretty drollery;”

there was the knightly peacock, the bird of chivalry, dressed out in his

brilliant feathers; the stately swan, sailing about in his golden dish;

while herons, turkeys, geese, and such small fry, graced the magnificent

board in quality of side dishes. In short, as the newspapers said,

“there were all the delicacies of the season,” which the nobles washed

down with floods of Rhenish, until they did not know what they were

swallowing. The day was happier than it was long, for all thought its

felicity was too short-lived, except Ludolph and his princess, who had

many still brighter; as long years of happiness was the reward of their

few months of suffering. The gnome of the mine returned to his recovered

territories, and, as he had now no farther occasion for their services,

never since that time interfered in the concerns of mortals. The

princess Margaret lived to a good old age, and died at last in the odour

of sanctity, eschewing evil, Satan, sin, and the yellow Demon of the

Orange Tree.

DER FREISCHÜTZ;

OR,

THE MAGIC BALLS.

_From the German of A. APEL_.

Black spirits and white,

Blue spirits and grey,

Mingle, mingle, mingle,

You that mingle may.

“LISTEN, dear wife,” said Bertram, the forester of Lindenhayn, to his

good and faithful Anne; “listen, I beseech you, one moment. You know I

have ever done my utmost to make you happy, and will still continue to do

so; but this project is out of the question. I entreat you, do not

encourage the girl any farther in the notion; settle the matter decidedly

at once, and she will only drop a few silent tears, and then resign

herself to my wishes; but by these silly delays nothing rational can be

effected.”

“But, dearest husband,” objected the coaxing wife, “may not Catherine be

as happy with William the clerk as with Robert the gamekeeper? Indeed

you do not know him: he is so clever, so good, so kind—”

“But no marksman,” interrupted the forester. “The situation which I hold

here has been possessed by my family for more than two hundred years, and

has always descended down in a straight line from father to son. If,

instead of this girl, Anne, you had brought me a boy, all would have been

well; he would have had my situation, and the wench, if she had been in

existence, might have chosen for her bridegroom him whom she loved best;

now the thing is impossible. My son-in-law must also be my successor,

and must therefore be a marksman. I shall have, in the first place, some

trouble to obtain the trial for him; and in the second, if he should not

succeed, truly, I shall have thrown my girl away: so a clever huntsman

she shall have. But observe, if you do not like him, I do not exactly

insist upon Robert: find another active clever fellow for the girl, I

will resign my situation to him, and we shall pass the rest of our lives

free from anxiety and happily with our children. But hush!—not another

word!—I beseech you let me hear no more of the steward’s clerk.”

Mother Anne was silenced; she would fain have said a few more words in

favour of poor William, but the forester, who was too well acquainted

with the power of female persuasion, gave her no further opportunity; he

took down his gun, whistled his dog, and strode away to the forest. The

next moment, the fair curled head of Catherine, her face radiant with

smiles, was popped in at the door—“Is all right, dear mother?” said she.

“Alas! no, my child; do not rejoice too soon;” replied the sorrowing

Anne. “Your father speaks kindly, but he has determined to give you to

nobody but a huntsman; and I know he will not change his mind.”

Catherine wept, and declared she would sooner die than wed any other than

her own William. Her mother wept, fretted, and scolded by turns; till at

length it was finally determined to make another grand attack upon the

tough heart of old Bertram; and, in the midst of a deliberation

respecting the manner in which this was to be effected, the rejected

lover entered the apartment.

When William had heard the cause of the forester’s objection,—“Is that

all, my Catherine,” said he, pressing the weeping girl to his bosom;

“then keep up your spirits, dearest, for I will myself become a forester.

I am not unacquainted with woodcraft, for I was, when a boy, placed under

the care of my uncle, the chief forester Finsterbuch, in order to learn

it, and only at the earnest request of my uncle the steward, I exchanged

the shooting-pouch for the writing-desk. Of what use,” continued the

lover, “would his situation and fine house be to me, if I cannot carry my

Catherine there as the mistress of it? If you are not more ambitious

than your mother, dearest, and William the gamekeeper will be as dear to

you as William the steward, I will become a woodsman directly; for the

merry life of a forester is more delightful to me than the constrained

habits of the town.”

“O dear, dear William,” said Catherine,—all the dark clouds of sorrow

sweeping rapidly over her countenance, and leaving only a few drops of

glittering sunny rain, sparkling in her sweet blue eyes,—“O beloved

William! if you will indeed do this, all may yet be well: hasten to the

forest, seek my father, and speak to him ere he have time to pass his

word to Robert.” “Away,” replied William, “to the forest; I will seek

him out, and offer my services as gamekeeper: fear nothing, Catherine;

give me a gun, and now for the huntsman’s salute.”

What success he had in his undertaking was soon visible to the anxious

eye of Catherine, on her father’s return with him from the forest. “A

clever lad, that William,” said the old man; “who would have expected

such a shot in a townsman? I’ll speak to the steward myself to-morrow;

it would be a thousand pities such a marksman should not stick to the

noble huntsman craft. Ha! ha! he will become a second Kuno. But do you

know who Kuno was?” demanded he of William.

The latter replied in the negative.

“Lo you there now!” ejaculated Bertram; “I thought I had told you long

since. He was my ancestor, the first who possessed this situation. He

was originally a poor horseboy in the train of the knight of Wippach; but

he was clever, obliging, grew a favourite, and attended his master every

where, to tournaments and hunting parties. Once his knight accompanied

the duke on a grand hunting match, at which all the nobles attended. The

hounds chased a huge stag towards them, upon whose back, to their great

astonishment, sat tied a human being, shrieking aloud in a most frightful

manner. There existed at that period, among the feudal lords, an inhuman

custom of tying unhappy wretches who incurred their displeasure (perhaps

by slight transgressions against the hunting laws) upon stags, and then

driving them into the forest to perish miserably by hunger, or at least

to be torn to pieces by the brambles. The duke was excessively enraged

at this sight, and offered immense rewards to any one who would shoot the

stag; but clogged his benefactions with death to the marksman, should his

erring bullet touch the victim, whose life he was desirous to preserve,

in order to ascertain the nature of his offence. Startled by the

conditions, not one of the train attempted the rescue of the poor wretch,

till Kuno, pitying his fate, stepped forward and boldly offered his

services. The duke having accepted them, he took his rifle, loaded it in

God’s name, and earnestly recommending the ball to all the saints and

angels in heaven, fired steadily into the bush in which he believed the

stag had taken refuge. His aim was true; the animal instantly sprung

out, plunged to the earth, and expired; but the poor culprit escaped

unhurt, except that his hands and face were miserably torn by the briers.

The duke kept his word well, and gave to Kuno and his descendants for

ever this situation of forester. But envy naturally follows merit, and

my good ancestor was not long in making the discovery. There were many

of the duke’s people who had an eye to this situation, either for

themselves or some cousin or dear friend, and these persuaded their

masters that Kuno’s wonderful success was entirely owing to sorcery; upon

which, though they could not turn him out of his post, they obtained an

order that every one of his descendants should undergo a trial of his

skill before he could be accepted; but which, however, the chief forester

of the district, before whom the essay is made, can render as easy or

difficult as he pleases. I was obliged to shoot a ring out of the beak

of a wooden bird, which was swung backwards and forwards; but I did not

fail, any more than my forefathers; and he who intends to succeed me, and

wed my Catherine, must be at least as good a marksman.”

William, who had listened very attentively, was delighted with this piece

of family history; he seized the old man’s hand, and joyously promised to

become, under his direction, the very first of marksmen; such as even

grandfather Kuno himself should have no cause to blush for.

Scarcely had fourteen happy days passed over his head, ere William was

settled as gamekeeper in the forester’s house; and Bertram, who became

fonder of him every day, gave his formal consent to his engagement with

Catherine. It was, however, agreed that their betrothment should be kept

secret until the day of the marksman’s trial, when the forester expected

to give a greater degree of splendour to his family festival by the

presence of the duke’s commissary. The bridegroom swam in an ocean of

delight, and so entirely forgot himself and the whole world in the sweet

opening heaven of love, that Bertram frequently insisted, that he had not

been able to hit a single mark since he had aimed so successfully at

Catherine.

And so it really was. From the day of his happy betrothment, William had

encountered nothing but disasters while shooting. At one time his gun

missed fire; at another, when he aimed at a deer, he lodged the contents

of his rifle in the trunk of a tree: when he came home, and emptied his

shooting-pouch, he found, instead of partridges, rooks and crows, and in

lieu of hares, dead cats. The forester at length grew seriously angry,

and reproved him harshly for his carelessness; even Catherine began to

tremble for the success of the master-shot.

William redoubled his diligence, but to no purpose; the nearer the

approach of the important day, the more alarming grew his misfortunes;

every shot missed. At length he was almost afraid to fire a gun, lest he

should do some mischief; for he had already lamed a cow and almost killed

the cowherd.

“I insist upon it,” said the gamekeeper Rudolph, one evening, to the

party, “I insist upon it that some wizard has bewitched William, for such

things could not happen naturally; therefore let us endeavour to loosen

the charm.”—“Superstitious stuff!” interrupted Bertram, angrily; “an

honest woodsman should not even think of such trash. Do you forget the

three things which a forester ought to have, and with which he will

always be successful, in spite of sorcery? Come, to your wits, answer my

query.” “That can I truly,” answered Rudolph; “he should have great

skill, a keen dog, and a good gun.” “Enough,” said Bertram; “with these

three things every charm may be loosened, or the owner of them is a dunce

and no shot.”

“Under favour, father Bertram,” said William, “here is my gun; what have

you to object against it? and as for my skill, I do not like to praise

myself, but I think I am as fair a sportsman as any in the country;

nevertheless, it seems as if all my balls went crooked, or as if the wind

blew them away from the barrel of my gun. Only tell me what I shall do.

I am willing to do any thing.” “It is singular,” muttered the forester,

who did not know what else to say.

“Believe me, William,” again began Rudolph, “it is nothing but what I

have said. Try only once: go on a Friday, at midnight, to a cross road,

and make a circle round you with the ramrod, or with a bloody sword,

which must be blessed three times, in the name of Sammiel”—“Silence!”

interrupted Bertram, angrily: “know ye whose name that is? he is one of

the fiend’s dark legion. God protect us and every Christian from him!”

William crossed himself devoutly, and would hear nothing further, though

Rudolph still maintained his opinion. He passed the night in cleaning

his gun, and examining minutely every screw, resolving, at dawn of day,

once more to sally forth, and try his fortune in the forest. He did so,

but, alas! in vain. Mischiefs thickened round him: at ten paces distance

he fired three times at a deer; twice his gun missed fire, and although

it went off the third time, yet the stag bounded away unhurt into the

midst of the forest. Full of vexation, he threw himself under a tree,

and cursed his fate, when suddenly a rustling was heard among the bushes,

and a queer-looking soldier with a wooden leg came hopping out from among

them.

“Holloa! huntsman,” he began, laughing at the disconsolate-looking

William, “what is the matter with you? Are you in love, or is your purse

empty, or has any body charmed your gun? Come, don’t look so blank; give

me a pipe of tobacco, and we’ll have a chat together.”

William sullenly gave him what he asked, and the soldier threw himself

down in the grass by the side of him. The conversation naturally turned

upon woodcraft, and William related his misfortunes to him. “Let me see

your gun,” said the soldier. William gave it. “It is assuredly

bewitched,” said he of the wooden leg, the moment he had taken it in his

hand; “you will not be able to fire a single shot with it; and if they

have done it according to rule, it will be the same with every gun you

shall take into your hands.”

William was startled; he endeavoured to raise objections against the

stranger’s belief in witches, but the latter offered to give him a proof

of the justice of his opinions. “To us soldiers,” said he, “there is

nothing strange; and I could tell you many wonderful things, but which

would detain us here till night. But look here, for instance: this is a

ball which is sure of hitting its mark, because it possesses some

particular virtue: try it; you won’t miss.” William loaded his gun, and

looked around for an object to aim at. A large bird of prey hovered high

above the forest, like a moving dot;—“Shoot that kite,” said the

one-legged companion. William laughed at his absurdity, for the bird was

hovering at a height which the eye itself could scarcely reach. “Laugh

not, but fire,” said the other, grimly; “I will lay my wooden leg that it

falls.” William fired, the black dot sunk, and a huge kite fell bleeding

to the ground. “You would not be surprised at that,” said he of the

wooden leg to the huntsman, who was speechless and staring with

astonishment; “you would not, I repeat, be surprised at that, if you were

better acquainted with the wonders of your craft. Even the casting such

balls as these is one of the least important things in it; it merely

requires dexterity and courage, because it must be done in the night. I

will teach you for nothing when we meet again; now I must away, for the

bell has told seven. In the mean time—here, try a few of my balls; still

you look incredulous—well—till we meet again.”—

The soldier gave William a handful of balls, and departed. Full of

astonishment, and still distrusting the evidence of his senses, the

latter tried another of the balls, and again struck an almost

unattainable object: he loaded his gun in the usual manner, and again

missed the easiest! He darted forward to follow the crippled soldier,

but the latter was no longer in the forest; and William was obliged to

remain satisfied with the promise which he had given of meeting him again

hereafter.

Great joy it gave to the honest forester when William returned, as

before, loaded with game from the forest. He was now called upon to

explain the circumstance; but not being prepared to give a reason, and

above all, dreading to say any thing upon the subject of his infallible

balls, he attributed his ill luck to a fault in his gun, which he had

only, he pretended, last night discovered and rectified. “Did I not tell

you so, wife,” said Bertram, laughing. “Your demon was lodged in the

barrel; and the goblin which threw down father Kuno this morning, sat

grinning on the rusty nail.” “What say you of a goblin,” demanded

William; “and what has happened to father Kuno?” “Simply this,” replied

Bertram; “his portrait fell of itself from the wall this morning, just as

the bell tolled seven; and the silly woman settled it that a goblin must

be at the bottom of the mischief, and that we are haunted accordingly.”

“At seven,” repeated William, “at seven!” and he thought, with a strange

feeling of affright, of the soldier who parted from him exactly at that

moment. “Yes, seven,” continued Bertram, still laughing. “I do not

wonder at your surprise; it is not a usual ghostly hour, but Anne would

have it so.” The latter shook her head doubtfully, and prayed that all

might end well; while William shivered from head to foot, and would

secretly have vowed not to use the magic balls, but that the thought of

his ill luck haunted him. “Only one of them,” said he internally; “only

one of them for the master-shot, and then I have done with them for

ever.” But the forester urged him the next instant to accompany him into

the forest; and as he dared not excite fresh suspicions of his want of

skill, nor offend the old man by refusing, he was again compelled to make

use of his wondrous balls; and in the course of a few days he had so

accustomed himself to the use of them, and so entirely reconciled his

conscience to their doubtful origin, that he saw nothing sinful or even

objectionable in the business. He constantly traversed the forest, in

the hope of meeting the strange giver of the balls; for the handful had

decreased to two, and if he wished to make sure of the master-shot, the

utmost economy was necessary. One day he even refused to accompany

Bertram, for the next was to be the day of trial, and the chief forester

was expected: it was possible he might require other proofs than the mere

formal essay, and William thus felt himself secure. But in the evening,

instead of the commissary, came a messenger from the duke, with an order

for a large delivery of game, and to announce that the visit of the chief

forester would be postponed for eight days longer.

William felt as if he could have sunk into the bosom of the earth, as he

listened to the message, and his excessive alarm would have excited

strange suspicions, if all present had not been ready to ascribe it to

the delay of his expected nuptials. He was now obliged to sacrifice at

least one of his balls, but he solemnly swore nothing should rob him of

the other but the forester’s master-shot.

Bertram was outrageously angry when William returned from the forest with

only one stag; for the delivery order was considerable. He was still

more angry the next day at noon, when Rudolph returned loaded with an

immense quantity of game, and William returned with none: he threatened

to dismiss him, and retract his promise respecting Catherine, if he did

not bring down at least two deer on the following day. Catherine was in

the greatest consternation, and earnestly besought him to make use of his

utmost skill, and not let a thought of her interrupt his duties while

occupied in the forest. He departed—his heart loaded with despair.

Catherine, he saw too plainly, was lost to him for ever; and nothing

remained but the choice of the manner in which he should destroy his

happiness. Whilst he stood lost in the agonising anticipation of his

impending doom, a herd of deer approached close to him. Mechanically he

felt for his last ball; it felt tremendously heavy in his hand: he was on

the point of dropping it back, resolving to preserve his treasure at

every hazard, when suddenly he saw—O sight of joy!—the one-legged soldier

approaching. Delightedly he let the ball drop into the barrel, fired,

brought down a brace of deer, and hastened forward to meet his friend;

but he was gone! William could not discover him in the forest.

“Hark ye, William!” said the forester to him in the evening, rousing him

from the torpor of grief into which he had fallen; “you must resent this

affront as earnestly as myself: nobody shall dare utter falsehoods of our

ancestor Kuno, nor accuse him as Rudolph is now doing. I insist,”

continued he, turning again to the latter, “if good angels helped him,

(which was very likely, for in the Old Testament we frequently read of

instances of their protection,) we ought to be grateful, and praise the

wonderful goodness of God. But nobody shall accuse Kuno of practising

the black art. He died happily—ay, and holily, in his bed, surrounded by

children and grandchildren,—which he who carries on a correspondence with

the evil one never does. I saw a terrible example of that myself, when I

was a forester’s boy in Bohemia.”

“Let us hear how it happened, good Bertram,” said all the listeners; and

the forester nodded gravely, and continued.

“I shiver when I think of it; but I will tell you nevertheless. When a

young man, practising with other youths under the chief foresters, there

used frequently to join us a town lad, a fine daring fellow, who, being a

great lover of field sports, came out to us as often as he could. He

would have made a good marksman, but was too flighty and thoughtless; so

that he frequently missed his mark. Once, when we ridiculed his

awkwardness, we provoked him into a rage, and he swore by all that was

holy that he would soon fire with a more certain aim than any gamekeeper

in the country, and that no animal should escape him, either in the air

or on the earth. But he kept his light oath badly. A few days

afterwards an unknown huntsman roused us early, and told us that a man

was lying in the road and dying without assistance. It was poor Schmid.

He was covered with wounds and blood, as if he had been torn by wild

beasts: he could not speak, for he was quite senseless, with scarcely any

appearance of life. He was conveyed to Prague, and just before his death

declared, that he had been out with an old mountain huntsman to a cross

road, in order to cast the magic balls, which are sure of hitting their

mark; but that making some fault or omission, the demon had treated him

so roughly that it would cost him his life.”

“Did he not explain?” asked William, shuddering.

“Surely,” replied the forester. “He declared before a court of justice,

that he went out to the cross road with the old gamekeeper; that they

made a circle with a bloody sword, and afterwards set it round with

skulls and bones. The mountain hunter then gave his directions to Schmid

as to what he was to do: he was to begin when the clock struck eleven to

cast the balls, and neither to cast more nor fewer than sixty-three; one

either above or under this number would, when the bell tolled midnight,

be the cause of his destruction: neither was he to speak a single word

during his work, nor move from the circle, whatever might happen, above,

below, or around him. Fulfilling these conditions, sixty balls would be

sure of hitting, and the remaining three only would miss. Schmid had

actually begun casting the balls when, according to what we could gather

from him, he saw such cruel and dreadful apparitions, that he at length

shrieked and sprung out of the circle, falling senseless to the ground;

from which trance he did not recover till under the hands of the

physician in Prague.”

“Heaven preserve us!” said the forester’s wife, crossing herself. “It is

a very deadly sin undoubtedly,” pursued Bertram, “and a true woodsman

would scorn such practice. He needs nothing but skill, and a good gun,

as you have lately experienced, William. I would not, for my own part,

fire off such balls for any price; I should always fear the fiend would,

at some time or other, conduct the ball to his own mark instead of to

mine.”

Night drew round them with the conclusion of the forester’s story. _He_

went to his quiet bed, but William remained in restless agony. It was in

vain that he attempted to compose himself. Sleep fled entirely from his

spirit. Strange objects flitted past him, and hovered like dark omens

over his pillow. The strange soldier of the forest, Schmid, Catherine,

the duke’s commissary, all rushed before his eyes, and his fevered

imagination converted them into the most dreadful groups. Now, the

miserable Schmid stood warningly before him, and hollowly pointed to his

newly bleeding wounds; then the dark distorted face faded to the pallid

features of Catherine wrestling with the strength of death; while the

wild soldier of the forest stood mocking his agony with a hellish laugh

of scorn. The scene then changed to his mind, and he stood in the forest

before the commissary, preparing for the master-shot. He

aimed—fired—missed, Catherine sunk down on the earth. Bertram drove him

away; while the one-legged soldier, now again a friend, brought him fresh

balls; but too late—the trial was over, and he was lost.

In this manner wore away his agonised night, and with the earliest dawn

he sought the forest, hoping to meet with the soldier; the clear morning

air chased away the dark images of sleep from his brow, and ennerved his

drooping spirit. “Fool!” said he to himself, “because I cannot

understand what is mysterious, must the mystery therefore be a sin? Is

what I seek so contrary to nature that it requires the aid of spirits to

obtain it? Does not man govern the mighty instinct of animals, and make

them move according to the will of their master? Why then should he not

be able, by natural means, to command the course of inanimate metal which

receives force and motion only through him? Nature is rich in wonders

which we do not comprehend, and shall I forfeit my happiness for an

ignorant prejudice only? No! Spirits I will not call upon, but nature

and her hidden powers I will challenge and use, even though unable to

explain its mystery. I will seek the soldier, and, if I cannot find him,

I will at least be bolder than Schmid, for I have a better cause. He was

urged by presumption, I by love and honour.”

But the soldier appeared not, however earnestly William sought him;

neither could any of those of whom he inquired give him the slightest

information respecting him, and two days were wasted in these anxious and

fruitless inquiries.

“Then be it so,” exclaimed the unhappy young man; and in a fit of despair

he resolved to cast the magic balls in the forest. “My days,” he added,

“are numbered to me; this night will I seek the cross road. Into its

silent and solitary recess no one will dare to intrude; and the terrible

circle will I not leave till the fearful work shall be done.”

But when the shadows of evening fell upon the earth, and after William

had provided lead, bullet-mould, and coals, for his nocturnal occupation,

he was gently detained by Bertram, who felt, he said, so severe an

oppression, that he entreated him to remain in his chamber during the

night. Catherine offered her services, but they were, to her

astonishment, declined. “At any other time,” said her father, “I should

have preferred you, but to-night it must be William. I shall be happier

if he will remain with me.”

William hesitated. He grew sick in his inmost heart. He would have

objected, but Catherine’s entreaties were so earnest, her voice so

irresistible, that he had nothing to oppose against her wishes. He

remained in the chamber, and in the morning Bertram’s dark fears had

faded, and he laughed at his own absurdity. He proposed going to the

forest, but William, who intended to devote the day to his search for the

soldier, dissuaded him, and departed alone. He went, but returned

disappointed, and once more resolved to seek the forest at night. As he

approached the house, Catherine met him. “Beloved William,” said she,

“you have a visitor, and a dear one, but you must guess who it is.”

William was not at all disposed to guess, and still less to receive

visits; for at that time the dearest friend would have been the most

unwelcome intruder. He answered peevishly, and was thinking of a pretext

to turn back, when the door of the house opened, and the pale moon threw

her soft ray upon a venerable old man, in the garb of a huntsman, who

extended his arms towards him; and “William!” said a kind and well-known

voice, and the next instant the young forester found himself folded to

the bosom of his beloved uncle.

Ah! magic of early ties, dear recollections, and filial gratitude!

William felt them all; his heart was full of joy, and all other thoughts

were forgotten. Suddenly spoke the warning voice to the tranquil happy

dreamer. The midnight hour struck, and William, with a shudder,

remembered what he had lost. “But one night more remains to me,” said

he; “to-morrow, or never.” His violent agony did not escape the eye of

his uncle, but he ascribed it to fatigue, and excused himself for

detaining him from his needful rest, on account of his own departure,

which he could not delay beyond the following day. “Yet grieve not,

William,” said the old man as he retired to rest; “grieve not for this

short hour thus spent, you will only sleep the sounder for it.” William

shivered, for to his ear these words conveyed a deeper meaning. There

was a dark foreboding in his heart, that the execution of his plan would

for ever banish the quiet of sleep from his soul.

But day dawned—passed—and evening descended. “It must be now or never,”

thought William, “for to-morrow will be the day of trial.” The females

had been busied in preparations for the wedding and the reception of

their distinguished guest. Anne embraced William when he returned, and,

for the first time, saluted him with the dear name of son. The tender

joy of a young and happy bride glittered in the sweet eyes of Catherine.

The supper-table was covered with flowers, good food, and large bottles

of long-hoarded wine from the stores of Bertram. “Children,” said the

old man, “this is our own festival; let us, therefore, be happy:

to-morrow we shall not be alone, though you may, perhaps, be happier. I

have invited the priest, dear William, and when the trial is over”—A loud

shriek from Catherine interrupted the forester. Kuno’s picture had again

fallen from its place, and had struck her severely on the forehead.

Bertram grew angry. “I cannot conceive,” said he, “why this picture is

not hung properly; this is the second time it has given us a fright: are

you hurt, Catherine?” “It is of no consequence,” replied the maiden,

gently wiping away the blood from her bright curls; “I am less hurt than

frightened.”

William grew sick when he beheld her pale face, and forehead bathed in

blood. So he had seen her in his distempered dreams on that dreadful

night: and this reality conjured up all those fearful fantasies anew.

His determination of proceeding in his plan was shaken; but the wine,

which he drank in greater quantities than usual, filled him with a wild

courage, and ennerved him to undertake its execution. The clock struck

nine. Love and valour must combat with danger, thought William. But he

sought in vain for a decent pretence to leave his Catherine. How could

he quit her on the bridal eve? Time flew with the rapidity of an arrow,

and he suffered agonies even in the soft arms of rewarding love. Ten

o’clock struck: the decisive moment was come. Without taking leave,

William started from his bride, and left the house to range the forest.

“Whither go you, William?” said her mother, following him, alarmed. “I

have shot a deer, which I had forgotten,” answered the youth. She still

entreated, and Catherine looked terrified, for she felt that there was

something (though she knew not what) to fear, from his distracted manner.

But their supplications were unheeded. William sprung from them both,

and hastened into the forest.

The moon was on the wane, and gleamed a dark red light above the horizon.

Grey clouds flew rapidly past, and sometimes darkened the surrounding

country, which was soon relighted up by the wild and glittering

moonlight. The birch and aspen trees nodded like spectres in the shade;

and to William the silver poplar was a white shadowy figure, which

solemnly waved, and beckoned him to return. He started, and felt as if

the two extraordinary interpositions to his plan, and the repeated falls

of the picture, were the last admonitions of his departing angel, who

thus warned him against the commission of an unblessed deed. Once more

he wavered in his intention. Now he had even determined to return, when

a voice whispered close to him, “Fool! hast thou not already used the

magic balls, and dost thou only dread the toil of labouring for them?”

He paused. The moon shone brilliantly out from a dark cloud, and lighted

up the tranquil roof of the forester’s humble dwelling. William saw

Catherine’s window shine in the silvery ray, and he stretched out his

arms towards it, and again directed his steps towards his home. Then the

voice rose whisperingly again around him, and, “Hence!—to thy

work!—away!” it murmured; while a strong gust of wind brought to his ear

the stroke of the second quarter. “To my work,” he repeated; “ay; it is

cowardly to return half way—foolish to give up the great object, when,

for a lesser, I have already perhaps risked my salvation. I will

finish.”

He strode rapidly forward. The wind drove the fugitive clouds over the

moon, and William entered the deep darkness of the forest. Now he stood

upon the cross road; the magic circle was drawn; the skulls and bones of

the dead laid in order around it; the moon buried herself deeper in the

cloudy mass, and left the glimmering coals, at intervals fanned into a

blaze by the fitful gusts of wind, alone to lighten the midnight deed,

with a wild and melancholy glare. Remotely the third quarter sounded

from a dull and heavy tower clock. William put the casting ladle upon

the coals, and threw the lead into it, together with three balls, which

had already hit their mark, according to the huntsman’s usage; then the

forest began to be in motion; the night ravens, owls, and bats, fluttered

up and down, blinded by the glare of light. They fell from their boughs,

and placed themselves among the bones around the circle, where, with

hollow croakings and wild jabberings, they held an unintelligible

conversation with the skulls. Momentarily their numbers increased, and

among and above them hovered pale cloudy forms, some shaped like animals,

some like human beings. The gusts of wind sported frightfully with their

dusky vapoury forms, scattering and reuniting them like the dews of the

evening shades. One form alone stood motionless and unchanged near the

circle, gazing with fixed and woful looks at William; once it lifted up

its pale hands in sorrow, and seemed to sigh. The fire burned gloomily

at the moment; but a large grey owl flapped its wings, and fanned the

dying embers into light. William turned shivering away; for the

countenance of his dead mother gazed mournfully at him from the dark and

dusky figure.

The bell tolled eleven; the pale figure vanished with a groan; the owls

and night ravens flew screeching up into the air, and the skulls and

bones clattered beneath their wings. William knelt down by his hearth of

coals. He began steadily to cast, and, with the last sound of the bell,

the first ball fell from the mould.

The owls and the skulls were quiet; but along the road an old woman, bent

down with the weight of age, advanced towards the circle. She was hung

round with wooden spoons, ladles, and other kitchen utensils, which made

a frightful clattering. The owls screeched at her approach, and caressed

her with their wings. Arrived at the circle, she stooped down to seize

the bones and the skulls; but the coals hissed flames at her, and she

drew back her withered hands from the fire. Then she paced round the

circle, and, grinning and chattering, held up her wares towards William.

“Give me the skulls,” she gabbled; “give me the skulls, and I will give

thee my treasures; give me the skulls, the skulls; what canst thou want

with the trash? Thou art mine—mine, dear bridegroom; none can help thee:

thou canst not escape me; thou must lead with me in the bridal dance.

Come away, thou bridegroom mine!”

William’s heart throbbed; but he remained silent, and hastened on with

his work. The old woman was not a stranger to him. A mad beggar had

often haunted the neighbourhood, until she found an asylum in the

mad-house. Now, he knew not whether her appearance was a reality or a

delusion. In a short time she grew enraged, threw down her stick, and

chattered anew at William. “Take these for our nuptial night,” she

cried: “the bridal bed is ready, and to-morrow, when evening cometh, thou

wilt be wedded to me. Come soon, my love; delay not, my bridegroom; come

soon.” And she hobbled slowly away into the forest.

Suddenly there arose a rattling like the noise of wheels, mingled with

the cracking of whips and shouting of men. A carriage came headlong,

with six horses and outriders. “What is the meaning of all this in the

road?” cried the foremost horseman. “Room there!” William looked up.

Fire sprung from the hoofs of the horses, and round the wheels of the

carriage: it shone like the glimmering of phosphorus. He suspected a

magical delusion, and remained quiet. “On, on, upon it!—over it!—down!

down!” cried the horseman; and in a moment the whole troop stormed in

headlong upon the circle. William plunged down to the earth, and the

horses reared furiously above his head; but the airy cavalry whirled high

in the air with the carriage, and, after turning several times round the

magic circle, disappeared in a storm of wind, which tore the tops of the

mightiest trees, and scattered their branches to a distance.

Some time elapsed ere William could recover from his terror. At length

he compelled his trembling fingers to be steady, and cast a few balls

without farther interruption. Again the well-known tower clock struck,

and to him in the dreadful solitary circle, consoling as the voice of

humanity, rose the sound from the habitations of men, but the clock

struck the quarter thrice. He shuddered at the lightning-like flight of

time; for a third part of his work was hardly done. Again the clock

struck, for the fourth time!—Horror!—his strength was annihilated, every

limb was palsied, and the mould fell out of his trembling hand. He

listened, in the quiet resignation of despair, for the stroke of the

full, the terrible, midnight hour. The sound hesitated—delayed—was

silent. To palter with the awful midnight was too daring and too

dangerous even to the dreadful powers of darkness. Hope again raised the

sunk heart of William; he hastily drew out his watch, and beheld it

pointing to the second quarter of the hour. He looked gratefully up

towards heaven, and a feeling of piety moderated the transport, which,

contrary to the laws of the dark world, would otherwise have burst forth

in loud and joyous exclamations.

Strengthened, by the experience of the last half-hour, against any new

delusion, William now went boldly on with his work. Every thing was

silent around him, except that the owls snored in their uneasy sleep, and

at intervals struck their beaks against the bones of the dead. Suddenly

it was broken by a crackling among the bushes. The sound was familiar to

the sportsman, and, as he expected, a huge wild boar broke through the

briers, and came foaming towards the circle. Believing this to be a

reality, he sprung hastily on his feet, seized his gun, and attempted to

fire. Not a single spark came from the flint. Startled at his danger,

he drew his hunting knife to attack it,—when the bristly savage, like the

carriage and the horses, ascended high above his head, and vanished into

the silent fields of air.

The anxious lover worked on steadily to regain the time he had so

unhappily lost. Sixty balls were cast. He looked joyfully upwards; the

clouds were dispersing, and the moon again threw her bright rays upon the

surrounding country; he was rejoicing in the approaching end of his

labours, when an agonised voice, in the tones of Catherine, shrieked out

the name of “William!” In the next moment, he beheld his beloved dart

from among the bushes, and gaze fearfully around her. Following her

distracted steps, and panting closely behind her, trod the mad beggar

woman, extending her withered arms towards the fugitive, whose light

dress, fluttering in the wind, she repeatedly attempted to grasp.

Catherine collected her expiring strength in one desperate effort to

escape, when the long-sought soldier of the forest planted himself before

her and delayed her flight. The hesitation of the moment gained time for

the mad woman, who sprung wildly upon Catherine, and grasped her in her

long and fleshless hands. William could endure it no longer, he dashed

the last ball from his hand, and was on the point of springing from the

circle, when the bell tolled midnight, and the delusion vanished. The

owls knocked the skulls and bones cluttering against each other, and flew

up again to their hiding places; the coals were suddenly extinguished;

and William sunk, exhausted with fatigue, to the earth; but there was no

rest for him in the forest; he was again disturbed by the slow and sullen

approach of a stranger, mounted upon a huge and coal-black steed: he

stopped before the demolished magic circle, and, addressing the

huntsman,—“You have stood the trial well,” said he; “what do you require

of me?”

“Of you, stranger, nothing,” replied William; “of that of which I had

need, I have prepared for myself.”

“But with my assistance,” continued the stranger; “therefore a share of

it belongs to me.” “Certainly not,” replied the huntsman; “I have

neither hired you nor called upon you.”

The horseman smiled. “You are bolder than your equals are wont to be,”

said he. “Take then the balls which you have cast: sixty for you, three

for me. The first hit, the second miss. When we meet again you will

understand me.”

William turned away. “I will not meet you again; I will never see you

more,” he cried, trembling. “Why do you turn from me?” demanded the

stranger, with a horrible laugh: “do you know me?” “No; no,” said the

huntsman, shuddering; “I know you not; I will not even look upon you.

Whoever you may be, leave me.”

The black horseman turned his steed. “The rising hairs of your head,”

cried he with gloomy gravity, “declare that you do know me. You are

right; I am he whom you name in the secrecy of your soul, and shudder to

think you have done so.” At these words he disappeared, and the trees

under which he had stood let their withered branches sink helpless and

dead to the earth.

“Merciful Heaven! William,” said Catherine, on remarking his pale and

distracted look on his return after midnight; “what has happened to you?

you look as if you had just risen from the grave.” “It is the night

air,” he replied; “and I am not well.” “But, William,” said the

forester, who had just entered, “why then would you go to the forest:

something has happened to you there. Boy, you cannot thus blind me.”

William was startled; the sad solemnity of Bertram’s manner struck him.

“Yes, something has occurred,” said he; “but have patience for a few

days, and all shall be explained to your satisfaction.” “Willingly, dear

son,” interrupted the forester; “question him no further, Catherine. Go

to your needful rest, William, and indulge in hope of the future. He who

goes on in his occupation openly and honestly, never can be harmed by the

evil spirits of the night.”

William had need of all his dissimulation; for the old man’s observations

so nearly meeting the truth, his forbearing love, and unshaken confidence

in William’s honesty, altogether distracted his mind: he hastened to his

room, determined to destroy the magical preparation. “But one ball—only

one will I use,” exclaimed he, weeping aloud, with his folded hands held

up to heaven; “and surely this determination will efface the sin of the

deed I have committed. With a thousand acts of penitence I will make

atonement for what is past, for I cannot now step back without betraying

my happiness, my honour, and my love.” And with this resolution he

calmed the tumult of his spirits, and met the rays of the morning sun

with more tranquillity than he had dared to hope.

The commissary of the duke arrived; he proposed a shooting party in the

forest, before the trial of skill took place. “For, though we must

certainly retain the old form,” said he, “of the essay shot, yet the

skill of the huntsman is, after all, best proved in the forest: so come,

young marksman, to the woods.”

William’s cheek grew pale, and he earnestly tried to excuse himself from

accompanying them. But, when this was refused by the chief forester, he

entreated at least to be allowed to fire his trial shot before their

departure. Old Bertram shook his head, doubtingly: “William,” said he,

“should my suspicion of yesterday be just”—“Father!” replied the youth;

and no longer daring to hesitate, he departed with them to the forest.

Bertram had in vain endeavoured to suppress his forebodings and assume a

cheerful countenance. Catherine too was dejected, and it was not until

the arrival of the priest that she recollected her nuptial garland: her

mother had locked it up, and, in her haste to open the chest, broke the

lock, and was obliged to send into the village for another wreath, as too

much time had been wasted in endeavouring to recover the first. “Let

them give you the handsomest,” said Anne to the little messenger, “the

very handsomest they have.” The boy accordingly chose the most

glittering, and the seller, who misunderstood him, gave him a death

garland, composed of myrtle and rosemary, intermingled with silver. The

mother and daughter beheld and recognised the mysterious intimation of

fate; they embraced each other in silence, and endeavoured to smile away

their terror, in imputing it to the boy’s mistake. Again the broken lock

was tried; it opened easily now; the wreaths were changed, and the bridal

garland was twined around Catherine’s brilliant locks.

The sportsmen returned from the forest. The commissary was inexhaustible

on the subject of William’s wondrous skill. “It almost appears

ridiculous,” said he, “after such proofs, to require any further trial;

yet, in honour of the old custom, we must perform what appears

superfluous; we will therefore finish the business as quickly as

possible. There, upon that pillar, sits a dove, shoot it.” “For God’s

sake,” said Catherine, hastily approaching, “do not shoot that dove.

Alas! in my sleep last night I was myself a dove, and my mother, while

fastening a ring round my neck, on your approaching us became covered

with blood.”

William drew back his gun; but the chief forester smiled. “So timid,

little maiden!” said he, “that will never do for a huntsman’s bride:

come, courage! courage!—or is the dove a favourite, perhaps?”

“Ah, no,” she replied; “it is but fear.”

“Well then,” replied the commissary, “have courage; and now, William,

fire!”

The shot fell, and, in the same moment, Catherine sunk, with a loud

scream, to the earth. “Silly girl,” exclaimed the commissary, lifting

her up: but a stream of blood flowed over her face, her forehead was

shattered, for the ball of the rifle was lodged in the wound. William

turned, on hearing loud shrieks behind him, and beheld his Catherine

pale, weltering in her blood, and by her side the soldier of the forest,

who, with a fiendish laugh of scorn, pointed to his dying victim, and

cried aloud to William, “Sixty hit, three miss!”

“Accursed fiend!” shrieked the wretched youth, striking at the detested

form with his sword, “hast thou thus deceived me?” His agony permitted

no further expression, for he sunk senseless to the earth by the side of

the victim bride. The commissary and priest in vain endeavoured to

console the childless heart-broken parents. The mother had scarcely laid

the prophetic garland of death upon the bosom of the bridal corpse, when

her sorrow and life expired with her last-shed tear: the solitary father

soon followed her, and the miserable William closed his life in the

mad-house.

THE FORTUNES OF DE LA POLE.

In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on

men;

Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.

Then a spirit passed before my face, the hair of my head stood up.

_Job_, chap. iv.

EARLY in the seventeenth century, on a very cold November morning, a

gentleman of Winchester was returning to his home, by a road which then

led by the borders of the New Forest. He was conversing gaily with his

attendants, when his dogs arrested the mirth of the party, by darting

suddenly into the mazes of the forest, and signifying their discovery of

some unusual object by loud and continued howls. Sir Bernard Courtenay

instantly followed their track, and was startled by discovering, amid the

tangled bushes, the corpse of a man, frightfully mangled, and which

appeared to have lain some time in its concealment. Little observation

was necessary to point out the identity of the sufferer,—Sir Bernard

Courtenay almost instantly recognised an intimate friend; and, with deep

and painful commiseration, prepared to assist his attendants to convey

the body to its home.

Many conjectures were immediately afloat, as to the cause and perpetrator

of this dreadful act, and, as is ever usual in such cases, many more

absurd and irrational than just:—there was no apparent possibility of

tracing the fact; it appeared to mock all the art and all the power of

justice. He had not been robbed—murder alone had been intended, and had

alone been perpetrated; so that one fact at least was clear, that this

deed had been the work of an enemy: no common one, it was presumed, if

the appearance of the corpse might weigh any thing in evidence; it was

mangled fearfully, and the frightful distension of the muscles, the grim

and rigid expression of the features, the many deep and bloody wounds

upon the body, and the firm and powerful grasp with which the strained

fingers of one hand clenched a dark lock of human hair, while those of

the other as firmly closed over the hilt of a broken dagger, gave tokens

that a fierce and terrible struggle had preceded his unexpected

destruction. It was hoped, that some corresponding token of wounds and

fierce exertion might lead to a discovery of the murderer; for none

deemed, after beholding the body, and calling to mind the noble courage

of the victim when in life, that the destroyer could pass from that gripe

unharmed.

He who had thus fallen, was one for whom every eye had a tear and every

heart a genuine sigh; he had been the friend of all, the enemy of none;

he was young, beautiful, and brave; and his native town had looked up to

him as one who was to add new glory to her venerable name, and new lustre

to his own princely blood; and cut off in the beginning of his career,

the very high day of his happiness and beauty, and so cut off—who was

there that did not lament for John de la Pole? But, though all

Winchester, and the county in whose bosom it lies, sorrowed over the

corpse of John de la Pole, the agony born from his death was to be found

in his family alone; there he had been adored, and there most truly and

deeply was his sad destiny accused. His young and lovely wife, scarce

past her bridal year,—she who had, long before his marriage, been the

secret object of his ardent love, and who, upon the death of his father,

became the object of his choice—of her grief it was scarcely possible to

think without affright; for, in that convulsion of soul into which, in

the first horror of eternal separation from all we love, we invariably

fall, she had withdrawn herself from all consolation of her friends—all

succour of her attendants; and report whispered that she was using means,

though quietly, (in order to avoid public shame,) to shorten a life which

was now become odious and burthensome. To this cruel resolution she had

been driven by a terrible incident: on the morning of the discovery of

the body, she had, believing him to be on his road towards his home,

ascended her carriage in order to meet him, and was driving cheerfully

through the town, when her progress was arrested by the appearance of the

crowd bearing the corpse of her husband. She recognised it at a glance,

and, before they were aware of their imprudence, a piercing shriek

announced to the people that she did so. She took another searching,

distracted look at the body, and shrunk into the arms of her attendants,

insensible and silent. _They_ thought she was dead—it would not have

been wonderful if she had been; the husband of her soul was lying before

her, a deep gash across his throat, another had disfigured his snowy

brow, and almost divided his once lofty head, while the bosom upon which

she had been accustomed to repose was mangled and rent by stabs and blows

too many to number—what an object for a young and loving wife!

Remembrance was terrible to her, and the inability of justice to discover

the murderer added despair to her grief, and thus compelled her to seek

for consolation only in the prospect of death.

As bitter a grief, though perhaps not so deep or desperate, had fastened

upon the heart of the only survivor of his family, a youth of twenty, of

a beauty and virtue equal to his lamented brother, and who had indeed

ample reason for his regrets. John de la Pole had been as a father to

his youth, and loved him with a warmth far surpassing the kindness of

ordinary brotherhood. Eustace had never been taught to remember that he

was the younger, for the fortunes of his house were open to him, and the

purse of the elder was common to both. On the marriage of the latter

with his beloved Agatha, the younger had timidly hinted at his fears of

an interruption to their friendship; but John had remedied this, by

generously providing for his brother, and entreating his Agatha to allow

him still a home at the castle: which being granted, Eustace, though

still fearful of the influence of his lovely sister, continued to reside

at home.

But the influence he so much dreaded during his life, became singularly

apparent after the death of his beloved John. The will of the latter had

indeed left an independence to Eustace, but nothing to support the

splendour of that princely house of which he was now sole representative.

All was assigned to Agatha,—she was the sole heir of her husband,—the

being for whose sake alone he appeared to glory in the possession of

wealth. Eustace indeed might still enjoy it, but it was upon a condition

which drew the blood from the young man’s cheek as he read, and palsied

the warm throbbings of the heart in his bosom; it was, that if John de la

Pole should die childless before he had attained the age of thirty,

Eustace should espouse his widow. His brother even _entreated_ this

sacrifice of him: he said, he knew his heart had been sensible of other

charms, but he implored him to yield up this transient gratification to

his eternal happiness. He could not endure, he said, the thought of

averting from Eustace the fortune of his house; yet still less could he

endure to know that Agatha would fill a subordinate state in his family

to that in which he had placed her. He shuddered at the thought of her

being driven, by this circumstance, to become the wife of another—of one

who would love her, and whom she could also love. He besought Eustace

therefore, if he valued his repose, to wed her, as no attachment

subsisted between them, and he was satisfied to believe that by him she

would be treated with gentleness. Agatha he entreated to comply with his

last wishes, and accept the hand of Eustace within two months after his

death, or be content to resign, with her present rank, the estates to the

next of kin. Such was the will of John de la Pole. Eustace, full of

grief, instantly retired from the castle of his sister, whom he believed

as little inclined to fulfil the conditions of the will as himself, and

resigned his spirit for some days to despair; but his friends rallied

round him, and represented how much depended upon his calm decision. The

next of kin had appeared too, a greedy rapacious man, the son of his

father’s sister, who seemed to be sure of his inheritance, and whom John,

(it was conjectured,) had purposely named, to stimulate his brother to

fulfil his dying injunctions. Hugh de Broke was insolent and brutal, had

never been upon kindly terms with his cousins, and had once nearly been

murdered by the peasantry for wounding John in a quarrel which occurred a

few years before. The inhabitants saw him return with disgust; his early

brutalities were remembered; and when he boasted, in his drink, that he

knew his cousin before his death intended to make a will in his favour,

all Hampshire was ready to accuse him of the murder, and many of its

gentlemen would have given half their estates to have been able to

substantiate the charge. From earnest desire to action there is but one

step: the thought was scarcely uttered by one, ere many endeavoured to

prove it a fact, and Hugh de Broke became, from an object of mere

dislike, one of abhorrence and suspicion. He was not told of the murmurs

afloat respecting him; and he was too much accustomed to signs of

dislike, to observe any thing new in their conduct. The eyes that glared

upon him had nothing in them peculiarly ferocious to him now; nor did the

deep mutterings and suppressed curses as he passed, startle him at this

period from his path; he remembered the hatred of other days, and if he

_did_ observe any increase of this ill feeling towards him, he attributed

their malignity less towards himself in his own person, than against the

authority he would be enabled to hold over their actions as the fortunate

heir of John de la Pole. At all events, he fortified himself against

their inflictions, by resorting in some cases to the exercise of his

native brutality, in others to a loud and bitter scorn, which only served

to increase their abhorrence and his own unsuspected danger.

The accusers were wary in their proceedings, and silently went on

collecting proofs and accumulating evidence, until they believed they had

truly in the ruffian kinsman, discovered the murderer of their popular

favourite. It was remembered, that after three years’ absence, he had

appeared in Hampshire about a month previous to the murder of John, and

then had suddenly disappeared, to re-appear as suddenly in Winchester

after the contents of the extraordinary will were made public. He had

boasted a previous knowledge of this document, and he had taken into his

service the man who attended John in his fatal journey, and who, by

delaying to follow his master, had given courage to the assassin to make

the attack. This man had been dismissed by Eustace with a bitter

reproof, and had immediately repaired to De Broke. Fear, or too much

security, (it was affirmed,) had dictated the measure of his adoption,

after a dismissal which ought to have rendered his services every where

suspicious. John, it was urged, had been absent nearly a month, on a

visit to a distant friend; he had set out on foot on his return,

unaccompanied; for this man, according to his own statement, was

commanded by his master to follow him with the horses, one of which (De

la Pole’s) had been injured by an accident a few days before; but he had

loitered long after, in order to keep an appointment which he had made

with a damsel in the establishment of his master’s friend. He was for

this loudly accused of treachery; and De Broke ferociously became his

champion, with a violence that only defeated the object he had in view.

The lock of hair found in the gripe of the corpse was remembered and

produced; it was a bunch of thick and clustering curls, and had been

forcibly torn from the head of the assassin. The hair of the servant was

pale, but it was remarked that Hugh’s was dark and curling, and they

sought an opportunity to compare them together. De Broke drove the party

from his presence with every mark of contempt, and hardly deigned to

assent to the repeated asseverations of his servants, that his hair was

much darker, and altogether of a different texture from that produced as

taken from the corpse. His conduct was resented warmly. By degrees all

the gentry assumed the opinions of the mob; and when, in a violent attack

upon his person, it was discovered that his hair had lately been polled

in order to facilitate the cure of a wound, and which had hitherto been

concealed by the (then) extraordinary contrivance of a peruke, the

magistrates made open cause with the people, and Hugh was conducted to

prison. There his conduct was sullen and brutal; he would give no

explanation, save that the wound in his head arose from a fall from his

horse. He was unusually ferocious; and considerably aggravated his case,

by his constant threats of deep and deadly vengeance against Eustace de

la Pole, who, he insisted, had conspired to cheat him of his estate, in

conjunction with his other enemies. Many new proofs appeared against

him, and the whole county awaited, in trembling suspense, the event of

his anticipated trial.

But these anticipations were not to be gratified: a few nights before the

arrival of the judges, Hugh had contrived to escape from his prison, and

elude the vigilance of his enemies, by the aid, it was supposed, of his

servant, for he also fled the country; and neither master nor man again

fell into the hands of justice.

In the mean time, the interval months, the short period of time allowed

for most important considerations, were fast wearing away; the two

persons most interested in their progress had come to no decision; and

though Hugh de Broke had for the present withdrawn his claim, yet he had

heirs, who, neither more delicate nor more generous than himself, might

endeavour to prove his incapacity, and substantiate their own in place of

his. At all events, delays were dangerous, and the fortunes of De la

Pole were too considerable to be put to hazard. Eustace loved another,

and Agatha could not forget her husband; yet a compliance with the terms

of the will became an absolute necessity. Though with averted hearts,

they joined hands at the earnest entreaty of friends and relatives; nor

would it have been possible to have refused, since even royal majesty

evinced a solicitude, that the great fortunes and powerful political

interest of the family should not pass into any other hands than those of

that loyal and princely blood which had hitherto held them so nobly.

Agatha and Eustace became man and wife, and vowed to cherish and love

each other till death.

But it was soon evident to all, that this was not either in the power or

inclination of the new wedded pair: a deeper sorrow had sunk into their

minds, and their calm grief was supplanted by looks and feelings of

horror and despair. They spent much of their time together; but their

conferences seemed rather to heighten than to soothe their mutual

suffering. It was at length remarked, that Eustace never passed his

nights in the chamber of his wife, but sometimes in deep groans and

anguish in the seclusion of his own apartment, or in wandering wildly

through the gloomy mazes of the forest. At such times a stupor would

overshadow the spirit of Agatha,—a silent and uncomplaining madness that

seemed to render her insensible to suffering; and only upon his return

did she vent her keen anguish in words, or dissipate her torture by

shrieks as piercing as they were fearful.

Those about them saw no other cause for this mental hell, than the grief

which had seized upon them, by constantly contemplating their eternal

separation from the being they most loved. It was anticipated that time

would effect, if not a cure, at least some amelioration of its

bitterness; but time rolled on, and their agonies did not decrease. Nor

did the prospect of an heir to their disastrous union afford any pleasure

or consolation to their minds; they went through the usual routine of

preparation, because, as it appeared, it _was_ usual; there was no joyous

anticipation on the part of Eustace,—no tender, trembling hope on the

side of Agatha; there was no anxiety, no care; it was a thing unspoken

of, unnoted; and when the bustle of the house, the importance of the

attendants, and the entrance of the friend, (who, unsummoned, save by the

servants, yet judged it necessary to be near her,) told Eustace of the

near approaching throes of Agatha, he threw himself upon the ground in

the chamber adjoining her, and buried his face in his hands.

Eustace, young, beautiful, and of a gallant spirit, was adored by his

household, _all_ the members of which fondly contemplated the birth of an

heir, as an event well calculated to calm their mutual suffering, and

endear them to each other: and though the maternal anguish of Agatha took

place before the usual and expected time, the hopes so affectionately

cherished were not shaken by the event; but the conduct of their master

gave a wound to their generous devotion. Sad and singular as it was,

that of Agatha was scarcely less inexplicable: no groans, no tokens of

pain accompanied her physical suffering; and it was apparent that some

keener pang of the mind, some woe too deep for utterance, had deadened

all sense to merely corporal pain. Her eyes were generally closed,

except when some louder noise, or the nearer approach of an attendant

towards the couch, forced her to open them, and gaze around her for an

instant; but, when her senses were thus for a moment awakened, it was

evident the object which had aroused them had no share in their

attention. Heedless of all that was passing, she took a shuddering rapid

glance around the chamber, as if in earnest search of one whom she yet

feared to encounter, and then closed them in evident affright, and sunk

anew into stupor and silence;—it was amidst this stupor and silence that

her first-born son entered the world.

Eustace had not long remained absorbed in his own painful meditations,

ere a mighty shriek from the chamber of Agatha broke upon his ear, and

made him partly raise his head from the hard pillow to which he had

consigned it. But his soul was dead within him;—he thought no further

agony could reach him now—no keener pang could inflict a wound in his

already crushed heart; and though the scream was one of horror and

dismay, a sound of many voices in grief and consternation, it passed over

his senses without further notice, and he again drooped his head to the

ground, and, grovelling to earth, seemed as he would bury himself from

his anguish in the kindly bosom of his only parent—his last—his truest

friend.

But repose was not for him—no, not even the repose of despair—he was

again to wake, to feel, to suffer; there was an undreamed of agony near—a

sting that was to penetrate his palsied bosom, and awake his crushed soul

from the dead; to die would have been bliss, but that was a bliss denied

him.

The unhappy young man arose;—a footstep was heard hastily rushing towards

his chamber—the wife of Courtenay approached him with a look of

commiserating regard, and took his arm to draw him to the apartment of

Agatha. She did not speak, but Eustace read in the expression of her

features that there was yet more to encounter and to endure. He entered

the apartment of his wife—_she_ was lying speechless and insensible upon

her couch, utterly incapable of any observation of what was passing

around her; and by her side lay a deformed and distorted infant, plunged

in the still deeper silence of death.

In the first moment of sorrow, the friend who had so hastily sought the

presence of Eustace, had done so under the compelling influence of the

circumstance and the time; but a few moments had scarcely elapsed, ere

Courtenay recovered sufficient recollection to decide that his wife had

judged unwisely in so rapidly flying from the chamber of the poor Agatha,

and bursting into that of her husband, dreading the influence the sudden

grief might probably acquire over the already racked brain of the latter.

With this feeling, Courtenay raised his eye from the dead child to

observe the countenance of Eustace, and, if possible, form a judgment as

to how he was likely to support this shock: but here his fears gave place

to a new feeling, and his grief was overpowered by astonishment at the

singular deportment of Eustace: the childless father advanced slowly

towards the corse of his infant, and gazed upon it intently for a moment;

a spasm of agony passed over his countenance, but there was no surprise

mingled with its expression. “And is it indeed _thus_!” he murmured in a

low and agonised tone of voice; “and _so_ must my punishment begin!—yet

better is it even thus, than that thou, poor distorted thing! shouldst

live to reproach thy father, and, by thy sufferings, be an accusing

witness against him.” A convulsive shivering seized upon his frame, and

he seemed to be struggling with some difficult and awful resolve. At

that moment a similar convulsion appeared to extend itself to the body of

the infant; its eyes rolled, and one arm suddenly stretched itself out

with a convulsive kind of movement, and remained extended, pointing

towards Eustace. The struggle was at an end in an instant; the change

from distracted to subdued sorrow was the work of a moment. He grew

perfectly calm; and turning his looks again towards the infant, and

addressing it in a low steady voice, “I thank thee,” he said, “for this

warning; thou too shalt not have cause to reproach me; I have hesitated

too long; but His will and thine shall be done.” Saying thus, his head

drooped upon his bosom as in deep thought, and the extended arm of the

child a moment after fell quietly down by its side.

Courtenay, the friend of Eustace, and the near relative of Agatha, now

judged that in this moment of calmness, he might venture some expressions

of consolation. He deeply regretted that he should have mistaken the

sleep of the infant for the last slumber of death, and he urged to

Eustace the possibility that the union of medical skill and paternal care

might relieve his child from its afflictions, and restore it, in natural

beauty, to his love. He continued to dwell some time longer upon well

intended topics of consolation, until he perceived that Eustace no longer

heard his observations, or even remembered his presence. Suddenly, a new

thought appeared to awaken the dormant faculties of the latter. “Has

Agatha seen her child?” he demanded. “No,” replied the wife of

Courtenay; “she was insensible at the time of its birth, and I instantly

rushed from the chamber to seek counsel of my husband: he could give

none; but, terrified as myself, followed me hither. Now, I deem, that as

the child has uttered no sound since it came into the world, it were

better she were told of its death; it will be but an anticipation of what

must happen; for surely such an unhappy object cannot long exist.” “I

know not that,” observed Eustace, sadly; “but at least do as thou hast

said, and remove the child from the castle.” Courtenay retired from the

apartment; and the wish of De la Pole was speedily obeyed.

But it seemed as if this unmeasured sorrow had brought calmness to him

whom they feared it would annihilate: he sought not the apartment of his

wife, but retired tranquilly to his own; and there was a stillness in it

throughout the night, wholly unlike the restless pacings and disturbed

groans which had hitherto been heard to issue from it. In the morning he

went to Agatha: their conference was long and sad, for traces of tears

were on her countenance when they parted; but the shrieks and agonies

which had formerly distinguished their interviews were no more; she had

caught consolation and fortitude from him, and her mind, it appeared, had

now grown as resigned and tranquil as his own.

Eustace made a journey to a distant part of the country: he spoke nothing

of his intention previous to his setting out, nor of its object on his

return; that it had been of importance, could only be collected from the

care with which he had concealed it, and the continual occupations which

followed his arrival at Winchester. He was constantly employed in

writing, and once or twice had had earnest conversations with Courtenay.

It was during one of these that he received an unexpected interruption in

the person of Agatha, who entered calmly the apartment of her husband,

and demanded his attention. Courtenay arose, and was preparing to

retire, when Agatha arrested his steps. “That which I have to say is for

thy ear also,” she remarked; “stay, therefore, and answer me. Sleeping

on my couch in the midday heat, the voices of my damsels in discourse

broke upon my ear, and the sound they uttered gave me to know that my

infant boy yet lives; wherefore is it that it is not in the bosom of its

mother? and why was it ever banished from her care?” There was a dead

silence at the conclusion of this speech. Eustace replied not, and the

lip of Courtenay trembled. “Eustace fears to reply,” observed Agatha;

“he trembles to accumulate more sorrow upon this drooping head; he may,

in tenderness, deceive; but thou, Courtenay, knowest not to lie, and from

thy lip must the bitter truth come; wherefore is my infant not here?”

“We feared it would die,” answered Courtenay; “and, therefore, in thy

already terrible agony, wished to spare thee the spectacle of its

dissolution.” “But it did not die,” pertinaciously resumed Agatha; “why

was it not restored? it might have brought peace and consolation to the

bosom of its mother.” “No, madam,” returned the shuddering speaker;

“that child would have brought sorrow and dismay, but no joy to the heart

of its unhappy parent. We removed it to a distance, fearing the effect

of its appearance upon your mind; it is most fearfully disfigured.”

“Disfigured!” repeated Agatha, with a thrilling start. A long pause

ensued. “Let her behold the boy,” said Eustace, calmly. “Yes! let me

behold my boy,” said the mother, while tears of sorrow heightened the

lustre of those splendid eyes; “let me behold my boy; I shall not shrink

from his sight, even though he be an eternal remembrancer of”—She paused,

and sadly turned her eyes towards her husband. “Well, then, thou hast

anticipated aright,” said Eustace; “he _will_ be to thee an eternal

remembrancer; to me—that ghastly face:—that pointing hand—I will not

behold them; yet do I rejoice in thy resolve, for such is thy painful

duty, and thus wilt thou share my sacrifice without enduring my

suffering.” He retired as he spoke; and soon after, conducted by

Courtenay, in silence and secrecy, the hapless mother folded the ghastly

boy to her breast.

It is rare that the human mind can dwell upon more than one wonder at a

period. The neighbourhood, roused by the idle gossiping of the castle

damsels, had begun to be astonished at the disappearance of the heir of

De la Pole, who was said not to be dead, but deprived of his mother’s

tenderness and his father’s succession; and, offended that there should

be a secret, they determined that rendering justice to the injured child

should be the apology for their own ungenerous curiosity. From this they

were diverted by a singular incident.

A meeting of the gentlemen of the county had been called for some public

purpose foreign to this narrative. In the midst of this discussion, it

was observed that Eustace de la Pole was absent: this, to many who had

known of his recent griefs and habits, was nothing singular; but those

who resided more remote from the sphere of his influence, felt authorised

to demand his presence and attention in a matter which was supposed

deeply to interest the class to which he belonged. A messenger was

despatched to request his attendance, and was told that he was preparing

to wait upon them; and he who was charged with the embassy had scarcely

returned to his employers, ere Eustace de la Pole entered the

council-chamber, leading by the hand a tall and graceful youth, whom he

placed at the table of the council, and behind whose chair he stood while

he spoke. His words were few; but their stunning import threw horror and

astonishment over the noble assembly. “I present to you this young man,”

calmly said he; “and I have assigned to him his appointed place; mine it

must be no longer; he is the son of Hugh de Broke, who is lately dead,

and who, a few months since, was accused of the murder of John de la

Pole. I come to render him a late, though, I trust, not useless justice,

and restore the honour of his house. This youth is not only the heir of

the fortunes of De la Pole, but of his father’s innocence, since I only

was the murderer of my brother.”

It would not be possible to paint all the feelings of the audience who

listened to this singular declaration, nor the contrariety of opinions

that pervaded the minds of men upon its disclosure. Some asserted that

derangement had fastened upon the mind of Eustace, and that he only

imagined the fact; others, that grief had wearied him of existence, and

that, preferring to die by other hands than his own, he had chosen this

method of escaping from life and its convulsions; but the far greater

part (as is ever the case in human judgments) decided for the darker side

of the question, and concluded the self-accusation to be just, and were

only now interested in analysing his motive. The will of the victim too

became a subject of infinite wonder; and when, to every interrogatory

(save those which implied the participation of Agatha, which he instantly

and earnestly denied,) Eustace remained mute, indignation supplied the

place of pity; and among those who had been his intimates and friends,

had eaten of his bread and drank of his cup, there were not wanting some,

who, baffled in their eager pursuit of the marvellous, and offended that

a secret was denied to them, even hinted at the torture, as a means of

compelling a discovery of his motives and accomplices.

There are many whose sickly existences find health only in the

contemplation of the severer agonies of others; many who, without either

hatred or malignity, yet love to feed their unnatural and craving

appetites for singularities and horrors; and would rather cherish them

with the blood of a dear friend, than suffer them to famish for want of

sustenance. In small communities and country places, this inclination in

the inhabitants is most apparent: here it was cruelly visible. John de

la Pole had always been a popular man, and his destiny had afforded them

a feast of blood, for which they felt grateful to his memory; from his

murderer they could exact it, and they would: the loudest for justice

appealed to the king for the application of the torture, and those who

pitied the sufferer did not oppose the petition, as curious to behold the

result.

The weak and inquisitive prince who then filled the English throne, saw

something singular and mysterious in the conduct of the young De la Pole,

and therefore unhesitatingly gave his assent to the sentence of his

judges. The torture was borne by Eustace without a groan, though a close

imprisonment of some weeks might have weakened his spirit and exhausted

his bodily strength. He walked calmly and unsupported to the scene of

suffering, conversing steadily with Courtenay, who never for an instant

forsook him. From any outward tokens of anticipated agony or terror, it

would have been difficult to distinguish the criminal from the spectator:

he even smiled as he recognised his acquaintances in the crowd assembled

to gaze upon his sufferings. There was only one action remarkable in his

bearing at this trying juncture; on ascending the scaffold, and while

they were binding his arms, his attention was arrested apparently by some

object near him, though no one could be seen by the crowd, and during the

whole period of the infliction of the “peine forte et dure,” the victim

kept his eyes still fastened upon this spot, but without articulating a

word. When the accumulated weights pressed so heavily on his sinking

breast as to threaten dissolution, he raised his head to look upon his

mangled limbs, and surveyed them in silent attention; he then turned his

eyes to the spot which had so long occupied their regards, and, pointing

with a slow and solemn motion to the load upon his breast, said, in a

clear and steady tone, “Thou see’st!”

Eustace was remanded to prison; his friends, his enemies, those who were

neither, all besought him with equal earnestness not to die with this

secret sin upon his heart; he smiled at their anxiety, but answered

nothing to their queries;—they doubted his guilt, ascribed his conduct to

madness, to despair;—he replied by throwing off his cap and shewing the

scar in his head, from which his brother, in the last agonising grasp of

death, had torn the dark and bloody lock which had once so nearly

condemned the unfortunate De Broke,—and they were silenced. He continued

steadfast to his purpose—silent, sorrowful, but calm.

And where was Agatha during these scenes of insult and endurance? Had

she too forsaken the dungeon of her husband, and given up her soul to

exultation in his captivity and anguish? She had once, and only once,

demanded admittance to his prison; she had remained with him many hours,

and retired, like himself, tranquillised from the interview. Soon after,

she formally resigned the castle and its dependencies to him whom Eustace

had named as the lawful heir: her own son, and his claims, were now no

longer remembered, since the crime of his father had deprived him of the

succession, which had been awarded by the king to the son of the injured

De Broke. After these arrangements, which were performed in silence and

celerity, and with only the casual assistance of Courtenay, Agatha

withdrew from her native town, and concealed her person and her sorrow

for ever from the eyes of the world.

But her desertion of her husband at the tremendous juncture when he so

much needed her help and consolation, was not regarded with indignation

by the many who considered the circumstances under which she stood:

_that_ husband was a murderer, and of whom? The terrible question needed

no reply, and Agatha was speedily acquitted; her absence too was a

trivial circumstance compared with that of her husband’s situation. All

eyes were turned to the prison at Winchester.

At length Eustace de la Pole was led out to die. It was a splendid day,

in the season of autumn, on which his mortal career was to terminate.

Consideration for the princely blood which flowed in his veins, had

forbidden, in his case, the strangulation by the degrading cord, and the

axe and the block had been substituted in its room. The novelty of the

circumstance drew many thousands round the scaffold, who awaited, in

feverish and almost angry impatience, the arrival of him who was to

furnish forth the spectacle of the day. He came,—not indeed as before,

with an erect and unassisted step, for his limbs had been crushed, and

his physical strength destroyed; but his pale countenance was composed,

and his soft rich voice was steady and clear, as he conversed at

intervals with Courtenay, the priest, and the executioner, who received

him courteously, as, led by the two former, he ascended the steps to the

scaffold. Of the crowd around he took no heed, but with calm and silent

celerity prepared himself for the block. At sight of the noble young

man, bare-headed and disrobed for a sad and ignominious death, there were

many who could no longer restrain their tears; and hard-hearted

grey-headed men who, hating his crime, believed they could find pleasure

in his sorrow, and went thither to feast upon his suffering, now wept

loudly for him whom, in their first feeling of horror, they had cursed.

He appeared unconscious of this change of temper, and seemed rather

disposed to hasten than to retard the preparations, for he laid his head

down upon his last pillow before the executioner had entirely completed

them. He had himself promised to give the signal for the fall of the

axe; and while the multitude were anxiously awaiting this movement, they

beheld him suddenly raise his head from the block, and gaze intently upon

one particular spot upon the scaffold; all eyes were instantly directed

towards it, but to them at least no object was visible. He gazed for a

few moments with intense earnestness, then calmly replacing his head upon

the block, exclaimed in solemn but eager accents, “Thou see’st!” and gave

the signal for his death. The axe fell—heavily, rapidly—it was

over—swifter than thought. The executioner held up the gory head to the

people; the features were calm, the eyes closed; but before he could

utter the customary sentence, they had once more opened and fixed

themselves upon the same spot which had attracted the last of their

living regards; they appeared slowly to follow the movement of some

unseen object round the scaffold, till they reached the opposite side;

then they withdrew their gaze, quivered for an instant, dropped, dark and

immoveable, for ever.

This, as many strange scenes, was however doomed to be forgotten, like

other things. Ten years passed away, and ten other wonders had, during

that period, interested or frightened the people of Winchester and its

surrounding country. John and Eustace de la Pole were no more

remembered, or their story only casually mentioned as belonging to the

odd things that were; Courtenay had glided into middle age, and the youth

for whom Eustace had done so much, had long since written man.—Ten years!

How many and how striking may be the changes of ten years! Courtenay had

long pondered over the destiny of Agatha, and sighed to think whither her

unhappy fate might have conducted her; but the long interval which passed

had almost swept her from his mind, when a letter, in her unforgotten

character, was one day put into his hand. It was couched in brief and

anxious terms, and conveyed a request that he would immediately proceed

to her dwelling. Courtenay was no laggard in the cause of humanity; he

did not pause to speculate upon this address, or even to wonder at its

abruptness, but he set forward instantly, and the morning of the

following day saw him knock at a lonely cottage on the coast of

Dorsetshire, in the neighbourhood of Corfe Castle. The door was opened

by Agatha herself, who, habited in the black robes which she had worn

since the sad death of the last of her husbands, received him with

courteous sadness. Years had not dimmed the beauty of her matchless

face, but sorrow had been busy with its expression; the same lovely

features were there, but their once bright character was gone.

Their meeting was tenderly sorrowful: Agatha said little in explanation

until she had conducted her guest into an adjoining chamber, and pointed

out one object for his observation. Stretched upon a couch, grown to

boyhood, covered with wounds, and unchanged in person, save that his

deformities had now grown more manifest, lay extended the ghastly boy,

the only child of Agatha and the hapless Eustace. Courtenay trembled as

he gazed; but the mother’s looks were calm. “He is dead,” she said, on

observing the emotion of her guest; “what Heaven and Nature with so much

difficulty spared, the brutality of man has destroyed; he was my joy and

sorrow, and many a weary hour have I watched to snatch him from the

yawning grave: for ten years he has been my sole care; and for the

insults and scorn heaped upon his deformed and idiotic existence, he

found compensation in the tenderness of his mother. The small pittance

which I derived from my father was sufficient for our wants: and never

should I have called upon any former friend, but for the cruel deed of

yesterday; robbers from the waters broke into my poor dwelling, and

pillaged thence my property. I knew not how it was; I had gone to a

distance to buy food, and on my return found the poor idiot thus. My

only attendant, an old woman, had been wounded in his defence; and from

her I with difficulty learned, that the convulsive movements of the boy,

and his pointing hand, as his menacing eye followed their actions, had

drawn upon him their wrath and its brutal consequences. I am averse from

again appearing in the scenes which I have once and for ever abandoned,

and therefore I sent for thee, Courtenay, to spare myself the sad task of

interring the pale corpse of my boy, and drawing wondering and

inquisitive eyes upon my person and history.”

Courtenay was pleased with the confidence reposed in his friendship. A

brother’s love might have done less for Agatha; it could not have

effected more. Her wishes were immediately performed; and he was

preparing, with unintrusive delicacy, to return to his home, when Agatha

for a few moments detained him; “You have deserved unlimited confidence

at my hands;” said she, “and you shall obtain it: he who is now numbered

with the ignominious dead desired it should be so, and I withhold it no

longer. You, in common with all the world, were ignorant of the motives

which impelled the unhappy Eustace to the deed which he perpetrated; but

you did not, in common with all the world, forsake him in his utmost

need: for you he drew up the story of his sorrows, and placed it in my

hands to be given to you only when I saw the fitting time; that time hath

arrived. The child of sorrow is dead, and I shall still more completely

retire from a world where insignificance and poverty are no protection

from cruelty and avarice; a convent will shortly receive me, and, if I

continue to live, a newer and better existence will be mine: if not, I

shall have done wisely in thus obeying the last command of Eustace.”

Courtenay received the packet and retired; he lingered not a moment to

relieve the recluse of his presence, but returned to Winchester, after

receiving her commands to see her again in three days; he then hastened

to his apartment, and, with trembling avidity, read, in the confessions

of Eustace, the secret story of the fortunes of De la Pole.

“I know that thou despisest me, Courtenay; I know that thou deemest me no

less a fool than a coward; thou didst bring me the means of an honourable

death, gavest into mine hands the dagger and the drug, and I have

rejected both: we disputed, differed, parted, met again, and again

renewed the subject: thou didst even deign to persuade the coward (so

thou thoughtest him) to act like a man; but thy entreaties were unheeded

and thy counsel rejected; he will die like a thief and a criminal—he will

be hooted out of life; and curses will be the torches to give light to

his memory, that it sink not into darkness and oblivion.

“Said I not that I was a sacrifice? that my punishment was a propitiatory

offering? Now again I say to thee the same thing. Death would have few

horrors for me (for it is a thing I covet) without the ignominy of a

public execution; to offer my life for my wrong would be nothing, but to

offer it up thus!—This alone can satisfy immortal justice; this alone can

satisfy the spirit of the murdered man. Read and behold my meaning.

“Thou knowest how fondly, contrary to his father’s hope, John de la Pole

loved the beautiful daughter of Philip Forester, thy kinsman; but thou

knowest not how much more fervently she was adored by the wretched

Eustace, and how tenderly the gentle Agatha returned that love. Hope

there was none; for what had I to bribe the greedy father of my love,

when John de la Pole could hereafter lay the fortunes of his house at her

feet? Philip suspected the state of his daughter’s heart, and had looked

deeper than I imagined into mine: he determined that a younger brother

was not deserving of his Agatha’s beauty, and, by cold civilities and

hints of my father’s and brother’s disapprobation, banished me from his

house. One thing alone gave consolation to my blighted heart, the

steadiness with which my father resolved against the marriage of John

with the object of our mutual passion. In one of the sad conferences

which I occasionally, though now but seldom, held with my beloved Agatha,

it occurred to my imagination, that though my father had resolved to

dispose differently of the heir of his house, he might not object to my

union with the object of my choice; and I received permission of my

beloved to make the attempt upon his feelings. I did so immediately,

and, with a rapture which I dare not now dwell upon, received his

permission, and his solemn promise to purchase the approbation of the

selfish Forester, by bestowing upon me one-fourth of his more than

princely fortune. He arranged to see Forester upon the following day:

the same evening I flew to Agatha. O Courtenay! didst thou ever love?

Those few blessed hours were the most happy of my life, and the last that

were so. We parted; Agatha radiant with happiness; I, to think, to hope,

to anticipate, to wish all things could share my transports, to love

creation, to love God. In the morning my father was found dead on his

couch; and the following month Agatha became the wife of my brother!

Courtenay! didst thou ever love?

“Thou wilt ask, where was Eustace when his beloved was thus sacrificed?

Alas! sent to a distance, to execute some commands of that brother upon

whom I was now so utterly dependent. He had discovered my love, and

thus, without my suspecting his intentions, prevented its consequences:

he hastened to Agatha, represented the ruin she would bring upon me, and

his determination to abandon me for ever, unless she became his wife;

Forester, who was his ally, threatened her with his curse; I know not all

the artifices used,—I never could listen to the detail. She became the

wife of the man she could not love, and I was suffered to wither beneath

his roof, while, with calm hypocrisy, he told his own tale,

ostentatiously enriched his younger brother, and declared he could not

live happy without him. Fool that he was!—stupid, uncalculating idiot!

He had torn asunder two burning hearts, and expected to smother their

fires; he had separated two devoted beings, compelled them to live in

each other’s presence, and yet expected them to forget. Agatha abhorred

his sight—his very aspect was loathsome to her. I saw her agonies,—I saw

her daily shudderings at every demonstration of his love; and cold dews

of death spread over my own heart when I beheld her submitting to his

fondness. I implored to be banished from the castle; I entreated to be

allowed the sad privilege of beholding Agatha no more: he could not trust

me from him, he said; and I was obliged to remain. Merciless idiot!

blind looker into the human heart! Had he consented, all might then have

been well; but how did he dare thus selfishly sport with torture? He

went on a journey for a few weeks; he commanded me to a distant part of

the country on business of importance to his interests: I went, but

returned ere half the allotted time for his absence had expired—to be

alone with Agatha—to see her unrestrained—to mingle my tears with hers: I

could not resist this one sad bliss, and I hastened back to enjoy it.

“We met, the lover and the beloved, in grief—in madness—in despair! Oh,

wonder not, that when we parted guilt should be added to the burthen of

our sorrows; but the terrible consciousness of crime changed at once our

natures and our deeds. Agatha’s horror of her husband increased: and,

now that she was mine, I determined she should no more be his—to fly, and

rob the castle for the means of sustenance. Alas! I feared to expose her

to scorn, should we be unable to evade the pursuit of justice; and, even

if in this we should succeed, what means had I of subsistence when that

slender source should fail, proscribed, as we should be, in every part of

our native land? To live on, as I had lately done, was still more

impossible; since Agatha herself had armed her bosom with a knife to be

turned against her heart rather than again endure the horrors of her

husband’s love. Again and again we met in passionate, though gloomy

conference; and thus continued to waste the time in fruitless debate

until his messenger announced his approaching return. Despair gave wings

to my thought; Agatha’s eye glanced on mine; she drew the dagger from her

breast, and I snatched it from her hand. Our thoughts had spoken—there

was no need of words—we had understood each other without them.

“I hastened to conceal myself in the New Forest, near the road through

which he must pass on his return. He had taken his confidential servant

with him, and, rather than expose myself to observation, I had determined

to fire at him through the trees, calculating and believing that the

servant would mistake the attack for that of concealed robbers, and fly,

leaving his master to his fate. But I had scarcely arranged my mode of

attack ere I heard a footstep in the road; I looked out, and beheld him

slowly advancing, with his eyes steadfastly directed towards the towers

of his castle, as if he sought out the apartment of his wife. At the

sight of him all prudence vanished—all recollection of the calm attack

which I had meditated passed away from my mind; I did not even observe

that he was alone: hatred and rage filled my heart, and I rushed upon him

like a wild beast, tearing him to the earth by the bare strength of

sinew, and inflicting many mortal stabs upon his breast: he grappled

fiercely with me, struggled hard to rise, and even drew his dagger, which

I broke in his grasp before he could strike one blow. He tore a lock of

hair from my head, but, during the terrible contest he had not uttered a

single word, till a deep and home-directed stroke upon his brow threw him

powerless on the sod, then he spoke gaspingly to his brother: ‘Have mercy

upon me,’ he said, ‘have mercy; I have wronged thee, but that is not the

heaviest of my crimes; I would live to repent: to expiate one, the

deepest, darkest, let me live; I dare not die. My father!—I overheard

his arrangements with thee—I could not bear to lose her—he was found dead

on his couch—I smothered him in the night. Mercy, mercy! O Eustace! let

me live,—I am not fit to die!’ But his words raised a wilder fiend in my

soul, that scared away the spirit of mercy. He then had been the

monster—he!—I raved aloud, ‘Murderer! thou art not fit to live—hell gapes

for thee—begone!’ I drew my dagger across his throat; the blood gushed

upon my face, upon my hands; he grinned, scowled, gibbered as he sunk,

but he spoke and struggled no more.

“I hastened home,—but I saw not Agatha, neither did I seek her during the

long and terrible night that followed the sunset crime: I dared not tell

her what I had done; I could not have borne to hear her speak of the sin

which I had committed. Towards the morning I grew calm; my fears and

horror subsided; I thought of the atrocious act of the guilty dead, and,

by degrees, persuaded myself that I had done an act of justice; I began

to calculate upon the consequences, and seriously consider whether, by

this deed, I had really achieved the consummation of my wishes—the

possession of my adored Agatha; she was my sister, the widow of my

brother; could I legally become her husband? And, allowing the

possibility, was it probable that I should be permitted to do so? These

considerations gave birth to the action which followed; I forged the

extraordinary will which gave the succession to me, but only with the

hand of Agatha; and it appeared the more natural, as, during the period

of her wedlock, she had borne no child to her husband. That night and

succeeding day was thus intently occupied. On the following morning the

corpse was discovered by you. I had not seen Agatha, but, on hearing of

her meeting the body, hastened to calm her mind, and prepare her for the

will, which was opened after the interment. I made use of the pretext of

another love, to appear repugnant to the wishes of my brother, and

quitted the castle to appease the inquietudes of Agatha, who entreated me

not to see her again until I could make her my wife.

“You remember the reading of that will; you remember the arrival of De

Broke; poor wretch! his drunken falsehoods, his silly boasts, and above

all, his ungoverned insolence, has cost him fatally dear. I was not

concerned at the suspicion which fell upon him; on the contrary, I

rejoiced it had found such an object: but I trembled with horror when I

beheld him conducted to a dungeon, and reflected on the probability of

his paying the penalty of my crime. Guilty enough already, this

accumulation of sin appalled me, and I determined that innocent blood at

least should not cry out from earth against me. In the night previous to

the day fixed for his trial, which I dreaded equally, whether he should

be condemned or acquitted, I sought his prison, and, by an exaggerated

account of the popular rage against him, prevailed upon him to accept the

means of escape; his servant who attended him, terrified by the picture I

drew of his master’s danger, united his entreaties to mine. Hugh’s

courage and fortitude gave way to our solicitations; he fled, and

preserved his life at the expense of his honour and his peace.

“I cannot express to you how deep was the pang the ruin of this man’s

character gave me, nor how I shrunk from the eyes lifted to mine in

commiseration, whenever his name was mentioned before me; even now, now

that I have rendered back such severe justice, my heart sickens as I

recall the curses which I heard heaped upon his head as the murderer of

John de la Pole. I should have suffered less had they branded the

criminal unknown, but to hear an innocent man thus accused for me—O

Courtenay! thou knowest not, mayest thou never know, remorse.

“I reasoned much even then upon the folly of this conduct; I said, I am a

cowardly villain, a sneaking murderer, who fears the consequences of the

crime he yet feared not to commit. Why should I be careful of this man’s

life? what is his safety to me? his death might be my security, at least

would prevent suspicion from falling elsewhere: are not his manners

brutal, his heart selfish, avaricious, and cruel? who will miss him from

the earth? and by whom will his loss be mourned? But it is my crime for

which he will suffer, and the curse of innocent blood will lie upon my

head: neither has he injured me, that I should doom him so hardly; I

cannot even taste the luxury of revenge. These thoughts disquieted me,

and, recurring more frequently than I could bear, influenced my conduct

in regard to the prisoner. ‘The means of escape shall be offered to

him,’ I said; ‘if, innocent, as he knows himself to be, he be coward

enough to accept them, he is worthy of the opprobrium which will cling to

him, and I ought not to grieve for that ruin of character which he

himself alone will effect.’

“With this wretched sophistry I endeavoured to reconcile my conscience,

and, strange to say, I succeeded; care and regret departed from my bosom,

and I looked forward to the day of my approaching union with Agatha with

an impatience which I found it difficult to control: it came at length,

and under happy auspices, for all our friends were assembled around us,

and I saw in my beloved’s tranquil smile the scarce concealed joy of her

heart.

“You remember that day, Courtenay—you remember the brilliant assemblage

and the gay festival of night—you remember how brightly sparkled the

jest, how sweetly sounded the song, and how every creature present seemed

wrapped in the delicious intoxication of the hour—you remember my parting

commands after Agatha had retired, to carouse till the day-break, and

make the young sun a witness of your felicity; you did so; it was a scene

of joy and splendour. Alas! there was another, and a widely different,

passing in a more retired part of the castle.

“I must pause in my narrative here for a few moments; all that has as yet

been detailed has been plain and simple fact, subject to no doubts,

liable to no misconstructions; hitherto all has been clear; that which

will follow is wild, strange, and improbable—mysterious, incomprehensible

indeed, yet not less true than that which I have hitherto written. How

shall I make you understand what I have to present to your mind? In what

words shall I clothe a narrative so extraordinary as to prevent its

stamping me with the opprobrium of folly or madness? Even now, in my

dying hour, on the very steps of the scaffold, I hesitate at the thought

of being lightly esteemed by thee, or my sacrifice regarded as the result

of a weakened intellect or a disordered brain: it is more easy to die as

a knave than be lamented as a fool.

“Agatha had withdrawn from the hall with her damsels, and I hastened to

follow her; she had retired to an apartment adjoining her bridal chamber,

and thither, wearied of the noise and mirth of the rioters below, I also

hastened. I longed for a delight I had not lately experienced, an

unreserved conversation with my wife, and to be allowed to dismiss the

coldness which, during the day, I had been obliged to feign towards her.

The damsels retired, and we were left to pour out our hearts to each

other in the unbounded confidence of our new relations, when we were

startled by hearing a slow and heavy foot steadily ascending the stairs;

as these were private, leading only to our apartments, Agatha was

surprised and offended. ‘Who would intrude at this hour?’ she demanded,

while her eyes turned anxiously towards the door. For me, a thrill of

horror shot through my inmost heart; I said, relinquishing the hand I had

till then so fondly clasped in mine, ‘_That is the step of my brother_!’

“And it was so, Courtenay: a moment more and the door slowly opened of

itself to give entrance to its master; John de la Pole entered the room

and stood between Agatha and me; his face was as in his dying hour,

ghastly and menacing, and every gash of the murderous knife upon his body

as frightfully distinct as on the night they were inflicted. In one hand

he held a lock of dark hair; the other was extended threateningly towards

me; and thus he stood between us, drawn from another world by the crime I

meditated against his bed, and an everlasting barrier before it.

“My first emotion was astonishment—a boundless and stupified

surprise—then a vague and horrid notion that my brother was not really

dead, that he had escaped alive from my hands, and was now come to accuse

and surrender me up to scorn. The interval which had passed since his

death was obliterated from my mind, and I felt as if that night had been

the season of the deed. I spoke in extenuation of my crime, accused his

selfishness, cursed his calculating cruelty; I implored his mercy, folded

my hands in supplication, and knelt before him in humble debasement. No

muscle of his countenance moved, and not a sound escaped through his

bruised and blackened lips; he did not even look upon me, but continued

to fasten his stony eyes upon the face of Agatha, who stood silent and

motionless as himself, gazing like a fascinated thing upon his aspect of

horror. I arose from my knees—shut my eyes—tossed my arms abroad to the

air—endeavoured to think I was in sleep, in drunkenness, in delirium: no,

_he was still there_!—I thought of the agony of tempestuous feeling I had

endured on the night following the commission of the crime, and,

believing that my jaded mind was suffering under the same infliction,

resolved to seek my couch, to restore my exhausted spirits by rest and

sleep. I made an effort to move from my place; I knew that motion might

recall my scattered senses; and I exerted myself to enter the chamber of

Agatha. Wilt thou believe me, Courtenay? the stern shadow anticipated my

movement, and, menacing me back, strode silently towards my bridal

chamber. At the door its menacing attitude towards me was changed for

one of command to Agatha; one bloody finger was raised to beckon her to

follow: she did so. Still stupidly insensible, gazing fixedly upon his

form, she followed the direction of his hand, and passed after him into

the chamber: the door closed upon them without a sound.

“Now I began to think more calmly: the dead, cold thing was gone, and

there was life and air in the apartment; the feelings of this world came

upon me, and I became sensible of fear. I was safe; but where was

Agatha?—_he_ had beckoned her forth—was it reality?—she was gone—had it

been the work of imagination, she had still been there—but she might have

retired to her chamber alone. This was to be ascertained. I attempted

to enter—the door was fast; I called upon Agatha—there was no sound in

reply; I reviewed the last scene, considered the incidents of the past,

weighed the appearances of the present, and came at length to the

terrible conclusion that a spirit of the damned had stood before me, and

that Agatha was still in his grasp! You will not wonder that temporary

insanity followed this hideous idea: I grew wild at the thoughts of her

danger; I shrieked aloud for mercy; I tore my hair in agony, and beat at

the closed door with the utmost exertion of strength. I wonder even now

that none heard the uproar I made; but my cries remained unanswered—no

sound issued from the bridal chamber of the dead, and I continued to rave

until nature, exhausted, sunk speechless and senseless to the earth.

“Morning had broken over the apartment when I awoke, and I was some

moments in recovering recollection of my state and circumstances; slowly

the truth came before me. I was lying extended on the bare ground, the

lights had burned out, and there was no trace of visitors having been

near me in my sleep. I arose and listened for some sound that might

direct my first movements, for now I knew not what to think nor to do. A

low sobbing from the chamber of Agatha riveted my attention; I sprung

towards the door, and, to my astonishment, it yielded to the slightest

touch: I entered; Agatha was there, seated upon the bed, and gazing

around her with a look of agonising affright; she saw me on the instant,

and rushed into my arms. ‘Thou art here! thou art safe!’ she cried in

delirious transport; ‘and for this I am at least grateful; I deemed he

had destroyed thee. But thou didst leave me, Eustace. O quit me not, I

beseech thee! save me from him, Eustace, for thou alone canst!’ I

endeavoured to soothe her anguish, and, after some time, succeeded in

restoring her to tranquillity and composure enough to be made acquainted

with the real state of our circumstances; and I implored her to inform me

whither the ghastly phantom had led her, on their retiring from the

chamber. She shuddered at the question, and a wild and strange

expression passed over her countenance ere she spoke. ‘I will tell

thee,’ she said; ‘yet it is but little that I have to say. To this room

we came, and our footsteps wandered no further. Without a word he gave

his commands to me, and without a word I obeyed him. I ascended my

bridal bed, he had willed it so, and he continued to gaze upon me till my

head sunk upon the pillow; then the ghastly thing sat down by my side,

and though I closed mine eyes hard that I might not behold him, yet I

felt that the shadow of his unearthly face was upon me. Once I looked up

in the hope that he was gone; beholding him I shrunk, and would have

called upon thee, but the stony eye of the spectre grew larger, and a

fiendish pang passed over the immoveable face; then I hid mine in my

mantle that I might look upon him no more: insensibility succeeded, and I

slept; in the morning I awoke, and he was gone!’

“This was the tale of Agatha; thou wilt doubt its truth, nor can I wonder

at thy most natural incredulity: yet I would now give my few short hours

of life, precious as they may be, that thou hadst been present and _seen_

her tell this story; I can give thee her words, her form of expression,

but what language of mine can portray her looks as she spoke, or describe

the harrowing tones of her voice as she cried to me for protection? I

doubted not; for these powerful witnesses would have carried conviction

to my mind, had I not already beheld the shadowy thing she spoke of.

“What could I offer in consolation? We wept bitter tears together, and

mingled our tender grief. If we indulged a momentary hope that it was

but an illusion of the brain, and would return no more, we were quickly

undeceived at the approach of night. Again came the ghastly shadow, and

again was the spirit of Agatha chained by the sleep of death in his

presence. Nor were his visitations confined to the dark and silent hour

of night; when we met in the morning, to lament our fate and weep from

our stuffed bosoms the weight that pressed upon our hearts, then, with a

hideous familiarity, he would stand between us, mocking, with his

menacing grin and uplifted finger, the agony his presence created.

“_Another_ night came; we sat alone, solitary, speechless, motionless;

hour after hour passed, and we moved not, except to cast stern regards

towards the door, or listen with repressed impatience to every sound in

the castle. Slowly, at last, came the step of the dead, heavily

ascending the stairs;—he entered—I rushed to meet him, and the long pent

up agony of my soul burst forth in madness uncontrolled.

‘Monster!—murderer!—destroyer of thy father and thy brother! why comest

thou thus to torture and not kill? why is thy bloody hand for ever

raised, and yet forbearing to fall? If thine aim be vengeance,

strike—strike—strike—thou blood-bespotted horror! and rend from hope and

from life those who dared to make thee what thou art!—Strike, thou

silent, sullen thing! that we may be as thou art, and learn to fear thee

not!’

“I darted towards him, but was arrested by some invisible barrier ere I

had traversed half the distance between us; I could not reach him, but

sunk, as if felled by an unseen blow, helpless and almost senseless, to

the ground: _he_ did not even look upon me, but again sternly summoned

Agatha from the chamber, as nightly he had done before. I—but wherefore

dwell upon these agonies? Suffice it to say, that these accumulated

horrors at length drove me from the side of Agatha to solitude and

reflection: sorrow came upon my soul—a sorrow less for my crime than for

its fatal consequences. ‘Alas!’ I said, ‘perhaps the tormentor is

himself more keenly punished by these hauntings than either of his

shrinking victims: said he not, in the hour of death, that he too was a

murderer? and did he not pray for time in which to expiate the sin?

Surely, surely, these visitations must be the hell of the parricide.’

“And a feeling of remorse arose in my mind, as I deemed it possible that

these unnatural hauntings might be involuntary. I had stabbed at the

life of my brother, and plunged his unprepared spirit into the hell which

awaited it; and surely a more bitter one than looking again upon the

secret deeds of the survivors, could not well be imagined. Agatha, too,

no longer wept over her separation from me, but hourly called upon Heaven

for pity and for pardon; madness and anguish passed away from her heart,

and sorrow and repentance entered it.

“I could not repent; at least I could not feel self-condemnation to that

degree which I had been early taught was so necessary—that perfect sorrow

which abhorred the crime and the criminal, and which, they say, is alone

the gift of Heaven—_that_ I did not feel: still, still did my inmost soul

worship the thought of Agatha, and abhor the treachery of John de la

Pole. I could not regret that I had avenged my wrong—I could not repent

that I had attempted to make her mine; I knew that were the deed again to

do—again should I dare, and perform it.

“Repentance then was not mine; but I despaired of peace, and knew how to

punish crime: I was not yet weary of life; and though tears of remorse

did not fill my eyes for my brother’s early doom, yet his unnatural

tortures now, and Agatha’s suffering, seemed to call for something like

justice from my hand. ‘Perhaps, in the stern mood in which I am,’ I

said, ‘the sacrifice will be greater than if repentance struck; and,

believing myself sure of forgiveness, I hastened to make my peace with

Heaven. Yes; I will die—I will inflict death upon myself as I would upon

another, and expiate crime with blood!’

“But I hesitated still; death, contemplated so near, in any shape, was

horrible; but, dealt by the hand of the executioner—I shrunk from the

thought, and could not bear the shadow of a stain upon the honour of my

house; so I went on from day to day, dreaming of justice but rendering

none, till the birth of Agatha’s son. Thou wast surprised, I believe, at

the little emotion I betrayed at its sight: alas! I had long been

prepared for some object of horror, and now it was before me. Thou didst

behold the action of the ghastly child; thou sawest the menacing finger

upraised towards my head, and the calm determination with which I met

this image: its presence had banished my indecision. I believed now that

Agatha was lost to me for ever,—that Eternal Justice by this sign spoke

against me, and, in punishment of my hardness of heart, had thus

perpetuated the remembrance of my crime. Now, then, I _resolved_ to die:

I communicated my purpose to Agatha, and earthly feelings once more

gained the mastery over my subdued spirit, and burst forth in words of

grief and reproach, on observing that she evinced no horror at my

approaching fate, and scarcely attempted to dissuade me from my purpose!

Agatha, for whom I had dared and suffered so much—even she had become

indifferent to my destiny: it was indeed time to die! But I did her

wrong; sorrow had broken her heart, and repeated scenes of horror had

subdued and weakened her spirit. With the feeling common to her sex, she

sought consolation only in religion, and thought that to reconcile

herself with Heaven was all that was left her now: love had fled with

every other human passion, and far from regarding death as an evil, she

looked upon it as a passport to bliss, and was more ready to rejoice at

than deprecate my fate. Her conduct assisted my resolution. Now, then,

the first step was to be made—the most difficult and appalling—the rest

would be consequential and easy. It was necessary to begin, and I knew

of no better mode than that of rendering justice to the living. Hugh de

Broke had been ruined by me, and it was now incumbent upon me to restore

him to honour and to happiness: I set out for the distant and humble

dwelling in which, since his escape, he had been obliged to conceal his

name and dignity: he was stretched upon a sick-bed—a heart-broken and a

dying man: it was no physical disease of which he was expiring,—but

disgrace had poisoned the fountain of his blood, and shame had eaten its

way like a canker-worm to his heart. When he saw me, he shook off his

dying listlessness, and sprung upright in his bed. ‘What more wouldst

thou have, thou blaster of mine honour!’ he said, ‘of a ruined and dying

man? To thy pernicious counsel I owe the shame no after-conduct can

efface: cursed, cursed coward that I was! why did I heed or believe thy

murderous mercy? Begone, wretch! and let me die. I cannot shake off

this load of shame; but I shall sink under its burthen, and bequeath its

remorse to thee; go, wretch! and let me die.’

“He was submissively attended by his wife and son, who were earnest with

me to relieve him of my presence. Sorrow, and the near approach of

death, had softened his heart and chastised the natural brutality of his

manners; he looked and spoke more mildly to them, though, with all his

failing strength, he continued to heap maledictions upon me. My

humiliations were now to begin; I kneeled down by his side, detailed my

crime without any palliation, asked his forgiveness for the injury I had

done him, and finished by avowing my resolution to deliver myself into

the hands of justice, and restore his fame and happiness.

“I was astonished, that during this confession no word had been uttered

by him whom it so deeply concerned. I looked up to behold its effect; he

was staring wildly at me, the strong energies of his spirit struggling

with the grasp of death to gain time to hear its termination; he strove

hard to articulate something; and finally, whether he conquered for some

few moments the mighty power that was wrestling with him, or that that

power had now incorporated itself with his victim, and given him of its

potency, I knew not, but he suddenly grew calm and passionless, pain and

convulsion left him, his features assumed a pale rigidity, and his voice

the solemn earnestness of the grave, as he spoke. ‘I have no time for

question,’ he said; ‘but I pray that the truth may be upon thy lips:

soon, very soon, shall we meet again; and my pardon shall be truly thine

when thou shalt tell me that my boy sits with honour in the halls of his

fathers.’ He paused, placed the hand of his son in mine, and expired

without a groan.

“What followed, I need not tell thee; the son of Hugh was restored, and

Eustace consigned to a dungeon. The attempts of the people to force from

me my secret, you know how I resisted; calmly and even proudly I went to

my prison and prepared myself to die. I had humbled myself to De Broke,

for to him I had done deep and particular injury; but to these men I owed

no other reparation than what my life would pay: what right had they then

to demand further humiliation of me, or attempt to rend from my bosom the

mystery of its secret purpose? I would die unaccusing, save myself; I

would die, shrouded in gloomy dignity,—a man to be wondered at and

feared, rather than pitied and scorned. I will willingly furnish their

greedy eyes with the awful feast of death, but not their vulgar souls

with the struggles and humiliations of mine; my body is the law’s—is

theirs; my spirit is beyond their judgment. John de la Pole shall sleep

on, embalmed in good opinions; I will not raise up his pall to shew them

what corruption festers beneath it; I would not tell them what he _was_,

though it should even lessen in their thought the horror of what I _am_.

Grand and silent death—majestic in thy obscurity—I wait to bid thee

welcome!

“Thus far had I written, and thought that my story in the book of life

had come to its close, but other events have crowded upon me; and before

my death, (which will be on the morrow,) I would tell thee the incidents

of the last few days. Thou knowest how calmly I beheld thee depart from

my prison, and how little emotion I manifested at my fate; but when thou

wert gone, when I was alone, in chains, degraded, the enthusiasm of the

moment past, and my spirit inactive, I wept bitter tears at the

waywardness of my early fate; yet I relaxed not in my determination; I

came hither to die, and nothing was left me but to finish my purpose

nobly. It is my will to doom a murderer, and I am he so doomed. I wept,

yet persisted; cursed the cruelty which had destroyed me, and yet prayed

to my brother for pardon. Of the future I had as yet scarcely thought;

hitherto I had been solely employed about the method of quitting this

world, without much considering the terms of my admission to another; now

I pondered long, with anxiety, but not with fear. Creeds puzzled me—I

made not my own heart—I cannot be answerable for its opinions. I have

committed a deadly sin—I am about to expiate it with my blood—I cannot do

more; and is not this sacrifice greater than the cant of sorrow and the

whinings of prayer from one who never prayed before? The one is from

myself, the child of my resolution—the other the offspring of fear—But I

was distracted still, and bewildered. It was in this disturbed state

that I was startled by a light sound in my prison—I listened—a soft

voice, for the second time, pronounced in kindly accents, ‘My brother!’

I started up and gazed around me; on the opposite side of my dungeon

stood the form of John de la Pole, but not as I had seen him last, pale,

menacing, and bloody, but with that mild aspect and gentle look that had

distinguished his early brotherhood, ere Agatha’s fatal beauty cut

asunder the knot that bound our souls together. ‘Thou hast done well,’

said the gentle spirit, ‘thus to render up thy life for thy crime; thy

severe justice hath merited and obtained thy pardon; my sufferings, too,

the punishment for unrepented sin, thy firmness hath terminated; and the

days of Agatha shall henceforth flow more peaceful. Soon shalt thou be

with me, O brother! and the kiss of immortality shall be given to thee by

my lips: weep not—doubt not—but bear all things steadfastly; in thine

hour of agony I will stand by thy side.’

“A tender grief overpowered my spirit as he spoke, and tears fell from my

eyes. I extended my arms as if I would have embraced him, but the

barrier between the living and the dead could not as yet be passed, and

the shadow receded from my touch. But this visitation had brought joy to

my heart and tranquillity to my spirit, and the arrival of Agatha at the

prison still further reconciled me to my doom. ‘Thy sacrifice is

hallowed,’ she said; ‘thou wilt die, but I must live to expiate my crime,

as the slave of thy ghastly son, till Heaven shall call him to itself.

_He_ stood by my couch last night; smilingly he looked upon me, as in the

days of his early love, and bade me live and hope: in this world I shall

behold him no more! but thou, my beloved! thou art for the distant land,

and the abode whither he is gone before thee. Oh that I might share thy

doom, as I have already partaken thy guilt!’

“We parted—let me not dwell upon that—we parted for ever; for me there

remained a mighty duty to fulfil, and from which I did not shrink—no, not

even when those who had been my friends sought to wring my secret from my

heart by the infliction of the torture: I pitied _them_, but not myself.

“The day of torture came; thou wert by my side, and didst urge a

voluntary death to rescue me from agony and the stare of burning eyes

eagerly watching my pangs. I rejected thy counsel; yet didst thou not

forsake me, but marched to the scene of my infamy by my side. All

around, as I went thither, did I look for the promised appearance of my

brother, and trembled lest I should not behold him. ‘Surely this is mine

hour of agony,’ I said, as I ascended the steps of the scaffold;

‘wherefore is he not by my side?’ And the guest from the other world,—he

beneath whose scowl my heart had for months been withering,—was desired

with more impatience than ever I had felt for the presence of earthly

friends. I had not long to fear or to doubt—he was there before me; on

reaching the scaffold, I beheld him standing by the block, and calmly and

silently smiling a welcome to his brother. Thou didst behold my

firmness, and the multitude saw my composure with wonder; but they beheld

not the cause; they saw not that _he_ was looking on, and that I drew in

resolution from his smile, and firmness from his awful brow.

“The ineffectual agony was past—curiosity was silenced—and I was

condemned to die; and to-morrow I _shall_ die,—from all that I have

loved, hated, or valued, I shall be torn to-morrow. The last sunset is

falling upon my paper, is gilding my pen as I write; to-morrow it will

sparkle upon the edge of the axe, and illuminate a brow from which the

inward light will have departed for ever; to-morrow will be the scene of

my last humiliation; but _he_ will be there to witness it; and convert it

by his presence into a triumph: and, when all shall be over, when the

last mortal throb shall be past, what then shall be my destiny? ‘Thou

art pardoned,’ he said; ‘and an immortality is before thee!’ Oh, then,

let me hope for an immortality of peace! Now, then, I will go

sleep—exhausted nature must be recruited for her great labour

to-morrow—for these broken limbs, these strained sinews, and this bruised

flesh, must needs want repose, ere they can encounter the task of fresh

exertion. Serve me well, ye mangled limbs, but to-morrow, and I shall

require your service no more.—Courtenay, good night.”

Such was the tale of the fratricide, and of him who was his victim: of

her who survived the deaths of both, no more was heard; for upon

Courtenay’s going to the cottage at the period she had appointed to

receive her last commands, he learned she had quitted it two days

previous, but had left a small parcel to be given to him; it contained a

few remembrances of herself and Eustace, and the following letter:—

“COURTENAY—

“In giving thee the papers containing our story, I have obeyed the

last wish of him whose lightest word was a law to me; but I cannot

look on thee again after this communication. Grieve not for me, for

my lot will not be wretched; the death of my child has released me

from the world, and I hasten to withdraw myself from it: I had

arranged all things for the purpose before I sent to request thy

presence. Endeavour not to discover me; such search would be

fruitless and vain. I retire from the kingdom; and in a convent of

Clairs, beneath the habits and rules of the order, and under another

name, conceal for ever, from the eyes of the world, the person, the

crime, and the sorrow of

“AGATHA DE LA POLE.”

THE LORD

OF THE

MAELSTROM.

PART I.

THE RAVEN.

—Hell is empty,

And all the Devils are here.

SHAKSPEARE.

SOMEWHERE about the year 112, in winter or summer—we are not exactly

prepared to say which—died Olave the Second, one of the early kings of

Denmark; he was a “fellow of no reckoning,” for he took no account of any

thing that occurred during his reign, except the making of strong drink,

and the number of butts in his cellar. His majesty, it must be avowed,

was in the presumptuous habit of forestalling the joys of heaven, (we

mean Odin’s,) that is to say, he impiously got drunk every day of his

life, before the regular allowance of fighting, the customary number of

enemies’ broken heads, and his own orderly death upon the field of

battle, bore testimony that he was properly qualified for such supreme

enjoyment. Olave in his life was a happy fellow; for, never having been

sober during one hour of it, he had not the misfortune to hear all the

ill-natured things that his courtiers and subjects said of his

enormities, behind his back, or when he was asleep. It must, however, be

acknowledged that, even among the unscrupulous Danes, who were not at

that period remarkable for their practice of sobriety, Olave was a filthy

fellow: to this hour he is held up as a monument of brutality and

stupidity, and the memory of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel

to sin, was not more devoted to execration among the Jews, than that of

king Olave the Second among the Danes. On his death-bed, however, when

he could no longer swallow his usual enlivening potations, blue devils

beset his nights, and conscience twitted him with his ill-spent days. He

had never broken a head in his life, except by proxy; and how could he

make his appearance in Valhalla without a skull to drink out of?—to knock

at the gates of Valasciolf without a goblet in his hand?—The thing was

impossible; it was clear he would be kicked through Asgard, and sent to

fret in Nifthiem, where the burning claws of Lok would set fire to the

good liquor incorporated with his being, and reduce him to the condition

of an eternal, thinking cinder!—Miserable anticipations! he tried to

weep; but water, which he had hitherto scorned, now scorned him, and

absolutely refused to come at his desire: he shed tears of mead, which he

caught in his mouth as fast as they fell, partly from fear lest Odin

should remark them, and partly because he could not endure to see good

liquor wasted.

But all things have an end—in this world at least—and so it was with the

life and repentance of king Olave the Second; he died without the

drinking-cup he had regretted so deeply, and before he had time to frame

a decent apology to Odin for venturing into Valhalla without one. There

was a world of business now to be done at the palace of Sandaal: a dead

king to be buried, and two living kings to be crowned; for such was the

will of the lamented Olave, that both his sons should succeed him. They

were princes of very different characters, yet their father, it should

seem, loved them equally, as he divided his dominions very fairly between

them, to the no small disgust of the elder prince, Frotho, who, like the

imperial Octavius, some years before, could not bear a divided throne.

This worthy in character resembled, in no slight degree, his excellent

father, of dozy memory, for he loved to drink much and fight little,—more

especially as his younger brother Harold had a decided vocation for the

latter employment, and none at all for the former: to him, therefore, he

left the charge of the glory of the Danish crown, while he, for the

present, contented himself with drinking to his successes. This good

understanding, however, between the princes could not last for ever.

Frotho was, after all, only half a drunkard, and therefore extremely

sulky in his cups—more especially when his queen Helga seated herself at

his elbow to twit his courage with the heroic deeds of his brother.

Queen consorts should not meddle with politics, they never do any thing

but mischief—and so it proved in this instance; for Frotho grew

absolutely delirious, kept himself entirely sober for three whole days,

buckled on his wooden target, put himself at the head of his troops, and,

swearing to be revenged upon his brother, marched on an expedition to

Jutland. The expedition neither answered his intentions nor

expectations; the men of Jutland were too many for king Frotho, for,

headed by Feggo, (the murderous uncle of the philosophic Hamlet, whose

father was prince only of this part of Denmark,) they drove Frotho “home

without boots, and in foul weather too,” as Glendwr did, long afterwards,

king Harry Bolingbroke. Frotho could not stomach this affront—the

beating was hard of digestion: his subjects made mouths at him too, and

mimicked a race whenever he appeared in public. So he sent his brother,

king Harold, who was a fighter to the back-bone, to chastise the

Jutlanders, which when he had done most effectually, Frotho grew more

angry still; he detested his brother, dreaded his popularity, feared his

wisdom, and quivered at his anger,—so he began to consider seriously how

he might cleverly and quietly put him out of the way.

King Frotho had two counsellors, neither of whom ever agreed with the

other in the advice they gave his majesty: the reason was tolerably

obvious, for the one was an honest man, the other a rogue, and, like the

Topaz and Ebene of Voltaire, they bewildered the unhappy monarch with the

diversity of their opinions and advice. On this occasion, however, king

Frotho troubled only the rogue for his, which he was pretty certain

beforehand would not differ very widely from his own. Eric Swen was an

unprincipled ragamuffin, who hated Harold, because he had discovered that

Harold hated his vices; and, as that prince had two sons who were rising

into manhood, he shuddered at the prospect of two or three strict warrior

reigns, which would certainly bring virtue into fashion: the prince had

refused him, too, the hand of his sister, which, to make the refusal more

bitter, he had bestowed upon his rival in the council and camp, Frotho’s

general, Haquin. All these offences were carefully summoned up, to

inflame his ire against Harold, by the devil, in the shape of Frotho, who

promised him—Heaven knows what—both on earth and in Valhalla, if he would

only push king Harold from his share of the stool, and leave both halves

of it to Frotho.

Notwithstanding all the provocations on both sides, the confederates were

two or three whole years before they could “screw their courage to the

sticking place,” that is, to the pitch necessary for the murder of king

Harold. They had sent fifty inconsiderable nobles, whom they had found

troublesome, to Asgard, without ceremony; but Harold was a king and a

warrior, and required a good deal. “If we could but pour poison into his

ear,” said Eric; “Or into his cup,” replied Frotho; “Or stab him in his

sleep,” said Eric; “Or coax him out hunting with us,” replied the

brother, “and give it to him quietly in the forest.” But none of these

safe plans would answer;—so Frotho, accompanied by his sole and trusty

counsellor, rode off for the forest, to find the cave where, tradition

said, had resided, from the days of the “Avater” of Odin, his enemy

Biorno, the descendant of Lok, grand nephew of Surter, and first cousin

to the Wolf Fenris and Serpent Midgard. Frotho, however well disposed to

beg the aid and advice of the sorcerer, by no means felt quite at ease

when he considered the family to which he belonged: the wolf and the

eternal earth-circling snake were known to bear no very great partiality

to the race of Odin,—and Frotho, they knew, if they knew any thing, was a

true son of their enemy. Still the Danish monarch trotted on with his

squire till they reached the centre of the forest.

“After all, Eric,” said his majesty, as they trotted on cosily together;

“after all”—but, as an historian, I must make one observation here: you

are aware, dear reader, that the Scandinavians of the year 112, and some

time after, did not use the same simple, plain, common-place sort of

style which they have adopted to express their meaning now-a-days. If we

may believe their own writers, they were always in alt, gave their

commands in a kind of heroic prose, and carried on dialogues in a sort of

rambling blank verse. It must therefore be obvious to you, dear reader,

that I spare you their language, and only give you their sentiments,

which, to the best of my humble ability, I will translate for you into

decent colloquial English, the better to carry your patience through the

long-winded history which I am preparing as a trial for it. But to

return to Frotho the Fifth of Denmark. “After all, Eric,” said he, “I

have perhaps no great reason to fear these ugly immortals: as I am going

to consult their kinsman, and am withal very well disposed to put an end

to the race of Odin, (that part of it at least most devoted to him,) I

think they may be civil to me. My own son Sevald is the only member of

the family I wish to preserve, and I may soon mould him to my own

opinions. If the sorcerer will only dispose of Harold for me, or tell me

how I may safely dispose of him, I shall not haggle on the terms of

assistance; I will do any thing to serve him or his, which may not

interfere with my own safety, or rob me of the diadem I am so anxious to

wear alone.” Eric was about to reply to his magnanimous master, but

paused, half afraid, as he discovered they were really in the sorcerer’s

neighbourhood, for the yawning mouth of the cave was actually staring

them in the face. Frotho, as became him, now took the lead, and marched

dauntlessly forward, though not without a glance backward now and then to

see if Eric was close behind him, and as any sound struck upon his ear

that bore any resemblance to a hiss or a howl. At length, after many

turnings and windings, he found himself in a cavern of large dimensions,

broadly lighted by a huge iron lamp, suspended from the upper part of it.

He turned round to make some remark to his patient tail-piece, but was

petrified to observe that he had fallen to the earth stiff and insensible

to every thing around him. The Danish monarch’s cheeks waxed pale, and

his knees began to smite each other; nevertheless he grasped the hilt of

his falchion, as a slight noise on the opposite side withdrew his

attention from the insensible Eric Swen; there stood an old man of

reverend aspect, mildly but steadily gazing upon the king: “Art thou he

whom I have been so long taught to expect?” said the sorcerer; “art thou

the king of the race of Odin, alone chosen by his invincible foe to

render a service to the son of Lok, and deserve the everlasting gratitude

of his children? {242} If indeed thou art the appointed, I bid thee

highest welcome, for the task decreed to thee hath been denied to the

immortals, above whom the grateful Lok will raise thee.”

Frotho recovered his spirits at this address; half his business was

already done, for his wishes were anticipated. He had been so little

accustomed to receive compliments from his subjects, that his opinion of

his own endowments had not been particularly high; but now he began to

think he had mistaken himself, and was really a much greater man than he

had suspected. He readily promised obedience to the sorcerer, upon

certain terms, and assured him of his assistance when and wherever it

might be demanded. The magician then proceeded to inform him that he was

himself a descendant of Lok, and an ally of the spirits of fire, those

daring beings who had for so many thousand years waged war with various

success against Odin and his warriors, and which warfare would not cease

till the end of the world; when, during a night which was to last a year,

there would be a general battle, in which Earth, Niftheim, and Asgard,

would go to wreck, and the conquering party be elevated to a newer and

more beautiful heaven in Gimle,—while Nastrande, a still gloomier hell,

would be made out of the fragments of the old one, for the accommodation

of the party conquered. “Balder!” exclaimed Frotho, starting at this

part of the story,—for he never liked to hear any thing of the old hell,

which he thought quite bad enough without the spirits troubling

themselves about the creation of another; “but I thought, sir sorcerer,

that the wicked alone would be punished in Nastrande, after the long

night and battle of the gods; I thought”—“Exactly so, my son,”

interrupted the sorcerer; “the wicked certainly; for the conquered _will_

be the wicked—that is beyond dispute; but _who_ will conquer is not so

certain; perhaps Lok, perhaps Odin—each, as far as I see, have an equal

chance; take part then with us, and share our danger and glories in the

next world, and our certain assistance in this.” To this world, then,

(as king Frotho had at present more business in it,) he limited his

wishes, and gave Biorno his steady attention as he proceeded in his

narrative, “Odin,” the magician continued to observe, “though utterly

unable to chain entirely the powers of Lok, had just now decidedly the

advantage; for he had a few hundred years before seized upon his eldest

son, the unwary Surter, whom he had caught out of his own territories,

and wedged him, in the shape of a raven, into an iron cage, there to

remain till one of his own race, a kingly son of his blood, should

release him:”—a condition from Odin probably implying an eternal

punishment,—as that divinity, who does not appear to have been as

omniscient as he ought, never imagined any member of his house would have

been found silly enough to fulfil it. “Now then,” continued the

magician, “I have consulted the eternal powers, and find that thou,

Frotho of Denmark, art the king destined to this wondrous deed, and its

following union with the immortals.” Frotho gave his assent to all and

any thing proposed; and the sorcerer immediately began his operations; he

raised his ebon wand above his head, with many magical flourishes—turned

himself rapidly round—then more slowly, pausing at each of the cardinal

points, and calling north, south, east, and west, upon the tremendous

name of Lok. At that sound, so terrible even to the ears of spirits, the

thunder began to rumble and the fires of Niftheim flash through the

gloomy cavern; something like music was heard, and, though the concert

was hardly better than those performed by king Frotho’s own band during

his drinking orgies, yet as the voices (and they were many) solely

employed their powers in singing his praises, and the approaching

deliverance of the god by his means, his majesty was pleased to think

nothing in heaven could be half so fine. Presently the earth shook, and

the sides of the cavern rocked; Biorno pointed to the bottom of the

cave,—and Frotho beheld it, after a few violent convulsions, suddenly

open, and disclose to his view an enormous raven, in a gigantic iron

cage. “Behold,” said the magician to him, “the prison of the immortal

prince of fire!—in that shape he must remain a hundred thousand years,

unless a kingly hand of the line of Odin shall restore him (by breaking

the bars of his iron cage) to power and to liberty. Monarch of Denmark!

go,—and success attend thee.” Frotho obeyed immediately; he made a

desperate attack upon the iron cage, but failed in his intention of

rending away its bars; he made many earnest efforts, but all in vain,—the

bars remained unbroken. The Dane paused in vexation—he was frightened

and mortified—and, by the howls and groans which resounded on all sides

of the cavern, it was evident the anxious spirits of Niftheim sympathised

in his distress: Biorno too, afflicted beyond measure at the ill success

of the enterprise, threw himself upon the earth, tore off his magical

cap, plucked up his hair by the roots, and howled as loudly as the

noisiest of them. This dismal sight drove Frotho desperate; he collected

all his energies for one mighty pull, rushed upon the cage, grappled with

the bars, and, in an instant, threw them at the sorcerer’s feet, who

sprung up like an elk to receive them. Frotho stood majestically silent,

while an uproar, such as no human ear has ever heard since, began its

diversions in the cavern; a thick black mist quickly filled its whole

space, so that Frotho could but indistinctly distinguish the figures who

made up the ball; millions of shadows were flitting about, and millions

of voices were laughing, singing, shouting, groaning, and cursing.

Midgard raised his glittering snaky head above the darkness and the

shadows, and greeted the monarch with a cordial and complimentary hiss;

wolf Fenris tried hard for a good-natured howl; and the grim Hela, their

sister, the queen of death, tortured her ghastly face into a smile, as

she capered nimbly backwards and forwards in the festival, animated by

the thought of the many meals Frotho would furnish for her famished maw.

But, at length, the immortals grew weary of their own noises—the infernal

jollification came to an end—the mist cleared off—the fires went out—the

uproar died away,—and Frotho’s courage returned to its half-bewildered

master, who took heart once again to look about him. He was alone (to

his great joy) with Biorno, except that, in place of the raven and his

cage, there sat, reposing upon a light cloud, his beautiful brow diademed

with his native element, the triumphant prince of fire, in all the pride

of beauty and victory. “Frotho, son of Olave,” said the sweet voice of

the spirit; “bravest among the brave, and wisest of the sons of

Odin,—what is thy will with me? Tax my gratitude, preserver; ask, and

obtain thy wishes.” Frotho waited for no further encouragement, but

directly stated his wishes to reign alone in Denmark, and sweep off all

the collaterals of his house, who were such bars to his glory. “Thy

brother’s life I give thee,” said the spirit; “destroy him when thou

wilt, but be cautious to keep it secret: his elder son shall in vain

endeavour to oppose thee—I will baffle his claim, and proclaim thee sole

monarch in Denmark; but touch not the life of Haldane; he has offended

Lok, and the god demands the victim, whom he will receive from no mortal

hand: for Harold the younger, do with him as thou wilt, but, if thou

spare his life, he shall have no power to harm thee;

go—reign—prosper;—nothing shall do thee wrong till thyself shall fulfil a

decree which is gone forth respecting thee; thou shall prosper till thy

hand shall unite thy own blood to that of thy deadliest foe: beware of

this, and triumph.” “Prince of the powers of Niftheim,” said Frotho,

“surely Harold, my brother, is my deadliest foe, and he has no daughter

to whom I can give my son; but I will be mindful of thy words, and

remember thy warning.” The spirit then desired him, should any event

disturb his tranquillity, to come to the cavern and strike thrice upon

the side where stood the iron cage: “Biorno shall meet thee,” continued

he, “and yield thee, in my name, such help as thou mayest require;” then,

slowly and silently encircling himself in the clouds which surrounded

him, he gradually disappeared from the sight of Frotho, leaving the

cavern illuminated only by the light of the iron lamp which hung from its

centre. Biorno, too, had vanished, leaving him alone with Eric Swen,

who, now easily awakened from his trance, prepared to follow his master

home, who simply informed his confidant that he had consulted the

magician, who had advised the murder of Harold, and promised him success

in its performance. This was readily undertaken by the profligate Eric,

who, watching, with a lynx-like assiduity, his opportunity, plunged his

sword in the heart of the unhappy Harold with such right good will and

judgment, that the prince died before he knew he was wounded: nor was

Frotho behind his confederate in the good management of a difficult

affair, and skill in getting out of a dilemma; and this was especially

proved, when the body of Eric Swen, transfixed by a well-aimed javelin,

was found stark and stiff by the side of king Harold, and Frotho ordered

every body to believe that these enemies had fallen in single combat with

each other.

There was one Dane in the court of king Frotho who took the liberty of

believing contrarily to the royal orders; this was the brave Haquin, the

brother-in-law of the two kings, and their favourite general and

minister: he knew Frotho, and he suspected foul play. He secured the

persons of his murdered master’s two sons, and, giving out that Haldane

should challenge his father’s crown against Frotho, in an assembly of the

states, retired from the court to his own towers, till the nobles should

be pleased to appoint a day for hearing the claim of his ward. In the

mean time, Haldane himself had not been idle; he employed a good number

of his vacant hours in making tender love to his beautiful cousin, the

young Ildegarda, and laying at her feet the crown which he _was_ to have,

and which Ildegarda accepted, as a thing of course; for she already

considered herself the queen of Denmark. Haldane was tenderly beloved,

and they each looked forward to the day on which he was to claim his

father’s crown from the ambitious Frotho, as that which was to seal their

love and their happiness.

That day at length arrived; the states, the nobles, the warriors, and a

great part of the troops, were assembled in an open plain, where Frotho,

on his throne, awaited the arrival of his kinsman. His majesty had

arrayed himself with peculiar splendour for this solemn occasion; his

long hair, now slightly tinged with grey, floated down his back, while

all his face was clean shaven, except his upper lip, which exhibited a

most magnanimous mustache; his breast, arms, and legs were painted in the

brightest blue, and the most fashionable pattern in Denmark; a short

petticoat of lynx skin, fastened round his waist by the paws of the

animal, descended to his knees; and from his shoulders to his heels,

secured round his neck by claws of gold, fell the robe of royal

magnificence, the mantle made of the skins of many ermines; his feet were

defended by shoes of the sable of the black fox; his neck was ornamented

by a chain of gold, and the regal circle of the same precious metal shone

through his locks around his temples; on his left arm was a target of

leather, studded with brass nails of unusual brightness and immense

value; in his right hand he held the sceptre; he sat upon a throne

covered with the hides of wolves, and over his head floated, in proud

sublimity, the standard of Denmark, the raven.

People may talk as long as they please about innate dignity and the

majesty of mind, but the majesty of fine clothes has a much greater

influence upon popular opinion,—else wherefore that elderly proverb which

sayeth that “fine feathers make fine birds?” Every body knows that king

Herod’s silver petticoat made the stupid mob of Judea mistake him for a

god; and on this day, so important to Haldane, Frotho’s amazing

magnificence made _his_ people mistake him for a hero. So strong ran the

tide of popular opinion, that when Haldane, simply habited, mounted on

his snow-white steed, and only attended by Haquin and a few of his

father’s friends, rode up the area, they scarcely deigned (though he was

rich in all the pride of youth and graceful beauty) to consider him worth

looking at: all eyes were turned to Frotho’s painted waistcoat and superb

ermine cloak; and Haldane also beheld, with extreme disgust, that all his

own friends, and the warriors favourable to his claims, who had fought by

his side under his father’s banner, had been carefully excluded from the

council, which he beheld supplied by the creatures of his uncle; he saw

that his cause was lost before he could say a word: he was not daunted

nevertheless; he demanded his right from Frotho, who, refusing to admit

his claim, was challenged by the youth to decide the quarrel on the spot.

“The states and the troops are present,” said the prince; “let them be

witnesses of this combat, which thy ungenerous ambition must render

mortal: if thou desirest a double crown, shew that thou knowest how to

defend it; descend from thy throne, meet me fairly, and let Denmark be

the reward of the conqueror.” Slowly, very slowly, king Frotho rose from

his throne, for he saw that something was expected of him: although not

precisely a coward, he had no mind to encounter his nephew, whose feats

of arms he well knew; and earnestly and anxiously he put up a prayer to

Surter to remember his promise, and baffle his kinsman in this trying

emergency. Surter was not deaf; for scarcely had the monarch put forth

one leg for the purpose of descending from his throne, ere a wonder

attracted the attention of the whole assembly; the sound of rushing wings

was heard from a distance, and slowly, sailing steadily through the clear

air towards his point, appeared a gigantic raven: black as the shining

locks of Odin was the magnificent and stately bird, who, tranquilly

passing over the multitude, suspended himself in air over the head of

Frotho, and, hovering steadily above him, clapped his enormous pinions in

triumph. Haldane suspected a trick—Haquin was startled—but the multitude

beheld a miracle, and the will of Odin clearly expressed by his own

particular messenger: the bird hovered in the air a few moments, to

witness the general acknowledgment of Frotho, then, amidst the deafening

shouts of the people, ascended slowly upwards, cleaved through the

clouds, and vanished.

Haldane stood apart, during the scene, in proud contempt of the

ingratitude of his people; and the multitude were making too terrific an

uproar to allow his few friends one word in his favour. Frotho, pleased

by the timely aid of Surter, was grateful for the first time in his life;

and, remembering the commands of the spirit, abstained from taking what

he yet scarcely knew how to spare, the hated life of Haldane. Assuming

an air of paternal interest and kindness, he bade the young prince retire

from his presence and kingdom, without fear of molestation. “Son of my

brother,” said he, “seek another kingdom for thy rule, this the gods have

given to Frotho; retire peaceably, and take with thee what part of my

treasure thou wilt.” “The crown, then,” boldly replied the prince; “for

what is there, traitor! in thy power to bestow, that is not already mine

by right? No! mean-souled coward! I scorn thy courtesy, and I defy thy

anger.” But this gallant resistance availed nothing in a lost cause; his

own party counselled him, for the present, to get out of the reach of

Frotho’s javelin; and, too wise to disdain advice alike given by friends

and enemies, he obeyed their wishes, and, after taking a tender leave of

his betrothed Ildegarda, and promising to claim her as a king, withdrew

to Sweden to solicit aid from its warlike monarch in defence of his

title,—aid which he did not receive; for king Frotho soon after received

notice that he had been murdered on that inhospitable coast soon after

his landing, and, as it could never be ascertained by whom, Frotho

silently congratulated himself upon the sure and ready vengeance of his

ally and divinity, Surter. Haquin, alarmed by this circumstance, and

more than ever suspecting the honesty of king Frotho, withdrew from court

with the young Harold, now the sole surviving son of his murdered master,

and, proclaiming him lawful king of Denmark, set up his standard in the

heart of the country. Many powerful nobles, disgusted by the cruel

brutality of his uncle, immediately joined him; and Frotho, frightened by

danger into valour, and relying upon the promises of Surter, put himself

at the head of his troops, and prepared for a civil war.

Many skirmishes took place between the hostile powers, though nothing

very decisive occurred; but the troops of Frotho had generally the

advantage, and always when the king commanded in person. Joy of this

discovery nearly upset his majesty; he began to think himself a great

general as well as a gallant warrior: he got exceedingly drunk with some

of his old cronies who had made the discovery, and, during the deep sleep

which followed this little extravagance, Haquin attacked his camp, beat

his generals, carried off his son Sevald a prisoner, and nearly seized

upon his sacred majesty himself, who knew nothing at all of the matter.

Poor Sevald was marched off for the camp of the enemy, in a transport of

sorrow and despair.

“Be not offended, prince,” said the good Haquin to him when he was

brought before him in his tent,—“be not offended that the chance of war

has placed thy person in my custody for a season; it is no dishonour to

be the prisoner of Haquin. Our war is with thy father, not with thee;

and should Harold succeed, even to the slaying of his uncle, he will

never wrong thee, but yield thee thy just right, a second throne in

Denmark: be not disturbed therefore at the slight accident of this war.”

This was kindly meant, but it entirely failed in its purpose, and Sevald

would have still continued to grieve if he had not discovered, that fair

princesses are better comforters than old soldiers. He learned that his

lovely cousin Ildegarda was in the camp of her father, and he concluded

that things were not quite so bad as they might have been. Sevald

admired his fair kinswoman extremely, and, as Haldane’s death had set her

free, he worked out the prettiest little romantic scheme possible for

putting an end to the horrors of civil war and restoring peace to

Denmark: he determined to entreat his father to give him Ildegarda for

his bride, to adopt Harold as his partner, and thus to reconcile all

parties to his ascendancy; but, unhappily for poor Sevald’s delightful

scheme, all the persons concerned in it were, though for different

reasons, materially against it. Ildegarda, true to the memory of

Haldane, would listen to no second love,—Haquin, faithful to the cause he

had adopted, would rather have consigned his daughter to the grave than

to the arms of a son of Frotho,—and the Danish monarch would entirely

have lost the little wit he possessed, at the bare possibility of such a

destructive union as that of his own blood with that of his deadliest

foe, for such now had the father of Ildegarda become to him. When he did

hear it, he grew absolutely wild with terror and rage; he imprecated the

most deadly curses upon his son, should he venture to espouse his cousin;

and flew off like a madman to the cave of Biorno in the forest, to

consult him in this most desperate emergency. He found the sorcerer at

home, and willing to assist him, which he civilly did by the best advice

in his power; he desired him to return to his camp and attack the troops

of Haquin, promising to commit that leader, his daughter, and prince

Sevald, safely into his custody; at the same time hinting that, as Surter

had done as much for his friend as could decently be expected, he need

not call upon him for further assistance, which, unless from his own

imprudence, he would not need, and Lok had prohibited them from

supplying. Frotho thanked him for past favours and present services,

and, promising to demand nothing more for the future, they parted good

friends, though not to meet again in this world at least, whatever might

happen in the other. Frotho had no sooner reached his camp, than he

hastened to profit by his friend’s advice, and instantly experienced its

salutary effects; he defeated his antagonists in a pitched battle,

recovered his son Sevald, and, to his infinite joy, possessed himself of

the persons of Haquin and his daughter, though Harold escaped in the

battle, and hid himself securely from the pursuit of his enemy. Had

Frotho followed the suggestions of his own cruel heart, he would have

decided Haquin’s destiny at once by taking off his head; but, fearful of

his nobles, who held the chief in high esteem, and having likewise no

hope of discovering Harold, except through his friend, he resolved to

spare his existence, but to keep him in close imprisonment with his

daughter, whose influence over Sevald he still dreaded, and whom, as the

daughter of his sister, he dared not injure farther. The poor prince

wept bitterly over his ruined hopes, and Frotho rejoiced at the

delightful consummation of his: he enjoyed himself in his own way,

killing and drinking by turns,—till, in a fit of madness and

extravagance, he impiously declared that he had a Valhalla of his own,

which he would not change for Odin’s, upon any terms that divinity could

offer. Every thing was happiness in the palace, and Frotho was the most

mischievous and merry of kings.