"When we examine attentively the character of the facts relative to

the religious belief of the Gauls, we are led to recognise two

systems of ideas, two bodies of symbols and superstitions

altogether distinct--in a word, two religions: the one altogether

sensible, derived from the adoration of natural phenomena, and by

its forms, as well as by its literal development, reminding us of

the polytheism of the Greeks; the other founded upon a material

pantheism, metaphysical, mysterious, sacerdotal, and presenting the

most astonishing conformity with the religions of the East. That

last has received the name of druidism, from the druids who were

its founders and priests. We shall give to the first the name of

the Gaulish polytheism."--(II. 73-74.)

Thierry thinks that this polytheism originally prevailed amongst the

Gauls, but that the Kimry introduced druidism, which soon became the

dominant religion over the whole of Gaul, though the original polytheism

ingrafted upon it more or less, in different places, some of its tenets

and ceremonies. The great seat of the religion of the druids was

Armorika, and, above all, Britain; there existed the most powerful of

their sacerdotal colleges--there were celebrated the most secret of

their mysteries.

It is wondrous thing, that religion of the ancient druids! A solemn

mystery enshrouds it--all the efforts of modern science cannot lift the

veil. When we look on yon circle of stones which, grey with the lapse of

ages, stands in lonely majesty upon the dreary moor, near which no sound

is ever heard, save the distant and sullen roar of the ocean, as it

breaks in sheets of foam on the rock-bound coast--the fitful cry of

curlew, as it wings over them its solitary way--or the occasional low

moaning of the wind, as, stealing through amidst the rocks, it seems to

pour forth a mournful dirge for the shades of departed greatness:--when

we look on a scene like this, we have before our gaze all that is known

of these men of the olden time. Their blood-stained rites, their solemn

mysteries, are forgotten; but their simple temples still stand

imperishable as the God to whom they were erected. From the study of the

ancient authors little or no information can be gleaned; a few

descriptions of their bloody sacrifices, an account of some of their

more public ceremonials, is all that they have handed down to us. But

the real nature of their religion is unknown: more of its spirit is

taught to us by those silent stones than by all other accounts put

together. The choice of the situations for those sacred monuments amidst

the melancholy waste, or buried deep in the recesses of some vast

forest, where the wide-spreading branches of their sacred tree (the oak)

casts its deep shadows over the consecrated spot, with no canopy save

the heavens, shows the dark and gloomy spirit of their faith. They

worshipped the God of the thunder-storm, not the God of peace; and it

was amidst the thunder-storm that their horrid rites appeared most

horrid. When, illuminated by the lurid glare of the lightning, the

gigantic osier figure filled with human beings sank into the

flames--when the shouts of the multitude who stood in a dense circle

around the spot, the frenzied chants of the druids, and the despairing

shrieks of the dying victims, were drowned in the sullen roar of the

thunder--then must the fearful nature of their creed have stood forth in

all its horrors. Yet with all this, there was a sort of grandeur in the

seclusion and simplicity of their worship. All was not blood; and though

they bowed down to the Unknown God in an erring and mistaken spirit, yet

must their conception of him been fine. The God of nature and the

wilderness--the God of the tempest and the storm--was a nobler idea than

the immortalized humanities of Greek and Roman mythology, though both

had wandered equally far from the true God of Mercy and of Peace.

When Massalia was hard pressed by two Gaulish nations, she summoned, in

an evil hour, Rome to her aid. By the Roman arms her assailants were

repelled, but these allies maintained their footing in the country. They

soon subdued Liguria, and founded the town of Aquae Sextiae; the Gaulish

nation of the AEdues united with the strangers; a defensive league

entered into by the Allobroges and the Arvernes to drive them from their

shores, was defeated. The territory acquired by these victories was

organized into a Transalpine province; this province gradually went on

increasing; its communications with Italy were assured, by the Romans

obtaining possession of the passes of the Alps. In the year 118 B.C.,

the first Roman colony in Gaul was founded at Narbonne; hither, in

course of time, came the great maritime commerce which had raised

Massalia to her greatness; hither, too, flowed much of the internal

traffic of Gaul. The ships of Massalia lay rotting in her harbours, her

extensive quays lost their busy multitudes. In the fall of her naval

power, in the loss of her commercial policy, she received a just reward

for having wafted to her shores, and assisted with her forces, the

stranger who was destined to rule over the Gaulish people. The

organization of the province was completed; and from Narbonne, Roman

emissaries issuing forth, laboured, by augmenting the quarrels and

dissensions of the native tribes, to afford an opportunity for her to

extend the limits of the empire.

Driven from the shores of the Baltic by an inroad of the ocean, the two

tribes of the Kimry and the Teutones uniting, precipitated themselves,

to the number of 300,000 fighting men, upon the more southern countries.

In the course of their wanderings they came upon the Roman province of

Norica, which they laid waste with fire and sword, and where they

defeated the consul, Papirius Carbon, with great loss. Without taking

advantage of this opportunity to enter Italy, which now lay open to

their attack, they entered the country of the Helvetii, where they were

joined by the tribes of that people, the Ambrones, the Tigurines, and

the Teutones; descending now upon Gaul like a devastating torrent, they

wasted it as far as the Belgian frontier; here, however, the resistance

of the inhabitants prevented them from advancing further. Turning now

upon the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, they defeated three Roman

armies under Silanus, Cassius, and Scaurus; and here they were joined by

that portion of the Tectosages who had formerly returned from the

disastrous invasion of Greece. The Roman generals, Cepio and Manlius,

who had advanced against them, were utterly routed, and great part of

the province laid waste. From hence the Kimry penetrated into Spain,

where they remained for two years, pillaging and wasting the country,

till, having received a check from the Celtiberians, they repassed the

Pyrenees, and united with their confederated in the plains of Gaul. The

united bands now prepared to march upon Italy; this they did in two

divisions: one, consisting of the Kimry and the Tigurines, directed its

steps through Helvetia and Norica and by the Tridentine Alps; while the

other, consisting of the Ambrones and the Teutones, moved on the route

which leads to Italy by the Maritime Alps: both divisions had appointed

a common rendezvous on the banks of the Po.

Rome was not unprepared for this invasion; to meet it, Marius had been

recalled from his command in Africa, and invested with the consular

power. When the division of the Ambrones and the Teutones reached the

Maritime Alps, they found that general encamped in a position which lay

directly in their line of march. Assaulted for three successive days,

the Romans maintained themselves in their intrenchments: at last the

Gauls, giving up the attempt to force them, passed on and soon reached

Aquae Sextiae, whither they were followed by Marius. Marius encamped on a

hill opposite the quarter of the Ambrones; between them flowed a river.

The sutlers of the Roman army having descended to obtain water,

encountered, in the bed of the torrent, some Gauls. A skirmish began;

the Ambrones flocked in great numbers to support their comrades; soon

they assembled their whole force and advanced upon the Romans. In

crossing the stream they were vigorously opposed by the auxiliaries.

Marius, seeing the favourable opportunity, led down his legions to the

attack. Unable to withstand the shock, the Ambrones were driven back

with great loss; the river ran red with their blood; the plain was

covered with fugitives; and their routed forces halted not till they

reached the neighbouring quarter of the Teutones. In their camp the

Romans experienced more resistance from the women, who, rather than fall

into the hands of their enemies, flung themselves on the hostile ranks,

or perished by their own hands. Marius drew off his troops before night,

and retreated to his former position on the hill. The next night he sent

round 3000 men to occupy a wood in the rear of the position of the

Teutones. The following morning he drew out his legions in battle array

upon the slope of the hill, and sent forward his cavalry to skirmish

with the enemy, and induce them to engage with him. They fell into the

snare: pursuing his cavalry, they advanced to the river's edge, and

there, in an evil hour, crossed it and attacked the Roman army. The

contest which ensued was long and desperate; the Gauls had the advantage

in numbers, the Romans in discipline and position. But while victory

still hung in the balance, the 3000 Romans, issuing forth from their

ambuscade, fell upon the rear of the Teutones: this produced

irremediable confusion in the ranks of the Gauls. The Romans redoubled

the energy of their attack, and the victory was no longer doubtful. Many

perished in the field, more in the pursuit; the remainder were cut off

in detail by the peasants, who assailed them on all sides.

Meanwhile the other divisions of the Gauls, consisting of the Kimry and

the Tigurines, after traversing Helvetia and Norica, arrived at the

Tridentine passes of the Alps at the end of winter. To keep possession

of these passes the Tigurines halted upon the summits of the ridge,

while the Kimry, continuing their march, descended into the valley of

the Adige. On their approach the consul Catulus, who was charged with

the defence of this part of Italy, retreated behind the Adige; and when

the Gauls advanced to attack him, his legions were seized with such a

panic, that, abandoning their camp, they fled, and halted not till they

had placed the Po between themselves and the enemy. The Kimry now spread

themselves over the whole territory beyond the Po, and occupied the land

without opposition: here they determined to await the arrival of the

other column. This delay saved Italy; for it afforded time for Marius

and his army to cross the Alps, and effect a junction with Catulus and

his troops. In the July of 101 B.C., Marius and Catulus advanced to meet

the Kimry on the banks of the Po. On the 30th of July the hostile armies

met to decide the fate of Italy in the Campus Ranolius. The battle which

ensued was long and bloody; but overcome by the heat of the day and the

immense clouds of dust, and exposed by their imperfect defensive armour

to all the strokes of the enemy, the Kimry were in the end totally

defeated. When the Romans, in the course of the pursuit, came to their

camp, the same scene occurred as that which took place at Aquae Sextiae;

as the women, after defending themselves for some time, at last put an

end to their existence with their own hands. On receiving news of this

defeat, the Tigurines abandoned the passes of the Alps, and retreated to

their native country, Helvetia. Thus ended the last invasion of Italy by

the Gauls. Rome acknowledged the danger she had run by the gratitude she

displayed to Marius, who received the title of the third Romulus, and

his triumph was celebrated with all the enthusiasm of a grateful

country.

We pass in silence over the various occurrences in Gaul till we come to

the year 58 B.C. This was the year when Caesar commenced his career of

victory. His first achievement was the defeat of the Helvetii, who,

rising _en masse_, wished to abandon their sterile country, and gain by

the sword a more fertile land. He next advanced against Ariovistus and

his Germans, who were ravaging with fire and sword the eastern portions

of Gaul: these he likewise totally routed--thus delivering the

inhabitants from a withering scourge. But their joy at this event was

soon changed into sadness, when they saw that the Romans had no

intention of retreating from their territory. Establishing himself

amongst the Sequanes, Caesar levied contributions and collected

provisions from all the neighbouring nations. Their discontent soon

burst forth; they flew to arms, and prepared to make a desperate fight

in defence of their liberties. We have no room to follow the Roman

through his various campaigns; to trace the long and gallant stand made

by the Gauls in defence of their native land; or the great and admirable

genius of Caesar, nowhere displayed so greatly as in his Gaulish

campaigns, though perfidy sometimes tainted his councils, and torrents

of innocent blood too often stained his arms. Suffice it to say, that

after three campaigns, the north and west had submitted to his forces,

and he had made his first descent on the British shores. In his fourth

campaign he undertook his second expedition against Britain, and subdued

some more of the continental tribes. But a general movement now took

place over nearly the whole of Gaul against the Romans, who at first

suffered some severe checks; but the military skill of Caesar, in the

course of a fifth campaign, again triumphed. Though so often vanquished,

these brave people were not yet subdued. A new league was entered into

by their cities; the war broke out afresh; and an able general,

Vercingeto-rix, now directed their movements. It was during the course

of his sixth campaign, which now followed, that Caesar ran the greatest

danger and achieved the greatest triumphs. The surprise of Genatum, the

capture of Avaricum, seemed at first to promise a speedy victory to his

arms; but a repulse which he suffered before the walls of Geronia was

the signal for the whole of Gaul to unite with the insurgents. A victory

which he gained over Vercingeto-rix soon afterwards, checked for the

moment, but did not dispirit, the Gauls; and the whole weight of the war

was soon collected around the ramparts of Alexia. Both parties felt that

the contest which would now ensue must decide the fate of the campaign,

and both made the most strenuous exertions to prepare for it. The

gigantic lines of Caesar were soon surrounded by the whole force of the

enemy, and a combined attack was made upon them both from within and

without. Great and imminent was the peril; but the steadiness of the

legions, and the gallantry of their chief, surmounted it, and the

banners of Rome finally waved triumphant over the hard-fought field. The

fruits of this victory were immense. Alexia capitulated; the Gaulish

nations who had been most active in the war submitted; and

Vercingeto-rix was given up to the conquerors. Yet was a great part of

the country still unsubdued; and when in the ensuing year, B.C. 51,

Caesar took the field in his seventh and last campaign in this country,

he found a powerful and numerous confederacy in arms. Taught by the

experience of the past, they no longer attempted to unite their whole

forces and defeat him in general engagements, but endeavoured to exhaust

his resources, and wear out his troops by a protracted defensive

warfare. They fortified and garrisoned their towns so as to impose on

him the necessity of innumerable sieges; whilst the country, on his

line of march, was laid waste, and his troops were harassed by the

incessant attacks of their skirmishers. But Caesar overcame all

difficulties: if they met him in battle, they were vanquished; if they

retreated to their fortifications, they were driven from them by

escalade; if they took refuge in their marshes, he pursued and overtook

them even there. Dispirited by these constant defeats, the Gauls, for

the last time, laid down their arms. The conquered territory was

organized as a new province of the Roman empire, and Caesar laboured to

attach it to his person by the lenity and moderation of his government.

In this he succeeded; nor had he ever reason to repent of having done

so; for, during the civil wars which raised him to the imperial power,

he received no inconsiderable assistance from the courage and devotion

of its inhabitants. Here, as a free people, ends the history of the

Gauls. We shall not follow M. Thierry in his account of the last period

of their annals, which embraces the subjugation of the Britons; the

organization of Gaul into a subject province; the gradual loss of their

nationality by its inhabitants; the spread of Roman manners and Roman

civilization amongst them; their transition from an independent people

to an integral part of the Roman empire. Here we take leave of them:

their arms have just dropped from their hands; liberty has just fled

from their shores; the fetters of conquest sit strangely on their

free-born limbs; they have not yet learned the vices of a subject race:

after having followed them in their career of conquest, and through the

hard-fought struggle in their native land, we love not to dwell on the

crushing of their haughty spirit.

Throughout the whole of his history, Thierry sustains the interest well;

but nowhere is his narrative more animated than in his account of the

wars of Caesar; and no wonder, for a nobler field could not lie before

him. His book is altogether one of the most curious and interesting

which we possess on the history of ancient times. A great work it cannot

be called. M. Thierry is more a man of talent than of genius; and

accordingly, in his work, we are more struck with the interest of his

narrative than with the profoundness of his reflections: it contains not

the philosophy of Guizot, nor the originality of Michelet, yet it is a

valuable addition to modern literature. Would that we saw a few more

such in our own country!

FOOTNOTES:

{A} _Histoire des Gaulois_, par M. AMADEE THIERRY. 3 tomes. Paris: 1835.

THE WITCHFINDER.

CONCLUSION.

At the upper end of the large Gothic room, forming the interior of the

town-hall of Hammelburg, which was formally prepared as a court of

trial, sat upon a raised part of the flooring in his chair of state, the

Ober-Amtmann; before him were placed, at a velvet-behung table, his

_schreibers_ or secretaries; beside him sat, upon a low cushioned stool,

his daughter, the fair Fraulein Bertha, surrounded by her tirewomen, who

remained standing behind her.

The presence of the young Fraulein was of rare occurrence upon occasions

of judicial ceremony in the old town-hall. But a solemn appeal to her

testimony had been made by the witchfinder; and her father, whose sense

of justice considered that a matter of accusation of so heavy and

serious a nature as that of witchcraft, should be investigated in all

its bearings, had commanded her presence. Her heart, full of the purest

milk of human kindness, revolted, however, from witnessing the progress

of such terrible proceedings--the justice of which her simple mind,

tutored according to the dark prejudices of the age, never once doubted,

but which curdled her blood with horror. And she sat pale and sad, with

downcast eyes, scarcely daring to raise them upon the crowd that filled

the hall, much less upon the most conspicuous object in the scene before

her--the unhappy being against whom all curses, all evil feelings, all

insane desires of blood and death, were then directed. Perhaps there was

another reason also, which, almost unconsciously, caused her to keep her

eyes fixed upon the earth; perhaps she feared that they might meet two

other mild blue eyes, the expression of which was that of a deep--far

too deep--an interest; for it caused her heart to beat, and her spirit

to be troubled; and her bosom to heave and sigh, she knew not wherefore:

unless, indeed, she were, in truth, bewitched.

In the centre of the hall was placed the accused woman. She was seated

upon a rude three-legged stool, which was firmly fixed upon a raised

flooring, elevated about three feet from the ground--her face turned

towards her judge. A slight chain passed round the middle of her body,

and fastened her down to her seat. She was still attired in the dark

hood and cloak which had been her customary dress, and sat, with head

bent downwards, and her hands clasped languidly upon her knees, as if

resigned, in the bitterness of her despair, to meet the cruel fate that

awaited her.

Below, was a compact and turbulent crowd of the lower orders of the

town, which was with difficulty kept, by the pikemen, within the limits

assigned to it; and which, from time to time, let forth low howls

against the supposed sorceress, that increased, like the _crescendo_ of

distant thunder, and then died away again.

On either side, towards the upper end, were ranged upon benches some of

the more reputable _bourgeois_ and their spouses, all decked out in

their finest braveries, as if they were present at a theatrical show, or

a church mystery: and, in truth, the representation about to be given,

was but little more in their own eyes, than a sort of show got up for

their especial gratification.

Guarded by two pikemen, stood the cripple--his teeth set firmly,

although his lips quivered with excitement--his light eyes glaring

fiercely around with an air of savage exultation, and gleaming, as it

were, with a pale phosphoric fire, from out of the dark ground of his

swarthy face and lank black hair. He moved restlessly and uneasily upon

his withered limbs, clenching by fits and starts his rosary from his

bosom, and murmuring a hasty, and--to judge by the wildness of his eyes,

that showed how his mind was fixed upon far other thoughts--a vain

prayer. He rolled also his head and the upper part of his body

continually backwards and forwards, like a wild beast fretting in his

cage.

Among the more prominent of the crowd, whom the favour of the guards

had allowed to push beyond the assigned limits, or whom reasons,

connected with the trial, required to come forwards, stood "Gentle

Gottlob." His brow was overclouded with sadness, for he felt in how

fearful a pass this horrible denunciation had placed the woman whom he

had so long regarded with attachment. His mild blue eye was more

melancholy than of wont; and yet, in spite of the trouble of his mind,

he was unable to withdraw his looks from that bright loadstone of his

affections, whose sadness seemed to sympathize with his own. At least,

his heart would fain persuade him that there was mysterious sympathy in

their mutual dejection.

The principal personages concerned in the awful question at issue,

occupied, thus, their respective positions in the old town-hall; when,

after a long and troubled pause, during which silence was with

difficulty obtained among the more tumultuous portion of the crowd at

the lower end of the hall, one of the _schreibers_ rose, and read, from

an interminable strip of parchment which he held in his hand, the act of

accusation against the female known under the popular designation of

"Mother Magdalena," as attainted of the foul crime of witchcraft, of the

casting of spells and malefices to the annoyance and destruction of her

fellow-creatures, of consorting with spirits of darkness, and of

lascivious intercourse with the arch-fiend himself. For so ran, at that

time, the tenor of the accusation directed against the unhappy women

suspected of this imaginary crime.

The act of accusation was long, and richly interlarded with all those

interminable complications of legal phraseology, which seem ever, at all

times, and in all nations, to have been the necessary concomitants of

all legal proceedings. The reading of the act, however, being at last

terminated, the town-beggar, commonly known by the familiar name of

Black Claus the witchfinder, Schwartzer-Claus, or Claus Schwartz, as he

was usually designated among the people, was summoned to stand forward

as the denouncer of the aforesaid Magdalena, and to substantiate his

charge.

Thus called upon, the cripple gave a start forward, like a lion let

loose upon the gladiator's arena, through the barred gates of which he

has already sniffed the odour of blood; and then, raising one of his

long arms towards the stool of penitence, on which the criminal had been

placed, he again repeated, with an eagerness amounting to frenzy, his

accusation against her.

As the witchfinder's hoarse voice was heard, a visible shudder passed

through Magdalena's frame; but she raised not her head, moved not a

limb, spoke not; and it was only when called upon by the chief

_schreiber_ to declare what she had to say against this accusation, that

she lowly murmured--"God's will be done!" but still with bowed head and

downcast eyes.

In support of his denunciation, the cripple proceeded to state how he

had watched the mysterious female called "Mother Magdalena," and had

observed that she never would enter any consecrated building; how she

would daily advance up the steps of the church, and then pause before

the threshold, as if she feared to pass it, and then throw herself down

upon the stones before the gate, where she would lie in strange

convulsions, and at last return without having penetrated into the

building--an evident proof that the devil she served had forbidden her

to put her foot into any sacred dwelling, but had taught her,

nevertheless, to approach near enough to treat the awful mysteries of

the Christian religion, performed within, with mockery and contempt. To

this accusation, which was confirmed by the acclamation of several

persons present in the court, Magdalena, when called upon to speak,

proffered no denial; she contented herself with the meek reply, that God

alone knew the motives of the heart--that it was for him alone to judge.

The words were still uttered in the same low despairing tone, and

without the slightest movement of her head from its sunken posture.

The partially monastic dress, which was her habitual attire, was next

brought forward against her as a proof of her desire to treat with

contempt the dress of the religious orders: and to this absurd

accusation, when asked why she had adopted a costume resembling that of

the holy sisterhood of penitents, the old woman still refused any reply.

The events of the previous afternoon, when she had been openly seen to

throw her staff at the Amtmann's unoffending daughter, and wound her on

the neck, and then break into pieces the image of the Holy Cross, were

then recapitulated, as facts known upon the positive evidence of a

hundred witnesses.

These matters disposed of, the cripple proceeded to detail his own

peculiar grievances, and attributed, as he had done in the cases of the

seven unhappy women who had already fallen victims of his frantic

delusion, the severe pains that had racked his poor distorted limbs to

the malefic charms of the sorceress. He related how, on the last night

on which he had met Mother Magdalena, he had found her sitting by the

well in the market-place, casting a spell upon the spring, and turning

the waters to poison and blood--as a proof of which, he swore to have

himself tasted in the water of the bucket the taste of blood; how, in

revenge for his warning to her to desist from her foul practices, she

had pointed up her finger to the sky, and immediately brought down upon

his head all the combined waters of heaven; how she had vanished from

his sight in this storm, he knew not how; and how immediately intense

pains began to torture his joints, until he became half frantic with

agony, and had been compelled, by hideous visions, to quit the shelter

he had sought, in order to be exposed to all the peltings of the storm.

He had since suffered, he declared, the tortures of the damned in all

his limbs, with occasional fits of shuddering, sometimes of hot fever,

sometimes of the most freezing cold, which were evidently torments

worked upon him by the powers of darkness. And as he spoke, the unhappy

wretch was again seized by one of his fearful fits of ague, during the

convulsions of which the clamours of the crowd grew terrible against the

sorceress.

"What sayest thou to this accusation, woman?" said the chief

_schreiber_. "Thou see'st how even now he suffers."

"I have never willed evil to any man--not even to him," was Magdalena's

only reply.

When recovered from his fit, the cripple again raised his head--it was

to cast a glance at the object of his denunciation, in which hatred and

triumph were blended together, in one of those occasional flashes of

wildness which showed that there was a vein of insanity running through

all the frenzied zeal of the witchfinder. He had now arrived at a period

of his narration, when the most damning proof of all was to overwhelm

the accused woman.

It was not without an unaffected expression of horror, that he went on

to relate how he had wandered around the building by the Watergate, in a

lower cell of which he had discovered that she dwelt, seeking in vain to

find an entrance or a peep-hole, that might enable him to penetrate into

the interior; how he had, at last, dragged his crippled limbs up into a

tree upon the river's bank, overlooking an upper chamber of the

building; how he had, at first, seen Mother Magdalena in conversation

with the young illuminator; how, upon his departure, she had flung

herself down upon her knees, and after spitting upon one of the books of

holy writ upon the table, had made wild gestures of conjuration, upon

which the demon himself, attired in a dark robe, had suddenly appeared

by supernatural means, for he had not entered by the door; how the foul

hag had fallen down and worshipped the arch-fiend; and how, after a

conference of short duration, during which the woman at his feet

appeared to supplicate with earnestness, probably a prolongation of her

wretched term of power to work ill, and afterwards kissed his hand in

token of adoration and submission, the demon had vanished as suddenly as

he had appeared.

A low murmur of horror ran through the assembly, as Black Claus related

this fearful story. All eyes were turned upon the handmaiden of Satan.

For a moment she had raised her head, horror-struck at this

interpretation of the interview she had in Gottlob's chamber with the

stranger--for a moment she seemed to have a desire to speak. But then,

clasping her hands before her face, she murmured--"O God! it cannot be!

But this is terrible!"

Gottlob, who, during the whole accusation, had listened with much

impatience, could now no longer restrain his generous feelings. He

started forward with the words--"No, no, it is impossible! Speak,

Magdalena--say how false is this man's tale."

"God knows that it is false!" said Magdalena.

"I knew it could not be. There could be no one with thee in my chamber,

and he lies."

"No," replied Magdalena sadly, "thus far is true:--There was a stranger

by me in your chamber."

"But who then?--speak, Magdalena," urged Gottlob. "Clear yourself of the

foul stigma of his tale."

"I may not say!" replied the unhappy woman. "But God will prove my

innocence in His own right time."

"Why hesitate," again cried the eager young man, "when with a word you

could disprove him?"

"I have already said it cannot be," said the accused woman, sinking her

head upon her breast.

Gottlob himself drew back with a shudder; for a moment he knew not what

to think; the strange answers of Magdalena perplexed and troubled him.

He began himself to doubt of the woman, who, in return for his

benevolence, had showed him the attachment of a mother. He pulled his

cloak over his face with both his hands, and stood for a time

overwhelmed.

"It needs no further questions upon this point, I presume," said the

chief _schreiber_, turning to the Ober-Amtmann. "The wretched woman has

already admitted a part of the truth;" and, with a sign to the

denouncer, he bade him proceed.

The witchfinder paused for a moment, and gave one long look of

tenderness and pity--as far, indeed, as his harsh, rudely-stamped

features could express such feelings--at the pale face of Bertha. Then,

fixing his eye keenly upon the Ober-Amtmann, as if to fascinate his

attention, he burst into a fresh accusation against the sorceress, as

having, in the first place, cast her spells upon the noble Fraulein

Bertha, for the purpose of sowing the seeds of death within her frame;

and as having, in the second place, employed the young man called

"Gentle Gottlob" to be an involuntary agent in her work of ill.

Upon hearing the first part of this charge, Magdalena had raised her

head to give, unconsciously as it were, a deprecating look at the fair

girl--as if to assure her, with that one long concentrated look of deep

feeling, that, far from desiring her evil, she contended only with the

overpourings of kindness and love for her; and then, as though she had

already expressed more than her conscience could approve, she bowed

again her head, murmuring only--"O God! support me. Thou knowest how

false is the raving of that wretched man." The second part of the charge

excited other and very varied feelings among those present. Magdalena

again started, but with evident surprise, and made a hasty gesture of

denial. Gottlob sprang forward, horrified at being thus involved, even

as an involuntary agent, in the hideous denunciation, and indignant at

the supposition that he could work ill to the Amtmann's lovely daughter;

and he protested, with all the vehemence which gentle natures, when

roused into excitement, will display, against so unfounded and

calumnious an accusation; whilst Bertha, joining together her small

hands, as if in supplication, turned her face, with anxious expression,

to her father, crying--"No, no--it cannot be!"

Astounded at so unexpected a revelation, the Ober-Amtmann seemed at

first not to know what to think. He gazed alternately upon Gottlob and

Bertha, as if to read upon their faces the secret of a connexion between

them; and then, satisfied of the impossibility that the noble

Ober-Amtmann's daughter could have the slightest affinity with the

unknown youth before him, he drew a long breath, and passed his hand

over his brow, as if to drive away ideas so absurd.

"Peace, youth--peace!" he cried to Gottlob; "we will hear thee anon. It

is not thou who art accused. And thou, my child be calm. Cripple! what

mean thy words? What proof bringest thou of their truth?"

"Ask of the suffering angel by thy side, my noble lord," replied the

cripple with emotion. "Let her tell how, of late, her cheek has grown

pale, her limbs have become weary, her very life's-blood languid and

oppressed. I have watched her day by day, and I have seen these changes.

I have watched her with a careful and a cunning eye; and I have

felt--there, in my heart--that the spell was upon her: and this it was

that urged me to denounce that wretched hag."

"Speak, my child," said the Ober-Amtmann, in trouble and anxiety. "What

this man says, is it true? Hast thou suffered lately? Indeed, I do

remember thy cheek has been paler than of wont--thy appetite has left

thee--thou hast been no longer so cheerful or so active as of old.

Speak, my child--hast thou really suffered?"

"Oh, no! my father, I have not suffered," replied the agitated girl in

much confusion; "and yet I have not been as formerly I was. I have been

sad, I knew not why, and wept in the silence of my chamber without

cause; and I have found no pleasure in my embroidery, nor in my flowers,

nor in my falcons. I have felt my foot fall weary. I have sought to

rest, and yet, when reposing, I have felt unable to remain in quiet, and

I have longed for exercise abroad. But yet I have not suffered; and

sometimes I have even hugged with pleasure the trouble of my mind and

body."

"These seem, indeed, the symptoms of a deadly spell upon thee, my poor

child," exclaimed her father. "Such, they say, are the first evidences

of the working of those charms that witches breathe over their victims."

"And let the Fraulein Bertha tell," cried the witchfinder, "how it has

been yonder youth who has seemed to exercise this influence of ill upon

her."

Again Gottlob sought to spring forward and speak; but a sign from the

Ober-Amtmann to the guards caused them to place their pikes before him,

and arrest him in his impulse.

"How and what is this, my child?" said the Ober-Amtmann. "Knowest thou

that youth? and in what has he, consciously or unconsciously, done thee

ill?"

"He has done me no ill," replied the innocent girl in still greater

confusion, as her bosom heaved, and the blood suffused her cheeks. "I am

sure he would not do me ill for all the treasures of the world!"

"Thou knowest him then?" said her father, somewhat more sternly.

"No, I know him not," replied Bertha in trouble; "but I have met him

sometimes in my path, and I have seen him"--she hesitated for a moment,

and then added, with downcast eyes, "at his window, which overlooks our

garden."

"Why then this trouble, Bertha?" continued the Ober-Amtmann, in a tone

that rendered their conversation inaudible beyond their own immediate

circle.

"I cannot tell myself, my father. I feel troubled and sad, it is true;

and yet I know not why. I have no cause"----

"And when thou hast met yonder youth, as thou sayest, hast thou felt

this trouble before?"

"Alas! yes, my father. I remember now that at his aspect my heart would

beat; my head grow giddy, and my ears would tingle; and then a faintness

would come over me, as though it were a pain I felt, and yet it was a

pleasant pain. There was nothing in him that could cause me ill; was

there, father?"

The Ober-Amtmann's brow grew dark as Bertha proceeded; but, after a

moment's reflection, he murmured to himself--"Love! oh, no! It is

impossible! She and he! The noble's daughter and the low-born youngster.

It could not be! There is no doubt! Witchcraft has been at work! How

long has it been thus with thee, my child?" he added with solicitude.

"I cannot tell, my father. Some five or six months past it came upon me.

I know not when or how!"

"Bears he no charm upon him?" exclaimed the Ober-Amtmann aloud.

"He bears a charm upon him!" cried the witchfinder in triumph. "And ask

who bound it round his neck?"

"It is false! I bear no charm!" cried Gottlob eagerly. "She herself

denied that it was such."

"Of what does he speak?" cried the Ober-Amtmann.

"It was but a gift of affection, and no charm. She gave me this ring,"

said Gottlob, pointing to the ring hung by a small riband round his

neck; "and I have worn it, as she requested, in remembrance of some

unworthy kindness I had shown her."

"And how long since was it," enquired the Ober-Amtmann, "that she

bestowed this supposed gift upon you?"

"Some five or six months past," was Gottlob's unlucky answer; "not long

after I first brought her to reside with me in my poor dwelling."

During this examination the agitation of Magdalena had become extreme;

and when, upon the Ober-Amtmann's command that the ring should be handed

up to him, Gottlob removed it from his neck, and gave it into the hands

of one of the guards, she cried, in much excitement, "No, no; give it

not, Gottlob!"

The ring, however, was passed on to the Ober-Amtmann; and Magdalena,

covering her face with her hands, fell back, with a stifled groan, into

her former crouching position.

The sight of the ring seemed indeed to have the power of a necromancer's

charm upon the Ober-Amtmann. No sooner had his eyes fallen upon it, than

his cheek grew pale--his usually severe and stern face was convulsed

with agitation--and he sank back in his chair with the low cry, "That

ring! O God! After so many years of dearly-sought oblivion!"

At the sight of the Ober-Amtmann's agitation and apparent swoon, a howl

of execration burst from the crowd below, mingled with the cries of

"Tear the wretch in pieces! She has poisoned him! Tear her in pieces!"

Consternation prevailed through the whole assembly. Bertha sprang to her

father's side; but the Ober-Amtmann quickly rallied. He waved his

daughter back with the remark, "It was nothing--it is past;" and raising

himself in his chair, looked again upon the ring.

"There is no doubt," he murmured, "it is that same ring--that Arabic

ring, brought me from the East, and which I gave--oh, no!--impossible!"

he hurriedly exclaimed, as a horrible thought seemed to cross him. "She

has been dead many years since. Did not my own brother assure me of her

death? It cannot be!"

After a moment's pause to recover from his agitation, he gave orders to

one of the guards to remove the hood from Magdalena's head, that he

might see her features. With the crooked end of a pike's head, one of

them tore back her hood; while another, with the staff of his pike,

forced her hands asunder. Magdalena's careworn and prematurely withered

face was exposed to the gaze of all, distorted with emotion.

"Less rudely, varlets!" cried the Ober-Amtmann, with a feeling of sudden

forbearance towards the wretched woman which surprised all present; for

they could not but marvel at the slightest symptom of consideration

toward such an abhorred outcast of humanity as a convicted witch; and as

such the miserable Magdalena was already regarded.

For a moment the Ober-Amtmann considered Magdalena's careworn, withered,

and agitated face with painful attention; and then, as if relieved from

some terrible apprehension, he heaved a bitter sigh, and murmured to

himself--"No, no, there is no trace of that once well-known face. I knew

it could not be. She is no more. It was a wild and foolish thought! but

this ring--'tis strange! Woman, dost thou know me?" he asked aloud, with

some remaining agitation.

"I know you not," replied Magdalena with a low and choked voice; for she

now trembled violently, and the tears gushed from her eyes.

"How camest thou then by this ring? Speak! I command thee," continued

the Ober-Amtmann.

Magdalena bowed her head with a gesture of refusal to answer any further

question.

"Wretched woman! Hast thou violated the repose of the dead? Hast thou

torn it from the grave? How else came it in thy possession?"

The unhappy woman replied not. She had again covered her face with her

hands, and the tears streamed through her meagre fingers.

"Speak, I tell thee! This ring has conjured up such recollections, that

were there but one human link between thee and one who has long since

rested from all sorrow in the grave, it might ensure thy safety."

No answer was returned by Magdalena; although, to judge by the convulsed

movement of her body, the struggle within must have been bitter and

heavy to bear.

"Die then in thy obstinacy, miserable woman," cried the Ober-Amtmann in

a suppressed voice--"Let justice take its course!"

"Denouncer!" said the chief _schreiber_ to the witchfinder, "hast thou

further evidence to offer?"

"Needs it more to convict a criminal of the foul and infernal practices

of witchcraft?" cried Black Claus with bitterness.

The chief _schreiber_ turned to the Ober-Amtmann, as if to consult his

will. For a moment the Ober-Amtmann passed one hand across his brow, as

though to sweep away the dark visions that were hovering about it; and

then, waving the other, as if he had come to a resolution which had cost

him pain, said with stern solemnity--"Let the workers of the evil deeds

of Satan perish, until the earth be purged of them all."

This customary formula implied the condemnation of the supposed

sorceress.

"To the stake! to the stake!" howled the crowd, upon hearing the

delivery of this expected sentence.

After enjoining silence, which was with difficulty enforced, the chief

_schreiber_ rose, and addressed to Magdalena the accustomed question,

"Woman, dost thou demand the trial by water, and God's issue by that

trial?"

"I demand but to die in peace," replied the miserable woman; "and God's

will be done!"

"She refuses the trial by water," said the chief _schreiber_, in order

to establish the fact, which was put down in writing by the adjuncts.

"To the stake! to the stake!" howled the crowd.

"And hast thou nothing to urge against the justice of thy sentence?"

asked the official questioner.

"Justice!" cried Magdalena, with a start, which caused the chain around

her waist to clank upon the wretched stool on which she sat. "Justice!"

she cried in a tone of indignation. For a moment the earthly spirit

revolted. But it gleamed only for an instant. "May God pardon my unjust

judge the sins of his youth,"--she paused, and added, "as I forgive him

my cruel death!" With these words, the last spark of angry feeling was

extinguished for ever. "May God pardon him, as well as those who have

thus cruelly witnessed against me; and may He bless him, and all those

who are most near and dear to him," she continued--her voice, as she

spoke, growing gradually more subdued, until it was lost and choked in

convulsive sobbings.

Again a thrill of horror passed through the Ober-Amtmann; for the sound

of the voice seemed to revive in his mind memories of the past, and

recall a vision he had already striven to dispel from it. His frame

shuddered, and again he fell back in his chair.

"It is a delusion of Satan!" he muttered, pressing his hands to his

ears, and closing his eyes.

Bertha's eyes streamed with tears; her pitying heart was tortured by

this scene of sadness.

"Blessings instead of curses upon those who have condemned her! Can that

be guilt?" said gentle Gottlob to himself. "Can that be the spirit of

the malicious and revengeful agent of the dark deeds of Satan? No--she

is innocent; and I will still save her, if human means can save!"

After thus parleying with himself, Gottlob began to struggle to make his

way from the court.

"The blessings of the servants of the fiend are bitter curses," said the

infatuated witchfinder, on the other hand; "and she has blessed me. God

stand by me!"

"To the stake!--to the stake!" still howled the pitiless, the

bloodthirsty crowd.

The refusal of the unhappy Magdalena to abide by the issue of the

well-known trial by water, had so much abridged the customary

proceedings, that orders were given, and preparations made, for the

execution of the ultimate punishment for the crime of witchcraft--burning

at the stake--shortly after daybreak on the morrow.

It was yet night--a short hour before the breaking of the dawn. The pile

had been already heaped in the market-place of Hammelburg--the stake

fixed. All was in readiness for the hideous performance about to take

place. The guards paced backwards and forwards before the grated

doorway, which opened under the terrace of the old town-hall; for there,

in that miserable hole, was confined the wretched victim of popular

delusion. The soldiers kept watch, however, upon their prisoner at such

a distance as to be as far as possible out of the reach of her malefic

spells. The heavy clanking of their pikes, as they rested them from time

to time upon the pavement, or paused to interchange a word, alone broke

the silence of the still sleeping town--sleeping, to awake shortly like

a tiger thirsty for blood. The light of a waning moon showed

indistinctly the dark mass in the centre of the market-place--the stage

upon which the frightful tragedy was about to be enacted--when one of

the sentinels all at once turning his head in that direction, descried a

dark form creeping around the pile, as if examining it on all sides.

"What's that?" he cried in alarm to his comrade, pointing to this dark

object. "Is it the demon himself, whom she has conjured up, and who now

comes to deliver her? All good spirits"--and he crossed himself with

hurried zeal.

"Praise the Lord!" continued the other, completing the usual German form

of exorcism, and crossing himself no less devoutly.

"Challenge him, Hans!" said the first; "at the sound of a Christian

voice, mayhap, he may vanish away; and thou art ever boasting to Father

Peter that thou are the most Christian man of thy company."

"Challenge him thyself," replied Hans, in a voice that did not say much

for the firmness of his conscience as a Christian.

"Let's challenge him both at once," proposed the other soldier.

"Perhaps, between us, we may muster up goodness enough to drive the foul

fiend before us."

"Agreed!" replied Hans, with somewhat better courage; and upon this

joint-stock company principle of piety, both the soldiers raised their

voices at once, and cried, in a somewhat quavering duet, "Who goes

there?"

A hoarse laugh was the only answer received to this challenge; and the

dark form seemed to advance towards them across the market-place.

So great appeared the modesty of each of the soldiers with regard to his

appreciation of his own merits as a good Christian--so little his

confidence in his own powers of holiness to wrestle with the fiend of

darkness in the shape which now approached them--that they seemed

disposed rather humbly to quit the field, than encounter Sir Apollyon in

so glorious a contest; when the dim light of the moon revealed the

figure, as it came forward, to be that of the witchfinder.

"It is Claus Schwartz!" said Hans, taking breath.

"Or the devil in his form," pursued his fellow-sentinel with more

caution. "Stand back!" he shouted, as the witchfinder came within a few

yards, "and declare who thou art."

"Has the foul hag within there bewitched thee?" cried Black Claus; "or

has she smitten thee with blindness? Canst thou not see? The night is

not so dark but good men may know each other."

"What wouldst thou here?" said Master Hans, completely recovered from

his spiritual alarm.

"I cannot rest," replied the witchfinder with bitterness. "Until her

last ashes shall have mingled with the wind, I shall take no repose,

body or mind. I cannot sleep; or, if I close my eyes, visions of the

hideous hags, who have already perished there, float before my

distracted eyes. It is she that murders my rest, as she has tormented my

poor limbs--curses on her! But a short hour, a short hour more, and she

too shall feel all the tortures of hell--tortures worse than those she

has inflicted on the poor cripple. The flames shall rise, and lap her

body round--the bright red flames. Her members shall writhe upon the

stake. The screams of death shall issue from her blackened lips; until

the lurid smoke shall have wrapped her it its dark winding-sheet, and

stifled the last cry of her parting soul, as it flies to meet its

infernal master in the realms of darkness. Oh, it will be a glorious

sight!" And the cripple laughed, with an insane laugh of malice and

revenge, which made the soldiers shudder in every limb, and draw back

from him with horror.

It seemed as if the fever of his excitement had pressed so powerfully on

his brain as to have driven him completely into madness. After a moment,

however, he pulled his rosary from his bosom, and kissed it, adding, in

a calmer tone, "Yes, it will be a glorious sight--for it will be for the

cause of the Lord, and of his holy church."

Little as they comprehended the witchfinder's raving, the soldiers again

crossed themselves, and looked upon him with a sort of awe.

"What wouldst thou?" said one of them, as Claus advanced towards the

prison door.

"I would look upon her, there--in her prison," said the cripple, with an

expression that denoted a malicious eagerness to gloat upon his victim.

The soldiers interchanged glances with one another, as if they doubted

whether such a permission ought to be allowed to the witchfinder.

"Ah, bah!" said Hans. "It is not he that will aid her to escape. Let him

pass. They'll make a fine sport with one another, the witchfinder and

the witch--dog and cat. Zist, zist!" continued the young soldier,

laughing and making a movement and a sound as if setting on the two

above-mentioned animals to worry each other.

"Take care," said his more scrupulous companion. "Jest not with such

awful work. Who knows but it may be blasphemy; and what would Father

Peter say?"

The two sentinels continued their pacing up and down, but still at some

distance from the prison doorway, in order, as Hans's companion

expressed it, "to keep as much as possible out of the devil's clutches;"

while Black Claus approached the grating of the door.

As the witchfinder peered, with knitted brow, through the bars of the

grating, it seemed to him at first, so complete was the darkness within,

as though the cell was tenantless; and his first movement was to turn,

in order to warn the guards of the escape of their prisoner. But as he

again strained his eyes, he became at last aware of the existence of a

dark form upon the floor of the cell; and as by degrees his sight became

more able to penetrate the obscurity within, he began plainly to

perceive the form of the miserable woman, crouched on her knees upon the

damp slimy pavement of the wretched hole. She was already dressed in the

sackcloth robe of the penitents condemned to the stake, and her poor

grey hairs were without covering. So motionless was her form that for a

moment the witchfinder thought she was dead, and had fallen together in

the position in which she had knelt down; and the thought was like a

knife in his revengeful heart, that she might thus have escaped the

tortures prepared for her, and thwarted the gratification of his insane

and hideous longings. A second thought suggested to him that she was

sleeping. But this conjecture was scarcely less agonizing to him than

the former. That she, the sorceress, should sleep and be at rest, whilst

he, her victim, could find no sleep, no rest, no peace, body or mind,

was more than his bitter spirit could bear. He shook the bars of the

door with violence, and called aloud, "Magdalena!"

"Is my hour already come?" said the wretched woman, raising her head so

immediately as to show how far sleep was from her eyelids.

"No, thou hast got an hour to enjoy the torments of thy own despair,"

laughed the witchfinder, with bitter irony.

"Let me, then, be left in peace, and my last prayers be undisturbed,"

said Magdalena.

"In order that thou mayst pray to the devil thou servest to deliver

thee!" pursued Black Claus, with another mocking laugh. "Ay--pray--pray;

but it will be in vain. He is an arch-deceiver, the fiend, thy master.

He promises and fulfils not. He offers tempting wages to those who sell

to him their souls, and then deserts his servants in the hour of

trouble. So prayed all the filthy hags who sat there before thee,

Magdalena; but they prayed in vain."

"Leave me, wretched man!" said Magdalena, who now became aware that it

was the cripple who addressed her. "Hast thou not sufficiently sated thy

thirst for evil, that thou shouldst come to torment me in my last

moments? Go! tempt not the bitterness of my spirit in this supreme hour

of penitence and prayer. Go! for I have forgiven thee; and I would not

curse thee now."

"I defy thy curses, witch of hell!" cried the cripple with frantic

energy. "Already the first pale streaks of dawn begin to flicker in the

east. A little time, and thy power to curse will be no more; a little

time, and nothing will remain of thee but a heap of noisome ashes; and a

name, which will be mingled with that of the arch-enemy of mankind, in

the execrations of thy victims--a name to be remembered with horror and

disgust--as that of the foul serpent--in the thoughts of the tormented

cripple, and of the pure angel of brightness, upon whom thou hast sought

to work evil and death."

"O God! make not this hour of trial too hard for me to bear!" exclaimed

the unhappy woman; and then, raising her clasped hands to Claus in

bitter expostulation, she cried, "Man! what have I done to harm thee,

that thou shouldst heap these coals of fire on my soul?"

"What thou hast done to harm me?" cried the witchfinder. "Hast thou not

tormented my poor cripple limbs with thy infernal spells? Hast thou not

caused me to suffer the tortures of the damned? But it is not vengeance

that I seek. No--no. I have vowed a holy vow--I have sworn to spend my

life in the good task of purging from the earth such workers of evil as

thou, and those who served the fiend by their foul sorceries, were it

even at the risk of exposing my body to pain and suffering, and even

death, from the revengeful malice of their witchcrafts. And God knows I

have suffered in the holy cause."

And the cripple clenched again within his right hand, the image attached

to the rosary in his bosom, as if to satisfy himself by its contact of

the truth and right of those deeds, which he strove to qualify as holy.

"What thou, or such as thou, have done to harm me!" he continued with

bitter spite. "I will tell thee, hag! I was once a young and happy boy.

I was strong and well-favoured then. I had a father--a passionate but a

kind man; and I had a mother, whom I loved beyond all created things.

She was the joy of my soul--the pride of my boyish dreams. I was happy

then, I tell thee. I called myself by another name. No matter what it

was. Black Claus is the avenger's name, and he will cleave to it. One

day there came an aged beggar-woman to our cottage, and begged. My

mother heeded her not. I know not why; for she was ever kind. My father

drove her from the door; and, as she turned away, she cursed us all. I

never can forget that moment, nor the terror of my youthful mind, as I

heard that curse. And the curse clave to us; for she--_was a witch_; and

it came upon us soon and bitterly. My mother was in the pride of her

beauty still, when a gay noble saw her in her loveliness, and paid her

court. Then came a horrible night, when the witch's curse was fearfully

fulfilled. My father was jealous. He attacked the young noble as he came

by the darkness of night; and it was he--my father--who was killed. I

saw him die, weltering in his blood. My poor mother, too, was spirited

away; the fell powers of witchcraft dragged her from that bloody hearth.

Yes; witchcraft it was--it must have been; for she was too pure and good

to listen to the voice of the seducer--to follow her husband's murderer.

She died, probably, of grief--my poor wretched mother; for I never saw

her more. For days and nights I sought her, but in vain; suffering cold

and hunger, and sleeping oft-times in the cold woods and dank morasses.

Then fell the witches curse on _me_ also; and I began to suffer these

pains, which thy foul tribe have never ceased to inflict upon me since.

The tortures of the body were added to the tortures of the mind. My

limbs grew distorted and withered. I became the outcast of humanity I

now am; and then it was I vowed a vow to pursue, even unto death, all

those hideous lemans of Satan, who, like her who cursed us, sell their

wretched souls but to work evil, and destruction, and death to their

fellow-creatures. And I have kept my vow!"

In spite of herself, Magdalena had been obliged to listen to the

witchfinder's tale, which, with his face pressed against the iron bars

of the grating, he poured, with harsh voice, into her unwilling ear. As

he proceeded, however, she appeared fascinated by the words he uttered,

as the poor quivering bird is fascinated by the serpent's eye. Her

eyeballs were distended--her arms still outstretched towards him, as she

had first raised them to him in her cry of expostulation; but the hands

were desperately clenched together--the arms stiffened with the extreme

tension of the nerves.

"Oh no!" she murmured to herself as he yet spoke; "that were too

horrible!" and when he paused, it was with a smothered scream of agony,

still mixed with doubt, that she cried "Karl!"

"Karl!" repeated the witchfinder, clenching the bars with still firmer

grasp, and raising himself with the effort to the full height of his

stature, as though his limbs had on a sudden recovered all their

strength--"Karl! Ay, that was my name! How dost thou know it, woman?"

"O God!" exclaimed the wretched tenant of the cell, "was my cup of

bitterness not yet full? Hast thou reserved me this?" She wrung her

hands in agony, and then, looking again at the cripple, cried in a tone

of concentrated misery, "Karl! they told me that thou wast dead--that

thou, too, hadst died after that night of horrors!"

"Who art thou, woman?" cried the cripple again, with an accent of

horror, as if a frightful thought had for the first time forced itself

upon his brain. "Who art thou, that thou speakest to me thus, and

freezest the very marrow of my bones with fear? Who art thou that criest

'Karl' with such a voice--a voice that now comes back upon my ear, as if

it were a damning memory of times gone by? Who art thou woman?--speak!

Let not this dreadful thought, that blasts me like lightning, strike me

utterly to the earth."

"Who I am?" sobbed the miserable woman. "Thy wretched and guilty mother,

Karl!"

"Guilty!" shouted the cripple. "Then thou art not she! My mother was not

guilty--she was all innocence and truth!"

"I am thy guilty mother, Karl," repeated the kneeling woman, "who has

striven, by long years of penitence and prayer, to expiate the past.

Alas, in vain! for Heaven refuses the expiation, since it has reserved

the wretched penitent this last, most fearful blow of all!"

"Thou!--oh no!--say it not! Thou my mother!" cried the witchfinder.

"Thy mother--Margaret Weilheim!"

"Horrible!--most horrible!" repeated the agonized son, letting go the

bars, and clasping his bony hands over his face. "Thou, my once beloved

mother, the wretched being of misery and sin--the accomplice of the

spirits of darkness--and _I_ thy denouncer! O God! This is some fearful

delusion!"

"The delusion is in thy own heart, my poor, distracted, infatuated son,"

pursued the miserable mother. "Happy and blessed were I, were no greater

guilt upon my soul than that of the crime for which I am this day

condemned to die. Bitter it is to die; but I had accepted all as the

will of Him above, and he knows my innocence of all dealings with the

powers of hell."

"Innocent!" cried the witchfinder in frightful agitation. "Were it

possible! And is it I, thy own child, who strikes the blow--I, who am

thy murderer--I, who, to avenge the mother, have condemned the mother to

the stake? Horrible! And yet those proofs--those fearful proofs!"

"Hear me, for my time is short now in this world," said the poor woman,

known by the name of Magdalena. "I will not tell thee how I listened to

the voice of the serpent, and how I fell. My pride in my fatal beauty

was my pitfall. All that the honied words of passion and persuasion

could effect was used to lure me on to my destruction--and at last I

fled with my seducer. I knew not then, I swear to thee, Karl--God knows

how bitterly it costs the mother to reveal her shame to her own son; but

bitter if it be, she accepts is as an expiation, and she will not

deceive him--I swear to thee, I knew not then that thy father had fallen

in that unhappy night, and had fallen by the hand of him whom I madly

followed. It was long after that the news reached me, and had nearly

driven me distracted. The same tale told me, but falsely, the death of

my first-born--my Karl. Remorse had long since tortured my heart. I was

not happy with the lover of my choice--I never had been happy with him;

but now the stings of my conscience became too strong to bear. Tormented

by my bitter self-reproaches, I decided upon quitting my seducer, who

had long proved cold and heartless. But I had borne him a child--a

daughter; and to quit my offspring, the only child left to me, was

agony; to take it with me, to bear it away to partake a life of poverty

and wretchedness, was still greater agony to the mother's mind. The

great man who was its father--for he was of noble rank, and highly

placed--when he found me determined to leave him and the world for

ever--and he saw me part from him, the heartless one, without

regret--offered to adopt my darling infant as his legitimate child; to

bring it up to all the honours, wealth, and consideration of the world;

to ensure it that earthly happiness the mother's heart yearned to give

it. But, as I have told thee, he was cold and worldly-minded, and he

exacted from me an oath--a cruel oath--that I never should own my child

again--that I never should address it as my offspring--that I never

should utter the word 'daughter,' never hear the cry of 'mother' from

its lips. He would not that his daughter, the noble Fraulein, should be

brought to shame, by being acknowledged as the offspring of a peasant

wife. All I desired was the welfare--the happiness--of my child.

"I stifled all the more selfish feelings of a mother's heart and I

consented. I took that oath. I kissed my child for the last time, and

tore myself away. I hoped to die; but God reserved me for a long and

bitter expiation of my sin. I still found upon earth, however, one kind

and pitying friend. He was the brother of my noble lover, and himself

among the highest in the land. He was a priest; and, in his compassion,

he found me refuge in a convent, where, though I deemed myself unworthy

to receive the veil, I assumed the dress of the humblest penitent, and

took the name of the repentant one--the name of Magdalen. I desired to

cut myself off completely from the world; and I permitted the father of

my child to believe a report that I was no more. In the humility of my

bitter repentance, I vowed never to pass the gates of the holy house of

God--never to put my foot upon the sacred ground--never to profane the

sanctuary with my soul of sin--to worship only without, and at the

threshold, until such time as it should seem to me that God had heard my

repentance, and accepted my expiation. Now, thou knowest why I have

never dared to enter the holy building."

The witchfinder groaned bitterly, clenching, in agony, the folds of his

garment, and tearing his breast.

"My spiritual adviser was benevolent and kind; but he was also stern in

his calling. He imposed upon me such penitence as, in his wisdom, he

thought most fit to wash out my crime; and I obeyed with humble

reverence. But there was one penance more cruel than the rest--the

mortification of my only earthly affection--the driving out from my

heart all thought of the child of my folly and sin--the vow never to

seek, to look upon her more. But the love of the world was still too

strong upon the wretched mother. At the risk of her soul's salvation,

she fled the convent to see her child once again. It was in the frenzy

of a fever-fit, when I thought to die. I forgot all--all but my oath--I

never sought to speak to my darling child; but I followed her wherever I

could--I watched for her as she passed--I gazed upon her with love--I

prayed for blessings on her head."

"Alas! I see it all now. It is, as it were, a bandage fallen from my

eyes. Fool--infatuated fool!--monster that I was!" cried the

witchfinder. "Bertha was your daughter--my sister; and I have smitten

the mother for the love she bore her child. And he--her father--he was

that villain! Curses on him!"

"Peace! Peace! my son!" continued Magdalena, "and curse no more. Nor can

I tell thee that it was so. I have sworn that oath never to divulge my

daughter's birth; and cruel, heartless, as was the feeling that forced

it on me, I must observe it ever. And thus I continued to live

on--absorbed in the one thought of my child and her happiness--heedless

of the present--forgetful of my duty; when suddenly, but two days ago,

he who has been the kind guardian of my spiritual weal, appeared before

me in the chamber where, alone and unobserved, I wept over the picture

of my child. He came, I presume, by a passage seldom opened, from the

monastery, whither his duties had called him. He chid me for my

flight--recalled me to my task of expiation--and, bidding me return to

the convent, left me, with an injunction not to say that I had seen him.

Nor could I reveal the fact of my mysterious interview with him, or tell

his name, without giving a clue to the truth of my own existence, and

the discovery of all I had sworn so binding an oath ever to conceal.

Thou sawest him also--but, alas! with other thoughts."

"Madman that I have been!" exclaimed the witchfinder. "Or is it now that

I am mad? Am I not raving? Is not all this insane delusion? No--thou are

there before me--closed from my embraces by these cruel bars that I have

placed between us. Thou! my mother--my long-lost--my beloved--most

wretched mother, in that dreadful garb!--condemned to die by thy own

infatuated son! Would that I _were_ mad, and that I could close my brain

to so much horror! But thou shalt not die, my mother--thou shalt not

die! Thou are innocent! I will proclaim thy innocence to all! They will

believe my word--will they not? For it was I who testified against thee.

I, the matricide! I will tell them that I lied. Thou shalt not die, my

mother! Already! already!--horror!--the day is come!"

The day _was_ come. The first faint doubtful streaks of early dawn had

gradually spread, in a cold heavy grey light, over the sky. By degrees

the darkness had fled, and the market-place, the surrounding gables of

the houses, the black pile in the midst, had become clearer and clearer

in harsh distinctness. The day _was_ come! Already a few narrow

casements had been pushed back in their sliding grooves, and strange

faces, with sleepy eyes, had peered out, in night attire, to forestall

impatient curiosity. Already indistinct noises, a vague rumbling, an

uncertain sound from here or there had broken up the utter silence of

the night, and told that the drowsy town was waking from its sleep, and

stirring with the faint movement of new life. The day _was_ come! The

sentinels paced up and down more quickly, to dissipate that feeling of

shivering cold which runs through the night-watcher during the first

hour of the morn. During the colloquy between the cripple and the

prisoner, they had been more than once disturbed by the loud tones of

passionate exclamation that had burst from the former; but Hans had

contrived to dispel his comrade's scruples as to what was going forward

at the prison door, by making light of the matter.

"Let them alone. They are only having a tuzzle together--the witchfinder

and the witch! And if the man, as the weaker vessel in matters of

witchcraft, do come off minus a nose or so, it will never spoil Black

Claus's beauty, that's certain. Hark! hark! they are at it again! To it,

devil! To it, devil-hunter! Let them fight it out between them, man. Let

them fight it out. It's fine sport, and it will never spoil the show."

And Hans stamped with his feet, and hooted at a distance, and hissed

between his teeth, with all the zest of a modern cockfighter in the

sport, rather to the scandal and shame of his more cautious and

scrupulous companion. But when the cripple, in his despair, shook, in

his nervous grasp, the bars of the grating in the door, as if he would

wrench it from its staples, and flung himself in desperation against the

strongly-ironed wooden mass, with a violence that threatened, in spite

of its great strength, to burst it open, the matter seemed to become

more serious in their eyes.

"Hollo, man! witchfinder! Black Claus! What art thou doing?" cried the

sentinels, hurrying to the spot. "Does the devil possess thee? Art thou

bewitched? Wait! wait! they'll let her out quick enough to make her

mount the pile. Have patience, man!"

"She is innocent!" cried the cripple, still grappling with the bars in

his despair. "She is innocent! Let her go free!"

"He is bewitched," said the one soldier. "See what comes of letting them

be together."

"He has had the worst of it, sure enough," said Hans.

"I am not bewitched, fools!" cried the frantic man. "There's no

witchcraft here! She is innocent, I tell ye! O God! these bells! they

announce their coming! Bid them cease! bid them cease! they drive me

mad!"

At that moment a merry chime from the church-bells burst out joyously

upon the morning air, to announce that a fete was about to take place in

the town; for such a gratifying show as the burning of a witch, was a

fete for the inhabitants of Hammelburg.

"These bells! these bells!" again cried Claus in agony, as their merry

chime came in gusts along the rising wind, as if to mock his misery and

despair. "How often, during this long night, I have longed to hear their

joyous sound; and now they ring in my ears like the howlings of fiends!

But she shall not die! I will yet save her," continued the distracted

man; and he again shook the prison door with a force which his crippled

limbs could scarcely have been supposed to possess.

With difficulty could the now alarmed sentinels, who shouted for help,

cause the cripple to release his hold. Fresh guards rushed to the spot,

and assisted to seize the desperate man. But in vain he protested the

innocence of the supposed sorceress--in vain he cried to them to release

her. He was treated as bewitched; and it was only when at last, overcome

by the violence of his struggles, he ceased to resist with so much

energy, that they allowed him to remain unbound, and let fall the cords

with which they had already commenced to tie his arms.

"The Ober-Amtmann will come," he said at last, with a sort of sullen

resignation. "He must--he shall hear me. He shall know all--he will

believe her innocent."

In the meanwhile, the market-place had already begin to fill with an

anxious crowd. In a short time, the press of spectators come to witness

the bloody spectacle, began to be great. The throng flowed on through

street and lane. There were persons of all ages, all ranks, of both

sexes--all hurrying, crowding, squeezing to the fete of horror and

death. Manifold and various were the hundreds of faces congregated in a

dense mass, as near as the guards would admit them round the pile--all

moved by one feeling of hideous curiosity. Little by little, all the

windows of the surrounding houses were jammed with faces--each window a

strange picture in its quaintly-carved wooden frame. The crowd was

there--the living crowd eager for death--palpitating with

excitement--each heart beating with one pitiless feeling of greedy

cruelty. And the bells still rang ceaselessly their merry, joyous,

fete-like peal.

And now with difficulty the soldiers forced a way through the throng for

the approaching officer of justice; the great officiating dignitary of

the town, who was to preside over the ceremony. He neared the town-hall,

to order the unlocking of the prison-door, when the wretched witchfinder

again sprang forward, crying, "Mercy! mercy! she is innocent. Hear me,

noble Ober-Amtmann!" But he again started back with a cry of despair--it

was not the Ober-Amtmann. He had been obliged, by indisposition, to give

up the office of superintending the execution, and the chief _schreiber_

had been deputed to take his place.

"Where is the Ober-Amtmann?" cried Claus in agony. "I must see him--I

must speak with him! She is innocent--I swear she is! He will save her,

villain as he has been, when he hears all."

The general cry that Black Claus had been bewitched by the sorceress,

was a sufficient explanation to the chief _schreiber_ of his seemingly

frantic words.

"Poor man!" was his only reply. "She has worked her last spell upon him.

Her death alone can save his reason."

In spite of the struggles and cries of the infuriated cripple, the door

was opened, and the unhappy Magdalena was forced to come forwards by the

guards. She looked wretchedly haggard and careworn in her sackcloth

robe, with her short-cut grey hairs left bare. A chain was already bound

around her waist, and clanked as she advanced. As her eyes fell upon her

miserable son she gave one convulsive shudder of despair; and then,

clasping her hands towards him with a look of pity and forgiveness, she

murmured with a tone of resignation--"It is too late. Farewell!

farewell! until we meet again, where there shall be no sorrow, no care,

no pain--only mercy and forgiveness!"

"No, no--thou shalt not die!" screamed the cripple, whom several

bystanders, as well as guards, now held back with force, in awe as well

as pity at his distracted state.--"Thou shalt not die! She is my

mother!" he cried like a maniac to the crowd around. "My mother--do ye

hear? She is innocent. What I said yesterday was false--utterly false--a

damning lie! She is not guilty--you would murder her! Fools! wretches,

assassins! You believed me when I witnessed against her; why will ye not

believe me now? She is innocent, I tell you. Ye shall not kill her!"

"He is bewitched! he is bewitched! To the stake with the sorceress!--to

the stake!" was the only reply returned to his cries by the crowd.

In truth the miserable man bore all the outward signs of a person who,

in those times, might be supposed to be smitten by the spells of

witchcraft. His eyes rolled in his head. His every feature was distorted

in the agony of his passion. His mouth foamed like that of a mad dog.

His struggles became desperate convulsions.

But he struggled in vain. The procession advanced towards the stake.

Between two bodies of guards, the condemned woman dragged her suffering

bare feet over the rough stones of the market-place. On one side of her

walked the executioner of the town; on the other, his assistant, with a

lighted torch of tow, besmeared with resin and pitch, shedding around in

a small cloud, the lurid smoke that was soon about to arise in a heavy

volume from the pile. The chief _schreiber_ had mounted, with his

adjuncts, the terrace before the door of the town-hall, whence it was

customary for the chief dignitary of the town to superintend such

executions. The bells rang on their merry peal.

And now the unhappy woman was forced on to the pile. The executioner

followed. He bound her resistless to the stake, and then himself

descended. At each of the four corners of the pile, a guard on horseback

kept off the crowd. There was a pause. Then appeared, at one end of the

mass of wood and fagots, a slight curling smoke--a faint light. The

executioner had applied the torch. A few seconds--and a bright glaring

flame licked upwards with a forked tongue, and a heavier gush of smoke

burst upwards in the air. The miserable woman crossed her hands over her

breast--raised her eyes for a moment to heaven, and then, closing them

upon the scene around her, moved her lips in prayer--in the last prayer

of the soul's agony. The crowd, which, during the time when the

procession had advanced towards the pile, had howled with its usual

pitiless howl, was now silent, breathless, motionless, in the extreme

tension of its excitement. But still the merry peal of bells rang on.

The smoke grew thicker and thicker. The flame already darted forward, as

if to snatch at the miserable garment of its victim, and claim her as

its own, when there was heard a struggle--a cry--a shout of frantic

despair. The cripple, in that moment when all were occupied with the

fearful sight, had broken on those who held him, and before another hand

could seize him, had staggered through the crowd, and now swung himself

with force upon the pile. A cry of horror burst from the mass of

spectators. They thought him utterly deprived of reason, and determined,

in his madness, to die with the sorceress. But in a moment his bony

hands had torn the link that bound the chain--had unwound the chain

itself--had snatched the woman from the stake. Before, in the surprise

of the moment, a single person had stirred, his arm seized, with firm

and heavy gripe, the collar of the nearest horseman, who found himself

in his seat on horseback upon a level with the elevation of the pile. He

knocked him with violence from the saddle. The guard reeled and fell;

and in the next instant Claus had flung himself on to the horse, and in

his arms he bore the form of the half-fainting Magdalena.

With a cry--a yell--a wild scream--he shouted, "To the sanctuary! to the

sanctuary! she shall not die--room! room!" Trampling right and left to

the earth the dense crowd, who fled from his passage as from an

infuriated tiger in its spring, he dashed upon the animal over the

market-place, and darted in full gallop down the street leading to the

Bridge-gate of the town.

"After him!" cried a thousand voices. The three other horsemen had

already sprung after the fugitive. The guards hastened in the same

direction. Several of the crowd rushed down the narrow street. All was

confusion. Part of those who passed on impeded the others. Groans arose

from those who had been thrown down by the frantic passage of Claus, and

who, lying on the stones, prevented the pushing forwards of the others.

"Follow! After him! to the sanctuary!" still cried a thousand voices of

the crowd.

At the same moment a noise of horsemen was heard coming from the

entrance of the town in the opposite direction to that leading to the

bridge. Those who stood nearest turned their heads eagerly that way. The

first person who issued on the street, at full gallop, was Gottlob,

without a covering to his head--his fair hair streaming to the wind--his

handsome face pale with fatigue and excitement.

"Stop! stop!" he shouted as he advanced, and his eye fell upon the

burning pile. "I bring the prince's pardon! Save her!"

In a few moments, followed by a scanty train of attendants, appeared the

Prince Bishop of Fulda himself, in the dress--half religious, half

secular--that he wore in travelling. His mild benevolent face looked

haggard and anxious, and he also was very pale; for he had evidently

ridden hard through a part of the night; and the exertion was too much

for his years and habits. As he advanced through the crowd, who drew

back with respect from the passage of their sovereign, he eagerly

demanded if the execution had taken place. The general rumour told him

confusedly the tale of the events that had just occurred. Gottlob was

soon again by his side, and related to him all that he had heard.

"Where is my brother?" cried the bishop. "Is he not here?"

A few words told him that he had not appeared on this occasion.

"I will to the palace, then," he continued. "And the poor wretched

woman, which way has that maniac conveyed her?"

"To the sanctuary upon the mountain-side, in the path leading to your

highness's castle of Saaleck, as he was heard to cry," was the answer.

"But the torrents have come down from the hills," exclaimed others, "and

the inundations sweep so heavily upon the bridge, that it is impossible

to pass it without the utmost danger."

"Save that unhappy woman!" exclaimed the bishop in agitation. "A reward

for him who saves her!" and followed by his attendants, he took the

direction of the street leading to the palace.

It was true. The torrents had come down from the hills during the night,

and the waters swept over the bridge with fury. The planked flooring of

the bridge, raised in ordinary circumstances some feet above the stream,

was now covered by the raging flood; and the side parapets, which

consisted partly of solid enclosure, partly of railing, tottered,

quivered, and bent beneath the rushing mass of dark, dun-coloured,

whirling waters. The river itself, swelled far beyond the usual extent

of the customary inundations, for the passage of which the extreme

length of the bridge had been provided, hurried in wild eddies round the

walls of the town, like an invading army seeking to tear them down. But

the frantic Claus heeded not the violence of the waters, and dashed

through the town-gate towards the bridge with desperation. The

frightened horse shied at the foaming stream, struggled, snorted; but

the cripple seemed to possess the resistless power of a demon--a power

which gave him sway over the brute creation. He urged the unwilling

animal, with almost superhuman force, on to the tottering bridge.

The guards who had galloped after him, stopped suddenly as they saw the

roaring torrent. None dared advance, none dared pursue. Others, on foot,

clogged the gateway, and stood appalled at the sight of the rushing

flood. The more eager of the crowd soon mounted on to those parts of the

town-walls that flanked the gate, and watched, with excited gesture, and

shouts of wonder or terror, the desperate course of the cripple.

Pressing his mother in his arms, with his body stretched forward in wild

impatience upon the struggling horse, Black Claus had urged his way into

the middle of the stream. The bridge shook fearfully beneath the burden:

he heeded it not. It cracked and groaned still louder than the roaring

of the stream: he heard it not. He strove to dash on against the almost

resistless force of the sweeping current. His eye was strained upon the

first point of the dry path on the highway beyond. Before him lay, at a

short distance, the road towards the castle of Saaleck, up the mountain

side. Halfway up the height stood, embowered in trees, the chapel he

sought to reach--the sanctuary of refuge for the condemned. That was his

haven--there his wretched mother would be in safety. He pressed her more

tightly to his breast, and shouted wildly. His shout was followed by a

loud fearful crash, a roaring of waters, and a straining of breaking

timbers. In another instant, the centre of the bridge was fiercely borne

away by the torrent, and all was wild confusion around him.

A general cry of horror burst from the crowd at the gate and on the

walls. All was for a moment lost to sight in the whirl of waters. Then

was first seen the snorting head of the poor horse rising from the

stream. The animal was struggling in desperation to reach the land.

Again were whirled upwards the forms of the cripple and the female,

still tightly pressed within his arms; and then a rush of waters, more

powerful than the son's frantic grasp, tore them asunder. Nothing now

was visible but a floating body, which again disappeared in the eddying

flood; and now again the form of the witchfinder rose above the mass of

waters. His long arms were tossed aloft; his desperate cries were heard

above the roaring of the torrent.

"Mercy! mercy!" he screamed. "Save me from these flames! this stifling

smoke. I burn, I burn!"

As he shouted these last words of mad despair, the icy cold waters swept

over him for ever.

All had disappeared. Upon the boiling surface of the hurrying flood was

now seen nothing more than spars and fragments of timber, remnants of

the bridge, whirled up and down, and here and there, and dashing along

the stream.

Among the foremost of the crowd, who had pressed down the narrow lane

leading to the water's edge, between the premises of the Benedictine

monastery and the palace garden, eager to gain an unoccupied point

whence they might watch the flight, stood "Gentle Gottlob."

From under the small water-gate, the stone passage of which was

partially flooded by the unusually rising waters, he had seen the

frightful catastrophe which had accompanied the sweeping away of the

bridge. He stood overwhelmed with grief at the fate of the poor woman,

whom he had uselessly striven to save; his eye fixed upon the roaring

waters, without seeing distinctly any thing but a sort of wild turmoil,

which accorded well with his own troubled reflections; when a cry from

the crowd, which still lingered on the spot, recalled him to himself.

"Look, look!" cried several voices. "There it is again! It is a body!"

On the dark surface of the waters, Gottlob saw a form whirled by the

force of the current towards the water-gate.

"It is the witch! it is the witch!" again cried the crowd, as the

sackcloth garment of the unhappy Magdalena showed itself above the

stream.

In another moment Gottlob had rushed into the water, to seize the body

as it was whirled past the water-gate, and was almost dashed against the

stone-piles.

"Touch her not!" screamed again the bystanders. "It is the witch! it is

the witch!"

But Gottlob heeded not the shouts of the crowd. Holding by one hand on

the trunk of a tree overhanging the water, in order to bear up against

the violence of the stream, he grasped with the other the dress of the

floating female before it again sank beneath the whirling eddy. He

pulled it towards him with force; and, after with difficulty struggling

against the force of the current, at length succeeded in bearing the

lifeless form of Magdalena under the gateway.

Streaming himself with water, he laid the cold wet body down upon the

stones, and bent over it, to see whether life had fled from it for ever.

The crown drew back with horror, uttering cries of vain expostulation.

"Thank Heaven! she still breathes," said Gottlob at last, as, after some

moments, a slight convulsive movement passed over the frame of the poor

woman. "Aid me, my friends. She still lives. Help me to transport her to

some house." But the crowd drew back in horror. "I will convey her to my

own chamber close by. Send for a leech! Are ye without pity?" he

continued, as, instead of assisting him, the crowd held back, and

answered his entreaties only with exclamations of disgust and scorn.

"Are ye Christian men, that ye would see the poor woman die before your

eyes for want of aid? She is no witch. Good God! will no one show a

heart of bare humanity?" But the crowd still held back; and if they did

not still scoff at him, were silent.

The kind youth, finding all hope of assistance vain, from the miserable

prejudices of the people, had at last contrived to raise the still

senseless Magdalena in his arms, with the intention of conveying her

into his own dwelling; and already murmurs began to arise among the

crowd, as if they intended to oppose his purpose; when a door,

communicating from the palace-gardens with the narrow lane, opened, and

the stately form of an aged man, of benevolent aspect, stood between

Gottlob, who remained alone under the water-gate with the lifeless form

of Magdalena on his arm, and the murmuring crowd which had drawn back

into the lane. He stood like a guardian spirit between the fair youth

and the senseless mass of angry men. All snatched off their furred hats,

and bowed their bodies with respect. It was their sovereign, the Prince

Bishop of Fulda. His attendants followed him to the threshold of the

garden gate.

"Thank God!" was his first simple exclamation at the sight of Magdalena

in Gottlob's arms. "You have contrived to save her, have you? I was

myself hurrying hither to see what could be done. Does she still live?"

Upon an affirmative exclamation from Gottlob, he raised his eyes to

heaven with a short thanksgiving; and then, turning to the crowd with a

stern air, he asked--

"What were these cries and murmurs that I heard? Why were those

threatening looks I saw? Would ye oppose a Christian act of charity due

to that unhappy woman, even were she the miserable criminal she is not?

Have ye yet to be taught your Christian duties in this land? God forgive

me; for then _I_ have much to answer for!"

After this meek self-rebuke, he again looked seriously upon the

bystanders, and waved his hand to disperse the crowd, who slunk away

before him; then, hastily giving orders that Magdalena should be

conveyed into the palace, he himself stopped to see her borne into the

garden, and followed anxiously.

Every means with which the leech-craft of the times was acquainted for

the recovery of the apparently drowned, was applied in the case of

Magdalena, and with some success; for, after a time, breath and warmth

were restored--her eyes opened. But the respiration was hurried and

impeded--the eyes glazed and dim--the sense of what was passing around

her, confused and troubled. A nervous tremour ran through her whole

frame. She lay upon a mattrass, propped up with a pile of cushions, in

a lower apartment of the palace. By her side knelt the kind Bishop of

Fulda, watching with evident solicitude the variation of the symptoms in

the unfortunate woman's frame. Behind her stood the stately form of the

Ober-Amtmann--every muscle of his usually stern face now struggling with

emotion--his hands clenched together--his head bowed down; for he had

learned from his brother the Prince, that the female lying before

him--the woman whom he had himself condemned to the stake, was really

the mistress of his younger years--the seduced wife of the man whom he

had killed--his victim, Margaret Weilheim. On the other side of the

prostrate form of Magdalena bent a grave personage in dark attire, who

held her wrist, and counted the beating of her pulse with an air of

serious attention. In answer to an enquiring look from the Prince

Bishop, the physician shook his head.

"There is life, it is true," he said; "but it is ebbing fast. The

fatigue and emotions of the past day were in themselves too much for a

frame already shattered by macerations, and privations, and grief; this

catastrophe has exhausted her last force of vitality. She cannot live

long."

The Ober-Amtmann wrung his hands with a still firmer gripe. The tears

trembled upon the good old bishop's eyelids.

"See!" said the leech; "she again opens her eyes. There is more sense in

them now."

The dying Magdalena in truth looked around her, as if she at length

became conscious of the objects on which her vision fell. She seemed to

comprehend with difficulty where she was, and how she had come into the

position in which she lay. Feebly and with exertion she raised her

emaciated arm, and passed her skinny hand over her brow and eyes. But at

length her gaze rested upon the mild face of the benevolent bishop, and

a faint smile passed over her sunken features.

"Where am I?" she murmured lowly. "Am I in paradise?--and you, reverend

father, are also with me?"

In a few kind words, the bishop strove to recall her wandering senses,

and explain to her what had happened. At last a consciousness of the

past seemed to come over her; and she shuddered in every limb at the

fearful recollection.

"And he! where is he?" she asked with an imploring look. "He! Karl!"

The old man looked at her with surprise, as though he thought her senses

were still wavering.

"He carried me off, did he not?" she continued feebly; "or was it a

dream? Was it only a strange dream? No, no! I remember all--how we flew

through the air; and then the rushing waters. Oh! tell me; where is he?"

The bishop now comprehended that she spoke of the witchfinder; and said,

"He is gone for ever, to his last great account."

Magdalena groaned bitterly, and again closed her eyes. But it was

evident that she still retained her consciousness; for her lips were

moving faintly, as if in prayer.

"Is there no hope?" enquired the bishop in a whisper of the physician.

"Nothing can be done?"

"No hope!" replied the leech. "I have done all that medical skill can

do; _I_ can do no more, your highness."

At a sign from the bishop, the physician withdrew.

Shortly after, the dying woman again unclosed her eyes, and looked

around her at the strange room in which she lay. A recollection of the

past seemed to come across her, slowly and painfully; and she again

pressed her feeble hand to her brow.

"Why am I here?" she murmured. "Why do I again see this scene of folly

and sin? O Lord! why bring before my thus, in this last hour, the living

memory of my past transgressions?"

As if to complete the painful illusion of the past, a voice now murmured

"Margaret" in her ear. The poor woman started, turned her head with

difficulty, and saw, kneeling by her side, the heartless lover of her

youth. She gave him one look of fear and shame, and then turning again

her eyes to the bishop's face, exclaimed, "May God forgive me!--Pray for

me, my father!"

"It is I who seek for mercy, Margaret!" cried the Ober-Amtmann. "I who

need thy forgiveness for all the wrong I have done thee!"

"Mercy and forgiveness are with God," said the dying woman solemnly.

"All the wrong thou hast done me I have long since forgiven, as far as

such a sinner as myself can forgive. My time is short; my breath is fast

leaving me. I feel that I am dying," she added after a pause. "Father, I

would make my shrift; and, if God and your reverence permit one earthly

thought to mingle with my last hopes of salvation, I would confide to

you a secret on which depends the happiness of her I love, and you

perhaps might secure her peace of mind. Alas, I cannot speak! O God!

give me still breath."

These words were uttered in a low and feeble tone. With a hasty gesture

the bishop signed to his brother to retire, and bent his ear over the

mouth of the gasping woman.

After some time he rose, and first reassuring the dying mother that all

he could do for her child's welfare should be done, pronounced the

sublime words of the church that give the promise of forgiveness and

salvation to the truly penitent sinner.

"Oh, might I look upon her once more!" sobbed Magdalena with convulsive

effort. "One last look! not a word shall tell her--it is--her unhappy

mother--who gives her--a last blessing!"

The Ober-Amtmann left the room. In a few minutes he returned, leading

Bertha by the hand. But Magdalena was already speechless. The fair girl

knelt by the side of the mattrass, sobbing bitterly--she herself

scarcely knew why. Was it only the sight of death, of the last parting

of the soul, that thus affected her? Was it affliction that her own

error should have contributed to hasten that unhappy woman's end? Or was

not there rather a powerful instinct within her, that, in that awful

moment, bound her by a sympathetic tie to her unknown mother, and

conveyed a portion of that last agony of the departing woman to her own

heart?

Magdalena, although she could not speak, was evidently aware of the

presence of the gentle girl. She still moved her lips, as if begging a

blessing on her head, and fixed upon that mild face, now bathed in

tears, the last look of her fading eyes. And now the eyes grew dim and

senseless, although the spirit seemed still to struggle within for

sight; now they closed--the whole frame of the prostrate woman

shuddered, and Margaret Weilheim--the repentant Magdalena--was a corpse.

Some time after these events, the Ober-Amtmann retired from his high

office, and after a seclusion of some duration with his brother, at

Fulda, finally betook himself to a monastery, where he remained until

his death.

Before his retirement from the world, however, he had consented, not

without some difficulty, to the union of Bertha and Gottlob. The Prince

Bishop, unforgetful of the claims of the unfortunate Magdalena, had

urged upon his brother the duty of making this concession to the dying

wishes of the wronged mother, as well as to the evident affection of

Bertha for the young artist, which, although unknown even to herself,

was no less powerful. As Gottlob, although of a ruined and impoverished

family, was not otherwise than of noble birth, the greatest difficulty

of these times was surmounted; and the Prince Bishop, by bestowing upon

the young man a post of honour and rank about his person, in which the

gentle youth could still continue the pursuit of his glorious art, and

march on unhindered in his progress to that eminence which he finally

attained, smoothed the road to the Ober-Amtmann's consent.

On the day of Bertha's marriage, the good Prince Bishop promulgated an

edict, that for the future no one should suffer the punishment of death

for the crime of witchcraft in his dominions. But, after his decease,

the edict again fell into disuse; and the town of Hammelburg, as if the

spirit of Black Claus, the witchfinder, still hovered about its walls,

again commenced to assert its odious reputation, and maintain its

hideous boast, of having burned more witches than any other town in

Germany.

MY LAST COURTSHIP; OR, LIFE IN LOUISIANA.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

A VOYAGE ON THE RED RIVER.

It was on a sultry sunny June morning that I stepped on board the Red

River steamboat. The sun was blazing with unusual power out of its

setting of deep-blue enamel; no wind stirred, only the huge mass of

water in the Mississippi seemed to exhale an agreeable freshness. I gave

a last nod to Richards and his wife who had accompanied me to the shore,

and then went down into the cabin.

I was by no means in the most amiable of humours. Although I had pretty

well forgotten my New York disappointment, two months' contemplation of

the happiness enjoyed by Richards in the society of his young and

charming wife, had done little towards reconciling me to my

bachelorship; and it was with small pleasure that I looked forward to a

return to my solitary plantation, where I could reckon on no better

welcome than the cold, and perhaps scowling, glance of slaves and

hirelings. In no very pleasant mood I walked across the cabin, without

even looking at the persons assembled there, and leaned out of the open

window. I had been some three or four minutes in this position, chewing

the cud of unpleasant reflections, when a friendly voice spoke close to

my ear--

"_Qu'est ce qu'il y a donc, Monsieur Howard? Etes-vous indispose? Allons

voir du monde._"

I turned round. The speaker was a respectable-looking elderly man; but

his features were entirely unknown to me, and I stared at him, a little

astonished at the familiar tone of his address, and at his knowledge of

my name. I was at that moment not at all disposed to make new

acquaintances; and, after a slight bow, I was about to turn my back upon

the old gentleman, when he took my hand, and drew me gently towards the

ladies' cabin.

"_Allons voir, Monsieur Howard._"

"_Mais que voulez-vous donc?_ What do you want with me?" said I somewhat

peevishly to the importunate stranger.

"_Faire votre connaissance_," he replied with a benign smile, at the

same time opening the door of the ladies' saloon. "Monsieur Howard,"

said he to two young girls who were occupied in tying up a bundle of

pine-apples and bananas to one of the cabin pillars, just as in the

northern States, or in England, people hang up strings of onions, "_Mes

filles, voici notre voisin, Monsieur Howard._"

The damsels tripped lightly towards me, welcoming me as cordially as if

I had been an old acquaintance, and hastened to offer me some of their

fragrant and delicious fruit. Their greeting and manners were really

highly agreeable. Had they been two of my own dear countrywomen, I might

have lived ten years with them without being so well and frankly

received, or invited to spoil my dinner in so agreeable a manner, as by

these fair Pomonas. I could not refuse an invitation so cordially given.

I sat down, and, notwithstanding my dull and fretful humour, soon found

myself amused in my own despite by the lively chatter of the Creoles. An

hour passed rapidly in this manner, and a second and third might

possibly have been wiled away as agreeably, had not my stiff Virginian

feeling of etiquette made me apprehensive that a longer stay might be

deemed intrusive.

"You will come back and take tea with us?" said the young ladies as I

left the cabin.

I bowed a willing assent; and truly, on reaching the deck, I found

reason to congratulate myself on having done so. The company there

assembled was any thing but the best. A strange set of fellows! I could

almost have fancied myself in old Kentuck. Drovers and cattle-dealers

from New Orleans proceeding to the north-western countries; half-wild

hunters and trappers, on their way to the country beyond Nacogdoches,

with the laudable intention of civilizing, or, in other words, of

cheating the Indians; traders and storekeepers from Alexandria and its

neighbourhood; such was the respectable composition of the society on

board the steamer. A rough lot they were, thick-booted, hoarse-voiced,

hard-fisted fellows, who walked up and down, chewing and smoking, and

spitting with as much exactness of aim as if their throats had been

rifle-barrels.

We were just coming in sight of a large clump of foliage. It was the

mouth of the Red River, which is half overarched by the huge trees that

incline forward over its waters from either bank. What a contrast to the

Mississippi, which flows along, broad, powerful, and majestic, like some

barbarian conqueror bursting forth at the head of his stinking hordes to

overrun half a world! The Red River on the other hand, which we are

accustomed to call the Nile of Louisiana--with about as much right and

propriety as the Massachusetts cobbler who christened his son Alexander

Caesar Napoleon--sneaks stealthily along through forest and plain, like

some lurking and venomous copper-snake. Cocytus would be a far better

name for it. Here we are at the entrance of the first swamp, out of

which the infernal scarlet ditch flows. It is any thing but a pleasant

sight, that swamp, which is formed by the junction of the Tensaw, the

White and Red Rivers, and at the first glance appears like a huge mirror

of vivid green, apparently affording solid footing, and scattered over

with trees, from which rank creepers and a greasy slime hang in long

festoons. One would swear it was a huge meadow, until, on looking rather

longer, one sees the dark-green swamp lilies gently moving, while from

amongst them are protruded numerous snouts or jaws, of a sickly

greyish-brown, discoursing music which is any thing but sweet to a

stranger's ears. These are thousands of alligators, darting out from

amongst the rank luxuriance of their marshy abode. It is their breeding

time, and the horrible bellowing they make is really hideous to listen

to. One might fancy this swamp the headquarters of death, whence he

shoots forth his envenomed darts in the thousand varied forms of fever

and pestilence.

We had proceeded some distance up the Red River, when the friendly old

Creole came to summon me to the tea-table. We found one of his daughters

reading Bernardin de St Pierre's novel, a favourite study with Creole

ladies; while the other was chatting with her black-skinned,

ivory-toothed waiting-maid, with a degree of familiarity that would have

thrown a New York _elegante_ into a swoon. They were on their way home,

their father told me, from the Ursuline Convent at New Orleans, where

they had been educated. It can hardly have been from the holy sisters,

one would think, that they acquired the self-possessed and scrutinizing,

although not immodest gaze, with which I at times observed them to be

examining me. The eldest is apparently about nineteen years of age,

slightly inclined to _embonpoint_. It was really amusing to observe the

cool, comfortable manner, in which she inspected me in a large mirror

that hangs opposite to us, as if she had been desirous of seeing how

long I could stand my ground and keep my countenance.

It would fill a book to enumerate all the items of baggage and effects

which my new friends the Creoles had crowded into the state-cabin.

Luckily, they were the only inmates of the latter, and had,

consequently, full power in their temporary dominions. Had there been

co-occupants, a civil war must have been the inevitable result. The

ladies had a whole boat-load of citrons, oranges, bananas, and

pine-apples; and their father had at least three dozen cases of

Chambertin, Laffitte, and Medoc. I at first thought he must be a

wine-merchant. At any rate he showed his good taste in stocking himself

with such elegant and salutary drinkables, instead of the gin, and

whisky, and Hollands to which many of my countrymen would have given the

preference--those green and brown compounds, elixirs of sin and disease,

concocted by rascally distillers for the corruption and ruin of Brother

Jonathan.

The tea was now ready. Monsieur Menou (that was the name of my new

friend) seemed inclined to reject the sober beverage, and stick to his

Chambertin. I was disposed to try both. The young ladies were all that

was gay and agreeable. They were really charming girls, merry and

lively, full of ready wit, and with bright eyes and pleasant voices,

that might have cheered the heart of the veriest misanthrope. But there

are moments in one's life when the mind and spirits seem oppressed by a

sort of dead dull calm, as enervating and disheartening as that which

succeeds a West Indian hurricane in the month of August. At those times

every thing loses its interest, and one appears to become as helpless as

the ship that lies becalmed and motionless on the glassy surface of a

tropical sea. I was just in one of those moments. I had consulted any

thing but my own inclination in leaving the hospitable roof and pleasant

companionship of my friend Richards, to return to my own neglected and

long-unvisited plantation, where I should find no society, and should be

compelled to occupy myself with matters that for me had little or no

interest. Had I, as I hoped to do when in New York, taken back a partner

of my joys and sorrows, some gentle creature who would have cheered my

solitude and sympathized with all my feelings, I should have experienced

far less repugnance or difficulty in returning to my home in the

wilderness; but as it was, I felt oppressed by a sense of loneliness

that seemed to paralyse my energies, and that certainly rendered me any

thing but fit society for the lively, talkative party of which I now

found myself a member. I strove to shake off the feeling, but in vain;

and at last, abandoning the attempt, I left the cabin and went on deck.

The night was bright and starlight; the atmosphere perfectly clear, with

the exception of a slight white mist that hung over the river. The

hollow blows of the steam-engine seemed to be echoed in the far distance

by the bellowing of the alligators; while the plaintive tones of the

whip-poor-will were heard at intervals in the forest through which we

were passing. There was no sign of life on the banks of the river; it

was a desert; not a light to be seen, save that of millions of

fireflies, which threw a magical kind of _chiaroscuro_ over the trees

and bushes. At times we passed so near the shore that the branches

rattled and snapped against the side of the boat. Our motion was rapid.

Twelve hours more, and I should be in my Tusculum. Just then the captain

came up to me to say, that if I were disposed to retire to rest, the

noisy smokers and drinkers had discontinued their revels, and I might

now have some chance of sleeping. I had nothing better to do, so

descended the stairs and installed myself in my berth.

When I rose the next morning, a breeze had sprung up, and we were

proceeding merrily along under sail as well as steam. The first person I

met was Monsieur Menou, who wished me a _bon-jour_ in, as I thought, a

somewhat colder tone than he had hitherto used towards me, and looked me

at the same time enquiringly in the face. It seemed as if he wished to

read there whether his courtesy and kindness were likely to be requited

by the same ungracious stiffness that I had shown him on the preceding

day. Well, I will do my best to obliterate the bad impression I have

apparently made. They are good people, these Creoles--not particularly

bashful or discreet; but yet I like their forwardness and volatility

better than the sly smartness of the Yankees, in spite of their

ridiculous love of dancing, which even the first emigrants could not lay

aside, amidst all the difficulties of their settlement in America. It

must have been absurd enough to see them capering about, and dancing

minuets and gavottes in blanket coats and moccasins.

Whilst I was talking to the Menous, and doing my best to be amiable, the

bell rang, the steam was let off, and we stopped to take in firing.

"_Monsieur, voila votre terre!_" said the father pointing to the shore,

upon which a large quantity of wood was stacked. I looked through the

cabin window; the Creole was right. I had been chatting so diligently

with the young ladies that the hours had flown like minutes, and it was

already noon. During my absence, my overseer had established a depot of

wood for the steamboats. So far so good. And yonder is the worthy Mr

Bleaks himself. The Creole seems inclined to accompany me to my house.

I cannot hinder him certainly, but I sincerely hope he will not carry

his politeness quite so far. Nothing I dread more than such a visit,

when I have been for years away from house and home. A bachelor's Lares

and Penates are the most careless of all gods.

"Mr Bleaks," said I, stepping up to the overseer, who, in his Guernsey

shirt, calico inexpressibles, and straw hat, his hands in his pockets

and a cigar in his mouth, was lounging about, and apparently troubling

himself very little about his employer. "Mr Bleaks, will you be so good

as to have the gig and my luggage brought on shore?"

"Ha! Mr Howard!" said the man, "is it you? Didn't expect ye so soon."

"I hope that, if unexpected, I am not unwelcome," replied I, a little

vexed at this specimen of genuine Pennsylvanian dryness.

"You ain't come alone, are you?" continued Bleaks, examining me at the

same time out of the corners of his eyes. "Thought you'd have brought us

a dozen blackies. We want 'em bad enough."

"_Est-il permis, Monsieur?_" now interposed the Creole, taking my hand,

and pointing towards the house.

"And the steamer?" said I, in a tone as drawling as I could make it, and

without moving a pace in the direction indicated.

"Oh! that will wait," replied Menou, smiling.