The town of Epinal, in Lorraine, possessed in the Middle Ages a peal of
three bells, respectively dedicated to St. Eulogius, St. Eucherius, and
St. Euschemon, whose tintinnabulation was found to be an effectual
safeguard against all thunderstorms. Let the heavens be ever so murky,
it was merely requisite to set the bells ringing, and no lightning
flashed and no thunder peal broke over the town, nor was the
neighbouring country within hearing of them ravaged by hail or flood.
One day the three saints, Eulogius, Eucherius, and Euschemon, were
sitting together, exceedingly well content with themselves and
everything around them, as indeed they had every right to be, supposing
that they were in Paradise. We say supposing, not being for our own
part entirely able to reconcile this locality with the presence of
certain cans and flagons, which had been fuller than they were.
“What a happy reflection for a Saint,” said Eulogius, who was rapidly
passing from the mellow stage of good fellowship to the maudlin, “that
even after his celestial assumption he is permitted to continue a
source of blessing and benefit to his fellow-creatures as yet dwelling
in the shade of mortality! The thought of the services of my bell, in
averting lightning and inundation from the good people of Epinal, fills
me with indescribable beatitude.”
“_Your_ bell!” interposed Eucherius, whose path had lain through the
mellow to the quarrelsome. “_Your_ bell, quotha! You had as good clink
this cannakin” (suiting the action to the word) “as your bell. It’s my
bell that does the business.”
“I think you might put in a word for _my_ bell,” interposed Euschemon,
a little squinting saint, very merry and friendly when not put out, as
on the present occasion.
“Your bell!” retorted the big saints, with incredible disdain; and,
forgetting their own altercation, they fell so fiercely on their little
brother that he ran away, stopping his ears with his hands, and vowing
vengeance.
A short time after this fracas, a personage of venerable appearance
presented himself at Epinal, and applied for the post of sacristan and
bell-ringer, at that time vacant. Though he squinted, his appearance
was far from disagreeable, and he obtained the appointment without
difficulty. His deportment in it was in all respects edifying; or if he
evinced some little remissness in the service of Saints Eulogius and
Eucherius, this was more than compensated by his devotion to the
hitherto somewhat slighted Saint Euschemon. It was indeed observed that
candles, garlands, and other offerings made at the shrines of the two
senior saints were found to be transferred in an unaccountable and
mystical manner to the junior, which induced experienced persons to
remark that a miracle was certainly brewing. Nothing, however, occurred
until, one hot summer afternoon, the indications of a storm became so
threatening that the sacristan was directed to ring the bells. Scarcely
had he begun than the sky became clear, but instead of the usual rich
volume of sound the townsmen heard with astonishment a solitary tinkle,
sounding quite ridiculous and unsatisfactory in comparison. St.
Euschemon’s bell was ringing by itself.
In a trice priests and laymen swarmed to the belfry, and indignantly
demanded of the sacristan what he meant.
“To enlighten you,” he responded. “To teach you to give honour where
honour is due. To unmask those canonised impostors.”
And he called their attention to the fact that the clappers of the
bells of Eulogius and Eucherius were so fastened up that they could not
emit a sound, while that of Euschemon vibrated freely.
“Ye see,” he continued, “that these sound not at all, yet is the
tempest stayed. Is it not thence manifest that the virtue resides
solely in the bell of the blessed Euschemon?”
The argument seemed conclusive to the majority, but those of the clergy
who ministered at the altars of Eulogius and Eucherius stoutly
resisted, maintaining that no just decision could be arrived at until
Euschemon’s bell was subjected to the same treatment as the others.
Their view eventually prevailed, to the great dismay of Euschemon, who,
although firmly convinced of the virtue of his own bell, did not in his
heart disbelieve in the bells of his brethren. Imagine his relief and
amazed joy when, upon his bell being silenced, the storm, for the first
time in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, broke with full fury over
Epinal, and, for all the frantic pealing of the other two bells, raged
with unspeakable fierceness until his own was brought into requisition,
when, as if by enchantment, the rain ceased, the thunder-clouds
dispersed, and the sun broke out gloriously from the blue sky.
“Carry him in procession!” shouted the crowd.
“Amen, brethren; here I am,” rejoined Euschemon, stepping briskly into
the midst of the troop.
“And why in the name of Zernebock should we carry _you?_” demanded
some, while others ran off to lug forth the image, the object of their
devotion.
“Why, verily,” Euschemon began, and stopped short. How indeed was he to
prove to them that he _was_ Euschemon? His personal resemblance to his
effigy, the work of a sculptor of the idealistic school, was in no
respect remarkable; and he felt, alas! that he could no more work a
miracle than you or I. In the sight of the multitude he was only an
elderly sexton with a cast in his eye, with nothing but his office to
keep him out of the workhouse. A further and more awkward question
arose, how on earth was he to get back to Paradise? The ordinary method
was not available, for he had already been dead for several centuries;
and no other presented itself to his imagination.
Muttering apologies, and glad to be overlooked, Euschemon shrank into a
corner, but slightly comforted by the honours his image was receiving
at the hands of the good people of Epinal. As time wore on he became
pensive and restless, and nothing pleased him so well as to ascend to
the belfry on moonlight nights, scribbling disparagement on the bells
of Eulogius and Eucherius, which had ceased to be rung, and patting and
caressing his own, which now did duty for all three. With alarm he
noticed one night an incipient crack, which threatened to become a
serious flaw.
“If this goes on,” said a voice behind him, “I shall get a holiday.”
Euschemon turned round, and with indescribable dismay perceived a
gigantic demon, negligently resting his hand on the top of the bell,
and looking as if it would cost him nothing to pitch it and Euschemon
together to the other side of the town.
“Avaunt, fiend,” he stammered, with as much dignity as he could muster,
“or at least remove thy unhallowed paw from my bell.”
“Come, Eusky,” replied the fiend, with profane familiarity, “don’t be a
fool. You are not really such an ass as to imagine that your virtue has
anything to do with the virtue of this bell?”
“Whose virtue then?” demanded Euschemon.
“Why truly,” said the demon, “mine! When this bell was cast I was
imprisoned in it by a potent enchanter, and so long as I am in it no
storm can come within sound of its ringing. I am not allowed to quit it
except by night, and then no further than an arm’s length: this,
however, I take the liberty of measuring by my own arm, which happens
to be a long one. This must continue, as I learn, until I receive a
kiss from some bishop of distinguished sanctity. Thou hast done some
bishoping in thy time, peradventure?”
Euschemon energetically protested that he had been on earth but a
simple laic, which was indeed the fact, and was also the reason why
Eulogius and Eucherius despised him, but which, though he did not think
it needful to tell the demon, he found a singular relief under present
circumstances.
“Well,” continued the fiend, “I wish he may turn up shortly, for I am
half deaf already with the banging and booming of this infernal
clapper, which seems to have grown much worse of late; and the
blessings and the crossings and the aspersions which I have to go
through are most repugnant to my tastes, and unsuitable to my position
in society. Bye-bye, Eusky; come up to-morrow night.” And the fiend
slipped back into the bell, and instantly became invisible.
The humiliation of poor Euschemon on learning that he was indebted for
his credit to the devil is easier to imagine than to describe. He did
not, however, fail at the rendezvous next night, and found the demon
sitting outside the bell in a most affable frame of mind. It did not
take long for the devil and the saint to become very good friends, both
wanting company, and the former being apparently as much amused by the
latter’s simplicity as the latter was charmed by the former’s
knowingness. Euschemon learned numbers of things of which he had not
had the faintest notion. The demon taught him how to play cards (just
invented by the Saracens), and initiated him into divers “arts, though
unimagined, yet to be,” such as smoking tobacco, making a book on the
Derby, and inditing queer stories for Society journals. He drew the
most profane but irresistibly funny caricatures of Eulogius and
Eucherius, and the rest of the host of heaven. He had been one of the
demons who tempted St. Anthony, and retailed anecdotes of that eremite
which Euschemon had never heard mentioned in Paradise. He was versed in
all scandal respecting saints in general, and Euschemon found with
astonishment how much about his own order was known downstairs. On the
whole he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life; he became
proficient in all manner of minor devilries, and was ceasing to trouble
himself about his bell or his ecclesiastical duties, when an untoward
incident interrupted his felicity.
It chanced that the Bishop of Metz, in whose diocese Epinal was
situated, finding himself during a visitation journey within a short
distance of the town, determined to put, up there for the night. He did
not arrive until nightfall, but word of his intention having been sent
forward by a messenger the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, were
ready to receive him. When, escorted in state, he had arrived at the
house prepared for his reception, the Mayor ventured to express a hope
that everything had been satisfactory to his Lordship.
“Everything,” said the bishop emphatically. “I did indeed seem to
remark one little omission, which no doubt may be easily accounted
for.”
“What was that, my Lord?”
“It hath,” said the bishop, “usually been the practice to receive a
bishop with the ringing of bells. It is a laudable custom, conducive to
the purification of the air and the discomfiture of the prince of the
powers thereof. I caught no sound of chimes on the present occasion,
yet I am sensible that my hearing is not what it was.”
The civil and ecclesiastical authorities looked at each other. “That
graceless knave of a sacristan!” said the Mayor.
“He hath indeed of late strangely neglected his charge,” said a priest.
“Poor man, I doubt his wits are touched,” charitably added another.
“What!” exclaimed the bishop, who was very active, very fussy, and a
great stickler for discipline. “This important church, so renowned for
its three miraculous bells, confided to the tender mercies of an
imbecile rogue who may burn it down any night! I will look to it myself
without losing a minute.”
And in spite of all remonstrances, off he started. The keys were
brought, the doors flung open, the body of the church thoroughly
examined, but neither in nave, choir, or chancel could the slightest
trace of the sacristan be found.
“Perhaps he is in the belfry,” suggested a chorister.
“We’ll see,” responded the bishop, and bustling nimbly up the ladder,
he emerged into the open belfry in full moonlight.
Heavens! what a sight met his eye! The sacristan and the devil sitting
_vis-a-vis_ close by the miraculous bell, with a smoking can of hot
spiced wine between them, finishing a close game of cribbage.
“Seven,” declared Euschemon.
“And eight are fifteen,” retorted the demon, marking two.
“Twenty-three and pair,” cried Euschemon, marking in his turn.
“And seven is thirty.”
“Ace, thirty-one, and I’m up.”
“It _is_ up with you, my friend,” shouted the bishop, bringing his
crook down smartly on Euschemon’s shoulders.
“Deuce!” said the devil, and vanished into his bell.
When poor Euschemon had been bound and gagged, which did not take very
long, the bishop briefly addressed the assembly. He said that the
accounts of the bell which had reached his ears had already excited his
apprehensions. He had greatly feared that all could not be right, and
now his anxieties were but too well justified. He trusted there was not
a man before him who would not suffer his flocks and his crops to be
destroyed by tempest fifty times over rather than purchase their safety
by unhallowed means. What had been done had doubtless been done in
ignorance, and could be made good by a mulct to the episcopal treasury.
The amount of this he would carefully consider, and the people of
Epinal might rest assured that it should not be too light to entitle
them to the benefit of a full absolution. The bell must go to his
cathedral city, there to be examined and reported on by the exorcists
and inquisitors. Meanwhile he would himself institute a slight
preliminary scrutiny.
The bell was accordingly unhung, tilted up, and inspected by the
combined beams of the moonlight and torchlight. Very slight examination
served to place the soundness of the bishop’s opinion beyond dispute.
On the lip of the bell were engraven characters unknown to every one
else, but which seemed to affect the prelate with singular
consternation.
“I hope,” he exclaimed, “that none of you know anything about these
characters! I earnestly trust that none can read a single one of them.
If I thought anybody could I would burn him as soon as look at him!”
The bystanders hastened to assure him that not one of them had the
slightest conception of the meaning of the letters, which had never
been observed before.
“I rejoice to hear it,” said the bishop. “It will be an evil day for
the church when these letters are understood.”
And next morning he departed, carrying off the bell, with the invisible
fiend inside it; the cards, which were regarded as a book of magic; and
the luckless Euschemon, who shortly found himself in total darkness,
the inmate of a dismal dungeon.
It was some time before Euschemon became sensible of the presence of
any partner in his captivity, by reason of the trotting of the rats. At
length, however, a deep sigh struck upon his ear.
“Who art thou?” he exclaimed.
“An unfortunate prisoner,” was the answer.
“What is the occasion of thy imprisonment?”
“Oh, a mere trifle. A ridiculous suspicion of sacrificing a child to
Beelzebub. One of the little disagreeables that must occasionally occur
in our profession.”
“_Our_ profession!” exclaimed Euschemon.
“Art thou not a sorcerer?” demanded the voice.
“No,” replied Euschemon, “I am a saint.”
The warlock received Euschemon’s statement with much incredulity, but
becoming eventually convinced of its truth—
“I congratulate thee,” he said. “The devil has manifestly taken a fancy
to thee, and he never forgets his own. It is true that the bishop is a
great favourite with him also. But we will hope for the best. Thou hast
never practised riding a broomstick? No? ’Tis pity; thou mayest have to
mount one at a moment’s notice.”
This consolation had scarcely been administered ere the bolts flew
back, the hinges grated, the door opened, and gaolers bearing torches
informed the sorcerer that the bishop desired his presence.
He found the bishop in his study, which was nearly choked up by
Euschemon’s bell. The prelate received him with the greatest
affability, and expressed a sincere hope that the very particular
arrangements he had enjoined for the comfort of his distinguished
prisoner had been faithfully carried out by his subordinates. The
sorcerer, as much a man of the world as the bishop, thanked his
Lordship, and protested that he had been perfectly comfortable.
“I have need of thy art,” said the bishop, coming to business. “I am
exceedingly bothered—flabbergasted were not too strong an expression—by
this confounded bell. All my best exorcists have been trying all they
know with it, to no purpose. They might as well have tried to exorcise
my mitre from my head by any other charm than the offer of a better
one. Magic is plainly the only remedy, and if thou canst disenchant it,
I will give thee thy freedom.”
“It will be a tough business,” observed the sorcerer, surveying the
bell with the eye of a connoisseur. “It will require fumigations.”
“Yes,” said the bishop, “and suffumigations.”
“Aloes and mastic,” advised the sorcerer.
“Aye,” assented the bishop, “and red sanders.”
“We must call in Primeumaton,” said the warlock.
“Clearly,” said the bishop, “and Amioram.”
“Triangles,” said the sorcerer.
“Pentacles,” said the bishop.
“In the hour of Methon,” said the sorcerer.
“I should have thought Tafrac,” suggested the bishop, “but I defer to
your better judgment.”
“I can have the blood of a goat?” queried the wizard.
“Yes,” said the bishop, “and of a monkey also.”
“Does your Lordship think that one might venture to go so far as a
little unweaned child?”
“If absolutely necessary,” said the bishop.
“I am delighted to find such liberality of sentiment on your Lordship’s
part,” said the sorcerer. “Your Lordship is evidently of the
profession.”
“These are things which stuck by me when I was an inquisitor,”
explained the bishop, with some little embarrassment.
Ere long all arrangements were made. It would be impossible to
enumerate half the crosses, circles, pentagrams, naked swords,
cross-bones, chafing-dishes, and vials of incense which the sorcerer
found to be necessary. The child was fortunately deemed superfluous.
Euschemon was brought up from his dungeon, and, his teeth chattering
with fright and cold, set beside his bell to hold a candle to the
devil. The incantations commenced, and speedily gave evidence of their
efficacy. The bell trembled, swayed, split open, and a female figure of
transcendent loveliness attired in the costume of Eve stepped forth and
extended her lips towards the bishop. What could the bishop do but
salute them? With a roar of triumph the demon resumed his proper shape.
The bishop swooned. The apartment was filled with the fumes of sulphur.
The devil soared majestically out of the window, carrying the sorcerer
under one arm and Euschemon under the other.
It is commonly believed that the devil good-naturedly dropped Euschemon
back again into Paradise, or wheresoever he might have come from. It is
even added that he fell between Eulogius and Eucherius, who had been
arguing all the time respecting the merits of their bells, and resumed
his share in the discussion as if nothing had happened. Some maintain,
indeed, that the devil, chancing to be in want of a chaplain, offered
the situation to Euschemon, by whom it was accepted. But how to
reconcile this assertion with the undoubted fact that the duties of the
post in question are at present ably discharged by the Bishop of Metz,
in truth we see not. One thing is certain: thou wilt not find
Euschemon’s name in the calendar, courteous reader.
The mulct to be imposed upon the parish of Epinal was never exacted.
The bell, ruptured beyond repair by the demon’s violent exit, was taken
back and deposited in the museum of the town. The bells of Eulogius and
Eucherius were rung freely on occasion; but Epinal has not since
enjoyed any greater immunity from storms than the contiguous districts.
One day an aged traveller, who had spent many years in Heathenesse and
in whom some discerned a remarkable resemblance to the sorcerer,
noticed the bell, and asked permission to examine it. He soon
discovered the inscription, recognised the mysterious characters as
Greek, read them without the least difficulty—
“Μη κινει Καμαριναν ακινητος γαρ αμεινων—”
and favoured the townsmen with this free but substantially accurate
translation:—
“CANp’T YOU LET WELL ALONE?”