"Oh, my dear uncle!" replied the novice; "how beautiful are the heavens! See how the sun shines above our heads! It is in heaven that his glory should be admired! His rays are already dim and feeble when they touch the earth!"
William led Christine to a carriage; they got in, and the horses set off. Long did the gaze of the novice remain fixed on her convent's walls; when these were hidden from her by the windings of the road, she closed her eyes and seemed to sleep. During the journey, William endeavoured in vain to make her converse; she had forgotten how to express her thoughts. When compelled to reply, fatigue overwhelmed her; her whole existence was concentrated in her soul, and detached entirely from the external world. At intervals she would say to herself, "How long the morning is! Nothing marks the hours; I have not heard a single bell to-day!"
At last they reached the red house, and the carriage drove into the court, where the grass grew between the stones. Gothon came out to receive them, and Martha-Mary, leaning on her uncle's arm, entered the parlour where the family of Van Amberg had so often assembled. The room was deserted and cold; no books or work gave it the look of habitation; abandoned by its last occupants, it awaited new ones. Christine slowly traversed this well-known apartment, and sat down upon a chair near the window. It was there her mother had sat for twenty years; there had her childhood passed at the knees of Annunciata.
William opened the window, showed her the meadow, the willows, and the river. Christinelooked at them in silence, her head resting on her hand, her eyes fixed on the horizon. For a long while William stood beside her, then he placed his hand on her shoulder and pronounced her name. She rose and followed him. They ascended the stairs, traversed the gallery, and William opened a door. "Your mother's room," said he to Christine. The novice entered and paused in the middle of the chamber; tears flowed from her eyes, she clasped her hands and prayed.
"My daughter," said William, "sheardently desired your happiness."
"She has obtained it!" replied the novice.
The old man felt a profound sadness come over him. It was like pressing to his heart a corpse to which his love restored neither breath nor warmth. Martha-Mary approached her mother's bed, knelt down, and kissed the pillow that had supported the dying head of Annunciata.
"Mother," she murmured, "soon we shall meet again."
William shuddered. He took Christine's hand, and led her to the room she had formerly occupied. The little white-curtained bed was still there, the guitar hung against the wall, Christine's favourite volumes filled the shelves of her modest book-case; through the open window were seen the willows and the river. Martha-Mary noticed none of these things: the wooden crucifix was still upon thewall; she rapidly approached it, knelt, bowed her head upon the feet of Christ, closed her eyes and breathed deeply, like one finding repose after long fatigue. Like the exile returning to his native land, like the storm-tossed mariner regaining the port, she remained with her brow resting upon her Saviour's feet.
Standing by her side, William looked on in tearful silence. Farther off, Gothon wiped her eyes with her apron. Several hours elapsed. The house clock struck, the birds sang in the garden; the wind rustled among the trees; in the lofty pigeon-house the doves cooed; the cock crowed in the poultry-yard. None of these loved and familiar sounds could divert Martha-Mary from her devout meditation. Sick at heart, her uncle descended to the parlour. He remained there long, plunged in gloomy reflections. Suddenly hasty steps were heard; a young man rushed into the room, and into William's arms.
"Christine! Christine!" cried Herbert; "where is Christine? Is it not a dream? M. Van Amberg gives me Christine!... Once more in my native land, and Christine mine!"
"Karl Van Amberg gives, but God refuses her to you!" replied William, mournfully. Then he told Herbert what had passed at the convent, and since their arrival at the house: he gave a thousand details—he repeated them a thousand times, butwithout convincing Herbert of the melancholy truth.
"It is impossible!" cried the young man; "if Christine is alive, if Christine is here, to the first word uttered by her lover, Christine will reply."
"God grant it!" exclaimed William; "my last hope is in you."
Herbert sprang up the stairs, his heart too full of love to have room for fear. Christine free, was for him Christine ready to become his wife. He hastily opened her chamber door; but then he paused, as if petrified, upon the threshold. The day was closing in, and its fading light fell upon Martha-Mary, whose form stood out like a white shadow from the gloom of the room. She was still on her knees, her head resting on the feet of Christ, her fragile person lost in the multiplied folds of her conventual robes. She heard not the opening of the door, and Herbert stood gazing at her, till a flood of tears burst from his eyes. William took his hand and silently pressed it.
"I am frightened!" said Herbert, in a low tone. "That is not my Christine! A phantom risen from the earth, or an angel descended from heaven, has taken her place!"
"No, she is no longer Christine!" replied William, sadly.
For a few moments more Herbert stood in mournfulcontemplation. Then he exclaimed—"Christine, dear Christine!"
At the sound of his voice the novice started, rose to her feet, and pronounced his name. As in former days, when her lover called "Christine!" Martha-Mary replied "Herbert!"
The young man's heart beat violently; he stood beside the novice, he took her hands. "It is I, it is Herbert!" he said, kneeling down before her.
The novice fixed her large black eyes upon him with a long inquiring gaze; a slight flush passed across her brow; then she became pale as before, and said gently to Herbert—"I thought not to see you again upon earth."
"Dear Christine! tears and suffering have long been our portion; but happy days at last dawn upon us! My love! my bride! we will never part again!"
Martha-Mary extricated her hands from those of Herbert, and retreated towards the image of Christ.
"I am the bride of the Lord," she said in trembling accents. "He expects me."
Herbert uttered a cry of grief.
"Christine! dear Christine! remember our oft-repeated pledges, our loves, our tears, our hopes. You left me vowing to love me always. Christine, if you would not have me die of despair, remember the past!"
Martha-Mary's eyes continued riveted on the crucifix; her hands, convulsively clasped, were extended towards it.
"Gracious Lord!" she prayed, "speak to his heart as you have spoken to mine! It is a noble heart, worthy to love you. Stronger than I, Herbert may survive, even after much weeping! Console him, oh Lord!"
"Christine! my first and only love! sole hope and joy of my life! do you thus abandon me? That heart, once entirely mine, is it closed to me for ever?"
Her gaze upon the crucifix, her hands still joined, the novice, as if able to speak only to her God, gently replied:—"Lord! he suffers as I suffered! shed upon him the balm wherewith you healed my wounds! Leaving him life, take his soul as you have taken mine. Give him that ineffable peace which descends upon those thou lovest!"
"Oh Christine! my beloved!" cried Herbert, once more taking her hand, "do but look at me! turn your eyes upon me and behold my tears! Dearest treasure of my heart! you seem to slumber! Awake! Have you forgotten our tender meetings, the willows bending over the stream, the boat in which we sailed a whole night, dreaming the joy of eternal union? See! the moon rises as it rose that night. We were near each other as now; but then they tore us asunder, and now we are free to betogether! Christine, have you ceased to love? Is all forgotten?"
William took her other hand. "Dear child," he said, "we entreat you not to leave us! To you we look for happiness; remain with us, Christine."
One hand in the hands of Herbert, the other in those of William, the novice slowly and solemnly replied:
"The corpse that reposes in the tomb lifts not the stone to re-enter the world. The soul that has seen heaven, does not leave it to return to earth. The creature to whom God has said, 'Be thou the spouse of Christ,' does not quit Christ to unite herself to a man; and she who is about to die should turn her affections from mortal things!"
"Herbert!" cried William, "be silent! Not another word! I can scarcely feel the throbbing of her pulse! She is paler even than when I first saw her behind the convent grating. We give her pain. Enough, Herbert, enough! Better yield her to God upon earth, than send her to Him in heaven!"
The old man placed the almost inanimate head of Martha-Mary upon his shoulder, and pressed her to his heart as a mother embraces her child. "Recover yourself, my daughter," he said; "I will restore you to the house of God."
Martha-Mary turned her sad and gentle gaze upon her uncle, and her hand feebly pressed his. Then addressing herself to Herbert:
"You, Herbert," she said, in a scarcely audible voice—"you, who will live, do not abandon him!"
"Christine!" cried Herbert, on his knees before his betrothed. "Christine! do we part for ever?"
The novice raised her eyes to heaven.
"Not for ever!" she replied.
Some days afterwards the convent gates opened to receive sister Martha-Mary. They closed upon her for the last time. With feeble and unsteady step the novice traversed the cloisters to prostrate herself on the altar-steps. The superior came to her.
"Oh my mother!" exclaimed Christine, the fountain of whose tears was opened, and who wept as in the days of her childhood, "I have seen him and left him! To thee I return, oh Lord! Faithful to my vows, I await the crown that shall consecrate me thy spouse. Thy voice alone shall henceforward reach my ears; I come to sing thy praises, to pray and serve thee until the end of my life!—Holy mother, prepare the robe of serge, the white crown, the silver cross; I am ready!"
"My daughter," replied the superior, "you are very ill—much exhausted by so many shocks; will you not delay the ceremony of profession?"
"No, holy mother! no; delay it not! I would die the bride of the Lord!... And I have little time!" replied sister Martha-Mary.
[MAGA.November 1821.]
In my younger days, bell-ringing was much more in fashion among the young men of —— than it is now. Nobody, I believe, practises it there at present except the servants of the church, and the melody has been much injured in consequence. Some fifty years ago, about twenty of us who dwelt in the vicinity of the Cathedral, formed a club, which used to ring every peal that was called for; and, from continual practice and a rivalry which arose between us and a club attached to another steeple, and which tended considerably to sharpen our zeal, we became very Mozarts on our favourite instruments. But my bell-ringing practice was shortened by a singular accident, which not only stopped my performance, but made even the sound of a bell terrible to my ears.
One Sunday, I went with another into the belfry to ring for noon prayers, but the second stroke we had pulled showed us that the clapper of the bellwe were at was muffled. Some one had been buried that morning, and it had been prepared, of course, to ring a mournful note. We did not know of this, but the remedy was easy. "Jack," said my companion, "step up to the loft, and cut off the hat;" for the way we had of muffling was by tying a piece of an old hat, or of cloth (the former was preferred), to one side of the clapper, which deadened every second toll. I complied, and mounting into the belfry, crept as usual into the bell, where I began to cut away. The hat had been tied on in some more complicated manner than usual, and I was perhaps three or four minutes in getting it off; during which time my companion below was hastily called away—by a message from his sweetheart, I believe—but that is not material to my story. The person who called him was a brother of the club, who, knowing that the time had come for ringing for service, and not thinking that any one was above, began to pull. At this moment I was just getting out, when I felt the bell moving; I guessed the reason at once—it was a moment of terror; but by a hasty and almost convulsive effort, I succeeded in jumping down, and throwing myself on the flat of my back under the bell.
The room in which it was, was little more than sufficient to contain it, the bottom of the bell coming within a couple of feet of the floor of lath. At that time I certainly was not so bulky as I am now,but as I lay it was within an inch of my face. I had not laid myself down a second, when the ringing began.—It was a dreadful situation. Over me swung an immense mass of metal, one touch of which would have crushed me to pieces; the floor under me was principally composed of crazy laths, and if they gave way, I was precipitated to the distance of about fifty feet upon a loft, which would, in all probability, have sunk under the impulse of my fall, and sent me to be dashed to atoms upon the marble floor of the chancel, an hundred feet below. I remembered—for fear is quick in recollection—how a common clockwright, about a month before, had fallen, and, bursting through the floors of the steeple, driven in the ceilings of the porch, and even broken into the marble tombstone of a bishop who slept beneath. This was my first terror, but the ringing had not continued a minute, before a more awful and immediate dread came on me. The deafening sound of the bell smote into my ears with a thunder which made me fear their drums would crack: there was not a fibre of my body it did not thrill through. It entered my very soul; thought and reflection were almost utterly banished; I only retained the sensation of agonising terror. Every moment I saw the bell sweep within an inch of my face; and my eyes—I could not close them, though to look at the object was bitter as death—followed it instinctively in itsoscillating progress until it came back again. It was in vain I said to myself that it could come no nearer at any future swing than it did at first; every time it descended, I endeavoured to shrink into the very floor to avoid being buried under the down-sweeping mass; and then, reflecting on the danger of pressing too weightily on my frail support, would cower up again as far as I dared.
At first my fears were mere matter of fact. I was afraid the pulleys above would give way, and let the bell plunge on me. At another time, the possibility of the clapper being shot out in some sweep, and dashing through my body, as I had seen a ramrod glide through a door, flitted across my mind. The dread also, as I have already mentioned, of the crazy floor, tormented me; but these soon gave way to fears not more unfounded, but more visionary, and of course more tremendous. The roaring of the bell confused my intellect, and my fancy soon began to teem with all sort of strange and terrifying ideas. The bell pealing above, and opening its jaws with a hideous clamour, seemed to me at one time a ravening monster, raging to devour me; at another, a whirlpool ready to suck me into its bellowing abyss. As I gazed on it, it assumed all shapes; it was a flying eagle, or rather a roc of the Arabian story-tellers, clapping its wings and screaming over me. As I looked upward into it, it would appear sometimes tolengthen into indefinite extent, or to be twisted at the end into the spiral folds of the tail of a flying dragon. Nor was the flaming breath or fiery glance of that fabled animal wanting to complete the picture. My eyes, inflamed, blood-shot, and glaring, invested the supposed monster with a full proportion of unholy light.
It would be endless were I to merely hint at all the fancies that possessed my mind. Every object that was hideous and roaring presented itself to my imagination. I often thought that I was in a hurricane at sea, and that the vessel in which I was embarked tossed under me with the most furious vehemence. The air, set in motion by the swinging of the bell, blew over me, nearly with the violence, and more than the thunder, of a tempest; and the floor seemed to reel under me, as under a drunken man. But the most awful of all the ideas that seized on me were drawn from the supernatural. In the vast cavern of the bell hideous faces appeared, and glared down on me with terrifying frowns, or with grinning mockery still more appalling. At last, the devil himself, accoutred as in the common description of the evil spirit, with hoof, horn, and tail, and eyes of infernal lustre, made his appearance, and called on me to curse God and worship him, who was powerful to save me. This dread suggestion he uttered with the full-toned clangour of the bell. I had him withinan inch of me, and I thought on the fate of the Santon Barsisa. Strenuously and desperately I defied him and bade him begone. Reason, then, for a moment, resumed her sway, but it was only to fill me with fresh terror, just as the lightning dispels the gloom that surrounds the benighted mariner, but to show him that his vessel is driving on a rock, where she must inevitably be dashed to pieces. I found I was becoming delirious, and trembled lest reason should utterly desert me. This is at all times an agonising thought, but it smote me then with tenfold agony. I feared lest, when utterly deprived of my senses, I should rise—to do which I was every moment tempted by that strange feeling which calls on a man, whose head is dizzy from standing on the battlement of a lofty castle, to precipitate himself from it, and then death would be instant and tremendous. When I thought of this, I became desperate. I caught the floor with a grasp which drove the blood from my nails; and I yelled with the cry of despair. I called for help, I prayed, I shouted, but all the efforts of my voice were of course drowned in the bell. As it passed over my mouth, it occasionally echoed my cries, which mixed not with its own sound, but preserved their distinct character. Perhaps this was but fancy. To me, I know, they then sounded as if they were the shouting, howling, or laughing of thefiends with which my imagination had peopled the gloomy cave which swung over me.
You may accuse me of exaggerating my feelings; but I am not. Many a scene of dread have I since passed through, but they are nothing to the self-inflicted terrors of this half hour. The ancients have doomed one of the damned, in their Tartarus, to lie under a rock, which every moment seems to be descending to annihilate him—and an awful punishment it would be. But if to this you add a clamour as loud as if ten thousand furies were howling about you—a deafening uproar banishing reason, and driving you to madness—you must allow that the bitterness of the pang was rendered more terrible. There is no man, firm as his nerves may be, who could retain his courage in this situation.
In twenty minutes the ringing was done. Half of that time passed over me without power of computation,—the other half appeared an age. When it ceased, I became gradually more quiet, but a new fear retained me. I knew that five minutes would elapse without ringing, but, at the end of that short time, the bell would be rung a second time, for five minutes more. I could not calculate time. A minute and an hour were of equal duration. I feared to rise, lest the five minutes should have elapsed, and the ringing be againcommenced, in which case I should be crushed, before I could escape, against the walls or framework of the bell. I therefore still continued to lie down, cautiously shifting myself, however, with a careful gliding, so that my eye no longer looked into the hollow. This was of itself a considerable relief. The cessation of the noise had, in a great measure, the effect of stupifying me, for my attention, being no longer occupied by the chimeras I had conjured up, began to flag. All that now distressed me was the constant expectation of the second ringing, for which, however, I settled myself with a kind of stupid resolution. I closed my eyes, and clenched my teeth as firmly as if they were screwed in a vice. At last the dreaded moment came, and the first swing of the bell extorted a groan from me, as they say the most resolute victim screams at the sight of the rack, to which he is for a second time destined. After this, however, I lay silent and lethargic, without a thought. Wrapt in the defensive armour of stupidity, I defied the bell and its intonations. When it ceased, I was roused a little by the hope of escape. I did not, however, decide on this step hastily, but, putting up my hand with the utmost caution, I touched the rim. Though the ringing had ceased, it still was tremulous from the sound, and shook under my hand, which instantly recoiled as from an electric jar. A quarter of an hour probablyelapsed before I again dared to make the experiment, and then I found it at rest. I determined to lose no time, fearing that I might have lain then already too long, and that the bell for evening service would catch me. This dread stimulated me, and I slipped out with the utmost rapidity, and arose. I stood, I suppose, for a minute, looking with silly wonder on the place of my imprisonment, penetrated with joy at escaping, but then rushed down the stony and irregular stair with the velocity of lightning, and arrived in the bell-ringers' room. This was the last act I had power to accomplish. I leant against the wall, motionless and deprived of thought, in which posture my companions found me, when, in the course of a couple of hours, they returned to their occupation.
They were shocked, as well they might, at the figure before them. The wind of the bell had excoriated my face, and my dim and stupified eyes were fixed with a lack-lustre gaze in my raw eyelids. My hands were torn and bleeding; my hair dishevelled; and my clothes tattered. They spoke to me, but I gave no answer. They shook me, but I remained insensible. They then became alarmed, and hastened to remove me. He who had first gone up with me in the forenoon, met them as they carried me through the churchyard, and through him, who was shocked at having, in some measure,occasioned the accident, the cause of my misfortune was discovered. I was put to bed at home, and remained for three days delirious, but gradually recovered my senses. You may be sure the bell formed a prominent topic of my ravings, and if I heard a peal, they were instantly increased to the utmost violence. Even when the delirium abated, my sleep was continually disturbed by imagined ringings, and my dreams were haunted by the fancies which almost maddened me while in the steeple. My friends removed me to a house in the country, which was sufficiently distant from any place of worship, to save me from the apprehensions of hearing the church-going bell; for what Alexander Selkirk, in Cowper's poem, complained of as a misfortune, was then to me as a blessing. Here I recovered; but, even long after recovery, if a gale wafted the notes of a peal towards me, I started with nervous apprehension. I felt a Mohammedan hatred to all the bell tribe, and envied the subjects of the Commander of the Faithful the sonorous voice of their Muezzin. Time cured this, as it does the most of our follies; but even at the present day, if, by chance, my nerves be unstrung, some particular tones of the cathedral bell have power to surprise me into a momentary start.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
Footnotes[1]"Carts" of that day held three.
[1]"Carts" of that day held three.
[1]"Carts" of that day held three.
Transcriber's NoteApparent printer's errors and archaic spelling have been retained, unless stated below.Punctuation markup has been made consistent.In the original, pages are numbered 1-100 three times consecutively.On the first iteration of Page58, "cause" changed to "case". (In due time the case was called.)On the first iteration of Page60, "eat" changed to "ate". (... and he would have sailed thither before the 31st of December, on which day his father, a joyous liver and confirmed votary of Bacchus, ate and drank to such an extent to celebrate the exit of the old year and commencement of the new, that he fell down, on his way to his bed, in a thundering fit of apoplexy, and was a corpse before morning.)On the first iteration of Page67, "Μητ' ἐμοὶ παρέστιος γένοιτο" has been changed to "Μήτ' ἐμοὶ παρέστιος γένοιτο".On the second iteration of Page25, "raw" changed to "law". (I was not quite sure of the effect of my commentary on the evidence, and therefore thought it might be advisable to touch upon a national law.)On the third iteration of Page67, "Amburg" changed to "Amberg" for consistency. (With a vigorous arm, M. Van Amberg seized Christine, whose slender form bent like a reed over his shoulder.)
Apparent printer's errors and archaic spelling have been retained, unless stated below.
Punctuation markup has been made consistent.
In the original, pages are numbered 1-100 three times consecutively.
On the first iteration of Page58, "cause" changed to "case". (In due time the case was called.)
On the first iteration of Page60, "eat" changed to "ate". (... and he would have sailed thither before the 31st of December, on which day his father, a joyous liver and confirmed votary of Bacchus, ate and drank to such an extent to celebrate the exit of the old year and commencement of the new, that he fell down, on his way to his bed, in a thundering fit of apoplexy, and was a corpse before morning.)
On the first iteration of Page67, "Μητ' ἐμοὶ παρέστιος γένοιτο" has been changed to "Μήτ' ἐμοὶ παρέστιος γένοιτο".
On the second iteration of Page25, "raw" changed to "law". (I was not quite sure of the effect of my commentary on the evidence, and therefore thought it might be advisable to touch upon a national law.)
On the third iteration of Page67, "Amburg" changed to "Amberg" for consistency. (With a vigorous arm, M. Van Amberg seized Christine, whose slender form bent like a reed over his shoulder.)