'The house near Christianshavn's canal is again for sale--your worthy uncle's house, Johanna! and now upon very reasonable terms,' said the young joiner and cabinet-maker, Frants, one morning to his pretty wife, as he laid the advertisement sheet of the newspaper upon the cradle, and glanced at his little boy, an infant of about three months old, who was sleeping sweetly, and seemed to be sporting with heavenly cherubs in his innocent dreams.
'Let us on no account think of the dear old house,' replied his wife, taking up the newspaper and placing it on the table, without even looking at the advertisement. 'We have a roof over our heads as long as Mr. Stork will have patience about the rent. If we have bread enough for ourselves, and for yon little angel, who will soon begin to want some, we may well rest contented. Notwithstanding our poverty, we are, perhaps, the happiest married couple in the whole town,' she added gently, and with an affectionate smile, 'and we ought to thank our God that he did not let the wide world separate us from each other, but permitted you to return from your distant journey, healthy and cheerful, and that he has granted us love and strength to bear our little cross with patience.'
'You are ever the same amiable and pious Johanna,' said Frants, embracing the lovely young mother, who reminded him of an exquisite picture of the Madonna he had seen abroad, 'and you have made me better and more patient than I was, either by nature or by habit. But I really cannot remain longer in this miserable garret--I have neither room nor spirits to work here; and if I am to make anything by my handicraft, I must have a proper workshop, and space to breathe in and to move in.
'Your good uncle's house, near the canal, is just the place for me; how many jovial songs my old master and I have sung there together over our joiner's bench! Ah!thenI shall feel comfortable and at home. It was there, also, that I first saw you--there, that I used to sit every evening with you in the nice little parlour, with the cheerful green wainscoting, when I came from the workshop with old Mr. Flok. I remember how, on Sundays and on holidays, he used to take his silver goblet from the cupboard in the alcove, and drink with me in such a sociable way. And when my piece of trial-work as a journeyman was finished, and the large, handsome coffin was put out in state in the workshop, do you remember how glad the old man was, and how you sank into my arms when he placed your hand in mine, over the coffin, and said:
'"Take her, Frants, and be worthy of her! My house shall be your home and hers, and everything it contains shall be your property when I am sleeping in this coffin, awaiting a blessed resurrection."'
'Ah! but all that never came to pass,' sighed Johanna; 'the coffin lies empty up in yonder loft, and frightens children in the dark. The dear old house is under the ban of evil report, and no one will buy it, or even hire it, now, so many strange, unfortunate deaths have taken place there.'
'These very circumstances are in our favour, Johanna; on account of this state of things Mr. Stork will sell it at a great bargain, and give a half year's credit for the purchase-money. In the course of six months, surely, the long-protracted settlement of your uncle's affairs will be brought to a close, and we shall, at least, have as much as will pay what we owe. The house will then be our own, and you will see how happy and prosperous we shall be. Surely, it is not the fault of the poor house that three children died there of measles, and two people of old age, in the course of a few months; and none but silly old women can be frightened because the idle children in the street choose to scratch upon the walls, "The Doomed House." The house is, and always will be, liked by me, and if Mr. Stork will accept of my offer for it, without any other security than my own word, that dwelling shall be mine to-day, and we can move into it to-morrow.'
'Oh, my dear Frants, you cannot think how reluctant I am to increase our debt to this Mr. Stork. Believe me, he is not a good man, however friendly and courteous he may seem to be. Even my uncle could not always tolerate him, though it was not in his nature to dislike any of God's creatures. Whenever Mr. Stork came, and began to talk about business and bills--my uncle became silent and gloomy, and always gave me a wink to retire to my chamber.'
'I know very well Mr. Stork was looking after you then,' said Frants, with a smile of self-satisfaction, 'butIwas a more fortunate suitor. It was a piece of folly on the part of the old bachelor; all that, however, is forgotten now, and he has transferred the regard he once had for you to me. He never duns me for my rent, he lent me money at the time of the child's baptism, and he shows me more kindness than anyone else does.'
'But I cannot endure the way in which he looks at me, Frants, and I put no faith either in his friendship or his rectitude. The very house that he is now about to sell he hardly came honestly by, as he gives out--and I cannot understand how he has so large a claim upon the property my uncle left; I never heard my uncle speak of it. God only knows what will remain for us when all these heavy claims that have been brought forward are satisfied; yet my uncle was considered a rich man.'
'The lawyers and the proper court must settle that,' replied Frants; 'I only know this, that I should be a fool if I did not buy the house now.'
'But to say the truth, dear Frants,' urged Johanna, in a supplicating tone, 'I am almost afraid to go back to that house, dear as every corner of it has been to me from my childhood. I cannot reconcile myself to the reality of the painful circumstances said to have attended my poor uncle's death. And whenever I pass overLong Bridge, and near the Dead-house for the drowned, with its low windows, I always feel an irresistible impulse to look in, and see if he is not there still, waiting to be placed in his proper coffin, and decently buried in a churchyard.'
'Ah--your brain is conjuring up a parcel of old nursery tales, my Johanna! We have nothing to fear from your good, kind uncle. If indeed his spirit could be near us, here on earth, it would only bring us blessings and happiness. I am quite easy on that score; he was a pious, God-fearing man, and there was nothing in his life to disturb his repose after death. Report said that he had drowned himself on purpose, but I am quite convinced that was not true. If I had not unluckily been away on my travels as a journeyman, and you with your dying aunt--your mother's sister, we would most likely have had him with us now. How often I have warned him against sailing about alone in Kalleboe Bay! But he would go every Sunday. As long as I was in his employ, I always made a point of accompanying him, and when I went away he promised me never to go without a boatman.'
'Alas! that was an unfortunate Christmas!' sighed Johanna, 'it was not until he had been advertised as missing in the newspapers, and Mr. Stork had recognized his corpse at the Dead-house for the drowned, and had caused him to be secretly buried as a suicide,--it was not until all this was over, that I knew he had not been put into his own coffin, and laid in consecrated ground.'
'Let us not grieve longer, dear Johanna, for what it was not in our power to prevent; but let us rather, in respect to the memory of our kind benefactor, put the house in order which he occupied and where he worked for us, inhabit it cheerfully, and rescue it from mysterious accusations and evil reports.Ourwelfare was all he thought of, and laboured for.'
'As you will then, dear Frants!' said Johanna, yielding to his arguments. She hastened at the same moment to take up from its cradle the child, who had just awoke, and holding it out to its young father, she added, 'May God protect this innocent infant, and spare it to us!'
Frants kissed the mother and the child, smoothed his brown hair, and taking his hat down from its peg, he hurried off to conclude the purchase on which he had set his heart.
He returned in great spirits, and the next day the little family removed to the house which belonged to Mr. Flok, Frants was rejoiced to see his old master's furniture, which he had bought at an auction, restored to its former place, and he felt almost as if the easy-chair and the bureau, formerly in the immediate use of the old man, must share in his gladness. But the baker's wife at the corner of the street shrugged her shoulders, and pitied the handsome young couple, whom she considered doomed to sickness and misfortune, because five corpses within the last six months had been carried out of that house; and because there was an inscription on its walls, that however often it had been effaced had always reappeared. 'Et Forbandet Haus'--'The Doomed House'--stood there, written in red characters, and all the old crones in the neighbourhood affirmed that the words werewritten in blood!
'Mark my words,' said the baker's wife at the corner of the street, to her daughter, 'before the year is at an end, we shall have another coffin carried out of that house.'
Frants the joiner had bestirred himself to set all to rights in the long-neglected workshop, and Johanna had put the house in nice order, and arranged everything as it used to be in days gone by. The little parlour, with the green wainscoting and the old fashioned alcove, had its former chairs and tables replaced in it; the bureau occupied its ancient corner, and the easy-chair again stood near the stove, and seemed to await its master's return. Often, as the young couple sat together in the twilight, while the blaze of the fire in the stove cast a cheerful glare through its little grated door on the hearth beneath, they missed the old man, and talked of him with sadness and affection. But Johanna would sometimes glance timidly at the empty leather arm-chair--and when the moon shone in through the small window panes, she would at times even fancy that she saw her uncle sitting there--but pale and bloody, and with dripping wet hair.
She would then exclaim, 'Let us have lights; the baby seems restless. I must see what is the matter with it.'
One evening there were no candles downstairs. She had to go for them up to the storeroom in the garret. She lighted a small taper that was in the lantern, and went out of the room, while Frants rocked the infant's cradle to lull it to sleep. But she had only been a few minutes gone, when he heard a noise as if of some one having fallen down in the loft above, and he also thought he heard Johanna scream; he quitted the cradle instantly, and rushing upstairs after her, he found her lying in a swoon near the coffin, with the lantern in her hand, though its light was extinguished. Exceedingly alarmed he carried her downstairs, relighted the taper, and used every effort to recover her from her fainting fit. When she was better, and somewhat composed, he asked in much anxiety what had happened. 'Oh! I am as timid as a foolish child,' said Johanna. 'It was only my poor uncle's coffin up yonder that frightened me. I would have begged you to go and fetch the candles, but I was ashamed to own my silly fears, and when the current of air blew out the light in my lantern up there, it seemed to me as if a spectre's death-cold breathing passed over my face, and I fancied I saw amidst the gloom the lid of the coffin rising--so I fainted away in my childish terror.'
'That coffin shall not frighten you again,' said Frants, 'I will advertise it to-morrow for sale.' He did so, but ineffectually, for no one bought it.
One day Mr. Stork made his appearance, bringing with him the contract and deed of sale.
He was a tall, strongly-built man, with a countenance by no means pleasant, though it almost always wore a smile; but the smile, if narrowly scrutinized, had a sinister expression, and seemed to convulse his features. He sported a gaudy waistcoat, and was dressed like an old bachelor, who was going on some matrimonial expedition, and wished to conceal his age. This day he was even more complaisant than usual, praised the beauty of the infant, remarked its likeness to its lovely mother, and offered Frants a loan of money to purchase new furniture, and make any improvements he might wish in the interior of the house. Franks thanked him, but declined the offer, assuring him that he was quite satisfied with the house and furniture as they were, and wished everything about him to wear its former aspect. However, he said, he certainly would like to enlarge the workshop by adding to it the old lumber-room at the back of the house, the entrance to which he found was closed.
Mr. Stork then informed him that there was a door on the opposite side of the lumber-room, which opened into the househeoccupied, and that he had lately been using this empty place as a cellar for his firewood; but he readily promised to have it cleared out as speedily as possible, and to have the entrance into his own house stopped up.
'Yet,' he added, in a very gracious manner, 'it is hardly necessary to have any separation between the two houses, when I have such respectable and agreeable neighbours as yourselves.'
'What made you look so crossly at that excellent Mr. Stork, Johanna?' asked her husband, when their visitor was gone. 'I am sure he is kindness itself. He cannot really help that he has that unfortunate contortion of the mouth, which gives a peculiar expression to his countenance.'
'I sincerely wish we had some other person as our neighbour, and had nothing to do with him!' exclaimed Johanna. 'I do not feel safe with such a man near us.'
Frants now worked with equal diligence and patience--and often remained until a late hour in the workshop, especially if he had any order to finish. He preferred cabinet-making to the more common branches of his trade, and was always delighted when he had any pretty piece of furniture to construct from one of the finer sorts of wood. But he was best known as a coffin-maker, and necessity compelled him to undertake more of this gloomy kind of work than he liked. Often when he was finishing a coffin, he would reflect upon all the sorrow, and perhaps calamity which the work, that provided him and his with bread, would bring into the house into which it was destined to enter. And when he met people in high health and spirits, on the public promenades, he frequently sighed to think how soon he might be engaged in nailing together the last earthly resting-places of these animated forms.
One night he was so much occupied in finishing a large coffin, that he did not remark how late it had become, until he heard the watchman call out 'Twelve.'
At that moment he fancied he heard a hollow voice behind him say,
'Still hammering! And for whom is that coffin?'
He started--dropped the hammer from his hand--and looked round in terror, but no one was to be seen.
'It is the old gloomy thoughts creeping back into my mind, and affecting my brain, now at this ghastly hour of midnight,' said he; but he put away the hammer and nails, and took up his light to go to his bed-room. Before he reached the door of the workshop, however, the candle which had burned down very low--quite in the socket of the candlestick, suddenly went out. He was left in the dark, and in vain he groped about to find the door--at any other time he would have laughed at the circumstance, but now it rather added to his annoyance that three times he found himself at the door of the lumber-room, instead of getting hold of the one which opened into his house. The third time he came to it, he stopped and listened, for he fancied he heard something moving within the empty room; a light also glimmered through a chink in the door which was fastened, and on listening more attentively he thought he distinctly heard a sound as if buckets of water were being dashed over the floor, and some one scrubbing it with a brush. 'It is an odd time to scour the floor,' he thought, and then knocking at the door, and raising his voice--he called out loudly to ask who was there, and what they were doing at so late an hour. At that moment the light disappeared, and all became as still as death.
'I must have been mistaken,' thought Frants, as he again tried to find the door he had at first sought. In spite of himself, a dread of some evil--or of something supernatural, seemed to haunt him, and the image of his old master--who was drowned--appeared before him in that dark workshop, where they had spent so many cheerful hours together. At last he found the door, and retired as quickly as possible to his chamber, where his wife and child were both fast asleep. He, too, at length fell asleep, but he was restless in his slumbers, and disturbed by strange dreams. In the course of the night he dreamed that his wife's uncle, Mr. Flok, stood before him, and said,
'Why was I not placed in my coffin? Why was I not laid in a Christian burying-ground? Seek, and you will find--destroy the curse, before it destroys you also!'
In the morning when he awoke he looked so pale and ill that Johanna was quite alarmed; but he did not like to frighten her by telling her his dreams, and, indeed, he was ashamed at the impression they had made upon himself, for, notwithstanding all the confidence he had expressed on coming to the house, he could not help feeling nervous and uncomfortable.
Nor did the unpleasant sensation wear off, his gay spirits vanished, and he was also unhappy because the time was approaching when the purchase-money for the house would become due, and the settlement of the old man's affairs, to which he had looked forward in expectation of obtaining his wife's inheritance, seemed to be as far off as ever. He found it difficult to meet the small daily expenses of his family, and he feared the threatening future.
'Seek and you will find!' he repeated to himself; 'destroy the curse before it destroys you! What curse? I begin to fear that there really is some evil doom connected with this house.'
It was also a very unaccountable circumstance that however often he scratched out the mysterious inscription from the wall--'The Doomed House'--it appeared again next day in characters as fresh and red as ever. His health began to give way under all his anxiety, and the child also became ill. One evening he had been taking a solitary walk to a spot which had now a kind of morbid fascination for him--the Dead-house for the drowned--and when he returned home, he found Johanna weeping by the cradle of her suffering infant.
'You were right,' he exclaimed, 'we were happier in our humble garret than in this ill-fated house. Would that we had remained there! Tell me, Johanna, of what are you thinking? Has the doctor been here? What does he say of our dear little one?'
'If it should get worse towards night, there lies our last hope,' she replied, pointing towards the table.
Frants took up the prescription, and gazed on the incomprehensible Latin words, as if therein he would have read his fate. The tears stood in his eyes.
'And to-morrow,' said Johanna, 'to-morrow will be a day of misery. Have you any means of paying Mr. Stork?'
'None whatever! Butthatis a small evil compared tothis,' he answered, as he pointed to the feverish and moaning infant. 'Have you been to the workshop?' he continued, after a pause, 'the large coffin is finished; perhaps it may be our own last home--it would hold us all!'
'Oh! if that could only be!' exclaimed Johanna, as she threw her arms round him. 'Could we only all three be removed together to a better world, there would be no more sorrow for us! But the hour of separation is close at hand; to-morrow, if you cannot pay Mr. Stork, you will be cast into prison, and I shall sit alone here with that dying child!'
'What do you say? Cast into prison! How do you know that? Has that man been here frightening you? He has not hinted a syllable of such a threat to me.'
Johanna then related to him how Mr. Stork had latterly often called, under pretence of wishing to see Frants, but always when he was out. He had made himself very much at home, and had overwhelmed her with compliments and flattering speeches; he had also declared frequently that he would not trouble Frants for the money he owed him, if she would pay the debt in another manner. At first, she said, she did not understand him, and when shedidcomprehend his meaning, she did not like to mention it to Frants, for fear of his taking the matter up warmly, and quarrelling with Stork, which would bring ruin on himself. Mr. Stork, however, had become more bold and presuming, and that very evening, on her repelling his advances and desiring him to quit her presence, he had threatened that if she mentioned a syllable of what had passed to her husband, nay, farther, if she were not prepared to change her behaviour towards himself before another sun had set, Frants should be thrown into prison for debt, and might congratulate himself in that pleasant abode on the fidelity of his wife.
'Well,' said Frants, with forced composure, 'he has got me in his toils--but his pitiful baseness shall not crush me. I have, indeed, been blind not to detect the villany that lay behind that satanic smile, and improvident to let myself be deluded by his pretended friendship. But if the Almighty will only spare and protect you, and that dear child, I shall not lose courage. Be comforted, my Johanna!'
It was now growing late--the child awoke from the restless sleep of fever--it seemed worse, and Frants ran to an apothecary with the prescription. 'The last hope!' he sighed, as he hurried along; 'and if it should fail--who will console poor Johanna to-morrow evening, when I am in a prison, and she has to clad the child in its grave clothes! Oh, how we shall miss you--sweet little angel! Wasthisthe happiness I dreamt of in the old house? Yes--people are right--itisaccursed!'
The apothecary's shop was closed, but the prescription had been taken in through a little aperture in the door, and Frants sat down on the stone steps to wait until the medicine was ready. It was a clear, starry December night, but the sorrowing father sat shivering in the cold, and gazing gloomily on the frozen pavement--he was not thinking of the stars or of the skies. The watchman passed and bade him 'good morning.'
'It will be a good morning, indeed, for me,' thought poor Frants. 'A morning fraught with despair.'
At that moment the clock of a neighbouring church struckone, and the watchman sang, in a full, bass voice, these simple words:
'Help us, O Jesus dear!Our earthly cross to bear;Oh! grant us patiencehere,And be our Saviourthere!'
'Help us, O Jesus dear!Our earthly cross to bear;Oh! grant us patiencehere,And be our Saviourthere!'
Frants heard the pious song, and a change seemed to come over his spirit--he raised his saddened eye to the magnificent heavens above--gazed at the calm stars which studded the deep blue vault--clasped his hands and joined in the watchman's concluding words--
'Redeemer, grant Thy blessed helpTo make our burden light.'
'Redeemer, grant Thy blessed helpTo make our burden light.'
A small phial with the medicine was just then handed out to him, through the little sliding window; he paid his last coin for it, and, full of hope thathisburden might be lightened, hastened to his home.
'Did you hear what the watchman was singing, Johanna?' asked Frants, when he entered the little green parlour, where the young mother was watching by her child.
'Hush, hush,' she whispered, 'he has fallen into an easy and quiet sleep. God will have pity upon us--our child will do well now.'
'Why, Johanna, you look as happy as if an angel from heaven had been with you, telling you blessed truths.'
'Yes, blessed truths have, as it were, been communicated to me from heaven!' replied Johanna, pointing to an old Bible which lay open upon the table. 'Look! this is my good uncle's family Bible--that I have not seen since he died, and God forgive me--I have thought too little lately of my Bible. I found this one to-night far back on the highest shelf of the alcove--and its holy words have given me strength and comfort. Read this passage, Frants, about putting our whole trust in the Lord, whatever may befall us.'
Frants read the portion pointed out to him, and then began to turn over the leaves of the well-worn, silver-clasped book. He found a number of pieces of paper here and there, but as he saw at a glance that they were only accounts and receipts, he did not care to examine them, but his attention was suddenly caught by a paper which appeared to be part of a journal kept by the old man, the last year of his life. He looked through it eagerly, Johanna observed with surprise how his countenance was darkening. At length he started up and exclaimed,
'It is horrible!--horrible--Johanna! Some one must have sought to take your uncle's life. See, here it is in his own handwriting--listen!' and he read aloud:
'God grant that my enemy's wicked plot may not succeed! Why did I let my gold get into such iniquitous hands, and place my life at the mercy of one more ferocious than a wild beast? He has, cunningly plundered me of my wealth--he has bound my tongue by an oath--and now he seeks to take my life in secret. But my money will not prosper in his unworthy hands--and accursed be the house over whose threshold his feet pass. There are human beings who can ruin others in all worldly matters, but mortal man has no power over the spirit when death sets it free.'
'What can this mean?' cried Frants, almost wild with excitement. Who is the mortal enemy to whom he alludes, but whom he does not name? Who has got possession of his house and his means? The same person, no doubt, who bound him by an oath to silence, and threatened his life in secret; who proclaimed to the world that he had drowned himself, and caused him to be buried like a suicide? Why was no other acquaintance called to recognize the body? We have no certainty that the drowned man was he. Perhaps his bones lie nearer to us than we imagine. Ha! old master, in my dream I heard you say, "Seek, and you shall find--why was I not put into consecrated ground?" Johanna! what do you think about that old lumber-room? There have been some mysterious doings there at midnight--there are some still--that floor is washed while we are sleeping. Before to-morrow's sun can rise I shall have searched that den of murder, from one end to the other.'
'Oh, dearest Frants, how wildly you talk; you make me tremble.'
But as Frants was determined to go, she sat down by the cradle to watch her sleeping child, while he took a light and proceeded to the workshop. There he seized a hatchet and crow bar, and thus provided with implements, he approached the door of the locked chamber.
'The room belongs to me,' said he to himself, 'who has a right to prevent me from entering it?'
To force the door by the aid of the iron crowbar, was the work of an instant, and without the slightest hesitation he went in, though it must be confessed he felt a momentary panic. But that wore off immediately, and he began at once to examine the place. Nothing appeared, however, to excite suspicion. There were some sacks of wood in a corner, and he emptied these, almost expecting to see one of them filled with the bones of dead men, but there was no vestige of anything of the kind. The floor seemed to be recently washed, for it was yet scarcely dry. He then began to take up the boards. At that moment he heard the handle of the door which led into the neighbouring house turning; holding the hatchet in one hand, and the light, high above his head, in the other, he put himself in an attitude of defence, while he called out:
'Has anyone a desire to assist me?'
Presently all was still. Frants put down his light, and began again hammering at the boards; almost unconsciously he also began to hum aloud an air which his old master used always to sing when he was engaged in finishing any piece of work. But he had not hammered or hummed long before the handle of the door was again turned. This time the door opened, and a tall, white figure slowly entered, with an expression of countenance as hellish as if its owner had just come from the abode of evil spirits.
'What, at it again, old man? Will you go on hammering and nailing till Doomsday? Must that song be heard to all eternity?' said a hollow but well-known voice--and Frants recognized with horror the ghastly-pale and wild-looking sleep-walker, who, with eyes open--but fixed and glazed--and hair standing on end, had come in his night-gear from his sleeping-chamber.
'Where didst thou lay my bones?' said Frants, as if he had become suddenly insane. 'Why was I not placed in my coffin?--why did I not enter a Christian burying-ground?'
'Your bones are safe enough,' replied the pallid terrible-looking dreamer, 'no one will harm them under my pear-tree.'
'But whom didst thou bury under my name--as a self-murderer, when thou didst fasten on me the stain of guilt in death?' asked Frants, astonished and frightened at the sound of his own voice, for it seemed to him as if a spirit from the other world were speaking through his lips.
'It was the beggar,' replied the wretched somnambulist, with a frightful contortion of his fiendish face, a sort of triumphant grin. 'It was only the foreign beggar to whom you gave your old grey cloak ... but whom I drove from my door that Christmas-eve.'
'Wherehelies shalt thou rot--byhisside shalt thou meet me on the great day of doom!' cried Frants, who hardly knew what he was saying. He had scarcely uttered these words when he heard a fearful sound, something between a shriek and a groan--and he stood alone with his light and his hatchet--for the howling figure had disappeared.
'Was it a dream,' gasped Frants, 'or am I mad? Away, away from this scene of murder--but I knownowwhere I shall find that which I seek.'
He returned to Johanna, who was sitting quietly by the still sleeping child, and was reading the holy Scriptures.
Frants did not tell her what had taken place, and she was afraid to ask; he persuaded her to retire to rest, while he himself sat up all night to examine further the papers in the old Bible. The next day he carried them to a magistrate, and the whole case was brought before a court of justice for legal inquiry and judgment.
'Was I not right when I said that a coffin would come out of that house before the end of the year?' exclaimed the baker's wife at the corner of the street, to her daughter, when, some time after, a richly-ornamented coffin was borne out of Frants's house. The funeral procession, headed by Frants himself, was composed of all the joiners and most respectable artisans in the town, dressed in black.
'It is the coffin of old Mr. Flok,' said the baker's daughter, 'he is now going to bereallyburied, they say; I wonder if it be true that his bones were found under a tree in Mr. Stork's garden.'
'Quite true,' responded a fishwoman, setting down her creel, while she looked at the funeral procession.
'Young Mr. Frants had everything proved before the judge--and that avaricious old Stork will have to give up his ill-gotten goods.'
'Ay--and his ill-conducted life too, perhaps,' said the man who kept the little tavern near; 'if all be true that folks say, he murdered the worthy Mr. Flok.'
'I always thought that fellow would be hanged some day or other--he tried to cheat me whenever he could,' added the baker's wife.
'But they must catch him first,' said another; 'nothing has been seen of him these last three or four days.'
On Christmas-eve there sat a cheerful family in the late Mr. Flok's house near the canal. The child had quite recovered, and Frants, filling the old silver goblet with wine, drank many happy returns of the season to his dear Johanna.
'How little we expected a short time ago to be so comfortable now!' he exclaimed. 'Here we are, in our own house, which was intended for us by your kind uncle. I am no longer compelled to nail away alone at coffins until midnight, but can undertake more pleasant work, and keep apprentices and journeymen to assist me. My good old master's name is freed from reproach, and his remains now rest in consecrated ground, awaiting a blessed and joyful resurrection.'
The lumber-room with its fearful recollections was shut up. The outside of the house was painted anew--and the mysterious inscription on the wall, thus obliterated, never reappeared.
Frants had occasion one day, shortly after this favourable turn in their affairs, to cross the long bridge; and as he passed near the Dead-house for the drowned, he went up to the little window, saying to himself--'Now I can look in without any superstitious fears, for I know that my old master never drowned himself,--THAT foul stain is no longer attached to his memory; and his remains have at length obtained Christian burial.'
But when he glanced through the window he started back in horror, for the discoloured and swollen features of a dead man met his view, and in the dreadful-looking countenance before him, he recognized that of the murderer--Stork--who had been missing some time.
'Miserable being!' he exclaimed, 'and you have ended your guilty career by the same crime with which you charged an innocent man! None will miss you in this world except the executioner, whose office you have taken on yourself. I know that you had planned my death, but enemy as you were, I shall have you laid decently in the grave, and may the Almighty have mercy on your soul!'
Prosperity continued to attend the young couple--but the lessons of the past had taught them how unstable is all earthly good; the old family Bible--now a frequent and favourite study--became the guide of their conduct; and when their happiness was clouded by any misfortune, as all the happiness of this passing life must sometimes be, they resigned themselves without a murmur to the will of Providence, reminding each other of the watchman's song on that memorable night when all hope seemed to have abandoned them:
'Redeemer, grant Thy blessed helpTo make our burden light.'
'Redeemer, grant Thy blessed helpTo make our burden light.'
In a narrow cell sat one who was a prisoner for life. Around him were the four dingy walls, covered with great black characters, scratched thereon at sundry times with bits of charcoal: but there was no pleasure in reading these hieroglyphics, for they were the fruit of solitude and melancholy, whose heavy, heavy thoughts had thus expressed themselves. High up was placed the little window, the only connection with life, with nature, and with the heavens; but the black iron bars kept watch over that, and obscured the clear daylight. The links of his chain, round his hand and his foot, kept the prisoner bound in his dreary cage, but they could not fetter the soul's deep longing after liberty.
Days and years had passed in this gloomy cell. A charming, fresh summer's morning it was, when the door of this prison was first closed on him, and when he was told that Death alone should set him free. Here he had remained ever since; severed from the rest of mankind, shut up from them as if he had been a wild beast; and their farewell words to him had been--that Death alone was to be his deliverer. This was so dreadful a thought that he did all he could to drive it away. He worked diligently, he whistled, he sang, and he engraved strange names and figures on the walls. He frequently gazed up at the window, though he could only see through it a dead wall, but over that wall were the blue skies. He soon came to know every stone in the wall; he knew where the sun cast its streaks of light: where the little streams of water trickled down when it rained; there was more variety in the sky--it seemed to have compassion upon him, for sometimes the clouds were chased along by the wind; sometimes they assumed strange, fantastic shapes, and arrayed themselves in crimson and gold, like the gorgeous garb of royalty; and sometimes they hung in heavy, dark masses over the lofty wall--the boundary of his external world. But he saw no living things; and once, when a daring swallow rested for a few minutes on the outside ledge of his iron-barred window, he scarcely breathed, in his anxiety to enjoy the sight of it as long as possible.
Winter was his saddest time, forthenthe snow blocked up his little window, and intervened between him and the skies; then, too, it became so early dark, and daylight was so long of coming. He sang and whistled no longer; he worked, indeed, but not so diligently, for his tormentor--thought--had more power over him. During the short day he could partly escape it; but when it became dark--oh! what had it not then to recall to him! And the worst was, he was obliged to bear it all. He could have silenced another, but he could not hush the voice that spoke within himself. In vain he sought to banish remembrance; itwouldhaunt him: so he dropped his head upon his hands, and listened.
And it spoke to him of the time when he was a little boy with rosy cheeks, who had never done harm to a living being, and who sat or lay in the bright sunshine, humming the song his mother had taught him. And that mother, who loved him so dearly, who worked for him during the day, and slept with him at night--well! She was dead, God be praised! 'Perhaps if she had lived,' said he to himself. No, no! Does he not remember well one day, when the little boy with rosy cheeks was coming from school, that he passed a blind old man who was begging, and holding out his hat in his hand, that he dived quickly into the hat, and caught up the pence some charitable persons had placed in it? No one saw him--no one knew that he had done this--why does he now remember it with such bitter regret?
His mother died, and a neighbouring family received the orphan kindly; consoled and caressed him, and he slept by the side of their dog. But they were very poor themselves, and could not maintain him long; therefore he was sent to other people, where some one paid a small board for him, and where he, the little stranger, was far from being well treated. He had too little to eat--and he stole food; therefore he was ignominiously turned away, and he fell among wicked people. They talked to him of the paths of virtue--but they followed vicious courses themselves, and he laughed at their admonitions. He grew older, and he went to be confirmed[7]in the House of God; and there he was admitted to the Holy Sacrament. The priest laid his hand with blessings on his head, and he there pledged his heart to God, and vowed to forsake all sin. How comes it that he now so distinctly remembers the solemn tones of the organ as he was leaving the church, and the large painting of the Saviour close by the altar, which he had turned to look at once more before he passed from the crowded aisle? He had never been in that church again to pray--alas! never.
He had, indeed, been there again--but it was on another and a reprobate errand--andthenhe was young at that time, and reflected less. Ah!then, too, he thought more of the young and beautiful girl who had knelt next to him at the altar, and with whom he had afterwards taken a quiet walk. On other evenings he was wont to spend his time with some wild, bad companions, and to join in their giddy mirth and mischievous sports; but that evening, their company wearied and disgusted him, and he followed the young girl to her father's house. He had now become an apprentice: but he was careless and idle: to sit hard at work did not suit his taste. And yet these were pleasant days when he looked back on them.
He became a journeyman, and was betrothed to his pretty friend of the Confirmation-day. She had gone into service, and was a hard-working, honest, well-principled girl;hecontinued to be idle. Often and often she entreated him to be more industrious, to seek work, and not to waste his time on riot and strife; and often he promised to reform. But his only reformation was, that he took more pains to conceal from her his bad habits. When he was sitting with her, and her anxious look rested upon his dull eyes, or his faded cheek, he felt that it was time to stop in his career of evil, and resolved to become a steady and respectable workman. But these good resolutions vanished when he left her presence. At length the evil spirit within him conquered; he wanted money, and stole a watch from a fellow-workman. Then the arm of the law seized him, never again to let him go.
After he had undergone the punishment awarded to his theft, he came, abashed and with downcast eyes, to his betrothed; but she had heard of his guilt. With bitter tears she reproached him for his conduct, and she forbade him ever again to show himself in her presence. He was furious at her reception of him, and left her, vowing to be revenged. Many wild schemes rushed through his brain:--now he determined to murder her; now, that she should also be dragged into disgrace. But one day he met her in the street, and her pale, tearful, melancholy countenance disarmed his wrath, and annihilated his plans of revenge.
And now, as the prisoner scrawls absently with that rusty nail on the wall, and his sunken eyes fill with warm tears, what is memory recalling to his saddened mind? Ah! is it not that short-lived time of early affection--is it not those sweet, calm features--those speaking eyes--that love, so true and so pure? Perhaps his fancy paints himself as an honest, industrious citizen, as a happy husband and father, withherby his side, and in a very different place from that dreary cell--in a comfortable home, enjoying all that he so madly threw away--love, happiness and respectability! But his thoughts wander on; he throws the nail away from him, and leans back, with arms folded across his chest.
He left the town and went into the country. There was a voice in his soul which urged him to reform. 'Return, return!' it said; 'return, for there is yet time!' But another voice also spoke--that of the demon which enslaved him; and that demon was--THE HABIT OF IDLENESS. Unhappily he then fell in with a depraved wretch--a villain experienced in crime--an escaped convict. They wandered about among the peasantry and begged; but every door was closed against his companion, with unmistakable signs of terror and distrust.
One summer night they had taken shelter in a stable, and he had fallen fast asleep. He was awakened by his comrade. 'Get up,' said he, 'men will give us nothing--the Lord must help us, therefore.' He thought the man alluded to some intended theft, and accompanied him without the least reluctance. They stole along the gardens and fences on towards the churchyard. He stopped his guide.
'What are we to do here? 'he asked, with uneasiness. 'You surely will not--'
'What?' asked the other, laughing.
'Oh, let the dead rest in peace!'
'Fool!' cried the convict, 'do you think I am going to meddle with the dead? Follow me!'
And he scaled the walls of the churchyard, and broke open the Gothic door of the church. Now he understood what his companion meant to do; but his heart beat as if it would have started out of his breast. As he went up the aisle, he felt as if he had lead in his shoes--as if the flooring held him back at every step--as if it were a whole mile to reach the altar. He had not entered the house of God since the day he had been there to take upon himself his baptismal vow, and dedicate his life to his Creator; and now--now he stood there to plunder! His hands trembled violently, as he held open the sack for his comrade, who cast into it the silver cups, the silver salvers, and everything that he could find of value; and had it not been for fear of his ferocious associate, he would assuredly have thrown down the sack and fled, for he thought that the picture of Christ over the altar looked earnestly and reproachfully at him. When his companion looked up from his sacrilegious work, and observed his eyes fixed, as it were, by some fearful fascination on the picture, he nodded to it in a scoffing manner, and then closed the sack, and left the church.
When they were out of it, the prisoner breathed more freely; and when they placed themselves on a tombstone to divide the booty, he received without hesitation the portion that his comrade chose to allot to him. They buried their treasure in the earth, and separated. But the massive altar-plate could not easily be disposed of. He was in want; he begged from door to door, but he was driven from them all; so he had again recourse to stealing. Since the night that he had been drawn into robbing the church, he had felt that he was an outcast from the whole world--an outcast from God himself. He knew that punishment was sure to overtake him, and he was miserable. His companion in guilt was soon after arrested; he confessed all, and they were both imprisoned, and put to hard labour.
But he had not yet quite lost all hope. He determined to work in future for his daily bread. He came out of gaol a half-savage, half-frightened being--lonely and deserted--bearing upon him that brand of infamy which never more could be erased; but he had made up his mind to labour, and he went far away to seek for employment.
It was the harvest-time. God had blessed the fields, and there were not reapers enough to gather in the corn. No question was asked whence he came, but his services were immediately accepted. There was something in this display of the bounty of the Creator, in this activity, in this working in the free open air, that pleased him; for the first time in his life he toiled cheerfully. But the country people did not like him; his look was downcast and dark--he was rough and passionate, abrupt in speech, and he spoke little. After the farm-servants had one day proposed to him to go to church, and he had refused positively, but with an air of embarrassment, he was looked upon with great suspicion. There was but one face that always smiled at him, and that was the face of the youngest boy upon the farm. He had won the child's heart by having once cut out some little boats for him, and sailed them in the pond; and from that time the child always clapped his hands with joy when he saw him. It was so new, so delightful to him to be beloved, that he felt himself insensibly attracted towards the little creature. He indulged him in all his childish whims, carried him about in his arms, made toys for him, and seemed to feel himself well rewarded by the innocent child's attachment.
Thus passed the winter. Peace, hitherto unknown to him, was creeping into his heart; and when he stood in spring on the fields with the sprouting seeds, and heard the lark's blithe carol, a new light began to dawn on his benighted mind. One day, when he returned from the fields towards the farm-yard, his little friend ran up to him, jumping and playing. He stretched out his arms to the child, but in an instant he started back, pale and horror-stricken. His former associate stood before him, with a malignant smile upon his sinister countenance, and held out his hand to him, while he said, in a tone of bitter irony,--
'So, from all I hear, you are playing the honest man in the place! Excuse me for interrupting your rural content, but I have been longing so much for you.'
'Away, demon!' cried the unfortunate man. 'Go, go, and leave me in peace!'
'Not so fast!' replied the other, with a withering sneer. 'I have told the people of the farm who you are. Do you think I am going to lose so useful a comrade?'
At that moment the grandfather of the child came up, and when he saw the little boy in the arms of him whom he had just been told was a malefactor, he snatched him hurriedly away, in spite of the child's tears and cries; and applying many abusive epithets to the man, ordered him instantly to leave the farm. The disturber of his peace carried him off with him, while his fiendish laughter rang around!
See! the prisoner's chest is heaving with emotion. Hark! what deep sighs seem to rend his heart, while a few scalding tears are falling from his eyes! Of what is he dreaming now?
He sees himself, in the grey dawn of day, stealthily creeping along the hedges that surround the farm, to catch a glimpse of his little favourite. He beholds the infant's soft cheek wet with the tears of affection; he feels his tiny arms clasped lightly round his neck; the kind words of farewell ring in his ears; he listens again for the sound of the retiring little footsteps, as the child is leaving him, and sees the little hand waving to him a last adieu from the door of his mother's house. As he then threw himself down beneath the hedge on the dewy grass, and burst into tears, he now hides his face on his hard pallet, and sobs aloud.
But he has risen from that recumbent position. He wrings his hands, and his teeth chatter, in his solitary cell. What horror is passing through his mind? What agonizing remembrance has seized him, and is shaking soul and body, as the roaring tempest shakes the falling leaves? Let it stand forth from its dark concealment! In vain he presses his hands on his bloodshot eyes not to behold that scene--in vain he tries to close his ears against those voices--the blackest night of his gloomy prison cannot veilthatpicture, for it arises from the darkest depths of his inmost soul.
Listen how his evil-minded associate tempts him, and draws him on!
'Yon old man at the farm has plenty of money--ready money--do you hear? Do you think I lost my time there? His daughter and her husband are his heirs; they do not need his gold so much as we do. The old man sleeps in that low house near the larger one. It is but a step through the window, and we shall be rich for a long time.'
'But what if he should awake, and recognize us?' asked the prisoner, with much anxiety.
The other made a gesture which shocked him. He started back.
'No, no!' he cried, shuddering; 'no blood!'
His companion laughed.
'What matters it whether the old man dies a few days sooner or later? People have generally no objection to the death of those to whom they are to be heirs. And have you forgotten how roughly he spoke to you? How he abused you, and drove you away? At that time I am sure you thirsted for revenge. Besides, how are you going to live? Perhaps you think you may find some good-natured fool to take a fancy to you; but you forget thatIlike you too well to separate from you.'
Want, fear, revengeful feelings, got the better of him; but at night, when like two spectres they glided along the road, it seemed to him constantly as if some one saw him; and notwithstanding his companion's ridicule, he frequently looked back. And truly there was ONE who watched him, but not with any mortal eye. They opened the window, and got in one after the other, and easily found the old man's desk, which was in the next room. The robber's practised hand soon opened it, and he was about to take its contents, when the door of the bedroom was suddenly thrown back and rapidly shut, and the old man, who was still hale and strong, entered, armed with a thick cudgel. A short but furious struggle ensued; he remembered having seized him by the back of his neck with both his hands, and dragged him down on the floor; he remembered having heard some dull blows, that made him shiver with horror, and then having stood in breathless dismay by a dead body. The two criminals looked at each other with faces of ashy hue; then the most hardened kicked the corpse to one side, and went to secure the booty, while the prisoner opened the door of the sleeping-room to search it.
But--oh, anguish unspeakable! oh, avenging God!--who should spring forward to meet him, clinging to his knees and imploring his protection--who but his innocent, unfortunate little favourite! He started back, speechless and powerless; but when he beheld his comrade, without uttering one word, brandish his knife, he clasped the child with one arm in a convulsive embrace, and stretched out the other to defend him against the ruffian.
'Shall he be left to betray us both to-morrow?' mumbled the wretch. 'He must die, for your sake as well as mine.'
'Oh, let us take him with us!' prayed the other, in the deepest agitation, while he tried to keep off the knife, which, however, he did with difficulty, as the child held fast to his arm, and, in his terror at the murderous weapon, hid his little face on that breast where he had so often rested in happy confidence, his silver voice murmuring his childish love.
'You are mad,' said his companion. 'What should we do with the boy? Let go your hold of him, I say--we have no time to lose--let him go, or it will cost you your own life.'
The quivering lips of the miserable man had scarcely uttered a prayer to wait, at least, till he could withdraw, when the child was torn from him, and like a maniac he rushed away, sprang out of the window, threw himself upon the ground, and buried his head among the long damp grass. What a moment of agony! Such agony, that at the remembrance of it the prisoner groaned aloud, and dashed his head against the stone wall, then coiled himself up like a worm, as if he would fain have shrunk into nothing.
The dear-bought, blood-stained booty was divided, and the criminal associates separated. But suspicion fell upon them; they were pursued, and soon taken. On being carried before a magistrate, he denied it all; yet when he was placed by the dead body of the murdered child, guilt spoke in his stiff, averted head--in the tell-tale perspiration that stood on his brow--and in his clenched and trembling hands. He confessed, and implored to be removed, even to prison, from the harrowing spectacle. His accomplice was condemned to death, he himself to imprisonment for life.
There he was now, alone with the dreadful recollections of former days. The summer came and went, without bringing any other joy to him than that the sun's rays fell broader, and more golden in their gleams upon the wall outside that bounded his narrow view; and that now and then a bird would fly over it, quiver a few notes, then wing its flight away. That sight always awoke a voice in his heart that cried for 'Freedom--freedom!' But he would hush it with the thought, that he could not be happier were he at liberty than in his dungeon cell. At other times, he would take a violent longing to see a green leaf--only a single green leaf--or a corn-blossom from the fields, or a blade of grass. Ah! these were vain wishes! When winter came, and the sun and the daylight forsook him so soon, he was still more gloomy, for he could not sleep the whole of the long, long night, and the phantoms that haunted him were terrific.
Once--it was a Christmas night--he was reflecting on all the joy that was abroad in the world, and he thought if it would not be possible for him to pray. Then long-forgotten words returned to his lips, and he faltered out, 'Our Father, which art in heaven!'--butthenhe stopped.
'God is in heaven,' thought he, 'how can He condescend to hear the sigh that arises from the hell within my breast? No, no--it is but mocking Him formeto pray!'
Days and years had gone by since the prisoner had inhaled the breath of the fresh balmy air, had beheld the extended vault of heaven, or wandered in the bright, warm sunshine; at length the spirit had exhausted the body. He lay ill and feeble, and death was near. Then was the narrow door of his dungeon opened, and he was removed to a more cheerful place--to a place where the blessed air and light were freely admitted, and where the voices of human beings were around him. But their compassion came too late. Earnestly did he entreat them to let him see a minister of the Gospel; and when one came, he poured out the misery of his soul to him. He listened with the deepest attention while the holy man discoursed about Him, who, in His boundless love, shed His own blood to wash out the sins of mankind, and in whose name even the darkest and most guilty criminal might dare to raise his blood-stained hands in prayer. How consoling were not these precious words to him, 'My God and my Saviour! With what an earnest longing he waited to be permitted to participate in that solemn rite which, by grace and faith, was to unite him to that Redeemer! And how he trembled lest the lamp of his mortal life should be extinguished before the first spark of that sacred flame was lighted, which was to be kindled for an endless eternity!
The time that his repentant spirit so thirsted for arrived. And when he had partaken of the holy communion, and tears of penitent sorrow had streamed over his burning cheeks, peace--long unknown--returned to his weary heart, and his gratitude found vent in thanksgivings and prayer.
'Oh!' he exclaimed, as he looked out of his open window, 'it is spring, my friends--I feel that it is spring, beautiful spring!'
'Yes,' replied the superintendent of the hospital, 'it is spring; even the old tree by the wall is green. See here, as I passed it, I broke off this budding twig for you;' and he placed the little green branch in the hand of the dying man.
'Oh!' said he, with a melancholy smile and a tear in his eye, 'that old, decayed, withered tree--can it put forth new leaves--fresh, green, sweetly scented as these? May I not then venture to hope that the Almighty may call forth a new life from me in another world? Oh, that such may be His will!'
And with the green bough--the proof of God's power and goodness in his hand, and with his Redeemer's promise on his lips, he passed to his everlasting doom, in the blessed hope that he also might touch the hem of his Saviour's garment, and hear these words of life--'Son, thy sins be forgiven thee!'