A There is no surer way of ascertaining the State from which an American comes, than by his thinkings and guessings. The New-Englander guesses, the Virginians and Pennsylvanians think, the Kentuckian calculates, the man of Alabama reckons.
B The Mussel shoals are broad ridges of rocks, above Florence, which spread out into the Tennessee.
C A corruption of Bourgogne, Burgundy wine.
D John Quincy Adams, then president of the United States.
E The Greeks, who at that time were struggling for their independence, had received various succours from the United States. The Creeks are a well-known tribe of Indians on the frontiers of Georgia.
F Turk’s island is a small island from which the Western States, North and South Carolina, Georgia, &c., get their salt.
The most poetical chronicler would find it impossible to render the incidents of Montrose’s brilliant career more picturesque than the reality. Among the devoted champions who, during the wildest and most stormy period of our history, maintained the cause of Church and King, “the Great Marquis” undoubtedly is entitled to the foremost place. Even party malevolence, by no means extinct at the present day, has been unable to detract from the eulogy pronounced upon him by the famous Cardinal de Retz, the friend of Condé and Turenne, when he thus summed up his character:—“Montrose, a Scottish nobleman, head of the house of Grahame—the only man in the world that has ever realized to me the ideas of certain heroes, whom we now discover nowhere but in the Lives of Plutarch—has sustained in his own country the cause of the King his master, with a greatness of soul that has not found its equal in our age.”
But the success of the victorious leader and patriot, is almost thrown into the shade by the noble magnanimity and Christian heroism of the man in the hour of defeat and death. It is impossible now to obliterate the darkest page of Scottish history, which we owe to the vindictive cruelty of the Covenanters—a party venal in principle, pusillanimous in action, and more than dastardly in their revenge; but we can peruse it with the less disgust, since that very savage spirit which planned the woful scenes connected with the final tragedy of Montrose, has served to exhibit to the world, in all time to come, the character of the martyred nobleman in by far its loftiest light.
There is no ingredient of fiction in the historical incidents recorded in the following ballad. The indignities that were heaped upon Montrose during his procession through Edinburgh, his appearance before the Estates, and his last passage to the scaffold, as well as his undaunted bearing, have all been spoken to by eyewitnesses of the scene. A graphic and vivid sketch of the whole will be found in Mr Mark Napier’s volume, “The Life and Times of Montrose”—a work as chivalrous in its tone as the Chronicles of Froissart, and abounding in original and most interesting materials; but, in order to satisfy all scruple, the authorities for each fact are given in the shape of notes. The ballad may be considered as a narrative of the transactions, related by an aged Highlander, who had followed Montrose throughout his campaigns, to his grandson, shortly before the splendid victory of Killiecrankie:—
W. E. A.
A “The contemporary historian of the Earls of Sutherland records, that (after the defeat of Invercarron) Montrose and Kinnoull ‘wandered up the river Kyle the whole ensuing night, and the next day, and the third day also, without any food or sustenance, and at last came within the country of Assynt. The Earl of Kinnoull, being faint for lack of meat, and not able to travel any further, was left there among the mountains, where it was supposed he perished. Montrose had almost famished, but that he fortuned in his misery to light upon a small cottage in that wilderness, where he was supplied with some milk and bread.’ Not even the iron frame of Montrose could endure a prolonged existence under such circumstances. He gave himself up to Macleod of Assynt, a former adherent, from whom he had reason to expect assistance in consideration of that circumstance, and, indeed, from the dictates of honourable feeling and common humanity. As the Argyle faction had sold the King, so this Highlander rendered his own name infamous by selling the hero to the Covenanters, for which ‘duty to the public’ he was rewarded with four hundred bolls of meal.”—Napier’s Life of Montrose.
B “Friday, 17th May.—Act ordaining James Grahame to be brought from the Watergate on a cart, bareheaded, the hangman in his livery, covered, riding on the horse that draws the cart—the prisoner to be bound to the cart with a rope—to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and from thence to be brought to the Parliament House, and there, in the place of delinquents, on his knees, to receive his sentence—viz., to be hanged on a gibbet at the Cross of Edinburgh, with his book and declaration tied on a rope about his neck, and there to hang for the space of three hours until he be dead; and thereafter to be cut down by the hangman, his head, hands, and legs to be cut off, and distributed as follows—viz., His head to be affixed on an iron pin, and set on the pinnacle of the west gavel of the new prison of Edinburgh; one hand to be set on the port of Perth, the other on the port of Stirling; one leg and foot on the port of Aberdeen, the other on the port of Glasgow. If at his death penitent, and relaxed from excommunication, then the trunk of his body to be interred, by pioneers, in the Greyfriars; otherwise, to be interred in the Boroughmuir, by the hangman’s men, under the gallows.”—Balfour’s Notes of Parliament.
It is needless to remark that this inhuman sentence was executed to the letter. In order that the exposure might be more complete, the cart was constructed with a high chair in the centre, having holes behind, through which the ropes that fastened him were drawn. The author of the Wigton Papers, recently published by the Maitland Club, says, “the reason of his being tied to the cart was in hope that the people would have stoned him, and that he might not be able by his hands to save his face.” His hat was then pulled off by the hangman, and the procession commenced.
C “In all the way, there appeared in him such majesty, courage, modesty—and even somewhat more than natural—that those common women who had lost their husbands and children in his wars, and who were hired to stone him, were upon the sight of him so astonished and moved, that their intended curses turned into tears and prayers; so that next day all the ministers preached against them for not stoning and reviling him.”—Wigton Papers.
D “It is remarkable, that of the many thousand beholders, the Lady Jean Gordon, Countess of Haddington, did (alone) publicly insult and laugh at him; which being perceived by a gentleman in the street, he cried up to her, that it became her better to sit upon the cart for her adulteries.”—Wigton Papers. This infamous woman was the third daughter of Huntly, and the niece of Argyle. It will hardly be credited that she was the sister of that gallant Lord Gordon, who fell fighting by the side of Montrose, only five years before, at the battle of Aldford!
E “The Lord Lorn and his new lady were also sitting on a balcony, joyful spectators; and the cart being stopt when it came before the lodging where the Chancellor, Argyle, and Warristoun sat—that they might have time to insult—he, suspecting the business, turned his face towards them, whereupon they presently crept in at the windows: which being perceived by an Englishman, he cried up, it was no wonder they started aside at his look, for they durst not look him in the face these seven years bygone.”—Wigton Papers.
F Archibald Johnston of Warristoun. This man, who was the inveterate enemy of Montrose, and who carried the most selfish spirit into every intrigue of his party, received the punishment of his treasons about eleven years afterwards. It may be instructive to learn how he met his doom. The following extract is from the MSS. of Sir George Mackenzie:—“The Chancellor and others waited to examine him; he fell upon his face, roaring, and with tears entreated they would pity a poor creature who had forgot all that was in the Bible. This moved all the spectators with a deep melancholy; and the Chancellor, reflecting upon the man’s great parts, former esteem, and the great share he had in all the late revolutions, could not deny some tears to the frailty of silly mankind. At his examination, he pretended he had lost so much blood by the unskilfulness of his chirurgeons, that he lost his memory with his blood; and I really believe that his courage had been drawn out with it. Within a few days he was brought before the parliament, where he discovered nothing but much weakness, running up and down upon his knees, begging mercy; but the parliament ordained his former sentence to be put to execution, and accordingly he was executed at the cross of Edinburgh.”
G “He said he was much beholden to the parliament for the honour they put on him; ‘for,’ says he, ‘I think it a greater honour to have my head standing on the port of this town, for this quarrel, than to have my picture in the king’s bedchamber. I am beholden to you, that, lest my loyalty should be forgotten, ye have appointed five of your most eminent towns to bear witness of it to posterity.’”—Wigton Papers.
H “In his downgoing from the Tolbooth to the place of execution, he was very richly clad in fine scarlet, laid over with rich silver lace, his hat in his hand, his bands and cuffs exceeding rich, his delicate white gloves on his hands, his stockings of incarnate silk, and his shoes with their ribands on his feet; and sarks provided for him with pearling about, above ten pund the elne. All these were provided for him by his friends, and a pretty cassock put on upon him, upon the scaffold, wherein he was hanged. To be short, nothing was here deficient to honour his poor carcase, more beseeming a bridegroom than a criminal going to the gallows.”—Nicholl’s Diary.
I The Presbyterian ministers beset Montrose both in prison and on the scaffold. The following extracts are from the diary of the Rev. Robert Traill, one of the persons who were appointed by the commission of the kirk “to deal with him:”—“By a warrant from the kirk, we staid a while with him about his soul’s condition. But we found him continuing in his old pride, and taking very ill what was spoken to him, saying, ‘I pray you, gentlemen, let me die in peace.’ It was answered, that he might die in true peace, being reconciled to the Lord and to his kirk.”—“We returned to the commission, and did show unto them what had passed amongst us. They, seeing that for the present he was not desiring relaxation from his censure of excommunication, did appoint Mr Mungo Law and me to attend on the morrow on the scaffold, at the time of his execution, that, in case he should desire to be relaxed from his excommunication, we should be allowed to give it unto him in the name of the kirk, and to pray with him, and for him, that what is loosed in earth might be loosed in heaven.” But this pious intention, which may appear somewhat strange to the modern Calvinist, when the prevailing theories of the kirk regarding the efficacy of absolution are considered, was not destined to be fulfilled. Mr Traill goes on to say, “But he did not at all desire to be relaxed from his excommunication in the name of the kirk, yea, did not look towards that place on the scaffold where we stood; only he drew apart some of the magistrates, and spake a while with them, and then went up the ladder, in his red scarlet cassock, in a very stately manner.”
J “He was very earnest that he might have the liberty to keep on his hat; it was denied: he requested he might have the privilege to keep his cloak about him—neither could that be granted. Then, with a most undaunted courage, he went up to the top of that prodigious gibbet.”—“The whole people gave a general groan; and it was very observable, that even those who at his first appearance had bitterly inveighed against him, could not now abstain from tears.”—Montrose Redivivus.
It was towards the close of an autumnal evening, in the commencement of the sixteenth century, that a crowd of human beings was dispersing from the old market-place of Hammelburg, an ancient and, at that time, considerable town of Franconia, after witnessing the performance of a hideous and living tragedy. The Ober-Amtmann, or governor of the town, who had presided over the awful occasion, had left, attended by his schreibers, or secretaries, the small balustraded terrace which advanced out before the elevated entrance of the old Gothic town-hall. The town-guard were receding in various directions, warning the crowd to seek their homes, and sometimes aiding with a gentle admonition of their pike-heads those who lingered, as, slowly retreating, they moved down the different narrow streets that led from the central market-place, like streams flowing off in different channels after an inundation. Window after window was closing in the quaintly-carved and strangely-decorated gables of the houses; and many a small casement had been pulled to, over sundry withered old faces, that, peering from the dark and narrow aperture, and illumined by the glaring light that had filled the market-place, had resembled some darkly-traced picture placed against the opening. In the middle of the square still smoked, in a heavy volume of cloud, the last gleaming ashes of a lately blazing pile, still filling the air with a noisome stench. The night was closing darkly in, and one human being alone seemed yet to linger in the market-place.
It would have been difficult, indeed, to discover that the dark object just discernible upon the edge of the blackened mass of smoking cinders really was a human being, so shapeless was the form, so strangely was it crouched down before the spot where the pile had been consumed. From time to time only an upward-flung movement of two thin arms, as if in the violent emotion of earnest prayer or deprecation, showed that this object was a living thing; until, when the moon rose from behind the old town-hall, disengaging itself, ever and anon, from among the heavy clouds of a gathering storm, its light fell full upon this indistinct apparition, and revealed the form of a man, curiously bent together in a half-squatting, half-kneeling position. His head was bare. His long tangled black locks hung around a swarthy face, young still in years, but worn and withered, and prematurely aged by sickness, sorrow, or violence of passion—perhaps by the constant operation of all three. At this moment it was ghastly pale, and bore the marks of the faintness and exhaustion attendant upon a reaction after intense excitement. The dress of this creature was not the usual costume of the lower classes, and consisted almost entirely of a ragged and soiled garment of coarse brown linen, made somewhat in the shape of a modern blouse, and bound round his waist by a coarse leathern band. Around his neck hung a square bag, or satchel, which at once designated his calling to be that of a common beggar, privileged by the religious authorities of the place. The stoop of his broad shoulders, between which the head was deeply sunk, told a tale of long sickness, which had broken a frame originally bold and strong, and given a peculiarly ill-favoured appearance to a form naturally well built; and when he arose from his squatting posture, the bent and withered appearance of his crooked legs, which no longer possessed sufficient strength to support the bulkier frame above, gave painful evidence that the wretched man had suffered cruelly from those common scourges of his class at that period—rheumatism and ague. Clasped between his hands was a rosary of wood; and, as he rose, he pressed it to his lips, and then deposited it in the upper part of his garment.
“No, no!” exclaimed the cripple aloud, when he had staggered to his feet. “No, it is not vengeance—it is not, God knows; although the malevolence of those hideous and accursed hags, those lemans of Satan”—and he spat upon the ground—“have made me the wretched outcast of humanity I am. The blood of the foul one has been shed for His glory only, and that of the blessed Virgin, to the destruction of the arch-enemy of mankind and his delusions!”
“Thou knowest it is so,” he added, again clutching forth the rosary from his bosom, which, after gazing upon a rude personification of the Virgin, stamped upon a tiny plate of copper at the end of the string of beads, and devoutly making the sign of the cross, he returned to its usual depository.
“I have cried against the handmaid of Beelzebub—uttering cry for cry as she shrieked out her wretched soul. I have prayed earnestly and long, and I am athirst,” continued the cripple, as he dragged his distorted limbs with difficulty over the rough stones towards a large covered well, which occupied the lower part of the market-place.
As the beggar approached the parapet of the well, to drink from one of the buckets which reposed upon its edge, he became first aware of the presence of another human being. Half-concealed behind one of the twisted columns that supported the Gothic pavilion above, sat upon the parapet a female figure, dressed in a black garb of such a form and nature, that, without being the exact costume of any known religious order, it bore a monastic character. Her face, as she sat with her head bent down over her clasped hands, in an attitude of mournful humiliation, was fully concealed by a black hood. But when, upon the approach of the beggar, she started up hastily, as if impelled by feelings of horror and disgust, the moon shone full upon her, and revealed the features of a woman of an advanced period of life, who formerly might have possessed much beauty, although now so washed out by tears, and furrowed by sorrow, that the whole character of her face was changed. Her years, too, were probably very much fewer than her appearance denoted, for the signs of age upon her face bore less the marks of time than of mental suffering. The symptoms of aversion which her manner displayed upon the beggar’s approach, although instinctive and involuntary, and almost immediately restrained, had not escaped his eye. His features expressed the bitter resentment of his heart at this insult, and worked with ill-repressed feelings of anger and spite.
“Ha! Mother Magdalena—it is thou! Why flinchest thou at my approach? Hast thou cause to fear me, then?” exclaimed the cripple with a sneer, as he drew nearer.
The female thus addressed shuddered at the sound of his voice; and, hastily pulling her dark hood more closely over her face, endeavoured to pass on without reply; but the beggar caught her by the arm.
“Not so fast, beldam!” he cried. “I would have a word with thee. Dost thou not know me?”
“Not know thee!” exclaimed the dark female. “Who in this wretched town does not know Schwartzer Claus, the witchfinder? What wouldst thou with me? Let me go!”
“Why dost thou tremble, then, and turn away thy head?” continued the cripple. “Why does Black Claus, the witchfinder—since such thou callest me—make thee shudder thus in every limb? The innocent have no cause to fear.”
“Thou askest me why I shudder?” said Magdalena in an excited tone, forgetting in her agitation her purpose of self-control. “Thou hast forced me to speak, and I will tell thee. Is not thy hand yet reeking with the bloody ashes of thy last victim? Has not a seventh unhappy woman suffered this very day a cruel death at the stake upon thy hideous denunciation; and thou askest me why I shudder?”
“Beware, woman—beware!” cried the witchfinder, lifting up his long right arm with a gesture of menace. “Those who defend the evil-doer, and malign the just and heaven-directed accuser, are not far from being arraigned as accomplices themselves!”
“What! thou seekest already another innocent sacrifice, wretched man!” continued the female, tearing away her arm, which the beggar still held clenched in his left hand. “Thou art not sated with the innocent blood thy false witness has this day shed?”
“It is a lie!—it is a damning lie!” screamed the cripple, foaming with passion. “I have borne no false witness! Besides, did not she avow her deeds of darkness? did she not confess her complicity with the spirits of hell, and her harlotries with the arch-deceiver of mankind?”
“Ay! when, tortured in mind and body, her poor weak old head gave way, and she unconsciously affirmed all that her torturers had for hours past been pressing upon her wavering understanding. Ye had driven her mad, poor wretch!”
“’Tis false again!—’tis false!” repeated the witchfinder. “The truth spoke out of her at last, when her treacherous paramour, the demon, had deserted her. God’s glory and that of the holy church, for which I work, had triumphed over the powers of darkness.”
“Thou serve the holy church! Hear not the blasphemy, O Lord!” cried the excited woman, raising up her hands to heaven. “Thou, miserable wretch! who, for the favour of the Amtmann or the priest, for the pittance bestowed on thee in reward of thy discovery of the supposed foul practices of witchery and magic, art ever ready to sell the innocent blood of the aged, helpless, and infirm!”
“For the lucre of gain!” screamed the cripple, but in a tone as much of despair at this accusation as of wrath. “For the lucre of gain! No—no; as God is my judge, it is not! My motives are pure; God and the Holy Virgin know they are! It is not even a spirit of revenge that instigates me. No—no! it cannot be; it is not! If the words of my mouth have condemned and killed, it is because my voice was uplifted in the cause of religion, and to the confusion of the prince of evil!” But as he spoke, the beggar covered his face with his hands, with a shudder, as though there passed in his soul a struggle with himself—a doubt of his own real motives.
Magdalena was about to quit in haste her dangerous companion, when a sentiment of pity at the sight of the cripple’s evident emotion seemed to mingle strangely with her disgust and aversion to the witchfinder. It was even with an uncontrollable feeling of interest that she stopped for a moment to look upon the wretched man.
After a pause, the beggar removed his hands from his face, and uttering in a low tone the words, “I thirst,” staggered to the edge of the well, and seized the bucket within his hands. He bent over it but for a moment to drink, and could scarcely have swallowed many mouthfuls, before, flinging back the bucket into the well, he started up, and spat the water from his mouth.
“Horror!” he said, with a look of mingled terror and insanity—“it tastes of blood!”
“It is thy own conscience, poor man, that troubles the taste of the fresh element,” said Magdalena solemnly; “the water is pure and sweet!”
“Thou hast done this, old hag!” cried the witchfinder wildly; unheeding her remark. “Thou hast corrupted the waters at the source. Why did I find thee sitting here, cowering over the surface of the well, if it were not to cast malefick spells upon the water, and turn it into poison—in order to give ills, and ails, and blains, and aches, and pains, and sickness, and death to thy fellow-creatures? Ha! ha! I have long thought it. Thou also art one of the accursed ones!”
“Thou ravest, miserable wretch!” replied the female; “thou knowest not what thou utterest. God forgive thee, cripple, thy wicked thought, and change thy perverted mind!”
She was again about to turn away, and leave her angry questioner, when, fearing the result of the evil feeling now fully excited in the witchfinder’s mind, she again paused to excuse herself in the eyes of the dangerous man, and added—
“Thou canst not mean what thou sayest, Claus; I sat by the well but to cool my heated brow in the night-air, and taste the breath of heaven; for my mind was saddened, and my head whirled, with the horrors that this day has witnessed.”
But her words were but oil upon the flame, and only served to augment the wild infatuation of the witchfinder.
“Ah! thy mind was saddened! Thou hadst pity for that vile hag of hell! Was she thy comrade? Perchance thou hadst fear for thyself? Thou thought’st thy own time might come? Thy own time will come, old Magdalena. My eye is upon thee and thy dark practices; it has been upon thee since thou camest, unknown and unacknowledged, to this place, none could tell when, and whence, and how. Ay, my eye is upon thee, and—beware!”
Willingly would the woman now have shrunk away before the maddened witchfinder’s objurgation; but the wild accusation thus thundered against her froze her with terror, and riveted her to the spot.
“I have marked thee well,” continued the frantic man, “and I have seen thee pause upon the threshold of the holy house of God, and kneel in mockery upon the steps before it: but thou hast never dared to enter it. Thou knewest well that the devil thou servest would have torn thee in pieces hadst thou done it. Ha! do I catch thee there?” he continued, as at these words the woman buried her face between her hands.
“Thou canst not deny it!” shouted the witchfinder with an air of triumph.
“God best judges the motives of the heart,” murmured Magdalena.
“I will tell thee more, vile hag, and thou shalt hear it face to face,” pursued the cripple, seizing the poor woman’s arms with his long bony fingers, and dragging her hands from before her face, in spite of her efforts at resistance. “Thou watchest at street corners and in doorways, on the bridge or on the causeway, to see fair Fraulein Bertha, the Ober-Amtmann’s daughter, ride past upon her ambling jennet, or mount the church-steps, her missal in her hand. Thou watchest her to cast thy spells upon her. Thou hatest her for her youth and beauty and spotless purity, like all thy wretched tribe, whom the sight of innocence and brightness sickens to the heart’s core. Thou wouldst fascinate her with thy eye of evil and thy deadly incantations.”
The moon, the light of which still struggled faintly through the fast-accumulating clouds, shone for a moment upon the face of old Magdalena, as the cripple pronounced these words. Her features were more deadly pale than usual, and convulsed with an excess of agitation at this mention of Bertha’s name, which she evidently struggled to control in vain.
“Ah! I have thee there again!” screamed Claus in triumph a second time. “Already have I seen her cheek grow pale, her head bow down like a blighted flower, her walk become weary with faintness. Hast thou already been at thy filthy machinations? But Black Claus, the witchfinder, is there to wrestle with the powers of evil. And hear me! That fair sweet girl is the only comfort of my wretched life. My soul grows calm and soothed when I look upon that lovely face. A ray of sunshine gleams upon the darkness of my path when her smile beams upon me. My heart leaps within me for joy when her small white hand drops an offering into my beggar’s bowl. She is my only life, my only joy, and my guardian angel. And couldst thou harm her, woman, no torment should be too horrible for thee, body and soul. The chains of the stake still lie upon the market-place—the ashes of yon pile still reek with heat; and the pile shall rise again, the chains shall bind once more. Wretched hag! I bid thee again beware!”
As with one hand the raving witchfinder pointed to the spot where one unhappy woman had already perished that day, a victim to the superstition of the times, Magdalena, who, during his praise of the fair girl, had again looked at him with awakened interest, disengaged herself from the other. “God’s will be done!” she said with humility. “I am prepared for all. But thou, unhappy man!” she continued, “beware in turn, lest, before thou hast time to repent thee of the hardness and cruelty of thy heart, His judgement fall on thee, and his justice punish thee.”
She spoke with hand upraised to heaven; and then, pulling her hood over her face, hurried from the market-place.
The witchfinder gazed after her, fixed to the spot, and for a moment awe-struck by her words. As he still stood struggling with his various passions, the storm, which had been gathering ever since sunset, began to burst over his head. The rain came down in torrents.
“Ah! was it that?” screamed the beggar, with a fit of wild laughter. “The miserable old beldam! she stretched out her finger to the sky, and it was to bring down these waterspouts upon my head. Curses on the foul malicious fiend!” And he spat upon the ground, as if to exorcise the evil spirit.
“But I must find shelter,” he murmured. “Already pains rack my limbs; my bones ache; a shudder runs through my frame! The old hag has worked her spell upon me. Apage, Sathanas! Anathema!”
Speaking thus, the wretched man shuffled along as fast as the crippled state of his limbs, and the acute pains of rheumatism, which the damp night-air had again brought upon him, would allow him to proceed. He staggered to the shelter of a doorway, which was placed under the advancing terrace of the town-hall, and between two staircases which descended on either side on to the market-place. The protruding vault of the Gothic archway afforded him some refuge from the storm, which now burst down with increased violence. But the excited witchfinder’s brain seemed to wander, as he caught an indistinct vision of the gaping jaws of the dragons and other grotesque monsters, which protruded as waterspouts from the roofs of the surrounding houses, and now disgorged torrents of rain.
“Spit, spit, ye devils all!” he shouted aloud. “Ye cannot reach me here. Ha! ha! rage, storm, spew forth your venom, do the bidding of your mistress—I defy you!” And as the wind swept round the corners of the building, and spattered some of the water of the gushing cataracts in his face, he cried, “Avaunt!” as if speaking to a living thing, and, clinging to the bars of an aperture in the upper part of the door, turned away his face.
As he thus came to look upon the strongly-barred opening in the door, the current of his ideas changed. Within was the small and wretched prison of the town, which just occupied the space of the terrace above—a miserable hole.
“There she lay this morning,” he murmured, looking into the interior, which was now in utter darkness, and quite empty—“there she lay, old Martha Dietz, and called in vain upon the demon who deserted her. There have lain all the foul hags who tortured my poor aching limbs. There shall she lie also, the scoffer and reviler, the worker of evil. The witchfinder will be revenged. Revenge! no, no! He will do the work of the holy church. Who shall say the contrary? Not thou, old Martha—nor thou—nor thou. If ye say so, ye lie in death, as ye have lied in life. Ay! glare upon me with your lack-lustre eyes. Ye are powerless now, though ye are there, and make mouths at me. One—two—three—God stand by me! There they are—all seven!”
With a wild scream of horror, the cripple covered his eyes with his hands, and rushed forth into the tempest.
Situated in the picturesque and fertile valley of the Saale, the town of Hammelburg stands upon a gentle declivity, commanding one of the numerous windings of the river, and sloping downwards to its banks. A part of the old walls of the town is thus bathed by the waters of the stream, which, calm and peaceful in the summer months, become tumultuous, and even dangerous, during rainy weather, or after the melting of the snows. From the ancient gateway of the town on the river side, a triple bridge of great length and many arches, which, in the dry season, seems to occupy a most unnecessary space across the narrower waters, but which, at other times, scarce suffices to span the extent of the invading inundation, affords a communication with the high-road.
At the commencement of the sixteenth century, this bridge was only constructed of wood, and although put together with rude strength, ill-sufficed to resist the force of the torrents, and had been repeatedly swept before them.
Not far from the town gateway that commanded this bridge, stood a huge mansion, constructed as a palace for the Prince Bishops of Fulda, the sovereign rulers of the district; although, at the period in question, it had been ceded to the Ober-Amtmann, a near relation of the reigning bishop, as his official dwelling. On the side of this ancient palace furthest removed from the town gate, ran, along the river’s banks, its spacious gardens, abutting at their extremity upon the premises of an extensive Benedictine monastery, from which they were only separated by a narrow lane, that led from the town to the river. At the very angle of this lane, where it opened by a small water-gate upon a narrow towing-path, skirting alike the town-walls and the banks of the stream, there stood a low building attached to the monastery, the upper story of which thus overlooked the old gardens of the palace on the one hand, and, on the other, the river banks.
At one of the windows of this humble dwelling, that which overlooked the palace gardens, stood a young man, intently gazing through its small octagon panes. Two or three times he turned away with a heavy sigh, as if wearied with long and vain watching, and as often returned again to his previous occupation. At length the opening of the door of the room startled him from his position; and as if ashamed of being caught in the act of looking out, he hurried to a table in the middle of the room, and flung himself into an old chair.
The various objects with which the table was covered, as well as those which filled and littered the room in all directions, clearly designated the young man’s employment to be that of a sculptor and colourer of images for the ornament of churches, as well as an illuminator of missals and manuscripts—an occupation at that time still pursued, although gradually falling into disuse since the invention of printing. Scattered about upon the table were several old parchment manuscripts, which had served as models for the artist’s use, or had been confided to his hands to clean. Old illuminated missals, some of the gorgeous illustrations of which were open, as if lately retouched by the hand of the young painter, lay here and there. At the further end of the table stood a small figure of a Virgin and Child, delicately and exquisitely carved, and painted with the richest colours. The group was bright with its fresh finish, and evidently had not long been completed by the hand of the artist. Upon an elevated bench or dresser were littered the tools of the sculptor and wood-carver, with a few unfinished trials of small saintly figures; and around the room were fragments of wooden images of saints, some discoloured, some broken, a few in tolerable preservation, which were either destined to be restored and repainted, or had served as studies for the artist. Upon the walls hung a few pictures of female saints, bedecked with garlands of flowers, which showed them to be objects of devotion and respect in the eyes of the possessor. Among all this confusion, space was scarcely left, in the small chamber of the artist, for the pallet-bed and cumbrous press that formed his only furniture.
Immediately before the chair into which the young man so hastily flung himself, lay a rich missal, upon the adornment of which he had been employed, before other thoughts and feelings had sent him to the window; and when he again resumed his work, it was upon the face of a fair saint, which formed the headpiece of a chapter, peering out from among the various graceful arabesques that twined in the brightest colours along the margin of the leaf.
In truth, the face of the young artist was almost as fair as that of the bright being he was engaged in painting. His light brown hair was parted in the middle, over a high white forehead, and fell in faintly waving curls almost to his neck, forming a frame to the soft oval face, to which his violet-blue melancholy-looking eyes, his calm, finely-chiselled features, and the serious repose of his imaginative mouth, imparted an air of gentleness and thoughtfulness combined. His dark, sober-coloured, simple dress, although somewhat too severe to suit his youthful figure, accorded well with the character of his physiognomy. His falling collar displayed a full white throat, which might have served as a model for a statue of Antinous, had it not borne more the stamp of genius in its proportions than of physical voluptuousness. The hands, which now hastily resumed their neglected occupation, had all the fairness and well-moulded contour of a woman’s, without that delicacy of size which would have stamped them as effeminate. Had he been aware of his own beauty, he might have copied his own graceful form for a personification of the lily-bearing angel in a group of the Annunciation.
The person who had startled him from the window, by opening the door of his room, was an aged-looking woman, in a plain dress of coarse black serge. She bore in her hands a coarse brown porringer filled with steaming viands, a lump of dark homely bread, and a white cloth.
“Ah! my good Magdalena, art thou there?” said the young artist, raising his head with an almost unconscious affectation of surprise, as though unexpectedly disturbed at his work.
“You forget all hours, and all human wants, in your zeal for your beautiful art, Master Gottlob,” said the woman. “I bring you your noon-day repast, which you would never have called for, had I allowed it to stand by even until sundown. But I have ventured to transgress your orders. You must be faint with long fasting;” and the old woman made a movement as if to place the food upon the table before the artist.
“Thanks, good Magdalena! thanks!” said the young man, looking at her with that sweet smile, and tender expression of his mild blue eyes, which had procured him, among all who knew him, the constant designation of “Gentle Gottlob;” but at the same time repelling the porringer. “Not here. Place the food elsewhere. I will eat anon. I am not hungry now; and I must not leave my work. I have promised it to his noble reverence the prior, for the eve of the fête of St Ursula, and to-morrow is the very day. There is still much to do. It seems as if I could never give sufficient finish to this face, or impart to it, with my dull colours and rebellious pencil, that look of heavenly brightness that ought to dwell upon it. And yet, alas! I would it never could be finished! It will break my heart to part with it—although I love not my own work, nor deem it excellent. But still I cherish it—all imperfect as it is—I know not why; and when to-morrow comes, and I must give it up into his reverence’s hands, it seems that my life and spirit would depart from me with its loss, and that all around me would be dark and joyless.”
After placing the porringer and bread upon a spare corner of the sculptor’s working bench, Magdalena moved gently behind the young man’s chair, and having asked respectfully his pardon, looked over his shoulder. At the sight of the fair face upon which the young artist was bestowing so much care, her looks betrayed feelings of surprise, mingled with much emotion. Once or twice she passed her hand over her eyes, as if doubting the reality of what she saw. It was some time before she could sufficiently master her agitation to speak; and when at last she spoke, after a long-drawn sigh, it was with a tone which still betrayed, in spite of her efforts, the interest inspired in her by the painter’s work of art.
“It is indeed a fine performance, and right bravely limned,” she said; “and in truth the countenance you have given to yonder saint, with the pale glory, is one of exquisite beauty. I wonder not that you should be grieved to look upon so sweet a face no more; although, methinks, I know a face as fair, to which it bears a marvellous resemblance.”
“What meanest thou, Magdalena?” said the young artist, bending his head still lower over his work. “Whom dost thou know who could bear a likeness to this creation of my own imagination?”
“Of your own memory, Master Gottlob! you should have said,” pursued Magdalena. “Surely—or my eyes deceive themselves most strangely—although in that sweet face they were not easily deceived; surely the face is that of”——
The old woman again paused, as if to suppress her emotion.
“Of whom?” enquired Gottlob in a low tone, also in much agitation.
“Of the fair Fraulein Bertha, the noble Ober-Amtmann’s daughter.”
“You think so, Magdalena?” replied the young man. “Perhaps it maybe a slight shade of a resemblance, caught unconsciously”——
“It is she herself,” exclaimed Magdalena. “It is the same angelic smile—the same beam of innocent brightness athwart her brow! It is she!”
“Perhaps thou art right,” stammered Gottlob, still in much confusion, but evidently well pleased with the species of praise thus bestowed upon his performance. “There is, in truth, more resemblance to the Fraulein Bertha than I had thought.”
Magdalena seemed for a minute lost in her reflection, as if a new and painful idea had struck her; and after giving a long and anxious look at the window, from which the young artist had drawn back upon her entrance, she pressed her hand heavily to her heart, as if to support her in a sudden resolution, and, advancing to the artist’s side, said in an earnest tone, “Young man! thou lovest her!”
“Magdalena! thou knowest not what thou sayest,” cried Gottlob, more harshly than as the wont of his gentle nature.
“Oh! pardon me if I have offended. Condemn me not!” said the excited woman. “But I do entreat you, tell me! Tell me your secret as you would confide it to a mother—to your own mother, Gottlob. It is the purest interest for you—for her—that guides me! I swear it to you! Oh! tell me—is it not so? You love that fair and gentle girl!”
The young man looked at his strange interrogator with some astonishment at her evident agitation. The tears were swelling in her eyes. But without pausing to question the reasons of her emotion—so absorbed is love in its own self—he rose, and took the old woman’s hand.
“Yes! I will speak; my heart has long been overcharged with its own secret, even to bursting,” he said; “and it throbs to unburden itself into some sympathizing heart! And why not thine, good Magdalena? Ever since fate has brought us so strangely together, thou hast been like a mother to me!”
“Do not I owe you all?” interrupted the old woman; “my life—my daily bread—a shelter for my old limbs in the cell below?”
“Alas! I have but little to give, poor Magdalena!” said the young man kindly.
“And that little thou hast shared with me as a son,” continued Magdalena bending her head over his hand as if to kiss it.
“Yes, thou shalt know all,” pursued Gottlob; “for it would seem as though the destiny that threw thee in my way were linked with hers. Her image it was that led me to the spot where first I saw thee. It was the last day of the Carnival, at the beginning of this year, and there was a fête at the palace of the Ober-Amtmann. I had long gazed with adoration upon that angelic face, and treasured it in my heart. I already worshipped yon saintly portraits, because in one—God forgive me the profane thought!—I had found a faint forth-showing of the beam of her bright eye; in another, the gentle, dimpled smile of her sweet mouth; in a third, her pure and saint-like brow. It was not for such as I, a poor artist, to be invited to the noble Amtmann’s fête; but I thought that, through the windows in the illuminated halls, I might perchance trace her passing shadow. I fancied that, by some unforeseen accident, she might come forth upon the terrace, overhanging the river’s banks—a foolish fancy, for the night was wintry and cold. I hoped to see her, no matter how; and I wandered out of the town—for its gates were open for that holiday—to look upon the lighted windows of the palace from the opposite side of the stream. The snow was on the ground. My mantle scarcely preserved me from the bitter cold. But I felt it not. It was only when a groan sounded near me, that I thought on the sufferings of others in such a night. I looked around me; and there, not far from me, on the snow, before the very windows of the palace, where within was music and dancing, and feasting and mirth, lay thy form, poor Magdalena! Feeble, helpless, stiff with cold, thou appearedst to me in the last agonies of death.”
“Yes; I had laid me down to die, in sorrow and despair. It is too true,” sobbed the old woman, in a voice choked with tears. “But your hand raised me up—your arms warmed me into life—your voice encouraged me, and gave me force. You brought me to your home, fostered me, and nursed me—me, an unknown outcast, whose very history you did not even seek to know—whose silence and secrecy you respected. Your kindness saved me from despair, and gave me hope; and I lived on, in order to pay, were it possible, my debt of gratitude to my preserver.”
“Good Magdalena,” said the young man soothingly, taking her withered hands between his own, “I did but the duty of a Christian man.”
“And you love her, then?” resumed Magdalena, recalling her young preserver to his promised confidence.
“Love her!” exclaimed Gottlob with an impassioned fervour, which gave his gentle face a look of inspiration. “Love her! She is my vision by day—my dream by night. When I read, it is her voice that seems to speak to me from the Minnesinger’s poesy. When I paint, it is her form that grows under my pencil. When I pray, it is her seraphic smile that seems to beam upon me down from heaven. I wander forth: it is to meet her in her walks. I kneel in the church: it is to breathe the same air as she!” At these words, Magdalena covered her face, and uttered a suppressed groan. “I rise from my labour, which of old was a labour of love to me, and now is oft an irksome task: it is to watch for her coming forth into the garden. I have neither rest by day nor by night. Where there was repose in my heart, there is now eternal fever.”
“And she?” said Magdalena with a low tone of anxiety, as if fearful of the answer she might receive. “Does she know—does she return your love?”
“How should she deign to remark a worm like me?” was the young artist’s answer. “How should I dare to breathe my affection in her ear, were it even possible for me to approach her? And yet she looks upon me kindly,” continued the young lover, encouraging himself in vague hopes, at the same time that he condemned their presumption. “When I doff my cap to the noble Amtmann’s daughter, as she ambles forth by her proud father’s side, she will answer with so sweet a smile, and greet me with a wave of her riding-switch—with what a grace!—and then grow red thereby, and then grow pale. When I offer her the holy water as she passes from the church, she will cast down her trembling eyelids, and yet will see withal who offers it; and when I stand at yon window, as she rambles in the garden, she will pluck flower after flower, as though she knew not why; then fling them all aside, then pick them up with care; then disappear as if she had gone back, and yet come forth again.”
Magdalena’s brow grew thoughtful and anxious as Gottlob proceeded in his enumeration of these symptoms. Her bosom heaved painfully, her hands were clenched together.
“Poor child! should it be so!” she murmured, casting her eyes upon the ground; and then, raising them again to Gottlob’s face, into which she looked with scrutinizing eagerness, she said aloud—“And yet you do not think she loves you?”
“She love me!” cried the young man. “Such a dream of bliss were madness! Can I forget the immeasurable gulf that separates the noble daughter of the high-placed Amtmann from the poor and humble artist—the dependent of a cloister? No, Magdalena. I must die as I have lived, the poor unloved and uncared-for orphan—die without a sigh of pity, without a tear of sorrow from her eye.”
“Have you, then, no friends, poor youth?” said Magdalena.
“None. Yes! I am ungrateful. I have one—a kind protector; but he is far removed, and I have seen him seldom.”
“The Prince Bishop of Fulda!” repeated the old woman, with some degree of agitation. “Perhaps—yet it is a wild and foolish thought—perhaps all hope is not shut out to you.”
“What sayest thou, then, old Magdalena?” said the youth. “Hope were but torture were it vain; and so it must be”——
“Yes. I was wrong. Heed not my words! But know you not that your patron, the bishop, is close at hand? Already I have heard that he arrived this morning at his castle of Saaleck, at half a league’s distance from the town; and he will probably shortly enter Hammelburg, as is his wont.”
“These are glad tidings!” said Gottlob, his eyes beaming with joy. “I will at once to Saaleck, and, if the prince admit me to his presence, throw myself at his feet, assure him of all my gratitude for the past, and offer him my poor service for the future.”
With these words the young man hurried to his cumbrous chest, and pulling out a short cloak, flung it around him. A small cap of black velvet, of the cut of the time, which showed off to advantage the beauty of his youthful face, was hastily thrown upon his head. He was about to quit the chamber, when Magdalena caught him by the arm.
“Thy repast, Master Gottlob.”
“Have I time to think of that?” said the eager youth, swallowing, however, in haste a few mouthfuls of the broth, to satisfy the old woman’s look of supplication.
“And when you mount or descend the mountain-path that leads to the castle on its brow,” said the old woman, during Gottlob’s hasty meal, “if you can still have a thought for poor old Magdalena, she begs you enter the chapel on the mountain-side, which is esteemed so holy that it is permitted to be a sanctuary of refuge to the criminal, and say a short prayer for her soul’s weal.”
“Can those so good and kind as thou, Magdalena, need the prayers of such as I?” said the young man.
“The fervent supplications of the young and pure at heart are always acceptable,” replied Magdalena evasively, but in a sad and earnest tone.
“So be it—and fare-thee-well,” said Gottlob, finishing his last mouthful, and hurrying to depart.
“And heed you, gentle youth,” again cried Magdalena, “as you cross the bridge to leave the town. The river is much swollen with the late rains, so much as to threaten destruction to the tottering fabric.”
“I fear no such danger,” was the young man’s reply; “and besides, have I not thy charm?” he continued, laughing, holding up a black ring inscribed with strange characters, that hung about his neck.
“Oh, say not so!” said the old woman earnestly, as a recollection of the Witchfinder’s dreadful threats the night before came across her mind. “Call it not a charm! The holy church permits not of such dealings. It was but a remembrance that I gave you, to think sometimes on the poor wretch whose life you had preserved. It was of little value; but I had nought else to give. I prayed only that it might bring happiness to you, boy, for it had brought nothing but misery and wretchedness to me.”
Long before old Magdalena could complete her sentence, the eager youth had left the room. The old woman looked after him for a time with a look of gratitude, and then, hurrying to the artist’s table, threw herself down upon her knees beside the open missal, and gazed with intense eagerness upon the picture of the fair saint upon which he had been painting. She approached her lips as if to kiss it; then again drew back, as if she feared to mar the colouring by her caress: then gazed again, until her eyes filled with tears: and at last, with the cry, “Yes! it is she—her very self!” burst into a fit of convulsive sobbing, and buried her face between her hands.
As she still lay crouched upon her knees, a partly-concealed door, which led towards the monastery, and was almost in disuse, slowly opened, and a figure, enveloped in a monk’s robe and cowl, entered the room.
Magdalena was not at first aware of the entrance of the stranger; and it was only when, after looking about the room, as if to assure himself that no one was there, he approached the table, that she heard the footstep, and lifted up her head in surprise. The intruder evidently as little expected to find the room already tenanted; for he also started upon seeing the kneeling woman. But the astonishment of both parties was greatly increased when their eyes met each other. Far from attempting to rise from her knees, Magdalena remained in an attitude of supplication before the stranger, who was an aged man of mild aspect, and folding her arms across her heart, bent down her head like a penitent, in order to avoid his scrutinizing look.
“Magdalena! thou here!” said the seeming monk, in a tone of voice which, naturally that of benevolence, he evidently strove to render harsh and severe. “How comes this? Thou hast left, without my knowledge, the seclusion of the convent in which I placed thee? In defiance of thy solemn promise, and thy accepted vow of penitence, thou hast approached this town—thou hast sought, perhaps, forgetful of thy oath”——
“No, no,” interrupted the agitated woman, “that cruel oath has sealed my lips for ever. God knows, and you, reverend father—you know, that I had accepted the bitterest trial woman can bear on earth, in expiation of my past sin. Long did I observe my vow of penitence without a murmur to heaven or to you. But I thought to die. A fever had seized me, and a burning thought came over me that I no longer could withstand. O God, forgive me—but my head was turned—I knew not what I did! I longed to see once more on earth that object that was my only earthly joy. That uncontrollable desire overcame the stubborn resolution of a vow, which long years of tears and mortification had striven to fortify in vain. I fled. I hoped once more to glad my eyes—but once——but once, my father, and then to lay me down and die, trusting in God’s pardon and your reverence’s.” And Magdalena bowed her head to the ground, as a criminal awaiting her sentence.
“Thou hast erred, woman—bitterly and grievously,” replied the stranger harshly, adding, however, with a feeling of indulgence that his kindly nature evidently could ill suppress, “but the struggle of the spirit with the weakness of the body, in sickness and in fever, is heavy to bear. And yet,” he continued, again assuming a severity of manner, “thou livest, and I still find thee here. Thou hast remained to feast thy eyes upon thy earthly treasure, in forgetfulness of thy vow of mortification for thy soul’s weal.”
“Pardon!” cried Magdalena, raising her hands in supplication.
“But thou must leave this place forthwith,” continued the monk. “Return to the convent, and employ thyself in such acts of penitence as my orders shall prescribe.”
“Pardon!” again cried the unhappy woman, “for my vow is heavier than I can bear. It is a task beyond the force of human nature!”
“Foolish woman!” exclaimed the stranger. “Wouldst thou compromise the happiness and peace of mind of the being thou lovest best, by the danger of a discovery to which thy presence here might lead? Thy expiation is severe. Such as we, alas!” and the monk heaved a sigh, “who cannot feel the vibration of some of the tenderest chords of humanity, know not how to sound in its profundity; but I can judge that it must be grievous to bear. Still it must be so. Go, then, in peace—but go. What I command no longer in the name of thy salvation, I ask of thy heart, for the repose of thy heart’s treasure.”