Tales from the German Volume I Part 36

'In G.o.d's name!' she exclaimed, and, grasping with both hands the tub-rope which hung suspended in the abyss, and boldly swinging herself over the shaft, she descended with frightful rapidity, and in a moment was lost to view.

'Holy G.o.d!' cried Arwed in amazement, staring with stupefaction into the horrible deep.

'She will never reach the bottom alive,' cried one of the miners at the windla.s.s: 'G.o.d have mercy on her soul!'

Arwed had handed over the child to one of the miners' wives, and availed himself of the first tub which again came up, to descend into the pit for the purpose of looking after the unhappy mother, and doing every thing in his power for her welfare. The brave youth felt a slight shudder, when, by the celerity of his movement, the black, rocky walls around him, as if raised by some magic power, appeared to fly up into the air so swiftly as soon to shut out the light of day from the entrance, which appeared like a distant star s.h.i.+ning down upon him; and, as his eyes gradually became accustomed to the obscurity, the terrors of the subterranean world became more and more distinctly and fearfully perceptible. Nothing was to be seen around him but dark gray rocks in gigantic ma.s.ses, and occasionally caves and depths so immeasurable that they appeared to open into endless s.p.a.ce. In singular contrast with the death-like appearance of all nature in these immense regions, appeared the active and busy movements of living men, who cheerfully labored to rend by force from old mother earth, that which she has so carefully hidden, and so pertinaciously withholds, from the curiosity and avarice of her children. There, upon an isolated group of projecting rocks, were the begrimmed miners, with their mining lamps, appearing in the far distance like so many fire-flies, a.s.siduously digging with mallets and drills into the iron walls, for the purpose of gaining, in the least dangerous, though most tedious manner, the useful metal, which others then removed in troughs, baskets and handbarrows, and finally conveyed to the regions of day. Here, large fires were burning under the overhanging rocks, for the purpose of softening the hard stone by their heat, until they could be detached by their iron crow-bars. Upon slender rafters, supported by inserting their ends into the fissures of the rocks over unfathomable abysses, solitary individuals were composedly boring holes in the rocks for the purpose of blasting them; and near and far to a great distance, the darkness was illuminated by explosions which re-echoed through the natural arches of the pit like a subterranean battery of cannon.

'A true earthly h.e.l.l!' said Arwed, while going down, 'furnished with all the terrors and torments which mortals can suffer without quickly succ.u.mbing. How can Christine prefer servitude in this eternal night to freedom in the blessed light of day? But indeed love will endure all things.'

The tub landed at the bottom of the shaft, Arwed stepped from it, and immediately perceived, by the light of a torch, the poor Christine lying exhausted upon the ground in a recess in one side of the pit. Mac Donalbain was standing by her in silent despair, and the clergyman of the mines was bandaging the bleeding hands of the suffering woman, from which the cord had torn the flesh as it slipped through them.

'So thou hast come after me, Arwed!' cried she, with a glance of heavenly kindness, and extending towards him her already bandaged right hand. 'You have always acted toward me with the best feelings and intentions.'

'My G.o.d, what desperation!' said Arwed. 'This descent might have cost you your life. At all events you have accomplished your wish. So give to Mac Donalbain your farewell kiss, and let us again return to your child and to your father.'

'Not so, Arwed!' answered Christine with determined resolution. 'My child is confided to good hands. My presence can afford neither joy nor comfort to my father. I remain with my husband. You have reason to know what will be my alternative if compulsion is used. You would not constrain me to self-murder. Therefore take my last farewell, and with it my thanks for your truly fraternal love.'

'It is now your duty to interfere, Mac Donalbain,' cried Arwed, earnestly. 'Without Christine I dare not appear before her father. The intelligence that she has persisted in remaining here would cause the old man's death, and he has not deserved that from you. Therefore dissolve the magic spell you have cast around her, and give back the daughter to her father.'

'My crimes have forever loosed the bands which bound us,' said Mac Donalbain, with almost suffocating sorrow, to his wife. 'Therefore leave me now, Christine. It would only increase my misery to know that it was shared by you.'

'I do not believe it, Mac Donalbain,' answered the resolute woman.

'That the society, the sympathy, the consolations, of a being who stands in so near a relation that henceforth she will only live and breathe for you, must lighten your sufferings, I am fully convinced; and in despite of your generous untruth I remain your companion.'

'Well, then,' cried Mac Donalbain, wildly, 'if you will at all events remain the wife of a condemned criminal, you must respect the husband's authority. The wife owes obedience to the husband, and I command you to return to your father!'

'You cannot command me to do that,' answered Christine. 'I am your wedded wife. I have never given you cause to be dissatisfied with me, but have always faithfully adhered to you, up to this sad moment. You have no right to separate yourself from me without my consent, and by Almighty G.o.d I will never give it!'

'Be merciful, as our Father in Heaven is merciful!'

said the preacher to the weeping Arwed. 'So far as I understand this sad history, it appears, even to me, better to permit the unhappy woman to remain with her husband. What but severe reproof and bitter scorn can she now expect in the upper world? Here, on the contrary, she can perhaps preserve a distracted mind from despair and lead it to true repentance and amendment, which is always a commendable work and acceptable to G.o.d.'

'How can I venture,' rejoined Arwed, 'to leave the poor woman here, helpless, amid the horrors of nature and the outcasts of society, whose destiny her husband must share?'

'She shall reside in my house,' promised the preacher; 'and together with my good wife I will make every possible effort to render her yoke easy and her burden light. Confide her to me, sir officer, and I will have a father's care of her.'

'Do so, reverend sir,' said Arwed, somewhat relieved by this promise, and placing a purse in the preacher's hand. 'The governor of West Bothnia will gratefully acknowledge whatever kindness you may show to his daughter.'

The preacher raised his hands in astonishment on thus learning the high rank of the person committed to his care. 'I will plead for you with your father!' said Arwed to Christine,--and, to shorten the painful scene, he hastened to re-enter the tub. The signal was given, and Arwed soon mounted to the regions of day, accompanied by the grateful prayers of those he left behind.

CHAPTER XLIX.

Arwed sat by his uncle's sick bed, and, not without some embarra.s.sment and hesitation, gave an account of Christine's artifice, his weakness, and her final resolution. The old man exhibited no sign of anger, as Arwed had antic.i.p.ated, but on the contrary nodded his a.s.sent to the arrangement. 'She knows what is proper for her,' he at length said in a trembling voice. 'Her honor is lost beyond redemption, and I therefore consider it but reasonable and proper that she should hide herself in a place so little different from the grave. Direct my steward to send a hundred ducats to Oesterby yearly, for her use, that she may not suffer from want, and henceforth name her to me no more. With her child you will do what you think proper; you have an open treasury here, but never let it come into my presence. I cannot acknowledge a child of Mac Donalbain as my grandson.'

'Is Megret still here?' asked Arwed, for the purpose of changing the subject.

'He is,' answered the governor, 'and I wish to have some conversation with you respecting him. A great change has come over him since the Ravensten expedition, and he has daily become more and more seriously misanthropic. Since he clearly ascertained that the----person was determined at all events to accompany her husband to Danemora, it seems as if an evil spirit had entered him, and obtained entire possession of his heart. I really believe the fool did not, until then, give up all hope of gaining her hand. His presence here has become disagreeable to me. He daily hara.s.ses his poor hounds, who howl about the castle like d.a.m.ned spirits,--shamefully over-rides his n.o.ble horses from mere caprice, and I have frequently caught him in smiling and pleased contemplation of his b.l.o.o.d.y spurs. His groom leads a miserable life with him, and I have on that account already once or twice upbraided him severely for his eccentric and irregular course. His plan of purchasing and settling himself in this vicinity seems to be wholly given up, and he has become burdensome to every living creature at the castle, but most of all to himself. I feel that my days are numbered, and would willingly die in peace. I must therefore beg of you, Arwed, in my name and in a courteous manner, to dismiss him from the castle.

Should he take it ill, a duel may indeed be the consequence; but you would not hesitate to exchange a few pa.s.ses for the love of your old uncle,--would you?'

'I will set about it immediately,' said Arwed, leaving the room, rejoiced to have an opportunity of forever ridding himself of the hated Frenchman.

CHAPTER L.

In answer to his inquiries for Megret, Arwed learned that he had retired into the garden in company with a strange officer. He followed him there, and their voices guided him through the leafless and snow covered walks to a thick grove of yew-trees, in which Megret and the stranger were sitting. A glance through an opening in the branches of the trees discovered to him the face of Siquier, pale and wasted by disease and affliction; and the interest of a conversation which now commenced between them, chained him with irresistible power to the spot.

'What is it that you particularly want of me?' asked Megret, with mingled embarra.s.sment and vexation. 'We have both of us so long and so carefully avoided each other, that this unexpected visit may well excite my wonder.'

'I am about to leave Sweden forever,' answered Siquier, in a desponding tone, 'and have come to take my leave of you, and to procure money for my traveling expenses.'

'Money for traveling?' murmured Megret. 'We settled with each other long since, and balanced our accounts. Above all, how came you to form the resolution of leaving Sweden?'

'You know,' answered Siquier, in a low voice and looking carefully about him, 'with what ignominy common report has branded my honor since the king's death. I still hoped that those suspicions would gradually die away, but they continued daily to strengthen and increase, and I learned that my enemies with witty insolence p.r.o.nounced my once honorable name, _Sicaire_,[1] thus, by a slight change of sound expressing the accusation with that atrocious word. Two duels followed, and still the rumor continued to spread. Had I fought half the army, it would have been unavailing. Finally my mental sufferings overpowered my physical strength. A raging fever seized me, and...' He ceased.

'And then?' asked Megret, with painful anxiety.

'In the paroxysms,' stammered Siquier, almost inaudibly, 'I am said to have accused myself of Charles's murder, and to have thrown up my windows and begged Sweden's pardon for the crime.'

'What consequence could they attach to such silly phantasies?' asked Megret, turning deadly pale.

'The government,' continued Siquier, 'had me confined in a mad-house, and when I recovered I received my dismission, with an injunction to leave the kingdom.'

'Are you also, like myself, dismissed?' cried Megret, with a ferocious laugh. 'They are right! The lemons have been squeezed, why should they not sweep out the useless peels?'

'It is dreadful to have no means of escaping the gnawing worm in the heart,' said Siquier, 'but, between ourselves, Megret, have we deserved anything better?'

While saying this he seized Megret's hand and gave him a piercing glance. The latter angrily tore himself from his grasp.

'You know our former agreement,' said he moodily, 'never to allude to bye-gone occurrences, even in our most secret conversations.'

'You are right,' said Siquier, with a look and tone of horror. 'The past is, for us, a black night, full of blood and flames! Let us wait until it re-appear in eternal futurity!'

'Here is money,' said Megret, placing a heavy purse of gold in his hand. 'Go and prosper.'

'It contains more than thirty pieces of silver,' said Siquier, weighing the purse in a sort of mental abstraction. 'There is more than enough to purchase a potter's field for a wanderer's grave!'

'The fever has weakened you, poor Siquier!' exclaimed Megret, with forced laughter. 'You have grown learned in the scriptures, and will no doubt become one of the professing brothers of La Trappe, in your old age. Do hasten to get there.'

'Mock me not, seducer!' said Siquier, grating his teeth and grasping the hilt of his sword. After a few moments he observed, 'you are right!

I believe in a hereafter,--I believe in future rewards and punishments, and may I therefore live to repent and reform. You entertain a different belief, and you have only to shoot yourself when your conscience awakens from its death-sleep!'

'That may become advisable!' said Megret, in a low tone, and both remained sitting near each other, their arms resting on their knees, and their faces buried in their hands. They remained silent, each absorbed in his own reflections, while the thickly falling flakes of snow gradually wrapped them in white mantles, without attracting notice.

At length a heavy sigh escaped from Siquier's laboring breast. He rose up, threw the purse of gold before Megret's feet, and suddenly left the garden, without bidding him farewell. Megret, uttering no word, remained sitting in the same posture, and Arwed was detained motionless for some time, by the feelings which this singular and dreadful disclosure awakened, and by a want of decision, which of the two first to call to account for their hidden deed of horror. He finally concluded: 'why should I contend with the miserable man, whom the judgment of G.o.d has already stricken, whose marrow has been already consumed by sickness and remorse, who has neither strength nor courage to oppose me, and who, perhaps, would welcome death from my hand? No, the insolent transgressor, in all the pride and bloom of life, shall be the object of my wrath--the _seducer_! as his accomplice called him. I will punish not the _knife_, but the _hand_!'--and he quickly approached the entrance to the grove, which Megret was that moment leaving.