Tales from the German Volume II Part 10

'G.o.d of Abraham strengthen me! cried the father, looking wildly towards heaven and raising his weapon; but Bibran and Lamormaine caught his arm.

'G.o.d does not require a father to sacrifice his son,' said the governor.

'Would you give the heretics cause to curse our holy faith through your senseless fury?' cried the Jesuit to him, in a tone of reprehension.

'Take him to prison!' commanded Dohna, who had returned to the room.

'He may there consider until morning, whether he will or will not abjure his heresy.' Should he continue obstinate, I will then permit justice to take its course upon the murderer of my officer.'

'G.o.d grant thee his light and peace, my poor father! Then shall we again meet above!' cried Oswald with filial tenderness to the colonel, who, exhausted by excess of anger, stared wildly about him as if bereft of consciousness, and finally rushed from the room without speaking.

CHAPTER XIII.

Overcome by sorrow for his father's anger, and racked with anxiety for the fate of his beloved Faith, whom he could protect no longer, Oswald sat in the criminal's apartment of the guard-house, looking listlessly through his grated window upon the snow-covered market-place. It was a cold still night, and the stars shone through the clear atmosphere with unusual brilliancy. The persecutors and the afflicted were finally at peace, and had forgotten their insolence and their sufferings in the embraces of sleep. The clocks of the church towers struck the midnight hour. The guard was aroused for the purpose of relieving the sentinels on post, and the rattling of arms resounded through the guard-house.

The noise, however, soon subsiding, quiet again prevailed, and Oswald, to whom the confused and restless working of his mind had become almost insupportable, laid his weary head upon the table and tried to sleep.

Just then the bolts were drawn and his door was softly opened. A corporal of the Lichtensteins, with a dark lantern, and accompanied by two soldiers, entered the prison. Releasing the prisoner from his chains, he commanded him, 'follow me to the count!'

'Am I already sentenced?' asked Oswald, with bitterness. 'Am I to be executed secretly, under the veil of night? It is a sad confession that your deeds will not bear the light of day!'

'Silence!' said the corporal, motioning him to follow.

'G.o.d help me!' cried Oswald, throwing his mantle over his shoulders and advancing.

The whole guard were snoring upon their benches, the officer was in his well warmed little room slumbering amidst his wine flasks, and even the sentinel without, leaned nodding upon his halberd. He was roused, however, by the approaching foot-steps, and presenting his halberd to the corporal he cried, 'who goes there?'

'A good friend!' boldly answered the corporal, whispering the countersign. 'We are commanded to bring the prisoner to the general.'

'Pa.s.s!' said the sentinel, shouldering his arms.

CHAPTER XIV.

The four hastened forth together. A sharp wind whistled over the market, while a raven, scared by the wanderers, arose with loud croakings from its snowy bed and with its heavy flapping wings slowly moved away. The shivering youth wrapped his mantle more closely about him and followed the corporal without troubling himself respecting the soldiers; these last soon fell into the rear, and, dexterously turning into another street, disappeared.

'Here we are,' said the corporal, suddenly turning to Oswald. The latter, startled from his death-dream, looked wildly about him. He was standing among the graves in a parish churchyard.

'Is this indeed to be my last resting place?' he asked, throwing off his mantle. 'Only direct me where to kneel, and be sure you take good aim.'

'Kneel, indeed, you must, my worthy youngster,' cried the corporal, with joyful emotion, and thank G.o.d for your rescue, as soon as you are in safety; but with the death shot we have now nothing to do. You are free.'

'Free!' cried Oswald, now for the first time missing the two soldiers.

'Have you really forgotten your old friend Florian?' asked the corporal, throwing the light of the lantern upon his face, of which Oswald soon recognized the well known lineaments.

'Thou true friend!' cried Oswald, embracing the good old man with grateful affection. 'Thou, who once so carefully guarded the boy against the trifling dangers of youth, wouldst thou now save the life of the man! I dare not accept the freedom you offer me,' he thoughtfully added. 'According to martial law you forfeit your life by this act. Rather than expose you to such consequences, I would prefer to resume my chains.'

'Do not trouble yourself,' answered the corporal. 'The two soldiers who accompanied me are secretly Lutherans, and had previously determined to desert this night. Your father supposes I am already gone. I have my discharge in my pocket. Although I am a good catholic christian, I cannot bring myself to approve of his method of making people blessed, and prefer quitting the service before I have wholly unlearned to be a man. As soon as the gates open in the morning I shall leave this wretched city for my peaceful home. If you are willing to accompany me, I will provide you with other clothes and pa.s.s you off as my son.'

'No, my old friend,' said Oswald. 'I am bound to these walls by strong ties. They enclose what is dearest to me on earth; and I must remain here to watch over and protect, until I succeed in rescuing her, or fall in the attempt.'

'Of course you will act your pleasure,' said the corporal. 'Besides, they will not seek for you very earnestly, for captain Hurka is by no means dead.'

'How, Hurka living?' asked Oswald with mingled regret and joy.

'It is harder to root out weeds than wholesome plants,' said the old man. 'Your blow was right well intended, but did not penetrate very deeply, and the long swoon which they mistook for death was only stupefaction.'

'Ha, how furiously will the fiend rage again!' cried Oswald with anxiety and indignation.

'Make yourself easy upon that score!' said the old man consolingly. 'He is now disabled by his wound, and your father has caused a lecture to be read to him, that may well satisfy him for the present. Besides, the merchant Fessel has been released from his imprisonment, together with his children.'

'How stands it with his wife?' asked Oswald.

'Indeed, she is to be buried the day after tomorrow,' slowly answered the old man.

'Eternal G.o.d!' shrieked Oswald in the wildest sorrow. 'Vice saved and virtue in the grave, and shall we yet believe in thy providence?'

'Yes, my son, we must!' said the old man, reprovingly. 'We must believe in the Father's guiding hand, not merely in the sunshine before the gathered sheaves, but also in the tempest which scatters the harvest.

Else have we not the true faith. Treasure up this sentiment, even though it comes from the lips of an unlettered catholic. It has been a friendly light to me upon life's weary road, and will continue to cheer me onward to the grave. Now farewell. The morning wind already blows across the graves, and I have yet many preparations to make for my journey. Farewell, and remember me kindly. Should I never see you again upon earth, G.o.d grant that we may hereafter meet where the true Shepherd shall gather all his lambs, even those who have here strayed from the flock, into one fold.'

He once more shook the youth most cordially by the hand, and then with hasty and vigorous strides left the church-yard.

CHAPTER XV.

The day appointed for madam Fessel's interment was drawing to a close.

A crowd of people had a.s.sembled in the parish church-yard, with weeping eyes and pallid faces, awaiting in gloomy silence the arrival of the funeral procession. Two grave-diggers stood leaning upon their spades beside the open grave.

The procession came. 'Now for G.o.d's sake summon resolution,' said a young Franciscan monk, whose face was almost wholly covered by his cowl, to an elderly rustic woman and a beautiful young peasant boy, whose eyes were almost blinded by their tears, pressing forward with them to a gra.s.sy hillock in the vicinity of the grave. A Lichtensteiner who had found himself in the crowd, surprised at the exclamation, placed himself near them and continued to watch their movements narrowly.

The mournful hymn of the choristers was now heard approaching. High waved the crucifix upon the church yard gate, shining silvery bright through the evening twilight, and the choristers in double ranks drew slowly toward the grave. After them came the Lutheran preachers, with their heads cast down. Next came the black coffin upon the shoulders of the bearers; upon its appearance the whole a.s.sembly broke into loud sobs, and notwithstanding all the efforts of the monk to restrain them, the peasant woman and young man upon the hillock wrung their hands with irrepressible sorrow. After the coffin, came the weeping clerks, apprentices, and household servants. Then followed the bereaved husband, pale and tearless. With each hand he led one of his little daughters, who again each led a brother. To them succeeded, a nursery maid, bearing the little Johannes with his blooming angel face, who smiled upon the crowd and by his happy unconsciousness stirred the hearts of the people even more than the sight of the father and sisters, who followed their best beloved to the grave with a full knowledge of their irreparable loss.

An immeasurable line of neighbors and friends closed the procession, whose tears and sighs, an ample testimony of the worth of the deceased, solemnized the burial instead of tolling bells and funereal music, which the rigor of the new church government denied to heretics.

The corpse had now reached the grave. The bearers sat it down and removed the lid of the coffin, and a loud lament filled the air at the sight of the martyr. The kiss of the angel of death had removed all traces of her late sufferings from her countenance. With softly closed eyes, and a heavenly smile upon her lips, she lay, as if awaiting that blessed morning whose aurora seemed already dawning upon her spiritual vision.

With outward composure the widower approached the coffin, clasped the folded hands of the pale corpse, murmured, 'Farewell, thou true one; soon shall we meet again,'--and silently retired.

The weeping children now rushed forward, but the clergyman, Beer, directed the servants to lead them back. He then stepped to the coffin, requested the audience to be silent, and with a loud voice addressed them as follows: