Tales of the Wonder Club Volume II Part 19

The cause of this tumult became speedily known. It was the arrival of the "poor sinner," who was drawn in a cart between two priests and habited according to the custom of the condemned on such occasions. Loud hooting and execrations burst forth on all sides from the crowd as it made way for the condemned cart.

"But that is not Franz Wenzel," said one to his neighbour. "The old Henker had red hair; this man's hair is black."

"Fool, don't you know how that is?" said his neighbour. "Haven't you heard yet how he dyed his hair black in order not to be recognised?"

"No, did he though?" said the former. "But look! why is his head tied up so with two handkerchiefs? I can't see anything of his face."

"H'm, I don't know; some innovation I suppose. The handkerchief always used to be tied on when on the scaffold in my time," answered his friend. The criminal had now alighted from the cart, and, followed by the two priests, ascended the place of execution, where he took his seat on the chair placed for him. The a.s.sistant executioner, whose face was most successfully disguised with a black mask, pushed his way through the crowd and mounted the platform.

"Who is _he_?" was a question asked by everyone of everybody; "and why is he masked while Leo, who bears the sword, is unmasked?"

"Who knows? Perhaps he is the new headsman that they all talked about, and young Leo will not really behead his own father; but we shall see."

The crowd had grown more curious than ever. Every one stood on the tip-toe of expectation with his eyes and mouth wide open. An intense silence reigned around, during which the man in the mask bound the criminal firmly to his seat with a strong cord, then seizing the handkerchief that was tied round the head of the condemned, he gave the signal for the blow. The two priests who had hitherto been whispering consolation in the ear of the criminal now retreated a few paces to the rear, while young Leo advanced, flushed and triumphant, his whole countenance distorted with an expression of malice and revenge. Before brandishing his sword to give the final blow he lowered his head close to the ear of the victim and hissed out in accents sufficiently audible to be overheard by that part of the crowd that had a.s.sembled nearest to the scaffold: "Wretch! thine hour has come at last. Learn now the vengeance of a wronged son. Thou shalt see if I am the son of my father or no, and whether it is for nothing that I have been bred a Scharfrichter. Prepare now, for thou art soon to learn how I have profited by my lessons--whether I am an apt pupil. My sword is sharpened well on purpose for thee, and when thou feelest the cold steel close to thy neck, then, then, to h----l with thee, and bear throughout eternity the curses of a ruined son!"

During this speech of the young headsman the criminal was observed to tremble convulsively, as if struggling to speak, but the a.s.sistant executioner grasped the handkerchief still tighter round his head and repeated the signals impatiently.

"Did you hear?" said one of the foremost in the crowd. "Did you hear how he cursed his father? He actually reproached him in his last moments for having brought him up a Scharfrichter! Oh! the unfeeling young villain!

What a heart he must have."

"Ah! neighbour," answered another, "these executioners are not like other mortals; they do not know what it is to feel. They are brought up to kill their fellow creatures as butchers are to kill cattle, and they think nothing of it. Bless you, there is nothing these men would not do for money."

"'Tis strange, too," said another close by. "I always thought young Leo loved his father. I never thought so bad of him as to think that he would curse him in his dying moments, wretch though he may have been."

"Take my word for it, neighbour," said a st.u.r.dy inhabitant of ----dorf, "that young Leo does not know yet that it is his father."

At this moment everyone suddenly broke short his discourse, and the crowd again was silent for a moment. The two-handed weapon was raised high in the air, glittered for a moment in the rays of the rising sun, then descended with the rapidity of lightning, while the head of the murderer having slipped out of the handkerchief with the force of the blow, fell with a crash on the platform.

A loud cheer is raised by the crowd, and young Leo having thrown away his sword and pushed aside the a.s.sistant executioner, has seized the head of the criminal and torn off the bandage from his eyes. He holds it high in the air by its purple locks and gloats with fiendish satisfaction on its writhing features. The muscles of the face are fearfully convulsed, as if the spirit had not as yet quite departed, but still lingered about the corpse, being loth to leave its tenement. The eyes roll hideously and appear to gaze reproachfully upon the face of the young executioner. Suddenly a change comes over the features of the young man. His countenance, the moment before so flushed with triumph and revenge, now a.s.sumes a ghastly pallor; a cold sweat breaks out on his forehead, his matted locks stand on end. His eyes start from his head, his jaw drops low. Then, with a preternatural shriek, he drops the head, which rolls down the hillock of earth among the crowd, staggers and falls heavily upon the platform, gasping out "_Oh, Gott! mein Vater!_"

No words can describe the sensation created among the crowd at this horrible scene. Questions and explanations ensued, and a rush was made towards the scaffold. a.s.sistance was at length procured, and the son of the late executioner was lifted from the ground and driven toward his own house in the cart that he had set out in that morning to execute his fearful mission. A doctor was sent for, who declared that he was in an apoplectic fit. In time, however, he recovered, and the doctor left someone with him to attend to him and keep him quiet. Nevertheless, when he came to reflect upon what had happened that morning, in spite of all restraint, he rushed wildly into the chamber where his poor paralytic mother lay on her death-bed, and losing all caution and reflection in his emotion, he related in a wild and excited manner the dreadful events of the day. The result may be antic.i.p.ated. The poor woman, long given up by the doctors, sank under the startling news, and expired almost instantaneously.

Young Leo, who, with the exception of his drunkenness had really nothing very bad in him, now gave way to the most excessive grief, for he loved his mother tenderly. He felt himself now guilty of the murder of both his parents, and refused all consolation. What had he now to live for, thought he. His father he had murdered with his own hands and sent with curses to the tomb; his mother, so dear to him he had hurried to the grave through his insane want of self-restraint. His lady-love, false (as he thought), for secretly they had plighted their troth together.

What was life to him now but a burden? He loathed it. These gloomy thoughts clouded his mind with a profound melancholy, a deep incurable despair. On the following morning Leo Wenzel, the young executioner, fell upon his own sword, yet moist with the blood of his father, by him so unconsciously shed on the day before.

With the death of Leo Wenzel the family became extinct, and the profession of the Scharfrichter went begging. But who was the a.s.sistant executioner? n.o.body could find out. He had disappeared as mysteriously as he had made his appearance. Some said it was one, and some another, while the most settled belief was that it could be none other than the arch-fiend himself who had come to carry off the Henker's soul. In the confusion that followed the swoon of young Leo he had vanished, and no one had seen whither. No human being could have pa.s.sed through a crowd without being seen by someone, therefore it must have been the arch-enemy of mankind. Thus reasoned the people of ----dorf.

And Lieschen, what became of her? Poor girl! the news of her lover's suicide, for she had truly loved the youthful headsman, had completely overwhelmed her. She fell into a decline and outlived her lover but one year.

The servant of the burgomaster was mistaken in believing that after Leo's death the course would be now clear for him. His heartless scheme had come to light (for it was difficult to keep anything long a secret in ----dorf), and he found the door of Lieschen's house closed upon him for ever.

He soon knew himself hated by all the town, and tradition goes on to relate that some years afterwards, when he was in the service of another master, his employer having missed certain articles of plate and called in the police to search his coffers, they found not only the missing articles, but also a black mask and a suit of sad coloured clothes, recognised as having been worn by the a.s.sistant on the day of Wenzel's execution.

Finding his reputation lost in ----dorf, he deemed it advisable to retire to another village, where he afterwards married. The last we hear of him is that he ultimately accepted the office of Scharfrichter, and took up his abode in the house of Franz Wenzel, where he reared up a long line of executioners, which was only broken many years later by the profession of the Henker ceasing to be obligatory.

But what of our two friends Fritz and Ludwig? We had nigh forgotten them. That they were both of them present at the execution is undoubted from certain pa.s.sages in their correspondence after my ancestor had left Germany for ever. The day after Wenzel's execution was the last time they met on earth. They each of them pa.s.sed the remainder of their days in their own respective countries though they corresponded frequently.

The most recently dated letter from Ludwig Engstein bears with it the news of his marriage, and in a postscript he mentions having been just informed that since the execution of Franz Wenzel the tricks of the Poltergeist had ceased for ever.

Murmurs of applause were upon every lip as our artist finished his narrative, when Mr. Oldstone, rising, thus addressed the club.

"Gentlemen; I think you will all agree with me that my friend Mr.

McGuilp has fully earned his sitting from the fair Helen?"

"Yes, yes," cried several voices; "he has paid us beforehand. Let him have his rights."

At this moment the door opened ajar and the head of Dame Hearty appeared at the aperture to inform the club that her daughter was now at their disposal.

"Let her be brought in!" shouted a chorus of voices. "It is but fair that we should have one more look at Helen before Mr. McGuilp walks off with her."

Helen then appeared in the doorway and was greeted enthusiastically by the whole club, in the midst of which the painter, after looking at his watch and ascertaining that it was yet early enough for a good sitting, left the room and made for his studio, where, having set his palette, he was joined shortly afterwards by his fair model. Having arranged his colours and placed his canvas on the easel, he sat contemplating the portrait he had commenced so recently. Alas! how flat and insipid his poor work looked after having gazed on the bright original! It was but the first painting, it is true, and we know that nothing really good can be done at once; but, then, what drawing he found to correct now that he looked at his work with a fresh eye! The awfulness of the difficulties in art now rose up in his mind to appal him, and he uttered a sigh.

"Can all the glazing and sc.u.mbling in the world," muttered he to himself, "ever advance this portrait one step towards the divine original?"

Thus musing, the painter seized the canvas in both hands and breathed over its surface. Immediately afterwards, mixing up some colour sparingly, he sc.u.mbled over the entire surface of the portrait. Helen, whose eye dwelt upon the artist's every movement, whether from curiosity, or from some mysterious sympathy she felt for the young painter, demanded of him why he breathed on the face of her picture.

"To breathe into it the breath of life, Helen," replied McGuilp, smilingly.

Helen opened her large blue eyes with an expression of half wonderment, half doubt, not knowing whether the painter spoke in jest, or whether an artist really had some occult power in his very breath that could vivify the canvas. How was she to know, poor innocent child! Village bred and born in an age, as our readers will recollect, before photography had rendered too familiar the representation of the human face even for the veriest peasant any longer to wonder at the art by which it is produced?

In the days we speak of the painter's art was the only mode of transfixing the lineaments of a dear friend or parent and rendering them immortal. Painters, too, were much less common then than now-a-days, for art was still in its infancy in plain matter-of-fact old England. The painter, or limner as he was then called, was a being of far greater interest than at the present day. He was patronised by royalty and n.o.bility, and though the prices that he received for his works were considerably less than in our times, and he was nearly always a poor and needy individual, yet he met with a certain amount of respect from his patrons, as they knew that by his hand alone could they hope to become immortal. Everyone liked to see his own features represented upon canvas, or those of his wife and family. Oft times his favourite horse or dog. In order to secure the services of the limner therefore, it was necessary to court him, nor was this respect or appearance of such ever denied him, save perhaps by the pampered menial of some n.o.bleman or wealthy squire, who looked superciliously down upon the itinerant painter as a being far inferior to himself. We will hope, however, for the honour of humanity that the number was comparatively small that measured the painter's respectability by the length of his purse.

Indeed, the t.i.tled and the wealthy seem to have prided themselves in doing everything in their power to set the example of respect towards a disciple of the fine arts. Among this cla.s.s the painter had seldom anything to complain of; in fact, provided he were affable in manner, decent in appearance, could paint the ladies' hands and ears small enough to please them, their eyes sufficiently large and languishing, and, lastly--but which was of no small importance--could represent faithfully the texture of their silks and satins, their lace, velvet, fur, or swansdown, oh, then he was caressed, petted, and acknowledged by all as a most agreeable member of society and sure of making his fortune. But woe to him if he were above his business and attempted high art--we mean subject pictures that were not portraits. However much he might be gifted in that line, his friends would instantly desert him, and he might starve in a garret. His patrons knew nothing of high art and cared as little. All they wanted was to see their own effigies adorning the walls of their mansions, and as long as the limner was content to be of service to them they were willing to support him, but no longer. It was set down as an axiom that the human _face_ divine--by which they meant their own faces--was the highest aim that a painter could aspire to. This was the sort of high art they wanted, and no other.

A painter must be content with the work his patrons set him to do and not indulge his own caprices. Well, well, admitting the range of the painter's art to have been cramped and limited, has any age or country the power to cramp the genius of an artist? Is high art only to be found in imaginative pictures? Does not a portrait become high art under a master hand? Can that be called a mechanical art that gives intellect or sentiment to the eye, firmness or softness to the lip, the natural bloom to the cheek, truth and beauty to the whole? Few, let us hope, even in this matter of fact age, but would rank the real artist before the photographic artisan who usurps his name. If, in the present age, now that we are accustomed to a much more rapid process of reproducing the human face, there are to be found those who honour the true artist, imagine how his art must have been held in honour when it was the only way of immortalising men! It need not be wondered at that among those cla.s.ses where the appearance of a painter was less common, that the respect he inspired almost amounted to awe in certain instances. This was the case with our Helen, who never having set eyes before on a real artist, looked with awe and wonder on our painter as a species of magician who possessed an art not merely unknown in her humble sphere, but which she was sure that the worthy members of the club were alike ignorant of, however learned they might be in other respects. The painter's youth and good looks, together with his possessing this mysterious art at such an early age, elevated him at once into a hero in her eyes. Then there was the strange fact of his having seen and spoken to a ghost in the same house where she herself had been born and bred, the very ghost she had been frightened so often with in her childhood, but which was, nevertheless, so chary of its appearance that it had found no one for upwards of half a century worthy of revealing itself to until now, and had chosen for that purpose the young artist before her, and that, too, the very first night that he arrived at the Inn. What was there peculiar in the organisation of our painter, that he should have been selected before all others to gaze on the august presence of one risen from the dead? The haunted chamber had been repeatedly slept in by all the members of the club in turn, and by many strangers beside, for years back, and yet never before within the experience of our host had the headless lady vouchsafed a parley with any one of them. The preference, therefore, shewn towards our friend McGuilp by the tenant of the haunted chamber had raised him at once in the esteem of the whole club, and the marked respect with which he was treated by the other guests, all of them older men than himself, did not fail to escape the quick eye of Helen, who felt inwardly flattered that the man for whom she had conceived so warm a sympathy, should be so honoured among his better fellows.

Our artist and his model had been left together for upwards of three-quarters of an hour, during which time McGuilp had not opened his mouth to exchange a single word with his sitter, a habit of his when unusually engrossed in his work. He had glazed and sc.u.mbled, chopped and changed about his drawing, laid on impasto, worked upon the background, and so absorbed was he with his picture, the time had pa.s.sed as if it had been five minutes. A considerable change, however, had taken place in the portrait. There was more life and vigour, the tints were more natural and the head now stood more out in relief. Helen never once attempted to break the silence, but remained modest and immovable in her position as a statue. Had she been a vain and foolish girl or a coquette, she might have been irritated by the painter's silence, misconstruing it into a sign of insensibility to her charms, but no such thought for a moment entered the head of our Helen. On the contrary, she looked with the deepest awe and reverence on the painter whose art required so much silence and concentration, and instead of calling away his attention from his work by some frivolous remark, she mentally resolved to aid him to the utmost by posing as patiently as it lay in her power.

Nevertheless, after a long sitting, a change is apt to come over the face of the sitter. The muscles become flaccid, the colour vanishes, the eye grows vacant, and an expression of languor and weariness takes the place of the bright healthy look that the sitter bore at the commencement. This is especially the case with young people, and so it was with Helen, who, spite of her laudable endeavours to do justice to her portrait painter, had unconsciously grown several shades paler, and had so altered in expression that our artist, finding it impossible to continue his work, deemed it advisable to give his model a little repose.

"That will do, Helen, for the present," said he; "take a little rest, until you can call back the roses to your cheek and the life to your eye. There, then, you may look if you like, but there is much to be done yet, I can tell you."

"Oh, I think you have done wonders this sitting," said Helen, as she stood contemplating her own portrait from behind the artist's chair, with her head resting on her hand.

"It appears to me as like as it can possibly be already. I do not see what more there is to do to it."

"Do you not, Helen?" said McGuilp. "Then you are very easily satisfied, but it is not so with us. We artists are the most discontented people under the sun. We know that however well a portrait may be painted, it can never come up to the original, and yet we are never contented, even with our utmost endeavours to approach it."

"Then, we who know nothing about your art are happier in our ignorance than the artists themselves who have studied art all their lives,"

remarked Helen.

"Very often," replied McGuilp with a sigh; "nevertheless, there is a pleasure in the mere pursuit of art, however far removed the work of the artist may be from his ideal, that he would not exchange for the calm satisfaction of the uninitiated who perceive no fault."

At this moment a sound of cheering and clapping of hands proceeding from the club-room interrupted the dialogue between the painter and his model.

"What can all that noise mean?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Helen. "Ah, I can guess.

Mother has just finished telling her story to the gentlemen of the club, and they are applauding her."

"Is it so, Helen?" said McGuilp.