The Danes Sketched by Themselves Volume I Part 19

The individual thus addressed started back in astonishment, while his two companions peered into our faces. My cousin burst into a fit of laughter; and the officer, who now recognized him, cried, laughing also,--

'Ludvig! What the deuce is all this? and why are you equipped in that preposterous garb?'

The matter was speedily explained; the three travellers expressed much pleasure at meeting us, and pressed us so cordially to join their party, and stay the night with them, that we at length acceded to their request.

One of the officer's companions was a young, handsome, and very fashionable-looking man; he was extremely rich, we understood, therefore they called him _the merchant_, and they would not tell us his name, or if that were his _real_ position in society. The other introduced himself to us with these words:

'Gentlemen, of the respectable peasant cla.s.s! my name here in Jutland is Farniente. My agreeable occupation is to do nothing--at least nothing but amuse myself.'

There was a great deal more joking among our hosts, and then we presented each other in the same bantering way, after which we all adjourned to the tent, where we wound up with a very jovial supper. At midnight the merchant reminded us that we had to rise next morning with the first rays of the sun, and that it was time to retire to rest. We made up a sort of couch, with cushions and cloaks, and on it we five faithful brothers stretched ourselves as best we might. The other four soon fell asleep. I alone remained awake; and when I found that slumber had fled my pillow, rose as quietly as possible, and left the tent.

All around was still as the grave. The skies were without a cloud, but of their millions of eyes only a few were now open, and even these shone dimly and feebly, as if they were almost overcome by sleep. The monarch of light, who was soon to overpower their fading brightness, was already clearing his path in the north-east. It is not the darkness, still less the tempest, that renders night so extremely melancholy; it is that deep repose, that corpse-like stillness in nature; it is to see oneself the only waking being in a sleeping world--one living amidst the vast vaults of the grave--a creature trembling with the fearful, giddy thought of death and eternity. How welcome then is any sound which breaks the oppressive silence of that nocturnal solitude, and reminds us that human beings are about to awaken to their daily round of occupation and pleasure--and, it must be added, of anxiety and trouble! How cheerful seems the earliest crowing of the c.o.c.ks from the nearest huts, rising almost lazily on the dusky air! The drowsy world was beginning to move; and after a time I discerned faint, sweet tones proceeding from the direction of the wood. I listened attentively, and soon became convinced that it was music--the music of wind instruments--which I heard. To me music is as welcome as the first rosy streaks of morn to the benighted wanderer, or a glimpse of the brilliant sun amidst the gloom of a dark wintry sky.

The sweet sounds ceased, and I began to ponder whether it might not have been unearthly strains which I had heard--whether they might not have come from the fairies who perhaps dwell amidst the surrounding glades, or among the wild flowers that enamelled the sloping sides of the hills. The music, however, was certainly Weber's, and the question was, whether the elfin people had learned the airs from him, or he from them. I returned to the tent, where the still sleeping party produced a very different and somewhat nasal kind of music.

'Gentlemen! gentlemen!' I shouted, 'there are visitors coming.'

My cousin was the first to awaken, then the officer, who sprang up, and immediately endeavoured to arouse the other two.

'The ladies will be here presently,' he said; 'get up both of you.'

'They are too early,' groaned one; 'I have not had half my sleep.'

'Let them wait outside the tent till I am ready,' said Farniente. 'Good night!'

The rest of us, however, went towards the wood to meet the three ladies, who were making their way to our temporary domicile, preceded by two musicians playing the horn, and two youths bearing torches, the latter being the sons of a clergyman in the neighbourhood, at whose house the ladies had slept. Observing the peasant costume of my friend and myself, the ladies asked who we were, and were told by the military man that we were two soldiers of his regiment, who, being in the adjacent village, had a.s.sisted in putting up the tent.

'Lads,' said he, addressing us in a tone of command, 'can you fetch some water for us from the nearest stream, and get some wood for us to boil our coffee? I will go with you.'

'No, no, sir--that would be a shame,' said my cousin, in the Jutland dialect; 'we will bring all that is wanted ourselves.'

When we returned to the tent it was broad daylight; Farniente had been compelled to vacate his couch of cloaks, and in his lively way was greeting the fair guests with 'Good morning, my three Graces.' The officers told us, aside, that two of the ladies were his sisters, and were about to tell us more, when a waltz on the turf was proposed by Farniente, who seized one of the ladies, whom he called Sybilla, as his partner. _The merchant_ danced with another, to whom it appeared he was engaged, and the officer took his youngest sister. Their hilarity was infectious, and my cousin dragged me round for want of a better partner, whereupon the fair Sybilla, who had observed our dancing, remarked that we were 'really not at all awkward for peasant lads.'

While they were taking their coffee afterwards, during which time we stood respectfully at a little distance, my cousin whispered to me how much he admired the lieutenant's youngest sister, who was indeed extremely pretty. He had not hitherto heard her voice, but he could not help seeing that she looked attentively--even inquisitively at him. By Farniente's request, the ladies handed us some coffee, after having done which they made some remarks upon us to each other in German. At that moment my cousin let his coffee-cup drop suddenly to the ground, and standing as motionless as one of the trees in the wood, he fixed his eyes upon the youngest girl with a very peculiar expression, which called the deepest blushes to her cheek. We all looked on in surprise, but I began to suspect the truth. Farniente was the first to speak.

'Min Herre!' said he, 'it is time that you should lay aside your incognito, for it is evident that you and this lady have met before.'

My cousin had by this time recovered his speech and his self-possession. He went up to the young lady, and said:--'For the first time to-day have I had the happiness of seeing those lips from which I have twice heard a voice whose accents delighted me. In that voice I cannot be mistaken, so deep was the impression it made upon me.

Dare I flatter myself that my voice has not been quite forgotten by you?'

Catherina--that was her name--replied with a smile,--

'I have neither forgotten your voice nor your face, though last time we met you were a Spanish grandee.'

'What is all this?' exclaimed the officer; 'old acquaintances--another masquerade!'

'We are now truly all partaking of rural life,' said Farniente; 'so come, you two peasants, and place yourselves with the fair shepherdess and us.'

We joined the circle, and after our names having been told, my cousin, leading the conversation to Lake Esrom, and the events which took place on its banks, asked Catherina how her poor friend had taken that sad affair, and if she had ever recovered her spirits?'

'Oh yes, she has,' replied Catherina; and pointing to the young lady who was engaged to _the merchant_, 'there she is!'

My cousin started, and said, in some embarra.s.sment, 'It was a sad event, but--'

'Not so very sad,' cried _the merchant_, interrupting him, 'for the drowned man returned to life. He was no other than myself.'

'G.o.d be thanked!' exclaimed my cousin, sincerely rejoiced at the pleasant intelligence. 'That is more than we _then_ dared to hope. But what became of the poor foolish madcap who first upset the boat and then wished to drown himself?'

'Here he is,' said Farniente, pointing to himself; 'and as I once thought I might be promoted to the dignity of court jester, I took a wife, and there,' bowing to Sybilla, 'sits the fair one who has undertaken to steer my boat over the dangerous ocean of life.'

The morning mists by degrees cleared away from the wooded valleys and the hill-encircled waters; the larks had ended their early chorus, and the later songsters of the grove had commenced their sweet harmonies; all seemed joy around, and I looked with pleasure at the gay group before me. Never had the cheering light of day shone upon a circle of more contented human beings, and among them none were happier than Ludwig and his recently-found shepherdess, whose countenance beamed in the radiant glow of dawning love.

Six months have pa.s.sed since then, and they are now united for this world and for that which is to come.

THE SECRET WITNESS.

BY B. S. INGEMANN.

In the year 1816 there lived in Copenhagen an elderly lady, Froken F----, of whom it was known that she sometimes involuntarily saw what was not visible to anyone else. She was a tall, thin, grave-looking person, with large features, and an expressive countenance. Her dark, deep-set eyes had a strange glance, and she saw much better than most people in the twilight; but she was so deaf, that people had to speak very loudly to her before she could catch their words, and when a number of persons were speaking at the same time in a room, she could hear nothing but an unintelligible murmur. A sort of magnetic clairvoyance had, doubtless, in the somewhat isolated condition in which she was placed, been awakened in her mind, without, however, her being thrown into any peculiar state. She only seemed at times to be labouring under absence of mind, or to have fallen into deep thought, and then she was observed to fix her eyes upon some object invisible to all others. What she saw at those moments were most frequently the similitude of some absent person, or images of the future, which were always afterwards realized. Thus she had often foreseen unexpected deaths, and other unlooked-for fatal accidents. As she seldom beheld in her visions anything pleasing, she was regarded by many as a bird of ill omen, and she therefore did not visit a number of families; those, however, who knew her intimately both respected and loved her. She was quiet and unpretending, and it was but rarely that she said anything, unsolicited, of the results of her wonderful faculty.

She was a frequent guest in a family with whom she was a great favourite. The master of the house was an historical painter, and his wife was an excellent musician. The deaf old lady was a good judge of paintings, and extremely fond of them; also, hard of hearing as she was, music had always a great effect upon her; she could add in fancy what she did not hear to what she did hear; she had been very musical herself in her youthful days, and when she saw fingers flying over the pianoforte, she imagined she heard the music, even when anyone, to dupe her, moved their fingers back and forwards over the instrument, but without playing on it.

One day she was sitting on a sofa in the drawing-room at the house of the above-mentioned family, engaged in some handiwork. The artist had a visitor who was a very lively, witty, satirical person, and they were standing together near a window, discoursing merrily; they often laughed during their conversation, and the tones of their voices seemed to change, occasionally, as if they were imitating some one, whereupon their hilarity invariably increased, which, however, was far from being as harmless and goodnatured as mirth and gaiety generally were in that house.

When the visit was over, and the artist had accompanied his friend to the door, and returned to the drawing-room, the old lady asked him who had been with him.

He mentioned the name of his lively friend, whom, he said, he thought she knew very well.

'Oh, yes, I know him well enough,' she replied; 'but the other?'

'What other?' asked the painter, starting.

'Why the tall man with the long thin face, who stood yonder; he with the dark, rough, uncombed-looking hair, and the bushy eyebrows--he who so often laid his hand on his breast, and pointed upwards, especially when you and your merry friend laughed heartily.'

'Did you ever see him before?' inquired the artist, turning pale. 'Did you observe how he was dressed, and if he had any peculiar habit?'

'I do not remember having ever seen him before; as to his dress, it was very singular, much like that of an old-fashioned country schoolmaster.' And she described minutely his long frock-coat, with large b.u.t.tons and side-pockets, and his antiquated boots, that did not appear to have been brushed for a very long time. 'The peculiar habit you speak of,' she added, 'was probably the manner in which he slowly shook his head, when he seemed to differ in opinion from you and your other guest; in my eyes there was something n.o.ble and striking in this movement, there was an expression of pain or sadness in his countenance, which interested me; it was particularly observable when he laid his right hand on his breast, and raised his left hand upwards, as if he were solemnly affirming something, or calling G.o.d to witness to the truth of what he said. Nevertheless, I remarked with surprise, that I scarcely saw him open his lips. It was of course impossible for me to hear what you were all talking about.'

The terrified artist became still paler--he tottered for a moment, and was obliged to lean on the back of a chair for support. Shortly after he seized his hat and hurried out of the house. The individual whom the old lady had so graphically described had been a friend of his in youth, but with whom he had been on bad terms for the last two years, and whom he had not seen lately.

The whole conversation with his amusing visitor had been about this very man. They had been engaged in a laughable and, at the same time, merciless criticism of his character, and appearance, and had been turning into ridicule every little peculiarity he had; his very voice they had mimicked, and in their facetious exaggeration, had not only made a laughing-stock of his person and manners, which were indeed odd, but had attributed to him want of heart and want of judgment, which latter sentence they based upon his somewhat peculiar taste, and a kind of dry, pedantic, schoolmaster tone in conversation, from which he was not free.

'That old maid is mad--and she has made me mad, too,' mumbled the artist, pausing a moment when he had gained the street. '_He_ certainly was not there--we do not meet any longer. She never saw him before.

There is something strangely mysterious in this matter--perhaps it bodes some calamity. But, whether she is deranged--or I--or both of us, I have wronged him--shamefully wronged him--and I must see him, and tell him all.'