Mr. Richard J. Wyatt, an eminent English sculptor, died at
Rome on the 29th of May, after a few days' illness, and was
buried in the Protestant burial-ground. The hearse was followed
by the British Consul, the American Chargé d'Affairs, and about
fifty friends and artists of all nations. Mr. Wyatt went to
Rome in 1822, and worked for Mr. Gibson. After a few years he
commenced his career, in which he has been so successful. It is
said that he has executed commissions to the extent of £20,000
sterling. He was in the fifty-seventh year of his age.
"Dumiger, my own Dumiger, you desired me not to disturb you
this night: but you surely cannot know how late it is. I am
lonely and weary, and could not resist coming to you; there is
a long line of pale light behind the Artimshof, it must be the
day breaking; yes, there, the old worn-out clock is striking
five, and you are worn out, Dumiger, so leave your work to
sleep;" and the young girl blushed deeply as she spoke.
The light in the apartment had burnt out unperceived by
Dumiger; but although pale and thin was the streak of morning's
dawn, it was sufficient to show that in that room was standing
a form, beautiful from its fullness and ripeness. She who
addressed the man who was sitting at the table was a bride but
nine days since, and absorbing indeed must have been the
pursuit which kept him from her side. She had thrown a shawl
loosely over her shoulders, which fell in many folds down to
her bare feet; her hair, of that singular thickness which all
nations admire, but which the Germans alone as a nation
possess, was coiled around her small and classic head; there
was on her cheek that soft bloom which is called into existence
by love alone, and which makes the pulses of youth beat quickly
as it gazes. Nothing was wanting to complete her
excellence—neither that refinement which poets love to
dwell on sometimes to the prejudice of other qualities, nor
that perfection of feature, the admiration of which is the
first characteristic of early passion; and yet,
notwithstanding, when she placed her hand upon her husband's
shoulder the touch did not arouse him from his reverie. His
forehead was pressed by both his hands as if to restrain the
pulsations of the temples; implements of all description lay
around him; small wheels, and springs of different
constructions, segments of circles, and various sections bore
evidence to the deep nature of his studies, and to the exertion
which merited repose. The girl sighed as she looked at the
surrounding chaos; she took one hand gently and unresistingly
on his part from his face, and pressed it to her own. While she
gazed fondly upon the pale; wan countenance which it had
concealed, it seemed, alas! to dawn slowly upon her that this
confused heap of material was but an indication of ideas
equally disturbed, and energies as broken. To whom had she
wedded herself? To a man whose whole soul was absorbed in one
idea, and that an idea which evidently separated him from her,
which created a gulf between them, that not fame, nor power,
nor boundless wealth, could ever fill up, for that gulf is
fathomless—the gulf of ambition, for which ambition
barters, as in this instance, its enjoyment—manhood too
often its truth—and old age its repose. Yes, she had
linked her destiny to such a man, and now she felt the full
import of the vow she had made, of the pledge she had taken.
She had done so wittingly, knowingly, with consideration; but
not until that moment had the full force of her position burst
upon her.
"Dumiger," she again whispered in the small, still voice of
love; bending her lips to his hand at the same
time,—"Dumiger!"
There was silence, for he slept.
But slowly, as though by a secret sympathy, he awoke to
consciousness: he looked wildly around the room, and then
turned a keen, earnest gaze on the form near him.
"Marguerite, my love," he said gently, and then he put his
arm around her waist, and pressed his lips to hers, "you
promised me, Marguerite, that you would let me toil through
this night."
"So I did, Dumiger," she replied; "but I felt nervous and
wretched; I could not sleep: besides, look out, the night is
already passed, it is quite morning, and very chilly too," she
said, as she drew her shawl closer round her bosom.
"Yes, you will catch cold, my darling. Leave me."
"And you, Dumiger, will you remain here, poring over these
volumes, and torturing your brains? I am sure, that you will
succeed far more easily (for I never doubt your success, but
lament the price you will have to pay for it), you will succeed
far better by giving yourself more rest, and working by day
instead of night; your cheek is quite pale. Dumiger: now, in
your boyhood, you have lines marked on your forehead which in
others are the result of pain and toil. Your eyes have
lost—"
She was about to add, "their brightness," when as though a
sudden ray of light had flashed through them, they gleamed with
even more than their wonted intelligence.
"Marguerite, Marguerite," he exclaimed, clasping her in his
arms, "you know not what you are saying. Look here!" and he
rose hurriedly from his seat and drew her toward the window;
"do you see that star in the east, how bright it is, that you
can even distinguish the ray it sheds from the gray light which
breaks from behind those masses of clouds? By that light I tell
you I shall succeed in my most extravagant expectations. How
many anxious nights I have waited for that star! Until I saw it
I had no hope—now, my hope can scarcely find expression.
I am grateful to Thee, O Providence, for this revelation, for
the accomplishment of all my wishes;" and he bowed his head as
though in adoration, and almost sank on his knees.
Marguerite looked at him as if she dreaded that his brain
was turned. Dumiger interpreted that look; for what look is
there that love cannot interpret?
"No, Marguerite, I am not mad, believe me. This toil has not
yet turned my brain, though it might indeed have done so, for
it is sad and hard to labor night after
night in pursuit of an object so distant and yet so prized.
You ask me why I labor through the night? Foolish child! why
you must know that the clock for which the city has offered
so extravagant a prize, and to obtain which, not I alone,
but so many others are wasting their health and squandering
their youth—you must know that this clock is not only
to tell the hour of the day, and the month of the year, but
to contain within its works the secret of the movements of
the heavenly bodies;—that to obtain this prize they
must read the wonders of the skies, and penetrate its
mysteries. It is a wild and fearful study,
Marguerite—a study, the pursuit of which is not
calculated by the hands on the dial-plate. Even now I marvel
at the audacity of the men who proposed such a design, and
the boldness of those who, like myself, have undertaken to
fulfill it. You cannot imagine, Marguerite, how such
contemplations remove one from the world in which we live.
Until I knew you, Marguerite, I cared for and thought of
nothing else."
"And even now, Dumiger, is this not the case?" said she,
with a gentle smile.
"No, to your love I owe all, Marguerite," he answered. "It
seemed to purify my feelings, to elevate my mind to the height
of this vast argument—until I knew you there was a link
wanting in my life. When I used to ponder on the marvelous love
of the Infinite, which could work out this wondrous system, and
give man the faculty and the desire of comprehending it, I felt
that the mind contained capacities long concealed from its
owner; I felt that even in this world there must be at some
time a perfect revelation of perfect love to man, beyond that
love of nature which is to be derived from the study of this
world's natural laws and those of the lights which rule it. I
was then unsatisfied, Marguerite, for there was a void in my
heart which nothing could fill up; and I remember once meeting
with a passage in a favorite author which said, that whosoever
had a faculty or sensation unemployed could not be happy. I was
in that situation; but strange to say, absorbing as the passion
of love is, when I once understood this great mystery I was
better able to devote all my energies to science. I had often
heard it said, that a pure and holy affection is the purest and
surest source of energy and greatness—until I knew you,
Marguerite, I gave no credit to the saying."
"And this star, Dumiger, which is growing fainter and
fainter?"
"It was the one evidence wanting to prove the accuracy of my
calculations. Look here, Marguerite," and he rose from the
table with weak and faltering steps, and drew back a curtain
which was drawn across a corner of the small room. There she
saw a small clock of exquisite manufacture, a complicated mass
of machinery—so complicated that it would have looked
like fabled labor to have even put it into motion, or regulated
it when in motion. "Look here," continued Dumiger, "here is the
result of two years' toil. I have already adapted these works
to each other: it is, as you may perceive, a representation of
the heavenly bodies; but I could not satisfy myself that my own
calculations were correct until I saw this star which I
expected to rise as it has risen this morning. Now, Marguerite,
my best beloved, you have seen it burning brightly in that spot
of the heavens, it is a pledge of our future love and of my
great success—I accept it with humility and gratitude.
Yes, now. Marguerite, I will retire with you; a great fact has
been accomplished. If labor is virtuous, if to exercise the
faculties be a part of the discipline of life, then, even if I
die now, I have not lived unworthily, and my labor has not been
wholly in vain. What think you, my Marguerite?"
She looked her answer in those dark, speaking, lustrous
eyes. The greatness of his mind had passed to hers; the
mysterious sympathy of kindred souls united them. She was proud
of him; and her eyes flashed lightning, and her cheek flushed
deeply, as she replied—
"I can forgive you now, Dumiger, all your neglect, in the
hope of seeing you famous and honored by all your
fellow-townsmen."
"Ay, Marguerite," replied Dumiger, "there it is; it is fame
for itself I care for—to be great, powerful and wealthy,
is a matter of but small importance. One can live without rank,
without power, without wealth, and perhaps be all the happier
for wanting them. This little room, small and ill-furnished
though it be, contains in it as much happiness as any one heart
can enjoy. If we have everything we desire, what care I in how
small a compass they may be expressed? For instance, I would
not yield one of your kisses, Marguerite, for all the palace of
the Grand Master can offer. Some of my friends have richer
abodes, but what matter? Where did Van Eyck, who immortalized
himself by that one painting, known throughout Europe as the
Dantzic picture, reside? Why, in one of those wretched
buildings, ill supported by props and pillars, near the Grime
Thor, but which his fellow-townsmen are at this moment prouder
of than they are of the Artimshof or the Stockthurm. How did
Andreas Stock live? In obscurity and penury, without one smile
of good fortune to gild the darkness of existence. But do you
suppose that these men were unhappy? Oh no, Marguerite, to make
everything in nature beautiful there is but one element in
nature essential, and that is light. To make everything in the
heart rejoice there is but one sensation essential, it is love.
How think you, Marguerite?"
Her only reply was a long, long kiss.
And they retired to rest as the bells of the city chimed in
the merry morning, arousing in that city its slumbering
passions, fears, loves, difficulties, and perils, which had
been for long hours buried in sleep. But amid the various
sounds which began to echo through the streets, there was one
wanting to give evidence that the dawn, of a
great town was breaking. No clock worthy of the noble Dom,
imitated by Ritter of Strasburg from St. Sophia, arrested
the attention of those who were starting forth on their
several pilgrimages of toil or joy: none had yet been
wrought worthy of the mighty majestic pile which
overshadowed the free city, and reared its towers lofty as
the great League to whose wealth it owed its origin. To
construct such a clock was the object for which Dumiger
labored; and not he alone, but hundreds of skilled workmen,
toiled anxiously through the long autumn nights, for the
citizens of Dantzic loved that glorious fane whose lofty
towers looked upon their birth, and beneath whose shadow the
noblest of their freemen were buried. To connect their names
with that great monument, seemed to them to be an object
well worthy of the noblest and oldest commercial houses. Two
years had been allowed for the undertaking, and the time for
deciding the prize was drawing near; and amongst all who
toiled to win it, none more zealously labored in the work
than Dumiger Lichtnau, known to history as Dumiger of
Dantzic.
If it be a grateful sight to behold the young and happy when
all life is bright before them, when the soil which they tread
on is covered with flowers, and the only murmurs which they
hear are the murmurs of soft breezes, and the only sighs are
sighs of passion; not less beautiful is it to see the young
linked together in love, struggling with adversity; to see two
beings whose sole object in life it is to alleviate the daily
toil of each other; to whom every effort of self-denial through
the object of its exercise becomes a blessing; to whom the
future is full of promise, because exertion gives confidence,
and self-confidence is the source of all hope. There is
something very touching in the sight of those whom the world
deserts, or to whose interests the world is at best
indifferent, arousing all their energies to battle with adverse
circumstances. Then every little addition to the daily comforts
is prized, as the result of independence and of honorable
exertion—in a word, as the reward of labor: every holiday
arrives fraught not merely with enjoyment, but with blessing.
To such there are sources of happiness, which the gay, the
wealthy, the children of life's sun know nothing of, but which
in their noonday career of splendor and greatness they might
well stop to envy.
On such an existence Marguerite had entered. Hers was a
simple history, told in few words, but connected with long
previous chapters of passions and regrets; for she was the
child of love, begotten in tears, and brought up in one of
those admirable foundling establishments which prevail in
Germany, and are at once the incentives to love and the
protection of its offspring. She left it a year previously to
the period when we are writing, to enter a family of
distinction as a humble friend and teacher. There Dumiger
chanced to meet her. When first he met he loved; and like all
men of earnest purpose, he loved with no common passion. The
family were of that kind so frequently met with in
society—affecting great consideration for those whom fate
has placed beneath them, but expressing consideration in such
terms as made it almost an offense, and proving their vanity in
the very manner in which they affected humility. She at once
accepted Dumiger, though some months elapsed before it was
possible for them to marry. At last, by dint of great exertion,
they laid aside sufficient money to commence the world with.
Dumiger had the small apartment, within whose narrow limits his
mind expanded to the contemplation of the vast field of inquiry
on which he presumed to enter, and he transported Marguerite to
her new home; there to indulge in imaginations of love,
boundless and visionary, as his were of ambition.
The day following that which we have described there was a
great annual fête at Dantzic. The free city for the time
donned its freest and most joyous manners; it was one of those
days in which honest burghers, and most especially honest
burghermasters, delight, because they are then enabled to put
on their greatness with their broadcloths; and every flag and
inscription in the streets is a tribute to their past, and an
incentive to their renewed exertions. Fortunately the day rose
in more than ordinary brightness; the Mottlaw and the Radaw,
two streams which flow through the center of Dantzic, reflected
the variegated masses of colors worn by those who thronged
their banks; Commerce had for that day deserted the lofty mart
and still loftier warehouse to muse by the side of the river
which bore her richest freights; processions from the
neighboring villages marched with music at their head into the
city, bearing the devices of their various trades, and when the
crowd separated to let them pass, the captains of companies and
humbler officials drew themselves up as they traversed the
rude, ill-fashioned pavement of the picturesque and antique
gabled city. It was the fête of the patron saints of the
town,—strange evidence of a future state, even among
those who reflect but little; for there as ever all men turn
alike to some mysterious guardian for protection, and like this
city are consecrated to some faith. In the midst of these happy
groups, which were collected at every corner and filled every
gasthof, moved Dumiger and Marguerite, most blessed and happy
where all looked smiling and contented. Marguerite was the envy
of all brides, and of those who wished to become so; and there
was not a young burgher of distinction who had not at some time
or another looked upon her with admiring gaze, and followed her
to the palace in which she dwelt, and loitered under her
window,—where, however, the thin slight
curtain was rarely if ever
drawn aside to satisfy the vanity of the gazer or to kindle
her own. She was of a very admirable beauty, as perfect as
is commonly found in nature, which fancy can at will
outwork,—tall, of excellent symmetry, with a clear,
noble brow, the proudest type of Nature's glory. There were
few in town who did not know her at all events, from
reputation, and that reputation was spotless. Of Dumiger's
appearance we cannot say as much: he would have been
decidedly plain but for the indications of genius which his
countenance afforded. His forehead was marked with the lines
of patient and anxious thought; but these evidences, if they
did not serve to please the gazer, at least commanded his
respect. He was somewhat bent by premature exertion; the
hair, even at that early age, was thin and scanty on the
temples; his step was slightly enfeebled by want of proper
exercise. Altogether he was a very remarkable man from the
intellectual power which every lineament expressed; yet
altogether he was scarcely such a person as would have been
considered likely to awaken a strong passion in a young girl
like Marguerite. For it is too true that, to use the
expression of a writer of that age, il avait l'air d'un
âme qui avait recontré par hasard un corps et qui s'en
tirait comme il pouvait.
And yet—so strange a being is woman!—desirous like the
Hindoo wife to sacrifice herself on whatever altar she raises
in her heart, Marguerite, in order to marry Dumiger, had
refused the greatest offers,—amongst others, no less a
person than the son of that house into which she had been
received. But irrespective of the affection which she felt for
Dumiger, she was in her nature proud and haughty, and she would
not have consented, even under other and less favorable
circumstances, to have entered where she was despised by the
rest of the family. It may be imagined how great indignation
was excited in this man by her refusal, the more especially as,
like Dumiger, he thought himself a proficient in science and
the mechanical arts, and was one of those who in his way was
laboring for the prize so soon to be awarded by the city. If
merit was to be the test of success, he had but little chance;
but where is that man and where are those minds with whom rank
and power have not their weight? He was, therefore, if not the
most formidable by intellect, at all events by circumstance,
the one of Dumiger's competitors the most to be dreaded, for
his father was the president of that council which presided
over the destinies of Dantzic, and who usurped more than
imperial authority. He belonged to the ancient house of
Albrect, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, and oldest
freeman of the Hanseatic League. A strange, proud man, who when
he learned indirectly that his son Frederick was in love with
Marguerite, indulged in a storm of fearful indignation, until
he found from her that on no account did she intend to accept
the suit; and then, in spite of his gratification at the
certainty that his son could not make a marriage which he
thought so discreditable, his vanity was wounded at her
decision, and even while he praised Marguerite's disinterested
conduct, in his heart he was garnering up hatred against her. A
blow to vanity is terrible, and it is a blow which the humblest
and weakest can give as well as the most powerful, in the
contempt or even the indifference expressed for the pursuit in
which we are interested, or for the object which we have
attained. So much of our opinion of the value of an object
depends on the price which others set upon it, that it is
sufficient to know others are indifferent to it for ourselves
to undervalue it. But Marguerite went forward in her career of
happiness, quite ignorant of the dislike she was leaving behind
her. She told Frederick the truth, that she loved Dumiger, and
kindly added, that but for this circumstance she might one day
have loved him; and then with a light heart she left the
splendid palace for the abode of poverty.
They moved on together, those two young and loving beings,
and so intent were they on their own happiness, so concentrated
in each other, that they did not observe how the crowd through
which they passed fell back in admiration: but at last Dumiger
caught the expressions of their faces, and saw the glance which
accompanied them, and then he almost looked nobly born, so
proud became his step and steadfast his gaze. The long market
(surrounded with its fantastic gables, strange, rickety, and
picturesque, which looked us though they retained the
expression of the angular, quaint, rococo faces of those by
whom the houses were formerly tenanted) was crowded with all
that was gay and animated in Dantzic; around the fountains,
somewhat rude in their execution but admirable in their models,
the peasants from the neighborhood were congregated. Presently
the crowd, which had momentarily become greater and still
greater, swayed backward and forward like the tide in a harbor
when a noble vessel enters its gates. They made place for a
herald, who rode on horseback surrounded by his deputies, and
gave notice in an audible voice that on that day week the
Supreme Council would meet to decide on the merits of the
different pieces of mechanism which were to be submitted to
their judgments, and which were to be sent in three days
previously. Then the herald recited the rewards which the great
and free city offered to the most successful competitors: they
were worthy of the great League of which Dantzic was the
head:—A house to be kept up at the expense of the State,
to be styled the "most honorable," a ring of honor, but above
all, a laurel wreath, and to have precedence immediately after
the Supreme Council itself. Such was the attachment of the
inhabitants of Dantzic to their town and
its glories that its
embellishment was dearer to them than any personal or
material advantages. But it is probable that these honors
would not have been so great on the present occasion had the
Grand Master not been fully impressed with the belief that
his own son would succeed in the contest, and add another
and the greatest to the honors which belonged to his house.
Marguerite and Dumiger pressed forward through the crowd to
hear the proclamation read, and the blood flowed in their
cheeks as they listened. Dumiger turned to look at
Marguerite, her eyes were moist with love and admiration; he
pressed her arm fondly, and said in a low voice,—
"Now, Marguerite, will you forgive me the hours passed in
solitude, in selfish silence, when you know how highly the city
estimates this work to which my nights and days have been
devoted?"
Her only answer was a glance of affection which thrilled
through his frame.
It was night, they were tired of wandering about, and
entered one of the numerous cafés which had been
temporarily erected in celebration of the day. In the center of
the Grande Place a stage was built for dancing, and when the
band played its liveliest tunes the bright-eyed dancers swept
round in admirable time; the variegated lamps which hung around
the square checkered the pavement with every variety of hue,
cast such a glory on the fountain that its outline was worked
as it were with threads of gold. All these different colors and
shapes were reflected in the rippling waves of the ever-rolling
waters. Youths in the gayest dresses strutted away their proud
hour of triumph with that graceful vanity of pretension which
youth so well becomes, or flirted with the tender maidens, who
in silver-laced bodice and scarlet skirt, with their brows
encircled with interwoven wild flowers, sat round the brink of
the fountain, where the murmurs of the ever-falling waters
could best conceal the murmurs of love. And above all this
gorgeous tumult and bright excitement the moon from her throne
of silver clouds rose like a virgin queen; the bold
architecture of the Dom stood in clear relief, some parts as
though sculptured out of heaven's light, while the depths of
the arches were buried in mysterious shade, emblematic of the
faith to which it was dedicated,—in part clear to the
fresh comprehension of the youngest child, and again full of
deep and fathomless mysteries. Athwart the flood of light which
filled the square, the deep shade of this noble Dom was thrown,
like the dark visions of the future which sometimes fall upon
the heart in its hours of brightest enjoyment. If one had stood
that night on the lofty tower and looked forth on the vast
multitude, he need not, Asmodeus-like, have unroofed the houses
to read the history of human life or the passions of the human
heart, for life and passion had gone forth that night from many
a tranquil abode to revel in publicity. One so standing above
the wild hum of tumultuous enjoyment would in silent thought
have marveled at the strange drama performing as it were at his
feet,—the sad and fearful mixture of the shadows and
lights of life and death, the market-place, and close at hand
the burial-ground. Talk of contemplation in the wild solitudes
of the country, how much more is there room for contemplation
in the crowded mart and the bustling thoroughfare! Where is the
river whose current is so rapid as the current of life, or at
time so dangerous and treacherous? Where is the tide whose ebb
and flow is so uncertain as the ebb and flow of existence?
Where are to be found winds and waves more boisterous than
those which agitate the human heart? Where is the shore so
strewn with wrecks as the heart with the broken memorials of
passion which may have long since swept over it? If Nature in
its solitude affords calm enjoyment, in its human development
it affords matter for deeper thought; if the view from the
mountain-top, extending over hill and dale, expand the mind, to
stand above the wild tumult of a town equally exalts the
imagination and conveys knowledge, even while it compels the
gazer to pass out of himself.
As they approached a coffee-house on the same side of the
street as the Dom, Marguerite proposed to Dumiger to remain
there, where they could best see the dancing, and she drew a
chair toward her.
"No, no, not here!" exclaimed Dumiger; and he took her
across the square to another house of greater reputation.
But it was not on this account that Dumiger preferred it,
but because it had a view of the Dom; he could there
contemplate the space which was left for the clock, of which he
fondly believed he was making the model. He pictured to himself
that tower, the wonder and admiration of the town; that on the
spot where he was then sitting numbers would crowd to view the
wonderful machinery fashioned by his genius.
The history of the café to which he took Marguerite
was curious; it had been opened not less than one hundred and
twenty years without being once entirely closed. It was, in
point of fact, formed by two houses, which were used
alternately to allow of the necessary repairs and cleansings.
On such an occasion as the present they were both thrown
open,—the one part was for persons of the second rank,
amongst which Dumiger and Marguerite now classed themselves;
the other was reserved for the people of the higher order, for
in this city of popular institutions and liberal opinions the
distinction of classes was very strictly preserved.
Marguerite and Dumiger ordered some slight refreshment.
Marguerite was enjoying that repose which is so agreeable to
the mind after the sensation of strong happiness; Dumiger, with
his head resting on his hand, was gazing on the lofty tower of
the Dom, and the light fleecy clouds,
which appeared to be almost attracted by the glittering
vane. At that moment a rude hand slapped his shoulder.
"You here, Dumiger!" said Carl. "Why, Confound it, man. I
thought you were poring over dull tomes of the University
library, or worshiping a saint" and he took off his hat to
Marguerite. "Here is Krantz, your old friend Krantz, whom you
have not seen since we were all at Bonn together: so I will
drink with you as well as he did three years since, when we
reveled in Rhenish."
Dumiger seized the extended hand, a gleam shot across his
mind: the three years of abstraction and thought appeared to be
swept away; he only beheld his two boon companions; his
countenance was lightened of a dozen years.
"Marguerite, these are two friends of mine," he said; "it is
getting late and cold. See, the lights on the fountains are
burning very dim, and the benches are deserted. You will not
grudge me this one night for acquaintance sake, dear
Marguerite? I shall not he late, but I must grant myself one
bottle to-night to drink to my success. What, angry, my
Marguerite!"
She was not angry, but she thought that love in life is of
rare fulfillment. Again another night of loneliness: yesterday
it was a disagreeable necessity, now an agreeable excitement,
but both alike led to a lonely room and a lonely heart. But in
the shade Dumiger pressed her hand, and assured her with many
kisses that he would return within two hours, and she tried to
feel satisfied and assured. The three friends sat down; a
larger table replaced the small stand which had been
exclusively devoted to ices; three bottles of huge dimensions
were brought from the cellar; pledge after pledge was received
and given. Dumiger became a different man, save that at
moments, in the midst of some burst of louder hilarity, the
cloud of ambition would cross his brow and seem to furrow it,
and then he would fold his arms across his breast, as if to
repress the outbreak of his soul. It was during one of these
moments of abstraction that Carl turned suddenly round.
"Why, Dumiger," he exclaimed, "you do not fill your glass!
In former days, man, you were of a very different mood. Has
marriage so tamed you? Won't Marguerite allow it!"
Krantz and the two friends made the place ring with their
rude students' laugh. "Ha! ha! I, why I am in excellent
spirits," said Dumiger, filling a bumper with the strongest of
the wines upon the table. "I ought to be in good spirits, for I
have everything to make me so."
"Ay, the most beautiful girl in Dantzic for a wife," said
Carl.
"With a large fortune?" said Krantz, laughing.
"That will come," replied Dumiger, heated by wine.
"Large fortune!" they both exclaimed; "where are you to get
it, student? Have you found an old cave in the Grime Thor,
Dumiger, with a fortune buried, as the old romances have
it?"
"Yes, I shall soon discover a fortune," exclaimed the boy,
now fairly excited, and his cheeks glowing with animation; "and
more than a fortune. Fame and honors shall be heaped upon us.
Do you imagine that I have been wasting the last three years of
my life? do you believe that the ambition which was the subject
of your illusive aim at college is dead? No! look here, Carl
and Krantz, this day week will see me famous, and ennoble my
family till it vies even with the Grand Master's."
"You are mad," said Carl.
"No, I am speaking words of soberness," said he, with an
earnestness which carried conviction even to those wild
spirits. "I tell you that I have an inward confidence that I
shall win this prize which was proclaimed to-day, that my name
will be associated with the proudest fame ever reared in
Dantzic. Oh, the nights and days of toil, the hopes and fears
which have agitated me, for the last three years: these will
account to you for the paleness of my cheek, and my vacant
look. Well, I have this day completed the test by which the
accuracy of my work is proved, and now I hold I shall be
great."
He spoke so loud that his voice echoed through the
peristyle; it disturbed one not the least interested in the
conversation, Frederick Asprecht. He lent an attentive ear to
all that fell from the speaker's lips, and then he learned that
not only had he been robbed of an affection which he had
striven to win, but that the same man who had married
Marguerite was about to take from him the possibility of
obtaining a prize he sought for. In the vanity of his
pretensions he could not believe it possible that Dumiger
really was not at the moment speaking extravagantly; it was not
until he listened attentively, and heard him give a detailed
account of the nature of his mechanism, that he saw (for he was
not wanting in scientific knowledge) that Dumiger's confidence
was far from misplaced. Frederick, when he had heard
sufficient, left the place with a heavy heart, and with
melancholy step retired to his chambers of luxury.
He entered the Grand Master's palace, and through the vast
marble hall, where the banners hung against the walls, and
devices and armorial bearings testified to the antiquity and
gallantry of his race. The lofty roof, supported by vast ashen
beams, echoed to each step as it rang on the pavement.
Sculpture and painting decorated the several galleries; but he
passed by all unnoticed, for he had one object in view which
absorbed all others, and rendered him now indifferent to the
luxuries and grandeur by which he was surrounded. To his
surprise when he entered a colonnade full of the
choicest flowers, which
united the extreme wings of the vast building, he found his
father walking there with an anxious, timid step, his manner
was nervous and uneasy.
"Frederick," said the old man, one of those dignified,
astute, tall, gray-bearded, and keen-eyed men, whom we find in
the picture galleries of the middle ages, dressed in a suit of
stately black, with the golden chain of his order, and riband
of the Fleece, "I was very anxious to see you, my son. The
influence of our house is deserting us; you have not attended
the council lately—there is a majority organizing against
us. You should be at your post my son. The first element of
success in life is industry—patient, untiring industry;
it is to this we owe the fortunes of our house the very
decorations which I wear, the consideration with which I am
treated," and the old man curled the long, tapering moustache,
partly in pride, partly in anger.
"But, my father, you forget that I am wholly occupied in my
studies—that you yourself urged me to contend for the
prize which the city gives—that you considered this would
be the readiest means of extending your family influence."
"Forget!" exclaimed the old man indignantly. "Forget!" and
his spurs clanged upon the pavement. "I am not quite so old as
to forget thus—neither do I forget that you wasted three
months in making love to that jungfrau Marguerite, and three
more months in lamenting her loss, even after she had spurned
you, you son of the chief citizen of Dantzic. You succeed in
nothing, sir; unstable as water, you trifle away all existence.
Now tell me, you solitary student, where have you been
to-night? Of course not wasting every moment in the holiday
with your boon companions, and making love to all the peasants?
Speak, sir."
"It is true, my father; I was at the fair," replied
Frederick, submissively.
"You tell the truth at any rate," continued the Count,
somewhat touched by his frankness. "Well, then, we won't say
anything more about the past and Marguerite; but tell me as
frankly what prospect you have of success in the competition
for this famous clock, for on that will greatly depend the
power of sustaining our family influence."
So appealed to, Frederick thought it wise at once to prepare
his father for the truth. He told him that until that evening
he had imagined that he possessed every prospect of obtaining
the prize, and then he repeated all that he had overheard
Dumiger asserting. In the bitterness of his spirit he inveighed
against him as a personal enemy, and as he spoke vehemently and
earnestly, his father's eyes glistened with vengeance and
pleasure, for he saw that the dignity of the father had passed
into his son; he had never seen the youth so excited, he now
felt that he was worthy of the old time-honored race.
"Ah," he said, "Dumiger again; and his scheme and plan seem
well founded. However, neither the man nor his production will
find great favor in the council while I have influence there;
he may exaggerate his merits."
"I think not," said Frederick. "But there is one way to get
rid of his competition," said Frederick, laying his hand on the
hilt of his sword.
"No, no, young man; take your hand from your sword: I will
have no brawling, no bloodshed, like those common burghers,
whose sons are even now rustling through the market-place. But
wait a little; night gives counsel. I think I have a way far
more practical and less hazardous than that which you
propose—leave the matter in my hands, Frederick. I am
glad to find you have some spirit, that it has not all been
dissipated on that foolish girl; there is always hope in man
where there is energy. What I feared was that you might become
a mere dreamer, and struggle through an idle, vaporing
existence: now I hold that you are worthy of your name,
although the conviction has reached me in an unpleasant form.
But leave this to me, all will be right; you have only one
thing to do, to send Hoffman to me to-morrow morning."
"Hoffman the silversmith, who lives at the corner near the
senate house?" asked Frederick.
"Precisely," replied the Count, and soon his firm unbroken
step was heard ringing in the distance.
Frederick went out on the balcony to meditate on what
possible steps his father proposed taking to overrule the
opposition of Dumiger. With all his frivolity and dissipation
he was greatly ambitious, and most anxious to sustain a
reputation he had long enjoyed of having it in his power to
command success in any pursuit to which he chose to direct his
attention—that Alcibiades and Admirable Crichton
character which is the principal source of failure to many men
in life. With the exception of the hours wasted in the useless
pursuit of Marguerite, he certainly had not in the present
instance been wanting in exertion, and he also had, like many
other chief burghers in Dantzic, turned his attention to
mechanical pursuits; it was the first time, he now felt
convinced, that those exertions would be all thrown away. As he
looked down from the lofty gallery in which he was standing on
the dense circle of happy dancers, who were whirling round and
round in the center of the square; as he heard the joyous laugh
from the numerous groups who thronged the coffee-houses; as the
plumes of the guards waved in the moonlight, and the light
flashed on the bright uniforms and brighter checks which
reposed upon them, he began to think how idle was a life of
ambition, how far happier he was when as a boy he joined in the
merry supper; when the clear, bright, sparkling wine
represented the free spirits of those who drank it; when
maidens, with gay hearts and
light golden hair, sought his love. "Give me back these
joys," he exclaimed in agony; "give me that youth which
graced the pursuits of love, and which dignified every
enjoyment: take from me that ambition, which only leads to
misery in its failure and to disappointment in its
fulfillment."
Hoffman, the silversmith, whom the count desired to see, was
one of those men who have existed at all times and in all
countries, who trade on the exertions of those who possess more
energy and perseverance than themselves, and who really do seem
essential to the great mechanism of society. He had from time
to time rendered assistance to Dumiger, who, unfortunately at
the present moment owed him a large sum of money, which it
would take a long time to liquidate. The count also had
dealings with the silversmith; for in the quartier Juif
all classes meet and jostle each other. But Hoffman was a
superior man of his order, he knew the secret history of most
of the important burghers, was consulted on many very delicate
subjects, and could have published more scandal than any Sunday
Chronicle of these more modern days. The count was like all
other counts, incessantly in debt; so, when Hoffman was ordered
to attend on the Grand Master, he did not doubt that the
mandate originated in the ordinary necessity, and he prepared
himself accordingly to evade or concede. Some time previously
the count had found it necessary to part with a great portion
of his old family plate, and as it was during the passion of
his son for Marguerite, and after Dumiger had carried off the
prize, he had discovered from the loquacious goldsmith all the
particulars relative to Dumiger, and amongst others the account
of his pecuniary obligations, and that Hoffman had a bond from
him for a very large sum in his possession. The object of the
count's present interview with Hoffman was to know on what
terms he could purchase the bond; and when the jeweler arrived,
the bargain was soon concluded. Hoffman thought the bond would
never be paid, and so the count purchased it for three times
its apparent value.
On the previous evening Dumiger returned flushed and excited
to his house. The moment his friends had left him, he began to
regret the confidence he had placed in them, and the frankness
with which he had expressed himself. He retained but a very
slight recollection of all that he had said, but he thought it
was quite sufficient to have aroused the ridicule of those
around him. Most painful of all sensations, the vague sense of
a folly committed, the extent and the consequences of which are
alike unknown to us! As he approached his home it seemed to him
that he had profaned his affection for Marguerite by mentioning
her name in that rude society, and broken her confidence by
alluding to his hopes and his fears. While his secret had been
confined to his own breast, or communicated only to Marguerite,
his confidence in himself had never for a moment been weakened;
but now that others were made acquainted with his convictions
and his hopes, they seemed to him exaggerated and unfounded. He
had for a moment forgotten that the chief secret of success in
all undertakings in life is Silence. Silence in the scheming,
silence in the execution, silence in the fulfillment; half the
charm that had given him strength was lost now that he had
opened his breast and disclosed its secrets to others. And it
was with a feeling approaching to disgust that he entered his
workroom, and saw all the material of his great enterprise
scattered about the floor.
He went to Marguerite's room. She was sleeping with all the
freshness of youthful dreams glowing on her cheek; after the
tumult of the day the stillness of that room soothed his
spirit. He reflected how little satisfactory were all these
pursuits compared to the tranquillity of home, but then, even
as he sat by the bedside, and with her hand in his, pondered on
the past and future—a pageant as it were, robed in cloth
of gold and purple, and laurel-crowned, swept by him; and the
glory of being preëminent among his fellow-men flashed upon his
soul. If he should fail—. A cold damp settled on his brow
at the thought, for in that event all his time had been thrown
away, and there was no possibility of his meeting his various
engagements. It was not one Hoffman but many that beset him,
although Hoffman was truly the most avaricious of his tribe,
where all were greedy. And then, as he gazed on the lovely
countenance by his side, he thought of the affection which had
resigned all luxury, and, far above all luxury, that
consideration which women so prize, for him, and that he had
brought her to a home where she had to deny herself many of
those comforts to which she had been accustomed. He regretted
the deed. Still more did he regret the time that he had that
night wasted, and the money that he had squandered; but it was
too late for repentance. All that he could now do was to nerve
his energies for the toil of the morrow—that morrow which
comes to all men, the faith of the procrastinator, the hope of
the sufferer, the mercy of the unbeliever.
He awoke in the morning with renewed resolution, but his
brow was still heated with the dissipation of the previous
night, and his hand shook as he applied himself to his work.
After a couple of hours, however, when Marguerite had taken her
place by his side, he forgot Dantzic, Carl, and Krantz, all the
annoyances which threatened him. He was absorbed in his
pursuit, and Marguerite was looking over with her attention not
less absorbed than his own, when to their astonishment the
magnificent carriage, with the
heavy, sleek, overfed horses,
of the Count Albrecht, rolled up to the door.
"Look here, Dumiger," exclaimed Marguerite, running to the
window with a woman's curiosity flushing her cheek. "Here is
the Grand Master's carriage—what can he be doing at this
house?"
"He must be calling on the new arrivals who took the
apartments on the first-floor yesterday," said Dumiger,
scarcely looking up from his work, on which all his attention
was concentrated.
"They are beautiful horses, and the manes and tails are
decorated with ribands which would furnish me with sashes for a
whole life," thought Marguerite; but she avoided giving
utterance to her feeling, lest Dumiger should interpret it into
an expression of regret at having given up the prospect of ever
obtaining all these luxuries.
Marguerite had just left the window when a heavy step was
heard on the stair, and loud knock at the door roused Dumiger
from his fit of abstraction, nearly making him jump from his
chair. The impulsive "Come in!" which he uttered, was
immediately succeeded by the appearance of the Count.
Dumiger, like most men of deep thought and habits of
abstraction, was diffident. He stood for some moments
thunderstruck without performing any of the usual courtesies of
society. Marguerite in her surprise imagined that she must have
been guilty of some great negligence while residing in the
palace, with which the Count now came to reproach her.
The silence was broken by the Count himself, who nodded
kindly, almost familiarly to Marguerite, and without any
further ceremony took the chair from which Dumiger had just
risen.
"I called to see whether you were comfortable, Marguerite,
in your new abode. It is small," continued the Count, as
lolling back in his chair he touched the wall with the back of
his head: "I suppose, however, that you will some day be able
to afford a larger. I do not wish to trespass upon your
confidence, but as I have the liveliest gratitude for the
admirable manner in which you, Marguerite, discharged all your
duties while you were with me, you must let me evince my
recollection of them by a small wedding present." And the Count
laid a rouleau of gold pieces on the table.
"Oh, sir!" exclaimed Dumiger, seizing the Count's hand with
effusion, "you are so kind but I can assure you that we are
quite happy here. When one is truly attached to another, the
little sacrifices of life become a pleasure," and Dumiger's
eyes so filled with tears, that he did not perceive the quiet,
cold sneer on the Count's upper lip; but Marguerite remarked
it. Moreover, she knew the Count well—his vast ambition,
his supercilious pride; she had caught the inflection of his
tone when he spoke to Dumiger, and she knew that when he
affected that winning, cajoling manner, he was always the most
dangerous, and most to be suspected. So her only answer or
acknowledgment was a low courtesy, and the blood mantled in her
cheek, but whether from gratitude or some sterner feeling the
Count was unable to divine.
He looked at her for some time under his long gray eyelash;
Marguerite met the look calmly and composedly. Dumiger was
bustling about quite in an ecstacy of delight, and for the time
entirely forgot the clock and the Dom. Not so the Count, he was
curiously scanning all the various parts of the complicated
machinery which were lying round him. He waited until
Marguerite should retire before he judged it right to commence
speaking to Dumiger on the subject that was next his heart, but
Marguerite did not seem at all disposed to give him the
opportunity.
Woman's prescience of danger for those she loves is
wonderful. Without being able to assign any definite reason,
Marguerite felt that the man's presence boded her no good; and
it was therefore with a troubled spirit that she heard the
Count, after looking several times at his watch, suggest that
he wished to speak to Dumiger alone.
Dumiger looked at Marguerite, who thought it wiser at once
to take the hint than to allow the Count to suppose that she at
all questioned the sincerity of the kind interest which he
affected to take in her. He waited until the door was fairly
closed, and then drew his chair near to Dumiger's. The latter,
quite unaccustomed to the neighborhood of so great a man,
immediately withdrew his seat to a more deferential distance;
but the dimensions of the room speedily put a stop to the
retrogression and his modesty by arresting his chair.
"Don't be afraid," said the Count to Dumiger, in a somewhat
harsher tone than he had yet used, for he was an impatient and
testy old man. "Don't draw your chair back in that way. I wish
to speak to you privately and confidentially."
Dumiger held his breath. What could the Grand Master of the
Teutonic Knights have to say to him? for, whatever might be his
future greatness, at all events its promise could be known but
to few others.
"You were out last night," continued the Count. "You went to
a wine-shop—you spoke loudly—you drank deeply."
As the Count continued Dumiger's cheeks glowed. The Count
must have heard all that he said. His heart sank within him as
he recalled his weakness; but his mind was soon settled on that
point by the Count.
"And when you spoke," continued he, you talked very wildly
of becoming a great man; of obtaining more enduring fame than
any of our noblest citizens. By the bye, you did me the honor
to class me amongst those you were destined to triumph
over."
"It was a wild, idle thought," said Dumiger, faltering forth
a thousand apologies. "I did not know what I said.
Two friends led me into this error. I am sure you will
forgive me, sir: I was excited; my brain was in that state I
really did not know what I said. Who ever could have
repeated this to your Excellency?"
"No one repeated it." said the Count, "so you need not
entertain any mistrust of your friends. One of my household
overheard you; and his ear having caught the sound of my name,
he listened attentively, that is all. But what does it signify?
You did just as all young men—ay, and the best of our
young men, do—drank deep of the Rhenish. I like you the
better for it. And then, by all accounts, you had some cause
for excitement, for you believe you are to win the greatest
prize that Dantzic has ever proposed for one of her
citizens."
The scene of the last night passed from Dumiger's memory
when the hope of fame and the prospect of success were
mentioned. His whole countenance changed, his eye brightened,
and the nostril dilated.
"You heard that, also, your Excellency!" he said. "Well,
then, I need not scruple to tell you the truth. Yes, I have
labored night and day, and I hope to obtain the reward of all
this self-sacrifice; and now I draw near the goal my blood is
excited—I am fevered by my hopes. Look here, sir," and
forgeting all his fears and etiquettes, he took the Count by
the arm and led him to a curtain which was drawn across a
corner of the room where the model-clock was placed. "Here is
the work; it approaches completion; is it not worthy of the
prize?"
Even to the most unpracticed eye this model of a great work
appeared to be of admirable skill. So complicated was the
machinery, that the marvel seemed to be how it was possible so
nicely to have arranged its various parts, that they could find
sufficient space for working. Massive weights were regulated by
springs of such fine texture, that it was surprising how they
could possibly have been made by a man's rude hand. The
movement was perfectly noiseless, so beautifully were the
balances arranged around the principal works of the clock
itself: the heavenly bodies were moving in harmony and
regularity; the face of the clock had not yet been affixed, so
the whole of the interior operations of the machinery were
apparent. The Count gazed astonished at the result of long
perseverance and indomitable energy. Dumiger stood beside him
holding the massive curtain aside, and delighting in the
Count's amazement. At length he allowed it to fall, exclaiming,
with pardonable self-love, "Surely this must succeed!"
The Count resumed his seat, and, for some time, was unable
to regain the composure which he had lost by the sight which he
had seen. Dumiger sat buried in thought.
"And when you have succeeded, Dumiger," said the Count, in a
voice which he intended to be very kind, but whose inflection
manifested a bitter disappointment,—"and when you have
succeeded, will you be happier? Do you think, Dumiger, that
greatness adds to happiness? Ah, you know little of the world
if you believe this. Besides, remember, you may fail, and then
how bitter your disappointment will be!"
Dumiger was seated with his arms folded, and scarcely paying
any attention to the Count's observations: his mind was
wandering amid the planets.
"Look, Dumiger, you are attached to Marguerite."
At the name of Marguerite, Dumiger raised his head and
concentrated all his attention.
"You love her better than all the world?"
"Far better," said Dumiger.
"For her, like a man of heart, you would sacrifice
everything!" continued the wily Count.
Dumiger nodded his head in assent.
"Even the clock?"
A glow mantled over Dumiger's cheek; he was about to answer
in the affirmative, when he remembered that the clock had been
his companion for five years past. He had lived with it,
breathed his own life into its movements,—should he
renounce the clock? It, as well as Marguerite, had become a
part of himself; it had long stood him in the place of family,
of love, of all those enjoyments which youth so wantonly and
earnestly clings to. The results of success, ambition, honors,
wealth,—all this he would give up for Marguerite; but his
clock—he hesitated.
The Count repeated the question.
At that moment a sweet voice might be heard caroling one of
those simple national airs which are dear to all nations and
all times. Marguerite had a soft, winning voice, well adapted
to the song she was singing. The Count, as well as Dumiger,
paused in his conversation; the color rose again to Dumiger's
face as he thought how nearly he was on the point of
sacrificing his faith, and loving the work of his own hands
more than the admirable work of Nature which had been bestowed
upon him, and, as he listened, he lowered his voice and
said,—
"For her I would sacrifice even the clock!"
"You shall," exclaimed the Count.
"I shall!" said Dumiger, starting from his seat. "Now in
what way do you mean, my Lord Count?"
"You know," said the Count, "the value of the prize which is
offered by the town. It is worth little in money. The honor is
considered sufficient. Then you are to be given high place
amongst the good citizens, a laurel crown, to ride a white
horse, and sundry other trumperies."
The Count looked at Dumiger while he applied the word
trumperies to those results which the latter had so impatiently
striven for,—for which he had been laboring night and
day. These outward signs of the results
of great
ambition,—these to be called trumperies! Dumiger
looked at the Count with astonishment.
"And yet," said he, "it is for such trumperies men sacrifice
their lives, sometimes their characters."
The old Count colored slightly as he gave a glance at the
riband and star which he wore. Men did sometimes say that the
Grand Master had not obtained all his honors without sundry
sacrifices of one kind and another. Dumiger had not intended
any allusion to these rumors, and he was surprised at the
Count's change of color, for which, at the moment, he was
unable to assign a reason.
"Well," said the Count hesitatingly, "as you say you prefer
Marguerite's love even to your ambition, let us suppose, that
in one moment you were able to attain certain wealth, to place
her in a position worthy of her high qualities, to be at once
on an equality with those of her fellow-citizens, who have
hitherto—pardon me the word—treated her as an
inferior; let us suppose that by some extraordinary powers all
this could be immediately realized;—then let me ask you,
would you sacrifice your clock?"
Dumiger marveled as he listened. He pictured Marguerite
adorned with all those incidents which lend a new charm even to
beauty like hers. He thought, with that vanity which clings to
all men,—he thought if she were so much admired in her
rustic dress, what would she be if she could rival in luxury
and grace the chief ladies of Dantzic? He looked round the
room; and instead of the rudely-carved, worn-out chairs, he
pictured the most graceful and luxurious sofas; instead of two
small, and, in spite of all Marguerite's taste and exertion,
rather dusty and ungraceful-looking rooms, a suite of
magnificent apartments, where he could gratify every taste and
find people willing to come and applaud it. All this passed
through his mind, and he did not perceive how curiously the
Count was regarding him; but at last Dumiger was recalled to
himself, and he thought how little occasion there was for him
to draw such pictures, as they could never be realized; and why
should he annoy himself by considering this proposition, which
could only be made to him in joke.
"But why," he said to the count, "do you make me such a
suggestion, when I can never hope to obtain this?"
The Count paused a moment, as though to examine Dumiger's
countenance still more attentively, and then said,—
"You shall obtain this wealth, and much more."
"I!" exclaimed Dumiger, with astonishment.
"Yes," said the Count; "at a great price, I know; at a
price, however, which I think you will still be willing to pay
for it—for your clock."
"My clock worth that!" said Dumiger, "who will give it to
me?"
It was the first time that Dumiger had tested, by the
opinion of another, the value of the great work which he had
achieved, and it gratified him to hear the magnificent
offer.
"I," said the Count, "I will give you all that I have said;
nay, more, I will use all my influence to have you placed high
on the great book of the citizens. You shall have everything to
make life happy. Give me the clock; sign me a paper, making
over this clock to me; declaring, at the same time, that it is
your free act and deed, and that you never completed it, and I
will immediately settle that fortune upon you."
"And yet my clock," thought Dumiger; "all the honors I have
anticipated, the gratification of my ambition, that greatness I
have dreamed of; can I forget all this?"
He was about to reply, when the door opened and Marguerite
entered. The length of time that the conversation lasted had
made her impatient; besides, she mistrusted the Count.
He looked annoyed at her appearance, for he imagined that
Dumiger was on the point of acceding to his terms.
"Marguerite, I am so rejoiced you have come!" exclaimed
Dumiger, as though a sudden light had burst upon him. "The Lord
Count has offered to buy my clock, and to make us rich beyond
all expectation; to have us placed high among the first class
of the citizens; in fact to enable us at once to secure all
that men pass their lifetimes in striving to attain, if I will
give up my clock and declare that I failed in its execution.
What do you say, Marguerite?"
"What do I say!" she exclaimed, and as she spoke she drew
herself up to her full height, her brow contracted, the color
glowed in her cheek. "And did you hesitate what reply to
make?"
"I thought of you, Marguerite."
"Of me!" she replied. "Oh, do not think of me; or rather if
you do so, think that I would sooner live in the most abject
poverty, and suffer any amount of privation, than part with the
work, the consummation of which will be the glory of your life.
Part with your clock! no, I would sooner sell this hair which
you so prize, part with all those qualities which render me
dear to you; nay more, I think I would even be content to
sacrifice your love rather than see all the results of your
patient industry wasted, your noble ambition sacrificed. Think
of me, dear Dumiger, but think of me only as a part of
yourself, as one who would give up every hope and every future
to secure your happiness, that is, your fame."
Dumiger rose from his seat, unmindful in whose presence he
stood, he pressed Marguerite in his arms; again the nobility of
his mind brightened in his eye and beamed
over his countenance. It was
another instance amid the thousand which, unknown to them,
were passing around them of a man won to noble thoughts by a
woman's influence, proving that she is the animating power
to save him in all his difficulties; that she invokes and
renews all those noble thoughts which are concealed in the
recesses of his mind. Hers is the light to dispel the mists
which the chill atmosphere of the world hangs around the
brightest portions of the mind: great at all times, greatest
of all when, in a moment of difficulty, she is called upon
to decide between the good and the evil, the just and the
unjust, the generous and the mean, the ingenuous and the
sophistical; and Marguerite, in one glance, saw all that
Dumiger had failed to discover in the Count's appearance and
manner,—the dark design, the selfish calculation; her
simplicity of mind perceived indications of low, mean
purposes, which he failed to discern. Thus it is ever that
the first impressions, and, above all other first
impressions, the impressions of innocence and youth, are the
truest and most to be depended on.
For wherein is it that men—so often men of the
shrewdest intelligence and keenest intellect—deceive
themselves by their own egregious vanity.—by that vanity
which makes them prefer to depend on the refinements and subtle
processes of their own intelligence, rather than on the first
impressions of the mind which Heaven has bestowed upon them?
They are not satisfied with perceiving that a thing is good,
but they must learn why it is so. They are not satisfied with
knowing that the world is beautiful, that the harmony of this
globe and its planets is admirable, but they must know the
origin of this beauty, and the cause of the harmony which
strikes them with wonder. It is not enough for them to be told
they are "fearfully and wonderfully made," but they must attend
schools to learn why they live, move, and have their being.
Such is man, blinded by his self-conceit; blasted not by the
excess, but by the partial light which bursts upon him: whereas
woman moves clear in her apprehension, because she believes
that "whatever is, is right;" and great in her intelligence,
because she knows she is ignorant.
The count saw that all further appeals to Dumiger's interest
would now be thrown away, but he was not on that account to be
baffled.
"Very well, sir," he said, in an angry voice; "I make you
the greatest offer that was ever made to any workman in this
city, and you reject it with contempt. The day will come when
you shall repent it. I would have saved you for that woman's
sake, from the distress and ruin which are impending over you,
but you will not be free. Look to it, sir, for there is danger
even now. Your success is not so certain. I have it in my power
to crush you, and your pride shall be broken."
So saying he took up the rouleau of gold he had given to
Marguerite and departed. Dumiger and Marguerite stood side by
side, alarmed, but still unbending; and yet the man who spoke
to them was of great power. To recite his titles once
more:—Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, President of
the City Council; magnificent in his promise, fierce in his
resentments, unscrupulous in his means. For a moment Dumiger
looked at Marguerite as though he were disposed to yield to the
tyranny of that great man, but a glance from her reassured him;
and it was with a low but formal reverence that he opened the
door to the illustrious visitor, while Marguerite stood proud,
haughty, and reserved.
"Did we do wisely?" said Dumiger, when the door closed upon
them.
"Wisely!" exclaimed Marguerite; "oh, Dumiger, can you doubt
it? I feel myself worthier of you now that I was able to
influence you in your moment of uncertainty. I say moment, for
I will not believe that, upon reflection, you could have
hesitated in your decision. Better risk all and lose all than
sacrifice the glorious object which you have in view. Who would
not prefer the greatness which must be yours, if you succeed?
and the count has at least taught us one thing, that success is
almost certain,—who would not prefer this to that wealth
of which he is so proud, and that eminence which it makes him
giddy to stand on? No, Dumiger, you were in the right; and come
what may, you will feel proud of your decision and
self-denial."
"It was you who decided for me," replied Dumiger, as he
pressed her lips fondly to his own.
He toiled throughout the day, and the dusk was settling over
the town when the last wheel was finished and the clock was
completed.
It was late in the evening of the same day. Marguerite and
Dumiger were sitting by the fire together. The fire burnt so
brightly that it was not necessary to light the candles.
Marguerite, with her eyes closed and half reposing in Dumiger's
arms, was enjoying all the happiness which the sense of
returning affection gives. The night was somewhat changed since
they first sat there. The rain beat against the casement, and
the wind whistled down the chimney. The more it rained and
blew, the closer crept Marguerite to Dumiger's side. It was a
picture of comfort; of that comfort which, alas! is so easily
destroyed by the breath of tyranny. It was a type of the many
hearths which are covered with ruins when the trumpet sounds
through the city and the tocsin rings to
arms; when war or rebellion
sweeps like a pestilence, not alone over the ruins of
palaces and of senate-houses, but over the abodes of the
humble, where every room can tell a tale of affection and
toil.
There was a knock at Dumiger's door, which made Marguerite
start and called all the color into her cheeks.
There was something ominous in the knock. It was a short,
quick, clear, and decisive knock. It was the knock of a man in
authority; of one who felt that although standing on the
outside of the door, he had a right to be within. Marguerite
and Dumiger both looked at the fire, as though they could read
in its confused shapes the reason of this interruption; but the
result could not have been very satisfactory, for neither
spoke, while reluctantly Dumiger rose to open the dour, and
Marguerite followed his movements with intense anxiety.
The truth is that people are never thoroughly comfortable
and happy without a sense of the uncertainty of human happiness
stealing over them. We speak of those whose lives are not a
succession of parties of pleasure, of soft dreams and golden
fulfillments—to such favored ones all sense of happiness
is deadened by satiety—but they who toil through long,
long days, and are blest with a few moments of repose, value
them so highly that they scarcely believe such happiness can
last.
Dumiger opened the door, and uttered a faint cry. Marguerite
was in a moment by his side.
He had, indeed, some cause for alarm. An officer of the
Grande Court de Justice stood there. There was no mistaking his
character, for the uniform of the myrmidons of that court was
too well known to all the inhabitants of Dantzic, and more
especially to the poorer classes, who gazed on them with awe,
for they were in general stern, hard-featured, and hard-hearted
men, who did their duty without gentleness, and rarely deserted
a man when once they had him in their clutches. Dumiger had
made acquaintance with them of old on one or two occasions, and
the recollection was anything but agreeable.
The man entered the room very quickly, took his seat in
Dumiger's chair, and drew his missive from his pocket. It was
Dumiger's bill to Hoffman for a very large sum, which had been
purchased by the Count.
"What is this?" gasped forth Dumiger; for, at the moment,
the debt had entirely escaped his recollection. "Ach Gott!"
exclaimed Dumiger, "is it possible?" but observing Marguerite
standing by, pale, tearful, and trembling, he restrained his
impetuosity.
Dumiger rose and went to a drawer. He counted over, with the
eagerness of a miser, all the dollars which were kept
there,—the few which had remained after the expenses of
the last fortnight. For some time past he had devoted all his
energies so entirely to the construction of the clock, that the
smallest receipts of his craft had been despised.
A cold perspiration stood on his forehead as he gazed upon
his small store. He knew too well, that by the laws of Dantzic
the debtor was either dragged to the common prison or all his
goods were seized. Either alternative was terrible. He looked
round the room. On one side stood the clock, the child of his
mind and industry, on the other was Marguerite, beautiful in
her grief.
The man had lit a pipe, and was carelessly smoking.
"Come," said the officer at last, as shaking out the ashes
of his pipe and drawing himself to his full stature, so as to
give weight to his authority—"come, we have no time to
lose, Herr Dumiger. The money or the furniture, or to prison.
Consult the pretty jungfrau there: but you must come to a
conclusion directly, for time presses and I have several other
little bits of business to perform to-night: so I will light
another pipe while you make up your minds."
It was no easy matter for Marguerite to bring her mind to a
decision. She thought on the one hand of the lonely nights she
might have to pass; on the other, of the irreparable loss the
clock would be to Dumiger. Dumiger clasped her hands in his
own, and as his lips clung to hers he exclaimed, "Perish all
things but love." He rose—he was on the point of desiring
the man to take away the clock in payment of the debt, in the
hope that he might redeem it on the morrow, when the sudden
thought struck him that the Count was the instigator of this
act. He caught hold of the man by one arm, which was hanging
listlessly over the back of the chair, and exclaimed—
"Tell me who sent you on this mission."
The man only looked round with an expression of astonishment
at his presumption, and without deigning any reply, he resumed
his pipe.
"Was it the Grand Master?" asked Dumiger.
"Obey my orders and ask no questions," said the man. "You
had better follow my example. I have told you already that
there is no time to spare. Tell me what course you intend to
take. Give up some articles in this room—there is that
clock, which will do more than pay the bill—or follow me
immediately. There is no other alternative."
The whole conversation with the Grand Master occurred to
Dumiger. There could be no doubt that the clock would go into
his possession; that it was a deep-laid scheme to spoil him of
the result of all his labor. Better, far better, that
Marguerite should bear the pain of separation, than that the
clock should be endangered, and by such a man.
"Marguerite," said Dumiger, in a low voice, after a long
pause, "it is fixed. We must part for a short time. I will
write from my prison to some of my friends; they will not
desert me in this necessity. A few short
hours, and I shall return to
you, my own Marguerite."
But Marguerite had fainted, and the lips which touched his
cheek were cold and pale.
Slowly she opened those large blue eyes, and although her
lips faltered, the look and the voice were both earnest as she
bade him go.
"Yes, Dumiger, you are right: ambition such as yours is a
less selfish passion than love like mine. Leave me for a time.
I know the interval will be short. It is another step toward
the greatness to which you are aspiring."
The man looked at them with a vague and vacant look. He had
been witness to this description of scene so frequently, that
he began to believe it to be a part of the debtor's craft. As
some people can regard the most beautiful varying tints of
heaven, the lights and shadows which flit across the face of
nature, and see nothing more in them than a part of that vast
and complicated machinery that governs the world—so he,
in these lights and shadows of life, only beheld the natural
workings of the human mind.
With a pale cheek but a firm step Dumiger departed. The last
sound that fell upon his ear as he left his door, was the
blessing murmured by his bride. Again he felt disposed to turn
back and sacrifice all for his affection; but already one of
the city guard stood behind him, and the rattle of arms on the
pavement told him that his arrest had not been lightly planned
or carelessly conducted.
The castle toward which Dumiger and his guards directed
their steps was the Grimshaus, formerly a citadel and an
important point of defense for the town of Dantzic, though now
converted into a prison for political offenders and debtors.
The reader may be aware that the laws against debtors in the
great free commercial cities were intolerably severe. Some men
were permitted to groan away their whole lives in hopeless
misery. The creditor was in general without pity, and the
debtor unpitied. He was entirely at the mercy of the jailer,
who had it in his power to load him with chains, and even on
the slightest pretext of insubordination to execute summary
justice upon him. These laws, however, had as yet little
affected Dumiger; though threatened with arrest on one or two
previous occasions his difficulties had always been arranged.
But the present debt was more serious than any which had as yet
been pressed for, and he could not but feel that friends might
be less willing to become surety.
They arrived at the square in which the Grimshaus was
situated. It was a wild, unhealthy, stern, fantastic pile,
which stood, in point of fact, upon an island, for a wide, wet
ditch surrounded it, except where a drawbridge connected it
with the square. The towers and ramparts had in some places
mouldered away, and huge bars of iron were introduced in
different parts of the wall to give strength to the building by
binding the yawning mason-work together.
The square was deserted. The cry of the sentinel at the most
distant of the landward posts sounded ominous, like that of a
lost bird at night. Although the moon shone brightly, it was
difficult to distinguish the whole outline of the building, on
account of the pestiferous vapors which arose from the moat,
and hung like a pall over the recently flooded plain. Through
these mists the city chimes sounded muffled and melancholy. It
was solitude—of all solitude the most fearful—a
prison solitude in the neighborhood of a great town. The very
escort appeared to feel the influence of their melancholy and
lonely scene, for the jests stopped as the foot of the vanguard
clanged on the drawbridge. This was merely the effect of
discipline; but to Dumiger it appeared a part of the drama, and
it added to his sense of fear.
They were detained some time upon the drawbridge while the
sergeant was holding some conversation with the officer of the
watch.
"By the Holy Mary!" exclaimed the functionary who had
arrested Dumiger, "there must be something more than a mere
debt in all this. I never saw such a fuss made about the
receipt of the body of a debtor in all my life. And then, it
was rather strange my being ordered to take a file of my guard
instead of honest Jean, who would have held him just as firm in
his grasp, and not kept my poor fellows shivering out all night
in this unhealthy atmosphere. No, no, there is something more
than a debt due: it is a case of political crime. Is it not so,
my lad?" he exclaimed, giving Dumiger a thump on his back which
made the chain-bridge rattle.
"Is it not what?" said Dumiger, who was quite taken by
surprise. He had been gazing on the water, and the purest drops
in it were the two tears which had fallen from his eyes. "I
have heard nothing," he replied. "What does all this mean, and
why am I kept here?"
"Ah, that's just what I wish to know!" answered the man,
"and no one can tell us better than yourself. It is not merely
for a case of debt that I was sent to your house to-night. No,
no, I am wiser than that. Come now, tell us the real truth.
What conspiracy have you entered into, what political offense
have you committed, to entitle you to be escorted with such
honor, and be made the subject of so many forms? There is no
use denying it," he continued, for Dumiger's astonished
countenance was quite a sufficient protestation against any
such inference. "Look here; the lieutenant of the tower has
been called up, and the guard is reinforced."
It was quite true. Had Dumiger been a state prisoner of the
highest rank, he could not have been received with more
ceremony. The guard turned out, and the rattle of the muskets
was heard as the massive gates
rolled ponderously upon their
axes. The one light in the entrance gave an awful but not
unpicturesque appearance to the scene, for it was reflected
on the glittering steel. It cast its wild gleams on the
bronzed cheeks of the guards, while the length and height of
the hall were lost in the gloom.
"Forward!" was the word, and tramp, tramp, tramp, mingled
with the rattle of the chains of the bridge. Dumiger was now
placed in the center of the guard.
The soldiers presented arms to the burghers: the burghers
carried theirs as they passed. The single drum beat, and its
echo vibrated through the building. The gates closed behind
them—bolt after bolt was drawn, and Dumiger was separated
from the world.
His heart sank within him, and well it might; for as the
moon shone into the courtyard beyond the hall where he was
standing, he could see that the windows which looked into it
were all trebly barred. Besides, the building looked throughout
so miserably damp and wretched; and there was an entire absence
of care for the comfort of its inmates, which chilled his
blood.
The lieutenant of the tower, after the conference with
Dumiger's officer had lasted some time, approached him. He took
him gently by the arm, and brought him to the broken, rotten,
creaking stairs, which led to the upper rooms, or rather cells,
from which they were separated by two large, massive iron
doors.
The lieutenant himself opened the locks, while two soldiers,
standing on either side with flambeaux, gave Dumiger a full
view of the desolate stair which he had to ascend. The passage
to which it led had been taken out of the thickness of the
walls, so massive were they. They passed through a large hall
where a huge fire was blazing, about which some soldiers slept,
with their cloaks drawn tightly round them to ward off the
draughts which came in strong gusts beneath the doors and even
through the shutters; one or two with handkerchiefs tied round
their heads, to serve the purpose of night-caps, were sitting
by the fire smoking. They took the pipes from their lips to
salute the lieutenant as he passed, but beyond this notice paid
no attention to the object of his visit. It was evidently an
event of no uncommon occurrence. More passages, more bars, more
doors battered by age and mended by slabs of iron, and at last
Dumiger arrived at the room, or rather the cell, which had been
prepared for him. The preparations, it must however be
admitted, were of the very simplest character. A palliasse
thrown down in the corner, a rickety chair, and the strangest
apology for a table, were the whole furniture of the place.
Without one word of explanation the lieutenant motioned him
into his new abode. In vain Dumiger stormed and raved, and
desired to know whether this was the way in which free citizens
were treated in the free city of Dantzic. The lieutenant only
shrugged his shoulders, gave orders to the soldiers to
withdraw, and Dumiger was left to his melancholy
meditations.
A heavy weight, such as magnetic influence affects the brain
with, oppressed his forehead; he threw himself on the
palliasse, and endeavored to recall the events of the last few
hours: but so rapid and intense had they been, that they
already seemed to be numbered amongst the visions of the past.
When the heart is oppressed with suffering, and above all, with
the most painful of all suffering, anxiety, solitude and sleep
are the only consolations. But then the sleep is not the light,
happy, joyous slumber, from which we awake refreshed and
strengthened; it is a leaden, sullen, sodden trance, from which
we awake with the sensation that the whole weight of the
atmosphere has been concentrated on our brows. This was the
case with Dumiger: the flickering, dreary light of the lamp
kept waving before his eyes as he lay there. He felt like a man
whose limbs have been paralyzed by some grievous accident. At
last be breathed heavily, and the load of oppression fell from
his eyelids. Such was the sleep we have described.
When he awoke in the morning the light had gone out; but a
few pale, melancholy gleams of morning pierced the prison-bars,
which were so far above him that it was not possible for him to
reach them. He strove to remember where he was; his eyes fell
on the grotesquely-painted figures which covered the walls, and
which had escaped his observation on the preceding night. These
were the handicraft of some man who had evidently endeavored to
wile away his time in prison by caricaturing his persecutors;
and certainly he had succeeded in the attempt. Nothing more
absurd than some of these pictures could be imagined; every
possible deformity was ascribed to the originals, and the
sketches were surrounded by pasquinades and quaint devices.
Here and there might be found expressions of deeper and more
fearful import, if indeed anything could be more fearful than
the contrast between the ridiculous and such a dungeon. "Non
omnis moriar," wrote one man in a yellow liquid, which too
evidently was discolored blood. "Justum et tenacem recti
virum," scrawled another, immediately followed by a
portrait of the "vultis instantis tyranni," who had, if
we may judge by the chain suspended from his neck, once been a
famous Grand Master. On one part of the wall might be
deciphered a whole romance scrawled with an old nail, in which
the prisoner had arrived at such excellence, that the letters
were like the most admirable type. It was a long, and doubtless
melancholy tale; so much so, that the kind guardians of the
place had scratched it with their knives to prevent its being
easily deciphered. In fact, that little cell had evidently
contained an Iliad of romances; and if the walls could have
spoken, or even the scrawls been
deciphered, some strange tales, and perhaps many mysterious
events, would have come to light. Dumiger gazed on these sad
records of prior existences with a melancholy interest. In
vain he endeavored to explain to himself the cause of his
being treated with such unparalleled severity. He could not
recall any crime such as might excuse his incarceration in
such an abominable place. He buried his face in his hands.
He thought of Marguerite and the clock, and then, happily
for him, he wept, as the young alone can weep when they are
in sorrow, and when their sorrow is unselfish.
He was roused by an unbolting of bars, the turning of huge,
unwieldy keys, and the lieutenant of the castle stood before
him.
Dumiger was in that state of mind when whatever of pride
belongs to the consciousness of innocence loses its strength.
Though there was little to invite confidence in the outward
demeanor of the functionary, he ran toward him, seized him by
both hands, and exclaimed, "Have pity upon me, sir; tell me why
I am here!"
"Pooh, pooh," replied the bronzed old Cerberus: "be a
man."
"Be a man!" shrieked Dumiger, "I am a man: and it is because
I am a man, a free man of Dantzic, that I appeal against this
monstrous treatment. Be a man! why, I appeal to you, sir, to be
a man, and to give up that situation, if it can only be
retained by cruelty to others. I say again, be you a man, and
cease to torture me."
The lieutenant continued looking at him with the most
perfect indifference. He whistled a tune, took the only two
turns in the cell which its extent permitted, and then, as if a
sudden recollection had struck him, put two letters into
Dumiger's hands.
"Come, you are not very ill treated, young man, when you are
allowed to read."
Dumiger felt a glow of delight thrill through his frame.
Everything is by comparison, and after the pain be had endured,
the sight of two letters, the one in the handwriting of
Marguerite, the other of Carl, made his heart leap with joy.
They seemed to him to be the guarantees of immediate
safety.
The lieutenant still remained near him. Dumiger would not
open the letters in his presence. At last the officer, after
some minutes' delay, and having sung sundry snatches of martial
airs, gave Dumiger a contemptuous, indignant glance, and
stalked out of the cell, taking care to rattle the bolts and
bars as a punishment to Dumiger for not gratifying his
curiosity. Poor devil, it was his only amusement to pry into
the prisoners' secrets.
"How is the lad?" asked the second in command when his
commander appeared.
"Better than he will be when he knows the charges for which
he is shut up. At present he is under the impression it is only
for debt; but when he learns it is for treason, he will whimper
and whine even more than he has been doing."
"What, so young and a traitor!" exclaimed the subaltern, who
was evidently the kinder spirit of the two. "It is almost
incredible."
"It may be," continued the lieutenant. "I have directions
from the Grand Master and Council to keep a strict watch over
him. They say that he is a most dangerous character. But I
never trouble myself much about these kind of fellows. I do my
duty quietly. Meanwhile, I have given him letters which won't
add to his happiness much when he reads them, if I am to
believe what the inspector told me, who of course read them and
sealed them again."
The moment the lieutenant had left the cell, Dumiger eagerly
tore open Marguerite's letter, without remarking that it had
been opened ere it reached him. He read it through with that
rapidity of glance and mental discernment which fear and love
combined can alone give. It was with a groan of horror that he
allowed the letter to drop from his hands, for the full extent
of the difficulties of his situation now broke upon him. She
told him that the same evening, the moment his arrest was known
in the neighborhood, bills had poured in from all quarters;
that she had seen his friends Carl and Krantz, who called early
on that morning, and who found it impossible to obtain
one-tenth of the sum now required for his release. All they
could do, therefore, was to take charge of the wonderful model,
and carry it to the Court-house, where it would have to remain
until the decision of the Council should be proclaimed. The
second letter, which was from Carl, was still more appalling,
for he told Dumiger how essential it was for him to make any
sacrifice in order to put the whole machinery in order, so that
his work might appear to the judges in the most favorable point
of view. He undertook, however, to engage the best mechanist in
Dantzic, in the event of Dumiger not being able to obtain his
release before the appointed day.
What was to be done? Dumiger felt himself driven almost to
frenzy. He thought of Marguerite, of his clock, of his friends;
he then began to think that be had acted very foolishly in
refusing the offer of the Grand Master, who, he felt assured,
although the lieutenant would not admit it to him, was the
cause of all his misery. The more he reflected on the past, the
more desperate he became; he rolled on the ground in agony; the
whole day passed in efforts to reach the window, whence at
least he might perceive the situation of his house, or to shake
the bars of the strongly-ironed door. Toward evening a soldier
brought him some refreshment, but preserved an obstinate
silence. Dumiger allowed the refreshment to remain untasted on
the ground; he could not touch
it. The evening grew on
apace, the merry chimes from the Dom of the city came across
the water; it struck him that they had never chimed so
musically before, or with so much meaning. Another long,
long night of agony was to be passed, and where and how was
suspense to end?
Time swept on, but this night they brought him no lamp, so
that he had no means of measuring its progress; he could only
judge how heavily the hours rolled by the tramp of the guards
as they marched over the drawbridge to the several reliefs. At
ten o'clock he heard the bugles sounding the retreat, and then
when he pictured to himself his gentle young bride, so sweet,
so lovely—when he remembered how greatly he had neglected
her for his ambition—he loathed himself for what he used
to consider laudable, but now felt to have been mere
selfishness.
It was still very early, for the gray cold streaks of
morning had not pierced the prison-bars, when Dumiger was
roused from his uneasy slumber by the rattling of the lock of
his door. He looked up and saw with surprise a man who was not
dressed in uniform.
"Who are you? What do you want?" exclaimed Dumiger, "for
there is such a thing as intrusion even in a prison."
The man whom he addressed only replied by taking possession
of the single chair which stood by the bedside; he then very
quietly and coolly took a tinder-box from his pocket, struck a
light in the most deliberate manner, and lit the small lamp
which had remained unreplenished from the preceding evening.
Dumiger had then an opportunity of examining his visitor.
He was a little, jesuitical, sly, crafty, leering person,
with a quick, intelligent, practical eye—a man who was
evidently conversant with the world; and to judge from the
sensual expression of his mouth and the protuberance at the
nape of the neck, whose world was of the worst
description—a phrenologist or physiognomist would have
hung him at once. It is fortunate for some men that these
sciences are not more extensively understood, or a great many
persons would suffer for their natural and cerebral
conformation.
"You will soon be free, my son."
"Free! thank God!" exclaimed Dumiger, throwing himself back
on his pillow and clasping his hands in gratitude.
"You are too quick, young man," continued the stranger. "I
said you would soon be free, if—you see there is an
if. It is for you to remove it."
"If—if what? I will do anything you tell me," almost
shrieked Dumiger, so terrified was he at the possibility of his
hopes deserting him.
"Well," continued the little man, putting on his spectacles
and examining the roll of his papers, "I will commence by
telling you that I am a native of Hamburgh and like yourself, a
great mechanist. I was sent for by the Council last evening, to
examine all the models which have been received. I do not
hesitate to say to you that yours is by far the best."
"God be praised, Marguerite, Marguerite!" ejaculated
Dumiger.
"Yes," quickly remarked the mysterious visitor, "yours is by
far superior to all the rest, but it will not win the
prize."
"Not win the prize!" said Dumiger; for now all his ambition
had returned to him.
"Certainly not," was the reply; "you know as well as I do
that the machinery requires some directing power. No one knows
how to apply it: no one knows the secret."
"Yes, there is a secret," said the youth, his face
brightening even through the cold, clammy prison
atmosphere.
"And you cannot get out to tell it, or to arrange your own
work, for here I have a schedule of the judgments for debt
which have been lodged against you;" and he held out a list
some twelve inches in length.
Dumiger groaned. "And are there no means of paying
this?"
"You can answer that question as well as myself," replied
the man. "I will tell you that there are none for the present;
but there is one way in which the clock may still be the
admiration of Dantzic, and yourself free with a great
independence in three days."
"What way? what way? tell me quickly!" cried Dumiger,
gasping with anxiety.
"Be still, young man, be still; we have plenty of time:
let's proceed quietly," said the stranger.
"Well, well, but be quick," continued Dumiger, in anything
but a quiet tone of voice.
"I have told you," said the man, quietly readjusting his
spectacles, which Dumiger had slightly disturbed by the
violence with which he seized his arm, "I have told you that I
am a native of Hambro', a mechanician; that I have seen your
clock, admired it, and taken the trouble to obtain a list of
your liabilities,—here it is again."
Dumiger gave another groan.
"Your position," continued the stranger, "appears to me to
be this—that without my assistance your clock will be
worth nothing, while you will remain quietly in prison here,
charged besides, as far as I can understand the matter, with
some political offense; that Marguerite will either pine away
or atone for your loss by amusing herself with some of your
friends—Carl and Krantz for instance. You see I am au
fait with all your domestic matters."
Oh, jealousy! oh, cowardice of the heart! At the name of
Carl the blood flew to Dumiger's temples. It just occurred to
him that it was strange that Marguerite should have gone to him
for assistance without any direction from himself to do so.
Root out the feeling, Dumiger; root it out, or you are
lost.
The stranger smiled sarcastically, but affected not to
notice his flushed cheek and faltering voice.
"Now there is but one means to relieve yourself from all
these risks and this load of misery."
"Again I inquire, what is it?" said Dumiger.
"Sell me your clock: I have come to purchase it on the part
of the free city of Hamburgh," was the calm, deliberate
reply.
"Sell my clock!" echoed Dumiger.
"The city of Hamburgh," continued the stranger, without
appearing to remark Dumiger's exclamation, "authorizes me to
offer for the clock of best workmanship, the freedom of her
walls, an income of four thousand dollars, a place in the chief
council with due precedence, and many other minor advantages.
If you accept these terms a large installment of money will be
paid within three days,—that is, within the time for the
return of post. You will naturally inquire, Why the city of
Hambro' should make so extravagant an offer? I will recall to
you the extreme jealousy which has always existed between these
two great commercial cities. You will remember that this
rivalry is unceasing—that it comprehends all things, the
smallest as well as the greatest. They attempted to vie with
each other in the construction of their doms: Dantzic gained
the advantage. The fame and the prize given for excellence in
these clocks, and of the unrivaled workmanship which may be
expected, has spread throughout Germany. The inhabitants of
Hambro' are inferior in science. They wish to obtain a piece of
workmanship which shall be unrivaled, in the easiest manner,
and I was sent here to negotiate the purchase. Well, I was
selected by the Council here as one of the judges. It is an act
of treachery—granted: that cannot affect you. All that
there is for you to decide on are the terms I have offered
you."
"Oh! Marguerite!" exclaimed Dumiger, "if you were here, what
would you counsel?"
"What would she counsel," said the stranger, "except to
accept this offer? Remember, if you refuse it you remain here
for days, if not weeks. You cannot hope to obtain the
preference unless you are enabled to inform any one of the
secret of setting the works in motion, and then it would
require a hand as steady and experienced as my own to carry out
your directions; and I should not undertake to do it except on
the conditions which I have named."
"Show me the conditions drawn out," said Dumiger.
The man rolled out slowly one of the long strips of
parchment which he held in his hand; he gave it to Dumiger, who
drew the lamp near him, and for a few minutes reveled in the
ideas of freedom and wealth. He had but to say the word, and he
enjoyed all that he had been laboring for through life; but
then, at what price? at that which it pained him to
contemplate—the citizenship of his native town, where his
family had dwelt respected for centuries. No doubt he was
selling his birthright; he was parting with all that a man
should cling to in adversity as in prosperity—that which
is not to be purchased with gold—all his old ties, his
affections, his faith. Once signed, the deed was irrevocable;
and yet if he did not sign, what had he to hope for?
He leaned his head on his hands, in one of those stern
struggles which age a man in a few minutes, as breaths of frost
wither the freshest leaves. He invoked the Spirit of
Love—he called forth Marguerite, and she stood beside
him. He saw her with her cheek paler than when he had parted
from her; he saw her bosom heaving with sighs instead of love;
he heard her soft whisper in his ear, and he thought that
whisper expressed assent—that for him, she too was
willing to relinquish the home and the friends of her
childhood. Ay, is it not ever so? Invoke whom we may in hours
of trial, does not the oracle take its tone from our own
wishes? Fond and futile pretense to invoke the Spirit of Love
to decide where love is interested! As Marguerite seemed to
stand beside Dumiger he lost sight of ambition, and all its
pomp and circumstance; all he asked was to be free.
"Give me the paper," he said in a firm voice: "the clock is
yours, and the principle of the movement is to be found
engraved on a small plate under the mainspring."
If he had seen the smile of triumph which passed over that
man's countenance, he would have hesitated.
The deed was done: the man put his materials and his paper
into his pocket again.
"Now," he said, rising to go, "the third day's post will
find you free; and take my advice, leave Dantzic soon. The
people will be irritated at being deprived of their
master-piece. I would not have you trust to their render
mercies; for that matter, it is well for you that you are safe
in prison. Remember this advice, for I know the Dantzickers as
well as you do."
"Stay, stay one moment," cried Dumiger, as the stranger was
about to leave the cell, "who told you so much about me? How
did you obtain this list of debts? How came you to hear of
Marguerite, and Carl, and Krantz? Surely," and he passed his
hand across his brow like a man who is pained by the intensity
of a ray of light after having been long in
darkness—"tell me before you go, what does this mean?"
And he caught a firm hold of the man's cloak.
"There is no reason why I should not tell you the truth
now," said he, buttoning his coat tightly over the papers. "I
was sent for by the Grand Master, who engaged me to obtain the
sale of your clock at any price. And he gave me good
inducements to undertake the
job."
The whole scheme broke on Dumiger's mind.
"And with what object?" he gasped forth; "tell me that."
"To get rid of your competition," said the man quietly.
"After yours there is no doubt that his son's is the best; and,
therefore, when yours is sold to Hambro', his will be prized in
Dantzic. As for me, I shall get rewarded for my exertions, both
by the Grand Master your noble count, and my own city. Here is
the truth of the matter," said he; "now let me go."
"Let you go, miscreant!" exclaimed Dumiger, "never, until
you return me that paper. Let you go! I will follow you to
death rather. You betrayed me into this act; it was not my own
free will. I am the victim of the basest conspiracy. I have
been induced to sell my birthright—I prefer to remain in
prison—I love my townspeople—I will not be free on
these conditions! Give me back my bond!"
"Never!" said the man, putting himself into an attitude of
defense.
And he did wisely, for there was desperation in Dumiger's
eye. He waited a moment, and then with a maniac's strength he
flew at the man, but he found a powerful and vigorous
antagonist. The stranger, who had appeared half decrepit and
aged, rose up in all the strength of youth. In a moment he had
grasped Dumiger's arms, very coolly taken out a handkerchief,
and in spite of all Dumiger's efforts bound his hands together.
After he had performed this operation he drew the document
again from his pocket, so as to be well assured that it was
correctly signed, and smiled as he said to Dumiger—
"You know that signature?"
"Scoundrel! miscreant!" were the only words to which Dumiger
could give utterance.
"And now, fellow-citizen," said the man, "I bid you
farewell. Keep your temper; these sober arts should have taught
you this kind of self-command. You will soon be free. As for
your arms, I dare not untie them now, but I will send the guard
to you. Now, holloa, guard without there!" and he left the
cell.
What did all this mean? A mystery seemed to be encircling
Dumiger which he could not penetrate. He knew there was danger
near him, but was unable to define its extent. Only one thing
was now certain—he had sold that clock on which years of
toil had been bestowed, and not in vain. He had but a few days
since contemplated certain success, now how far it was from
him! And Hamburgh—to be great and ennobled there, what
did that signify to him? How long would it not take for him,
the inhabitant of the great rival city, to be admitted into
this new society? No, he had made an error which could never be
recalled; he had broken the ties which were once so dear to
him. Dumiger now learned the great truth, that it is only the
opinion of the few with whom we are most intimate that we care
for. It is nothing to be great amongst those with whom we have
no sympathies, no affections in common. The kind word from one
lip which we love is far more to be prized than the loudest
acclamations of thousands to whom we are indifferent.
The day at last arrived for the triennial exhibition of the
productions of Dantzic art, on which day the council had agreed
that the prize for the clock was to be adjudged. It was a great
fête for the town. At an early hour of the morning the
inhabitants began to decorate their houses with tapestry, and
to hang garlands over the door-posts. All classes prepared
their dresses of brightest colors, and their gayest, happiest
smiles. And none was happier than Marguerite, for Dumiger had
written to tell her that on the next day he was certain to be
free; but he had not ventured to inform her that the clock was
sold to Hamburgh. Still, although the deed of sale was
irrevocable, his feelings would not permit him to believe that
the excellence of his work would remain unknown to his
towns-people; he felt convinced that the strangers vanity would
induce him to make use of the secret confided to him, so he
wrote to Marguerite that all would go right. Carl and Krantz
arrived early in the morning to accompany her to the great
hall. She had within her a secret which she would not have
disclosed to the universe,—the secret of her husband's
success, of his fame and future happiness. So far Dumiger had
informed her that there was an intrigue against him, in which
the Grand Master was the principal: he explained to her that
the object the Grand Master had in view was to obtain the prize
and its accompanying honors for his own son. Carl and Krantz
undertook to protect her through the crowd, and it was with an
abundant feeling of confidence that she dressed for the
ceremonial.
She wore her hair braided round her head; a bodice, which
showed the beauty and shape of her form, of scarlet cloth,
attached by threads of gold across the shirt, which was of the
softest and most delicate material; the short blue petticoat,
which reached some way below the knee, but did not descend so
far as to conceal the ankle, the symmetry of which was
well-defined by the silk stocking. The shoe might have stirred
the envy of any grisette in Paris—a class which
was, even in those days, supposed to enjoy a monopoly of taste
and refinement. There was a modesty combined with refinement
and strength of character in the appearance of Marguerite which
would have distinguished her in any crowd. She was a being for
love and sunshine; but one who, at the same time, would have
dared much for him she loved. The kind and generous are ever
gallant, and rarely are the beautiful
unworthy.
Carl and Krantz were also dressed out in their gayest
costumes. It would have been hard to have decided which was the
predominant color in the dresses of these two worthy citizens;
they would have rivaled any tulip bed in a Dutch garden, and
perfectly dazzled Marguerite when they entered the room.
At length the last touch was given to the toilette, and they
sallied forth. Already the streets were so crowded that it was
difficult to move through them; but Carl and Krantz were
determined, energetic fellows, and what with their elbows and
Marguerite's bright smiles, after incurring a few risks of some
jokes on Carl's extravagant appearance, they reached the great
hall.
The street in front of the Courthouse was lined with the
burgher guard, stationed there to keep back the crowd; but
Marguerite had an order for admittance at a private entrance,
so, escorted by her cavalier, she ascended the staircase.
When she entered the hall she was struck with awe and
astonishment. The whole of that enormous space, with the
exception of the portion railed off for the competitors and the
dais where the council were sitting, was crowded by a dense
mass of people: along the sides of the vast edifice, and up to
the very roof, were arranged all the various productions of
national art. Nothing can be pictured more beautiful than the
combination of rich and varied colors, or more curious than the
forms which art and genius had given them: here were dyes which
might have rivaled those of Tyre, and fabrics of finer texture
than a Penelope could have woven. At one end, toward which
Marguerite's eyes were most anxiously turned, the models of the
clocks were arranged. Dumiger's was placed in the center, for
it was at the same time the largest model, and contained the
most elaborate and complicated machinery; but, alas! the works
remained still, while all the others were in motion, and showed
in the smallest space the movements of the heavenly bodies, and
the progress of time. If Dumiger's meant anything more than a
confused mass of machinery, it could not for a moment be
doubted that it was the work of highest genius exhibited, but
in its quiescent state it contrasted disadvantageously with the
admirable systems revolving round it. Marguerite held her
breath while she gazed; neither did she perceive how much
attention she herself had awakened—the moment for vanity
had passed, her present interests lay far deeper. Immediately
above her the Grand Council, with the Grand Master, were
sitting, dressed in their robes of state. The Count Albrecht
wore his cordon of the Fleece, and looked every inch a grand
master; the anxiety for his son's success was apparent in the
nervous glances which he cast around him. Behind, and amid the
retainers, stood the dark, designing-looking stranger, who held
in his hand the fate of Dumiger.
The heralds proclaimed silence, and then the Grand Master
rose to read the decision of the council. It commenced with
reciting the list of the competitors, and when it mentioned
Dumiger's name, it said, "the work is imperfect, and therefore
must be withdrawn."
"It is not imperfect," cried two stentorian voices from the
farther end of the hall.
The voices proceeded from Carl and Krantz, whose excitement
could no longer be retained.
"No! it is not imperfect," said the gentler voice of
Marguerite.
All eyes were turned toward the spot whence that voice
proceeded. Marguerite nearly fainted to find herself the object
of so much attention.
"Keep your courage," whispered Carl. "Tell them that Dumiger
will soon be free, and the works put in motion. I will tell
them for you," he exclaimed, and he began to speak, when the
mysterious stranger stepped forth.
"Stay," he said, "let me touch the works of this
clock—the secret is mine."
He forced his way through the crowd, looked carefully over
the machinery, opened a secret spring, arranged two small
wheels, on which the accurate movement of the whole machinery
depended, and immediately it was all in motion.
The proceeding was watched with intense interest by all. The
stranger's eye gleamed with delight, for he was anxious, with
the true spirit of Hamburg jealousy, that the people of Dantzic
should feel the value of what they were about to lose.
It was indeed a marvelous piece of workmanship: the planets
all revolved in their regular order, figures of exquisite
workmanship appeared and disappeared to mark the seconds, and
the dial plate was of elaborate beauty. The people for some
time stood entranced in wonder. At last they exclaimed, as with
one voice—
"It is a work worthy of Dantzic—and Dumiger has won!
Dumiger forever'."
If Marguerite had nearly fainted from fear, she was now pale
with delight.
"Dumiger, Dumiger forever!" again shouted the crowd; "where
is the laurel? where is the triumph? Greatest amongst his
citizens, Dumiger has won!"
But at that moment the stranger came forward with a paper in
his hand. The Count's face, which had been overspread with
anger and shame at these shouts, was again lit up with hope,
for after Dumiger's his son's was evidently the best.
"You mistake, my friends," said this man: "Dumiger is not a
citizen of Dantzic, but of Hamburg, and the clock belongs to
that noblest of free cities."
"Madman! fool!" burst from the astonished crowd; "we all
know Dumiger, his family are eminent in the list of our
freemen—you are mad! Grand Master, proclaim that Dumiger
has won the prize, that Dumiger is great."
Joy thrilled through Marguerite's
frame.
The Grand Master rose, and his voice trembled with anxiety
and secret pleasure as he spoke.
"It is too true," he said; "the clock is sold to Hamburg,
and Dumiger has lost his rights of citizenship here by becoming
a freeman of that town. The prize, therefore, in accordance
with the decision of the council, is adjudged to the
second—to my son."
Then the anger of the people rose, wild and savage; in one
moment, like the bursting of a thunder-cloud, the whole aspect
of the place had changed.
"Show us the deed!" they exclaimed.
The stranger took it and held it up. There was no mistaking
it; it was headed by the arms of Hamburg, and signed by
Dumiger. The storm of indignation had subsided for a moment,
but only as it seemed to gain additional strength.
"Tear him in pieces—he shall not have the clock. Down
with Dumiger—crucify the man who could prefer the freedom
of Hamburg to the honors of Dantzic. Down with him!"
And the people tore up the benches, drove back the burgher
guard; some of the boldest dashed on the platform; the Grand
Council had to escape, carrying the stranger with them. The mob
tore out of the hall, and told their friends
outside—anger led to anger, the passions rose like the
waves at the equinox. Nothing could stop the mob, from so
apparently trifling a cause a tumult was created; the jealousy
of the townsmen now appeared—that jealousy, smothered and
subdued for so many years, burst forth in this madness.
Poor Marguerite had fainted. Carl and Krantz, by herculean
exertions, dragged her through the mob; she was taken to a
small room over the great hall, and laid there until the storm
should be appeased.
It did not seem likely to be so. Unfortunately, one of the
guards had in the tumult struck a burgher; in some of the
smaller streets they were even now fighting; but the crowd in
the great square seemed to have a firmer purpose, there was a
gradual calm. At last one man climbed up the statue in the
Center of the square.
"Where is Dumiger?" he asked.
And another voice answered, "He is in the debtor's
prison."
"We will go and lead him to his triumph," was the dark and
threatening reply of the people, who now moved forward in
columns.
The two days which elapsed since the interview with the
stranger had been passed by Dumiger in great misery. He blamed
himself deeply for having been so easily entrapped into what he
feared would prove a snare, and very foolishly, as we have
seen, he wrote to Marguerite that she had everything to hope,
as he still retained the desire of being honored by his
fellow-townsmen, although they were not to enjoy the fruit of
his labors.
On the eventful morning which has been described, Dumiger
arose full of hope, his triumph was to be secured; and in the
evening he even entertained a secret impression and belief that
the people would not permit the clock to be removed, and that
the error he had made might be retrieved by their energetic
wills. He heard the bands of music playing in the distance. The
merry chimes floated over the water, and bade him good speed.
He thought that he could even discern the buzz of enjoyment,
and the shout of anticipated triumph. He took out the last
letter which Marguerite had written to him, and pressed it to
his heart; that day, he thought, was to see them united never
to be parted again.
What sound was that?—Was it the wind? No, the murmur
of many voices, the tramp of a thousand feet, shook the
drawbridge. He heard his own name called out. Yes, it is! it
surely cannot be an error; it is Dumiger they are invoking. Now
there can be no mistake, the crowd unite in one loud
cry,—
"Where is Dumiger?"
"I am here, I am here," he shrieks out; "Open the
gates."
What could it mean? the guards were resisting. There is a
shot fired—is this the way in which a triumph is
conducted? There is a pause—a parley.
"We want the man Dumiger, the prisoner," exclaims one.
"Good, you shall have him. Let but a few enter," says the
lieutenant of the tower, "and the guard shall withdraw."
Immediately there is a loud rush on the stair, not the
tramp, tramp, of regular troops.
"Here, here!" exclaims Dumiger; "here am I, my friends!
Welcome, welcome!" and he rushes to embrace the first who
enters.
"Back, traitor!" answers the man.
Dumiger tumbles against the wall in terror and
astonishment.
"Yes, you are the traitor," continued he who acted the part
of leader of the motley crowd; "you have sold your
birthright—you have betrayed our interests. What
punishment is fit for such a usurer?"
"Down, down with him," cried the mob.
The leaders consulted together for one moment.
"My good people," continued the same man, "we have taken
counsel, and you shall redress. We will not take this man's
life. This is what we decide,—We will keep the clock to
be the glory of our town, but he shall never see it, neither
shall he have it any more in his power to make another equal to
it or better, for we will put out his eyes."
"Yes, yes," vociferated the mob, "it is excellent. Put out
his eyes at once."
Before Dumiger could collect his scattered senses two
strong, stalwart men had seized him. In spite of his shrieks
and entreaties they threw him down on the straw; one more
savage than the rest drew forth a small knife—agony on
agony! horror on horror! in
one moment to the living man
there was Cimmerian darkness. The deed was done, and they
who had done it looked on with horror and fear at their own
crime. There were no shrieks to break the fearful silence: a
few inarticulate sobs of heart wrung from his misery were
all that was heard, and the mob withdrew silent and
repentant.
Carl had followed at a distance. He had made frantic, but
ineffectual efforts to enter the cell; when the crowd dispersed
he went up the stairs without impediment, and there he found
his friend extended. He raised him, he bore him home with those
sightless, bleeding orbs. He comes, Marguerite; hasten forth to
meet your husband: let the light of your love bless him, for
the light of Heaven has departed forever.
There is great excitement in Dantzic, for the noble clock,
which has been for ten years the marvel of Germany,—the
clock which was made by the cunningest artificers who followed
Dumiger's model, has stopped. No one can arrange it; the model
was broken up as a jealous precaution. There is but one who
understands it—who can regulate the wondrous movement;
that is he who constructed it.
Yes. the Council will go to Dumiger. They seek his house;
they repent of the fearful crime they committed.
"Dumiger, come forth!" they exclaim. "Forgive us our
offense. Greatest of citizens, all honors and rewards shall be
heaped upon you. Regulate this great work, prized above all
others in this city, for which we contended for five years with
Hamburg. Stand forth in glory and honor!"
And a man, young in years, but decrepit in suffering,
appears, supported by two friends. The partner of his hopes and
fears is long since dead. The streets ring with applause as he
appears, and many kneel to kiss his hand—ay, some his
feet. But all he asks is to be led first to Marguerite's grave.
There, in the presence of thousands, he prays for strength; and
then he desires them to conduct him to the clock-tower.
When he appears outside, the air is rent with shouts.
"Dumiger, Dumiger, the first of the citizens!" Oh, popular
feeling, at once base and baseless!
He seems to see the works again; he climbs up and touches
every part of the wonderful construction—his hand has
found the secret of the movement, again it is in order, and the
pride of Dantzic is saved.
He stands still for some minutes. A god could not have been
more worshiped, or a prophet looked grander. Again his hand is
on the movement—crash, crash,—the slight spring on
which the whole machinery depended is rent asunder by his own
hand; the clock falls to pieces, never to be repaired. At the
same moment there is a fall, a fearful groan, and Dumiger lies
on the pavement a bleeding corpse. The clock and its maker have
ceased to exist.
Such is the legend, and from that day there has been no
clock in the Dom of Dantzic.
Oh, Extravagance saileth in climes bright and
warm.
She is built for the sunlight and not for the
storm;
Her anchor is gold, and her mainmast is
pride—
Every sheet in the wind doth she dashingly ride!
But Content is a vessel not built for
display,
Though she's ready and steady—come storm when
it may.
So give us Content as life's channel we steer.
If our Pilot be Caution, we've little to fear!
Oh! Extravagance saileth 'mid glitter and show,
As if fortune's rich tide never ebbed in its
flow;
But see her at night when her gold-light is
spent,
When her anchor is lost, and her silken sails
rent;
When the wave of destruction her shatter'd side
drinks,
And the billows—ha! ha!—laugh and shout
as she sinks.
No! give us Content, as life's channel we
steer.
While our Pilot is Caution, there's little to
fear.
LAUGHING IN THE SLEEVE.—A writer in Notes and
Queries gives an instance of Curry's wit, introduced after
a defeat in a conversational contest with Lady Morgan. "It was
the fashion then for ladies to wear very short sleeves; and
Lady Morgan, albeit not a young woman, with true provincial
exaggeration, wore none—a mere strap over her shoulders.
Curry was walking away from her little coterie, when she called
out, 'Ah! come back, Mr. Curry, and acknowledge that you are
fairly beaten.' 'At any rate,' said he, turning round, 'I have
this consolation, you can't laugh at me in your sleeve!"
An antiquarian discovery has just been made in Kremusch,
near Treplitz, in Bohemia. Some twelve feet below the surface
of the earth, a tomb, with six bodies in it, was found. It
contained, besides, a gold chain about a yard and a half long,
three gold ear-rings, two gold balls of the size of a walnut, a
gold medallion with a cameo representing a Roman Emperor, and
an iron plate, thickly silvered, on each side of which is
engraved a reindeer, with a hawk on its hind quarters. The
workmanship of the different objects, which evidently belong to
the ante-Christian era, is remarkable for its neatness.
"Death is a road our dearest friends have gone;
Why, with such leaders, fear to say 'Lead on?'
Its gate repels, lest it too soon be tried;
But turns in balm on the immortal side.
Mothers have pass'd it; fathers; children: men,
Whose like we look not to behold again;
Women, that smiled away their loving
breath.—
Soft is the traveling on the road of Death.
But guilt has passed it? Men not fit to die?
Oh, hush—for He that made us all, is by.
Human were all; all men; all born of mothers;
All our own selves, in the worn-out shape of
others;
Our used, and oh! be sure, not to be
ill-used brothers."
So perfect were the Egyptians in the manufacture of perfumes
that some of their ancient ointment, preserved in an alabaster
vase, in the museum of Alnwick, still retains a powerful odor,
though it must be within 2,000 and 3,000 years old.
STUDIES OF THE TOWN.