Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348

The kind youth, finding all hope of assistance vain, from the miserable prejudices of the people, had at last contrived to raise the still senseless Magdalena in his arms, with the intention of conveying her into his own dwelling; and already murmurs began to arise among the crowd, as if they intended to oppose his purpose; when a door, communicating from the palace-gardens with the narrow lane, opened, and the stately form of an aged man, of benevolent aspect, stood between Gottlob, who remained alone under the water-gate with the lifeless form of Magdalena on his arm, and the murmuring crowd which had drawn back into the lane. He stood like a guardian spirit between the fair youth and the senseless mass of angry men. All snatched off their furred hats, and bowed their bodies with respect. It was their sovereign, the Prince Bishop of Fulda. His attendants followed him to the threshold of the garden gate.

“Thank God!” was his first simple exclamation at the sight of Magdalena in Gottlob’s arms. “You have contrived to save her, have you? I was myself hurrying hither to see what could be done. Does she still live?”

Upon an affirmative exclamation from Gottlob, he raised his eyes to heaven with a short thanksgiving; and then, turning to the crowd with a stern air, he asked—

“What were these cries and murmurs that I heard? Why were those threatening looks I saw? Would ye oppose a Christian act of charity due to that unhappy woman, even were she the miserable criminal she is not? Have ye yet to be taught your Christian duties in this land? God forgive me; for then I have much to answer for!”

After this meek self-rebuke, he again looked seriously upon the bystanders, and waved his hand to disperse the crowd, who slunk away before him; then, hastily giving orders that Magdalena should be conveyed into the palace, he himself stopped to see her borne into the garden, and followed anxiously.

Every means with which the leech-craft of the times was acquainted for the recovery of the apparently drowned, was applied in the case of Magdalena, and with some success; for, after a time, breath and warmth were restored—her eyes opened. But the respiration was hurried and impeded—the eyes glazed and dim—the sense of what was passing around her, confused and troubled. A nervous tremour ran through her whole frame. She lay   upon a mattrass, propped up with a pile of cushions, in a lower apartment of the palace. By her side knelt the kind Bishop of Fulda, watching with evident solicitude the variation of the symptoms in the unfortunate woman’s frame. Behind her stood the stately form of the Ober-Amtmann—every muscle of his usually stern face now struggling with emotion—his hands clenched together—his head bowed down; for he had learned from his brother the Prince, that the female lying before him—the woman whom he had himself condemned to the stake, was really the mistress of his younger years—the seduced wife of the man whom he had killed—his victim, Margaret Weilheim. On the other side of the prostrate form of Magdalena bent a grave personage in dark attire, who held her wrist, and counted the beating of her pulse with an air of serious attention. In answer to an enquiring look from the Prince Bishop, the physician shook his head.

“There is life, it is true,” he said; “but it is ebbing fast. The fatigue and emotions of the past day were in themselves too much for a frame already shattered by macerations, and privations, and grief; this catastrophe has exhausted her last force of vitality. She cannot live long.”

The Ober-Amtmann wrung his hands with a still firmer gripe. The tears trembled upon the good old bishop’s eyelids.

“See!” said the leech; “she again opens her eyes. There is more sense in them now.”

The dying Magdalena in truth looked around her, as if she at length became conscious of the objects on which her vision fell. She seemed to comprehend with difficulty where she was, and how she had come into the position in which she lay. Feebly and with exertion she raised her emaciated arm, and passed her skinny hand over her brow and eyes. But at length her gaze rested upon the mild face of the benevolent bishop, and a faint smile passed over her sunken features.

“Where am I?” she murmured lowly. “Am I in paradise?—and you, reverend father, are also with me?”

In a few kind words, the bishop strove to recall her wandering senses, and explain to her what had happened. At last a consciousness of the past seemed to come over her; and she shuddered in every limb at the fearful recollection.

“And he! where is he?” she asked with an imploring look. “He! Karl!”

The old man looked at her with surprise, as though he thought her senses were still wavering.

“He carried me off, did he not?” she continued feebly; “or was it a dream? Was it only a strange dream? No, no! I remember all—how we flew through the air; and then the rushing waters. Oh! tell me; where is he?”

The bishop now comprehended that she spoke of the witchfinder; and said, “He is gone for ever, to his last great account.”

Magdalena groaned bitterly, and again closed her eyes. But it was evident that she still retained her consciousness; for her lips were moving faintly, as if in prayer.

“Is there no hope?” enquired the bishop in a whisper of the physician. “Nothing can be done?”

“No hope!” replied the leech. “I have done all that medical skill can do; I can do no more, your highness.”

At a sign from the bishop, the physician withdrew.

Shortly after, the dying woman again unclosed her eyes, and looked around her at the strange room in which she lay. A recollection of the past seemed to come across her, slowly and painfully; and she again pressed her feeble hand to her brow.

“Why am I here?” she murmured. “Why do I again see this scene of folly and sin? O Lord! why bring before my thus, in this last hour, the living memory of my past transgressions?”

As if to complete the painful illusion of the past, a voice now murmured “Margaret” in her ear. The poor woman started, turned her head with difficulty, and saw, kneeling by her side, the heartless lover of her youth. She gave him one look of fear and shame, and then turning again her eyes to the bishop’s face, exclaimed, “May God forgive me!—Pray for me, my father!”

“It is I who seek for mercy,   Margaret!” cried the Ober-Amtmann. “I who need thy forgiveness for all the wrong I have done thee!”

“Mercy and forgiveness are with God,” said the dying woman solemnly. “All the wrong thou hast done me I have long since forgiven, as far as such a sinner as myself can forgive. My time is short; my breath is fast leaving me. I feel that I am dying,” she added after a pause. “Father, I would make my shrift; and, if God and your reverence permit one earthly thought to mingle with my last hopes of salvation, I would confide to you a secret on which depends the happiness of her I love, and you perhaps might secure her peace of mind. Alas, I cannot speak! O God! give me still breath.”

These words were uttered in a low and feeble tone. With a hasty gesture the bishop signed to his brother to retire, and bent his ear over the mouth of the gasping woman.

After some time he rose, and first reassuring the dying mother that all he could do for her child’s welfare should be done, pronounced the sublime words of the church that give the promise of forgiveness and salvation to the truly penitent sinner.

“Oh, might I look upon her once more!” sobbed Magdalena with convulsive effort. “One last look! not a word shall tell her—it is—her unhappy mother—who gives her—a last blessing!”

The Ober-Amtmann left the room. In a few minutes he returned, leading Bertha by the hand. But Magdalena was already speechless. The fair girl knelt by the side of the mattrass, sobbing bitterly—she herself scarcely knew why. Was it only the sight of death, of the last parting of the soul, that thus affected her? Was it affliction that her own error should have contributed to hasten that unhappy woman’s end? Or was not there rather a powerful instinct within her, that, in that awful moment, bound her by a sympathetic tie to her unknown mother, and conveyed a portion of that last agony of the departing woman to her own heart?

Magdalena, although she could not speak, was evidently aware of the presence of the gentle girl. She still moved her lips, as if begging a blessing on her head, and fixed upon that mild face, now bathed in tears, the last look of her fading eyes. And now the eyes grew dim and senseless, although the spirit seemed still to struggle within for sight; now they closed—the whole frame of the prostrate woman shuddered, and Margaret Weilheim—the repentant Magdalena—was a corpse.

Some time after these events, the Ober-Amtmann retired from his high office, and after a seclusion of some duration with his brother, at Fulda, finally betook himself to a monastery, where he remained until his death.

Before his retirement from the world, however, he had consented, not without some difficulty, to the union of Bertha and Gottlob. The Prince Bishop, unforgetful of the claims of the unfortunate Magdalena, had urged upon his brother the duty of making this concession to the dying wishes of the wronged mother, as well as to the evident affection of Bertha for the young artist, which, although unknown even to herself, was no less powerful. As Gottlob, although of a ruined and impoverished family, was not otherwise than of noble birth, the greatest difficulty of these times was surmounted; and the Prince Bishop, by bestowing upon the young man a post of honour and rank about his person, in which the gentle youth could still continue the pursuit of his glorious art, and march on unhindered in his progress to that eminence which he finally attained, smoothed the road to the Ober-Amtmann’s consent.

On the day of Bertha’s marriage, the good Prince Bishop promulgated an edict, that for the future no one should suffer the punishment of death for the crime of witchcraft in his dominions. But, after his decease, the edict again fell into disuse; and the town of Hammelburg, as if the spirit of Black Claus, the witchfinder, still hovered about its walls, again commenced to assert its odious reputation, and maintain its hideous boast, of having burned more witches than any other town in Germany.

MY LAST COURTSHIP; OR, LIFE IN LOUISIANA

Chapter the First.

A Voyage on the Red River

It was on a sultry sunny June morning that I stepped on board the Red River steamboat. The sun was blazing with unusual power out of its setting of deep-blue enamel; no wind stirred, only the huge mass of water in the Mississippi seemed to exhale an agreeable freshness. I gave a last nod to Richards and his wife who had accompanied me to the shore, and then went down into the cabin.

I was by no means in the most amiable of humours. Although I had pretty well forgotten my New York disappointment, two months’ contemplation of the happiness enjoyed by Richards in the society of his young and charming wife, had done little towards reconciling me to my bachelorship; and it was with small pleasure that I looked forward to a return to my solitary plantation, where I could reckon on no better welcome than the cold, and perhaps scowling, glance of slaves and hirelings. In no very pleasant mood I walked across the cabin, without even looking at the persons assembled there, and leaned out of the open window. I had been some three or four minutes in this position, chewing the cud of unpleasant reflections, when a friendly voice spoke close to my ear—

“Qu’est ce qu’il y a donc, Monsieur Howard? Etes-vous indisposé? Allons voir du monde.”

I turned round. The speaker was a respectable-looking elderly man; but his features were entirely unknown to me, and I stared at him, a little astonished at the familiar tone of his address, and at his knowledge of my name. I was at that moment not at all disposed to make new acquaintances; and, after a slight bow, I was about to turn my back upon the old gentleman, when he took my hand, and drew me gently towards the ladies’ cabin.

“Allons voir, Monsieur Howard.”

“Mais que voulez-vous donc? What do you want with me?” said I somewhat peevishly to the importunate stranger.

“Faire votre connaissance,” he replied with a benign smile, at the same time opening the door of the ladies’ saloon. “Monsieur Howard,” said he to two young girls who were occupied in tying up a bundle of pine-apples and bananas to one of the cabin pillars, just as in the northern States, or in England, people hang up strings of onions, “Mes filles, voici notre voisin, Monsieur Howard.”

The damsels tripped lightly towards me, welcoming me as cordially as if I had been an old acquaintance, and hastened to offer me some of their fragrant and delicious fruit. Their greeting and manners were really highly agreeable. Had they been two of my own dear countrywomen, I might have lived ten years with them without being so well and frankly received, or invited to spoil my dinner in so agreeable a manner, as by these fair Pomonas. I could not refuse an invitation so cordially given. I sat down, and, notwithstanding my dull and fretful humour, soon found myself amused in my own despite by the lively chatter of the Creoles. An hour passed rapidly in this manner, and a second and third might possibly have been wiled away as agreeably, had not my stiff Virginian feeling of etiquette made me apprehensive that a longer stay might be deemed intrusive.

“You will come back and take tea with us?” said the young ladies as I left the cabin.

I bowed a willing assent; and truly, on reaching the deck, I found reason to congratulate myself on having done so. The company there assembled was any thing but the best. A strange set of fellows! I could almost have fancied myself in old Kentuck. Drovers and cattle-dealers from New Orleans proceeding to the north-western countries; half-wild hunters and trappers, on their way to the country beyond Nacogdoches, with the   laudable intention of civilizing, or, in other words, of cheating the Indians; traders and storekeepers from Alexandria and its neighbourhood; such was the respectable composition of the society on board the steamer. A rough lot they were, thick-booted, hoarse-voiced, hard-fisted fellows, who walked up and down, chewing and smoking, and spitting with as much exactness of aim as if their throats had been rifle-barrels.

We were just coming in sight of a large clump of foliage. It was the mouth of the Red River, which is half overarched by the huge trees that incline forward over its waters from either bank. What a contrast to the Mississippi, which flows along, broad, powerful, and majestic, like some barbarian conqueror bursting forth at the head of his stinking hordes to overrun half a world! The Red River on the other hand, which we are accustomed to call the Nile of Louisiana—with about as much right and propriety as the Massachusetts cobbler who christened his son Alexander Cæsar Napoleon—sneaks stealthily along through forest and plain, like some lurking and venomous copper-snake. Cocytus would be a far better name for it. Here we are at the entrance of the first swamp, out of which the infernal scarlet ditch flows. It is any thing but a pleasant sight, that swamp, which is formed by the junction of the Tensaw, the White and Red Rivers, and at the first glance appears like a huge mirror of vivid green, apparently affording solid footing, and scattered over with trees, from which rank creepers and a greasy slime hang in long festoons. One would swear it was a huge meadow, until, on looking rather longer, one sees the dark-green swamp lilies gently moving, while from amongst them are protruded numerous snouts or jaws, of a sickly greyish-brown, discoursing music which is any thing but sweet to a stranger’s ears. These are thousands of alligators, darting out from amongst the rank luxuriance of their marshy abode. It is their breeding time, and the horrible bellowing they make is really hideous to listen to. One might fancy this swamp the headquarters of death, whence he shoots forth his envenomed darts in the thousand varied forms of fever and pestilence.

We had proceeded some distance up the Red River, when the friendly old Creole came to summon me to the tea-table. We found one of his daughters reading Bernardin de St Pierre’s novel, a favourite study with Creole ladies; while the other was chatting with her black-skinned, ivory-toothed waiting-maid, with a degree of familiarity that would have thrown a New York élégante into a swoon. They were on their way home, their father told me, from the Ursuline Convent at New Orleans, where they had been educated. It can hardly have been from the holy sisters, one would think, that they acquired the self-possessed and scrutinizing, although not immodest gaze, with which I at times observed them to be examining me. The eldest is apparently about nineteen years of age, slightly inclined to embonpoint. It was really amusing to observe the cool, comfortable manner, in which she inspected me in a large mirror that hangs opposite to us, as if she had been desirous of seeing how long I could stand my ground and keep my countenance.

It would fill a book to enumerate all the items of baggage and effects which my new friends the Creoles had crowded into the state-cabin. Luckily, they were the only inmates of the latter, and had, consequently, full power in their temporary dominions. Had there been co-occupants, a civil war must have been the inevitable result. The ladies had a whole boat-load of citrons, oranges, bananas, and pine-apples; and their father had at least three dozen cases of Chambertin, Laffitte, and Medoc. I at first thought he must be a wine-merchant. At any rate he showed his good taste in stocking himself with such elegant and salutary drinkables, instead of the gin, and whisky, and Hollands to which many of my countrymen would have given the preference—those green and brown compounds, elixirs of sin and disease, concocted by rascally distillers for the corruption and ruin of Brother Jonathan.

The tea was now ready. Monsieur Ménou (that was the name of my new friend) seemed inclined to reject   the sober beverage, and stick to his Chambertin. I was disposed to try both. The young ladies were all that was gay and agreeable. They were really charming girls, merry and lively, full of ready wit, and with bright eyes and pleasant voices, that might have cheered the heart of the veriest misanthrope. But there are moments in one’s life when the mind and spirits seem oppressed by a sort of dead dull calm, as enervating and disheartening as that which succeeds a West Indian hurricane in the month of August. At those times every thing loses its interest, and one appears to become as helpless as the ship that lies becalmed and motionless on the glassy surface of a tropical sea. I was just in one of those moments. I had consulted any thing but my own inclination in leaving the hospitable roof and pleasant companionship of my friend Richards, to return to my own neglected and long-unvisited plantation, where I should find no society, and should be compelled to occupy myself with matters that for me had little or no interest. Had I, as I hoped to do when in New York, taken back a partner of my joys and sorrows, some gentle creature who would have cheered my solitude and sympathized with all my feelings, I should have experienced far less repugnance or difficulty in returning to my home in the wilderness; but as it was, I felt oppressed by a sense of loneliness that seemed to paralyse my energies, and that certainly rendered me any thing but fit society for the lively, talkative party of which I now found myself a member. I strove to shake off the feeling, but in vain; and at last, abandoning the attempt, I left the cabin and went on deck.