Joseph in the Snow, and The Clockmaker Volume I Part 2

"That is just like you all up there; you never think of how things are elsewhere, or whether the jolting of these frozen and rough roads may not break people's limbs. Drive slow as far as Harzeneck: be very careful, Otto: pray get out and walk up the hill at Otterzw.a.n.g. But perhaps you had better sit still, for you might catch cold: may Heaven protect you!"

"Good night!" said her husband, and his voice sounded quite hollow from under all his m.u.f.flings: the horses trotted off with the sledge, which was heard jolting and rumbling all along the village. The brother and sister then went back into the house.

"I can't tell you how much good it does me to see and to hear your husband again," said the young man to his sister, when they were once more in the sitting-room. "It seems to me, that, as he becomes older, his pure and pious nature becomes more developed--or does this proceed from my being now better able to appreciate him?"

His sister smiled, and said, "You are certainly sincerely attached to my husband, but you cannot fully know his pure soul and pious heart; people may say he is not sufficiently observant of church forms and ceremonies, but he is a church in himself; piety prevails through his example; he needs do no more than simply live here, to exercise a beneficial influence; his gentle disposition, his untiring love and strict integrity, cause all those who witness his daily life to become good and pious: and his style of preaching is just the same; his soul is in every phrase; every word is sound grain; he is well treated by all, and never meets with rudeness or incivility. The painter Schwarzmann, near this, who once stayed a week with us, and saw the respectful behaviour of the rude peasantry towards him, said a good thing on the subject: 'Our Pastor seems to prevail on every man, to think in pure German in his presence, and not in patois.' Formerly it used to distress me very much, to think that such a man was destined to pa.s.s his life in this obscure place, among a set of illiterate peasants; but I have since that time learned that the highest cultivation of intellect, which is after all as simple as the Bible itself, is here in its right and fitting place."

It would not be easy to say which was the greatest--the enthusiasm with which the sister spoke, or that of the brother in listening to her; so difficult is it to determine, whether a good heart rejoices most in contemplating perfect felicity, or in possessing it. There is a kind of happiness attainable, not by one only, but by all who are capable of enjoying it, and that is the appreciation and love of a pure and pious heart.

"I know where he is now," continued the sister, fixing her eyes as if on some distant object; "he has pa.s.sed the great elm, and by this time they are driving on to Harzeneck, where there is always a bitter blast.

Wrap yourself well up; I believe you will convert that fierce hard woman at last; I do believe you will, for what is there you cannot do?

and I believe you will yet marry Adam to Martina, and then we shall remain happily where we are."

The brother scarcely liked to interrupt his sister's reverie, but at last he asked, "Who is the fierce Rottmannin, and who are Adam and Martina?"

"Sit down here beside me, and I will tell you. I could not sleep if I were to go to bed, till I know that Otto is under shelter."

CHAPTER III.

THE FIERCE RoTTMaNNER.

"There is a fierce, savage race of men in these mountains, who are almost fiends. Many a strange tale is told of these wild Rottmanner."

"Let me hear them."

"They are great rough boors, and they pride themselves on the stories related for generations back of their prodigious strength, and as they are wealthy, they can do pretty much what they please. The father of the Rottmann, whose wife Otto is gone to-night to visit, is reported to have had so powerful a voice, that once when he shouted to a forester, the man staggered back. His chief pleasure consisted in rolling up into b.a.l.l.s, the tin plates used at dinner at different inns. The present Rottmann, when he went to a dance, was in the habit of stuffing into his long pockets a dozen of the heavy iron axes, used for splitting wood, called _Speidel_ by the country people, so that every one got out of his way, and left him ample s.p.a.ce to dance. His greatest delight was to dance for twenty-four hours without stopping; this was only amus.e.m.e.nt to him, and in the pauses between the dances, he drank quart after quart of wine unceasingly. In order to ascertain, however, how much he had drunk, and what he had to pay, he tore off a b.u.t.ton each time, first off his red waistcoat, and then off his coat, and redeemed them at the end of the evening from the landlord. His old father, with the stentorian voice, once forbad him to remain all day at a wedding at Wenger, but, on the contrary, enjoined on him to mow down a gra.s.s meadow in the valley of Otterzw.a.n.g. The Rottmanner have always enforced the strictest discipline among themselves. The obedient son followed his father's injunctions. Danced like mad all night, and in the morning, the loud voiced father, coming into the meadow, heard music, 'What is that? a man mowing, and he looks so strange?' The father comes nearer, sees his son mowing busily according to his orders, but carrying a basket on his back, and in the basket a fiddler, playing indefatigably, till the meadow was mown from end to end, and then he danced back to the Wenger wedding with the fiddler on his back. There is a proverb, that anything may be stolen, except a mill-stone and a bar of red-hot iron; but Speidel-Rottmann did once steal a mill-stone, or at least displace it. Wis.h.i.+ng to play a trick to the forest-miller, he rolled the mill-stone one night half-way up the hill.

Speidel-Rottmann had two sons, Vincent and Adam; the eldest, Vincent, was not particularly strong, but as sharp and spiteful as a lynx; a quality he inherited from his mother, for the Rottmanns, though untamed and fierce, are not malicious. It seems that Vincent tormented the wood-cutters like a slave-driver. One day he was killed by the falling of a tree. It was said, and the former clergyman always declared it was so, that the wood-cutters had killed him on purpose. Since that day the mother, who never, was of a kindly nature, has become a perfect dragon, and would gladly poison every one. She is the only person who cordially hates my husband, for she wished him to question closely every dying peasant to whom he might be summoned, whether he had anything to confess with regard to Vincent's murder. The tree that caused Vincent's death lay long untouched in the wood, but one day the Rottmannin gave orders that its branches should be lopped off. She hid herself, unperceived by the wood cutters, in order to watch them, and to listen to all they said, but she got no information. Speidel-Rottmann, as the trunk was the finest tree in the forest, wished to send it floating down the Rhine, for he said,--'a tree is a tree, and money is money; why should the tree be left to rot on the ground, because it chanced to cause Vincent's death?' His wife, however, was of a different opinion.

She collected the branches into a great heap, to which she set fire, and burned the clothes of the dead man in it, shouting out, 'May those who murdered my Vincent, burn hereafter like these clothes in this bonfire!' Six horses and ten oxen tried to drag the tree into the courtyard of the house, but they could only move it a little way, for the roads are not good enough to admit of so huge a tree being dragged up hill. It was, therefore, sawn into three pieces, and these three monstrous logs are still lying in the court, close to the door. The Rottmannin always declares that the tree is waiting till a gallows and a funeral pile are required, to hang and to burn the murderer of her Vincent. She often sits at the window, muttering to the logs of wood, as if telling them some secret; and when she sees any stranger tumble over them, she laughs with delight. She also caused a group of figures to be erected, in memory of the murdered man, close to the footpath which leads down from Hohlzobel to the forest mill, though this is a custom peculiar to Catholics alone in our neighbourhood. Yonder, deep in the centre of the wood, Vincent met his death. The only son left is Adam, and she uses him worse than a step-child; it is said, that she beats him as if he were still a child, and he makes no resistance, though he has already proved that he is a genuine Rottmann, and won a singular t.i.tle, for he is known in the whole country as _The Horse_. He went once to get his horse shod by the smith, whom he found bargaining with a Briesgau peasant about the exchange of a horse: the horse was harnessed to a large two-wheeled waggon, laden with sacks of peas. The Briesgau peasant said: 'There is not such a horse in the world, he is drawing a load that would require three common horses to draw.'

"'Oh! ho!' exclaimed Adam, who was standing by, in so loud and gruff a voice that the Briesgauer tumbled right over his load, but luckily fell against his horse. 'Oh! ho! I will make you a bet that I carry the waggon and the peas in three loads to the Crown inn yonder. Will you conclude the bargain, if I succeed in doing this?'

"'I will--done!' said the peasant.

"The horse was taken out of the waggon, Adam filled a large counterpane with the peas and carried them to the inn, and then, seizing the framework of the cart, he carried it in the same way to its destination; and, finally, took the two great wheels on his shoulders, and deposited them in the inn-yard: 'Which is the strongest, your horse or I?' asked he of the peasant; and this is why he is called _The Horse_.

"The manner in which Speidel-Rottmann made known his son's extraordinary feat of strength shows his vainglorious, boasting disposition: he is far from being a bad man, only a swaggerer of the first cla.s.s. The day after Adam's bet there was a fair in the town, and the smith from our village met Speidel-Rottmann at an inn, and related the circ.u.mstances I have told you. Speidel-Rottmann said, 'I will give you a bottle of the best wine in this cellar, if you will go down to the street, and shout to me up at the window the story you have just told me;' and so he did. Speidel-Rottmann leant at his ease on the window-cus.h.i.+on, and all the people listened in amazement to the story the smith was shouting out. Speidel-Rottmann is very fond of his son, and very proud of him, but he dare not venture to show this before his wife, more especially for the last seven years.

"Yonder, above the ford--we can see the cottage from our window--lives a Schilder, or wood-turner, nicknamed Schilder-David. He is a worthy man, though one of the poorest in the village, but he would rather starve than accept of a.s.sistance from any one. Moreover, he is a great searcher of Holy Writ. Light is seen later in his cottage than in any other house in the village, and that is very significant for so poor a man. He has a Bible, that he has read through sixteen times, from the first syllable to the last, both of the Old and the New Testament. I saw the Bible once, and the leaves looked very much crumpled and worn, for David always reads with four fingers on the page. On the first leaf of the Bible he regularly marks down the date when he begins to read it afresh, and the day when he has read it through. The longest period is rather more than two years; three times, however, he read it from beginning to end within the year; that was when his three daughters emigrated; another time, when his hand was so severely injured, that it was thought it must be amputated; and, last of all, the year in which his grandson Joseph was born. In his youth, he is said to have been very jovial and merry, and he knew every kind of song, and once, by his singing, he got a stock of firewood. On one occasion, he came to the father of Speidel-Rottmann to buy wood: Old Rottmann, being in good humour, said, 'David, for every song you sing me I will give you a Klaft or bundle of wood, and I will send it to your house for you--so, that's a bargain.' David sung so many songs, that he sung two cartloads of wood into his house; therefore, he is called Klafter-David--but he does not like to be reminded of that name now-a-days.

"The wife of Schilder-David is one of those persons whose nature it is to sleep away the greater part of their lives; who walk about and regularly finish their work, but not a single word is ever said about them, either for good or evil. We have here an unusual number of such persons. Moreover, the wife of Schilder-David has been for some years almost stone-deaf. They had five daughters, all straight, tall girls, and even when they were children, stout and active. Schilder-David always said, 'they are for the sea,' which meant emigrating to America; and, indeed, four of his daughters are gone to America, two with their husbands, and two unmarried, but they married there soon after their arrival; one, died lately, but the other is well to do in the world, and yet Schilder-David is constantly longing to see his children, and often says--'That America is a new species of dragon that robs us of our children.' The best thing he could do, would be to emigrate himself, for his lot here is hard enough, but formerly he could not make up his mind, and now it is impossible for him to go.

"His youngest daughter, Martina, was the especial pride of her father, for she was always at the head of the school. You have no idea what a character that gives a child in a village; a girl, especially, acquires a certain degree of pride in consequence, and is respected by others, and looked up to, even when her school years are over. She was a good, clever child. When she came here to be prepared for her confirmation, she always rubbed her shoes carefully on the mat, and persuaded the other children to do the same, in order not to soil the stairs or the rooms, and she and her companions insisted on sweeping out the church themselves, before the day of Confirmation. When she stood before the altar, she looked much older than her years; I never saw a prettier creature, and piety encircled her head like a halo. She often came to the parsonage to see us. My husband was particularly fond of the child, and he told me that on the day after the confirmation he met Martina in the fields, and she said that she felt now as if she had left her home; and indeed, shortly afterwards she was sent away from her parents'

house. She was just sixteen when she entered into the service of the Rottmanns. They give good wages, and must do so, because no one can stay more than a year with that ill-tempered, fierce woman. Martina, however, remained with them for two years,----"

The pastor's wife was interrupted in her narrative by a strange echo of tinkling of bells in the village.

"What is that?" asked Edward.

"It is the troop of donkeys from the forest mill. The public road to the mill is very broad, but the donkeys are conveying corn and flour along the narrow footpaths, up and down the hills. I should like to have sent a message to Tony by the miller's man, but now it is too late."

Not till after repeated entreaties on the part of her brother, did his sister recommence her story.

CHAPTER IV.

MARTINA'S RETURN HOME.

"On the Sat.u.r.day afternoon of a midsummer's day a woman was crouching behind a rock, overhanging that part of the stream where there is a black whirlpool. The sempstress Leegart chanced to be pa.s.sing by on her way home from the forest mill, wis.h.i.+ng to see the spot where she once lost her way.

"Leegart is full of superst.i.tion, though no one says more against it than she does. When on that Sat.u.r.day she arrived at the rock and saw the figure cowering down behind it, she gave a loud scream. 'What can that be crouching in the bright light like a spectre? It is Martina!'

She rose, and looking piteously at Leegart, told her that she had intended to drown herself, but that she must live for her child's sake; but when it was born she resolved to die. Leegart quickly promised to be G.o.dmother, for the belief hereabouts is, that a child for whom a G.o.dmother is promised before its birth, comes happily into the world, and even if it dies it is sure to be happy. Leegart never ceased talking to Martina, and striving to console her, till at last she persuaded her to go with her to the village.

"This took place in the afternoon; I was sitting with my husband in the garden, when suddenly we heard from the opposite side of the river, a shrill scream of agony that seemed to pierce our ears; and scarcely had we hurried out of the arbour than Leegart rushed up to us as pale as death, and said: 'Herr Pastor, for G.o.d's sake lose not a moment in going to Schilder-David's, for he will murder Martina, I fear.'

"I wished to go with my husband, but he told me to stay where I was, and went himself as quickly as possible. Leegart nearly swooned away, but luckily there was still a cup of coffee to spare, and when it had revived her she told me that Martina had come home in shame and disgrace. When David, who was cutting, wood before his door, saw her, and heard the sad truth, he raised his axe with the intention of splitting his daughter's skull. The neighbours, however, rushed up to him in time to s.n.a.t.c.h the axe from him, but he was still standing on the threshold of his door, threatening to strangle Martina if she attempted to come under his roof. Martina fell down on the doorstep; some women carried her into the house, and when she revived and saw her confirmation certificate hanging on the wall of the room framed under gla.s.s, she uttered such a loud, piercing scream, that we had heard it even at this distance; and she again relapsed into a dead faint. At last she was restored, but David called out, 'Don't bring her to life again, for out she shall go as soon as she can move. Oh Lord, strike me blind! accursed be my eyes! America deprived me of my other children, and now! now!' ... He made a rush at Martina; the neighbours, however, held him back, and Leegart hurried away to call my husband. We waited long before my husband came back. He brought David with him, supporting him on his arm, for David was groping like a blind man; he had pressed down his hat over his eyes, and kept saying, 'Herr Pastor, shut me up--do! for I am no longer master of myself--my child, my best, my only child. She was a crown to me, as her confirmation said, and now----Oh, Heavenly Father, why is it Thy will thus to try me? It was not to be. I was not to reach the grave without this severe burden. Oh, Herr Pastor, to see a child even enjoy its food seems more pleasant than to do so yourself. Oh! how long do we tend our little child, and care for it, and rejoice in its health and strength, and hearing it say good and pleasant words; and glad when it comes from school and has learnt something useful; glad when it gathers wood, and sings and is merry--and then comes a man, and lays waste all this happiness! My other children live, but they are emigrants, and are no good to me; my Martina stayed at home, she is still before my eyes, but is worse than dead. When a child is virtuous we are doubly happy, but a wicked child can make a father not only doubly, but a thousandfold miserable. I keep racking my brain and I cannot, cannot find out where my fault has been, and yet I must be to blame, and now my good name----'Here he saw me, and almost sinking down he exclaimed with a burst of convulsive sobs, 'Frau Pastorin, you always loved her well; she has given me my death blow--I feel it.'

"He could evidently scarcely sustain himself, we brought him into the house, and there he remained nearly unconscious for more than an hour; he covered his face with his hands, and large tears were seen trickling down through his fingers.

"At last he rose, and standing erect by a strong effort, he said:

"'May G.o.d reward you, Herr Pastor. Here is my hand; may I die an evil death if I harm my Martina----'here he was interrupted by his tears, which flowed afresh at this name--'if my Martina suffers through me either by word or deed. G.o.d has punished me through her; I must, indeed, be a miserable sinner. I was too proud of my children, and more especially of her, and she is now wretched enough; I will sin against fatherly love no more.'

"My husband wished to go home with him, but he firmly declined this.

"'I must learn to pa.s.s along the street alone with this stain of shame.

I have been too proud. My head is bowed down till the hour when I descend into the grave. A thousand thanks, Herr Pastor. May G.o.d reward you!'

"The man whose gait had been hitherto so proud and erect, now crept home a miserable object. When he was gone my husband related to me the frightful scene he had witnessed. Those present, however, told me afterwards that my husband had shown the most unexampled patience and gentleness towards David, who was in a state of raging fury, exclaiming frantically: 'I am like Job. Oh G.o.d! strike me dumb, in order that I may no longer curse myself and the whole world--but there is no justice, none in heaven, and none on earth.'

"My husband at length succeeded in pacifying him, but when David was at last gone, I never saw my husband so worn out and exhausted as on that occasion.

"Leegart kept her promise, and was G.o.dmother to little Joseph; and his father, Adam Rottmann, was also present at his baptism.

"Adam had a fine life of it at home, for daring to go to the village, and from that time he was watched, and imprisoned like a malefactor, the old Rottmannin having complaisant spies every where in her pay, for she does not grudge money for her own purposes.

"Schilder-David had always been a regular church goer, but after the unwished for birth of his grandson he was two months without going to church; when he heard the bells ringing for divine service, he never failed to lament afresh over his dishonour, which prevented him being able to go to church; but when no one was looking, he liked to carry his grandchild about the room. The boy seemed to have won all his love; he had the child constantly in his arms, and watched over him like a mother. On Sundays and holidays he was to be seen for hours beside the garden hedge yonder; grandfather and grandson pa.s.sing into the fields, and standing watching the waterfall; indeed the old man gave up smoking to please the child, whereas formerly he never moved without a pipe in his mouth; and when the boy could run alone, he was his constant companion, and used to lead him by the hand. If the boy is playing with other children and sees his grandfather, he runs away from all his games, and cannot be prevailed on to leave his grandfather's side.

Indeed, if a child could be so easily spoilt, David would have ruined his grandson by his vanity, for his only pleasure in life is hearing praise of the boy; he is constantly repeating all the wise sayings of little Joseph, and boasting of how cleverly the boy can talk. Although David is very conscientious, still he is not at all aware how many things he invents for the child which he never uttered, and then he usually winds up by saying, 'Wait till the boy is twenty years older, and then the whole country will talk of my Joseph, and all he knows.'

"I lately heard an instance of the strange ideas of this singular boy.

On the same day, a child died in this neighbourhood, and one was born; and little Joseph said: 'Grandfather, isn't it true that when we are born, we fall asleep in Heaven, and awake on earth; and when we die, we fall asleep on earth, and awake in Heaven?'

"Little Joseph is also generally present when his grandfather is talking with his neighbours, so in this way he hears of all the various events and quarrels in the village, and knows all its secret history."

"Why do you say nothing of Martina?" interrupted Edward.