Tales from Blackwood Volume Iii Part 14

"Not in earnest?" rejoined the headsman, sternly; "I consider your compliance as a matter of course. You love my daughter--you have won her affections--and surely, Florian, you are not the man to play her false!"

"G.o.d forbid!" exclaimed Florian with honest fervour. "I dearly love her, and seek no happier lot than to become her husband."

"I offered her to you, my son!" said the other with returning kindness; "but you did not like the conditions, and declined her. You have since, without my permission, sought and won her affections, and you have no right to flinch from the implied consequences. It is high time to come to a conclusion, and to apply yourself in good faith to the only pursuit through which you can ever obtain my Madelon."

"The only one?" timidly repeated Florian. "I have, 'tis true, abandoned for your daughter's sake the world, and the world's prejudices; but I am young and industrious; I possess valuable knowledge, and surely I may find some employment which will maintain a wife and family. Do, my good father, relinquish this dreadful vocation"----

"And my daughter!" exclaimed the headsman, with loud and bitter emphasis. "What is to become _her_? If even you could step back within the pale of society, _she_ would for ever be excluded. But you have neither moral courage nor animal bravery enough for any worldly pursuit--your original station in society is irrecoverably gone--and if you attempt to leave this safe asylum, the sword of justice will face you at every turn. No, no, Florian! I love my future son-in-law too well to expose him to such imminent and deadly peril. There, read that paper!

The contents will bring you to your senses."

With these words, which struck like a wintry chill into the heart of Florian, he took an old newspaper from his pocket-book. The unhappy fugitive received it with a shaking hand, and read a judicial summons from the authorities of D., seeking intelligence of a student, who had on a certain day quitted the university by the diligence for Normandy, and unaccountably disappeared. His Christian and surname, with an accurate description of his dress and person, were appended. Glancing fearfully down the page, he distinguished some particulars of a murder; his sight grew dim with terror; and after a vain attempt to read farther, he dropped the fatal doc.u.ment, and reeled back, breathless, and almost fainting, against the wall.

"He is the very man!" muttered the headsman, whose keen eye had been intently fixed upon him during the perusal. "I never asked your real name, young man," he continued, "but now I know it. Your terrors would betray it to a child. How then are you, without fort.i.tude to face the common evils of life, and bearing in every feature a betrayer, to escape the giant-grasp of the French police? And had this calamity never befallen you, how could you gain a support in a world, which, by your own confession, you have ever found ungenial and repulsive? Believe me, Florian! here, and here only, will you find safety, support, and happiness."

"Happiness?" mournfully repeated Florian.

"Yes, happiness!" rejoined the tempter. "You and Madelon love each other, and in every station, from the highest to the lowest, love is the salt of life, the balm and cordial of existence. My office descends from generation to generation; it insures to the holder not only a good house and landed property, but an income of no mean amount. Every traveller who pa.s.ses my house pays me a toll, because fifty years since an inundation compelled the town to cut a high-road through my grandfather's garden. Of all these benefits I shall be deprived, when old and disabled, if my children disdain to follow my vocation; and if Madelon were to marry within the pale of that society which regards her father with abhorrence, my house and vineyard would be destroyed by the bigoted and furious populace, and too probably my innocent child along with them. Have you the heart, Florian, to hazard her destruction and your own, in preference to an office essential to the existence of civil society, and from which that obedience to the laws, which is the first duty of a good citizen, removes all self-reproach? With a due sense of the importance of your official duties, you will find yourself sustained in the performance of them; and a practised hand will soon give you firmness enough to follow a vocation attended with no personal risk; but if you determine to leave me, where will you find resolution to face the perils which surround you? and if you escape them, how are you to compete in the race of life with the daring and the fleet?"

The appalling alternatives held out to Florian by the politic headsman, and the consciousness of his own inability either to escape the police, or to steer his way successfully through the shoals and quicksands of life, rendered him incapable of argument or reply. He had for some months been cut off from all that freedom has to bestow--he had neither relations nor friends on whose interposition he could firmly rely--he recollected with agony that every heart beyond the limits of his present home was steeled against him--that every hand was ready to seize and betray him. Should he quit this safe asylum, and even establish his innocence of the imputed murder, his ignorance of the world, and his invincible timidity and self-distrust, would make him the prey of any plausible knavery. Bewildered and stupified by contending emotions, his mind became palsied by despair, and his powers of resistance began to fail him. The headsman saw his advantage; but, satisfied with the impression he had made upon his hapless victim, he ceased to press any immediate decision, told him to consider of the proposal, and went to his vineyard; while Florian, hastening to his Madelon, was a.s.sailed by all the witchery of sighs and tears; by looks, which alternately pleaded and upbraided; and by inspiriting and cogent arguments, which shamed him into temporary resolution. Thus alternately intimidated by the deep tones and stern denunciations of the father, encouraged by the specious reasonings of the daughter, or soothed by her resistless fascinations; a.s.sured, too, by the headsman, that for some years sentences of decapitation, with rare exceptions, had been commuted for the galleys, his power to contend with his tempter abandoned him: he dropped, like the fascinated bird, into the jaws of the serpent; and, yielding to his destiny, he commenced his training in a vocation from which every feeling in his nature, and every dictate of his understanding, recoiled with abhorrence.

It was no sacrifice, to one of his timid and fastidious habits, to abandon a world in which he had ever found himself an alien, and which he now thought confederated to persecute and destroy him. He submitted in uncomplaining resignation to his fate, and ere long found relief in the growing attachment of the headsman and his daughter. His pure and affectionate heart, and the undeviating rect.i.tude of his principles and conduct, soon won the entire esteem of the old man, whose better feelings had not been blunted by his official duties; while the light-hearted and bewitching Madelon, who now loved almost to idolatry a man so incomparably superior to any she had hitherto known, delighted to cheer his hours of sadness, and watched his every wish with intense and unwearied solicitude. Meanwhile, the old man had quietly made every requisite preparation, and a month after the a.s.sent of Florian to his proposal, the lovers were united. The official appointment of Florian, as adopted successor to the headsman, took place some days before the marriage, and it was stipulated by the town authorities that, on the next ensuing condemnation of a criminal to death, he should prove on the scaffold his competency to succeed the executioner.

For many months after this appointment, every arrival of a criminal in the town prison struck terror into the heart of Florian. Happily, however, the a.s.sertion of the headsman that it was a growing practice of the judicial authorities to subst.i.tute the galleys for decapitation, was verified by the fact, and Florian enjoyed several years of domestic happiness, disturbed only by apprehensions which he could never subdue, that sooner or later the evil he so much dreaded would certainly befall him. Meanwhile his beloved Madelon had made him the happy father of three promising boys, and he began to experience a degree of tranquillity to which he had long been a stranger; when, at a period in which the town-prison was untenanted, the long-dreaded calamity burst upon his devoted head like a bolt of lightning from a cloudless sky.

His father-in-law received one morning at breakfast an order from the town authorities to repair early on the following day to a city at ten leagues distance, and there to behead a criminal whose execution had been delayed by the illness and death of the resident headsman. At this unexpected intelligence, the features of Florian were blanched with horror, but the iron visage of the old executioner betrayed not the slightest emotion. Regardless of his son-in-law's terrors, he viewed this unexpected summons as a fortunate incident, and maintained that any unskilfulness in decapitation would be of less importance at a distance than in his native town. He regarded also this brief summons as much more favourable to Florian's success than a longer foreknowledge, and urged in strong and decisive terms the necessity of submission to the call of duty. The blood of Florian froze as he listened, but he acquiesced, as usual, in timid silence. In the afternoon he yielded to the old man's wish, that he should give what the headsman termed a master-proof of his skill in the science of decapitation, and with cold sweat on his brow severed a number of cabbage-heads to the satisfaction of his teacher. Meanwhile the sympathising but energetic Madelon prepared a palatable meal, and endeavoured, more successfully than her uncompromising parent, to sustain and cheer the drooping spirits of the husband she so entirely loved. She could not, however, always suppress her starting tears; and as the night approached, even the firm nature of the old headsman betrayed symptoms of growing anxiety, notwithstanding his endeavours to exhilarate himself by deep potations of his favourite wine.

After a night of wearying vigilance and internal conflict, the miserable Florian entered at daybreak the vehicle which awaited him and his father-in-law under the arched gateway. With a view to prevent his trembling subst.i.tute from witnessing all the preparations for the approaching catastrophe, the old man so measured his progress as to enter the city a few minutes before the appointed hour, and drove immediately to the scene of action, without pausing at the church, to attend, as customary, the ma.s.s then performing in presence of the criminal. Soon after their arrival, the melancholy procession approached, and Florian, unable to face the criminal, turned hastily away, ascended the ladder with unsteady steps, and concealed himself behind the ma.s.sive person of the old headsman, as the victim of offended justice, with a firm and measured step, mounted the scaffold. The old man felt for his shrinking son-in-law, but kept a stern eye upon him, in hopes to counteract the disabling effects of his rising agony.

When, however, the decisive moment approached, he whispered to him encouragingly--"Be a man, Florian! Beware of looking at the criminal before you strike; but when his head is lifted, look him boldly in the face, or the people will doubt your courage."

Florian fixed on him a vacant stare, but these kindly-meant instructions reached not his inward ear. The remembrance of the execution he had witnessed with his friend Bartholdy had flashed upon him, and he recollected the taunting prediction--that he might himself be condemned to the scaffold. His agony rose almost to suffocation; he compared his own destiny with that of the being whom he was about to deprive of life, and he felt that he could not unwillingly have taken his place. At this moment his attention was caught by the admiring comments of the crowd upon the courageous bearing and firm unflinching features of the criminal. Roused by these exclamations to a stinging consciousness of his own unmanly timidity, he made a powerful effort, and rallied his expiring energies into temporary life and action. The headsman now approached him with the broad axe, and whispered, "Courage, my son!

'tis nothing but a cabbage-head."

With a desperate effort, Florian seized the weapon, fixed his dim gaze upon the white neck of the criminal, and, guided more by long practice than by any estimate of place and distance, he struck the death-stroke.

The head fell upon the hollow flooring of the scaffold with an appalling bounce, which petrified the unfortunate executioner. The consciousness that he had deprived a fellow-creature of life now smote him with a withering power, which for some moments deprived him of all volition, and he stood in pa.s.sive stupor, gazing wildly upon the blood which streamed in torrents from the headless trunk. Immediately, however, his father-in-law again approached him, with a whisper. "Admirably done, my son! I give you joy! But recollect my warning, and look boldly at your work, or the mob will hoot you as a craven headsman from the scaffold."

The old man was obliged to repeat his admonition before it reached the senses of his unconscious son-in-law. Long accustomed to yield unresisting obedience, Florian slowly raised his eyes, at the moment when the executioner's a.s.sistant, after showing the criminal's head to the mult.i.tude, turned round and held out to him the bleeding and ghastly object.--Gracious Heaven! what were his feelings when he encountered a well-known face--when he saw the yellow pock-marked visage of Bartholdy, whose widely-opened milk-blue eyes were fixed upon him in the gla.s.sy, dim, and vacant stare of death!

Paralysed with sudden and overwhelming horror, he fell senseless into the arms of the headsman, who had watched this critical moment, and, with ready self-possession, loudly attributed to recent illness an incident so puzzling to the spectators. He succeeded ere long in rousing Florian to an imperfect sense of his critical situation, and, supporting his tottering frame, led him to the house of the deceased executioner.

For an hour after their arrival, the unhappy youth sat mute and motionless--the living image of despair. Agony in him had pa.s.sed its wildest paroxysm, and settled down into a blind and mechanical unconsciousness. The old man, who began to suspect some extraordinary reason for emotion so excessive, compelled him to swallow several gla.s.ses of wine, and anxiously besought him to explain the cause of his impa.s.sioned deportment. It was long, however, before the disconsolate Florian regained the power of utterance. At length a burst of tears relieved him. "I knew him!" he began, in a voice broken by convulsive sobs. "He was once my friend. Oh, my father! there is no hope for me! I am a doomed man--a murderer! He stands before me ever, and demands my blood in atonement for his destruction. How can I justify such guilt? I never knew his crime--I cannot even fancy him a criminal--but I well remember that he loved and cherished me. Away, my father, if you love me, to the judges! I _must_ know his crime, or the pangs I feel will never depart from me."

The executioner, in whose stern and inflexible nature feelings of pity, and even of repentance, were now at work, hastened to obtain some information, and returned in half an hour, with indications of anxiety and doubt too obvious to escape the unhappy Florian, who, with folded hands, exclaimed, "For G.o.d-sake, father, tell me all--I must know it, sooner or later. Your anxiety prepares me for the worst. If you, a man of iron, are thus shaken"----

"I? Nonsense!" retorted the old man, somewhat disconcerted. "The fellow was a notorious villain, and was executed for two murders."

Florian, relieved by this intelligence, began to breathe more freely, and gazed upon the headsman with looks which sought farther explanation, "Florian," continued the old man, fixing upon him his stern and searching look, "when you told me the tale of your calamities at D., did you tell me _all_? Had you _no_ reservations?"

"None, father, by all I hold most sacred!" replied Florian, with emphatic earnestness.

"One of Bartholdy's crimes," resumed the headsman, "was connected with your story. He is said to have slain the officer in whose murder you thought yourself implicated by suspicious appearances."

"_He_?" exclaimed Florian, gasping with horror. "No! by the Almighty G.o.d, he did _not_ slay him! I have beheaded an innocent man, and the remembrance will cleave to me like a curse!"

"Can you _prove_ that he had no share in that murder?" now sternly demanded the headsman, whose suspicions had been roused by Florian's acknowledgment of former intimacy with Bartholdy.

"I can swear to his innocence of _that_ murder," vehemently replied Florian, whose energies rose with his excitement. "And the other crime?"

he eagerly continued. "In mercy, father, tell me whom else he is said to have murdered?"

"_Yourself!_" said the old man, turning pale as he antic.i.p.ated the effect of this communication,--"if the name inserted in the judicial summons from D. was really yours."

For some moments Florian gazed upon him in speechless despair--his eyes became fixed and gla.s.sy--his jaw dropped--and he would have fallen from his chair, had not the old man supported him. The headsman looked with anxious and growing perplexity upon his unfortunate victim. "After all," he muttered, "he is my daughter's husband, and a good husband. I forced him to the task, and must, if possible, save him from the consequences."

By an abundant application of cold water to the face of Florian, he succeeded at length in restoring him to consciousness. The miserable youth opened his eyes, and, leaning on the old man's shoulders, burst into a pa.s.sion of tears. When in some measure tranquillised, the headsman asked him soothingly if he was sufficiently collected to listen to him.

"Yes, father, I am," he replied, with an effort.

"Recollect, then, my son," continued the old man, "that you are under the a.s.sured protection of the sword, and that you may open your heart to me without fear of consequences. Say, then, in the first place, who are you?"

"I am no other, father," answered Florian, with returning energy, "than I have already acknowledged to you; and I was the early friend and schoolfellow of the man whose blood I have shed upon the scaffold. But I must and will have clear proof of _every_ crime imputed to Bartholdy,"

he exclaimed in wild emotion. "Again I see his large dim eyes fixed on me in reproach; and if you cannot give me evidence that he deserved his fate, my remorse will goad me on to suicide or madness."

It was now evident to the old man that the suspicions he had founded on Florian's acknowledged intimacy with Bartholdy were groundless.

Recollecting, too, the undeviating truth and honesty of Florian's character, he felt all the injustice of his suspicions; and his compa.s.sion for the tortured feelings of his son-in-law became actively excited. He clearly saw that nothing but the truth, and the whole truth, would satisfy him; he determined, therefore, to call upon the criminal's confessor; and, after prevailing upon the exhausted Florian to go to bed, he watched by him until he saw his wearied senses sealed up in sleep, and then departed in quest of farther intelligence.

After three hours of undisturbed repose, which restored, in some measure, the exhausted strength of Florian, he awoke, and saw his father-in-law sitting by his bed, with a confident and cheerful composure of look, which spoke comfort to his wounded spirit.

"Florian," he began, "I have cheering news for you. I have seen the confessor of Bartholdy, a good old man, who feels for, and wishes to console you. He has long known the habits and character of the criminal.

More he would not say, but he will receive you this evening at his convent, and will not only impart to you the consolations of religion, but reveal as much of the criminal's previous life as the sacred obligations of a confessor will permit. Meanwhile, my son, you must rouse yourself from this stupor, and accompany me in a walk round the city ramparts."

After a restorative excursion, they repaired, at the appointed hour, to the Jesuit convent, and were immediately conducted to the cell of the confessor, an aged and venerable priest, who gazed for some seconds in silent wonder on the dejected Florian, and then, laying a hand upon his shoulder, exclaimed, "Gracious Heaven! Florian, is it possible that I see you alive?"

The startled youth raised his downcast eyes at this exclamation, and recognised in the Jesuit before him the worthy superior of the school at which he had been educated, and the same who had congratulated him on the disappearance of Bartholdy. This discovery imparted instant and unspeakable relief to the hara.s.sed feelings of Florian. The years he had pa.s.sed under the paternal care of this benevolent old man arose with healing influence in his memory, and losing, in the sudden glow of filial regard and entire confidence, all his wonted timidity, he poured his tale of misery and remorse into the sympathising ear of the good father, with the artless and irresistible eloquence of a mind pure from all offence. The confessor, who listened with warm interest to his recital, forbore to interrupt its progress by questions. "I rejoice to learn," he afterwards replied, "that Bartholdy, although deeply stained with crime, quitted this life with less of guilt than he was charged with on his conscience. The details of his confession I cannot reveal, without a breach of the sacred trust reposed in me. It is enough to state, that he was deeply criminal. Without reference, however, to his more recent transgressions, I can impart to you some particulars of his earlier life, and of his implication in the murder you have detailed, which will be sufficient to relieve your conscience, and reconcile you to the will of Him who, for wise purposes, made you the blind instrument of well-merited punishment. Know then, my son, that when Bartholdy was supposed by yourself and others to have absconded from the seminary, he was a prisoner within its walls. Certain evidence had reached the presiding fathers, that this reckless youth was connected with a band of plundering incendiaries, who had for some months infested the neighbouring districts. Odious alike to his teachers and schoolfellows, repulsed by every one but you, and almost daily subjected to punishment or remonstrance, he sought and found more congenial a.s.sociates beyond our walls; and, with a view to raise money for the gratification of his vicious propensities, he contrived to scale our gates at night, and took an active part in the plunder of several unprotected dwellings. At the same time, we received a friendly intimation from the police, that he was implicated in a projected scheme to fire and plunder a neighbouring chateau, and that the ensuing night was fixed upon for the perpetration of this atrocity. Upon inquiry it was discovered that Bartholdy had been out all night, and it was now feared that he had finally absconded.

Happily, however, for the good name of the seminary, he returned soon after the arrival of this intelligence, and, as I now conjecture, with a view to repossess himself of the knife he had left in your custody. He was immediately secured and committed to close confinement, in the hope that his solitary reflections, aided by our admonitions, would have gradually wrought a salutary change in his character. This confinement, which was sanctioned by his relations, was prolonged three years without any beneficial result; and at length, after many fruitless attempts, he succeeded in making his escape. Joining the scattered remnant of the band of villains dispersed by the police, he soon became their leader in the contrivance and execution of atrocities which I must not reveal, but which I cannot recollect without a shudder. In consequence of high winds and clouds of dust, the public walk and grove beyond the gate of D. had been some days deserted by the inhabitants, and the body of the murdered officer was not discovered until the fourth morning after your departure from the university. A catastrophe so dreadful had not for many years occurred in that peaceful district: a proportionate degree of abhorrence was roused in the public mind, and the excited people rushed in crowds to view the corpse, in which, by order of the police, the fatal knife was left as when first discovered; while secret agents mingled with the crowd, to watch the various emotions of the spectators. Guided by a retributive providence, Bartholdy, who had that morning arrived in D., approached the body, and gazed upon it with callous indifference, until the remarkable handle of his long-lost knife caught his eye. Starting at the well-remembered object, a deep flush darkened his yellow visage, and immediately the police-officers darted forward and seized him. At first he denied all knowledge of the knife, and, when again brought close to the body, he gazed upon it with all his wonted hardihood; but when told to take the b.l.o.o.d.y weapon from the wound, he grasped the handle with a shudder, drew it forth with sudden effort, and, as he gazed on the discoloured blade, his joints shook with terror, and the knife fell from his trembling hand. Superst.i.tion was ever largely blended with the settled ferocity of Bartholdy's character, and I now attribute this emotion to a fear that his destiny was in some way connected with this fatal weapon, which had already caused his long imprisonment, and would now too probably endanger his life. This ungovernable agitation confirmed the general suspicion excited by his forbidding and savage exterior. He was immediately conveyed to the hotel of the police, and the knife was placed before him; but when again interrogated, he long persisted in denying all knowledge of it. When questioned, however, as to his name and occupation, and his object in the city of D., his embarra.s.sment increased, his replies involved him in contradictions, and at length he admitted that he _had_ seen the knife before, and in _your_ possession. This attempt to criminate you by implication, failed, however, to point any suspicion against one whose unblemished life and character were so well known in the university. Your gentle and retiring habits, your shrinking aversion from scenes of strife and bloodshed, were recollected by many present: their indignation was loudly uttered, and a friend of yours expressed his belief that you had quitted the city some days before the murder was committed. In short, this base and groundless insinuation of Bartholdy created an impression highly disadvantageous to him. A few hours later, intelligence arrived that the diligence in which you had left D. had been attacked by a band of robbers, while pa.s.sing through a forest, the day after your departure.

Several of the pa.s.sengers had been wounded; some killed; others had saved themselves by flight; and, as you had disappeared, it was now conjectured that Bartholdy had murdered you, and taken from your person the knife with which he had afterwards stabbed the young man in the grove. This presumptive evidence against him was so much strengthened by his sudden emotion at the sight of the weapon, and by the apparent probability that the murder of the young officer had succeeded the robbery of the diligence, that the watch and money found upon the body failed to create any impression in his favour, as it was conjectured, by the strongly excited people, that he had been alarmed by pa.s.sing footsteps before he had succeeded in rifling his victim. He was put into close confinement until farther evidence could be obtained; and, ere long, a letter arrived to your address from Normandy, stating the arrival of your trunk by the carrier, and expressing surprise at your non-appearance. A judicial summons, detailing your name and person, and citing you to appear and give evidence against the supposed murderer, led to no discovery of your retreat, and the evidence of your wounded fellow-travellers was obscure and contradictory. Meanwhile, however, several of the robbers who had attacked the diligence were captured by the _gens-d'armes_. When confronted with Bartholdy, their intelligence was sufficiently obvious, and he at length confessed his co-operation in the murderous a.s.sault upon the travellers; but stoutly denied that he had either injured or even seen you amongst the pa.s.sengers, and as tenaciously maintained his innocence of the murder committed in the grove. Your entire disappearance however, his emotion on beholding the knife, and his admission that he knew it, still operated so strongly against him that he was tried and p.r.o.nounced guilty of three crimes, each of which was punishable with death. During the week succeeding his trial, he was supplied by a confederate with tools, which enabled him to escape and resume his predatory habits; nor was he retaken until a month before his execution, while engaged in a robbery of singular boldness and atrocity. He was recognised as the hardened criminal who had escaped from confinement at D.; and as the authorities were apprehensive that no prison would long hold so expert and desperate a villain, an order was obtained from Paris for the immediate execution of the sentence already pa.s.sed upon him at D. Thus, although guilty of one only of the three crimes for which he suffered, the forfeiture of ten lives would not have atoned for his multiplied transgressions. From boyhood even he had preyed upon society with the insatiable ferocity of a tiger; and you, my son, ought not to murmur at the decree which made your early acquaintance with him the means of stopping his savage career, and your hand the instrument of retribution."

The concluding words of the venerable priest fell like healing balm upon the wounded spirit of Florian, who returned home an altered and a saddened, but a sustained and a devout man: deeply conscious that the ways of Providence, however intricate, are just; and more resigned to a vocation, to which he now conceived that he had been for especial purposes appointed. He followed, too, the advice of the friendly priest, in leaving the public belief of his own death uncontradicted; and, as he had not actually witnessed the murder in the grove near D., he felt himself justified in withholding his evidence against an individual, of whose innocence there was a remote possibility.

The mental agony of the unfortunate young headsman had been so acute, that a reaction upon his bodily health was inevitable. Symptoms of serious indisposition appeared the next day, and were followed by a long and critical malady, which, however, eventually increased his domestic happiness, by unfolding in his Madelon n.o.bler and higher attributes than he had yet discovered in her character. No longer the giddy and laughter-loving Frenchwoman, she had, for some years, become a devoted wife and mother; but it was not until she saw her husband's gentle spirit for ever blighted, and his life endangered for some weeks by a wasting fever, that she felt all his claims upon her, and bitterly reproached herself as the sole cause of his heaviest calamities. During this long period of sickness, when all worldly objects were waning around this man of sorrows, she watched, and wept, and prayed over him with an untiring a.s.siduity and self-oblivion, which developed to the grateful Florian all the unfathomable depths of woman's love, and proved her consummate skill and patience in all the tender offices and trying duties of a sick-chamber. Her health was undermined, and her fine eyes were dimmed for ever by long-continued vigilance; but her a.s.siduities were at length rewarded by a favourable crisis; and when the patient sufferer was sufficiently restored to bear the disclosure, she kneeled to him in deep humility, and acknowledged, what the reader has doubtless long conjectured, that _she_ had, from an upper window, caused that ominous jarring of the sword and axe which induced her father to suspect and follow him, and which eventually led to their marriage.

Florian started in sudden indignation; but his gentle nature, and the hallowed influences of recent sickness and calamity, soon prevailed over his wrath. What _could_ he say? How could he chide the lovely and devoted woman, whose fraud had grown out of her affection for him! In an instant he forgot his own sorrows; and, as he listened to the mournful and beseeching accents of her who was the mother of his children, and had been unto him, in sickness and in health, a ministering angel, his anger melted into love. He had no words; but, like the father of the humbled prodigal, he had compa.s.sion, and fell upon her neck and kissed her, and forgave her entirely, and for ever.

The old headsman survived these events several years; and, while his strength continued equal to the effort, he spared his son-in-law from the trying duties of his office. After his death, however, his successor was compelled to encounter the dreadful task. For some time before and after each execution, sadness sat heavy on his soul, but yielded gradually to the sustaining influence of fervent prayer, and to the caresses of his wife and children. In the intervening periods he regained comparative tranquillity, and devoted himself unceasingly to the education of his boys, and to the labours of his field and vineyard.

I have been told, however, that since the execution of Bartholdy he was never seen to smile; and that, when gazing on the joyous sports of his unconscious children, his eyes would often fill with tears of sorrowing antic.i.p.ation. Thus many years elapsed: his boys have become men, and the recent training and nomination of one of them as his successor, have renewed in the heart of the fond father all those bitter pangs which the soothing agency of time and occupation had lulled to comparative repose.

Here the interesting narrator paused. Towards the conclusion of his recital his mournful voice had quivered with suppressed emotion; and, as he finished, his eyes were clouded with tears.

His companions had listened to this affecting narrative with a sympathy which, for some moments, subdued all power of utterance, and the silence which ensued was interrupted only by involuntary and deep-drawn sighs.