Sidonia, the Sorceress Volume Ii Part 17

_Ille_.--"Anger me not, daughter, I say, for the third time.

It is written, 'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy G.o.d;' and is not this tempting Him--setting heaven and h.e.l.l in an uproar all about a wicked old hag of a witch? Wherefore is the Duke such a goose?

But I will give him no child of mine to run a race with to h.e.l.l.

Now rise, child, and follow me to the coach!"

_Illa_.--"But you must make me one promise" (weeping).

_Ille_.--"What then?"

_Illa_.--"Speak no more of marriage to me till I say, 'Father, now let the marriage be.'"

_Ille_.--"With the young knight, George?"

_Illa_.-"I have no objection to offer to him; but the young man is not to come before my eyes until then."

_Ille_.--"Ah, thou art as obstinate as the Rugen geese! Well, have it thy own way, child. And now to Stramehl!"

Still the Duke was hunting after them, through thick and thin, and roaring for the knight at the top of his voice, till the wood re-echoed; and though some squires, who came up through the forest, declared that no carriage had pa.s.sed their way, yet he continued his chase, feeling certain that no matter what bypath the knave had taken, yet he would a.s.suredly come up with him at Saatzig.

So the next day he reached the castle, for it lay but ten miles from Camyn, but no knight was there. The Duke waited for two days, still no sign of him. So he amused the time by fis.h.i.+ng, and making inquiries amongst all the neighbouring people about Sidonia, and so strange were the tales repeated by the simple, superst.i.tious folk, that his Highness resolved to make a detour home by Marienfliess, just to get a pa.s.sing glimpse of this devil's residence. Here he met a shepherd, who told many strange things, and swore that he had seen her many times flying out of the chimney on her broomstick; and, as the convent lay right before them, his Grace asked which was Sidonia's chimney, and the carl pointed out the chimney with his hand--it was the fourth from the church there, where the smoke was rising. Whereupon my Lord Duke shuddered, and went his way as quick as he could up the Vossberg.

He knew not that upon that very day his brother, Duke Philip, had arrived at Marienfliess from Old Stettin, on his way to the diet at New Stettin. The herald had been despatched by his Highness, some days before, to inform Sheriff Eggert Sparling of his approach, and that his Highness and suite would arrive about noon.

He was also to say the same to the nuns, particularly to Sidonia Bork.

So at mid-day my sheriff set off to the cloister, with the steward and the secretaries, and waited there in the nuns' courtyard for the arrival of the Duke, and a boy was placed in the mill to wave his cap the moment his Highness came in sight. Yet my Eggert was suffering terrible anguish all the time in his mind, for he thought that the Duke might bid him seize the devil's witch.

Soon the cry rose that the Duke was coming--his six coaches had just come in sight. Then the convent gate opened, and my hag appeared at the head of the entire sisterhood, all in their black robes and white veils; she the same, except that she wore the abbess veil whereon two golden keys were embroidered. _Item_, the white cats'-skin cape, which I have noticed before, was displayed upon her shoulders. Thus she came forth from the convent gate with all the sisters, two and two, and she threw up her eyes, and raised the hymn of St. Ambrose, just as the Duke and his six coaches drove into the courtyard, and the whole convent joining, they advanced thus singing to meet his Highness.

Now, his Highness was a meek man and seldom angry, but his brow grew black with wrath, when Sidonia, stepping up to the coach, bowed low, and in her cats' tippet--herself a cat in cunning and deceit--threw up her eyes hypocritically to heaven.

"How now," cried his Grace; "who the devil hath suffered you, Sidonia, to play the abbess over these virgins?"

To which my hag replied--

"Gracious Prince, ask these virgins here if they have not selected me as their abbess of their own free will, and they are now come to entreat your Highness to confirm the choice of their hearts."

"Marry," quoth the Duke, "I have heard enough of your doings from the neighbouring n.o.bles and others. I know well how you made the poor abbess Magdalena bite the dust; _item_, how you forced these poor virgins to elect you abbess through mortal and deadly fear. Speak, dear sisters, fear nothing--I, your Prince, command you: have ye not elected this piece of sin and vanity to be your abbess simply through fear of your lives?"

But the virgins looked down upon the ground, were silent and trembled, while my sheriff plunged his hand into his wide boots for the kerchief to wipe his face, for he saw well how it would end, and the sweat of anguish was dripping from his brow. A second time his Grace asked--"Was it from fear?" When at last one answered, named Agnes Kleist, not the stout Dinnies' sister, but another--

"In truth, gracious Prince, it was from pure bodily fear alone that we elected Sidonia as our abbess."

Her courage pleased the Duke so much that he inquired her name, and hearing it, said--

"Ay, I thought you must be a Kleist; and now, for your truth and courage, I make you abbess of Marienfliess; _item_, Dorothea Stettin sub-prioress. And mark me, Sidonia Bork--it is for the last time--if you attempt to dispute my will, or make the least disturbance in the convent in consequence of my decision, you shall be sent over the frontier. I have tried kindness long enough by you--now for justice!"

"Sparling, I command you by your duty to me as your Prince, if this evil and notorious hag should make the least disturbance or strife in the convent, seize her that instant, either yourself or by means of your bailiffs, and chase her over the frontiers.

_Item_, you are not to permit her to leave the convent, to alarm or intimidate the neighbouring n.o.bles, as she hath hitherto done. Therefore I command the new abbess to replace the heavy padlock on the gate from this day forth. Do you hear this, Sidonia? These poor maidens shall have peace at last. Too long they have been your sport and mockery, but it shall end."

So the new abbess answered--"Your Highness shall be obeyed!"

But my sheriff could not utter a word from horror, and seemed stifling with a thick, husky cough in his throat. But when Sidonia crept up close to him, and menaced him privately with her dry, clenched hand, he forgot himself entirely, and made a spring that brought him clean over the churchyard wall, while his sword clattered after him, and his plumed beaver dropt from his head to the ground. All the lacqueys laughed loud at the sight, even his Grace laughed. But my sheriff makes the best of it, and calls out--

"Ah, see, my Lord Duke, how the little boys have stolen the flowers that I myself planted on the grave of the blessed abbess.

I'll make them pay for it, the thieving brats!"

Hereat his Grace asked why the abbess was not buried within the church, but in the graveyard. And they answered, she had so commanded. Whereupon he said mildly--

"The good mother is worthy of a prayer; I shall go and say a paternoster upon her grave, and see if the youngsters have left me a flower to carry away for memory."

So he alighted, made Eggert show him the grave, removed his hat, and prayed, while all his suite in the six coaches uncovered their heads likewise. Lastly, he made the sign of the cross, and bent over the grave to pluck a flower. But just then a warm heavy wind blew across the graves, and all the flowers drooped, faded, and turned yellow as it pa.s.sed. Yea, even a yellow stripe seemed to mark its pa.s.sage straight across all the graves over the court, up to the spot where the thrice-accursed witch stood upon the convent wall, and people afterwards remarked that all plants, gra.s.s, flowers, and shrubs within that same stripe turned pale and faded, only some poison plants, as hemlock, nightshade, and the like, stood up green and stiff along that livid line. When the Duke observed this, he shook his head, but made no remark, stepped hastily, however, into his carriage, after again earnestly admonis.h.i.+ng Sidonia; _item_, the sheriff to remember his commands. He ordered the procession to start, and proceeded on his way to the Diet.

It may be easily believed that no one ventured to put the commands of his Grace into execution; therefore, Sidonia remained abbess as heretofore. Agnes Kleist, indeed, that same day, had the great padlock put upon the gate; but my hag no sooner sees it than she calls for the convent servant, saying she must go forth to drive, then takes her hatchet, and with it hews away at the padlock, until it falls to the ground. Whereupon, laughing scornfully, she went her way out into the road; and the new abbess could not remonstrate, for on Sidonia's return home (I forgot to say that, latterly, she had gone much about amongst the neighbouring n.o.bles, even as his Highness observed, frightening them to death with her visits) she shut herself up again; and Anna Apenborg soon brings the news from Wolde, "The lady is praying;" and Anna, having privately slid under the window, found that it was even so.

So the whole convent shuddered; but no one dared to say a word, though each sister judged for herself what the praying betokened, without venturing to speak her surmise. But this time she did not pray for three days and three nights, only once in the week, when her bath-day came; by which, people suspected that his Highness was destined to a slower death than the other victims of her demoniac malice.

CHAPTER XVII.

_Of the fearful death of his Highness, Duke Philip II. of Pomerania, and of his melancholy but sumptuous burial._

After the before-mentioned festival of the jubilee, it happened that one day Anna Apenborg went to the brew-house, which lay inside the convent walls (it was one of Sidonia's praying days), and there she saw a strange apparition of a three-legged hare. She runs and calls the other sisters; whereupon they all scamper out of their cells, and down the steps, to see the miracle, and behold, there sits the three-legged hare; but when Agnes Kleist took off her slipper, and threw it at the devil's sprite, my hare is off, and never a trace of him could be found again in the whole brew-house or in the whole convent court. Hereat the nuns shuddered, and each virgin has her opinion on the matter, but speaks it not; for just then, too, comes Sidonia forth, with old Wolde and the cat, and the three begin their devil's dance, while the cat squalls and wails, and the old witch-hag screams her usual h.e.l.l psalm:--

"Also kleien und also kratzen, Meine Hunde und meine Katzen."

Next day, however, the poor virgins heard, to their deep sorrow, what the three-legged hare betokened even as they had suspected; for the cry came to the convent that his Grace, good Duke Philip, was dead, and the tidings ran like a signal-fire through the people, that this kind, wise, just Prince had been bewitched to death. (Ah! where in Pomerania land--yea, in all German fatherland--was such a wise, pious, and learned Prince to be found? No other fault had he but one, and that was not having, long before, burned this devil's witch, this accursed sorceress, with fire and f.a.ggot.)

And now I must tell how his Grace had scarcely left Marienfliess and reached Saatzig (they were but a mile from each other) when he felt suddenly weak. He wondered much to find that his dear lord brother, Duke Francis, had only left the castle two hours before.

_Item_, that Jobst Bork had not arrived there, and no man knew whither the knight had flown. Here the Duke grew so much worse, that his ministers earnestly entreated him to postpone the diet at New Stettin, and return home; for how could it please the knights and burgesses to see their beloved Prince in this sad extremity of suffering?

Hereupon his Highness replied with the beautiful Latin words, "_Officio mihi officio_." (And after his death, these words were stamped on the burial-medals. _Item_, a rose, half-eaten by a worm, with the inscription, "_Ut rosa rodimur omnes;_"

whereby many think allusion is made to the livid breath that pa.s.sed over the flowers at Marienfliess, but I leave these things undecided.)

_Summa_.--His Highness proceeded to New Stettin, and decided all the boundary disputes amongst the n.o.bles, &c., returned then to his court at Old Stettin, to hold the evangelical jubilee; but, by that time, all the doctors from far and near could do naught to help him; and though he lingered some months, yet, from the first, he knew that death was on him; for nothing could appease the tortures he suffered in his breast, even as all the others whom Sidonia had murdered, and finally, on the 3rd day of February 1618, at ten of the clock, he expired--his age being forty-four years, six months, and six days. And the corpse presented the same signature of Satan, though his Grace's sickness had differed in some particulars from that of Sidonia's other victims. To this appearance of the princely corpse I myself can testify, for I beheld it, along with many others, when it lay in state in the great hall.

On the 19th of March following, the princely ceremony of interment took place. Let me see if my tears will permit me to describe it:--

After the deputies from the three honourable estates had a.s.sembled--the Stettin, the Wolgastian, and the ecclesiastical--in the castle church, with the Princes of the blood, the n.o.bles, knights, and magnates of the land, three cannons were fired; and at nine of the clock in the evening, the princely corpse was carried first into the count's chamber, then to the knights'

chamber, from thence to the grand state-hall, by torchlight, by twenty-four n.o.bles, and from that to the castle square, which was entirely covered with black cloth. Here it was laid down, and sixty students from the university of Grypswald, and forty boys from the town-school, sung the burial psalms from their books; while, at intervals, the priests chanted the appointed portions of the liturgy; after which all the bells of the town began to toll, and the swan song was raised, "Now in joy I pa.s.s from earth."

Whereupon the n.o.bles lifted up the bier again, and the procession moved forwards. And could my gracious Prince have looked out through the little window above his head, he would have seen not only the blessed cross, but also his dear town, from street to tower, covered with weeping human faces: for the procession pa.s.sed on through the main street, across the coal market, through castle street, into the crane court--all which streets were lined with the princely soldatesca, who also, each man, carried a torch in his hand, besides the group of regular torch-bearers in the procession--and windows, roofs, towers, presented one living ma.s.s of human heads all along the way. And the order was thus:--

1. The song-master, _c.u.m choro-item_, the rector, paedagogis, with his collegis.

2. The honourable ministerium from all the three states.

3. The Duke's trumpeters and drummers, with instruments reversed, and drums covered with c.r.a.pe.