"Let us hear it."

"Hast thou any news of Count Ernst of Gleichen, from the East?"

"Wherefore dost thou ask?"

"Therefore."

"Twiddle, twaddle! Wherefore, therefore!"

"Because I am sent into all the world by the Countess Ottilia his wife, to get her word whether her husband is still living, and in what corner of the Earth he may be found."

This answer put the mettled Kurt into some perplexity; and tuned him to another key. "Wait a little, neighbour," said he; "perhaps my master knows about the thing." Thereupon he ran to the Count, and whispered the tidings in his ear. The feeling they awoke was complex; made up in equal proportions of joy and consternation. Count Ernst perceived that his dream, or the interpretation of it, had misled him; and that the conceit of marrying his fair travelling companion might easily be baulked. On the spur of the moment he knew not how he should get out of this embroiled affair: meanwhile, the desire to learn how matters stood at home outweighed all scruples. He beckoned to the emissary, whom he soon recognised for his old valet; and who wetted with joyful tears the hand of his recovered master, and told in many words what jubilee the Countess would make, when she received the happy message of her husband's return. The Count took him with the rest to the inn; and there engaged in earnest meditation on the singular state of his heart, and considered deeply what was to be done with his engagements to the fair Saracen. Without loss of time the watchful spy was dispatched to the Countess with a letter, containing a true statement of the Count's fortunes in slavery at Cairo, and of his deliverance by means of the Sultan's daughter; how she had abandoned throne and country for his sake, under the condition that he was to marry her, which he himself, deceived by a dream, had promised. By this narrative he meant not only to prepare his wife for a partic.i.p.atress in her marriage rights; but also endeavoured, in the course of it, by many sound arguments, to gain her own consent to the arrangement.

Countess Ottilia was standing at the window in her mourning weeds, as the news-bringer for the last time gave his breathless horse the spur, to hasten it up the steep Castle-path. Her sharp eye recognised him in the distance; and he too being nothing of a blinkard,--a cla.s.s of persons very rare in the days of the Crusades,--recognised the Countess also, raised the letter-bag aloft over his head, and waved it like a standard in token of good news; and the lady understood his signal, as well as if the Hanau _Synthematograph_ had been on duty there. "Hast thou found him, the husband of my heart?" cried she, as he approached.

"Where lingers he, that I may rise and wipe the sweat from his brow, and let him rest in my faithful arms from his toilsome journeying?"--"Joy to you, my lady," said the post; "his lordship is well. I found him in the Port of Venice, from which he sends you this under his hand and seal, to announce his arrival himself." The Countess could not hastily enough undo the seal; and at sight of her husband's hand, she felt as if the breath of life were coming back to her. Three times she pressed the letter to her beating heart, and three times touched it with her languishing lips. A shower of joyful tears streamed over the parchment, as she began reading: but the farther she read, the drops fell the slower; and before the reading was completed, the fountain of tears had dried up altogether.

The contents of the letter could not all interest the good lady equally; her husband's proposed part.i.tion treaty of his heart had not the happiness to meet with her approval. Greatly as the spirit of part.i.tion has acquired the upper hand nowadays, so that parted love and parted provinces have become the device of our century; these things were little to the taste of old times, when every heart had its own key, and a master-key that would open several was regarded as a scandalous thief-picklock. The intolerance of the Countess in this point was at least a proof of her unvarnished love: "Ah! that doleful Crusade," cried she, "is the cause of it all. I lent the Holy Church a Loaf, of which the Heathen have eaten; and nothing but a Crust of it returns to me." A vision of the night, however, soothed her troubled mind, and gave her whole view of the affair another aspect. She dreamed that there came two pilgrims from the Holy Sepulchre up the winding Castle-road, and begged a lodging, which she kindly granted them. One of them threw off his cloak, and behold it was the Count her lord! She joyfully embraced him, and was in raptures at his return. The children too came in, and he clasped them in his paternal arms, pressed them to his heart, and praised their looks and growth. Meanwhile his companion laid aside his travelling pouch; drew from it golden chains and precious strings of jewelry, and hung them round the necks of the little ones, who showed delighted with these glittering presents. The Countess was herself surprised at this munificence, and asked the stranger who he was. He answered: "I am the Angel Raphael, the guide of the loving, and have brought thy husband to thee out of foreign lands." His pilgrim garments melted away; and a shining angel stood before her, in an azure robe, with two golden wings on his shoulders. Thereupon she awoke, and, in the absence of an Egyptian Sibyl, herself interpreted the dream according to her best skill; and found so many points of similarity between the Angel Raphael and the Princess Melechsala, that she doubted not the latter had been shadowed forth to her in vision under the figure of the former. At the same time she took into consideration the fact that, without her help, the Count could scarcely ever have escaped from slavery. And as it behoves the owner of a lost piece of property to deal generously with the finder, who might have kept it all to himself, she no longer hesitated to resolve on the surrender. The water-bailiff, well rewarded for his watchfulness, was therefore dispatched forthwith back into Italy, with the formal consent of the Countess for her husband to complete the trefoil of his marriage without loss of time.

The only question now was, whether Father Gregory at Rome would give his benediction to this matrimonial anomaly; and be persuaded, for the Count's sake, to refound, by the word of his mouth, the substance, form and essence of the Sacrament of Marriage. The pilgrimage accordingly set forth from Venice to Rome, where the Princess Melechsala solemnly abjured the Koran, and entered into the bosom of the Church. At this spiritual conquest the Holy Father testified as much delight as if the kingdom of Antichrist had been entirely destroyed, or reduced under subjection to the Romish chair; and after the baptism, on which occasion she had changed her Saracenic name for the more orthodox _Angelica_, he caused a pompous _Te-deum_ to be celebrated in St. Peter's. These happy aspects Count Ernst endeavoured to improve for his purpose, before the Pope's good-humour should evaporate. He brought his matrimonial concern to light without delay: but, alas! no sooner asked than rejected. The conscience of St. Peter's Vicar was so tender in this case, that he reckoned it a greater heresy to advocate triplicity in marriage than Tritheism itself. Many plausible arguments as the Count brought forward to accomplish an exception from the common rule in his own favour, they availed no jot in moving the exemplary Pope to wink with one eye of his conscience, and vouchsafe the pet.i.tioned dispensation: a result which cut Count Ernst to the heart. His sly counsel, the mettled Kurt, had in the mean time struck out a bright expedient for accomplishing the marriage of his master with the fair convert, to the satisfaction of the Pope and Christendom in general; only he had not risked disclosing it, lest it might cost him his master's favour. Yet at last he found his opportunity, and put the matter into words. "Dear master," said he, "do not vex yourself so much about the Pope's perverseness. If you cannot get round him on the one side, you must try him on the other: there are more roads to the wood than one. If the Holy Father has too tender a conscience to permit your taking two wives, then it is fair for you also to have a tender conscience, though you are no priest but a layman.

Conscience is a cloak that covers every hole, and has withal the quality that it can be turned according to the wind: at present, when the wind is cross, you must put the cloak on the other shoulder. Examine whether you are not related to the Countess Ottilia within the prohibited degrees: if so, as will surely be the case, if you have a tender conscience, then the game is your own. Get a divorce; and who the deuce can hinder you from wedding the Princess then?"

The Count had listened to his Squire till the sense of his oration was completely before him; then he answered it with two words, shortly and clearly: "Peace, Dog!" In the same moment, the mettled Kurt found himself lying at full length without the door, and seeking for a tooth or two which had dropped from him in this rapid transit. "Ah! the precious tooth," cried he from without, "has been sacrificed to my faithful zeal!" This tooth monologue reminded the Count of his dream.

"Ah! the cursed tooth," cried he from within, "which I dreamed of losing, has been the cause of all this mischief!" His heart, between self-reproaches for unfaithfulness to his amiable wife, and for prohibited love to the charming Angelica, kept wavering like a bell, which yields a sound on both sides, when set in motion. Still more than the flame of his pa.s.sion, the fire of indignation burnt and gnawed him, now that he saw the visible impossibility of ever keeping his word to the Princess, and taking her in wedlock. All which distresses, by the way, led him to the just experimental conclusion, that a parted heart is not the most desirable of things; and that the lover, in these circ.u.mstances, but too much resembles the a.s.s Baldwin between his two bundles of hay.

In such a melancholy posture of affairs, he lost his jovial humour altogether, and wore the aspect of an atrabiliar, whom in bad weather the atmosphere oppresses till the spleen is like to crush the soul out of his body. Princess Angelica observed that her lover's looks were no longer as yesterday, and ere-yesterday: it grieved her soft heart, and moved her to resolve on making trial whether she should not be more successful, if she took the dispensation business in her own hand. She requested audience of the conscientious Gregory; and appeared before him closely veiled, according to the fashion of her country. No Roman eye had yet seen her face, except the priest who baptised her. His Holiness received the new-born daughter of the Church with all suitable respect, offered her the palm of his right hand to kiss, and not his perfumed slipper. The fair stranger raised her veil a little to touch the sacred hand with her lips; then opened her mouth, and clothed her pet.i.tion in a touching address. Yet this insinuation through the Papal ear seemed not sufficiently to know the interior organisation of the Head of the Church; for instead of taking the road to the heart, it pa.s.sed through the other ear out into the air. Father Gregory expostulated long with the lovely supplicant; and imagined he had found a method for in some degree contenting her desire of union with a bridegroom, without offence to the ordinations of the Church: he proposed to her a spiritual wedlock, if she could resolve on a slight change of the veil, the Saracenic for the Nun's. This proposal suddenly awakened in the Princess such a horror at veils, that she directly tore away her own; sank full of despair before the holy footstool, and with uplifted hands and tearful eyes, conjured the venerable Father by his sacred slipper, not to do violence to her heart, and constrain her to bestow it elsewhere.

The sight of her beauty was more eloquent than her lips; it enraptured all present; and the tear which gathered in her heavenly eye fell like a burning drop of naphtha on the Holy Father's heart, and kindled the small fraction of earthly tinder that still lay hid there, and warmed it into sympathy for the pet.i.tioner. "Rise, beloved daughter," said he, "and weep not! What has been determined in Heaven, shall be fulfilled in thee on Earth. In three days thou shalt know whether this thy first prayer to the Church can be granted by that gracious Mother, or must be denied." Thereupon he summoned an a.s.sembly of all the Casuists in Rome; had a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine distributed to each; and locked them up in the Rotunda, with the warning that no one of them should be let out again till the question had been determined unanimously. So long as the loaves and wine held out, the disputes were so violent, that all the Saints, had they been convened in the church, could not have argued with greater noise. But so soon as the Digestive Faculty began to have a voice in the meeting, he was listened to with the deepest attention, and happily he spoke in favour of the Count, who had got a sumptuous feast made ready for the entertainment of the casuistic Doctors, when the Papal seal should be removed from their door. The Bull of Dispensation was drawn out in proper form of law; in furtherance of which the fair Angelica had, not at all reluctantly, inflicted a determined cut upon the treasures of Egypt. Father Gregory bestowed his benediction on the n.o.ble pair, and sent them away betrothed. They lost no time in leaving Peter's Patrimony for the territories of the Count, to celebrate their nuptials on arriving.

When Count Ernst, on this side the Alps, again inhaled his native air, and felt it come soft and kindly round his heart, he mounted his steed; galloped forward, attended only by the heavy Groom, and left the Princess, under the escort of the mettled Kurt, to follow him by easy journeys.

His heart beat high within him, when he saw in azure distance the three towers of Gleichen. He meant to take his gentle Countess by surprise; but the news of his approach had preceded him, as on the wings of the wind; she went forth with man and maid, and met her husband a furlong from the Castle, in a pleasant green, which, in memory of this event, is called the Freudenthal, or Valley of Joy, to this day. The meeting on both sides was as trustful and tender, as if no part.i.tion treaty had ever been thought of: for Countess Ottilia was a proper pattern of the pious wife, that obeys without commentary the marriage precept of subjecting her will to the will of her husband. If at times there did arise some small sedition in her heart, she did not on the instant ring the alarm-bell; but she shut door and window, that no mortal eye might look in and see what pa.s.sed; and then summoned the rebel Pa.s.sion to the bar of Reason; gave it over in custody to Prudence, and imposed on herself a voluntary penance.

She could not pardon her heart for having murmured at the rival sun that was to shine beside her on the matrimonial horizon; and to expiate the offence, she had secretly commissioned a triple bedstead, with stout fir posts, painted green, the colour of Hope; and a round vaulted tester, in the form of a dome, adorned with winged puffy-cheeked heads of angels.

On the silken coverlet, which lay for show over the downy quilts, was exhibited in fine embroidery, the Angel Raphael, as he had appeared to her in vision, beside the Count in pilgrim weeds. This speaking proof of her ready matrimonial complaisance affected her husband to the soul. He clasped her to his breast, and overpowered her with kisses, at the sight of this arrangement for the completion of his wedded joys.

"Glorious wife!" cried he with rapture, "this temple of love exalts thee above thousands of thy s.e.x; as an honourable memorial, it will transmit thy name to future ages; and while a splinter of this wood remains, husbands will recount to their wives thy exemplary conduct."

In a few days afterwards, the Princess also arrived in safety, and was received by the Count in full gala. Ottilia came to meet her with open arms and heart, and conducted her into the Palace, as the partner in all its privileges. The double bridegroom then set out to Erfurt, for the Bishop to perform the marriage ceremony. This pious prelate was extremely shocked at the proposal, and signified, that in his diocese no such scandal could be tolerated. But, on Count Ernst's bringing out the papal dispensation, signed and sealed in due form, it acted as a lock on his Reverence's lips; though his doubting looks, and shaking of the head, still indicated that the Steersman of the bark of the universal Church had bored a hole in the keel, which bade fair to swamp the vessel, and send it to the bottom of the sea.

The nuptials were celebrated with becoming pomp and splendour; Countess Ottilia, who acted as mistress of the ceremonies, had invited widely; and the counts and knights, over all Thuringia, far and wide, came crowding to a.s.sist at this unusual wedding. Before the Count led his bride to the altar, she opened her jewel-box, and consigned to him all its treasures that remained from the expenses of the dispensation, as a dowry; in return for which, he conferred on her the lands of Ehrenstein, by way of jointure. The chaste myrtle twined itself about the golden crown, which latter ornament the Sultan's daughter, as a testimony of her high birth, retained through life; and was, in consequence, invariably named the Queen by her subjects, and by her domestics reverenced and treated like a queen.

If any of my readers ever purchased for himself, for fifty guineas, the costly pleasure of resting a night in Doctor Graham's _Celestial Bed_ at London, he may form some slender conception of the Count's delight, when the triple bed at Gleichen opened its elastic bosom to receive the twice-betrothed, with both his spouses. Seven days long the nuptial festivities continued; and the Count declared himself richly compensated by them for the seven dreary years which he had been obliged to spend in the Grated Tower at Grand Cairo. Nor would this appear to have been an empty compliment on his part to his two faithful wives, if the experimental apophthegm is just, that a single day of gladness sweetens into oblivion the bitter dole and sorrow of a troublous year.

Next to the Count, there was none who relished this exhilarating period better than his trusty Squire, the mettled Kurt, who, in the well-stored kitchen and cellar, found the elements of royal cheer, and stoutly emptied the cup of joy which circulated fast among the servants; while the full table p.r.i.c.ked up their ears as he opened his lips, his inner man once satisfied with good things, and began to recount them his adventures. But when the Gleichic economy returned to its customary frugal routine, he requested permission to set out for Ordruff, to visit his kind wife, and overwhelm her with joy at his unexpected return.

During his long absence, he had constantly maintained a rigorous fidelity, and he now longed for the just reward of so exemplary a walk and conversation. Fancy painted to his mind's eye the image of his virtuous Rebecca in the liveliest colours; and the nearer he approached the walls which enclosed her, the brighter grew these hues. He saw her stand before him in the charms which had delighted him on his wedding-day; he saw how excess of joy at his happy arrival would overpower her spirits, and she would sink in speechless rapture into his arms.

Encircled with this fair retinue of dreams, he arrived at the gate of his native town, without observing it, till the watchful guardian of public tranquillity let down his beam in front of him, and questioned the stranger, Who he was, what business had brought him to the town, and whether his intentions were peaceable or not? The mettled Kurt gave ready answer; and now rode along the streets at a soft pace, lest his horse's tramp might too soon betray the secret of his coming. He fastened his beast to the door-ring, and stole, without noise, into the court of his dwelling, where the old chained house-dog first received him with joyful bark. Yet he wondered somewhat at the sight of two lively chub-faced children, like the Angels in the Gleichen bed-tester, frisking to and fro upon the area. He had no time to speculate on the phenomenon, for the mistress of the house, in her carefulness, stept out of doors to see who was there. Alas, what a difference between ideal and original! The tooth of Time had, in these seven years, been mercilessly busy with her charms; yet the leading features of her physiognomy had been in so far spared, that to the eye of the critic she was still recognisable, like the primary stamp of a worn coin. Joy at meeting somewhat veiled this want of beauty from the mettled Kurt, and the thought that sorrow for his absence had so furrowed the smooth face of his consort put him into a sentimental mood; he embraced her with great cordiality, and said: "Welcome, dear wife of my heart! Forget all thy sorrow. See, I am still alive; thou hast got me back!"

The pious Rebecca answered this piece of tenderness by a heavy thwack on the short ribs, which thwack made the mettled Kurt stagger to the wall; then raised loud shrieks, and shouted to her servants for help against violence, and scolded and stormed like an Infernal Fury. The loving husband excused this unloving reception, on the score of his virtuous spouse's delicacy, which his bold kiss of welcome had offended, she not knowing who he was; and tore his lungs with bawling to undo this error; but his preaching was to deaf ears, and he soon found that there was no misunderstanding in the case. "Thou shameless varlet," cried she, in shrieking treble, "after wandering seven long years up and down the world, following thy wicked courses with other women, dost thou think that I will take thee back to my chaste bed? Off with thee! Did not I publicly cite thee at three church-doors, and wert not thou, for thy contumacious non-appearance, declared to be dead as mutton? Did not the High Court authorise me to put aside my widow's chair, and marry Burgermeister Wipprecht? Have not we lived six years as man and wife, and received these children as a blessing of our wedlock? And now comes the Marpeace to perplex my house! Off with thee! Pack, I say, this instant, or the Amtmann shall crop thy ears, and put thee in the pillory, to teach such vagabonds, that run and leave their poor tender wives." This welcome from his once-loved helpmate was a sword's-thrust through the heart of the mettled Kurt; but the gall poured itself as a defence into his blood.

"O thou faithless strumpet!" answered he; "what holds me that I do not take thee and thy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, and wring your necks this moment? Dost thou recollect thy promise, and the oath thou hast so often sworn in the trustful marriage-bed, that death itself should not part thee from me?

Didst thou not engage, unasked, that should thy soul fly up directly from thy mouth to Heaven, and I were roasting in Purgatory, thou wouldst turn again from Heaven's gate, and come down to me, to fan cool air upon me till I were delivered from the flames? Devil broil thy false tongue, thou gallows carrion!"

Though the Prima Donna of Ordruff was endowed with a glib organ, which, in the faculty of cursing, yielded no whit to that of the tumultuous pretender, she did not judge it good to enter into farther debate with him, but gave her menials an expressive sign; and, in an instant, man and maid seized hold of the mettled Kurt, and _brevi manu_ ejected his body from the house; in which act of domestic jurisdiction Dame Rebecca herself bore a hand with the besom, and so swept away this discarded helpmate from the premises. The mettled Kurt, half-broken on the wheel, then mounted his horse, and dashed full gallop down the street, which he had rode along so gingerly some minutes before.

As his blood, when he was on the road home, began to cool, he counted loss and gain, and found himself not ill contented with the balance; for he found, that except the comfort of having cool air fanned upon his soul in Purgatory after death, his smart amounted to nothing. He never more returned to Ordruff, but continued with the Count at Gleichen all his life, and was an eye-witness of the most incredible occurrence, that two ladies shared the love of one man without quarrelling or jealousy, and this even under one bed-tester! The fair Angelica continued childless, yet she loved and watched over her a.s.sociate's children as if they had been her own, and divided with Ottilia the care of their education. In the trefoil of this happy marriage, she was the first leaf which faded away in the autumn of life. Countess Ottilia soon followed her; and the afflicted widower, now all too lonely in his large castle and wide bed, lingered but a few months longer. The firmly-established arrangement of these n.o.ble spouses in the marriage-bed through life, was maintained unaltered after their death. They rest all three in one grave, in front of the Gleichen Altar, in St. Peter's Church at Erfurt, on the Hill; where their place of sepulture is still to be seen, overlaid with a stone, on which the n.o.ble group are sculptured after the life. To the right lies the Countess Ottilia, with a mirror in her hand, the emblem of her praiseworthy prudence; on the left Angelica, adorned with a royal crown; and in the midst, the Count reposing on his coat-of-arms, the lion-leopard.[27] Their famous triple bedstead is still preserved as a relic in the old Castle; it stands in the room called the Junkernkammer, or Knight's Chamber; and a splinter of it, worn by way of busk in a lady's bodice, is said to have the virtue of dispelling every movement of jealousy from her heart.

[27] A plate of this tombstone may be seen in Falkenstein's _a.n.a.lecta Nordgaviensia_.--M.

LUDWIG TIECK.

THE FAIR-HAIRED ECKBERT.[28]

In a district of the Harz dwelt a Knight, whose common designation in that quarter was the Fair-haired Eckbert. He was about forty years of age, scarcely of middle stature, and short light-coloured locks lay close and sleek round his pale and sunken countenance. He led a retired life, had never interfered in the feuds of his neighbours; indeed, beyond the outer wall of his castle he was seldom to be seen. His wife loved solitude as much as he; both seemed heartily attached to one another; only now and then they would lament that Heaven had not blessed their marriage with children.

Few came to visit Eckbert; and when guests did happen to be with him, their presence made but little alteration in his customary way of life.

Temperance abode in his household, and Frugality herself appeared to be the mistress of the entertainment. On these occasions Eckbert was always cheerful and lively; but when he was alone, you might observe in him a certain mild reserve, a still, retiring melancholy.

His most frequent guest was Philip Walther; a man to whom he had attached himself, from having found in him a way of thinking like his own. Walther's residence was in Franconia; but he would often stay for half a year in Eckbert's neighbourhood, gathering plants and minerals, and then sorting and arranging them. He lived on a small independency, and was connected with no one. Eckbert frequently attended him in his sequestered walks; year after year a closer friendship grew betwixt them.

[28] Prefatory Introduction to Tieck, _supra_, at p. 330, Vol. VI.

of _Works_ (Vol. I. of _Miscellanies_).

There are hours in which a man feels grieved that he should have a secret from his friend, which, till then, he may have kept with n.i.g.g.ard anxiety; some irresistible desire lays hold of our heart to open itself wholly, to disclose its inmost recesses to our friend, that so he may become our friend still more. It is in such moments that tender souls unveil themselves, and stand face to face; and at times it will happen, that the one recoils affrighted from the countenance of the other.

It was late in Autumn, when Eckbert, one cloudy evening, was sitting, with his friend and his wife Bertha, by the parlour fire. The flame cast a red glimmer through the room, and sported on the ceiling; the night looked sullenly in through the windows, and the trees without rustled in wet coldness. Walther complained of the long road he had to travel; and Eckbert proposed to him to stay where he was, to while away half of the night in friendly talk, and then to take a bed in the house till morning. Walther agreed, and the whole was speedily arranged: by and by wine and supper were brought in; fresh wood was laid upon the fire; the talk grew livelier and more confidential.

The cloth being removed, and the servants gone, Eckbert took his friend's hand, and said to him: "Now you must let my wife tell you the history of her youth; it is curious enough, and you should know it."

"With all my heart," said Walther; and the party again drew round the hearth.

It was now midnight; the moon looked fitfully through the breaks of the driving clouds. "You must not reckon me a babbler," began the lady. "My husband says you have so generous a mind, that it is not right in us to hide aught from you. Only do not take my narrative for a fable, however strangely it may sound.

"I was born in a little village; my father was a poor herdsman. Our circ.u.mstances were not of the best; often we knew not where to find our daily bread. But what grieved me far more than this, were the quarrels which my father and mother often had about their poverty, and the bitter reproaches they cast on one another. Of myself too, I heard nothing said but ill; they were forever telling me that I was a silly stupid child, that I could not do the simplest turn of work; and in truth I was extremely inexpert and helpless; I let things fall; I neither learned to sew nor spin; I could be of no use to my parents; only their straits I understood too well. Often I would sit in a corner, and fill my little heart with dreams, how I would help them, if I should all at once grow rich; how I would overflow them with silver and gold, and feast myself on their amazement; and then spirits came hovering up, and showed me buried treasures, or gave me little pebbles which changed into precious stones; in short, the strangest fancies occupied me, and when I had to rise and help with anything, my inexpertness was still greater, as my head was giddy with these motley visions.

"My father in particular was always very cross to me; he scolded me for being such a burden to the house; indeed he often used me rather cruelly, and it was very seldom that I got a friendly word from him. In this way I had struggled on to near the end of my eighth year; and now it was seriously fixed that I should begin to do or learn something. My father still maintained that it was nothing but caprice in me, or a lazy wish to pa.s.s my days in idleness: accordingly he set upon me with furious threats; and as these made no improvement, he one day gave me a most cruel chastis.e.m.e.nt, and added that the same should be repeated day after day, since I was nothing but a useless sluggard.

"That whole night I wept abundantly; I felt myself so utterly forsaken, I had such a sympathy with myself that I even longed to die. I dreaded the break of day; I knew not on earth what I was to do or try. I wished from my very heart to be clever, and could not understand how I should be worse than the other children of the place. I was on the borders of despair.

"At the dawn of day I arose, and scarcely knowing what I did, unfastened the door of our little hut. I stept upon the open field; next minute I was in a wood, where the light of the morning had yet hardly penetrated.

I ran along, not looking round; for I felt no fatigue, and I still thought my father would catch me, and in his anger at my flight would beat me worse than ever.