Part 6

The dismissal of Arnulph, his chief aide-de-camp, had left the headsman short-handed, and in vain he sought some one to supply his place; so that after having, for very many years, put his hand to no instrument of punishment save the broad short sword, the chief emblem of his office, he suddenly found himself compelled to descend to lower functions, and to break a murderer on the wheel. At this execution a rare incident occurred, showing another of the _Scharfrichter’s_ privileges. The culprit was bound upon the grating, and Benz dealt him the first blow, upon the shin. The bone snapped, and the unhappy victim, a man of gigantic frame and strength, maddened by extremity of agony, wrenched out the cramp-iron to which his right wrist was bound, and extended his arm to ward off the coming blow. Thereupon a forward young man stepped thoughtlessly out of the crowd, seized the criminal’s arm and drew it back, whilst one of the executioner’s assistants again drove in the iron. Then the headsman laid down his wheel, stepped up to the imprudent youth, clapped his hand upon his shoulder and said, “Now art thou mine till thy day of death.” Voluntary aid given to the executioner entailed perpetual servitude, inevitable and infamous. In this instance, the volunteer, by trade a turner from Nuremberg, and who was also a professional pugilist, was compelled, in spite of prayers and repugnance, to, strip his jerkin and assist in the horrible execution then going forward, after which he mournfully accompanied his new mates to the executioner’s dwelling. House and home, his honest name, and a loving and expectant bride, were all for ever lost to him by this one rash act. And the only hope he dared indulge was, that his family and friends might never learn his fate, but deem him dead in distant parts. The cruel severity with which Master Benz enforced his privilege was requited to him by his pressed recruit, who found undue favour in the eyes of Grethel. The Nuremberger, however, absorbed in grief, took little heed of the lady’s amorous advances; and she, incensed by his indifference, applied to old Blutrude for a love-philter. All this forms a part of the romantic plot which is made the vehicle for exhibiting the public and private existence of the headsman of the middle ages, and we need but briefly touch upon it. The Nuremberg Joseph drank the potion, which reminded him, by its exhilarating effects, of “the foaming, reaming drink he had once tasted at his master’s wedding at Namur, in Brabant, and which the Walloons fetch from the county of Champagne, in France, to thin their blood, clogged by thick barley beer.” Soon, however, the young man repented of deceiving Benz, who was kind to him after his rough fashion; and one morning that the headsman called him to his room, to eat a savoury pottage his wife had prepared, but for which he himself felt little appetite, Veit (the Nuremberger) thought the moment opportune to make a clean breast, and, whilst eating, began his confession. Meanwhile Grethel, superintending in the kitchen the breakfast of her household, missed and asked for her favourite. “He is in the master’s room,” was the reply, “eating the pottage.” The headsman’s wife grew pale as death, for the pottage was poisoned. She hurried into the room just as Veit, after completing his confession, fell in convulsions upon the floor; and her husband, indignant at her infidelity, stripped his leathern girdle and furiously beat her, loading her with opprobrious epithets. She escaped from his hands, and ran into the town, exhibited the cuts upon her face and arms to the authorities, accused her husband of this ill-treatment, and of having poisoned his assistant in a moment of groundless jealousy. Benz was forthwith arrested. Appearances were strong against him. He had gone out of his way to invite his servant to eat the mess intended for himself. And when the effects of the poison manifested themselves, he had beaten his wife instead of rendering assistance to the sufferer, who had died soon afterwards. His protestations of innocence were discredited; and as he persisted in not confessing a crime he had not committed, he was conducted to that torture-chamber whose horrors he had so often superintended. He shrunk not at sight of the rack, but stood upon his rights and privileges; repudiated the jurisdiction of the city council, and appealed to a higher tribunal. “My lords would not listen to this, and appealed, in their turn, to the special privileges of the town; but the strange headsman, whom they had summoned to their assistance, pulled down to the wrist the shirt sleeves he had rolled up, put on his doublet, and declared, with steadfast voice, that he must certainly, in execution of a legal judgment, torture his own son, if required, but that he would not act against the Emperor’s ordinances, or lay hand upon a brother-craftsman in obedience to an arbitrary command.” So the counsellors, finding the executive fail them, and being also, as it would appear, legally in the wrong, were compelled to concede Master Benz’s claim to be arraigned before another court of judicature. The delay was the headsman’s salvation. Count Ruprecht, a sort of lord of the manor, and nobleman of great weight in the district, obtained admission to his dungeon, under pretence of consulting him about a disease, which “leech and surgeon, wise-women and farriers, had been unable to cure.” From this it would appear that in those days the executioner either dabbled in the medical art, or was supposed to possess prescriptions (perhaps charms) of efficacy in certain cases. We have been unable to trace any particulars connected with this belief; and Mr Chézy, although he must have access in Germany to many more sources of such information than are open to us, leaves his readers, as usual, wholly in the dark.

The brief dialogue in the dungeon is curious and characteristic. The Count, straitened in his finances, covets the iron chest with a golden lining, taken by Benz from beneath the feet of Father Finch the suicide. In consideration of its receipt, he engages to rescue the executioner from his unpleasant position. The latter, although innocent, is by no means confident of acquittal, and accepts the terms. Then says the Count to the headsman, with touching confidence, “You have been known to me for many years as an honourable man, I require no other guarantee than your word. And I pledge my honour as a nobleman to rescue you, either by craft or by the strong hand.” Recourse to violence was unnecessary. The Count revived an old tribunal, long in disuse, which sat under an aged oak by the river’s brink, and consisted of himself alone. The council had little fancy for giving up their prisoner, but yielded to menaces in the emperor’s name, and Benz was brought before this primitive court. The burgomaster supported the accusation, but, on the other hand, seven nobly-born persons deposed on oath to the prisoner’s innocence, and Etzel the cup-bearer, a stalwart retainer of the Count’s, renowned in all the country-side for his reckless courage and powerful arm, threw his glove into the ring, and challenged to mortal combat any who should question it. Thrice the herald proclaimed the defiance, but none took it up; the sun went down, and the Count declared the charge unfounded and the prisoner free. This was the first and last time Count Ruprecht asserted his right to hold this penal tribunal. And subsequently an imperial decree declared the judgment null and the Count’s privilege obsolete. But before that came to pass, the headsman’s innocence was established, and the true culprit discovered.

During his captivity, Benz had reflected on his unkindness to his first-born, and resolved to repair past injustice by better treatment. On returning home, his first inquiry was for Berthold. The answer was, that the boy had run away. The truth was, that his stepmother had had him conveyed to a long distance from his father’s house, and by frightful menaces deterred him from returning. And now she wheedled her husband out of a pardon, and things resumed their old course in the headsman’s house. We pass over a good deal of episodical matter, having little to do with the main subject of the book; amongst other things, a long account of a son of Count Ruprecht, who was sent on his travels in charge of a learned preceptor and bad horseman, one Dr Wohlgemuth, on whom the scamp of a pupil played an infinity of mischievous tricks, proving that travelling tutors three hundred years ago had by no means a sinecure. After an absence of some duration, Berthold returns home in the suite of this young Count Ulrich, finds Elizabeth still at the sign of the Thistle, and his old enemy Engolf and other dissolute companions persecuting her with their insolent addresses, to which she turns a deaf ear. She has not forgotten Berthold; their childish affection has grown into love, and they mutually plight their troth. Soon afterwards, Berthold sets out on a three years’ pilgrimage, during which to learn surgery and farriery, and Count Ruprecht promises that, on his return, none but he shall shoe his horses and cure his servants. But the headsman’s son has higher aspirations, and resolves to become a physician. At Heidelberg and Paris the three years pass quickly by in diligent study, and at the end of that time he has conquered the doctor’s gown, and returns to his native place as Dominus Bertholdus. As he draws near to the town, he prays in heart for a good omen to welcome his return; but none is vouchsafed him, and in its stead he meets Engolf and has an angry colloquy. At the little inn he sees Elizabeth, who betrays great agitation on beholding him, for a report had been set about of his death. At a ball to which he accompanies her, held at the old house of the Elephant, now converted into a respectable inn, he meets Engolf, who coarsely taunts him with taking up with his cast-off mistress. Elizabeth cannot repel the imputation, Berthold spurns her from him, and strikes Engolf; a fight ensues, blood is shed, and the headsman’s son is obliged to conceal himself for a while. Then comes some more extraneous matter, until we find Berthold established as assistant in the house of Master Baldwin the physician, who one day sends him to attend the infliction of torture on an old woman accused of witchcraft. In the wrinkled wretch bound upon the rack, he recognises old Blutrude, and here, after seven years’ separation, he meets his father.

“The headsman had grown old in those seven years: his silver hair hung scantily over his temples; his high bald brow was crossed with furrows; his long beard resembled thick snow-flakes; but still he was strong and vigorous. From his short and muscular neck his broad shoulders spread in powerful development; his long arms were nervous, his fists of iron; his eyes glittered as in the days of his prime; and the dusky red of his countenance bore witness that the old man had not yet abandoned the pleasures of the bottle, in spite of the gout, whose presence was indicated by his wide shapeless boots of soft buckskin. On beholding him, a cold shudder came over me; and yet it needed an effort not to fall into his arms and greet him with the name of father, and offer my aid in his horrible office. Behind him stood his assistant, a stout young fellow, in whose features and reddish hair I recognised Grethel’s son.” Here a touch of witchcraft comes in; Blutrude, after terrible tortures, confessing her dealings with the demon, and implicating Grethel and her son, the former of whom had long been in the habit of accompanying her once in the year to a witches’ sabbath upon the Blocksberg, whilst an evil spirit assumed her form in her husband’s couch. Upon receiving this startling information, old Benz falls down, struck with apoplexy, and presently expires, in spite of the remedies applied by Berthold, who in his emotion betrays himself as the headsman’s son. He is immediately seized, and put in irons. His life is in danger, for he has incurred the penalty of the gallows by daring to mix with his fellow-men, and to forget the stigma and isolation prescribed by his birth. But the executioner being dead, his youngest son accused of witchcraft, and the prison full of criminals, several of whom are soon to be put to the torture, the authorities let Berthold, go free, on condition of his assuming his father’s office. To this he consents, as the only means of escaping the halter, and at once takes possession of the house whose threshold he had expected never again to cross.

The closing chapter of the volume, entitled “The Headsman’s Wedding,” is perhaps the most striking and original of the whole book. Berthold’s installation in his father’s house and office had not long occurred, when he was called upon to exercise the latter, and to put to the rack his old and bitter foe Engolf of Baumgarten, accused of conspiracy against the state. Even under the torture, the profligate found sneers and sharp words to address to his executioner, and boasted of his base triumph over the unhappy Elizabeth, then in prison on the charge of murdering her infant. Whilst in a state of frenzy, she had thrown it into the water. Maddened by his enemy’s taunts, the headsman exercised to the very utmost the tortures at his command, and tugged and strained till every joint of the unhappy wretch was dislocated, and the foam stood upon his lips. At last Engolf confessed his crime and was released from the hands of him who had crushed his body, and whose heart he had broken. Then Berthold received orders to hold himself ready, in three days from that time, to execute Elizabeth, condemned to die by the sword.

“It was a hard trial for me, when, upon the eve of this execution, I had to betake myself to her prison, to share, according to old custom, the culprit’s last meal. The priest had just left her when I entered the narrow cell, and she sat buried in thought, her head sunk upon her breast, her long black hair falling like a veil over her face, her hands folded in her lap.” The poor girl could not make up her mind to die, and wildly implored her former lover to save her, ignorant that she was to perish by his hand. But his feelings towards her had undergone a total change; indignation and contempt had replaced affection; and he beheld her despair and heard her entreaties without a spark of compunction. “You must die, Elizabeth,” he said, “and truly by no other hand than mine.”

“She gazed at me with expanded eyeballs, her features, distorted by despair, gradually assumed a milder expression, a scarcely perceptible smile crossed her pale lips. ‘Death from your hand is sweet,’ she at last said. ‘Here is my heart, strike! why delay? I am ready.’ These gentle words broke down my anger; I had to lean against a pillar in order not to sink to the ground, and had hardly strength to reply. ‘Will you not understand me, Elizabeth? Have you forgotten whose son I am?’” Then she told him how a traveller had come to the inn, and had said (probably at Engolf’s instigation) that Berthold was dead. And how, after that, the seducer had perseveringly environed her with his wiles, and at last, by aid of a potion old Blutrude supplied, had effected her ruin. And as the headsman heard her sad tale, his anger was converted into pity. He partook her last repast, and at parting they pressed each other’s hands in friendship. But the love Berthold once had cherished for the orphan playmate of his boyish days had fled for ever.

That same night the tribunal condemned Engolf to the gallows. All the grace his anguished parent could obtain for him was that he should die by the hands of the headsman himself, not of an inferior executioner—and in his own clothes, booted and spurred. This favour cost fifty marks of gold, and a bequest to the hospital of all the property his father could will away.

With the dawn, Berthold repaired to the city, where the sentence was read in the public market-place, and “a white wand was broken and thrown in fragments at the feet of the child-murderess.” Then Elizabeth was delivered over to the executioner, who lifted her into the cart, where a Capuchin monk took his place beside her, and the melancholy procession to the scaffold began. On the way, Berthold’s men encouraged him, exhorting him to strike the blow on Elizabeth’s slender neck with the same firmness and precision with which, just before he left the house, he had severed that of an old wether. They considered him fortunate, that his first essay with the sword should be made on a meek and unresisting girl, and not on some tough old culprit, who would spitefully shrug his shoulders, so as to disappoint the aim and bring shame upon the headsman. “At last we stood, Elizabeth and I, face to face between the three pillars, gazed at each other, and shook hands for the last time. Then I bound her eyes, bid her kneel down, and whilst an assistant, standing on one side, with body bent forward, and outstretched arm, held up her head by the long hair, I threw off cloak and doublet, grasped the sword with both hands, and, settling myself firmly on my feet, prepared to give the cut that should deprive her of life. Mute and breathless with expectation, the mob looked up at the scaffold; the monk ceased to mutter his prayers aloud, but moved his lips in silence; the stillness of death reigned around. I felt a dizziness in my brain; instead of one head I saw three, and I turned about, and asked in a loud voice, which of them the law commanded me to strike off. The populace began to murmur, my assistants exchanged meaning smiles and scornful glances, the magistrate impatiently called to me to make an end; Elizabeth stirred not and made no sign. Then I had pity on the youth and beauty of the murderess; I felt I should never be able to strike her death-blow, and a sudden resolution took possession of my soul, the resolution to save her. I sank the sword’s point, leant upon its hilt, and, claiming my privilege, demanded Elizabeth for my wife. Thereupon the murmurs of the crowd were converted into loud rejoicings, and whilst I supported the fainting girl in my arms, the people insisted I should at once conduct her to the altar. My Lords of the Council knew well that I was in my right, and none ventured to hinder or object. Followed by the noisy mob, we returned to the city, and within the hour the priest of St Kummerniss united me to Elizabeth. Then she once more ascended the cart, which drove away with her, this time at a brisk trot instead of a funeral pace, whilst I went to the council-house to hang Engolf.... The body remained hanging till sunset, then I took it down, laid it in the coffin, and went my way home.”

“There was revel and jubilee in the house. With song and dance, and play, and flowing jugs, the servants celebrated the headsman’s wedding day. And when the hour came, I led Elizabeth to her chamber, drew my father’s sword from its scabbard, and placed it in the bridal bed between her and myself. There it has ever since remained.”

With this singular and thoroughly German incident, the headsman’s memoirs, as conveyed in autobiographical form, conclude, although we may presume the greater portion of the other volumes to be derived from similar records, moulded into a different shape by Mr Chézy. The second volume consists of one long narrative, entitled “Hildebrand Pfeiffer,” a story of the seventeenth century. An executioner plays an important part in it, but is not the hero of the tale, as in Benz’s narrative. Hildebrand Pfeiffer is a man of five-and-thirty, of handsome face and person, who has studied long and successfully at Heidelberg, Prague, and Paris, and has learnt surgery at Cologne, where we now find him. Possessed by the demon of pride and ambition, he sees no better way of attaining the brilliant position he covets, than through the medium of the philosopher’s stone, at whose discovery he ardently labours under the guidance of Doctor David da Silva, or Master Wood, as the vulgar translated his Portuguese name—a learned physician and ex-teacher at the high school, to whom Hildebrand serves as assistant and amanuensis. Besides dabbling in white magic, the old Jew-leech is shrewdly suspected of dealing in the blacker sort, but this does not prevent scholars flocking to gather wisdom from his lips, and sick persons sending for him so often as their fears of death prevail with their avarice to pay his heavy fee. And he has long been left unmolested to his mysterious pursuits, when, in an evil hour, he sends his old servant, in company with a young maiden, to gather mandragora at the gallows’ foot. The plant is to be employed in some alchemical conjuration, and is valuable only if gathered at the witching hour by a perfect virgin. The one selected is Adelgunde, a beautiful girl, who loves Hildebrand, and is beloved by him. Unfortunately, upon the night selected for plucking the mystical mandrake, the headsman and his assistants repair to the place of execution to inter the corpse of a suicide, and there detect and seize the two women, the elder of whom throws the blame of her unholy proceedings upon Da Silva and Hildebrand. There is, perhaps, rather too much of witchcraft in the volume, but some of the incidents are very wild and original. With more skill and care, and power of description, Mr Chézy might have constructed a three volume romance of a striking kind out of the materials he has loosely and hastily crammed into a third of the space. There is a certain Count Philippus, or Philipps, of whom much was to be made, but he is neglected, and roughly sketched. He comes to Cologne to raise troops for the emperor, and is very successful in his recruiting, having mustered a strong body of idle artisans, debauched students, and desperadoes of all kinds. In the joy of his heart he drinks himself ill; Hildebrand attends him, and wins his heart by tolerating the flagon, when the soldier had expected to be put on a diet of drugs and spring water. The Count’s levies are drawn up, and about to march away, when the police make their appearance at Dr Da Silva’s door, to arrest him and his assistant on a charge of witchcraft. Warned in time, Hildebrand conceals himself amongst the men at arms, and follows Philipps to the field as body-surgeon. It is the period of the thirty years’ war, and the ambitious mediciner, interrupted in his pursuit of the grand secret of gold-making, conceives the more feasible project of rising to eminence and wealth by deeds of arms. He is confirmed in his new aspirations by the gift of a sword, manufactured by the headsman, and supposed to confer invincibility on him who wields it. There is a remarkable chapter, from which we gather the details of this superstition. Hannadam, the executioner, has his fortified dwelling in the suburbs of Cologne, and one evening a Lutheran officer rides up from the adjacent Swedish camp, and endeavours to induce him, by the bribe of a well-filled purse, to make him a charmed sword. From the battlements of his little fortress, Hannadam holds converse with the Swede, who complains that he has had his foot in the stirrup for twenty years, and is still a cornet, whilst his comrades of equal standing have risen to high rank. He holds it high time to look after his promotion.

“‘Undoubtedly it is,’ said the headsman jeeringly. ‘A forty-year-old cornet cuts a poor figure. I will promote you to a majority.’

“‘So you shall,’ replied the horseman, ‘and I will tell you how. But first answer a question,—you are a popish idolator?’

“‘Infernal heretic!’ shouted the executioner. ‘Would you have me set my dogs at you?’

“The Swede was astounded by this burst of anger. He had intended no harm, but in the simplicity of his heart had designated the Roman Catholics by the epithet that from childhood upwards he had heard and used.