Part 2

The soldier was about to lose his temper with his opponents; he had already called them “old witches from the cave of Quiragoth,” and they were not disposed to bear so grave an insult patiently, when a sharp and imperious voice, crying “Silence, silence, you old fools!” put an end to the dispute. All was still, as when the sudden crow of a cock is heard amid the cackling of the hens.

Before relating the rest of the scene, it may be well to describe the spot where it occurred. It was--as the reader has doubtless guessed--one of those gloomy structures which public pity and social forethought devote to unknown corpses, the last asylum of the dead, whose lives were usually sad ones; where the careless spectator, the surly or kindly observer gather, and friends often meet tearful relatives, whom long and unendurable anxiety has robbed of all but one sad hope. At the period now remote, and in the uncivilized region to which I have carried my reader, there had as yet been no attempt, as in our cities of gold and mud, to make these resting-places into ingeniously forbidding or elegantly funereal edifices. Daylight did not fall through tomb-shaped openings, into artistically sculptured vaults, upon beds which seem as if the guardian of the place were anxious to leave the dead some of the conveniences of life, and the pillow seems arranged for sleep. If the keeper’s door were left ajar, the eye, wearied with gazing upon hideous, naked corpses, had not as now the pleasure of resting upon elegant furniture and happy children. Death was there in all its deformity, in all its horror; and there was no attempt to deck its fleshless skeleton with ribbons and gewgaws.

The room in which our actors stood was spacious and dark, which made it seem still larger; it was lighted only by a broad, low door opening upon the port of Throndhjem, and a rough hole in the ceiling, through which a dull, white light fell, mingled with rain, hail, or snow, according to the weather, upon the corpses lying directly under it. The room was divided by an iron railing, breast-high, running across it from side to side. The public entered the outer portion through the low door; in the inner part were six long black granite slabs, arranged abreast and parallel to each other. A small side door served to admit the keeper and his assistant to either section, their rooms occupying the rear of the building, close to the water. The miner and his betrothed occupied two granite beds; decomposition had already begun its work upon the young woman’s body, showing itself in large blue and purple spots running along her limbs on the line of the blood-vessels. Gill’s features were stern and set; but his body was so horribly mutilated that it was impossible to judge whether his beauty were really so great as old Olly declared.

It was before these disfigured remains, in the midst of the mute crowd, that the conversation which we have faithfully interpreted, began.

A tall, withered old man, sitting with folded arms and bent head upon a broken stool in the darkest corner of the room, had apparently paid no heed until the moment when he rose suddenly, exclaiming, “Silence, silence, you old fools!” and seized the soldier by the arm.

All were hushed; the soldier turned and broke into a burst of laughter at the sight of his strange interrupter, whose pale face, thin greasy locks, long fingers, and complete costume of reindeer leather amply justified this mirthful reception. But a clamor arose from the crowd of women, for a moment confounded: “It is the keeper of the Spladgest![4]--That infernal doorkeeper to the dead!--That diabolical Spiagudry!--That accursed sorcerer!”

“Silence, you old fools, silence! If this be the witches’ Sabbath, hasten away and find your broomsticks; if you don’t, they’ll fly off without you. Let this worthy descendant of the god Thor alone.”

Then Spiagudry, striving to assume a gracious expression, addressed the soldier: “You say, my good fellow, that this wretched woman--”

“Old rascal!” muttered Olly; “yes, we are all ‘wretched women,’ to him, because our bodies, if they fall into his claws, only bring him thirty escalins’ reward, while he gets forty for the paltry carcass of a man.”

“Silence, old women!” repeated Spiagudry. “In truth, these daughters of the Devil are like their kettles; when they wax warm, they must needs sing. Tell me, my valiant king of the sword, your comrade, this Guth’s lover, will doubtless kill himself in despair at her loss, won’t he?”

Here burst forth the long-repressed storm. “Do you hear the miscreant,--the old Pagan!” cried twenty shrill, discordant voices. “He would fain see one less man living, for the sake of the forty escalins that a dead body brings him.”

“And what if I would?” replied the keeper of the Spladgest. “Doesn’t our gracious king and master, Christian V.,--may Saint Hospitius bless him!--declare himself the natural guardian of all miners, so that when they die he may enrich his royal treasury with their paltry leavings?”

“You honor the king,” answered fisher Braal, “by comparing the royal treasury to the strong-box of your charnel-house, and him to yourself, Neighbor Spiagudry.”

“Neighbor, indeed!” said the keeper, shocked by such familiarity. “Your neighbor! say rather your host! since it may easily chance some day, my dear boat-dweller, that I shall have to lend you one of my six stone beds for a week. Besides,” he added, with a laugh, “if I spoke of that soldier’s death, it was merely from a desire to see the perpetuation of the custom of suicide for the sake of those great and tragic passions which ladies are wont to inspire.”

“Well, you tall corpse and keeper of corpses,” said the soldier, “what are you after, with your amiable grimace, which looks so much like the last smile of a man who has been hanged?”

“Capital, my valiant fellow!” replied Spiagudry. “I always felt that there was more wit beneath the helmet of Constable Thurn, who conquered the Devil with his sword and his tongue, than under the mitre of Bishop Isleif, who wrote the history of Iceland, or the square cap of Professor Shoenning, who described our cathedral.”

“In that case, if you will take my advice, my old bag of leather, you will give up the revenues of the charnel-house, and go and sell yourself to the viceroy’s museum of curiosities at Bergen. I swear to you, by Belphegor, that they pay their weight in gold there for rare beasts; but say, what do you want with me?”

“When the bodies brought here are found in the water, we have to give half the reward to the fisherman. I was going to ask you, therefore, illustrious heir to Constable Thurn, if you would persuade your unfortunate comrade not to drown himself, but to choose some other mode of death; it can’t matter much to him, and he would not wish to wrong the unhappy Christian who must entertain his corpse, if the loss of Guth should really drive him to that act of despair.”

“You are quite mistaken, my charitable and hospitable friend. My comrade will not have the pleasure of occupying an apartment in your tempting tavern with its six beds. Don’t you suppose he has already consoled himself with another Valkyria for the death of that girl? He had long been tired of your Guth, by my beard!”

At these words, the storm, which Spiagudry had for a moment drawn upon his own head, again burst more furiously than ever upon the luckless soldier.

“What, miserable scamp!” shrieked the old women; “is that the way you forget us? And yet we love such good-for-nothings!”

The young girls still kept silence. Some of them even thought--greatly against their will, of course--that this graceless fellow was very good-looking.

“Oh, ho!” said the soldier; “has the witches’ Sabbath come round again? Beelzebub’s punishment is frightful indeed if he be condemned to hear such choruses once a week!”

No one can say how this fresh squall would have ended, if general attention had not at this moment been utterly absorbed by a noise from without. The uproar increased steadily, and presently a swarm of little ragged boys entered the Spladgest, tumultuously shouting and crowding about a covered bier carried by two men.

“Where does that come from?” the keeper asked the bearers.

“From Urchtal Sands.”

“Oglypiglap!” shouted Spiagudry.

One of the side doors opened, a little man of Lappish race, dressed in leather, entered, and signed to the bearers to follow him. Spiagudry accompanied them, and the door closed before the curious crowd had time to guess, by the length of the body on the bier, whether it were a man or a woman.

This subject still occupied all their thoughts, when Spiagudry and his assistant reappeared in the second compartment, carrying the corpse of a man, which they placed upon one of the granite couches.

“It’s a long time since I’ve handled such handsome clothes,” said Oglypiglap; then, shaking his head and standing on tiptoe, he hung above the dead man the elegant uniform of a captain in the army. The corpse’s head was disfigured, and his limbs were covered with blood; the keeper sprinkled the body several times from an old broken pail.

“By Saint Beelzebub!” cried the soldier, “it is an officer of my regiment. Let me see; can it be Captain Bollar,--from grief at his uncle’s death? Bah! he is the heir. Baron Randmer? He lost his estate at cards yesterday, but he will win it back to-morrow, with his adversary’s castle. Can it be Captain Lory, whose dog was drowned, or Paymaster Stunck, whose wife was unfaithful to him? But, really, I don’t see why he should blow out his brains for that!”

The crowd steadily increased. Just at this instant, a young man who was crossing the wharf, seeing the mob of people, dismounted from his horse, handed the bridle to the servant behind him, and entered the Spladgest. He wore a simple travelling dress, was armed with a sword, and wrapped in a large green cloak; a black plume, fastened to his hat by a diamond buckle, fell over his noble face and waved to and fro upon his lofty brow, shaded by chestnut hair; his boots and spurs, soiled with mud, showed that he had come a long distance.

As he entered, a short, thick-set man, also wrapped in a cloak and hiding his hands in huge gloves, replied to the soldier.

“And who told you that he killed himself? That man no more committed suicide, I’ll be bound, than the roof of your cathedral set itself on fire.”

As the double-edged sword makes two wounds, this phrase gave birth to two answers.

“Our cathedral!” said Niels; “it is covered with copper now. It was that miserable Hans who set it on fire to make work for the miners, one of whom was his favorite Gill Stadt, whom you see lying yonder.”

“What the devil!” cried the soldier, in his turn; “do you dare tell me, the second musketeer in the Munkholm garrison, that that man did not blow out his brains!”

“He was murdered,” coldly replied the little fellow.

“Just listen to the oracle! Go along with you. Your little gray eyes can see no better than your hands do under the big gloves with which you cover them in the middle of the summer.”

The little man’s eyes flashed.

“Soldier, pray to your patron saint that these hands may never leave their mark upon your face!”

“Oh!--enough of this!” cried the soldier, in a rage. Then, pausing suddenly, he said: “No, there must be no word of a duel before dead men.”

The little man growled a few words in a foreign tongue, and vanished.

A voice cried out: “He was found on Urchtal Sands.”

“On Urchtal Sands?” said the soldier; “Captain Dispolsen was to land there this morning, from Copenhagen.”

“Captain Dispolsen has not yet reached Munkholm,” said another voice.

“They say that Hans of Iceland haunts those sands just now,” added a fourth.

“Then it is possible that this may be the captain,” said the soldier, “if Hans was the murderer; for we all know that the Icelander murders in so devilish a fashion that his victims often seem to be suicides.”

“What sort of man is this Hans?” asked some one.

“He is a giant,” said one.

“He is a dwarf,” said another.

“Has nobody seen him, then?” put in a voice.

“Those who see him for the first time, see him for the last time also.”

“Hush!” said old Olly; “they say there are but three persons who ever exchanged human speech with him,--that reprobate of a Spiagudry, Widow Stadt, and--but he had a sad life and a sad death--that poor Gill, who lies yonder. Hush!”

“Hush!” was repeated on all sides.

“Now,” suddenly exclaimed the soldier, “I am sure that this is indeed Captain Dispolsen. I recognize the steel chain which our prisoner, old Schumacker, gave him when he went away.”

The young man with the black plume broke the silence abruptly: “Are you sure it is Captain Dispolsen?”

“Sure, by the merits of Saint Beelzebub!” said the soldier.

The young man left the room hurriedly.

“Get me a boat for Munkholm,” he said to his servant.

“But, the general, sir?”

“Take the horses to him. I will follow to-morrow. Am I my own master, or not? Come, night is falling, and I am in haste. A boat!”

The servant obeyed, and for some time stood watching his young master as he moved away from the shore.

II.

I will sit by you while you tell me some pleasant tale to pass away the time.--MATURIN: _Bertram._

The reader is already aware that we are at Throndhjem, one of the four chief cities in Norway, although not the residence of the viceroy. At the date of this story (1699) the kingdom of Norway was still united to Denmark, and governed by a viceroy whose seat was in Bergen, a larger, handsomer, and more southerly town than Throndhjem, in spite of the disagreeable nickname attached to it by the famous Admiral Tromp.

Throndhjem offers a pleasant prospect as you approach it by the fjord to which the city gives its name. The harbor is quite large, although it cannot be entered easily in all weathers. At this time it resembled nothing so much as a long canal, lined on the right by Danish and Norwegian ships, and on the left by foreign vessels, as prescribed by law. In the background lay the town, situated on a well-cultivated plain, and crowned by the lofty spires of the cathedral. This church--one of the finest pieces of Gothic architecture, as we may judge from Professor Shoenning’s book, so learnedly quoted by Spiagudry, which describes it as it was before repeated fires had laid it waste--bore upon its highest pinnacle the episcopal cross, the distinctive sign that it was the cathedral of the Lutheran bishop of Throndhjem. Beyond the town, in the blue distance, were the slender white peaks of the Kiölen Mountains, like the sharp-pointed ornaments on an antique crown.

In the middle of the harbor, within cannon-shot of the shore, upon a mass of rocks lashed by the waves, rose the lonely fortress of Munkholm, a gloomy prison which then held a prisoner celebrated for the splendor of his long prosperity and for his sudden disgrace.

Schumacker, born in an obscure station, was loaded with favors by his master, then hurled from the chair of the Lord High Chancellor of Denmark and Norway to the traitor’s bench, dragged to the scaffold, and thence by royal clemency cast into a lonely dungeon at the extreme end of the two kingdoms. His creatures had overthrown him, but gave him no right to inveigh against their ingratitude. How could he complain if the steps gave way beneath him, which he had built so high for his own aggrandizement only?

The founder of the Danish nobility, from the depth of his exile, saw the grandees whom he had created share his own dignities between them. Count d’Ahlefeld, his mortal enemy, succeeded him as chancellor; General Arensdorf, as earl-marshal, distributed military titles, and Bishop Spollyson took the position of inspector of universities. The only one of his foes who did not owe his rise to him was Count Ulric Frederic Guldenlew, natural son of King Frederic III, and now viceroy of Norway. He was the most generous of all.

Toward the sombre rock of Munkholm the boat of the youth with the black plume now slowly moved. The sun sank rapidly behind the lonely fortress, whose walls cut off its last beams, already so horizontal that the peasant on the distant eastern hills of Larsynn might see beside him on the heather the faint shadow of the sentinel keeping his watch on Munkholm’s highest tower.

III.

Ah! my heart could receive no more painful wound!... A young man destitute of morals.... He dared gaze at her! His glance soiled her purity. Claudia! The mere thought drives me mad.--LESSING.

“Andrew, go and order them to ring the curfew bell in half an hour. Let Sorsyll relieve Duckness at the portcullis, and Malvidius keep watch on the platform of the great tower. Let a careful lookout be kept in the direction of the Lion of Schleswig donjon. Do not forget to fire the cannon at seven o’clock, as a signal to lift the harbor chain. But no, we must wait a little for Captain Dispolsen; better light the signals instead, and see if the Walderhog beacon is lighted, as I ordered to-day. Be sure to keep refreshments ready for the captain. And, I forgot,--give Toric-Belfast, the second musketeer of the regiment, two days’ arrest; he has been absent all day.”

So said the sergeant-at-arms beneath the black and smoky roof of the Munkholm guard-house, in the low tower over the outer castle gate.

The soldiers addressed left their cards or bed to carry out his orders; then silence was restored. At this moment the measured beat of oars was heard outside.

“That must be Captain Dispolsen at last!” said the sergeant, opening the tiny grated window which looked out upon the gulf.

A boat was just landing at the foot of the iron gate.

“Who goes there?” cried the sergeant in hoarse tones.

“Open!” was the answer; “peace and safety.”

“There is no admittance here. Have you a passport?”

“Yes.”

“I must make sure of that. If you lie, by the merits of my patron saint, you shall taste the waters of the gulf!” Then, closing the lattice and turning away, he added: “It is not the captain yet.”

A light shone behind the iron gate. The rusty bolts creaked, the grating rose, the gate opened, and the sergeant examined a parchment handed him by the new-comer.

“Pass in,” said he. “But stay,” he added hastily, “leave your hat-buckle outside. No one is allowed to enter the prisons of the State wearing jewels. The order declares that ‘the king and the members of the royal family, the viceroy and members of the vice-regal family, the bishop, and the officers of the garrison, are alone excepted.’ You come under none of these heads, do you?”

The young man, without reply, removed the forbidden ornament, and flung it to the fisherman who brought him thither, in payment of his services; the latter, fearing lest he might repent his generosity, made haste to put a broad expanse of sea between the benefactor and his benefit.

While the sergeant, grumbling at the chancellor’s imprudence in being so prodigal with his passes, replaced the clumsy bars, and while the lingering sound of his heavy boots still echoed on the stairs leading to the guard-house, the young man, throwing his mantle over his shoulder, hurriedly crossed the dark vault of the low tower, the long parade-ground, and the ordnance-room, where lay a few old dismantled culverins, still to be seen in the Copenhagen museum, all nearer approach to which was forbidden by the warning cry of a sentinel. He reached the great portcullis, which was raised on sight of his parchment. Thence, followed by a soldier, he crossed diagonally, without hesitation, and like one familiar with the place, one of the four square courts which skirt the great circular yard, in whose midst rose the huge round rock upon which stood the donjon, called the castle of the Lion of Schleswig, from the forced sojourn there of Jotham the Lion, Duke of Schleswig, held captive by his brother, Rolf the Dwarf.

It is not our purpose to give a description of Munkholm keep, the more so that the reader, confined in a State prison, might fear that he could not escape through the garden. He would be mistaken; for the castle of the Lion of Schleswig, meant for prisoners of distinction only, among other conveniences affords them the pleasure of a walk in a sort of wild garden of considerable extent, where clumps of holly, a few ancient yews, and some dark pines grow among the rocks around the lofty prison, inside an enclosure of thick walls and huge towers.

Reaching the foot of the round rock, the young man climbed the rude winding steps which lead to the foot of one of the towers of the enclosure, having a postern below, which served as the entrance to the keep. Here he blew a loud blast on a copper horn handed to him by the warder of the great portcullis. “Come in, come in!” eagerly

exclaimed a voice from within; “it must be that confounded captain!”

As the postern swung open, the new-comer saw, in a dimly lighted Gothic apartment, a young officer stretched carelessly upon a pile of cloaks and reindeer-skins, beside one of the three-beaked lamps which our ancestors used to hang from the rose-work of their ceilings, and which at this moment stood upon the ground. The elegance and indeed excessive luxury of his dress was in strong contrast with the bare walls and rude furniture; he held a book, and turned slightly toward the new-comer.

“Is it you, Captain? How are you, Captain? You little suspected that you were keeping a man waiting who has not the pleasure of your acquaintance; but our acquaintance will soon be made, will it not? Begin by receiving my commiseration upon your return to this venerable castle. Short as my stay here may be, I shall soon be about as gay as the owl nailed at donjon doors to serve as scarecrow, and when I return to Copenhagen, to my sister’s wedding feast, the deuce take me if four women out of a hundred will know me! Tell me, are the knots of pink ribbon at the hem of my doublet still in fashion? Has any one translated a new novel by that Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Scudéry? I have ‘Clelia;’ I suppose people are still reading it in Copenhagen. It is my code of gallantry, now that I am forced to sigh remote from so many bright eyes; for, bright as they are, the eyes of our young prisoner--you know who I mean--have never a message for me. Ah! were it not for my father’s orders!... I must tell you in confidence, Captain, that my father,--but don’t mention it,--charged me to--you understand me--Schumacker’s daughter. But I have my labor for my pains; that pretty statue is not a woman; she weeps all day long and never looks at me.”

The young man, unable thus far to interrupt the officer’s extreme volubility, uttered an exclamation of surprise:--

“What! What did you say? Charged you to seduce the daughter of that unfortunate Schumacker!”

“Seduce? Well, so be it, if that is the name you give it now in Copenhagen; but I defy the Devil himself to succeed. Day before yesterday, being on duty, I put on for her express benefit a superb French ruff sent direct from Paris. Would you believe that she never even raised her eyes to look at me, although I passed through her room three or four times clinking my new spurs, whose rowels are no bigger than a Lombardy ducat? That’s the newest fashion, is n’t it?”

“Heavens! Heavens!” said the young man, striking his forehead; “but this confounds me!”

“I thought it would!” rejoined the officer, mistaking the meaning of the remark. “Not to take the least notice of me! It is incredible, and yet it is true.”

The young man strode up and down the room in violent excitement.

“Won’t you take some refreshment, Captain Dispolsen?” cried the officer.

The young man started.

“I am not Captain Dispolsen.”

“What!” said the officer angrily, sitting up as he spoke; “and pray who are you, then, that venture to introduce yourself here at this hour?”