Foreign Tales and Traditions/Volume 2/Der Freischutz

by Johann August Apel

For other English-language translations of this work, see Der Freischütz.

DER FREISCHUTZ

 

FROM LAUN’S GESPENSTERBUCH.

 

“Hark ye, dame,” said Bertram, the old forester of Lindenhayn, to his helpmate, “you know there are few things which I would deny you, but, for this notion, I wish you would be done with it, and help me to drive it out of the girl’s head. Let her know the worst at once, and be done with it; I know no good that can come out of this sort of dangling drivelling work!”

“But, husband,” replied the good woman, “cannot our Kate live just as happily with the young clerk as with the hunter? You do not know William yet,—what a fine fellow he is,—how kind-hearted——”

“But no hunter for all that,” interrupted the forester. “Now dame, mark me, I say; it is better than two hundred years since my ancestors got this place, and during all that time it has been handed down from father to son without a break. Hadst thou brought me a son instead of a daughter, then it might have been all very well,—he would have become forest-ranger after me, and as for the girl she might have married whom she fancied. But matters don’t stand thus with us. I have my own fears and suspicions that the duke will speedily clear the ground of any son-in-law of mine who is not a good shot; and shall I throw my daughter away thus? No, dame Anne! As for Robert, I am not just bound to him; if he is not exactly to your liking, let the girl, by all means, seek out some other sprightly young huntsman, who can succeed me in my office, and then we will both be permitted to rest ourselves quietly, in our old age, at our own fireside;—let her have whom she will, only my son-in-law must be a hunter.”

The old dame would fain have lent in another good word for her favourite; but the forester—who knew too well the seducing effects of woman’s eloquence—was resolved to avoid farther parley; and taking down his rifle from the wall walked out into the forest.

Scarcely had the old man turned the corner of the house, when Kate, a blooming fair-haired maiden opened the door. “Have you succeeded, mother? Do say yes!” exclaimed the girl, as she sprang into the room, and flung herself into her mother’s arms.

“Alas, Katherine, you have much to fear,” replied the old woman. “Your father is a good man, a good-hearted man, but he will give you to no other than a hunter; that is his resolution, and I know that he will abide by it.”

Katherine wept bitterly, and said she would die sooner than lose her William. The mother soothed and scolded her daughter by turns, and at last wept along with her. She promised to make one more attempt to move her father; but while the promise was yet upon her lips, a tap was heard at the door, and in stepped William.

“Ah, William,” exclaimed Katherine with streaming eyes, “we must part! Me thou mayest never have; nor I thee. My father is determined to give me to Robert, because he is a hunter; and my mother cannot move him. But though we should be torn from each other, none other shall ever possess my love. I will remain faithful to thee unto the grave!”

The mother here interposed, and explained to William that her husband’s objections to receiving him as a son-in-law were merely on account of his supposed inability to succeed him in the office of forester.

“Is that all!” exclaimed William joyfully, and pressed his beloved maiden to his breast. “Cheer up, Kate; we will do yet, mother! I am not quite unskilled in hunting; for I was first apprenticed to my uncle, Finsterbusch, the upper-forester; and it was only to please the Amtmann,^[1] who stood my god-father, that I left the gun and the merry green-wood for the writing-chamber. But what care I for succeeding my god-father, unless I could make my Kate lady Amtmannin! If you are content, Kate, to look no higher than your mother did before you, and William the forester is as dear to you as William the Amtmann, then cheer up my heart; love under the greenwood-tree will be as sweet as love in the city!”

“Ah, dear, sweet William,” exclaimed Katherine, while the clouds of care which had collected on her fair brow disappeared and her bright eyes glistened with joy through her tears, “wilt thou indeed do this for me; then haste thee and speak to my father before he give Robert his word!”

“Stop, Kate,” said William, “I will give him a little surprise in the forest. He is gone in quest of the venison which is to be delivered to-morrow at our office. Give me a gun and a bag,—I’ll meet him hunter-like, and with a hunter’s salutation; and, perhaps, I’ll offer him my services as his hunting-boy.”

The mother and daughter both embraced him as he stood there suddenly transformed into a fine active looking Jäger; and both followed him with their anxious prayers when he disappeared in the thick forest.

 

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“A likely-enough fellow, indeed!” thought the old forester to himself, when he had returned home from the chase. “Who could have expected to find such a dexterous shot in a quill-driver? Well, to-morrow I will speak to the Amtmann myself; for it would be a pity that he should not become a Jäger. The fellow may prove a second Kuno yet! You know who Kuno was, I suppose?” said the old man turning to William.

William replied he did not.

“Now do you not know who Kuno was!” exclaimed the forester in great surprise. “Why, Kuno was my great-grandfather’s father; and was the very first forester in this place! He was once a poor stable-boy, and served the young knight of Wippach, who took a great fancy for him, and made him attend him at all feasts and tournaments and hunting-parties. Well, it happened once that young Wippach was present at a magnificent hunt which the duke held here with a great number of knights and nobles. Now the dogs roused a stag, to the back of which a poor wretch had been fastened, and who appeared wringing his hands and crying most piteously for help. You see there was once a tyrannical and barbarous law amongst our hunting nobles, that if a poor man committed any trespass against the forest-laws he should be bound to a stag, and left thus to be gored to death or to perish by hunger and thirst. So when the duke beheld this spectacle he became exceeding wroth, and commanded them to stop the hunt, and endeavour to rescue the man, for he wished to know from his own mouth what had been the nature of his offence. And he promised a great reward to any man who would bring down the stag; but declared that he who should hit the man in the attempt should be put to death. Not a man amongst all the nobles would undertake the dangerous task, however willing to please the duke. At last who should step forward but Kuno himself, my great-grandfather’s father,—the very man whom thou seest painted in that picture there, who thus addressed the duke: ‘My gracious liege, if it is your pleasure, by God’s grace I will try my luck; my life is at your mercy, for I have neither money nor goods, but I much pity the poor man, and would have risked my life for him had I seen him in the hands of his enemies or robbers.’ This speech pleased the duke, and he bade Kuno try his luck, promising him also the reward, if he proved successful, though he did not mention the punishment, in case he failed. Then Kuno took his gun, levelled it in God’s name, and commending the ball to the guidance of the holy angels, fired right into the thicket, and in the twinkling of an eye out rushed the stag mortally wounded, but the poor peasant had received only a few slight scratches on his face and hands. The duke kept his word, and bestowed the forest-keepership on Kuno and his heirs for ever. But good luck never wanted envious neighbours; and Kuno soon felt this. There were many who would gladly have filled Kuno’s place; and what did they, think you, but persuaded the duke that he had succeeded by the devil’s favour only in hitting the stag, for, said they, it was a free shot, and must have been directed by the devil. And the duke listened to these malicious representations so far as to cause it to be ordained that in all time coming the descendants of Kuno should give proof of their skill before succeeding to their father’s office. I myself had to shoot the ring out of the popinjay’s mouth; so you see that my successor, whoever he may be, must at all events be a good shot.”

William had listened to the old forester’s narrative with intense interest. He now rose, pressed his hand warmly, and promised to make himself, in a short time, such a huntsman as great-grandfather Kuno would not blush to own for a friend.

 

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Not fourteen days had William spent in his new capacity as a huntsman, before father Bertram gave his consent to his daughter’s betrothal with the youth, who gained upon his esteem and affections every day. However it was expressly stipulated that nothing should be said about this transaction till William’s probation as a huntsman, according to the aforesaid law of the forest, should be over; meanwhile the happy youth, secure in the possession of his bride, found himself suddenly transported from the gloom of despondency to the sunshine of hope and happiness, and in the height of his transport became so forgetful of the ordinary duties of each day, that father Bertram began to chide him for his giddiness and want of manly self-restraint.

William had in fact from that very day on which he had obtained the old forester’s consent to his union with Katherine, experienced a most extraordinary run of bad luck. Sometimes his gun missed fire; at other times he lodged his bullet in a tree instead of a deer. When he returned home in the evening, and displayed the contents of his hunting-bag it was often found to contain only a few worthless daws and crows, and perhaps a dead wood-cat instead of a hare. These proofs of William’s carelessness drew down severe reproaches upon his head from the old forester, and Katherine herself began to get alarmed at William’s conduct.

William stimulated at once by love and the dread of disgrace redoubled his efforts; but the nearer the day of probation approached, the less steady became his aim. Almost every shot missed its mark with him; and at last he dreaded to pull a trigger lest he should do some unintentional mischief: having already wounded a cow on its pasture, and nearly shot the herdsman.

“I am quite sure,” said the huntsman Rudolf one evening, “that some one has bewitched William; the thing cannot naturally be accounted for, and he must undo the spell before he can hope to be successful.”

“Talk not so foolishly,” answered the old forester; “to believe such a thing would be quite superstitious, and a brave huntsman, you know, should be above such fears.”

“Take my word for it, William,” rejoined Rudolf, “it is just as I have told you. Go some Friday at midnight to a cross-road, and draw a circle around you with the ramrod of your gun, or with a bloody sword; then bless it thrice, as the priest does, but in the name of Samiel——”

“Hush!” interrupted the forester angrily. “Knowest thou what name thou wert now using? That is one of the devil’s chief spirits. God shield thee and every other Christian from him!”

William crossed himself fervently, and would hear no more, but Rudolf adhered to his opinion. All that night he kept cleaning at his gun, and examined every spring and screw; and when morning dawned he went forth once more to try his luck.

 

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But still William’s efforts were fruitless, though the deer came crowding around him as if to dare his skill. At ten paces he levelled at a roebuck, twice his gun flashed in the pan,—the third time the buck plunged uninjured into the neighbouring copse. The unlucky hunter threw himself in despair upon the sward, and began to bemoan his unhappy fate, when an old soldier with a wooden leg suddenly stept out from among the bushes, and hailed him with a “Good morning, comrade! Why so gloomy? Art love-sick, my boy? Come give us a bit of tobacco, and let’s have a little chat!”

William threw him a piece of tobacco, and the old fellow stretched himself out upon the grass by his side with all imaginable composure. After one subject and another had been gone over, the conversation turned upon hunting, and William informed the stranger of his bad luck. The old campaigner requested permission to examine his gun; and after handling it awhile, assured him that it was under a charm, and that till the charm were broken he never would have any luck either with it or any other gun.

William trembled at the idea of sorcery, and urged many objections to the possibility of his gun being under a charm, but the old soldier offered to prove his assertion. “We old soldiers,” said he, “see nothing at all surprising in the matter, and I could tell you stories till night-fall far more wonderful than this. Why, heard you never of a gun being made to kill objects almost out of one’s sight? Here, for instance, is a bullet with which no man could miss though he were willing. Take and try it,—it will not fail you, I swear to it.”

William loaded his gun, putting in the bullet which the old soldier gave him, and then began to look round him for something to aim at. A great bird was hovering above the forest, at such a height as to appear a mere speck in the air. “Shoot that fellow up yonder,” said the soldier. William laughed at so ridiculous a proposal. “Yes, shoot him, I say,” continued the soldier. “I stake my wooden leg, he falls, if you try him.” William raised his piece and fired, and presently the black speck appeared rapidly descending, and a great vulture fell bleeding to the ground.

“Oh that is nothing at all,” said the stranger, observing the speechless astonishment of the young hunter. “You will think nothing of that when you have tried a few more of these balls, and you may soon learn to cast them for yourself,—a little skill and a stout heart is all that is necessary, for the thing must be done in the night-time, you see. I will tell you all about it when we next meet, but in the meantime I must go for it strikes seven.”

The old soldier gave William a few braces of balls before limping off and disappearing from his sight in the forest. The young man tried another shot and hit at a wonderful distance with one of his new balls, but uniformly missed with those of his own casting. He now hastened after the old soldier to learn his mode of casting bullets, but he was gone and nowhere to be seen.

 

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There was great gladness in the old forester’s house when William came home with such a load of venison as once more satisfied father Bertram that the youth of his daughter’s choice would yet prove himself worthy of his house. He should have embraced the opportunity now afforded him for explaining the whole matter, and have taken his friends’ advice upon it; but instead of this he carefully concealed his interview with the old soldier, and said nothing about the wonderful bullets. He alleged, however, that he had discovered the cause of his late bad luck in a flaw in his gun which he had not noticed before.

“Now, dame,” quoth the forester gaily to his wife, “who is wrong now? The witchcraft lay in the gun itself, it appears, and I shrewdly suspect the little devil that you thought knocked down father Kuno’s picture this morning might yet be detected in a rust-eaten nail.”

“What do you say about a devil?” inquired William.

“Nothing,” replied the old man. “That picture there fell down of itself this morning, just as the clock was chiming seven.”

“At seven!” exclaimed William, remembering that the old soldier had taken leave of him exactly at that hour.

“To be sure, and a right time truly for spirits to play their pranks!” replied the old forester, patting his dame gaily upon the cheek as he spake. But the latter only shook her head and expressed her hope with a sigh that all might yet be right.

 

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In a few days William had so accustomed himself to the use of the enchanted bullets that he no longer felt any misgiving of heart in using them. He daily expected to meet the old soldier again in the forest; and there was need he should for his stock of bullets was now reduced to a single brace, and the day of trial was at hand. One day, therefore,—the duke’s head Jäger being expected next day,—William positively refused to accompany the old forester to the wood, in order to save his two enchanted bullets for the trial-shot, and any other opportunity which might offer of displaying his skill before the head Jäger. But in the evening, in place of the Jäger himself, came an order for the delivery of a quantity of game at the duke’s palace, and an intimation that the preparations for his own reception might be put off for seven days.

William almost sunk to the earth at this intelligence, but the good people attributed his emotion to the disappointment he felt in the delay thus interposed to his marriage. He was now, however, obliged to sacrifice one of his balls in hunting; the other he wore to keep for the trial shot before the head Jäger.

It grieved the old forester much when William returned with a single buck, the produce of the whole day’s hunting; still more astonished and vexed was he the following day when William presented himself with an empty bag, and Rudolf appeared loaded with game. The old man now began to doubt the sincerity of William’s profession of attachment to his daughter, and declared that unless he brought home two roebucks next day, he would dismiss him from his service altogether, and revoke the consent to his marriage with his daughter. Katherine was in the greatest distress at William’s unaccountable behaviour, and conjured him, if he really loved her, to obey her father’s commands, and prove himself a man.

William took his way into the forest next morning with a heavy heart. He now looked upon Katherine as lost to him, and his only doubt was whether to peril his last hopes on the result of that day’s hunting or upon the trial shot before the duke’s Jäger.

These were alternatives between which he felt himself unable to decide; but as he was leaning, in gloomy thought against an ancient tree, a herd of deer came up to him, and he placed his hand mechanically upon his last remaining ball,—it seemed to weigh a hundred weight as he slowly raised it to the mouth of his rifle, and he was about to return it, when he caught a sudden sight of the old tree-legged soldier, apparently advancing towards him in the distance,—there was no longer reason to hesitate,—the ball was driven into the gun, and the next moment two roebucks dropt to the ground. The young hunter left his game lying upon the sward, and hastened to meet the mysterious soldier; but the latter had disappeared, and the youth sought for him many hours in vain.

 

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The old forester received William with pleasure that day; but the youth felt a heavy weight at his heart, which even Katherine’s caresses could not remove.

Evening came, but William still remained gloomy and abstracted, and took no share in the lively conversation which the hearty old forester kept up with Rudolf.

“What, William, I say, William,” shouted the old man into his ear, “do you sit quietly by and hear all this ill of our forefather Kuno, without offering to interpose a word in his favour! We know from the Old Testament that the good angels often assist the pious man who places his trust in God and a good conscience, and so they did for Kuno; but as for any compact with the devil, I will maintain my worthy ancestor to have been wholly free of that sin. He died quietly in his bed surrounded by his children and children’s children; but the man that has dealings with Satan never comes to a good end.—That I know from what I saw myself at Prague in Bohemia.”

“O, what was that? Pray tell us!” exclaimed Rudolf and the others in one breath.

“’Twas a sad tale,” replied the old forester; “I still tremble when I think of it. You see there lived a young man at that time in Prague, called George Schmid. He was a wild fellow, but active and resolute enough, and a good hunter he might have proved, had he managed matters rightly. Well, you see, he was so hasty in his manner, that he as often flung away his shots as did any good with them; and we were one day joking him about this, when he got angry and his pride mounted so high that he was rash enough to challenge us all to shoot against him. Neither running nor flying game, he swore, should escape him. His boast was an empty one, poor fellow,—for just two days afterwards a strange looking hunter came out upon us from the forest, and told us, that a little way off there was a man lying dead or dying, and without help. So we lads hastened up to the spot, and there to be sure did we find poor George lying bleeding and torn in every limb as if he had fallen among wild cats; he could not speak to us, but we carried him to a house in Prague, and there he told us, before he died, how he had met with an old mountain-hunter, and at his instigation had set about casting Free bullets—which you know are devil’s bullets and never miss—and how the devil had torn him to pieces as soon as he failed to do something or other which he had promised in his compact.”

“What had he neglected to do?” inquired William with considerable eagerness. “Did he tell it?”

“Tell it! Yes! It is a sad thing to forego one’s natural art and to seek to devilry and witchcraft! Why, you see, he confessed it all, and told us how he had accompanied the old mountain-hunter to a cross road about midnight; and how he had there drawn a bloody circle with a sword, and then had placed a skull and two thigh-bones crossways within this circle. And how the old hunter left him there, after telling him what he was to do. Precisely as the clock should strike eleven, he was to begin casting his balls, which should be neither more nor less than sixty-three in number,—one above or below this number and he was a lost man as soon as twelve o’clock should strike, and besides, during all the time he was casting the bullets, he was not to speak a word or stir beyond the magic circle. The old hunter also promised that sixty of his balls would hit their mark, and only three fail. Schmid began to cast the balls, but as he proceeded, such fearful and threatening spectres began to crowd around the magic circle, that he screamed aloud in his terror and sprang out of the circle, and never again recovered his senses till he found himself lying at Prague as I told you.”

“Now God defend all Christian people from such snares of Satan!” said the forester’s wife, crossing herself devoutly.

“I suppose,” said Rudolf, “George had made a real compact with Satan?”

“That I dare not just say; but certainly all was not right on his part. George must have known the dangerous ground he stood upon; he rushed into the snare with his eyes open.”

 

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The forester and his auditors retired to rest, leaving William in a state of mental agitation, more easily imagined than described. In vain he too strove to compose himself to rest: sleep refused to visit his eyelids. But the old wooden-legged soldier, and George, and Katherine, and the duke’s commissioner, presented themselves in various groups to his heated imagination. At one time the unfortunate hunter of Prague seemed to hold up his bloody hand to him in a warning manner; the next moment the features of the wan spectre changed into the lovely, but mournful features of Katherine, who seemed to hang over her lover as if she sought to guard him from some impending evil, while near her stood the old tree-legged fiend, with an expression of hellish mockery in his face; again he seemed to stand before the commissioner, and to level his gun for the trial-shot,—the next moment he had missed, and Katherine had sunk to the ground in a faint, while her father renounced him for ever as his son-in-law, and the fiend again presented him with fresh balls, but not till his fate was decided.

So passed the night. At the earliest dawn he rose, and not without design, took his way towards that quarter of the forest where he had first met with the old soldier. The fresh sharp breeze of morning soon chased away the fever of the preceding night, and with it all the hideous visions which had haunted his pillow. “Fool,” exclaimed William to himself, “because the mysterious surpasses thy mortal comprehension, art thou therefore to ascribe it to infernal agency? And is what I seek so very much beyond the ordinary course of nature that I must needs crave the assistance of supernatural agents? Man’s master-power controls the brute, may it not also command the obedience of a piece of inert matter? Yes, nature teems with a thousand operations the least of which contains mystery enough to baffle man’s penetration, and shall I now sacrifice my last hope and joy to a foolish reverence of what I cannot comprehend? I will not invoke supernatural agents, but nature and her occult processes I will employ without questioning! Yes, I will go in quest of the old soldier again; and should I not find him, I know what to do; courage, my heart; George of Prague was led on to do what he did by pride, I am impelled by the nobler principles of love and honour!”

Thus did William reason with himself as he roamed through the forest in quest of the old soldier; but his search was fruitless,—he found him not, nor did he meet with any one who had seen him.

The following day was spent in equally fruitless inquiries and vain search.

“Be it so then,” said William internally, “the time is measured to me! This very night will I go to the cross road in the forest. It is a lonely spot; no eye shall witness my deeds, and I will have firmness not to quit the circle till the work is over.”

 

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The evening came, and William had provided himself with lead, and moulds, and coals, and every other requisite, and held himself in readiness to leave the house as soon as he possibly could. He was just about to slip out when the old forester took him by the hand, and with an air of mingled sadness and earnestness said:

“William, I know not what oppresses my spirits, but there is a dread hanging over me of something,—I cannot tell what. Do remain with me to-night; nay do not look so cast down, it is only to guard against possibilities.”

Katherine followed up her father’s request with much intreaty, and conjured him not to leave the cottage that evening. “It is weak, perhaps,” said the old man, “yet I shall be happier if William will consent to remain with us this evening.”

William hesitated much, but Katherine’s endearing looks prevailed, and he at last consented to stay, secretly resolving to carry his plan into execution next night. But his intentions were again frustrated by the arrival of a friend from whom he could not disengage himself. At last the third evening came, and with it the necessity of determining to act in one way or another, for the next day was the day of trial. Katherine and her mother were employed the whole of the forenoon making preparations for the reception of so distinguished a guest as the duke’s commissioner, and at night-fall every thing stood arrayed in the neatest order. The mother warmly saluted William on his return from the forest in the evening, and for the first time hailed him with the endearing appellation of son, while the eyes of her daughter sparkled with all the emotions of a youthful and loving bride. “To-night,” said the father, “we will hold our feast,—to-morrow we shall not be alone, let us then be happy to-night as a family.” So saying he heartily embraced all, while his wife hinted with a smile that the happiness of the young people would be yet greater the succeeding night.

“Yes, yes,” said the forester, “I understand you perfectly mother. Hark ye, children, we have invited the priest to visit us to-morrow, and as soon as William has passed his trial——”

At this moment a heavy noise and a scream from Katherine startled the others. It was Kuno’s portrait which had again fallen from the wall, and the edge of the frame had wounded Katherine in the forehead. The nail appeared to have been too loosely fixed into the wall, for it came away with the picture, carrying part of the plaister along with it.

“What can this mean?” exclaimed Bertram, with some agitation. “This is the second time that picture has alarmed us all. Are you hurt, Katherine?”

“Only scratched,” replied the girl with a smile, as she wiped away the blood, which began to trickle over her forehead, with her hand; “I am not much hurt.”

William was greatly agitated when he beheld Katherine’s pale countenance and bleeding forehead. It was thus that she had appeared to his fancy in his dream; and with the recollection of her visioned form, all the other phantoms of that fearful night crowded upon his memory. The accident greatly damped his spirits, and he would have shrunk from the dreadful task before him, had he not stimulated his sinking courage by the large draughts of wine which he swallowed, till at last, wrought up to a pitch of frantic hardihood, he beheld nothing in the daring enterprise before him, but the noble spectacle of honourable love and manly courage contending with danger in its most threatening and appalling forms.

The clock struck nine. William’s heart beat violently: he sought for a pretext to withdraw,—but what pretext could a young man offer for deserting the company of his bride at such a moment? Still inexorable time hastened on, and William endured pangs great as those of martyrdom itself, in the very arms of love. The tenth hour had struck, and now or never must his resolution be formed. Without intimating his intention, he rose and had reached the outside of the cottage before the mother could follow him. “Whither wouldst thou to-night, William?” said the good woman. “I shot a deer to-day, but forgot it in the forest,” was the hasty answer she received. In vain she called after him, and in vain Katherine’s voice entreated him to return; he was gone to dare his fate with all the determination of a man who feels that he must either do or perish

The moon was in the wane, and her dusky red orb rested on the horizon. Dark gloomy clouds flitted heavily across the sky. The birch-trees and aspens stood like ghosts in the forest, and the silver-poplars seemed to William like so many sheeted spectres beckoning him to retire. He trembled, and the unexpected manner in which his scheme had been interrupted on the two preceding nights, conjoined with the fall of the picture, now seemed to him as so many warnings designed by his tutelary angel to drive him from his desperate purpose.

Once more William’s heart misgave him, and he was on the point of returning, when a voice seemed to whisper into his ear—“Fool! hast thou not already accepted of the assistance thou wouldst now shun when thou needest it most?” He stood still for a moment, and at the same instant, the moon emerging from behind a dark cloud, threw her cheerful light on Bertram’s hut in the distance. William could mark Katherine’s window glancing under the silvery rays, and he stretched out his arms towards it, as if he wished to clasp his fair one to his bosom, but a passing breeze bore the sound of the half-hour to his ear, and he tore himself away from the spot, exclaiming inwardly: “Fool, away! away to business! It is worse than childish weakness thus to hesitate;—shall I sacrifice the main advantage, having already perilled all—perhaps my salvation? No! away! I will dare the worst!”

He hastened forward with long strides, the wind again drove the dark clouds across the moon, and William plunged into the thickest gloom of the forest.

At length he found himself at the crossway. The magic circle was drawn, and the skulls and bones placed around. The moon buried herself deeper in the clouds, and no light was shed upon the scene but that which the flickering blaze of a few faggots threw, and which waxed and waned by fits as the wind rose and fell. The distant clock struck the third-quarter, and William placed the ladle upon the fire, threw in the lead, and along with it three bullets which had hit the mark,—for he had heard when a boy that such was the practice among those who cast Fatal or Free Bullets. A sound as of a heavy shower of rain was now heard, and a multitude of owls and bats, and other light-shunning creatures, came flitting around, and stationed themselves upon the enchanted circle, where by their low croaking they seemed to be holding converse with the bones and skulls in some unknown language. Their numbers rapidly increased, and indistinct misty-forms, some with human, others with brute countenances, seemed to mingle themselves with them. Their vapoury lineaments seemed to wave to and fro in the wind; but there stood one form near the circle, which remained immoveable, and fixed its melancholy gleaming eyes upon William. Sometimes it seemed to ring its hands in agony, and ever when it raised them in the attitude of entreaty, the fire burned more sullenly; but a great owl would then fan it up with its wings, and thus rekindle the sinking embers. William averted his looks from this spectre with unutterable dismay and anguish of soul, for its features bore a likeness to his own mother, and it seemed to mourn bitterly on his account.

At last the clock struck eleven, and the friendly spectre vanished with a heavy and stifled sigh. The owls and the night-ravens now came croaking and screaming around him, and the skulls and bones rattled under the heavy flap of their wings. William kneeled down, and, with the last stroke of the clock, the first ball dropt from the mould.

 

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The night-birds now ceased to croak, and the dead men’s bones to rattle; but there came an old wrinkled hag along the road, whose tottering steps were suddenly interrupted as with an iron barrier by the enchanted circle, beyond which she could not pass. The beldame appeared with a number of wooden spoons and ladles hung around her person, which rung against each other as she moved her withered limbs; and the owls hooted low at her approach and spread out their broad wings in token of welcome. The hag made a low obeisance to the bones and skulls, but the coals threw out long flames of fire towards her and compelled her to withdraw her sinewy hands which she had spread out before the fire. She then paced round and round the circle, and invited William to buy her wares: “Give me the bones,” said she in a low croaking voice, “and I will give you a nice little spoon;—give me that skull,—what use have you for such matters? Come, come, thy fate is sealed; let us be merry together, crony mine!”

William trembled, but remained within the circle and pursued his work. He knew the old hag well, for he had often seen her begging in the neighbourhood in the same fantastic attire which she now wore,—he then supposed her to be a poor wretch who had become deranged in intellect, and was told that she had been at last lodged in a mad-house. But he now knew not whether the object before him was an illusion or not. At last the beldame flung away her trumpery with a discontented air, and tottered off into the wood muttering words of fearful import.

Next came a loud rattling noise of wheels and cracking of whips, which proceeded from a carriage drawn by six horses with outriders. “Who bars the way?” shouted the foremost rider. “Room there!” William looked up and saw sparks of fire darting from the horses’ hoofs, and a circle of fire playing upon each wheel; so he knew it to be a trick of the fiend and continued his work. “Heigh! Heigh! Push on, drive over him!” called one of the postillions, and the whole equipage seemed about to rush over William, who crouched down below the very dash of the leaders fore-legs, as he thought, but at the same instant the horses and whole equipage rose into the air, and after wheeling over the circle in a spiral line vanished from sight.

On recovering his composure William resumed his work; but ere he had cast a few more bullets, a distant clock began to strike the hour. At first the sound of any thing connected with human life and the common world gladdened his heart,—but another thought, and he began to shudder at the rapid flight of time. Twice, thrice, yea a fourth time it struck; the mould dropt from his trembling hands, and he listened in agony to the remaining chimes, till the twelfth had vibrated upon his ear, and died away in the distance. “And this too,—is this a delusion?” groaned the wretched man. “Do the spirits of darkness sport with time also? No, it cannot be!” He drew his watch from his pocket and perceived with unspeakable gladness that it still wanted half-an-hour of midnight.

All around was silent, and William again resumed his work, till a sound, familiar to hunter’s ears, arose in the neighbouring bushes, and a huge boar came rushing up to the circle. “Nay, this is not a deception!” exclaimed William, hastily levelling his gun at the bristly monster as it stood grinding its white tusks at him. The flint gave no fire, and William drew his hanger, but the phantom vanished as the former had done, and William again knew the work of the fiend.

 

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Every second of time was now precious, and William pursued his fearful work with the energy of despair. Sixty bullets were already cast; he raised his eyes for a moment towards the heavens, and beheld the clouds once more giving way, and the moon pouring her beautiful light through the vapoury chasm: but at the same instant he heard his name called in well-known accents from a little distance: “William! William!” The voice was his own Katherine’s, and her form suddenly emerged from a neighbouring copse, and seemed about to spring forward to avoid the clutches of the miserable hag, who had already tormented William with her fiendish appearance, and who now seemed endeavouring to lay her long, shrivelled, fleshless arms on the beautiful girl who fled abhorrent from her clutches. Katherine seemed to be gathering her last strength for a final effort to escape her fiendish pursuer, when the old tree-legged soldier suddenly crossed her path, and interrupted her flight. “William! William! Oh save me, William!” she again screamed, as the old hag flung her withered arms around her, and appeared to be dragging her backwards. This sight was too much for William to bear; he threw away the mould with the last bullet in it, and was about to spring out of the circle, but just at that moment the clock struck twelve, and the whole implements of magical incantation, with the attendant phantoms, vanished from his sight, and he sunk exhausted to the ground.

A horseman now rode up to the circle on a black steed and addressed William in these words: “Thou hast stood thy trial well, what wouldst thou wish me to do for thee?

“I wish nothing from thee,” answered William. “What I wanted I have prepared for myself.”

“With my help,” rejoined the stranger. “Therefore part is mine.”

“Thou hast no share in it. I called thee not,” replied William.”

The horseman laughed scornfully. “Thou art bolder than many I have known. Take the bullets which thou hast cast. Sixty are thine, three are mine. Those will go straight,—these askew. There will be joy when we meet again!”

William turned away from the mysterious figure with a look of inexpressible horror, and exclaimed,—“Never, never will I meet thee! Away!”

“Why dost thou turn from me?” said the horseman with a diabolical grin, “Dost know me?”

“No, no!” shouted William in a voice of horror, “I will not know thee! I do not wish to know thee! Whoever thou art, I adjure thee to leave me!”

The dark horseman turned his steed, but ere he rode off he said with thrilling solemnity: “Weak mortal! Every hair on thy head attests that thou dost know me! I am he whom at this moment thou namest, though with horror in thy heart.”

With these words he vanished, and the branches under which he had stood fell with a heavy crash to the ground.

 

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“Merciful God, William, what has befallen you!” exclaimed Katherine and her mother at once, when William entered the cottage after midnight. “You look like one newly risen from the grave.”

“Only the effect of the night-air,” answered William. “And in truth I feel a little feverish.”

“William,” said the old forester, who had not yet retired to rest, “You have met with something in the forest. Why would you not be prevailed upon to remain at home? Something evil has met you, I swear.”

William was struck by the earnestness of the old man’s manner. “Well now,” he began to reply—“I confess something has happened—but give me nine days, at the end of that period you shall know all that has befallen me.”

“Gladly, gladly will I give you nine days, son William!” said the old man. “And God’s name be praised that it is something which can wait nine days. Let him alone now dame; and you Kate, bid your lover good night. I feel quite at rest now. ‘Night, says the proverb, is no man’s friend,’ but an honest man has nothing to fear at any time.”

It required all the dissimulation William was master of to conceal from Bertram how truly his worst suspicions were beneath the mark in case; and the very frankness and cordiality of the old man touched his heart to the quick,—conscious as he was of guilt. He hastily withdrew to conceal his emotion, and entered his room with the determination to destroy the accursed bullets. “One only—a single bullet only will I keep!”—he cried, and raised his hands to Heaven in the attitude of earnest supplication—“O let the purpose atone for the means used! With a thousand acts of penitence will I atone for this offence;—but can I,—can I now go back, and in retracing my steps forfeit all of happiness that earth holds for me?”

After having thus vowed, William sunk exhausted in body, but somewhat tranquillized in mind, into the arms of sleep.

 

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The duke’s commissioner presented himself at the cottage next morning, and proposed, before the trial-shot, to make a small hunting-party with the young forester. “It is quite right,” he remarked, “that the old solemnity should be kept up; but a Jäger’s ball is best proved within the broad forest itself.”

William turned pale at this proposal, and begged that he might at least be allowed his trial-shot first. But old Bertram shook his head significantly, and William yielding to his fate, withdrew instantly, and in a few minutes appeared ready accoutred for the chase.

The old forester tried to suppress his rising misgivings of heart, but in vain,—they overmastered all his strength; and Katherine caught her father’s sadness, and moved about the house performing her work listlessly and almost unconsciously like a person in a dream. “Might not the trial be put off?” asked the maiden inquiringly at her father. “I have thought of that too,” replied the latter, “but—” here he checked himself and remained silent.

The priest now entered the cottage, and reminded the bride of her bridal-garland: the mother had locked it up in a drawer, and hastily attempting to open it injured the lock, so that it could not be got at. A child was therefore sent a neighbouring village to purchase another garland for the bride. “Be sure to bring the finest they have,” called the bride’s mother after the child, who in obedience to this direction, in its simplicity, pitched upon a funeral gardland of myrtle and rosemary intertwined with silver, which seemed to it the finest in the shop. When the ominous wreath was presented, both mother and daughter shrunk with horror from the sight, but instantly recovering themselves, tried to laugh at the child’s simplicity, though the accident cast a weight over their spirits from which they could not with all their efforts disengage themselves. The stubborn lock was again applied to, and yielding this time with almost no resistance, the proper wreath was placed upon the maiden’s beautiful ringlets, and the inauspicious one deposited in the drawer.

 

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The hunters returned, and the commissioner was inexhaustible in praise of William’s skill. “After what I have seen,” said he, “it is almost ridiculous to call for other proof; but old customs must be kept up. To despatch the form, however, as briefly as possible,—yonder is a dove sitting on the top of the pillar, bring her down.”

“For God’s sake, William,” screamed Katherine, “not the dove! Last night I dreamt that I was a white dove, and that my mother had put a ring around my neck, and then you came, and my mother was covered with blood.”

William raised the gun which he had already levelled, but the commissioner, when he marked his suspense, laughed aloud. “What! So timorous! Nay, such silly fears become not a forester’s wife! Courage, girl, courage! Or stay,—perhaps the dove is a pet of your own?”

“No,” answered the girl, “mine it is not.”

“Well then,” cried the commissioner,—“courage, my lad—steady—fire!”

The trigger was pulled, but at the same instant the young bride herself uttered a piercing shriek, and fell to the ground.

“Incomprehensible girl!” exclaimed the commissioner, supposing that she had only been overcome by her feelings, and stepping forward to raise her up,—but a stream of blood flowed down her face, her forehead was shattered, and the deadly bullet lay in the wound.

“What has happened?” exclaimed William when the cry resounded behind him. He turned round and beheld Katherine lying in her blood in the agonies of death; and nigh to her, he saw the old fiendish-looking soldier, who stood eyeing the whole scene with an expression of hellish mockery in his features, muttering between his teeth:

“Sixty go true,
Three go askew.”

William, in the agony and madness of mingled horror and despair, drew his hunting-knife, and made a thrust at the hideous figure, exclaiming: “Accursed! Is it thus thou hast deluded me?” More he could not utter, but sunk exhausted to the ground.

The commissioner and the priest vainly sought to comfort the bereaved parents. Scarcely had the mother laid the ill-omened funeral wreath on her daughter’s corpse, than her stricken heart ceased to beat. The father soon followed his wife and daughter to the land of spirits; and William breathed his last in a mad-house.

 

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1. The Bailiff.