was I now obliged to carry on the joke, which during my life was a source of pleasure to me. Alas! my mischievous pranks soon drove every human being from the house. At long intervals only some stray pilgrim would pass the night here. I served them all exactly as I have done you, but none of them dared return the compliment, and free me from my slavery. The castle is now freed from my nightly pranks,—what a sleep I shall have! Again receive my thanks, young stranger. Were I the guardian of concealed treasures, I would freely yield them all to thee, but I was in my life nothing more than a poor barber. But listen to my prayer, and when you return to your home, get a couple of masses read for my soul’s sake.”
With these words he disappeared, having fully vindicated by his talkativeness his claim to the title of ci-devant barber to the noble master of Castle Rummelsburg. His liberator remained full of wonder at the strange adventure. He tried to persuade himself it was all a dream, but his bald pate was too decisive an argument to be called in question. Having made up his mind on this weighty matter, he crept back to bed, and, fatigued by his terror yet more than by his journey, slept like a top till next mid-day.
The treacherous landlord was stirring with the dawn, that he might not miss his opportunity of laughing in his sleeve at the stranger, under the pretence of condoling with him. By the time mid-day had arrived, he began to feel anxious: the ghost might have strangled the poor youth, or frightened him to death, and Boniface had never dreamt of stretching his revenge so far. He assembled the posse comitatus of his household, marched up to the castle, and made straight for the chamber, in the window of which he had observed the stranger’s light burning. He found a strange, old-fashioned key in the lock, but the door was barred within; this Frank had taken care to do immediately after the ghost’s departure. Mine host drummed on the door with a hubbub of feet, hands, head, and shoulders, that might have awakened the seven sleepers. Frank’s first idea, which crossed him as he rubbed his eyes, was, that the barber had returned. As soon, however, as he heard the landlord’s whimpering entreaty, that his guest would condescend to give a sign that he was alive, he collected himself, and opened the door.
The landlord clasped his hands above his head, with an affectation of astonishment. “By the whole regiment of saints! Redmantle” (the spectre was known among the inhabitants by this name) “has been here, and made a bald pate of you. I see now that the old story is no fable. Now, tell me, how did he look? what said he? and what has he done?” Frank, who saw through the speaker, replied: “The ghost resembled a man in a red mantle; what he has done you see; and what he said, that I remember well. ‘Stranger,’ said he to me, ‘trust no knavish landlord—the rascal down the way knew right well what was awaiting you. Farewell, I am quitting these quarters, for my time is out. I am now to change my character for that of a noiseless mischief-maker, and as for the landlord, I will tease him incessantly, nip his nose, pull his hair, sit on his breast like a nightmare, if he do not, in return for his treatment of you, allow free roof bield, and the run of his larder, until brown ringlets again twine themselves round your temples’”
The host trembled at these words, made the sign of the cross in double quick time, and swore by the Virgin, to say nothing of a round dozen of saints whom he threw into the bargain, that he would board and feed our adventurer for nothing, so long as he chose to remain. He would have conducted him immediately to the inn, but Frank preferred the baronial apartments. A dare-devil from the town ventured to keep him company over night, and escaped the shaving which, in former days, would have been his reward. The owner of the castle, rejoiced to find it once more inhabitable, gave directions that the stranger should be well cared for.
When the grapes began to colour, and the apples to blush, Frank’s brown locks were again in a condition to be seen. He packed up his knapsack, and prepared for his departure. When he took leave of the landlord, that worthy led from the stable a stout roadster, duly caparisoned, which the lord of the manor presented to him, out of gratitude that he had driven the devil from his house. The gift was accompanied by a good fat purse, and, by their united aid, our hero in a short time reached his native town in good condition.
BYRON’S PRAYER.
By John Malcolm.
I’m weary of its lingering light—
And, loathing life, I turn away
To weep, and wish for night.
I long to lay me gently down
In slumber on my mother’s breast—
And would exchange an empire’s crown
For everlasting rest.
I’ve lived the laurel wreath to gain—
My songs are heard in every land,
And beauty breathes the strain.
Her smiles and sweeter tears are mine,
And yet of love—youth—fame possest—
Oh! gladly would my heart resign
All—all for endless rest.
Or dare to die—the gilded cloud
Of glory o’er the tomb I’d give
For silence and a shroud.
I ask no paradise on high,—
With being’s strife on earth opprest,—
The only heaven for which I sigh
Is rest—eternal rest!
Which I rejoiced in when a child,
And each return the birth I weep
O’er which my mother smiled.
Bid Heaven take back the breath it gave,
That I, a cold and silent guest,
Within my father’s house, the grave,
May find a long—long rest.
But with my wildest wish I go—
For I would fairly be the same
I was—ere born to woe.
My cold hush’d heart, with no pale gleams
Of consciousness to wake and waste,
I would have sleep without its dreams,
And rest—eternal rest!
THE BYSTANDER.
No. IV.
THE KING’S BIRTHDAY.
The fourth of June was a busy day in our youth among the denizens of the school-yards. Nay, the scraping together and hoarding of money, and the preparation of our fireworks, kept us employed for weeks before—teaching each to unite in himself the qualities and industry of the merchant, the banker, and manufacturer. The division of labour had made little progress among our semi-barbarous community—a sort of feudal state, in which no
