CHAP. I. BOOK I. "If I did," answered the first speaker, "it were idle to repeat it. Truly your free and imperial city of Frankfort-on-the-Maine does not prejudice me very strongly in its favour by the Christian spirit of its inhabitants." "You are a stranger then, Meinherr ?" "Aye! if it boots your pleasure to hear me say so; my foot hath pressed the pavement of your Commerce-Streets this afternoon for the first time. Would that it never had! Yours is the second house I have entered-and that I might not have done but from necessity." "How was that, Meinherr? if I am not too bold in asking." "I will tell you; for there is now a strange kindness in your tone and look to which I have long been unaccustomed. My first object on entering Frankfort was to proceed to the tavern to which I was recommended-‘Der Morgenstern;'* do you know it?" "Well: it has a bad repute at present. They say it is a refuge for a gang of midnight thieves and coiners." "How? do you speak truly?" the tales which are afloat. For months past an "It is even so, if there be any foundation in immense quantity of fictitious coin has got into circulation. Whence it can possibly be obtained no one has yet discovered; but a watch has been set on the Morning Star,' for several ill-looking and suspicious characters meet there occasionally. And it is to be hoped, for the welfare of our city, that some clue may yet be found.” *The Morning Star. K This piece of news seemed to affect the stranger deeply, for he hastily took up his money again, and, putting down a ducat only, said, hurriedly "Quick-quick! let me have the value of this in cruitzers; it was for this that I entered your shop. I must hasten to obtain my valise, which I have left there, and discharge my reckoning. After what you have informed me, I would fain leave a house of such ill-repute with all expedition." The money-changer gazed intently on the face of the stranger, but read in its lineaments nothing but ingenuous sincerity shadowed by anxiety; and therefore, without the least hesitation, he gave him the coins he desired, saying at the same time "If you do not mind accepting the advice of an old citizen of Frankfort, and will return here when you have recovered your property, I may perhaps recommend you to quarters of a less doubtful character." "Thanks-a thousand thanks!" returned the first speaker, as he hurried away; "I will return directly." But let us give a description of these two persons whose conversation we have just been recording; and remembering the good old Latin adage, Seniores priores," we will begin with the elder of the two-even the Money-changer him self. In the good city of Frankfort there was no one who had a greater reputation for riches, as well as for honesty and fairness in all his dealings, than Johann Holz. He was a little, spare man, with a shrewd-looking countenance. His quick and small grey eyes were incessantly on the move; his nose was sharp and pointed; his mouth firm and well cut. He was thin almost to meagreness; and though his figure was slightly bent with age, yet there was an activity in his movements which assured the beholder that the stoop was the result of habit, not of premature decay. He was seemingly about sixty years of age, and his attire was composed partly of the fashion of the last century, partly of that of the present: that is to say, his vest and breeches were of black cloth of the present make; his overcoat, a loose gabardine of blue cloth, trimmed with fur, such as was worn by merchants half a century before; thus rendering his appearance at once striking and ill-assorted. And his garments were none of the newest or best-looking either; but so that his pockets were well filled, what cared Johann Holz? He shrugged his shoulders at what his neighbours said, chinked his gold, and heeded not. If the truth must be told, the desire of accumulating wealth was the old moneychanger's only foible; and the large gains of his business seemed to quicken and keep alive this desire. And thus he went on, adding by degrees to his swelling store, till at last the fame of his money-bags got abroad and became a bye-word of the good citizens; so that they were wont to exclaim, by way of adjuration, "As rich as Johann Holz." But the old Money-changer's love for his ducats was divided with his love for his pretty daughter, Constance; and to do him justice, the love for the latter greatly preponderated. She was to him the brightest jewel in his possession-the sole living object of his affection: all his endeavours tended to her enjoyment, and all his wishes were centred in her happiness. His wife had been dead some years, and his household then consisted of his daughter; of a redhaired, sinister-looking shopman, called Martin Natter; and an aged, garrulous, and deaf domestic, named Annchen, who was always interlarding her speeches with some saying which she had heard from her deceased mistress of this garrulity of age poor Constance was a patient sufferer, in consideration of her domestic's reverence for the memory of her mother, and her attachment to her while living. Two younger female servants performed the more laborious duties in the house; though it must be confessed they were not very onerous or difficult. Of the daughter we shall have occasion to speak more minutely hereafter. The stranger was a young man, apparently about two or three and twenty years of age, tall and well-made-his figure admirably proportioned; his face not perhaps strictly handsome, if you scrutinized separately and minutely each feature, yet the tout ensemble was striking and prepossessing. The curve of his nose might not be strictly according to the rules of beauty, but his eyes were dark, brilliant, and expressive; and his mouth was well defined and developed, so that the most fastidious could not find a fault in it. If his eyebrows were not arched in the exact curve dictated by the line of grace, they nevertheless added to rather than detracted from his general expression, for they imparted an appearance of deeper thought, that suited well with the contemplative cast of his countenance. When he removed his hat, it revealed a broad and high forehead, and a profusion of short curls of auburn hair. His upper lip, as was the custom, was unshorn, and the small moustache which covered it might have vied, both in glossiness and richness of hue, with the soft down of the chamois. His attire, though slightly stained by travel, was a plain suit of black, and a neckerchief of white muslin, bespeaking that he belonged to one of the gentler and more learned professions. Such was he, who, flushed with his increase of speed and a temporary excitement, re-entered the shop of the Money-changer a short time after he had first quitted it in the manner we have shown. The shop itself was an old-fashioned, oddlooking place. Massive iron cupboards were fixed into the wall, while enormous and quaintlooking boxes of the same metal were piled one above the other to the very ceiling, the bare thought of moving these chests was almost instantly banished on account of its impossibility; and huge letters painted on their outside frowned mysteriously on you. In the gloom of its further end might be seen a partition of high railings; and beyond, the red hair and furtive looks of one whom we recognize at a glance as Martin Natter. In the centre of the shop, and, projecting nearly half-way across it, was a flight of stairs leading to the domestic portion of the house. The windows were small, and as far as midway were painted over, so that no impertinent gaze of curiosity from without should peer into the impenetrable mysticism of what might be taking place within. Viewed from the outside, the house presented scarcely a better-looking appearance than did the dull, melancholy-looking shop within. A low gable jutted out several inches just above the door, casting a gloomy shadow, and obstructing considerably the small portion of light which found its way into the interior of the shop. A private door, next to that of the shop, was the means of egress and ingress to the Money-changer's family; and a glimpse of the two windows immediately above shewed that the hand and taste of Woman was indisputably there, for the small pots of myrtle and other evergreens seen behind the white folds of the curtains spoke plainly of her presence. The house consisted of two storeys over the shop. And now if the reader will accompany us let him join us as it were spiritually, and we will act as interpreter so to speak while we watch the course of the events of our story as they proceed. "if you will not receive it as a gift, consider it as a loan, to be paid when you will." The other shook his head, while he replied"Your generous offer is felt deeply; but I am poor at present-almost friendless; I may never have it in my power to repay you, and my security would be valueless." "Think you, Meinherr, I would wish any other or better security than the word of an honourable man?” "But how know you that I am one?" "The experience of nearly half a century never deceives me, Meinherr. If you ask me why I have judged thus favourably of you, I reply by saying that your manner, the integrity and truth reflected from your eyes, nay your very reluctance to receive "A favour?" "If you will so call a trifling service; but, as I was saying, this very delicacy of being beholden to a stranger proves you to be the possessor of honourable, though perhaps too sensitive, feelings. Yes! I read in every look, in every feature, those of a man conscious of self-respect." "You flatter me greatly, and believe me I appreciate your generosity, although circumstances compel me to decline it; but it seemsforgive me-extraordinary to hear such language, or to meet with such an unconditional offer of service from--" On re-entering the shop, the stranger's first impulse was to thank the Money-changer for the information he had given him. He shuddered inwardly when he thought what might have happened, if he, an utter stranger, had taken up his temporary abode at a place of such ill repute. The authorities, who were on the watch, might have marked him out and condemned him silently as an associate and a confederate of whom? Coiners-perhaps murderers. Nay, had he not possibly even already fallen under their surveillance? This idea, to a mind which though full of energy was yet gentle almost to weakness (as we shall see hereafter), was particularly horrifying, and he blessed the Providence that had directed his steps to the shop of the Money-Good citizen!' or some other lip-word, coined by changer. "A money-changer, you would say, Meinherr?" "It is true," stammered the younger speaker. Aye! there it is-that is the common cry of those, who, but for us, would have no means for pursuing their pleasures and debaucheries. Money-changers! Next to the vile dogs of Jews, as they are termed, there is no taunt of odium that is not applied to us, who are Christians like themselves. When it happens that they are in want of the mammon of the world, they come cringingly and entreatingly, crying, Worthy sir!' Honest burgher!' or the mouth of selfishness; but when their end is "I know not how to thank you sufficiently," gained, they depart without even the common he again exclaimed; "your warning has saved parting salutation, and, till the time arrives for a me from perhaps a public and disgraceful death, repetition of the scene, call us Hard-hearted, from which my innocence would have been in-close-fisted, tight-pursed vagabonds.' Poor sufficient to save me." He laid down his portmanteau as he spoke, and again drawing his remaining ducats from his pocket, said "I shall willingly pay you your per centage upon these ducats now, and would as willingly were it ten times the amount; that is," he continued (a slight smile of sadness playing over his lips), "if my scanty stock would admit of such a thing." "You will think me eccentric, Meinherr, but it is now my turn to cavil. I not only will not take the value of a thaler from you for my exchange, but if you will honour me by accepting this purse-" The other reddened. fools! ye that think us idiots to part with our money so easily, know not how we laugh at and despise ye! Aye, young sir, mark me! of the rufflers who with proud step, throng our streets, and pass me by with unbending head, and scornful, haughty look, half-aye, more than half-have mortgaged their estates to me for their full value; and yet they, whose next step must be to beggary and ruin, pass me as if I were beneath the dust on which they tread. But I am not one of these grasping, penurious wretches they think me-the name of Holz has never yet "Did I hear aright? Holz did you say?" "Aye, Meinherr! 'tis a fair name in Frankfort, and without a blot on it! But what is it that has created this strange surprise?" "Your name Johann Von Holz, did you say?” |