him, pronounce these words, "Dare not to return hither a fourth time!" The attempt to kindle the fire with this last coal having proved as ineffectual as on the former occasions, Martin relinquished the hopeless attempt, and flung himself on his bed of leaves, resolving to delay till the next morning the communication of his supernatural adventure to his brothers. He was awakened from a heavy sleep into which he had sunk, from fatigue of body and agitation of mind, by loud exclamations of surprise and joy. His brothers, astonished at finding the fire extinguished when they awoke, had proceeded to arrange the fuel in order to renew it, when they found in the ashes three huge metallic masses, which their skill (for most of the peasants in the Harz are practical mineralogists) immediately ascertained to be pure gold. It was some damp upon their joyful congratulations when they learned from Martin the mode in which he had obtained this treasure, to which their own experience of the nocturnal vision induced them to give full credit. But they were unable to resist the temptation of sharing in their brother's wealth. Taking now upon him as head of the house, Martin Waldeck bought lands and forests, built a castle, obtained a patent of nobility, and, greatly to the indignation of the ancient aristocracy of the neighbourhood, was invested with all the privileges of a man of family. His courage in public war, as well as in private feuds, together with the number of retainers whom he kept in pay, sustained him for some time against the odium which was excited by his sudden elevation, and the arrogance of his pretensions. And now it was seen in the instances of Martin Waldeck, as it has been in that of many others, how little mortals can foresee the effect of sudden prosperity on their own disposition. The evil propensities in his nature, which poverty had checked and repressed, ripened and bore their unhallowed fruit under the influence of temptation and the means of indulgence. As deep calls unto deep, one bad passion awakened another:-the fiend of avarice invoked that of pride, and pride was to be supported by cruelty and oppression. Waldeck's character, always bold and daring, but rendered harsh and assuming by prosperity, soon made him odious, not to the nobles only, but likewise to the lower ranks, who saw, with double dislike, the oppressive rights of the feudal nobility of the empire so remorselessly exercised by one who had risen from the very dregs of the people. His adventure, although carefully concealed, began likewise to be whispered abroad, and the clergy already stigmatized as a wizard and accomplice of fiends, the wretch, who, having acquired so huge a treasure in so strange a manner, had not sought to sanctify it by dedicating a considerable portion to the use of the church. Surrounded by enemies, public and private, tormented by a thousand feuds, and threat. ened by the church with excommunication, Martin Waldeck, or, as we must now call him, the Baron Von Waldeck, often regretted bitterly the labours and sports of his unenvied poverty. But his courage failed him not under these difficulties, and seemed rather to augment in proportion to the danger which darkened around him, until an accident precipitated his fall. A proclamation by the reigning duke of Brunswick had invited to a solemn tournament all German nobles of free and honourable descent, and Martin Waldeck, splendidly armed, accompanied by his two brothers, and a gallantly equipped retinue, had the arrogance to appear among the chivalry of the province, and demand permission to enter the lists. This was considered as filling up the measure of his presumption. A thousand voices exclaimed, "We will have no cinder-sifter mingle in our games of chivalry." Irritated to frenzy, Martin drew his sword and hewed down the herald, who, in compliance with the general outcry, opposed his entry into the lists. A hundred swords were unsheathed, to avenge what was in those days regarded as a crime only inferior to sacrilege, or regicide. Waldeck, after defending himself like a lion, was seized, tried on the spot by the judges of the lists, and condemned, as the appropriate punishment for breaking the peace of his sovereign, and violating the sacred person of a herald-at-arms, to have his right hand struck from his body, to be ignominiously deprived of the honour of nobility, of which he was unworthy, and to be expelled from the city. When he had been stripped of his arms, and sustained the mutilation imposed by this severe sentence, the unhappy victim of ambition was abandoned to the rabble, who followed him with threats and outcries levelled alternately against the necromancer and oppressor, which at length ended in violence. His brothers (for his retinue were fled and dispersed) at length succeeded in rescuing him from the hands of the populace, when, satiated with cruelty, they had left him half dead through loss of blood, and through the outrages he had sustained. They were not permitted, such was the ingenious cruelty of their enemies, to make use of any other means of removing him, excepting such a collier's cart as they had themselves formerly used, in which they deposited their brother on a truss of straw, scarcely expecting to reach any place of shelter ere death should release him from his misery. When the Waldecks, journeying in this miserable manner, had approached the verge of their native country, in a hollow way, between two mountains, they perceived a figure advanced towards them, which at first sight seemed to be an aged man. But as he approached, his limbs and stature increased, the cloak fell from his shoulders, his pil grim's staff was changed into an uprooted pine-tree, and the gigantic figure of the Harz demon passed before them in his terrors. When he came opposite to the cart which contained the miserable Waldeck, his huge features dilated into a grin of unutterable contempt and malignity, as he asked the sufferer, "How like you the fire my coals have kindled ?" The power of motion, which terror suspended in his two brothers, seemed to be restored to Martin by the energy of his courage. He raised himself on the cart, bent his brows, and, clenching his fist, shook it at the spectre with a ghastly look of hate and defiance. The goblin vanished with his usual tremendous and explosive laugh, and left Waldeck exhausted with this effort of expiring nature. The terrified brethren turned their vehicle toward the towers of a convent, which arose in a wood of pine-trees beside the road. They were charitably received by a bare-footed and long-bearded capuchin, and Martin survived only to complete the first confession he had made since the day of his sudden prosperity, and to receive absolution from the very priest, whom precisely on that day three years, he had assisted to pelt out of the hamlet of Morgenbrodt. The three years of precarious prosperity were supposed to have a mysterious correspondence with the number of his visits to the spectral fire upon the hill. The body of Martin Waldeck was interred in the convent where he expired, in which his brothers, having assumed the habit of the order, lived and died in the performance of acts of charity and devotion. His lands, to which no one asserted any claim, lay waste until they were reassumed by the emperor as a lapsed fief, and the ruins of the castle, which Waldeck had called by his own name, are still shunned by the miner and forester as haunted by evil spirits. Thus were the miseries attendant upon wealth, hastily attained and ill-employed, exemplified in the fortunes of Martin Waldeck. THE HAUNTED RUIN. IN days of yore, a lovely mansion stood On Scotland's eastern, ocean-ravaged shore, It was a place of strength, albeit no hand Was raised against it; and a deep trench ran, Remembered not; now rioting weeds and sand Its aspect spoke desertion; even the air Low, murmuring, hollow tones, as from the dead; Reigned quietly on thrones, dark, mute as lead; The bright sun shone on morning gossamer, Upon the forest boughs, so green and fair :- That shadowy forms were seen, and spectre men, That even the beggar dared not sue for bread, Rust sealed the portal, and a stranger's tread Ne'er sounded o'er the threshold, weed-o'ergrown- D. A. A HEBREW MELODY. Sing us one of the songs of Zion-Psalm xxxvii. 3. By the rivers of Babel, in exile forlorn, O Zion, we sat in despair : Yea, we wept for the home from which we were torn, And the temple of God that was there. And our harps all unstrung On the willow-trees hung, For their tones now could only awaken Or the life of a slave, And the land of our fathers forsaken. Our spoilers required us in bondage to sing, And sneering they gave the command; Of the Edomite hear The sweet strains which to Zion belong- From my heart every string, Ere its melody mix in the song. Judea, my country! more loved than the tide And my tongue, be thou dumb, And all lifeless become With the dead on yon far Galilee, That shall bind me for ever to thee! But how could I dream that I e'er might forget Or the land where the sun of my forefathers set, Of a terrific dream, That frenzied my brain as it passed, For I e'er will think on, All thy glory though gone, And exult in thy name to the last. Remember, great God, O remember the day "Let Jerusalem be razed-in dust let us lay The day of thy slaughter And full-blessed shall he be Who avengeth on thee All the deeds that in Judah were done. And happy is he who shall list to thy groans, And look on thy glories effaced, Who all reckless shall dash thy babes on the stones, And leave thee a desolate waste. For alas! we have been Where wild carnage was seen The red arm of destruction to wield; 'Neath the heathen were trod, As if they'd been the dust of the field. M. F. |