Read Ebook: Molly and Kitty or Peasant Life in Ireland; with Other Tales by Burg Maria Eschenbach Olga Trauermantel Translator

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THE GUARDIAN ANGEL AND THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC.

"Like rainbows o'er a cataract, Music's tones Played round the dazzling spirit."

The evening bells were loudly ringing in the little town of Geremberg. Troops of busy workmen were hastening home from the neighboring fields and gardens, while children, with merry shouts, were driving herds of cattle, droves of sheep, and domestic poultry, and their clear and joyous laughter might be heard far above the lowing of the weary cows, or the shrill hissing and cackling of the numberless flocks of noisy ducks and geese. The barking of dogs, with the hoarse oaths and gruff voices of the drovers, added to the general din. Wagons heavily laden with provisions; drawn sometimes by four, sometimes by six horses, rolled wearily along, but the pleasant anticipation of rest at the neighboring inn, and the recollection of its well-filled crib, urged the exhausted steeds to new efforts of their almost failing strength. The lighter farm-carts, full of sweet hay or perfumed clover, upon which lay the rosy-cheeked farm-boys almost buried in their beds of fragrance, easily passed these lumbering trains. With his coarse boots fastened to the dusty wallet which hung upon his back, and his feet wrapped round with bloody bands of dusty linen, the tired wanderer limped painfully on, carefully selecting the grass which grew along the edge of the footpath, because its fresh and dewy growth soothed and cooled the burning of his blistered and wounded feet.

All were seeking the same goal, all moving towards the little town from whose glimmering windows the hospitable lights already began to gleam through the deepening twilight, although a rosy and still glowing pile of clouds on the verge of the western horizon yet waved a farewell greeting from the parting sun.

The highways were soon deserted, and the whole neighborhood was quiet. Only a solitary woman was now to be seen slowly moving along the pathway; she seemed very much tired, and, seating herself upon the ground, she took a heavy basket from her back, and carefully unbound the cloth which was knotted over it. She then looked cautiously around her in every direction; scarcely breathing, in the earnestness of her search, no nook or corner escaped the prying eagerness of her gaze. A dead silence reigned around, only broken by a confused murmur from the town and the distant barking of dogs. Twilight was entirely over, and a few stars only twinkled in the skies. The woman then rose from the ground, carefully hid her basket in a little ditch, after having taken a thickly veiled object from it, which she carried in her arms to a thicket of hazel-bushes, which separated a piece of meadow ground from a field newly ploughed. She laid the veiled object softly down in the high grass, and was hastening rapidly away, when the screams of a child were heard proceeding from the hazel-bushes. Without once looking behind her, the woman continued to hurry on, but the screams of the child grew louder and louder, and forced her, however reluctant she might be, to return. With her hand threateningly raised over the child, and her voice full of stifled rage, she cried,--

"Will you quit screaming instantly, you little screech-owl? If you don't, I'll whip you soundly!"

"Do--do--take itty boy!" sobbed the lisping accents of a child's voice.

"Be quiet, and don't dare to stir from this spot, and go to sleep immediately. Do you hear? Or--"

A heavy blow accompanied this threat. The child gave a loud shriek, but soon suppressed his cries; even his faint sobs grew by degrees less and less audible, until at last no evidence was given that he still lived. The woman remained in the bushes, sitting beside the child whom she had carried from her basket to that secluded spot.

It grew darker and darker, and the timid child anxiously seized the rough hand which had just beaten him; as he had been told to go to sleep, he closed his eyes in fear and trembling, and soon sunk to rest. As he slept tranquilly and soundly, the grasp of the twining fingers grew looser, the little hand opened, while the woman drew hers from the clinging clasp, and lightly, gently, and noiselessly slipped away. With flying feet, she hastened back to the place in which she had left her basket, fastened it quickly upon her back, and, as if able to pierce the surrounding gloom, threw a searching glance in every direction, and then, as if goaded by the fell fiends of a wicked conscience, rapidly fled along the highway upon which she had first appeared. She soon vanished in the darkness of night.

The forsaken child slumbered softly on. The bright stars looked inquiringly through the leaves, and mirrored themselves in the tears which still hung on the long eyelashes of the little sleeper. A flashing gleam of white light suddenly broke in through the clustering leaves of the hazel-bushes.

A glittering form stood at the side of the helpless infant; she spread her arms over him as if to bless him, and, bending lightly down to him, she imprinted a long and lingering kiss upon his pale, broad brow. The child smiled even in his sleep, and longingly stretched out his arms towards the form of light which still continued to bend fondly o'er him. She stroked the clustering curls tenderly back from the spot which she had just touched with her lips, and the pale brow glittered and gleamed with the bright yet mild radiance, which, like a light seen through a vase of alabaster, seemed to pervade her own aerial figure. She shone, as if the holy starlight had been condensed into a human form to bless and consecrate the helpless innocent. Lightly and gently she passed her transparent hand over the sleeping child.

Suddenly a mighty angel, with wings of pure and dazzling lustre, stood at the head of the little sleeper.

"What are you doing here, with the little immortal whom the Holy One has committed to my care?" said the angel, earnestly, to the spirit, who glittered as if made of starlight.

"I have consecrated the poor forsaken boy as my high-priest. I have kissed his pure brow, breathed the joy of art into his young soul, and thus secured his earthly bliss. Do you not recognize me, holy angel? I am the Spirit of Music!"

"Yes, I know you well," answered the earnest angel. "But I know, too, that if your gifts often lead to heaven, they sometimes also lead to hell! Alas! how many of those whom I once loved are now forced to mourn that you ever accorded to them your protection, since your gift has only led them to the home of the fallen angels!"

The starry form reproachfully answered: "Am I, then, justly responsible for the evils which result from the ruined nature of man? The source of music springs in heaven! Do not the angels strike the harp, and sing eternal praises round the high throne of God himself?"

"They do, and I cannot justly complain of you," answered the guardian angel. "Your gift is indeed a godlike one, but it is also full of danger. Men are very frail; and pride and vanity are the evil germs which lie concealed in every human breast. To uproot these dangerous germs, to guard against their injurious growth, is our never-ending, yet often thankless, occupation; for the Angel of Darkness works against us, cultivating and fostering all that we have condemned. Unfortunately, he often gains the victory; for as the will of man is free, it depends chiefly upon himself whether he will embrace Light or Darkness. If the Evil One conquers, veiling our faces in sorrow, we sadly turn away, and are forced to leave our beloved charge for ever. What is more calculated to cultivate pride or vanity than any extraordinary gift which distinguishes man above his fellows? Thus I am forced to repeat, that your glorious present is still a dangerous one, which may easily become a stumbling-block, a stone of offence, upon which the immortal spirit may be wrecked for ever. For man is only too apt to become vain and presumptuous, to prefer himself to the great Giver of all faculties and arts, and, in the excess of his arrogance, to forget the Holy One, to whom all thanks and all honor are justly due, to whose high service thou, O glittering Spirit of Music! hast ever been firmly attached! Thou seest now why I tremble for the soul of this forsaken infant!"

"Thou art his guardian spirit, and it is best it should be so! Guard him, then, in such a way that he shall not be fed upon vanity, that he shall early learn to walk in the paths of religion, which also lead to the highest art. O no! no! Fold thy white and shining wings closely around him! My kiss will not lead him to destruction; it shall only brighten the rough and dark path of life for his tender heart! I have consecrated him to art; do then thy part, and educate him for heaven! Guard him well, for my kiss has made him sacred! We meet again! Farewell!"

The star-bright spirit vanished; but the earnest angel knelt in prayer beside the deserted boy, covering the fragile body, that the baneful night-dews might not destroy it, with the glittering and snowy, yet warm and tender, sweep of the drooping, sheltering wings.

WALTER AND MOTHER BOPP.

"Women are soft, mild, pitiable, flexible; But thou art obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless."

Clear and bright rose the sun on the following morning. The birds warbled, and the mowers were whetting their scythes in the fields. A butcher's boy from the town, occupied in the business of his master, was going, accompanied by his large dog, to the neighboring village, and thought it best to take the short cut through the meadow. But the dog suddenly ran to the little copse of hazel-bushes, shoved his shaggy head deep in among the leaves, growled, and then sprang barking back to his master, rapidly bounded off again to the thicket, and did everything in his power to awaken the attention of his owner.

"Something must certainly be in there," thought the boy, as he hurried to the spot where the dog was still standing and barking, to see if he could discover anything. He drew the branches asunder, looked carefully around him, and at last saw a sleeping child.

"What can be the meaning of all this?" he muttered to himself, as he pressed into the thicket. "The deuce take me if it isn't a poor forsaken child! There seems to be a card or a letter pinned upon his breast. The mother who could do such a wicked thing must have had the heart of a vulture! What a beautiful little fellow! Can the poor little rascal have spent the whole night here? I suppose he has, for he looks blue and frozen with the cold! What am I to do with him? If he should waken up and cry, it would drive me crazy, for I am sure I wouldn't know how to quiet him. Oh! now I know what to do with him! I will run back to the town and tell the squire about it, for the child is lying between his two fields; he has plenty, and will take care of him. I will leave my piece of bread close by him, lest he should waken up and cry for hunger. Now I must be off, for I have no time to lose!"

The boy soon carried his design into execution. The information that a child, a foundling, had been left upon his land, in the hazel-bushes which separated his meadows from his grain-fields, was given to the squire as he sat at breakfast. The squire frowned, and wanted to hear nothing more about the infant who had been placed upon his farm. In the mean while, some of the people of the town, and some of the servants of the squire, were sent out to see what the truth of the matter really was.

Mayor, squire, and magistrates were soon assembled in the council hall, to draw up a record, and to consider what it was best, under the circumstances, to do. The sheriff held the foundling in his arms, and the little fellow looked around him as if quite unconcerned about the matter, while he was busily employed in consuming the hard piece of brown bread which had been given to him by the good-hearted butcher's boy.

The child was stripped, in accordance with the command of the squire, in order that the letter, which was firmly sewed to his dress, might be more conveniently read, and also to ascertain if any distinctive mark could be found upon his body. The boy was clad in a dark woollen frock, whose color had become almost undiscernible through constant use, and a fine linen-cambric shirt, without any mark. A little round locket of some worthless metal was fastened round his neck with a silken cord, but all attempts to open the lid were in vain. Either it was not made to open, or the spring which closed it was so hidden that none but those already in the secret could find it out. This little locket gave rise to the supposition that, although the boy seemed, at the present moment, to be utterly forsaken, yet those who had deserted him still preserved a wish to be able to identify him at some future period of his life.

The letter was very badly written, and read as follows:--

"My name it is Walter. Though still very young, I have known want and care, As to you I have sung; Whoe'er will receive me Will not be ashamed, If once in his hearing My lineage is named. My parents are dead, They sleep sound in the grave: Alone they have left me, Strange sufferings to brave. I dare say nothing further: Yet pity my grief, Help me in my sorrow, And yield me relief! O, shelter me, women! And harbor me, men! O, save me from famine! In God's name,--Amen!"

Mayor, squire, and magistrates looked inquiringly at each other. Many guesses were made, many suppositions proposed to solve the mystery, and the most searching inquiries were to be immediately instituted, with a view of finding out who had been guilty of exposing the unfortunate boy to the solitude and darkness of the past night. In the mean time, it was determined that the child should be taken care of, and, after a protracted discussion, it was finally resolved that he should be boarded with one of the poor families of the village, and that his expenses should be paid out of the revenues of the town. The people were then called together, in order to make them acquainted with the occurrences which we have just related, and the boy was finally apprenticed to the one who was willing to take him at the lowest rate. The town-fiddler, Bopp, had offered to feed and clothe him for so small a sum, that the poor foundling, utterly unconscious of how destiny was disposing of him, was given over to his charge. As he took the helpless infant in his arms, to carry it home to its new brothers and sisters, it grasped his hand with its tiny fingers, and smiled friendlily in his face.

"Maggie! don't pound so with your feet, for you shake the table so that my writing is blotted, and my letters all humpbacked!" said Conrad, gruffly, to his sister, who was sitting beside him.

"What has the pounding of my feet to do with the shape of your letters, I should like to know?" answered Maggie. "I can't help doing it, at any rate; I must beat the time when father plays, it helps me on with my knitting. If you would only be more careful, you would write better. Look here, what a long piece I have knit in my stocking!"

With a rapid movement, she held her long blue stocking up immediately in front of her brother's face; but as she did so, she awkwardly gave a great push to his elbow, and so jostled his arm, that it drove the pen full of ink entirely across his copy-book, and spoiled the appearance of the whole page. Crimson with rage, the boy gave the little girl a violent box upon the ears. Maggie shrieked loudly, and tried to revenge herself in the same way. Thus a fierce battle began at the table, round which the children were engaged in their studies. Not far from it two fat, ruddy little boys were playing with the black house-cat. Conrad and Maggie had wrestled and struggled forward until they were close upon the little ones; Maggie stumbled over the cat, and fell upon her little brothers. The children screamed, the cat yelled, so that the baby in the cradle was waked up, and soon added his cries to the general uproar. Quite undisturbed by all this frightful tumult, Father Bopp stood tranquilly at the window, and practised a dance upon the clarionet.

He was a little, slender man, and blew with his cheeks puffed out into his instrument. His tailor-work, the signs of his daily occupation, hung upon the wall, between his fiddles and horns. He was so accustomed to the noise of the children, that he continued his practising without appearing in the least disturbed by their deafening din. As tranquil as the musician himself, as undisturbed by all that was going on in the dark, dirty room, a beautiful little boy of about five years old sat quietly at his feet. With his large, dark eyes fastened upon the face of the father, his bare legs doubled up under him, he supported himself, half reclining, upon his left hand, while with the right he beat the time lightly, but accurately, upon his naked knee. He was wretchedly clothed; his torn coat of dark-blue linsey was a great deal too short, and, as it had neither buttons nor hooks to keep it together, it gaped widely in front, exposing his breast and shoulders to view, whose soft forms shone in their warm brown tints. His dark, full curls fell uncombed and uncared for over his rounded forehead and blooming face.

"Potz tausend! Odds bodikins! What a noise you are making there!" called the mother from the adjoining kitchen. In the same moment she made her appearance at the smoky door. She was a stout, strong woman, her thick and coarse blond hair fell in uncombed masses from what had once been a black velvet cap, but which had now assumed a gray tint from age and constant wear. A gray petticoat, a long red jacket, a red and black plaid neck-handkerchief, and a blue cotton apron, completed the costume of the mother, whose clothing, as well as her full, red face, bore visible marks of the life of the kitchen. Armed with a broom, she sprang into the sitting-room, and brandished it over the heads of the children, who were still tumbling about upon the floor.

"Will you be quiet, you noisy brats?" she loudly cried. "Get up from the floor, instantly! What has happened? O, do quit that everlasting blowing upon the clarionet, man! It is impossible to hear one's own voice with such an incessant clatter! Which of you began it?"

"Conrad struck me!" screamed Maggie.

"Maggie pushed my elbow when I was writing, and I shall be kept in for it to-morrow!"

"They both fell over me, and the cat scratched me!"

"They hurt my foot!"

"They knocked me in the head!"

Thus the children cried and screamed confusedly together, while the baby in the cradle shrieked until it lost its breath.

"Silence!" commanded the mother, accompanying her order with a heavy thump of the broom-handle upon the floor.

"What are you doing there, Walter?" she angrily cried. "Are you sitting there again, with your eyes and mouth wide open, staring at your noisy father, instead of rocking the cradle, as I ordered you to do? Wait, you little good-for-nothing,--I'll give it to you!"

With a single bound, she stood by the frightened boy, tore him up by the arms, slung him round with rude force, and then shook him fiercely. Then she dragged him to the corner in which the cradle stood, and, pushing him down by it, she said: "Sit here upon the floor, and don't stir a single inch; and don't let me hear a single tone, a single sound, from your ugly lips!"

She held her red fist, doubled up, threateningly before his eyes. The poor child pressed his lovely face closely upon the dirty floor, to try to stifle the loud sobs of pain which broke from his wounded body and his crushed spirit.

In the mean time the children had become more tranquil. Conrad was rubbing out the ugly stroke which marred the beauty of his copy-book; Maggie tried to take up the stitches which had fallen, when she pulled one of the needles out of the long blue stocking; and the two little boys had run into the kitchen to hunt the black cat, which had taken refuge under the table. The tailor-musician had put up his instrument in its allotted place, put on his blue cloth roundabout, and, taking his hat from the nail, was blowing the dust off it, as he said lightly to his wife, who was trying to quiet the baby: "Listen to me, wife! Walter had nothing at all to do with the noise and screaming of the children; so don't be cross to him about it, will you?"

"What's that to you, I should like to know? Mind your own business, and don't meddle yourself in things that don't concern you. Stick to your needle and your fiddle: what do you know about children? That's my business; and, potz tausend! I should like to see the man who would dare to meddle in my affairs!"

"I am sure I have no wish to do it," said the crest-fallen little tailor, "but you must not abuse Walter; for although he is so very young, he can already play three dances upon the fife; in another year, I can take him about with me when I play at the balls; and thus he will soon be able to gain money for us all."

"Indeed!" cried the woman, scornfully. "He is a little miracle in your eyes! But mark well what I say; if I don't keep your infant miracle in order, he'll soon become a monstrous good-for-nothing. Odds bodikins, but I intend to do it, too! Now go about your business at once, and don't bother me with any more of your ridiculous nonsense!"

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