Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands, Hezekiah Butterworth [best short novels .txt] 📗
- Author: Hezekiah Butterworth
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TOWER OF RÜDESHEIM ON THE RHINE.
When the Northern nations shattered the Roman power, people imagined that the dismantled castles of the Rhine became the abodes of mysterious beings: spirits of the rocks, forests, fens; strange maidens of the red marshes; enchanters, demons; the streams were the abodes of lovely water nymphs; the glens of the woods, of delightful fairies.
Into these regions of shadow, mystery, of heroic history, of moral conflicts and Christian triumphs, it is always interesting to go. It is especially interesting to the American traveller, for his form of Christianity and republican principles came from the Rhine. Progress to him was cradled on the Rhine, like Moses on the Nile. In the Rhine lands Luther taught, and Robinson of Leyden lived and prayed; and from those lands to-day comes the great emigration that is peopling the golden empire of America in the West. “I would be proud of the Rhine were I a German,” said Longfellow. “I love rivers,” said Victor Hugo; “of all rivers I prefer the Rhine.”
It is our purpose in this story-telling volume to relate why the Zigzag Club was led to make the Rhine the subject of its winter evening study, and to give an account of an excursion that some of its members had made from Constance to Rotterdam and into the countries of the North Sea.
Ye castles and churches, ye hamlets serene,
Ye cornfields, that wave in the breeze as it sweeps,
Ye forests and ravines, ye towering steeps,
Ye mountains e’er clad in the sun-illumed vine!
Wherever I go is my heart on the Rhine!
In the maze of the dance, o’er the goblet and song.
All hail, beloved race, men so honest and true,
And maids who speak raptures with eyes of bright blue!
May success round your brows e’er its garlands entwine!
Wherever I go is my heart on the Rhine!
On the Rhine is my heart, where encradled I lay,
Where around me friends bloom, where I dreamt away youth,
Where the heart of my love glows with rapture and truth!
May for me your hearts e’er the same jewels enshrine.
Wherever I go is my heart on the Rhine!”
Wolfgang Müller.
CHAPTER II. GHOST STORIES.The Zigzag Club again.—Some “Ghost” Stories.
THE Academy had opened again. September again colored the leaves of the old elms of Yule. The Blue Hills, as lovely as when the Northmen beheld them nearly nine hundred years ago, were radiant with the autumn tinges of foliage and sky, changing from turquoise to sapphire in the intense twilight, and to purple as the shades of evening fell.
The boys were back again, all except the graduating class, some of whom were at Harvard, Brown, and Yale. Master Lewis was in his old place, and Mr. Beal was again his assistant.
The Zigzag Club was broken by the final departure of the graduating class. But Charlie Leland, William Clifton, and Herman Reed, who made a journey on the Rhine under the direction of Mr. Beal, had returned, and they had been active members of the school society known as the Club.
We should say here, to make the narrative clear to those who have not read “Zigzag Journeys in Classic Lands” and “Zigzag Journeys in the Orient,” that the boys of the Academy of Yule had been accustomed each year to form a society for the study of the history, geography, legends, and household stories of some chosen country, and during the long summer vacation as many of the society as could do so, visited, under the direction of their teachers, the lands about which they had studied. This society was called the Zigzag Club, because it aimed to visit historic places without regard to direct routes of travel. It zigzagged in its travels from the associations of one historic story to another, and was influenced by the school text-book or the works of some pleasing author, rather than the guide-book.
The Zigzag books have been kindly received;[1] and we may here remark parenthetically that they do not aim so much to present narratives of travel as the histories, traditions, romances, and stories of places. They seek to tell stories at the places where the events occurred and amid the associations of the events that still remain. The Zigzag Club go seeking what is old rather than what is new, and thus change the past tense of history to the present tense.
[1] More than one hundred thousand volumes have been sold.
Charlie Leland was seated one day on the piazza of the Academy, after school, reading Hawthorne’s “Twice-Told Tales.” Master Lewis presently took a seat beside him; and “Gentleman Jo,” whom we introduced to our readers in “Zigzags in the Occident,” was resting on the steps near them.
Gentleman Jo was the janitor. He was a relative of Master Lewis, and a very intelligent man. He had been somewhat disabled in military service in the West, and was thus compelled to accept a situation at Yule that was quite below his intelligence and personal worth. The boys loved and respected him, sought his advice often, and sometimes invited him to meetings of their Society.
“Have you called together the Club yet?” asked Master Lewis of Charlie, when the latter had ceased reading.
“We had an informal meeting in my room last evening.”
“What is your plan of study?”
MOUNTAIN SCENERY IN SOUTHERN GERMANY.
“We have none as yet,” said Charlie. “We are to have a meeting next week for the election of officers, and for literary exercises we have agreed to relate historic ghost stories. We asked Tommy Toby to be present, and he promised to give us for the occasion his version of ‘St. Dunstan and the Devil and the Six Boy Kings.’ I hardly know what the story is about, but the title sounds interesting.”
“What made you choose ghost stories?” asked Master Lewis, curiously.
“You gave us Irving and Hawthorne to read in connection with our lessons on American literature. ‘Rip Van Winkle,’ ‘Sleepy Hollow,’ and ‘Twice-Told Tales’ turned our thoughts to popular superstitions; and, as they made me chairman, I thought it an interesting subject just now to present to the Club.”
“More interesting than profitable, I am thinking. Still, the subject might be made instructive and useful as well as amusing.”
“Did you ever see a ghost?” asked Charlie of Gentleman Jo, after Master Lewis left them.
“We thought we had one in our house, when I was living with my sister in Hingham, before the war. Hingham used to be famous for its ghost stories; an old house without its ghost was thought to lack historic tone and finish.”
Gentleman Jo took a story-telling attitude, and a number of the pupils gathered around him.
GENTLEMAN JO’S GHOST STORY.I shall never forget the scene of excitement, when one morning Biddy, our domestic, entered the sitting-room, her head bobbing, her hair flying, and her cap perched upon the top of her head, and exclaimed: “Wurrah! I have seen a ghoust, and it’s lave the hoose I must. Sich a night! I’d niver pass anither the like of it for the gift o’ the hoose. Bad kick to ye, an’ the hoose is haunted for sure.”
“Why, Biddy, what have you seen?” asked my sister, in alarm.
“Seen? An’ sure I didn’t see nothin’. I jist shet me eyes and hid mesilf under the piller. But it was awful. An’ the way it clanked its chain! O murther!”
This last remark was rather startling. Spirits that clank their chains have a very unenviable reputation.
“Pooh!” said my uncle. “What you heard was nothing but rats.” Then, turning to me, he asked: “Where is the steel trap?”
“Stolen, I think,” said I. “I set it day before yesterday, and when I went to look to it it was gone.”
“An’ will ye be givin’ me the wages?” said Biddy, “afore I bid ye good-marnin’?”
“Going?” asked my sister, in astonishment.
“An’ sure I am,” answered Biddy. “Ye don’t think I’d be afther stayin’ in a house that’s haunted, do ye?”
In a few minutes I heard the front door bang, and, looking out, saw our late domestic, with a budget on each arm, trudging off as though her ideas were of a very lively character.
A colored woman, recently from the South, took Biddy’s place that very day, and was assigned the same room in which the latter had slept.
We had invited company for that evening, and some of the guests remained to a very late hour.
The sound of voices subsided as one after another departed, and we were left quietly chatting with the few who remained. Suddenly there was a mysterious movement at one of the back parlor doors, and we saw two white eyes casting furtive glances into the room.
“What’s wanted?” demanded my sister, of the object at the door.
“I’VE SEEN DE DEBBLE.”
Our new domestic appeared in her night clothes.
“O missus, I’ve seen de debble, I done have,” was her first exclamation.
This, certainly, was not a sight that we should wish any one to see in our house, as desirable as a dignified spectre might have been.
“Pooh!” said my sister. “What a silly creature! Go back to bed and to sleep, and do not shame us by appearing before company in your night clothes.”
“I don’t keer nothing about my night clothes,” she replied, with spirit. “Jes’ go to de room and git de things dat belong to me, an’ I’ll leave, and never disturb you nor dis house any more. It’s dreadful enough to be visited by dead folks, any way, but when de spirits comes rattling a chain it’s a dreadful bad sign, you may be sure.”
“What did you see?” asked I.
“See? I didn’t see nothin’. ’Twas bad enough to hear it. I wouldn’t hav’ seen it for de world. I’ll go quick—jest as soon as you gets de things.”
We made her a bed on a lounge below stairs. The next morning she took her bundles and made a speedy exit.
We had a maiden aunt who obtained a livelihood by visiting her relations. On the morning when our last domestic left she arrived, bag and baggage, greatly to our annoyance. We said nothing about the disturbances to her, but agreed among ourselves that she should sleep in the haunted chamber.
That night, about twelve o’clock, the household were awakened by a piercing scream above stairs. All was silent for a few minutes, when the house echoed with the startling cry of “Murder! Murder! Murder!” The accent was very strong on the last syllable in the last two words, as though the particular force of the exclamation was therein contained.
I hurried to the chamber and asked at the door what was the matter.
“I have seen an apparatus,” exclaimed my aunt. “Murder! Oh, wait a minute. I’m a dead woman.”
She unlocked the door in a delirious way and descended to the sitting-room, where she sat sobbing for a long time, declaring that she was a dead woman. She had heard his chain rattle.
And the next morning she likewise left.
We now felt uneasy ourselves, and wondered what marvel the following night would produce. I examined the room carefully during the day, but could discover no traces of anything unusual.
That night we were again awakened by noises that proceeded from the same room. They seemed like
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