Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands, Hezekiah Butterworth [best short novels .txt] 📗
- Author: Hezekiah Butterworth
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The maiden ascended the hill to the very rock from which the student had first seen the town, and under which he had rested.
“Sit you here,” she said, “and do not leave the place until the cocks crow for morning. A true heart never perished with the untrue. My duty is done. Farewell!”
“But the tempest?” said the student. “This is no place of shelter. Let me return with you, only until to-morrow.”
There burst upon the hill a terrific thunder-gust. The maiden was gone, the black cloud swept over the moon, and Lek could no longer discern the town in the valley. Everything around him grew dark. The air seemed to turn into a thick inky darkness.
Fearful flashes of lightning and terrific thunder followed. The wind bent the forest before it; but not a drop of rain fell.
There was a moment’s silence. The bell in the mysterious steeple smote upon the air. It was midnight.
Another hush, as though Nature had ceased to breathe. Then a thunder-crash shook the hills, and seemed to cleave open the very earth.
Lek crossed himself and fell upon his knees. The cloud passed swiftly. The moon came out again, revealing the lovely valley. The village was gone.
In the morning a cowherd came up the hill at the rising of the sun.
“Good morrow,” said Lek. “That was a fearful tempest that we had at midnight.”
“I never heard such thunder,” said the cowherd. “I almost thought that the final day had come. You may well say it was a fearful night, my boy.”
THE NECKAR.
“But what has become of the village that was in the valley yesterday?” asked Lek.
“There is no village in the valley,” said the cowherd. “There never was but one. That was sunk hundreds of years ago; if you saw any village there yesterday it was that: it comes up only once in a hundred years, and then it remains for only a single day. Woe betide the traveller that stops there that day. Unless he have a true heart, he goes down with the town at midnight. The town was cursed because it waxed rich, and became so wicked that there was found in it but one heart that was true.”
“Tell me about this strange village,” said Lek, in fear and awe, recalling his adventure. “I never before heard of a thing so mysterious.”
“It is a sorry story. I will tell it as I have heard it.
“The hills of Reichmanndorf used to abound with gold, and the people of the old town all became rich; but their riches did not make them happy and contented. It made them untrue.
“The more their wealth increased, the more unfaithful they became, until the men met in the market-place daily to defraud each other, and the women’s only purpose in life was to display their vanity.
“At the inn were nightly carousals. The young men thought only of their gains and dissipations. Men were untrue to their families, and lovers to their vows.
“The Sabbath was not kept. The old priest, Van Ness, said masses to the empty aisles.
“In those evil days lived one Frederic Wollin. He was a brave man, and his soul was true.
“It was the custom of this good man to instruct the people in the market-place. But at last none came to hear him.
“One day, near Christmas, the council met. Wine flowed; rude jests went round. The question was discussed as to how these days of selfish delights might be made perpetual.
“A great cry arose:—
“‘Banish the holy days: then all our to-morrows will be as to-day!’
“Then Wollin arose and faced the people. His appearance was met by a tumult, and his words increased the hatred long felt against him.
“‘The days of evil have no to-morrows.’ he said. ‘He that liveth to himself is dead.’
“‘Give him a holy day once in a hundred years!’ cried one.
“The voice was hailed with cheers. The council voted that all future days should be as that day, except that Wollin and the old priest, Van Ness, should have a holy day once in a hundred years.
“Christmas came. No bell was rung; no chant was heard. Easter brought flowers to the woods, but none to the altar. Purple Pentecost filled the forest villages with joy; but here no one cared to recall the descent of the celestial fire except the old priest and Wollin.
“It was such a night as last night when Van Ness and Wollin came out of the church for the last time. The people were drinking at the inn, and dancing upon the green. Spring was changing into deep summer; the land was filled with blooms.
“A party of young men who had been carousing, on seeing Wollin come from the church, set upon him, and compelled him to leave the town. He came up this hill. When he had reached the top, he paused and lifted his face towards heaven, and stretched out his hand. As he did so, a sharp sound rent the valley, and caused the hills to tremble. He looked down. The village had disappeared. Only Van Ness was standing by his side.
“But as the villagers had promised Wollin a holy day once in a hundred years, so once in a hundred years these people are permitted to rise with their village into the light of the sun for a single day. If on that day a stranger visits them whose heart is untrue he disappears with them at midnight. Such is the story. You will hardly believe it true.”
The student crossed himself, and went on his journey towards the Rhine.
“They have one day in a hundred years,” he said. “How precious must that one day be to them! If I enter the ways of evil, and my heart becomes untrue, shall I have one day in one hundred years when life is ended and my account to Heaven is rendered?”
He thought. He read the holy books. He tried to find a single hope for an untrue soul; but he could discover none.
Then he said,—
“The days of evil have no to-morrows,—no, not once in a hundred years. Only good deeds have to-morrows. I will be true: so shall to-morrows open and close like golden doors until time is lost in the eternal.” And his heart remained true.
CHAPTER XIV. THE SONGS OF THE RHINE.The Watchman’s Song.—The Wild Hunt of Lützow.—The Author of the Erl King.—Beethoven’s Boyhood.—The Organ-Tempest of Lucerne.
RHINELAND is the land of song. It is the wings of song that have given it its fame. Every town on the Rhine has its own songs; every mountain, hill, and river.
America has few local songs,—few songs of the people. The singers who give voices to rivers, lakes, mountains, and valleys have not yet appeared. The local poets and singers of America are yet to come.
In England, Germany, and some of the provinces of France, every temple, stream, and grove has had its sweet singer.
Go to Basle, and you may hear the clubs singing the heroic songs of Alsace and Lorraine.
Go to Heidelberg, and you may listen to student-songs through which breathe the national spirit of hundreds of years.
The bands tell the story, legend, or romance of such towns at night, wherever they may play.
In one of the public grounds to which the Class went for an evening rest, one of the bands was playing the Fremersberg.
It related an old romance of the region of Baden-Baden: how that a nobleman was once wandering with his dogs in the mountains, and was overtaken by a storm; how he was about to perish when he heard the distant sounds of a monastery bell; how, following the direction of the sound, he heard a chant of priests; and how, at last, he was saved.
The piece was full of melody. The wind, the rain, the horns, the bells, the chant, while they told a story, were all delightfully melodious.
The ballad is almost banished from the intellectual American concert-rooms. In Germany a ballad is a gem, and is so valued. It is the best expression of national life and feeling.
The Class went to hear one of Germany’s greatest singers. She sang an heroic selection, and was recalled. Her first words on the recall hushed the audience: it was a ballad of the four stages of life. It began with an incident of a child dreaming under a rosebush:—
To play with the angels in Paradise,
And the years glide by.”
as an English translation gives it.
In the last stanza, the child having passed through the stages of life, was represented as again sleeping under a rosebush. The withered leaves fall upon his grave.
And silently cover a new-made mound,
And the years glide by.”
These last lines were rendered so softly, yet distinctly, that they seemed like tremulous sounds in the air. The singer’s face hardly appeared to move; every listener was like a statue. The silence was almost painful and impressive. One could but feel this was indeed art, and not a pretentious affectation of it.
AN OLD GERMAN TOWN.
The reign of the organ as the monarch of musical instruments began with Charlemagne, and nearly all of the towns on the Rhine have historic organs. Many of the organ pieces are local compositions and imitative. On the great organs at Basle and Frieburg the imitation of storms is sometimes produced.
None of these storm-pieces, however, equal that which is daily played in summer on the organ of Lucerne. This organ tempest more greatly excited the Class than any music that they heard during their journeys; and Master Beal made a record of it in verse, which we give at the close of the chapter.
The children of Germany learn to read music at the same age that they learn to read books. Music is a part of their primary school—Kindergarten—education. The poorest children are taught to sing.
THE RHINEFELS.
The consequence is that the Germans are a nation of singers. The organ is a power in the church, the military band at the festival, and the ballad in the concert-room and the home.
These ballad-loving people are familiar with the best music. To them music is a language. Says Mayhew, in his elaborate work on the Rhine, in speaking of the free education in music in Germany: “To tickle the gustatory nerves with either dainty food or drink costs some money; but to be able to reproduce the harmonious combinations of a Beethoven or a Weber, or to make the air tremble melodiously with some sweet and simple ballad, or even to recall the sonorous solemnities of some prayerful chorus or fine thanksgiving in an oratorio, is not only to fill the heart and brain with affections too deep for words, but it is to be able to taste as high a pleasure as the soul is capable of knowing, and yet one that may be had positively for nothing.”
It is to be regretted that so much of the good music of Germany is performed in the beer-gardens. The too free use of the glass and the pipe cannot tend to make the nation strong for the future; and one cannot long be charmed with the music and mirth of such places without fearing for the losses that may follow.
All trades and occupations have their own songs, even the humblest. Take for example the pleasing Miller’s Song, which catches the spirit of his somewhat poetic yet homely calling:—
To wander!
What kind of miller must he be,
Who ne’er hath
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