The Headsman, James Fenimore Cooper [top 100 books to read TXT] 📗

the wind to the shorn lamb.

"We knew we were all to each other," he continued, after briefly alluding to the early history of their births and love; "and we felt the necessity of living for ourselves. Ye that are born to honors, who meet with smiles and respectful looks in all ye meet, can know little of the feeling which binds together the unhappy. When God gave us our first-born, as he lay a smiling babe in her lap, looking up into her eye with the innocence that most likens man to angels, Marguerite shed bitter tears at the thought of such a creature's being condemned by the laws to shed the blood of men. The reflection that he was to live for ever an outcast from his kind was bitter to a mother's heart. We had made many offers to the canton to be released ourselves, from this charge; we had prayed them--Herr Melchior, you should know how earnestly we have prayed the council, to be suffered to live like others, and without this accursed doom--but they would not. They said the usage was ancient, that change was dangerous, and that what God willed must come to pass. We could not bear that the burthen we found so hard to endure ourselves should go down for ever as a curse upon our descendants, Herr Doge," he continued, raising his meek face in the pride of honesty; "it is well for those who are the possessors of honors to be proud of their privileges; but when the inheritance is one of wrongs and scorn, when the evil eyes of our fellows are upon us, the heart sickens. Such was our feeling when we looked upon our first-born. The wish to save him from our own disgrace was uppermost, and we bethought us of the means."

"Ay!" sternly interrupted Marguerite, "I parted with my child, and silenced a mother's longings, proud nobles, that he might not become the tool of your ruthless policy; I gave up a mother's joy in nourishing and in cherishing her young, that the little innocent might live among his fellows, as God had created him, their equal and not their victim!"

Balthazar paused, as was usual with him when ever his energetic wife manifested any of her strong and masculine qualities, and then, when deep silence had followed her remark, he proceeded.

"We wanted not for wealth; all we asked was to be like others in the world's respect. With our money it was very easy to find those in another canton, who were willing to take the little Sigismund into their keeping. After which, a feigned death, and a private burial, did the rest. The deceit was easily practised, for as few cared for the griefs as for the happiness of the headsman's family The child had drawn near the end of its first year, when I was called upon to execute my office on a stranger. The criminal had taken life in a drunken brawl in one of the towns of the canton, and he was said to be a man that had trifled with the precious gifts of birth, it being suspected that he was noble. I went with a heavy heart, for never did I strike a blow without praying God it might be the last; but it was heavier when I reached the place where the culprit awaited his fate. The tidings of my poor son's death reached me as I put foot on the threshold of the desolate prison, and I turned aside to weep for my own woes, before I entered to see my victim. The condemned man had great unwillingness to die; he had sent for me many hours before the fatal moment, to make acquaintance, as he said, with the hand that was to dispatch him to the presence of his last and eternal judge."

Balthazar paused; he appeared to meditate on a scene that had probably left indelible impressions on his mind. Shuddering involuntarily, he raised his eyes from the pavement of the chapel, and continued the recital, always in the same subdued and tranquil manner.

"I have been the unwilling instrument of many a violent death--I have seen the most reckless sinners in the agonies of sudden and compelled repentance, but never have I witnessed so wild and fearful a struggle between earth and heaven--the world and the grave--passion and the rebuke of Providence--as attended the last hours of that unhappy man! There were moments in which the mild spirit of Christ won upon his evil mood 'tis true; but the picture was, in general, that of revenge so fierce, that the powers of hell alone could give it birth in a human heart. He had with him an infant of an age just, fitted to be taken from the breast. This child appeared to awaken the fiercest conflicting feelings; he both yearned over it and detested its sight, though hatred seemed most to prevail."

"This was horrible!" murmured the Doge.

"It was the more horrible, Herr Doge, that it should come from one who was justly condemned to the axe. He rejected the priests; he would have naught of any but me. My soul lothed the wretch--yet so few ever showed an interest in us--and it would have been cruel to desert a dying man! At the end, he placed the child in my care, furnishing more gold than was sufficient to rear it frugally to the age of manhood, and leaving other valuables which I have kept as proofs that might some day be useful. All I could learn of the infant's origin was simply this. It came from Italy, and of Italian parents; its mother died soon after its birth,"--a groan escaped the Doge--"its father still lived, and was the object of the criminal's implacable hatred, as its mother had been of his ardent love; its birth was noble, and it had been baptized in the bosom of the church by the name of Gaetano."

"It must be he!--it is--it must be my beloved son!--" exclaimed the Doge, unable to control himself any longer. He spread wide his arms, and Sigismund threw himself upon his bosom, though there still remained fearful apprehensions that all he heard was a dream. "Go on--go on--excellent Balthazar," added the Signor Grimaldi, drying his eyes, and struggling to command himself. "I shall have no peace until all is revealed to the last syllable of thy wonderful, thy glorious tale!"

"There remains but little more to say, Herr Doge. The fatal hour arrived, and the criminal was transported to the place where he was to give up his life. While seated in the chair in which he received the fatal blow, his spirit underwent infernal torments. I have reason to think that there were moments when he would gladly have made his peace with God. But the demons prevailed; he died in his sins! From the hour when he committed the little Gaetano to my keeping, I did not cease to entreat to be put in possession of the secret of the child's birth, but the sole answer I received was an order to appropriate the gold to my own uses, and to adopt the boy as my own. The sword was in my hand, and the signal to strike was given, when, for the last time, I asked the name of the infant's family and country, as a duty I could not neglect. 'He is thine--he is thine--' was the answer; 'tell me, Balthazar, is thy office hereditary, as is wont in these regions?' I was compelled, as ye know, to say it was. 'Then adopt the urchin; rear him to fatten on the blood of his fellows!' It was mockery to trifle with such a spirit. When his head fell, if still bad on its fierce features traces of the infernal triumph with which his spirit departed!"

"The monster was a just sacrifice to the laws of the canton!" exclaimed the single-minded bailiff. "Thou seest, Herr Melchior, that we do well in arming the hand of the executioner, in spite of all the sentiment of the weak-minded. Such a wretch was surely unworthy to live."

This burst of official felicitation from Peterchen, who rarely neglected an occasion to draw a conclusion favorable to the existing order of things, like most of those who reap their exclusive advantage, and to the prejudice of innovation, produced little attention; all present were too much absorbed in the facts related by Balthazar, to turn aside; to speak, or think, of other matters.

"What became of the boy?" demanded the worthy clavier, who had taken as deep an interest as the rest, in the progress of the narrative.

"I could not desert him, father; nor did I wish to. He came into my guardianship at a moment when God, to reprove our repinings at a lot that he had chosen to impose, had taken our own little Sigismund to heaven. I filled the place of the dead infant with my living charge; I gave to him the name of my own son, and I can say confidently, that I transferred to him the love I had borne my own issue; though time, and use, and a knowledge of the child's character, were perhaps necessary to complete the last. Marguerite never knew the deception, though a mother's instinct and tenderness took the alarm and raised suspicions. We have never spoken freely on this together, and like you, she now heareth the truth for the first time."

"'Twas a fearful mystery between God and my own heart!" murmured the woman; "I forbore to trouble it--Sigismund, or Gaetano, or whatever you will have his name, filled my affections, and I strove to be satisfied. The boy is dear to me, and ever will be, though you seat him on a throne; but Christine--the poor stricken Christine--is truly the child of my bosom!"

Sigismund went and knelt at the feet of her whom he had ever believed his mother, and earnestly begged her blessing and continued affection. The tears streamed from Marguerite's eyes, as she willingly bestowed the first, and promised never to withhold the last.

"Hast thou any of the trinkets or garments that were given thee with the child, or canst render an account of the place where they are still to be found?" demanded the Doge, whose whole mind was too deeply set on appeasing his doubts to listen to aught else.

"They are all here in the convent. The gold has been fairly committed to Sigismund, to form his equipment as a soldier. The child was kept apart, receiving such education as a learned priest could give till of an age to serve, and then I sent him to bear arms in Italy, which I knew to be the country of his birth, though I never knew to what Prince his allegiance was due. The time had now come when I thought it due to the youth to let him know the real nature of the tie between us; but I shrank from paining Marguerite and myself, and I even did his heart the credit to believe that he would rather belong to us, humble and despised though we be, than find himself a nameless outcast, without home, country, or parentage. It was necessary, however, to speak, and it was my purpose to reveal the truth, here at the convent, in the presence of Christine. For this reason, and to enable Sigismund to make inquiries for his family, the effects received from the unhappy criminal with the child were placed among his baggage secretly. They are, at this moment, on the mountain."

The venerable old prince trembled violently; for, with the intense feeling of one who dreaded that his dearest hopes might yet be disappointed, he feared, while he most wished,