Short Stories, - [books to read fiction .txt] 📗

keep astir all night through, some one is always moving. I have lived here these thirty years, yet I cannot say that I have ever seen aught. If there be now and then a little hurly-burlying at nights, it is nothing but cats and martens rummaging about the granary. As a precaution I have provided you with candles; the night is no friend of man; and the tapers are consecrated, so that sprites, if there be such in the castle, will avoid their shine.”

It was no lying in mine host to say that he had never seen anything of spectres in the castle; for by night he had taken special care not once to set foot in it; and by day, the goblin did not come to sight. In the present case, too, the traitor would not risk himself across the border. After opening the door he handed Franz the basket, directed him what way to go, and wished him good-night. Franz entered the lobby without anxiety or fear, believing the ghost story to be empty tattle, or a tradition of some real occurrence in the place, which idle fancy had shaped into an unnatural adventure. He had laid it down as a rule deduced from experiences, when he heard any rumor, to believe exactly the reverse, and left the grain of truth which, in the opinion of the wise knight, always lies in such reports, entirely out of sight.

Pursuant to mine host’s direction, he ascended the winding stone stair; and reached a bolted door, which he opened with his key. A long, dark gallery, where his footsteps resounded, led him into a large hall, and from this, a side-door, into a suite of apartments, richly provided with all furniture for decoration or convenience. Out of these he chose the room which had the friendliest aspect, where he found a well-pillowed bed, and from the window could look right down upon the inn, and catch every loud word that was spoken there. He lit his wax-tapers, furnished his table, and feasted with the commodiousness and relish of an Otaheitean noble. The big-bellied flask was an antidote to thirst. So long as his teeth were in full occupation, he had no time to think of the reported devilry in the castle. If aught now and then made a stir in the distance, and Fear called to him, “Hark! hark! There comes the goblin;” Courage answered: “Stuff! it is cats and martens bickering and caterwauling.” But in the digestive half-hour after meat, when the sixth sense, that of hunger and thirst, no longer occupied the soul, she directed her attention from the other five exclusively upon the sense of hearing; and already Fear was whispering three timid thoughts into the listener’s ear, before Courage had time to answer once.

As the first resource, he locked the door, bolted it, and made his retreat to the walled seat in the vault of the window. He opened this, and to dissipate his thoughts a little, looked out on the spangled sky, gazed at the corroded moon, and counted how often the stars snuffed themselves. On the road beneath him all was void; and in spite of the pretended nightly bustle in the inn, the doors were shut, the lights out, and everything as still as in a sepulchre. On the other hand, the watchman blew his horn, making his “List, gentlemen!” sound over all the hamlet; and for the composure of the timorous astronomer, who still kept feasting his eyes on the splendor of the stars, uplifted a rusty evening hymn right under his window; so that Franz might easily have carried on a conversation with him, which, for the sake of company, he would willingly have done, had he in the least expected that the watchman would make answer to him.

In a populous city, in the middle of a numerous household, where there is a hubbub equal to that of a bee-hive, it may form a pleasant entertainment for the thinker to philosophize on solitude, to decorate her as the loveliest playmate of the human spirit, to view her under all her advantageous aspects, and long for her enjoyment as for hidden treasure. But in scenes where she is no exotic, in the isle of Juan Fernandez, where a solitary eremite, escaped from shipwreck, lives with her through long years; or in the dreary nighttime, in a deep wood, or in an old uninhabited castle, where empty walls and vaults awaken horror, and nothing breathes of life but the moping owl in the ruinous turret; there, in good sooth, she is not the most agreeable companion for the timid anchorite that has to pass his time in her abode, especially if he is every moment looking for the entrance of a spectre to augment the party. In such a case it may easily chance that a window conversation with the watchman shall afford a richer entertainment for the spirit and the heart, than a reading of the most attractive eulogy on solitude. If Ritter Zimmerman had been in Franz’s place, in the castle of Rummelsburg, on the Westphalian marches, he would doubtless in this position have struck out the fundamental topics of as interesting a treatise on Society, as, inspired to all appearances by the irksomeness of some ceremonious assembly, he has poured out from the fullness of his heart in praise of Solitude.

Midnight is the hour at which the world of spirits acquires activity and life, when hebetated animal nature lies entombed in deep slumber. Franz inclined getting through this critical hour in sleep rather than awake; so he closed his window, went the round of his rooms once more, spying every nook and crevice, to see whether all was safe and earthly; snuffed the lights to make them burn clearer; and without undressing or delaying, threw himself upon his bed, with which his wearied person felt unusual satisfaction. Yet he could not get asleep so fast as he wished. A slight palpitation at the heart, which he ascribed to a tumult in the blood, arising from the sultriness of the day, kept him waking for a while; and he failed not to employ this respite in offering up such a pithy prayer as he had not prayed for many years. This produced the usual effect, and he softly fell asleep while saying it.

After about an hour, as he supposed, he started up with a sudden terror; a thing not at all surprising when there is tumult in the blood. He was broad awake; he listened whether all was quiet, and heard nothing but the clock strike twelve; a piece of news which the watchman forthwith communicated to the hamlet in doleful recitative. Franz listened for a while, turned on the other side, and was again about to sleep, when he caught, as it were, the sound of a door grating in the distance, and immediately it shut with a stifled bang. “Alack! alack!” bawled Fright into his ear; “this is the ghost in very deed!” “’Tis nothing but the wind,” said Courage manfully. But quickly it came nearer, nearer, like the sound of heavy footsteps. Clink here, clink there, as if a criminal were rattling his irons, or as if the porter were walking about the castle with his bunch of keys. Alas, here was no wind business! Courage held his peace; and quaking Fear drove all the blood to the heart, and made it thump like a smith’s forehammer.

The thing was now beyond jesting. If Fear would still have let Courage get a word, the latter would have put the terror-struck watcher in mind of his subsidiary treaty with mine host, and incited him to claim the stipulated assistance loudly from the window; but for this there was a want of proper resolution. The quaking Franz had recourse to the bedclothes, the last fortress of the timorous, and drew them close over his ears, as bird-ostrich sticks his head in the grass when he can no longer escape the huntsman. Outside it came along, door up, door to, with hideous uproar; and at last it reached the bedroom. It jerked sharply at the lock, tried several keys till it found the right one; yet the bar still held the door, till a bounce like a thunderclap made bolt and rivet start, and threw it wide open. Now stalked in a long, lean man, with a black beard, in ancient garb, and with a gloomy countenance, his eyebrows hanging down in deep earnestness from his brow. Over his right shoulder he had a scarlet cloak, and on his head he wore a peaked hat. With a heavy step he walked thrice in silence up and down the chamber; looked at the consecrated tapers, and snuffed them that they might burn brighter. Then he drew aside his cloak, girded on a scissor pouch which he had under it, produced a set of shaving tackle, and immediately began to whet a sharp razor on the broad strap which he wore at his girdle.

Franz perspired in mortal agony under his coverlet; recommended himself to the keeping of the Virgin; and anxiously speculated on the object of this manœuvre, not knowing whether it was meant for his throat or his beard. To his comfort, the goblin poured some water from a silver flask into a basin of silver, and with his skinny hand lathered the soap into a light foam; then set a chair, and beckoned with a solemn look to the quaking looker-on to come forth from among the quivering bedclothes.

Against so pertinent a sign remonstrance was as bootless as against the rigorous commands of the Grand Turk when he transmits an exiled vizier to the angel of death, the Capichi Bashi with the silken cord, to take delivery of his head. The most rational procedure that can be adopted in this critical case is to comply with necessity, put a good face on a bad business, and with stoical composure let one’s throat be noosed. Franz honored the spectre’s order; the coverlet began to move, he sprang sharply from his couch, and took the place pointed out to him. However strange this quick transition from the uttermost terror to the boldest resolution may appear, I doubt not but Moritz in his Psychological Journal could explain the matter till it seemed quite natural.

Immediately the goblin barber tied the towel about the shivering customer, seized the comb and scissors, and clipped off his hair and beard. Then he soaped him scientifically; first the beard, next the eyebrows, at last the temples and the hind-head; and shaved him from throat to nape, as smooth and bald as a death’s-head. This operation finished, he washed his head, dried it clean, made his bow, and buttoned up his scissor pouch, wrapped himself in his scarlet mantle, and made for departing. The consecrated tapers had burned with an exquisite brightness through the whole transaction; and Franz, by the light of them, perceived in the mirror that the shaver had changed him into a Chinese pagoda. In secret he heartily deplored the loss of his fair brown locks; yet took fresh breath as he observed that with this sacrifice the account was settled, and the ghost had no more power over him.

So it was in fact; Redcloak went toward the door, silently as he had entered, without salutation or good-bye, and seemed entirely the contrast of his talkative guild-brethern. But scarcely was he gone three steps when he paused, looked round with a mournful expression at his well-served customer, and stroked the flat of his hand over his black, bushy beard. He did the same a second time, and again just as he was in the act of stepping out at the door. A thought struck Franz that the spectre wanted something, and a rapid combination of ideas suggested that perhaps he was expecting the very service he himself