Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands by Hezekiah Butterworth (fiction books to read .txt) 📕
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. Spirit
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They were allowed to go. They searched in vain for a long time; but at last the goose spied the magic leaf across the lake, and swam across, and returned with it in her bill.
“’Tis the magic herb the old woman used in the soup,” said the dwarf. “Thank the Fates! we may now be delivered from our enchantment.”
He took a long, deep sniff of the herb. He then sneezed with delight, and lo! he began to grow, and his nose began to shrink, and he was transformed to the handsomest young man in all the land.
He took the goose under his arm, and walked out of the palace yard. He carried her to a great magician, who delivered her from her enchantment, and she sneezed three sneezes, and became the handsomest lady in all the kingdom.
Now, Mimi’s father was very rich, and he loaded Jamie with presents, which were worth a great fortune.
Then handsome Jamie married the lovely Mimi; and he brought his old father and mother to live with them in a palace, and they were all exceedingly happy.
“What is the moral of such a tale as that?” asked one of the Club.
“If you have any crookedness, to find the magic herb,” said Charlie.
Charlie Leland, the President, closed the exercises with some translations of his own, which he called “Stories in Verse.” We give two of them here; each relates an incident of Eberhard, the good count, whom German poets have often remembered in song.
THE RICHEST PRINCE.A festive table was laid;
The lamps a softened radiance shed,
And sweet the music played.
And the Palsgrave of the Rhine,
And Würtemberg’s monarch, Eberhard,
Came into that hall to dine.
“My lords, I have wealth untold:
There are gems in my mountain gorges great;
In my valleys are mines of gold.”
“But mine is a nobler land:
I have famous cities, and castled towns,
And convents old and grand.”
Said the Palsgrave of the Rhine:
“There are sunny vineyards upon the hills;
In the valleys are presses of wine.”
“My lords, I have neither gold,
Nor famous cities, nor castled towns,
Nor convents grand and old.
In the valleys no presses of wine;
But God has given a treasure to me
As noble as any of thine.
EBERHARD.
In the heart of the greenwood free,
And I safely lay me down and sleep
On any subject’s knee.”
And they said, in that stately hall,
“Thou art richer than we, Count Eberhard;
Thy treasure is greater than all.”
EQUALITY.
The fight was hot and hard;
Beneath the walls of Doffingen,
Fast fell the ranks of Suabian men
Led on by Eberhard.
The son of Eberhard;
The banners waved, the bugles rung,
His spearmen on the foe he flung,
And pressed them sore and hard.
The bugles ceased to blow;
But soon the monarch’s order ran:
“My son is as another man,
Press boldly on the foe!”
And harder fell each blow;
But still the monarch’s order ran:
“My son is as another man,
Press, press upon the foe!”
Before the day was done;
But victory blessed the Suabian men,
And happy bugles played again,
At setting of the sun.
CHAPTER V. THE SECOND MEETING OF THE CLUB.
Constance.—The Story of Huss.—Bismarck and the German Government.—The Story of the Heart of Stone.—Poem.—Seven Nights on the Rhine: Night First.
THE second meeting of the Club was opened by Mr. Beal with an account of Constance, and of the great Council that convened there in 1414.
“Via Mala! So the old Romans called the road near the source of the Rhine. It passed over and through dark and awful chasms, that the river, as it came down from the Alps, had been tunnelling for thousands of years.
“The Rhine is the gift of the Alps, as Egypt is the gift of the Nile. From its source amid the peaks of the clouds to its first great reservoir, the Lake of Constance, it passes through one of the wildest and most picturesque regions in the world. It is not strange that the Romans should have called their old Swiss road Via Mala.
“Lake Constance! How our heads bent and our feelings kindled and glowed when we beheld it! It is the most beautiful lake that Germany possesses. It is walled by snow-capped mountains, whose tops seem like islands in the blue lakes of the skies. Quaint towns are nestled among the groves of the shore; towers, with bells ringing soft and melodious in the still air. The water is like emerald. Afar, zigzagging sails flap mechanically in the almost pulseless air.
“There is color everywhere, of all hues: high, rich tones of color; low tones. Piles of gems on the mountains, gloomy shadows in the groves; a deep cerulean sky above, that the sunlight fills like a golden sea. At sunset the lake seems indeed like the vision that John saw,—‘a sea of glass, mingled with fire.’
BRIDGE IN THE VIA MALA.
“The town of Constance, once a great city, is as old as the period of Constantine. When Charlemagne went to Rome to receive the imperial crown, he rested here. Here a long line of German kings left the associations of great festivities; here those kings passed their Christmases and Easters. Here convened brilliant regal assemblies. Here the ambassadors from Milan appeared before Barbarossa, and delivered to him the golden key of the Italian states.
“But these events are of comparatively small importance in comparison with the so-called Holy Council of Constance, in 1414. It was a time of spiritual dearth in the world. Arrogance governed the Church, and immorality flourished in it. There were three popes, each at war with the others,—John XXIII., Benedict XII., and Gregory XII.
“The Council was called to choose a pope, and to reform the Church. The town for four years became the centre of European history. Hither came kings and princes; the court of the world was here.
“The town filled, and filled. It was like a great fair. Delegates came from the North and the South, the East and the West. There were splendid fêtes; luxury and vainglory. At one time there were present a hundred thousand men.
“The Council accomplished nothing by way of reform, except to induce the three rival popes to relinquish their claims to a fourth; but it stained its outward glory with a crime that will never be forgotten.
“When we were in Florence,—beautiful Florence!—the tragedy of Savonarola rose before us like a spectre in the history of the past. Savonarola tried to reform the conduct of the clergy and to maintain the purity of the Church, but failed. He made the republic of Florence a model Christian commonwealth. Debauchery was suppressed, gambling was prohibited, the licentious factions of the times were there publicly destroyed. He arraigned Rome for her sins. The Roman party turned against him and accused him of heresy, the punishment of which was death. He declared his innocence, and desired to test it with his accusers by walking through a field of living fire. He believed God would protect him from the flames, like the worthies of old. His enemies were unwilling to go with him into the fiery ordeal. He was condemned and executed. The martyr of Florence in after years became one of its saints.
“At Constance a like tragedy haunted us. Constance has been called ‘the city of Huss.’
“Among the mighty ones who wended their way to the city of the lake, to attend the great Council, was a pale, thin man, in mean attire. He had been invited to the Council by the Emperor Sigismund, who promised to protect his person and his life. He was a Bohemian reformer; a follower of Wycliffe. He was graciously received, but was soon after thrown into prison on the charge of heresy.
“They led him in chains before the Council, which assembled in an old hall, which is still shown. The emperor sat upon the throne as president.
“He confessed to having read and disseminated the writings of Wycliffe.
JOHN HUSS.
“He was required to denounce the English reformer as one of the souls of the lost.
“‘If he be lost, then I could wish my soul were with his,’ he said firmly.
“This was pronounced to be heresy.
“The emperor declared that he was not obliged to keep his word to heretics, and that his promise to protect the life of the Bohemian was no longer binding.
“He was condemned to death. He was stripped of his priestly robes, and the cup of the sacrament was taken from his hands with a curse.
“‘I trust I shall drink of it this day in the kingdom of heaven,’ he said.
“‘We devote thy soul to the devils in hell,’ was the answer of the prelates.
“He was led away, guarded by eight hundred horsemen, to a meadow without the gates. Here he was burned alive, and triumphed in soul amid the flames.
“Such was the end of John Huss, the Savonarola of Constance.
“We made an excursion upon the lake. The appearance of the old city from the water is one of the most beautiful that can meet the eye. It seems more like an artist’s dream than a reality,—floating towers in a crystal atmosphere.
The fair Lake Constance lies.’
“The lake is walled with mountains, and wears a chain of castle-like towns, like a necklace.
“It would be delightful to spend a summer there. Excursions on the steamers can be made at almost any time of the day. One can visit in this way five different old countries,—Baden, Würtemberg, Bavaria, Austria, and Switzerland.”
Mr. Beal’s succinct account of the old city led to a discussion of the gains of civilization from martyrdoms for principle and progress. He was followed by Master Lewis, who gave the Class some account of
BISMARCK AND THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT.In the eyes of the multitude, Bismarck is a great but unscrupulous statesman, intent upon uniting Germany and making it the leading nation of Europe. As a man, he seems hard-headed, self-willed, and iron-handed. As a ruler, he is looked upon as the incarnation of the despotic spirit,—a believer in force, an infidel as to moral suasion.
Many persons who sympathize with his policy censure the means by which he executes it. They do not consider that so long as that policy is threatened from within and without, the Chancellor must trust in force; nor do they read the lesson of the centuries,—Force must rule until Right reigns.
The fact is not apprehended by the unthinking multitude, that the work of grafting a statesman’s policy into the life of a nation requires, like grafting
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