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The castle of Hernswolf, at the close of the year 1655, was the resort of
fashion and gaiety. The baron of that name was the most powerful nobleman in
Germany, and equally celebrated for the patriotic achievements of his sons,
and the beauty of his only daughter. The estate of Hernswolf, which was
situated in the centre of the Black Forest, had been given to one of his
ancestors by the gratitude of the nation, and descended with other
hereditary possessions to the family of the present owner. It was a
castellated, gothic mansion, built according to the fashion of the times, in
the grandest style of architecture, and consisted principally of dark
winding corridors, and vaulted tapestry rooms, magnificent indeed in their
size, but ill-suited to private comfort, from the very circumstance of their
dreary magnitude. A dark grove of pine and mountain ash encompassed the
castle on every side, and threw an aspect of gloom around the scene, which
was seldom enlivened by the cheering sunshine of heaven.
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The castle bells rung out a merry peal at the approach of a winter twilight,
and the warder was stationed with his retinue on the battlements, to
announce the arrival of the company who were invited to share the amusements
that reigned within the walls. The Lady Clotilda, the baron's only daughter,
had but just attained her seventeenth year, and a brilliant assembly was
invited to celebrate the birthday. The large vaulted apartments were thrown
open for the reception of the numerous guests, and the gaieties of the
evening had scarcely commenced when the clock from the dungeon tower was
heard to strike with unusual solemnity, and on the instant a tall stranger,
arrayed in a deep suit of black, made his appearance in the ballroom. He
bowed courteously on every side, but was received by all with the strictest
reserve. No one knew who he was or whence he came, but it was evident from
his appearance, that he was a nobleman of the first rank, and though his
introduction was accepted with distrust, he was treated by all with respect.
He addressed himself particularly to the daughter of the baron, and was so
intelligent in his remarks, so lively in his sallies, and so fascinating in
his address, that he quickly interested the feelings of his young and
sensitive auditor. In fine, after some hesitation on the part of the host,
who, with the rest of the company, was unable to approach the stranger with
indifference, he was requested to remain a few days at the castle, an
invitation which was cheerfully accepted.
The dead of the night drew on, and when all had retired to rest, the dull
heavy bell was heard swinging to and fro in the grey tower, though there was
scarcely a breath to move the forest trees. Many of the guests, when they
met the next morning at the breakfast table, averred that there had been
sounds as of the most heavenly music, while all persisted in affirming that
they had heard awful noises, proceeding, as it seemed, from the apartment
which the stranger at that time occupied. He soon, however, made his
appearance at the breakfast circle, and when the circumstances of the
preceding night were alluded to, a dark smile of unutterable meaning played
round his saturnine features, and then relapsed into an expression of the
deepest melancholy. He addressed his conversation principally to Clotilda,
and when he talked of the different climes he had visited, of the sunny
regions of Italy, where the very air breathes the fragrance of flowers, and
the summer breeze sighs over a land of sweets; when he spoke to her of those
delicious countries, where the smile of the day sinks into the softer beauty
of the night, and the loveliness of heaven is never for an instant obscured,
he drew tears of regret from the bosom of his fair auditor, and for the
first time she regretted that she was yet at home
Days rolled on, and every moment increased the fervour of the inexpressible
sentiments with which the stranger had inspired her. He never discoursed of
love, but he looked it in his language, in his manner, in the insinuating
tones of his voice, and in the slumbering softness of his smile, and when he
found that he had succeeded in inspiring her with favourable sentiments, a
sneer of the most diabolical meaning spoke for an instant, and died again on
his dark featured countenance. When he met her in the company of her
parents, he was at once respectful and submissive, and it was only when
alone with her, in her ramble through the dark recesses of the forest, that
he assumed the guise of the more impassioned admirer.
As he was sitting one evening with the baron in the wainscotted apartment of
the library, the conversation happened to turn upon supernatural agency. The
stranger remained reserved and mysterious during the discussion, but when
the baron in a jocular manner denied the existence of spirits, and
satirically mocked their appearance, his eyes glowed with unearthly lustre,
and his form seemed to dilate to more than its natural dimensions. When the
conversation had ceased, a fearful pause of a few seconds and a chorus of
celestial harmony was heard pealing through the dark forest glade. All were
entranced with delight, but the stranger was disturbed and gloomy; he looked
at his noble host with compassion, and something like a tear swam in his
dark eye. After the lapse of a few seconds, the music died gently in the
distance, and all was hushed as before. The baron soon after quitted the
apartment, and was followed almost immediately by the stranger. He had not
long been absent, when an awful noise, as of a person in the agonies of
death, was heard, and the Baron was discovered stretched dead along the
corridors. His countenance was convulsed with pain, and the grip of a human
hand was visible on his blackened throat. The alarm was instantly given, the
castle searched in every direction, but the stranger was seen no more. The
body of the baron, in the meantime, was quietly committed to the earth, and
the remembrance of the dreadful transaction, recalled but as a thing that
once was.
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After the departure of the stranger, who had indeed fascinated her very
senses, the spirits of the gentle Clotilda evidently declined. She loved to
walk early and late in the walks that he had once frequented, to recall his
last words; to dwell on his sweet smile; and wander to the spot where she
had once discoursed with him of love. She avoided all society, and never
seemed to be happy but when left alone in the solitude of her chamber. It
was then that she gave vent to her affliction in tears; and the love that
the pride of maiden modesty concealed in public, burst forth in the hours of
privacy. So beauteous, yet so resigned was the fair mourner, that she seemed
already an angel freed from the trammels of the world, and prepared to take
her flight to heaven.
As she was one summer evening rambling to the sequestered spot that had been
selected as her favourite residence, a slow step advanced towards her. She
turned round, and to her infinite surprise discovered the stranger. He
stepped gaily to her side, and commenced an animated conversation. 'You left
me,' exclaimed the delighted girl; 'and I thought all happiness was fled
from me for ever; but you return, and shall we not again be happy?' -
'Happy,' replied the stranger, with a scornful burst of derision, 'Can I
ever be happy again - can there; - but excuse the agitation, my love, and
impute it to the pleasure I experience at our meeting. Oh! I have many
things to tell you; aye! and many kind words to receive; is it not so, sweet
one? Come, tell me truly, have you been happy in my absence? No! I see in
that sunken eye, in that pallid cheek, that the poor wanderer has at least
gained some slight interest in the heart of his beloved. I have roamed to
other climes, I have seen other nations; I have met with other females,
beautiful and accomplished, but I have met with but one angel, and she is
here before me. Accept this simple offering of my affection, dearest,'
continued the stranger, plucking a heath-rose from its stem; 'it is
beautiful as the wild flowers that deck thy hair, and sweet as is the love I
bear thee.' - 'It is sweet, indeed,' replied Clotilda, 'but its sweetness
must wither ere night closes around. It is beautiful, but its beauty is
short-lived, as the love evinced by man. Let not this, then, be the type of
thy attachment; bring me the delicate evergreen, the sweet flower that
blossoms throughout the year, and I will say, as I wreathe it in my hair,
"The violets have bloomed and died - the roses have flourished and decayed;
but the evergreen is still young, and so is the love of heart!" - you will
not - cannot desert me. I live but in you; you are my hopes, my thoughts, my
existence itself: and if I lose you, I lose my all - I was but a solitary
wild flower in the wilderness of nature, until you transplanted me to a more
genial soil; and can you now break the fond heart you first taught to glow
with passion?' - 'Speak not thus,' returned the stranger, 'it rends my very
soul to hear you; leave me - forget me - avoid me for ever - or your eternal
ruin must ensue. I am a thing abandoned of God and man - and did you but see
the scared heart that scarcely beats within this moving mass of deformity,
you would flee me, as you would an adder in your path. Here is my heart,
love, feel how cold it is; there is no pulse that betrays its emotion; for
all is chilled and dead as the friends I once knew.' - 'You are unhappy,
love, and your poor Clotilda shall stay to succour you. Think not I can
abandon you in your misfortunes. No! I will wander with thee through the
wide world, and be thy servant, thy slave, if thou wilt have it so. I will
shield thee from the night winds, that they blow not too roughly on thy
unprotected head. I will defend thee from the tempest that howls around; and
though the cold world may devote thy name to scorn - though friends may fall
off, and associates wither in the grave, there shall be one fond heart who
shall love thee better in thy misfortune, and cherish thee, bless thee
still.' She ceased, and her blue eyes swam in tears, as she turned it
glistening with affection towards the stranger. He averted his head from her
gaze, and a scornful sneer of the darkest, the deadliest malice passed over
his fine countenance. In an instant, the expression subsided; his fixed
glassy eye resumed its unearthly chillness, and he turned once again to his
companion. 'It is the hour of sunset,' he exclaimed; 'the soft, the
beauteous hour, when the hearts of lovers are happy, and nature smiles in
unison with their feelings; but to me it will smile no longer - ere the
morrow dawns I shall very far, from the house of my beloved; from the scenes
where my heart is enshrined, as in a sepulchre. But must I leave thee,
dearest flower of the wilderness, to be the sport of a whirlwind, the prey
of the mountain blast?' - 'No, we will not part,' replied the impassioned
girl; 'where thou goest, will I go; thy home shall be my home; and thy God
shall be my God.' - 'Swear it, swear it,' resumed the stranger, wildly
grasping her by the hand; 'swear to the fearful oath I shall dictate.' He
then desired her to kneel, and holding his right hand in a menacing attitude
towards heaven, and throwing back his dark raven locks, exclaimed in a
strain of bitter imprecation with the ghastly smile of an incarnate fiend,
'May the curses of an offended God,' he cried, 'haunt thee, cling to thee
for ever in the tempest and in the calm, in the day and in the night, in
sickness and in sorrow, in life and in death, shouldst thou swerve from the
promise thou hast here made to be mine. May the dark spirits of the damned
howl in thine ears the accursed chorus of fiends - may the air rack thy
bosom with the quenchless flames of hell! May thy soul be as the lazar-house
of corruption, where the ghost of departed pleasure sits enshrined, as in a
grave: where the hundred-headed worm never dies where the fire is never
extinguished. May a spirit of evil lord it over thy brow, and proclaim, as
thou passest by, "THIS IS THE ABANDONED OF GOD AND MAN;" may fearful
spectres haunt thee in the night season; may thy dearest friends drop day by
day into the grave, and curse thee with their dying breath: may all that is
most horrible in human nature, more solemn than language can frame, or lips
can utter, may this, and more than this, be thy eternal portion, shouldst
thou violate the oath that thou has taken.' He ceased - hardly knowing what
she did, the terrified girl acceded to the awful adjuration, and promised
eternal fidelity to him who was henceforth to be her lord. 'Spirits of the
damned, I thank thee for thine assistance,' shouted the stranger; 'I have
wooed my fair bride bravely. She is mine - mine for ever. - Aye, body and
soul both mine; mine in life, and mine in death. What in tears, my sweet
one, ere yet the honeymoon is past? Why! indeed thou hast cause for weeping:
but when next we meet we shall meet to sign the nuptial bond.' He then
imprinted a cold salute on the cheek of his young bride, and softening down
the unutterable horrors of his countenance, requested her to meet him at
eight o'clock on the ensuing evening in the chapel adjoining to the castle
of Hernswolf. She turned round to him with a burning sigh, as if to implore
protection from himself, but the stranger was gone.
On entering the castle, she was observed to be impressed with deepest
melancholy. Her relations vainly endeavoured to ascertain the cause of her
uneasiness; but the tremendous oath she had sworn completely paralysed her
faculties, and she was fearful of betraying herself by even the slightest
intonation of her voice, or the least variable expression of her
countenance. When the evening was concluded, the family retired to rest; but
Clotilda, who was unable to take repose, from the restlessness of her
disposition, requested to remain alone in the library that adjoined her
apartment.
All was now deep midnight; every domestic had long since retired to rest,
and the only sound that could be distinguished was the sullen howl of the
ban-dog as he bayed, the waning moon Clotilda remained in the library in an
attitude of deep meditation. The lamp that burnt on the table, where she
sat, was dying away, and the lower end of the apartment was already more
than half obscured. The clock from the northern angle of the castle tolled
out the hour of twelve, and the sound echoed dismally in the solemn
stillness of the night. Sudden the oaken door at the farther end of the room
was gently lifted on its latch, and a bloodless figure, apparelled in the
habiliments of the grave, advanced slowly up the apartment. No sound
heralded its approach, as it moved with noiseless steps to the table where
the lady was stationed. She did not at first perceive it, till she felt a
death-cold hand fast grasped in her own, and heard a solemn voice whisper in
her ear, 'Clotilda.' She looked up, a dark figure was standing beside her;
she endeavoured to scream, but her voice was unequal to the exertion; her
eye was fixed, as if by magic, on the form which, slowly removed the garb
that concealed its countenance, and disclosed the livid eyes and skeleton
shape of her father. It seemed to gaze on her with pity, an regret, and
mournfully exclaimed - 'Clotilda, the dresses and the servants are ready,
the church bell has tolled, and the priest is at the altar, but where is the
affianced bride? There is room for her in the grave, and tomorrow shall she
be with me.' -
'Tomorrow?' faltered out the distracted girl; 'the spirits of hell shall
have registered it, and tomorrow must the bond be cancelled.' The figure
ceased - slowly retired, and was soon lost in the obscurity of distance.
The morning - evening - arrived; and already as the hall clock struck eight,
Clotilda was on her road to the chapel. It was a dark, gloomy night, thick
masses of dun clouds sailed across the firmament, and the roar of the winter
wind echoed awfully through the forest trees. She reached the appointed
place; a figure was in waiting for her - it advanced - and discovered the
features of the stranger. 'Why! this is well, my bride,' he exclaimed, with
a sneer; 'and well will I repay thy fondness. Follow me.' They proceeded
together in silence through the winding avenues of the chapel, until they
reached the adjoining cemetery. Here they paused for an instant; and the
stranger, in a softened tone, said, 'But one hour more, and the struggle
will be over. And yet this heart of incarnate malice can feel, when it
devotes so young, so pure a spirit to the grave. But it must - it must be,'
he proceeded, as the memory of her past love rushed on her mind; 'for the
fiend whom I obey has so willed it. Poor girl, I am leading thee indeed to
our nuptials; but the priest will be death, thy parents the mouldering
skeletons that rot in heaps around; and the witnesses to our union, the lazy
worms that revel on the carious bones of the dead. Come, my young bride, the
priest is impatient for his victim.' As they proceeded, a dim blue light
moved swiftly before them, and displayed at the extremity of the churchyard
the portals of a vault. It was open, and they entered it in silence. The
hollow wind came rushing through the gloomy abode of the dead; and on every
side were piled the mouldering remnants of coffins, which dropped piece by
piece upon the damp mud. Every step they took was on a dead body; and the
bleached bones rattled horribly beneath their feet. In the centre of the
vault rose a heap of unburied skeletons, whereon was seated, a figure too
awful even for the darkest imagination to conceive. As they approached it,
the hollow vault rung with a hellish peal of laughter; and every mouldering
corpse seemed endued with unholy life. The stranger paused, and as he
grasped his victim in his hand, one sigh burst from his heart - one tear
glistened in his eye. It was but for an instant; the figure frowned awfully
at his vacillation, and waved his gaunt hand.
The stranger advanced; he made certain mystic circles in the air, uttered
unearthly words, and paused in excess of terror. On a sudden he raised his
voice and wildly exclaimed - 'Spouse of the spirit of darkness, a few
moments are yet thine; that thou may'st know to whom thou hast consigned
thyself. I am the undying spirit of the wretch who curst his Saviour on the
cross. He looked at me in the closing hour of his existence, and that look
hath not yet passed away, for I am curst above all on earth. I am eternally
condemned to hell and I must cater for my master's taste till the world is
parched as is a scroll, and the heavens and the earth have passed away. I am
he of whom thou may'st have read, and of whose feats thou may'st have heard.
A million souls has my master condemned me to ensnare, and then my penance
is accomplished, and I may know the repose of the grave. Thou art the
thousandth soul that I have damned. I saw thee in thine hour of purity, and
I marked thee at once for my home. Thy father did I murder for his temerity,
and permitted to warn thee of thy fate; and myself have I beguiled for thy
simplicity. Ha! the spell works bravely, and thou shall soon see, my sweet
one, to whom thou hast linked thine undying fortunes, for as long as the
seasons shall move on their course of nature - as long as the lightning
shall flash, and the thunders roll, thy penance shall be eternal. Look
below! and see to what thou art destined.' She looked, the vault split in a
thousand different directions; the earth yawned asunder; and the roar of
mighty waters was heard. A living ocean of molten fire glowed in the abyss
beneath her, and blending with the shrieks of the damned, and the triumphant
shouts of the fiends, rendered horror more horrible than imagination. Ten
millions of souls were writhing in the fiery flames, and as the boiling
billows dashed them against the blackened rocks of adamant, they cursed with
the blasphemies of despair; and each curse echoed in thunder cross the wave.
The stranger rushed towards his victim. For an instant he held her over the
burning vista, looked fondly in her face and wept as he were a child. This
was but the impulse of a moment; again he grasped her in his arms, dashed
her from him with fury; and as her last parting glance was cast in kindness
on his face, shouted aloud, 'not mine is the crime, but the religion that
thou professest; for is it not said that there is a fire of eternity
prepared for the souls of the wicked; and hast not thou incurred its
torments?' She, poor girl, heard not, heeded not the shouts of the
blasphemer. Her delicate form bounded from rock to rock, over billow, and
over foam; as she fell, the ocean lashed itself as it were in triumph to
receive her soul, and as she sunk deep in the burning pit, ten thousand
voices reverberated from the bottomless abyss, 'Spirit of evil! here indeed
is an eternity of torments prepared for thee; for here the worm never dies,
and the fire is never quenched.'
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