Oh, 'tis true!
I never think on that without a chilly trembling;
It vexed me by its cluck, cluck, cluck,-the note
Struck my distempered fancy as resembling

Old Kruth's croak when the rattles took his throat.
WALTER.

The boy had seen my wife

66

Sticking the pullet. Come," he said-and took

His sister's arm-"we'll play at Kitchen: I will be the cook And you the pullet. Stand!" I saw him seize the knife.

I bounded forward. All too late. The child

Lay weltering in her blood—her throat one gaping gash.
You weep! You are good. I wept not-I was wild!

Frenzy had nearly murdered him.

KATHERINE.

His father in his first
To guard against the worst

"Your son

I sent him to an uncle resident at Thun-
A learned man-who wrote me thus:
Is talented and spirited and quick

To learn-but there's a something adverse in his star.
He chases but the Phantomy and Far-

Is hurried and perturbed-half lunatic

And quite intractable-and when I have gone

So far as to admonish him, though in a quiet way,
He weeps and tells me that the scythe upon
His arm prevents his resting night or day."
So my good uncle wrote. To him the history
Of this mark- -as to all-remained a mystery.

KURT.

You wept much when your son absconded?

KATHERINE.

Oh!

WALTER. (in a low tone to Katherine.) Katherine, beware! This Yager seems to know

He grew up, we heard, a froward lad :
He had run away from school—my uncle had
Bound him apprentice to an artist, but

He had run away from him, too, o'er and o'er ;
So uncle, finding he could do no more

And thinking he could do no less, too, shut
Him up within the Work-house.*

Here he didn't tarry,

However, long, before he escaped-and 'twas, as we were told, Precisely on the fatal day, the twenty-fourth of February, He being barely then fourteen years old,

That he enlisted as a soldier in

The hosts of Revolutionary France.
This we discovered afterwards by chance,
A letter having reached my uncle which
Mentioned the fact.

Friend! your every look and query

And your odd pacings to and fro are very

Peculiar! I'm not fond of spinning yarns.

Distempers killed my cattle-fire consumed my barns

And avalanches crushed my fields. No toil

Availed me. As you came from Kanderstag

You marked a barren tract of blasted soil

Lying half-buried underneath snow-crag

And Alpine-granite. Twelve years back it was
The terrible invader swept in thunder

Down from the Rinderhorn, o'erwhelming as

It rolled man, beast, crops, meadows, vineyards. Under
Those mighty frozen masses which you passed

Lay once luxuriant orchards and rich pasture-ground.
All were left desolate for miles around.

And now the unhappy failure of our last

Year's harvest-this has been the finishing stroke.
We are now in debt-in wretchedness-the yoke
Of beggary presses on us. One by one

Loured our disasters, and withal 'twas very

House of Correction, or Penitentiary.

Ay! that I have—enough!—and gladly would

Do more than lend it you. But patience!—God is good.

Bear with your ills to-night-to-morrow He will end

Them all!

WALTER.

To-morrow? God will, eh? Or p'rhaps you mean the devil?

O, self-tormentor!

KATHERINE.

WALTER.

Friend! you are many cuts above my

level.

You seem a something 'twixt a conjuror and a priest-
Gentry with whom, d'ye know, I don't much care to chaffer.*

Ah, Father Walter!

That's my name.—

KURT.

WALTER.

-Well, well-your wine's the thing, at least, (Drinks.) But why d'ye chamber crags by night?

KURT.

Ah, Gaffer!

My life's page, like your own, is overdarked and sad.

WALTER.

Hail fellow, then, well met! You are just my man, egad!

The history would but make my scarred wounds bleed

Afresh. Enough, that for the fatal deed

I was compelled to fly from home. It happed in
The town of Berne that a compatriot took

A fancy to me, purely from my look,

And hired me as his valet. He was Captain

In the Swiss Guards, those heroes whom the Sans
Culottes of Paris tore from limb to limb.

Difficult was it, doubtlessly, for him

To leave his country-but poor Louis' wrongs
Spake trumpetmouthed-he had no resource
Besides. He went. I also went, of course.

Wild work in Paris then?

WALTER.

KURT.

Fancy you see by some concussion
The whole tremendous range of the Alpine Glaciers
Wrenched from their beds-fancy you see them rush on,
Gigantical and crashing, through the embrasures
Of the cleft mountains, down the valcs-while groupes
Below, beholding the Destroyers advance,

Sing, clap their hands, laugh, reel about, and dance,

The savage portion uttering yells and whoops

This tragedy, it may be not amiss to observe, was written before the author

became a Roman Catholic priest.

Of welcome-fancy this, and then you gaze
On a dim sketch of Paris in those monstrous days.

WALTER.

You saw our comrades murdered ?-saw them as they fell
Butchered within the Tuileries?

KURT.

I saw

The sweltering night descend, moonless and dun as Hell,
As though revolted Nature willed to draw

A pall of blackness over that infernal

Harvest of carnage. But let me accurst myself-refrain
From picturing scenes enough to bring the eternal
Wrath of Heaven's God on France.

WALTER.

Yet pray explain

KURT.

When we thus saw them perish-saw them piked and shot,

Far from their own loved hearths and ancient land,

In contest for a king whose lieges they were not,

A king to whom Affection's, Honor's band
But knitted them-a king who, near the spot
That saw him sceptred, suffered at the hand
Of his own children death--

WALTER.

Ay, ay, such things

Have come to pass, through Satan's help, where parents were not kings.

KURT.

My master then, whom I was fortunate
Enough to save through a portico, perceiving
He could no longer tamely tolerate

The rabble's ruffianism, resolved on leaving
The country. Suffering and our common land

Cemented us. How far o'er Earth and Ocean

We roamed, I recked not-even to Death's dark strand

Would I have followed him with fond devotion.

We sailed for St. Domingo, his (my master's)
Exchequer furnishing the charges, and

After the usual maritime disasters

Landed, not caring much for sea or land.

WALTER.

You've been to the New World? You're a great traveller, then!

KATHERINE,

Ah! there you found the blest and happy men!

KURT.

Yes, among those untainted here, and there;

(Pointing to his heart and his head.)

The rest were like the folk we meet elsewhere.
My patron here became a planter. Daily
He seemed to like me better. Time passed gaily,
And Europe was forgotten. Now and then
He joked and chatted with me.

Best of men!

He had still perhaps been living but for me.
A curse is like a pestilence-'tis catching.
I fell ill of the Yellow Fever. He
Nursed me, until, exhausted by his watching,
He imbibed the poison. He expired at last.

KURT.

Alas!

Why was not I too doomed to fall beneath his
(Death's) shaft? Red Murder, like a wall of brass,
Had severed me from Mankind long before.
Why was I spared to-But of this no more.
I was now rich-my master had bequeathed
All his plantations, goods and gold to me-
Yet was I poor-as poor a wretch as breathed!
Alas! when Conscience burns in vain would we
By all Earth's wealth and luxuries try to win us
One half-hour's respite from the Hell within us!

WALTER (to Katherine.)

Ha! hear'st thou that! Now must I not

KURT.

(Katherine goes into the inner room to prepare the bed for Kurt.)
But Angel Hope for ever hovers

O'er even the dreariest dwelling of Despair;
And as the hen outspreads her wings and covers
Her clutch when wheels the vulture in the air,

So Mercy lifts her shield o'er Man, and the sharp shafts of Vengeance
Whirr ever towards, but strike him not, from Hell's unresting engines.
And Hope and Mercy whispered me that in my native clime

I should not pray to Heaven in vain to assoil me of my crime.

The waterfalls, the woods, the mountains rang

With the one note all day and night-" Come home!"

The Glaciers, as if conscious of each pang

I suffered, cried-" We melt-Come home! Come home!"
The little Alpine bells tinklingly sang-

"Rest for the wanderer and a happy home!"
Methought the very planets as they rolled

Bade me exchange the New World for the Old.
So, home I have come at last, laden with gold,
After an absence of near twenty years,

To glad my parents' hearts. My biggest money-bag
Rests with my mule to night at Kanderstag-
To-morrow all will reach me. Then will I with tears
Cast myself on my father's-on my mother's breast;
Then shall the wanderer find the promised rest,
And the once Curst will prove the trebly Blest.
(Katherine again enters.)
WALTER, (rising up.)

Where do your parents live?

From this.

KURT.

They live-about-three miles

WALTER.

Indeed? Three miles from this? that's queer!

I thought we had nought for nine miles round, but piles

Of naked rocks. No matter-one thing's clear

You're a sharp lad; you have conned your parts of speech;
Have mixed in life, and have your tale to tell;

Have heard the Glaciers sing and planets preach,

And know which way the cat jumps pretty well.

KATHERINE, (to Kurt.)

• Werner appears to forget that Walter had already mentioned the name of his

son.-V. p.