River Legends; Or, Father Thames and Father Rhine
{065}and declared that this was not the right child.
This was an unpleasant and curious exclamation, and put Mother Grutchen
in a terrible flurry. She owned that she thought the young Baron looked
rather queer, but remarked that babies varied considerably from time to
time; and, moreover, that as she had scarcely had him out of her sight
since the day he was born, he could not by any possibility be anything
else than the young Baron. Still the Baroness held to her opinion, and
even some of these might occasionally be troublesome. She determined
faithfully to do her duty by the child nevertheless, and to make no more
complaints to her mistress. The latter was not slow, however, to find
out that something was amiss with the infant. The very next morning,
when it was brought to her, she looked at it with a strange and startled
expression, and declared that it was not her child.
Upon this the Baron was appealed to at once. He, poor man, was terribly
annoyed at being asked the question. Proud as he had been from the first
of his infant son, he was one of those who held the theory that all
babies are, up to a certain age, very much alike, and was positively
quite incapable of pronouncing upon the identity of his own child. He
put on his large gold-rimmed spectacles, stared vacantly down upon the
infant, and said several things which had nothing whatever to do with
the question.
This put the Baroness in a passion, which by no means mended matters
at all, and there seemed every probability of a general row. But
Martha Scweinvolt, who had been hovering about the door, waiting to be
summoned, now found an excuse for entering the room, and so strongly
expressed her decided belief and conviction that the child was the right
child, and none other, that the good nurse felt her own opinion coming
more strongly to the same conclusion. The Baron, for very peace and
quietness, agreed with the two servants; and the Baroness, finding them
all against her, had a regular good scold all round, and said no more
about it.
Thus it came to pass, Brother Thames, that the child Hubert was carried
off by the water-demon, and a wretched little changeling put in his
place and accepted as the young heir. It was not long before his evil
propensities began to develop themselves. He could scarcely walk alone
before he was in mischief, and, indeed, long before this time he knocked
over his mother’s morning cup of tea whenever he could manage to do so
in {066}his early visits to her bed, and scratched the Baron’s face, as
he lay asleep, with a tiny fist which seemed hardly capable of hurting
so much as it did.
He grew fast for a short time, and then remained as if he would never
grow any bigger. But his appetite was more like that of a full-grown
man, nor was he particular where or what he ate. At breakfast he would
finish off a huge bowl of porridge, and make his old nurse tilt over
the bowl so that he might lick off the last drop from the edge. He
would clutch at everything on the dining-room table if brought in
during meals, and roar and cry loudly if the things he wanted were not
immediately given to him.
As he grew older, his conduct by no means improved. Not only was he
abominably rude to his supposed father and mother, but he took every
opportunity of endeavouring to make them fall out. He would, with an
utter disregard of truth, but with a wonderful air of innocence, tell
the Baroness how he had heard the Baron say she had a bad temper, and
was a disagreeable woman; whilst he would tell the Baron, as an affair
of everyday occurrence, that his wife spoke of him as a lazy sot,
who was no companion whatever to her, and spent his life in eating,
drinking, and smoking.
These little things were scarcely calculated to improve the happiness
of the worthy couple, but this was by no means the only channel through
which the little wretch poured discomfort upon the household. He
set everybody by the ears whenever he could, and showed an utter
heartlessness of character, coupled with a reckless depravity of
disposition, which was perfectly horrible. He roared with laughter on
being told of any misfortune having {067}happened to another person, and
scowled sulkily when any one fell in with a piece of good luck. Crushing
flies on the windows was one of his earliest amusements, and when this
had become monotonous, he used to torture any animal he could get hold
of with a cruelty beyond belief.
He would stick pins in his pony’s neck to {068}make it dance, as he
said, and indulge in screams of laughter at its suffering. He snipped
off his dog’s ears with a sharp pair of scissors, put the house-cat into
the copper full of boiling water until its yells brought the cook to
save it, and loved better than anything to get hold of some of the
skewers out of the kitchen, in order to impale upon them any unfortunate
mouse which he could find in the traps.
If any visitor came to the castle, he was fortunate indeed if he escaped
unhurt. The little wretch began upon him as soon as he entered the
house, creeping slyly behind him in order to cut off the buttons of his
coat, give him a cruel pinch when least expected, and even sometimes
went the length of running a pin into his leg. And when the unhappy
gentleman rose to depart, if he did not find his coat-tails tied fast to
the chair, ten to one but he was tripped up, as he ran down the stairs,
by a thin but strong string, tied ankle-high by the young Baron about
half-way down, nearly sure to produce a most awkward fall, the annoyance
of which was increased by the triumphant and insulting chuckle of the
little villain, who, perched on the highest step, or peeping through the
banisters above, would watch with eager delight to witness the effects
of his wicked trick.
It is not surprising that the young rascal was cordially detested
throughout the whole household. Indeed, they had small cause to do
anything else but detest him. There was no trouble he did not give
the servants, and no trick which he did not play them. If he met the
housemaids on the stairs or in the passages he invariably blew out their
candles, or ran hastily against them, as if {069}by accident, so as if
possible to make them drop any tray or jug they might be carrying. He
rang the bell constantly for nothing, and pointed and laughed at the
footman who came hurrying to answer it. He turned the lamp-oil into the
soup just as the cook was about to send it up for the Baron’s dinner,
put a quantity of vinegar into the beer which the butler had carefully
drawn for the “hall” supper, and smeared the groom of the chamber’s
chair in “the room” so thickly with bird-lime, that the respected
individual in question had the greatest difficulty in ever getting out
of it again. In short, he became the torment of the house, and everybody
wished most devoutly that he had never been born.
The only consolation was that, somehow or other, he selected Martha
Scweinvolt as his principal victim. That woman’s life became a burden to
her. Her thimble was constantly missing, and, when put on hastily, was
more than once full of tar or glue, cunningly placed therein by the
malicious urchin. “Booby-traps” were constantly set for her, in the
shape of heavy books or jugs of water skilfully balanced on the top of
the door of the Baroness’s room, which was then left just ajar, and
the bell hastily rung, so that, coming down-stairs and entering the
apartment in a hurry, she was sure to get the benefit of the jug or
books upon her devoted head. These tricks, however, were by no means
his worst. The supposed young Baron, in his visits to the housekeeper’s
room, never missed the chance of paying attention to Martha’s comfort
after his own peculiar fashion. He put salt in her beer when her
head was turned; slyly inserted needles in her bread, which more than
{070}once proved nearly fatal to the woman; and upon one occasion
doctored her tea with some drugs which he had abstracted from his
mother’s medicine-chest, and which produced serious and most unpleasant
results. Not content with these practical jokes, the urchin never spared
the feelings of anybody, and Martha was oftentimes almost goaded
to madness by his insulting remarks upon her personal appearance,
disposition, and situation in life. As time went on, matters seemed to
get rather worse than better, and the wretched woman experienced to her
cost that revenge, sweet as it may be, cannot be purchased without a
heavy sacrifice.
While these things were passing in the castle of Bandelboots, the
question may not unnaturally be asked of me what had become of the real
child, the unfortunate young Hubert, who had been carried away by the
river-demon. It may easily be supposed that his was no pleasant fate.
Fortunately for him, those who had taken him from his happy home had
no power either to kill or injure him, neither could they alter the
goodness of his natural disposition. The latter, however, rendered his
condition somewhat more uncomfortable than would otherwise have been the
case, for being forced to consort with witches, demons, imps, and other
low and disreputable society, he was constantly brought into contact
with many things and people most disagreeable and revolting to anything
pure and good. He was obliged to attend the “bad language class” of
the water-imps, where prizes were given for swearing and wicked
conversation; the art of tormenting was taught him by an elderly demon,
to whom the task was congenial; and general instruction in devilry was
afforded him {071}by means of public lectures delivered by a spirit
specially appointed for the purpose. Such, however, was his natural
goodness, that he steadily refused to be perverted, maintaining a
dignified silence amid the jesting and ribaldry of the imps around, and
invariably declining to join in any of their misconduct.
All that the demons could do, under the circumstances, was to alter,
without permanently injuring, the form with which he had entered the
world. This they did by giving to his well-shaped body the appearance of
a round and ill-made bulk, upon which they placed a bullet-head with a
pair of short horns over the forehead, and ornamented it, moreover, with
a long tail and a pair of bat’s wings. Thus being changed into a regular
little devilet, it was marvellous that the boy should have continued to
preserve the goodness and purity of his disposition. So it was, however;
and as demons who live by tempting mortals to sin have a very large
field over which to practise their skill, and cannot afford to devote to
any one individual more than a fair share of their attention, they got
tired after a while of trying it on with the young Baron, and ended
by leaving him very much to himself. Then it was that the boy found
amusement in flying about along the banks of the river.
By the mysterious laws of magic, he knew, and yet did not know, the
misfortune which had befallen him, and the crime of which he had been
made the victim. In other words, he knew that something was as it should
not be, and that, somehow or other, he had been cruelly wronged, but
of the exact nature of the wrong he was as yet ignorant. Still, some
instinct led him to the lake in which was situated the island upon which
stood his father’s {072}castle, and he loved better than anything else
to fly by night round and round the old place, uttering from time to
time mournful cries, which now and then found their way to the ears
of some of the Baron’s household. Whenever the false heir heard these
sounds, it was noticed that he, shivered terribly, and crept, groaning
and growling; under the nearest sofa, or anywhere out of sight.
And upon one occasion, when the cry sounded louder and clearer than