The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
tenderness and gravity in his manner that appeared to have a powerful
effect upon the young lady. Her color came and went as she listened with
deep attention. Now and then she made some blushing reply, and when his
eye was turned away she would steal a sidelong glance at his romantic
countenance, and heave a gentle sigh of tender happiness. It was evident
that the young couple were completely enamored. The aunts, who were
deeply versed in the mysteries of the heart, declared that they had
fallen in love with each other at first sight.
The feast went on merrily, or at least noisily, for the guests were
all blessed with those keen appetites that attend upon light purses and
mountain air. The baron told his best and longest stories, and never had
he told them so well or with such great effect. If there was anything
marvellous, his auditors were lost in astonishment; and if anything
facetious, they were sure to laugh exactly in the right place. The
baron, it is true, like most great men, was too dignified to utter any
joke but a dull one; it was always enforced, however, by a bumper of
excellent Hockheimer, and even a dull joke at one’s own table, served
up with jolly old wine, is irresistible. Many good things were said by
poorer and keener wits that would not bear repeating, except on similar
occasions; many sly speeches whispered in ladies’ ears that almost
convulsed them with suppressed laughter; and a song or two roared out
by a poor but merry and broad-faced cousin of the baron that absolutely
made the maiden aunts hold up their fans.
Amidst all this revelry the stranger guest maintained a most singular
and unseasonable gravity. His countenance assumed a deeper cast of
dejection as the evening advanced, and, strange as it may appear, even
the baron’s jokes seemed only to render him the more melancholy. At
times he was lost in thought, and at times there was a perturbed and
restless wandering of the eye that bespoke a mind but ill at ease.
His conversations with the bride became more and more earnest and
mysterious. Lowering clouds began to steal over the fair serenity of her
brow, and tremors to run through her tender frame.
All this could not escape the notice of the company. Their gayety was
chilled by the unaccountable gloom of the bridegroom; their spirits were
infected; whispers and glances were interchanged, accompanied by shrugs
and dubious shakes of the head. The song and the laugh grew less and
less frequent: there were dreary pauses in the conversation, which were
at length succeeded by wild tales and supernatural legends. One
dismal story produced another still more dismal, and the baron nearly
frightened some of the ladies into hysterics with the history of the
goblin horseman that carried away the fair Leonora--a dreadful story
which has since been put into excellent verse, and is read and believed
by all the world.
The bridegroom listened to this tale with profound attention. He kept
his eyes steadily fixed on the baron, and, as the story drew to a close,
began gradually to rise from his seat, growing taller and taller, until
in the baron’s entranced eye he seemed almost to tower into a giant.
The moment the tale was finished he heaved a deep sigh and took a
solemn farewell of the company. They were all amazement. The baron was
perfectly thunderstruck.
“What! going to leave the castle at midnight? Why, everything was
prepared for his reception; a chamber was ready for him if he wished to
retire.”
The stranger shook his head mournfully and mysteriously: “I must lay my
head in a different chamber to-night.”
There was something in this reply and the tone in which it was uttered
that made the baron’s heart misgive him; but he rallied his forces and
repeated his hospitable entreaties.
The stranger shook his head silently, but positively, at every offer,
and, waving his farewell to the company, stalked slowly out of the hall.
The maiden aunts were absolutely petrified; the bride hung her head and
a tear stole to her eye.
The baron followed the stranger to the great court of the castle, where
the black charger stood pawing the earth and snorting with impatience.
When they had reached the portal, whose deep archway was dimly lighted
by a cresset, the stranger paused, and addressed the baron in a hollow
tone of voice, which the vaulted roof rendered still more sepulchral.
“Now that we are a lone,” said he, “I will impart to you the reason of
my going. I have a solemn, an indispensable engagement----”
“Why,” said the baron, “cannot you send some one in your place?”
“It admits of no substitute--I must attend it in person; I must away to
Wurtzburg cathedral----”
“Ay,” said the baron, plucking up spirit, “but not until
to-morrow--to-morrow you shall take your bride there.”
“No! no!” replied the stranger, with tenfold solemnity, “my engagement
is with no bride--the worms! the worms expect me! I am a dead man--I
have been slain by robbers--my body lies at Wurtzburg--at midnight I am
to be buried--the grave is waiting for me--I must keep my appointment!”
He sprang on his black charger, dashed over the drawbridge, and the
clattering of his horse’s hoofs was lost in the whistling of the night
blast.
The baron returned to the hall in the utmost consternation, and related
what had passed. Two ladies fainted outright, others sickened at the
idea of having banqueted with a spectre. It was the opinion of some that
this might be the wild huntsman, famous in German legend. Some talked of
mountain-sprites, of wood-demons, and of other supernatural beings with
which the good people of Germany have been so grievously harassed since
time immemorial. One of the poor relations ventured to suggest that it
might be some sportive evasion of the young cavalier, and that the
very gloominess of the caprice seemed to accord with so melancholy a
personage. This, however, drew on him, the indignation of the whole
company, and especially of the baron, who looked upon him as little
better than an infidel; so that he was fain to abjure his heresy as
speedily as possible and come into the faith of the true believers.
But, whatever may have been the doubts entertained, they were completely
put to an end by the arrival next day of regular missives confirming the
intelligence of the young count’s murder and his interment in Wurtzburg
cathedral.
The dismay at the castle may well be imagined. The baron shut himself up
in his chamber. The guests, who had come to rejoice with him, could not
think of abandoning him in his distress. They wandered about the courts
or collected in groups in the hall, shaking their heads and shrugging
their shoulders at the troubles of so good a man, and sat longer than
ever at table, and ate and drank more stoutly than ever, by way of
keeping up their spirits. But the situation of the widowed bride was
the most pitiable. To have lost a husband before she had even embraced
him--and such a husband! If the very spectre could be so gracious and
noble, what must have been the living man? She filled the house with
lamentations.
On the night of the second day of her widowhood she had retired to her
chamber, accompanied by one of her aunts, who insisted on sleeping with
her. The aunt, who was one of the best tellers of ghost-stories in all
Germany, had just been recounting one of her longest, and had fallen
asleep in the very midst of it. The chamber was remote and overlooked a
small garden. The niece lay pensively gazing at the beams of the rising
moon as they trembled on the leaves of an aspen tree before the lattice.
The castle clock had just tolled midnight when a soft strain of music
stole up from the garden. She rose hastily from her bed and stepped
lightly to the window. A tall figure stood among the shadows of
the trees. As it raised its head a beam of moonlight fell upon the
countenance. Heaven and earth! she beheld the Spectre Bridegroom! A loud
shriek at that moment burst upon her ear, and her aunt, who had been
awakened by the music and had followed her silently to the window, fell
into her arms. When she looked again the spectre had disappeared.
Of the two females, the aunt now required the most soothing, for she was
perfectly beside herself with terror. As to the young lady, there was
something even in the spectre of her lover that seemed endearing. There
was still the semblance of manly beauty, and, though the shadow of a man
is but little calculated to satisfy the affections of a lovesick girl,
yet where the substance is not to be had even that is consoling. The
aunt declared she would never sleep in that chamber again; the niece,
for once, was refractory, and declared as strongly that she would sleep
in no other in the castle: the consequence was, that she had to sleep in
it alone; but she drew a promise from her aunt not to relate the story
of the spectre, lest she should be denied the only melancholy pleasure
left her on earth--that of inhabiting the chamber over which the
guardian shade of her lover kept its nightly vigils.
How long the good old lady would have observed this promise is
uncertain, for she dearly loved to talk of the marvellous, and there is
a triumph in being the first to tell a frightful story; it is, however,
still quoted in the neighborhood as a memorable instance of female
secrecy that she kept it to herself for a whole week, when she was
suddenly absolved from all further restraint by intelligence brought to
the breakfast-table one morning that the young lady was not to be found.
Her room was empty--the bed had not been slept in--the window was open
and the bird had flown!
The astonishment and concern with which the intelligence was received
can only be imagined by those who have witnessed the agitation which the
mishaps of a great man cause among his friends. Even the poor relations
paused for a moment from the indefatigable labors of the trencher, when
the aunt, who had at first been struck speechless, wrung her hands
and shrieked out, “The goblin! the goblin! she’s carried away by the
goblin!”
In a few words she related the fearful scene of the garden, and
concluded that the spectre must have carried off his bride. Two of the
domestics corroborated the opinion, for they had heard the clattering of
a horse’s hoofs down the mountain about midnight, and had no doubt that
it was the spectre on his black charger bearing her away to the tomb.
All present were struck with the direful probability for events of
the kind are extremely common in Germany, as many well-authenticated
histories bear witness.
What a lamentable situation was that of the poor baron! What a
heartrending dilemma for a fond father and a member of the great family
of Katzenellenbogen! His only daughter had either been rapt away to the
grave, or he was to have some wood-demon for a son-in-law, and perchance
a troop of goblin grandchildren. As usual, he was completely bewildered,
and all the castle in an uproar. The men were ordered to take horse and
scour every road and path and glen of the Odenwald. The baron himself
had just drawn on his jack-boots, girded on his sword, and was about
to mount his steed to sally forth on the doubtful quest, when he was
brought to a pause by a new apparition. A lady was seen approaching the
castle mounted on a palfrey, attended by a cavalier on horseback. She
galloped up to the gate, sprang from her horse, and, falling at the
baron’s feet, embraced his knees. It was his lost daughter, and her
companion--the Spectre Bridegroom! The baron was astounded. He looked
at his daughter, then at the spectre, and almost doubted the evidence of
his senses. The latter, too, was wonderfully improved in his appearance
since his visit to the world of spirits. His dress was splendid, and