"Still hammering! And for whom is that coffin?"
He started--dropped the hammer from his hand--and looked round in terror, but no one was to be seen.
"It is the old gloomy thoughts creeping back into my mind, and affecting my brain, now at this ghastly hour of midnight," said he; but he put away the hammer and nails, and took up his light to go to his bed-room. Before he reached the door of the workshop, however, the candle which had burned down very low--quite in the socket of the candlestick, suddenly went out. He was left in the dark, and in vain he groped about to find the door--at any other time he would have laughed at the circ.u.mstance, but now it rather added to his annoyance that three times he found himself at the door of the lumber-room, instead of getting hold of the one which opened into his house. The third time he came to it, he stopped and listened, for he fancied he heard something moving within the empty room; a light also glimmered through a c.h.i.n.k in the door which was fastened, and on listening more attentively he thought he distinctly heard a sound as if buckets of water were being dashed over the floor, and some one scrubbing it with a brush. "It is an odd time to scour the floor," he thought, and then knocking at the door, and raising his voice--he called out loudly to ask who was there, and what they were doing at so late an hour. At that moment the light disappeared, and all became as still as death.
"I must have been mistaken," thought Frants, as he again tried to find the door he had at first sought. In spite of himself, a dread of some evil--or of something supernatural, seemed to haunt him, and the image of his old master--who was drowned--appeared before him in that dark workshop, where they had spent so many cheerful hours together. At last he found the door, and retired as quickly as possible to his chamber, where his wife and child were both fast asleep. He, too, at length fell asleep, but he was restless in his slumbers, and disturbed by strange dreams. In the course of the night he dreamed that his wife"s uncle, Mr. Flok, stood before him, and said,
"Why was I not placed in my coffin? Why was I not laid in a Christian burying-ground? Seek, and you will find--destroy the curse, before it destroys you also!"
In the morning when he awoke he looked so pale and ill that Johanna was quite alarmed; but he did not like to frighten her by telling her his dreams, and, indeed, he was ashamed at the impression they had made upon himself, for, notwithstanding all the confidence he had expressed on coming to the house, he could not help feeling nervous and uncomfortable.
Nor did the unpleasant sensation wear off, his gay spirits vanished, and he was also unhappy because the time was approaching when the purchase-money for the house would become due, and the settlement of the old man"s affairs, to which he had looked forward in expectation of obtaining his wife"s inheritance, seemed to be as far off as ever. He found it difficult to meet the small daily expenses of his family, and he feared the threatening future.
"Seek and you will find!" he repeated to himself; "destroy the curse before it destroys you! What curse? I begin to fear that there really is some evil doom connected with this house."
It was also a very unaccountable circ.u.mstance that however often he scratched out the mysterious inscription from the wall--"The Doomed House"--it appeared again next day in characters as fresh and red as ever. His health began to give way under all his anxiety, and the child also became ill. One evening he had been taking a solitary walk to a spot which had now a kind of morbid fascination for him--the Dead-house for the drowned--and when he returned home, he found Johanna weeping by the cradle of her suffering infant.
"You were right," he exclaimed, "we were happier in our humble garret than in this ill-fated house. Would that we had remained there! Tell me, Johanna, of what are you thinking? Has the doctor been here? What does he say of our dear little one?"
"If it should get worse towards night, there lies our last hope," she replied, pointing towards the table.
Frants took up the prescription, and gazed on the incomprehensible Latin words, as if therein he would have read his fate. The tears stood in his eyes.
"And to-morrow," said Johanna, "to-morrow will be a day of misery. Have you any means of paying Mr. Stork?"
"None whatever! But _that_ is a small evil compared to _this_," he answered, as he pointed to the feverish and moaning infant. "Have you been to the workshop?" he continued, after a pause, "the large coffin is finished; perhaps it may be our own last home--it would hold us all!"
"Oh! if that could only be!" exclaimed Johanna, as she threw her arms round him. "Could we only all three be removed together to a better world, there would be no more sorrow for us! But the hour of separation is close at hand; to-morrow, if you cannot pay Mr. Stork, you will be cast into prison, and I shall sit alone here with that dying child!"
"What do you say? Cast into prison! How do you know that? Has that man been here frightening you? He has not hinted a syllable of such a threat to me."
Johanna then related to him how Mr. Stork had latterly often called, under pretence of wishing to see Frants, but always when he was out. He had made himself very much at home, and had overwhelmed her with compliments and flattering speeches; he had also declared frequently that he would not trouble Frants for the money he owed him, if she would pay the debt in another manner. At first, she said, she did not understand him, and when she _did_ comprehend his meaning, she did not like to mention it to Frants, for fear of his taking the matter up warmly, and quarrelling with Stork, which would bring ruin on himself.
Mr. Stork, however, had become more bold and presuming, and that very evening, on her repelling his advances and desiring him to quit her presence, he had threatened that if she mentioned a syllable of what had pa.s.sed to her husband, nay, farther, if she were not prepared to change her behaviour towards himself before another sun had set, Frants should be thrown into prison for debt, and might congratulate himself in that pleasant abode on the fidelity of his wife.
"Well," said Frants, with forced composure, "he has got me in his toils--but his pitiful baseness shall not crush me. I have, indeed, been blind not to detect the villany that lay behind that satanic smile, and improvident to let myself be deluded by his pretended friendship. But if the Almighty will only spare and protect you, and that dear child, I shall not lose courage. Be comforted, my Johanna!"
It was now growing late--the child awoke from the restless sleep of fever--it seemed worse, and Frants ran to an apothecary with the prescription. "The last hope!" he sighed, as he hurried along; "and if it should fail--who will console poor Johanna to-morrow evening, when I am in a prison, and she has to clad the child in its grave clothes! Oh, how we shall miss you--sweet little angel! Was _this_ the happiness I dreamt of in the old house? Yes--people are right--it _is_ accursed!"
The apothecary"s shop was closed, but the prescription had been taken in through a little aperture in the door, and Frants sat down on the stone steps to wait until the medicine was ready. It was a clear, starry December night, but the sorrowing father sat shivering in the cold, and gazing gloomily on the frozen pavement--he was not thinking of the stars or of the skies. The watchman pa.s.sed and bade him "good morning."
"It will be a good morning, indeed, for me," thought poor Frants. "A morning fraught with despair."
At that moment the clock of a neighbouring church struck _one_, and the watchman sang, in a full, ba.s.s voice, these simple words:
"Help us, O Jesus dear!
Our earthly cross to bear; Oh! grant us patience _here_, And be our Saviour _there!_"
Frants heard the pious song, and a change seemed to come over his spirit--he raised his saddened eye to the magnificent heavens above--gazed at the calm stars which studded the deep blue vault--clasped his hands and joined in the watchman"s concluding words--
"Redeemer, grant Thy blessed help To make our burden light."
A small phial with the medicine was just then handed out to him, through the little sliding window; he paid his last coin for it, and, full of hope that _his_ burden might be lightened, hastened to his home.
"Did you hear what the watchman was singing, Johanna?" asked Frants, when he entered the little green parlour, where the young mother was watching by her child.
"Hush, hush," she whispered, "he has fallen into an easy and quiet sleep. G.o.d will have pity upon us--our child will do well now."
"Why, Johanna, you look as happy as if an angel from heaven had been with you, telling you blessed truths."
"Yes, blessed truths have, as it were, been communicated to me from heaven!" replied Johanna, pointing to an old Bible which lay open upon the table. "Look! this is my good uncle"s family Bible--that I have not seen since he died, and G.o.d forgive me--I have thought too little lately of my Bible. I found this one to-night far back on the highest shelf of the alcove--and its holy words have given me strength and comfort. Read this pa.s.sage, Frants, about putting our whole trust in the Lord, whatever may befall us."
Frants read the portion pointed out to him, and then began to turn over the leaves of the well-worn, silver-clasped book. He found a number of pieces of paper here and there, but as he saw at a glance that they were only accounts and receipts, he did not care to examine them, but his attention was suddenly caught by a paper which appeared to be part of a journal kept by the old man, the last year of his life. He looked through it eagerly, Johanna observed with surprise how his countenance was darkening. At length he started up and exclaimed,
"It is horrible!--horrible--Johanna! Some one must have sought to take your uncle"s life. See, here it is in his own handwriting--listen!" and he read aloud:
"G.o.d grant that my enemy"s wicked plot may not succeed! Why did I let my gold get into such iniquitous hands, and place my life at the mercy of one more ferocious than a wild beast? He has, cunningly plundered me of my wealth--he has bound my tongue by an oath--and now he seeks to take my life in secret. But my money will not prosper in his unworthy hands--and accursed be the house over whose threshold his feet pa.s.s.
There are human beings who can ruin others in all worldly matters, but mortal man has no power over the spirit when death sets it free."
"What can this mean?" cried Frants, almost wild with excitement. Who is the mortal enemy to whom he alludes, but whom he does not name? Who has got possession of his house and his means? The same person, no doubt, who bound him by an oath to silence, and threatened his life in secret; who proclaimed to the world that he had drowned himself, and caused him to be buried like a suicide? Why was no other acquaintance called to recognize the body? We have no certainty that the drowned man was he.
Perhaps his bones lie nearer to us than we imagine. Ha! old master, in my dream I heard you say, "Seek, and you shall find--why was I not put into consecrated ground?" Johanna! what do you think about that old lumber-room? There have been some mysterious doings there at midnight--there are some still--that floor is washed while we are sleeping. Before to-morrow"s sun can rise I shall have searched that den of murder, from one end to the other."
"Oh, dearest Frants, how wildly you talk; you make me tremble."
But as Frants was determined to go, she sat down by the cradle to watch her sleeping child, while he took a light and proceeded to the workshop. There he seized a hatchet and crow bar, and thus provided with implements, he approached the door of the locked chamber.
"The room belongs to me," said he to himself, "who has a right to prevent me from entering it?"
To force the door by the aid of the iron crowbar, was the work of an instant, and without the slightest hesitation he went in, though it must be confessed he felt a momentary panic. But that wore off immediately, and he began at once to examine the place. Nothing appeared, however, to excite suspicion. There were some sacks of wood in a corner, and he emptied these, almost expecting to see one of them filled with the bones of dead men, but there was no vestige of anything of the kind. The floor seemed to be recently washed, for it was yet scarcely dry. He then began to take up the boards. At that moment he heard the handle of the door which led into the neighbouring house turning; holding the hatchet in one hand, and the light, high above his head, in the other, he put himself in an att.i.tude of defence, while he called out:
"Has anyone a desire to a.s.sist me?"
Presently all was still. Frants put down his light, and began again hammering at the boards; almost unconsciously he also began to hum aloud an air which his old master used always to sing when he was engaged in finishing any piece of work. But he had not hammered or hummed long before the handle of the door was again turned. This time the door opened, and a tall, white figure slowly entered, with an expression of countenance as h.e.l.lish as if its owner had just come from the abode of evil spirits.
"What, at it again, old man? Will you go on hammering and nailing till Doomsday? Must that song be heard to all eternity?" said a hollow but well-known voice--and Frants recognized with horror the ghastly-pale and wild-looking sleep-walker, who, with eyes open--but fixed and glazed--and hair standing on end, had come in his night-gear from his sleeping-chamber.
"Where didst thou lay my bones?" said Frants, as if he had become suddenly insane. "Why was I not placed in my coffin?--why did I not enter a Christian burying-ground?"
"Your bones are safe enough," replied the pallid terrible-looking dreamer, "no one will harm them under my pear-tree."
"But whom didst thou bury under my name--as a self-murderer, when thou didst fasten on me the stain of guilt in death?" asked Frants, astonished and frightened at the sound of his own voice, for it seemed to him as if a spirit from the other world were speaking through his lips.
"It was the beggar," replied the wretched somnambulist, with a frightful contortion of his fiendish face, a sort of triumphant grin.
"It was only the foreign beggar to whom you gave your old grey cloak ... but whom I drove from my door that Christmas-eve."
"Where _he_ lies shalt thou rot--by _his_ side shalt thou meet me on the great day of doom!" cried Frants, who hardly knew what he was saying. He had scarcely uttered these words when he heard a fearful sound, something between a shriek and a groan--and he stood alone with his light and his hatchet--for the howling figure had disappeared.