Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843

It was Maïna, the betrothed of Frederick. On the left of the burgomaster, negligently leaning on the back of the magistrate's chair, was a man still young in years, but so wrinkled and careworn, from study or bad health, that he might have passed for old. The man's expression was cold and severe; his look proud and fiery; his language rough and harsh. On analysing his features you could easily make out that he had prodigious powers of mind, a character imperious and jealous, and such indomitable pride that he might do a mischief to any rival who might be bold enough to cross his path.

Now, we are aware of one at least who ran the risk; for the man was Laurentius Castero. Frederick Katwingen started back on entering the burgomaster's room. His eye encountered the glance of Castero, and in the look then interchanged, they felt that they were enemies between whom no reconciliation could take place. From Laurentius, Frederick turned his eye to Maïna. The sorrowful attitude of the maiden would have revealed to him all that had happened, if the self-satisfied look of his rival had left any thing to be learned. The conqueror brow-beat the vanquished.

"Mr Katwingen," said the burgomaster, deliberately weighing every word, "you are aware of the high compliment paid by the Stadtholder to our city."

"My dream comes true," thought Frederick as he bowed affirmatively to the magistrate's enquiry.

"And you are also aware," pursued the burgomaster, "of the Stadtholder's wishes as far as you are personally concerned?"

Frederick bowed again.

"Thanks to my humble supplications," continued Jansen Pyl, raising his enormous head with an air of dignity, "our gracious governor has condescended to honour our good town with his august presence for twenty-four hours longer. But what ought to fill you with eternal gratitude is this: that he has determined to hear you a second time when he returns to-morrow from inspecting the works at Shravnag. I hope you will redouble your efforts, and do all you can to please your illustrious auditor; and, if any thing is required to stimulate your ambition, and add to your endeavours to excel, I will add this—the hand of Maïna will be bestowed on the conqueror at this second trial."

"But, father!–" said the maiden.

"It is all settled," interrupted the burgomaster, looking astonished at the girl's audacity; "you are the reward I offer to the protégé of the Stadtholder. You hear what I say, gentlemen?" he added, turning to the rivals.

"I shall certainly not miss the appointment," said Castero, throwing back his head proudly. "If to-morrow is not as glorious to me as to-day has been, I will break my violin, and never touch a bow again as long as I live."

"As for me," said Frederick, "if I do not make up for the check I unluckily met to-day by a glorious victory, I swear I will renounce the flattering name my countrymen have given me, and will hide my shame in some foreign land. The Orpheus of his country must have no rival of his fame."

"To-morrow, then," said the burgomaster.

"To-morrow!" repeated the rivals, casting on each other looks of proud defiance.

"To-morrow!" whispered Maïna and buried her face in her hands.

CHAPTER V

I shall not attempt to describe the strange sensations of Frederick on returning from the burgomaster's house It will have been seen from the glimpses we have had of him already, that he was of a quick and sensitive disposition, and that the chance of defeat in the approaching struggle would sting him into madness. He pictured to himself the ferocious joy of Castero on being declared the victor—the agony of Maïna—the misery of his own degradation; and there is no doubt if the mysterious Unknown, whose appearance he now felt certain was nothing but a dream, had visited him in propriâ personâ, that he would have accepted his terms—his soul for triumph over his enemy, for the possession of the girl he loved.

The morrow rose clear and cloudless. At the appointed hour Frederick took his violin, and prepared to set out. But just when he was opening the door, the man in the mantle—the same he had seen the day before—stood before him.

"You did not expect to see me," said the Unknown, following Frederick to the end of the room, where he had retreated. "I told you, nevertheless, that we should meet again," he added, placing himself face to face with the son of the brewer.

"Then it was no dream," murmured the youth, who appeared to have lost all his resolution.

"Certainly not," returned the stranger, looking sarcastically at Frederick from head to foot. "I promised you yesterday, on the banks of the lake, that you would find your fiddle unharmed, and that I would enable you to conquer your rival. But I don't feel that I am bound to do any thing of the kind for nothing; generosity was never my forte, and I have lived long enough among the burghers of Holland to insist on being well paid for every thing I do."

"Who are you, then; and what is it you want?" enquired the Dutch Orpheus, in an agitated voice.

"Who am I!" answered the man in the mantle, with all the muscles of his face in violent convulsions—"Who am I!—I thought I had told you yesterday when you asked me—I am your master. What do I want? I will tell you. But why do you tremble so? you were bold enough when we met. I saw the thought in your heart—if Satan should rise before me, and promise me victory over my rival at the price of my soul, I would agree to the condition!"

"Satan!—you are Satan!" shrieked Frederick, and closed his eyes in horror.

"Didn't you find me out on the side of the lake, when you told me you would exchange your salvation for years of love and glory. Yes, I am that King of Darkness—your master! and that of a great part of mankind. But, come; the hour is at hand—the Burgomaster and the Stadtholder await us. Do you accept the offer I make you?"

After a minute's hesitation, during which his features betrayed the force of the internal contest, the musician made his choice. He had not power to speak, but he raised his hand, and was on the point of making the cross upon his forehead, to guard him from the tempter, when Satan perceived his intention, and seized his arm.

"Think a little before you discard me entirely," he said, raising again in the soul of the musician all the clouds of pride and ambition that had given him power over it at first; "look into the box where your violin is laid, and decide for the last time."

Frederick obeyed his tempter, and opened the case, but uttered a cry of desperation when he saw his Straduarius in the same state of utter ruin to which he had reduced it before. The neck separated from the body; both faces shivered to fragments—the ebony rests, the gold-headed stops, the bridge, the sides—all a confused mass of wreck and destruction.

"Frederick! Frederick!" cried a voice from the brewery—it was his father's.

"Frederick! Frederick!" repeated a hundred voices under the windows—"Come down, come down, the Stadtholder is impatient! Castero swears you are afraid to face him."

They were his friends who were urging him to make haste.

"Well?" enquired Satan.

"I accept the bargain. I give you my soul!" said Frederick, while his cheek grew pale, and his eye flashed.

"Your soul!" replied Satan, with a shrug of infinite disdain. "Do you think I would have hindered you from jumping into the lake, if I had wished to get it? Do you think that suicides are not mine already?—mine by their own act, without the formality of a bargain?—Your soul!" repeated the Prince of Darkness, with a sneer; "I don't want it, I assure you: at least not to-day—I feel sure of it whenever I require it!"

"My soul, then, belongs to you—my fate is settled beforehand?" enquired Frederick.

"You are an artiste," answered Satan, with a chuckling laugh, "and therefore are vain, jealous, proud, and full of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. You perceive I shall lose nothing by waiting. No, no; 'tis not your own soul I want—but that of your first-born, that you must make over to me this hour!"

"What do you want me to do!"

"Here is the deed," said Satan, pulling a parchment from under his cloak, on which strange characters were drawn, and letters in an unknown language. "In putting your name to this, you bind and oblige yourself to let me know when Maïna is about to become a mother; and before the baptismal water shall touch the infant's brow, you shall hang from the window a piece of lace which shall have been worn by Maïna at her wedding. One of my satellites will be on the watch; he will come and tell me when the signal is made and—the rest is my own affair! You will find this agreement in your fiddle-case."

"Frederick! Frederick! be quick be quick!" again shouted the father.

"Frederick! Frederick! Castero is boasting about your absence!" cried the chorus of impatient friends.

"I agree!" cried the artiste, and affixed his name. While he was signing, the stranger muttered some words of mysterious sound, of which he did not know the meaning; and immediately the pieces of the broken instrument united themselves—rests, bridge, stops, faces, and sides, all took their proper places, and the soul of the noble violin re-entered its musical prison, at the moment when that of the future baby of Maïna was sold to the enemy of mankind!

"Now, then," said Satan, as he sank beneath the floor, "go where glory waits thee."

CHAPTER VI

What need is there to tell the success of Frederick Katwingen—how he triumphed over Castero, captivated the Stadtholder, and was the pride of his native town? The Stadtholder attached him to his person, settled a pension on him of fifteen thousand florins, and treated him as the most cherished of his friends. The burgomaster was delighted to gain so illustrious a son-in-law, and hurried forward the marriage with all his might. On the day of the wedding, when Frederick was leading the bride to church, at the moment when the party was crossing the market-place, a voice whispered in his ear—"A piece of the lace she will wear at the ball this evening." Frederick recognised the voice, though no one else heard it. He turned, but saw nobody. After the ceremony, the burgomaster handed the contract to the bridegroom, to which the Stadtholder had affixed his signature. A present of a hundred thousand florins from the governor of the United Provinces, proved the sincerity of that illustrious personage's friendship, and that his favour had by no means fallen off. The burgomaster was emulous of so much generosity, and introduced a clause in the contract, settling his whole fortune on his son-in-law, in case of Maïna's death.

Behold, then, the artiste praised—fêted—and happy. Possessed of the wife he loved—rich—honoured—what more had he to hope than that those advantages should be continued him? Castero was true to his word—reduced his violin to powder, acknowledged Frederick's superiority, and betook himself to higher pursuits, which ended in the great discovery of printing.

The Dutch Orpheus is freed from the annoyance of a rival. He reigns by the divine right of his violin, the undisturbed monarch of his native plains. His name is pronounced with enthusiasm from one flat end of Holland to the other. In the splendour of his triumphal condition, he has forgotten his compact with Beelzebub; but Maïna reminded him of it one day, when she told him he was about to become a father.

A father!—ha!—Frederick! That word which brings such rapture to the newly married couple—which presents such radiant visions of the future—that word freezes the heart of the artiste and stops the blood in his veins.

It is only now when Maïna is so happy that he knows the enormity of his fault.

He is about to be a father—and he—beforehand—basely, cowardly—has sold the soul of his son who is yet unborn—before it can shake off the taint of original sin. Shame! shame! on the proud in heart who has yielded to the voice of the tempter—to the wretch who, for a little miserable glory, has shut the gates of mercy on his own child—shame! shame!

If Satan would consent to an exchange—if—but no—'tis impossible. The "archangel fallen" had explained himself too clearly—no hope! no hope! From that hour there was no rest, no happiness for the protégé of the Stadtholder—sleep fled from his eyelids, he was pursued by perpetual remorse, and in the agonies of his heart deserted the nuptial bed: while light dreams settled on Maïna's spirit, and wove bright chaplets for the future, he wandered into the midnight fields—across the canals—any where, in short, where he fancied he could procure forgetfulness; but solitude made him only feel his misery the more. How often he thought of going to the gloomy lake where he had first encountered the Unknown! How often he determined to complete the resolution he had formed on the day of Castero's triumph! But Satan had said to him, "The suicide is condemned—irrevocably condemned;" and the condemnation of which he would be sure, would not bring a ransom for his first-born.

The fatal time draws on—in a few minutes more Maïna will be a mother. Frederick, by some invisible impulse, has chosen from among the laces of his wife a rich Mechlin, which she wore round her neck on her wedding-day. It is now to be the diabolic standard, and he goes with it towards the door of his house, pensive and sad. When he got to the threshold he stopped—he raised his eyes to heaven, and from his heart and from his lips, there gushed out prayers, warm, deep, sincere—the first for many years. A ray of light has rushed into his soul. He uttered a cry of joy, he dashed across the street into the neighbouring church; he dipped the lace into the basin of consecrated water, and returned immediately to hang it at the door of his apartment.

At that moment Maïna gave birth to a son, and Satan rushed impatiently to claim his expected prey. But the tempter was unprepared for the trap that was laid for him. On placing his foot on the first step of the stair, he found himself pushed back by a superior power. The Mechlin, dripping with holy water, had amazing effect. It was guardian of the house and protected the entrance against the fallen angel. Satan strove again and again; but was always repulsed. There rises now an impenetrable barrier between him and the innocent being he had destined for his victim. Forced by the pious stratagem of Frederick Katwingen to give up his purpose, he roamed all night round the house like a roaring lion, bellowing in a most awful manner.

In the morning, when they wrapt up the babe in the precious lace to carry him to be baptized, they perceived that it had been torn in several places. The holes showed the determination with which Satan had tried to force a passage. The enemy of mankind had not retreated without leaving the mark of his talons on the lace.

On coming back from church, Frederick ran to his fiddle; and found in a corner of the case the deed of compact he had signed. With what joy he tossed it into the fire, and heard it go crackling up the chimney!

All was over now; Satan was completely floored. He confessed, by giving up the contract, that he had no further right on the soul of the newly born, when once it had been purified by the waters of baptism. The father had recovered the soul which the musician had bartered away! Since that time, whenever a young woman in Haarlem is about to become a mother, the husband never fails to hang at the door the richest pieces of lace he can find in her trousseau. That standard bids defiance to the evil one, and recalls the noble victory won over the prince of darkness by Frederick Katwingen, surnamed the Dutch Orpheus. And that is the reason that, in passing through Haarlem, the visitor sees little frames suspended from certain houses, ornamented with squares of Mechlin, or Valenciennes, or Brussels point. And that is the reason that, when he asks an explanation of the singular custom, he gets only the one short, unvarying answer—"These are the Devil's Frills!"

ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA

PART II

THE BLOCKHOUSE

Supper over, and clenched by a pull at Nathan's whisky flask, we prepared for departure. The Americans threw the choicest parts of the buck over their shoulders, and the old squatter again taking the lead, we resumed our march. The way led us first across a prairie, then through a wood, which was succeeded by a sort of thicket, upon the branches and thorny shrubs of which we left numerous fragments of our dress. We had walked several miles almost in silence, when Nathan suddenly made a pause, and let the but-end of his rifle fall heavily on the ground. I took the opportunity to ask him where we were.

"In Louisiana," replied he, "between the Red River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi; on French ground, and yet in a country where French power is worth little. Do you see that?" added he suddenly, seizing my arm, and pulling me a few paces aside, while he pointed to a dark object, that at the distance and in the moonlight, had the appearance of an earthen wall. "Do you know what that is?" repeated the squatter.

"An Indian grave, perhaps," replied I.

"A grave it is," was the answer; "but not of the Redskins. As brave a backwoodsman as ever crossed the Mississippi lies buried there. You are not altogether wrong, though. I believe it was once an Indian mound."

While he spoke we were walking on, and I now distinguished a hillock or mound of earth, with nearly perpendicular sides, on which was erected a blockhouse, formed of unhewn cypress trunks, of a solidity and thickness upon which four-and-twenty pounders would have had some difficulty in making an impression. Its roof rose about ten feet above a palisade enclosing the building, and consisting of stout saplings sharpened at the top, and stuck in the ground at a very short distance from each other, being moreover strengthened and bound together with wattles and branches. The building had evidently been constructed more for a refuge and place of defence than an habitual residence.

A ladder was now lowered, by which we ascended to the top of the mound. There was a small door in the palisades, which Nathan opened and passed through, we following.

The blockhouse was of equal length and breadth, about forty feet square. On entering it we found nothing but the bare walls, with the exception of a wide chimney of sun-baked brick, and in one corner a large wooden slab partly imbedded in the ground.

"Don't tread upon that board," said the old man solemnly, as we approached the slab to examine it; "it is holy ground."

"How holy ground?"

"There lies under it as brave a fellow as ever handled axe or rifle. He it was built this blockhouse, and christened it the Bloody Blockhouse—and bloody it proved to be to him. But you shall hear more of it if you like. You shall hear how six American rifles were too many for ninety French and Spanish muskets."

Carleton and I shook our heads incredulously. The Yankee took us both by the arm, led us out of the blockhouse, and through the stockade to a grassy projection of the hillock.

"Ninety French and Spanish muskets," repeated he in a firm voice, and weighing on each word. "Opposed to them were Asa Nolins, with his three brothers, his brother-in-law, a cousin, and their wives. He fell like a brave American as he was, but not alone, for the dead bodies of thirty foes were lying round the blockhouse when he died. They are buried there," added he, pointing to a row of cotton-trees a short distance off, that in the pale moonlight might have been taken for the spectres of the departed; "under those cotton-trees they fell, and there they are buried."

The old squatter remained for a short space in his favourite attitude, his hands crossed on his rifle, and his chin resting on them. He seemed to be calling together the recollections of a time long gone by. We did not care to interrupt him. The stillness of the night, the light of the moon and stars, that gave the prairie lying before us the appearance of a silvery sea, the sombre forest on either side of the blockhouse, of which the edges only were lighted up by the moonbeams, the vague allusions our guide had made to some fearful scene of strife and slaughter that had been enacted in this now peaceful glade—all these circumstances combined, worked upon our imaginations, and we felt unwilling to break the stillness which added to the impressive beauty of the forest scene.

"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?" asked Nathan abruptly. As he spoke he sat down upon the bank, and made sign to us to sit beside him.

"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?"

"No; we came up it from New Orleans hither."

"That is nothing; the stream is not half so dangerous there as above Natchez." We came down, six men, four women, and twice as many children, all the way from the mouths of the Ohio to the Red River; and bad work we had of it, in a crazy old boat, to pass the rapids and avoid the sand-banks, and snakes, and sawyers, and whatever the devil they call them, that are met with. I calculate we weren't sorry when we left the river and took to dry land again. The first thing we did was to make a wigwam, Injun fashion, with branches of trees. This was to shelter the women and children. Two men remained to protect them, and the other four divided into two parties, and set off, one south and t'other west, to look for a good place for a settlement. I and Righteous, one of Asa's brothers, took the southerly track.

It was no pleasuring party that journey, but a right-down hard and dangerous expedition, through cypress swamps, where snapping turtles were plenty as mosquitoes, and at every step the congo and mocassin snakes twisted themselves round our ankles. We persevered, however. We had a few handfuls of corn in our hunting-pouches, and our calabashes well filled with whisky. With that and our rifles we did not want for provender.

At length, on the fourth day, we came to an upland, or rolling prairie as we call it, from the top of which we had a view that made our hearts leap for joy. A lovely strip of land lay before us, bounded at the further end by a forest of evergreen oaks, honey locusts, and catalpas. Towards the north was a good ten mile of prairie; on the right hand a wood of cotton-trees, and on the left the forest in which you now are. We decided at once that we should find no better place than this to fix ourselves; and we went back to tell Asa and the others of our discovery, and to show them the way to it. Asa and one of his brothers returned with us, bringing part of our traps. They were as pleased with the place as we were, and we went back again to fetch the rest. But it was no easy matter to bring our plunder and the women and children through the forests and swamps. We had to cut paths through the thickets, and to make bridges and rafts to cross the creeks and marshes. After ten days' labour, however, and with the help of our axes, we were at our journey's end.

We began directly clearing and cutting down trees, and in three weeks we had built a loghouse, and were able to lie down to rest without fear of being disturbed by the wolves or catamounts. We built two more houses, so as to have one for each two families and then set to work to clear the land. We had soon shaped out a couple of fields, a ten-acre one for maize, and another half the size for tobacco. These we began to dig and hoe; but the ground was hard, and though we all worked like slaves, we saw there was nothing to be made of it without ploughing. A ploughshare we had, and a plough was easily made—but horses were wanting: so Asa and I took fifty dollars, which was all the money we had amongst us, and set out to explore the country forty miles round, and endeavour to meet with somebody who would sell us a couple of horses, and two or three cows. Not a clearing or settlement did we find, however, and at last we returned discouraged, and again began digging. On the very first day after our return, as we were toiling away in the field, a trampling of horses was heard, and four men mounted, and followed by a couple of wolf-hounds, came cantering over the prairie. It struck us that this would be a famous chance for buying a pair of horses, and Asa went to meet them, and invited them to alight and refresh themselves. At the same time we took our rifles, which were always lying beside us when we worked in the fields, and advanced towards the strangers. But when they saw our guns, they put spurs to their horses and rode off to a greater distance. Asa called out to them not to fear, for our rifles were to use against bears and wolves and Redskins, and not against Christian men. Upon this, down they came again; we brought out a calabash of real Monongahela; and after they had taken a dram, they got off their horses, and came in and ate some venison, which the women set before them. They were Creoles, half Spanish, half French, with a streak of the Injun; and they spoke a sort of gibberish not easy to understand. But Asa, who had served in Lafayette's division in the time of the war, knew French well; and when they had eaten and drunk, he began to make a bargain with them for two of their horses.