Johann August Apel

“ It was Katharine: smiling and blushing, she stopped for a moment in agitation, and said:—“Have you succeeded, mother? was it yes, dear mother?” Then, bounding into the room, she fell on her mother’s neck for an answer.
“Ah Kate, be not too confident when thou should’st be prepared for the worst: thy father is a good man, as good as ever stepped, but he has his fancies; and he is resolved to give thee to none but a hunter: he has set his heart upon it; and he’ll not go from his word; I know him too well.” ”

“ Time flew faster than an arrow: in the arms of love, that should have crowned him with happiness, he suffered the pangs of martyrdom. Ten o’clock was now past: and the decisive moment was at hand. Without taking leave, William stole from the side of his bride; already he was outside the house with his implements of labor, when old Anne came after him. “Whither away, William, at this time of night?” asked she anxiously. “I shot a deer, and forgot it in my hurry,” was the answer. ”

“ The moon buried itself deeper and deeper in the clouds; and no light was shed upon the midnight deed, except from the red lurid gleam of the fire, that waxed and waned by fits, under the gusty squalls of the wind. A remote church-clock proclaimed that it was now within a quarter of eleven. William put the ladle upon the fire, and threw in the lead, together with three bullets which had already hit the mark once: a practice, amongst those who cast the “fatal bullets,” which he remembered to have heard mentioned in his apprenticeship. In the forest was now heard a pattering of rain. ”

“ It is weak, and childish, to turn back from a business half accomplished; it is folly to renounce the main advantage, having already perhaps risked one’s salvation for a trifle. No: let me go through with it.”
He stepped forwards with long strides; the wind drove the agitated clouds, again over the face of the moon; and William plunged into the thickest gloom of the forest.
At length he stood upon the cross-way. At length the magic circle was drawn; the skulls were fixed, and the bones were laid round about. ”

“ In the madness of wrath, William drew his hanger, and made a thrust at the hideous creature. “Accursed devil!”—cried he in tones of despair—“Is it thus thou hast deluded me?” More he had no power to utter; for he sank insensible to the ground close by his bleeding bride.
The commissioner and the priest sought vainly to speak comfort to the desolate parents. Scarce had the aged mother laid the ominous funeral garland upon the bosom of her daughter’s corps, when she wept away the last tears of her unfathonable grief. The solitary father soon followed her. ”

“ Then be of good cheer, dearest Kate. I am not unskilled in hunting: for, at one time, I was apprenticed to my uncle Finsterbusch the forester-general; and it was only to gratify my god-father the bailiff that I exchanged the gun for the writing-desk. What care I for the reversion of the bailiff’s place, unless I may take my Kate into the bailiff’s house as mistress? If you can be content to look no higher than your mother did, and Will the forester is not less dear to you than Will the bailiff, then let me die if I won’t quit my clerkship this instant ”

“ Meantime the bridegroom elect passed his time in rapturous elevation of spirits, and forgot himself and all the world in the paradise of youthful love—so that father Bertram often said to him tauntingly, that from the day when he had hit his prime aim in obtaining Katharine’s heart he had hit nothing else. The fact however, was, that, from that very day, William had met with an unaccountable run of ill-luck in hunting. Sometimes his gun would miss fire; at other times instead of a deer, he would hit the trunk of a tree. ”

“ Some people I’ve heard talk of hidden powers of nature, and of the virtue of the stars. I know not: every man’s free to think what he likes: but it’s my opinion, and I stick to it, that it’s all the devil’s handicraft.”
William drew his breath more freely. ”

“ But old Anne shook her head thoughtfully, saying:—“God grant all may turn out natural!” and William changed colour a little. He resolved to put by his balls, and, at the most, only to use one upon his day of trial, lest he might be unconsciously trifling away his future happiness at the wily suggestions of a fiend. But the forester summoned him to attendance upon the chace; and, unless he were prepared to provoke the old man, and to rouse afresh all the late suspicions in regard to his skill, he found himself obliged to throw away some of his charmed balls upon such occasions. ”

“ Nature teems with operations which we do not comprehend: and, am I to trifle away my happiness for a superannuated prejudice? I will call up no spiritual beings, but I will summon and make use of the occult powers of nature, never troubling myself whether I can decypher her mysteries or not. I shall go in quest of the old soldier; and, if I should not find him, I shall take care to keep up my courage better than that same George of Prague ”

“ The owls saluted her with hooting, and stroked her with their wings. At the circle, she bowed to the bones and skulls; but the coals shot forth lambent tongues of flame against her, and she drew back her withered hands. Then she paced round the circle, and with a grin presented her wares to William. “Give me the bones,” said she in a harsh guttural tone, “and I’ll give thee some spoons. Give the skulls to me, love: what’s the trumpery to thee, love?” and then she chaunted, with a scornful air,
There’s nothing can help: ’tis an hour too late ”

“ Many a man there was, in those days, who would gladly have had Kuno’s reward; one man for himself, perhaps; another for some poor cousin or so, or may be something nearer of kin, but come of the wrong side the blanket: and what did they do but they persuaded the duke that Kuno’s shot had hit the mark through witchcraft and black arts: “For why?” said they, “Kuno never took any aim at all, but fired at random ‘a devil’s shot;’ and a devil’s shot, you’re to understand, never fails of hitting the mark, for needs must that the devil drives.” ”

“ Katharine wept, and avowed her determination to die sooner than to part from her William. Her mother comforted and scolded her by turns, and at length ended by joining her tears to her daughter’s. She was promising to make one more assault of a most vigorous kind upon the old forester’s heart, when a knock was heard at the door—and in stepped William.—“Ah William!”—exclaimed Katharine going up to him with streaming eyes,—“we must part: seek some other sweetheart: me you must never marry; father is resolved to give me to Robert, because he is a huntsman ”

“ William fired, the black speck was seen rapidly descending; and a great vulture fell bleeding to the ground.
“Oh! bless your heart, that’s nothing at all,” said the soldier, observing the speechless astonishment of his companion, “not worth speaking of. Indeed it’s no such great matter to learn how to cast balls as good as these; little more is wanted than some slight matter of skill, and to be sure a stout heart; for why? the work must be done in the night. ”

“ What, man? Kuno died in his bed quietly and with a christian’s peace amongst his children and children’s children; but, the man that tampers with the powers of darkness never makes a good end. I know that by what I saw myself at Prague in Bohemia, when I was an apprentice lad.”
“Aye? what was that,” cried Rudolph and the rest: “tell us, dear father.”
“What was it? why bad enough,” said Bertram, “it makes me shudder when I think of it. ”

“ At another time he was standing before the commissioner in the act of firing his probationary shot; he leveled, took aim, fired, and—missed. Katharine fainted away, her father rejected him for ever; then came the wooden-leg, and presented him with fresh balls; but too late—no second trial was allowed him.
So passed the night with William. At the earliest dawn he went into the forest, and bent his steps, not altogether without design, to the spot where he had met the old soldier. The fresh breezy air of the morning had chaced away from his mind the gloomy phantoms of the night. “Fool!” ”

“ When she knows the worst, she’ll settle herself down to her crying; and when that’s over, all’s over; she submits; and all goes right. I see no good that comes of standing shilly shally, and letting the girl nurse herself with hopes of what must not be.”
“But Bertram, dear Bertram,” replied old Anne, “why not? could not our Kate live as happily with the bailiff’s clerk as with the hunter Robert? Ah! you don’t know what a fine lad William is ”

“ Besides, what need of any such help for a good christian hunter? You know that, William, by your own experience; with a good gun and a skilful hand, the hunter wants no devil’s balls, but hits just where he should hit. For my part, if I had such balls, I would’nt fire them for any money; for the fiend is a wily devil, and might, upon occasion, give the ball a sly twist in its course, to serve his purposes instead of mine.”
VIII.
The forester went to bed, and left William in the most wretched state of agitation. ”

“ And what is there so much out of the course of nature in that which I am seeking, that supernatural powers need come to help me? Man controls the mighty powers of the brute into obedience to his will; why should he not, by the same natural arts, impress motion and direction upon the course of a bit of lifeless inert metal? ”

“ How do you think the sharp-shooters would come on, that must venture here there and every where, and must pick off their man from the very heart of the thickest smoke, where it’s clean impossible to see him, how must they come on, I would be glad to know, if they understood no other trick than just aim and let fire? ”

“ The commissioner was inexhaustible in William’s praise. “After such proofs of skill,” said he, “it seems next to ridiculous that I should call for any other test: but to satisfy old ordinances, we are sometimes obliged to do more than is absolutely needful; and so we will despatch the matter as briefly as possible. Yonder is a dove sitting on that pillar: level, and bring her down.”
“Oh! not that—not that, for God’s sake, William,” cried Katharine hastening to the spot, “shoot not, for God’s sake, at the dove. Ah! William, last night I dreamed that I was a white dove ”

“ In this manner did Wililam discuss his own intentions: but the old soldier was no where to be found. Nobody, of whom he enquired, had seen any such man as he had described. The next day was spent in the same search, and with no better success.
“So be it then!” said William internally: “the days that remain for my purpose are numbered. This very night I will go to the cross-road in the forest. It is a lonely spot; nobody will be there to witness my nocturnal labours: and I’ll take care not to quit the circle till my work is done.”
IX.
Twilight had set in ”

“ There was, at that time, a young man in Prague, one George Smith by name, a wild daring sort of a fellow, not but he was a fine active lad in his way, that was terribly fond of hunting, and would often come and join us ”

“ Oblige me by staying this night with me. Don’t look so cast down, my lad; it’s only to guard against possibilities.”
Katharine immediately offered her services to sit up with her father, and was unwilling to entrust the care of him to any body else, even to her own William; but father Bertram declined her offer.—“Another time,” said he, “another time; to-night I feel as if I should be easier if I had William with me.”
“William was disposed at first to excuse himself: but Kate commended her father so earnestly to his care, that her requests were not to be resisted ”