M. Y. Halidom

“ I was no more dead than I am at the present moment. It is true that I could not budge an inch, and I have no doubt that I looked thoroughly dead, but my mind was as clear and as sharp as possible.
"Poor young man," I heard the doctor say. "So hale and strong, too. Who'd have thought it?"
"Oh, my poor son! my poor son!" wept my father. "You whom I thought to rear to be the prop of my old age, now you are torn from me for ever."
"Calm yourself, sir," said the doctor, "else you will make yourself ill."
"How can I calm myself?" cried my father, in agony. ”

“ A loud cheer is raised by the crowd, and young Leo having thrown away his sword and pushed aside the assistant executioner, has seized the head of the criminal and torn off the bandage from his eyes. He holds it high in the air by its purple locks and gloats with fiendish satisfaction on its writhing features. The muscles of the face are fearfully convulsed, as if the spirit had not as yet quite departed, but still lingered about the corpse, being loth to leave its tenement. The eyes roll hideously and appear to gaze reproachfully upon the face of the young executioner. ”

“ Helen opened her large blue eyes with an expression of half wonderment, half doubt, not knowing whether the painter spoke in jest, or whether an artist really had some occult power in his very breath that could vivify the canvas. How was she to know, poor innocent child! Village bred and born in an age, as our readers will recollect, before photography had rendered too familiar the representation of the human face even for the veriest peasant any longer to wonder at the art by which it is produced? ”

“ But who was the assistant executioner? Nobody could find out. He had disappeared as mysteriously as he had made his appearance. Some said it was one, and some another, while the most settled belief was that it could be none other than the arch-fiend himself who had come to carry off the Henker's soul. In the confusion that followed the swoon of young Leo he had vanished, and no one had seen whither. No human being could have passed through a crowd without being seen by someone, therefore it must have been the arch-enemy of mankind. ”

“ I was laid out in state, and all that day and the next friends poured in to gaze upon my corpse.
As the time grew nearer for my funeral the more despairing I got. At length the coffin arrived. I shuddered. Had my last moment actually come? What could I do? Nothing.
"Oh, Heaven!" I cried within myself, "for what fell crime am I doomed to bear this agony of soul?"
Two undertakers now lifted me from my bed, one of them seizing me by the shoulders, the other by the feet, and I felt myself placed within a leaden coffin supported upon trestles. ”

“ We know that however well a portrait may be painted, it can never come up to the original, and yet we are never contented, even with our utmost endeavours to approach it."
"Then, we who know nothing about your art are happier in our ignorance than the artists themselves who have studied art all their lives," remarked Helen.
"Very often," replied McGuilp with a sigh; "nevertheless, there is a pleasure in the mere pursuit of art, however far removed the work of the artist may be from his ideal, that he would not exchange for the calm satisfaction of the uninitiated who perceive no fault." ”

“ He thought of the difference of Claribel's treatment of this young boor and that of himself—he, the scion of a noble house!
Then jealously began to gnaw his heart, and he found it to his interest that John Archer should be removed for ever from his path. Being perfectly unscrupulous and selfish, he cared not what means he employed to execute his design, as long as no suspicion should be attached to himself.
He could have waylaid and murdered his rival, if he chose; have introduced poison in his cup, or bribed an assassin to murder him, but none of these modes suited De Chevron. ”

“ The gossip of the village had long ceased; in fact, Claribel's spiritual tormentor had discontinued its visits now for so long that she began to hope that they had ceased for ever.
Claribel was now fast ripening into womanhood, and found herself no longer shunned and whispered about as a person guilty of some horrible crime which had called down the just vengeance of Heaven upon her, but passed by like any other, without allusion to the past; nay, more, she began to be courted by people in general, being known as a young woman of most excellent character. ”

“ It was a scene to awaken the soul of a poet, to inspire a landscape painter with increased love of his art; and as our two friends McGuilp and Parnassus strolled arm-in-arm together through this region of enchantment, leaving their footprints in the crisp frost, which they traversed with the buoyant footsteps of youth, leaving the elder members considerably in the rear, each felt himself drawn towards the other by a bond of common sympathy. ”

“ A painter must be content with the work his patrons set him to do and not indulge his own caprices. Well, well, admitting the range of the painter's art to have been cramped and limited, has any age or country the power to cramp the genius of an artist? Is high art only to be found in imaginative pictures? Does not a portrait become high art under a master hand? ”

“ This was the case with our Helen, who never having set eyes before on a real artist, looked with awe and wonder on our painter as a species of magician who possessed an art not merely unknown in her humble sphere, but which she was sure that the worthy members of the club were alike ignorant of, however learned they might be in other respects. The painter's youth and good looks, together with his possessing this mysterious art at such an early age, elevated him at once into a hero in her eyes. ”

“ It cannot be. I must be transformed. I must be dreaming. This is not John Archer. Is John Archer a murderer? Can I really have committed a murder in a state of delirium which has obliterated all recollection of the crime committed? It must be so. How else could I have slept all night on the bare ground and on awaking find my gun discharged, my clothes bloodstained, and even the butt end of my rifle besmeared with blood? ”

“ How have I merited their wrath?" he asked, whiningly.
"By charging me twice the sum you charge other people for that quarteruolo of wine, and for repenting afterwards that you had not asked me four times the sum, as, being an Englishman, you thought to get it out of me."
"Corpo di San Antonio di Padova!" [15] cried the peasant, casting up his eyes. "Is nothing to be hid from you? Well, Eccellenza, what serves it to deny the truth, since you know everything? I am a poor man, and when an opportunity occurs for bettering myself, I am apt to do what most men do who know what want is." ”

“ The young executioner looked up at the sound of stranger footsteps, and though he would rather the visitor had been anyone else than his rival, yet upon the whole he was not displeased to see a human face after so long. His manner even warmed towards his visitor when he saw him advance with a smile on his face and an extended hand.
"Leo," began Heinrich Göbel with feigned friendship, "we have long been enemies, but everything has an end. I have now come to offer you my hand in friendship, for henceforth we are no longer rivals, but friends. Lieschen, think of her no more. ”

“ So you see there is no way of catching a priest napping. He will always find some hole to creep out of. Like an eel, he will slip through your fingers at the very moment that you may think you have got him. Should any individual be bold enough to force his way through the wonder-gazing crowd, and publicly demolish the miracle-working image or picture and reveal to the devout bystanders the paltry mechanism by which they [201] have been deluded, people's eyes would at length be opened, all miracles be liable to suspicion, and reason at length admitted into some share of man's being. ”

“ If, in the present age, now that we are accustomed to a much more rapid process of reproducing the human face, there are to be found those who honour the true artist, imagine how his art must have been held in honour when it was the only way of immortalising men! It need not be wondered at that among those classes where the appearance of a painter was less common, that the respect he inspired almost amounted to awe in certain instances. ”

“ Oldstone, "and what has become of your enamoured portrait painter?"
"Mr. McGuilp?" inquired Helen, blushing deeply. "Is he not here? I left him some time ago cleaning his palette and brushes."
"Ah! here he comes at last," exclaimed Crucible, halting in the middle of his politics. "Lucky dog! to be able to have so much beauty all to himself."
"Well, if he has had Helen to himself all this time, we've had a story during his absence," said the antiquary.
"Ah, but so have we," said McGuilp. "Haven't we Helen?"
"Yes, we have indeed, and a long one," replied Helen. ”

“ Well, well, 'ingratitude is the reward of the world,' as the proverb says, and we old fogies with one foot in the grave and the other about to follow must make up our minds to be put on the shelf. We all have our turn; I have had mine, you are having yours, but old age comes at last, and then there is an end of us all, even to the best of us. Even I have been young, friend Göbel. ”

“ You know I am fond of a nice little gossip. Well, I am just going to have a little chat with that poor young man Leo Wenzel. What do you think? He doesn't know yet that his father is the real murderer, for he lives so far off and no one ever goes near the house to tell him the news, and he is still under the delusion that his father has been murdered and that the assassin has not yet been caught. Poor young man, I shall have to break the news very gently to him, for he will feel it deeply. ”

“ Fancy the cunning of that hardened old sinner, the ex-headsman, who, according to his own confession, made in prison the day before the execution, had waylaid, robbed, and murdered the innocent Count of Waffenburg, a scion of one of the most wealthy and respected noble families for miles round, disguised as a Capuchin friar, and in order to conceal the identity of the murdered man, had dissevered the head of the corpse, which he had endeavoured to hide for ever from the eye of man by throwing it into the trunk of a hollow chestnut tree. ”

“ They had come to rob my body in order to sell it to some doctor. How my heart beat for joy!
"I shall be saved! I shall be saved!" said I to myself.
"O merciful God!" I prayed in spirit, "who scornest not to make the meanest of thy creatures thine instruments, I thank Thee for having heard my prayers and delivered me from this fearful death. I am unworthy of all thy mercies, O God! Perform thy miracles on men more worthy."
The body-snatchers had now shovelled all the earth away that covered me, and they began to lift the coffin out of the grave. ”

“ She used to tell me that Heaven was a place for all good people, far, far away, high up above the stars, where good folks lived on for ever, and never grew old, and never to die any more; that they were very happy, and knew no more pain or sorrow, but became as the angels, and had wings and sang praises to God all day long on a cloud. ”

“ My father was a barber before me, and so was my grandfather and great-grandfather, too, as I have [348] heard my father say. In fact, from time immemorial the Suds have been barbers. Descended from a long line of this honourable profession, and literally reared in lather, having my youthful imagination fired by the tales of my father and grandfather of the great people they had shaved in their day, what wonder that, at a precocious age, I should yearn to wield the weapon of my ancestors, and even aspire to be more eminent in the line than any of my predecessors? ”

“ At length the coffin was nailed up, and I followed it with my mother to the grave, but for nights afterwards, my noseless father haunted me in my dreams, carrying a basin of suds in one hand, and holding his nose between finger and thumb with the other, as if to reproach me with my awkwardness.
When I related these dreams to my mother, she became uneasy in her mind, and declared that all through my awkwardness my father was unable to find rest in the tomb. She was a great believer in dreams, visions, omens, prophecies, and the like, and said that the dream boded no good. ”

“ We have served you long and faithfully in all your deeds of daring and crime, and we will not abandon you now in your change of sentiment, knowing, as we do, that you are still the same brave and generous man as ever, and as such will always remain, in whatever capacity, whether as the lawless brigand of the mountains, or as a holy monk in the retirement of the convent cell; therefore, in the presence of the whole band I repeat my former vows of fidelity and friendship, and reiterate my protestations of following you through life, to the utmost ends of the earth, if need be. ”

“ You know the saying, 'Talk of the devil.'"
"Well," said my ancestor, "but what has that to do with your broken crockery?"
"Hush!" answered his host, looking round him half-timidly; then whispered, "I have a certain mischievous lodger that does my crockery more harm than either the crockery-seller or my boy upstairs when he's fractious."
"Ah!" exclaimed the traveller in surprise, "you have a lodger in your house?"
"Ay!—a lodger who never pays his rent, and who drives me to my wit's end by shying my crockery at my head. Look here, what a cut he gave my wrist once in one of his pranks. ”

“ Start not, friend, when I tell you that I have renounced the world and its vanities, and intend to retire into a convent, there to atone by a lifetime of fasting and prayer for the fell crime that harrows my soul. I was once vain enough to dream of becoming your bride, but now I am called upon to be the bride of Heaven. Shortly after you receive this I shall have taken the veil. Think no more of one unworthy to find a place in your thoughts. ”

“ Well, gentlemen, this Poltergeist—this evil spirit—that no doubt was permitted to haunt the headsman for his sins—for a headsman must of necessity be a cruel, hard-hearted, unnatural villain to choose such a profession. ”

“ There is no knowing what an infuriated Italian mob may not be guilty of perpetrating in the height of its fury; but let its rage be once drawn aside by some novel excitement or emotion, its fury will evaporate, expending its force through another channel. It might have gone hard with Peppe, if a trifling incident had not served to avert the fury of the mob when at its climax. This was the arrival of the diligence with the six Englishmen, whose pecuniary losses we have before alluded to, and who have arrived to claim their money from the arch-priest. ”

“ The only school friend I ever had was a young girl about my own age—an orphan, one Claribel Falkland, of an extremely delicate and sensitive nature, the sweetest temper in the world, and of a beauty which in my heart I felt surpassed my own, for it was more the beauty of a high-born lady. ”

“ Accordingly, all the scum of the village turns out and follows him, placing implicit faith in his power to cure them of their half imaginary complaints. They receive his touch, pay their money, and their imagination worked upon, they fancy themselves healed. This is the secret of all his boasted success, for you say yourself that in all those cases that were worth healing he signally failed."
"Be that as it may, Signor," replied the woman, "you will hardly pretend to account for the miracle wrought upon Peppe himself in that manner. How could a man be raised from the dead by imagination? ”

“ She ceased; but during her harangue, Pauline's deportment was majestic—it was sublime. No longer was she the little grisette with the cock-nose and the wide mouth, but a tragedy queen pronouncing a [366] malediction. She appeared now at least half a head taller, so imposing was her attitude. The roses and smile had deserted her countenance, and were supplanted by a ghastly pallor, while from her dark eyes flashed a withering scorn, under which Jacques appeared to quail like a whipped hound, but which feeling his natural pride sought to overcome. ”

“ Had an intimate friend asked him in confidence if he really entertained thoughts of marriage towards the girl he so ardently professed to love, he would have burst out laughing in his face, and asked him if he took him for a fool. No; he simply desired to win the heart of Claribel, and succeeding in that, he looked upon his prey as certain. But as yet he had not succeeded; nay, more, he had a favoured rival—a young man of good natural advantages, and in every way qualified to make Claribel happy, even though he were only his uncle's gamekeeper and had not received a gentleman's education. ”

“ All they wanted was to see their own effigies adorning the walls of their mansions, and as long as the limner was content to be of service to them they were willing to support him, but no longer. It was set down as an axiom that the human face divine—by which they meant their own faces—was the highest aim that a painter could aspire to. ”