Part 33 (2/2)
He was pursued, but without avail; and various reports are in circulation concerning his latter fortunes. Some say that he became a fencing-master in England, and yet lives there; others, that he continually gave himself more and more to drinking, and finally died in the hospital of a great German city, where, in the last hour, he called for a choppin of beer, and drank it off.
Freisleben.--So let us, in a better liquor, wish that he had left a better memory. His tricks, if they were not always the best, have at least served to amuse us; and so may it go well with him in the other world, where, as his deeds certainly could not conduct him upwards, let us hope, though somewhat against hope, that a deep and final repentance prevented his going inevitably downwards.
They touch gla.s.ses.
STORY OF THE BLACK PETER.
Mr. Traveller, the turn now comes to you to relate something; but it really is a difficult task for you to have to relate something which is connected with Heidelberg.
Mr. Traveller.--Luckily I have recently heard the history of the life of a student, who formerly studied here, and I think it is sufficiently interesting;--I shall, therefore, relate as much of it as I recollect.
Some twenty or thirty years ago, a young man came to Heidelburg, whose name was Schwartzkopf, a native of Fulda in Hesse. His father had been an officer in the Hessian service, but he died early, and his widow was compelled to straiten herself severely, in order to be able to educate her only son out of the proceeds of her small property, and still smaller pension. Nature had made amends to the son of the widow for his poverty by many fine endowments of person and mind, and proudly gazed the affectionate mother on her darling son, as with little solid cash, but on that account with the more well-intended exhortations, and with many tears, she dismissed him on his journey to the university. Many were the anxieties that filled her mind when she thought that her son indeed possessed a good heart, but was still very giddy and of easily persuaded mind. He, with joyful spirits, and full of good resolves, proceeded to his new place of residence. He studied the greater part of the first year with zeal, and he wanted not good friends with whom he could spend his hours of the Muses in the most agreeable manner. His evil angel then caused him to be involved in a duel, and on this occasion he made some acquaintances that were of disastrous influence to him. Through them he became acquainted with play, to which he soon gave himself up pa.s.sionately. It is true that at first he played only in his leisure hours, when his old friends were not about him; but he soon came to neglect these, and his leisure hours soon became continually less and less able to satisfy his desire for play, and then his studies were sacrificed. His friends grew tedious to him, because they had other interests; his books were covered with thick dust; and if he sometimes attended the lectures, they showed only how far he had fallen behind in the race of knowledge, and he hastened in vexation to the kneip, in order to drown in beer and play the upbraidings of his conscience. Thus he continued to live on for a long time; he returned to his room only to pa.s.s the night, even not that always. In the morning he fled from it as early as possible, because all there looked desolate. His books were at length sold, and by degrees he had disposed of every thing to the Jews, except the wretched clothes on his back, in order to feed his unhappy pa.s.sion. Many a time would he fall into a horror, when he awoke out of a dream, which had carried him back into his early life, and saw around him that empty room, or when he received a letter from his affectionate mother, which was full of tender warnings,--from his mother, who denied herself even the most necessary things, that he might not want that money which he thus consumed on his ruinous habits. But these terrible reflections drove him only for a brief s.p.a.ce out of his wild life, for he was already too deep sunk in it, and felt no longer the strength necessary to work himself out of the gulf.
It was then that he one day received a letter addressed by a strange hand, and sealed with black. His mother was dead, and the letter was from his guardian. Far as Schwartzkopf was already fallen, yet this letter deeply shook him; it embittered the melancholy intelligence beyond words, since his guardian, a severe man, wrote him, that he had driven not a few nails into his mother's coffin; that he had wasted his property; that he should immediately return home, in order to be made acquainted with the real state of his affairs, which left him little other alternative than that of becoming a soldier in the ranks. His state of mind for the first few days was horrible, and he was at the very point of self-destruction; but this went by, and he concluded, after more quiet reflection, that it was the best to turn his footsteps homewards, in order, if possible, to move his guardian to more moderate measures, or, came it to the worst, to enlist into the army. His debts were paid, and he put up the slender remains of his possessions in his knapsack, with which, early one morning, he pa.s.sed through the gate leading towards Frankfort.
In the evening of the second day he had arrived in a great wood, which extended towards Fulda. The forest seemed to stretch itself out endlessly before him. It was already nearly dark; and a violent wind against which he had to labour, bent the tall and gloomy pines, which groaned awfully. Full of melancholy he wandered forward; the memory of the past came over him with subduing power; and he almost wished that one of the mighty trees might be dashed down by the tempest, and bury him in its fall. He began to sing a song, in order to chase away those painful thoughts,--when, as he turned an angle of the path, a rough voice cried ”Halt!” and at once three men sprung out of the bush. The coa.r.s.e hunting-garb, the pistols and hangers with which they were armed, and the disguised faces, left him in no doubt that they were some of the gang that kept that part of the country in disquiet.
The student feared them not; fear had never been any part of his nature, and least of all now, when life to him was made indifferent by despair.
”Leave me alone,” said he, ”I have nothing for you.”
”But with your permission,” said one of the robbers, ”we will make a rather nearer acquaintance with your knapsack.”
”With all my heart,” answered the student quietly, handing over to them the knapsack, at the same time that he filled his pipe, and asked one of them for a light, as he had himself lost his fire-apparatus. He seated himself to rest on a block of stone by the side of the road, and requested the robbers not to detain him too long, as he had yet far to go to his night's quarters. They could not refrain from a laugh at the _sang froid_ of the student.
”You seem to me sad fellows,” said Schwartzkopf, ”that you don't understand your business better; at thirty paces distance you might have seen very well, that you would get nothing, from me.”
”Be silent, hound!” cried one of them, ”or in a moment we will cut thy throat.”
”And a right n.o.ble deed too,” added the student, ”for three men to cut the throat of one. If you were not miserable Philistines, I should be obliged to call upon one of you to give satisfaction for that word, hound!”
”By all the devils, he is right, Heiner,” said another; ”he has a right to it, since he has shown himself so brave, and as there is nothing in the knapsack, except a few miserable articles of covering.”
”Does the fellow think I'm afraid of him?” cried Heiner.
”Ay, to be sure I do,” said the student, quietly smoking on. The robber was raging, and demanded on the instant to fight the audacious student; but his comrades disapproved of it. It was too dangerous an undertaking to decide this affair on the highway. They proposed to adjourn to their encampment; and offered in a manner friendly enough to the student, if he were not killed in the combat, to give him quarters for the night.
He was obliged to content himself with the matter, and so they put themselves in motion. They went on long, still deeper and deeper into the thick of the wood, and on the way made inquiries from the student, whom they watched pretty well, as to the circ.u.mstances of his life; which he related to them truly.
At length they came to an open place in the forest. Here the surrounding hills formed a sort of basin, which on the one side was s.h.i.+elded from the wind by a pile of rocks, and on the other by a screen of stupendous trees. A little spring gus.h.i.+ng out from the foot of the rocks, wound itself through the carpet of gra.s.s, upon which the robber-troop, consisting of about twenty men with their wives and children, had built some huts. The sentinels on the outposts had first announced their approach, and they were speedily surrounded by the troop. When they learned the intention of Heiner and the student, they gave it their hearty applause; and as soon as all had refreshed themselves with food and drink, a battle-ground was selected; Schwartzkopf received a hanger, and the robbers formed a circle round the combatants. The women kindled great pine-torches, in order properly to light up the scene.
The robber fiercely attacked his opponent; and the whole scene had a singular aspect. The powerfully built figures of the men, whose bold features yet more strongly stood forth in the light of the torches, as they, smoking their short pipes, looked on the strife, full of expectation of its issue; and the women dispersed amongst them in singular and various attire, which they had selected for themselves out of the plundered stores. All watched the fight in deep silence; which was only broken by the clattering of the swords, the das.h.i.+ng of the water, and the rush of the winds as they raged through the woods. The student, by far superior to his antagonist in skill of fence, parried with the utmost coolness, quietly meeting with his sword every blow of his opponent; but as the robber began to press upon him closer and closer in a furious attack, he suddenly struck in before the stroke of his adversary, and in the same instant the robber let his sword drop, and the blood spouted hotly from the arm-wound through his sleeve.
The men had seen the contest with astonishment; the arm of the wounded robber was bound up, and the rest of them gathered together in a group in earnest consultation. The student continued standing alone, doubtful whether he should make an attempt at escape, or should wait the upshot of the consultation, which might be fatal to him. He concluded to wait.
A robber now stepped up to him, and said, ”Our captain fell in a skirmish a few days ago. We have all seen, with admiration, your perfect coolness, your courage, and your swordsmans.h.i.+p; when you arrive at home little good awaits you; remain with us, and be our captain, and so will you find a better life than amongst those miserable soldiers.”
Schwartzkopf hesitated only a short time. He weighed the attraction of the proposal against the life which he had otherwise before him. He reflected how dangerous it would be to refuse; and if scruples arose in his mind, he silenced them again by the thought that he could again give up this life when he pleased. After a short rumination, he gave his pledge of adhesion and fidelity to the robbers. The intelligence spread itself with rapidity through the whole robber troop; the wives brought wine-cups, and all drank to the health and prosperity of the new captain. They caroused till deep in the night, and drank brotherhood to Schwartzkopf, who, under the name of Black Peter, was speedily known and feared through the whole country round.
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