Tales from the German. Volume I.

by C. F. van der Velde

CHAPTER XLVIII.

The wagons of the prisoners, together with Arwed's carriage containing Christine and her child, were approaching the end of their journey. On one side of them the smelting furnace of Oesterby was rolling its clouds of smoke high into the winter sky; before them towered the bald, dark-gray iron mountains of Danemora-Gruben, and already the few buildings which animate this desolate and uncomfortable region had become visible. A dragoon, who had been sent forward to announce their approach to the superintendent of the mines, now returned and led them to the nearest shaft, where a number of the miners had already assembled to receive the new comers and expedite them to their destined location under ground.

While the young miners were taking their stations at the windlass, and others were removing the robbers from the wagons, Christine drew Arwed aside.

'Arwed,' said the broken-hearted woman, 'you have always conducted yourself towards me in the noblest manner. Give me one more proof of your generosity and kindness, and thus crown your work. Allow me to descend into the mine with Mac Donalbain. My anxiety for him will be less painful when I am made acquainted with his new residence.'

'What an insensate request!' cried Mac Donalbain, who had overheard it, 'It will be much better that we take our last farewell here above ground.'

'Because I have once yielded to your importunities,' replied Arwed, 'you hold me for a weak simpleton, and think you can move and turn me at your pleasure. I have fulfilled your last request, and now I must obey your father's commands. Take your last leave of Mac Donalbain, and then return with me according to your solemn promise.'

'Hold me not so closely to my word,' entreated Christine. 'What would I not have promised for the happiness of beholding my husband some days longer! Let me descend with him.'

'You must now take your leave,' said Arwed sternly, 'and then immediately return with me to Gyllensten. My resolution is unchangeable.'

Christine looked wildly about her. The robbers were all in the tub ready to descend, and waited only for Mac Donalbain, who now embraced his wife with frantic sorrow. 'Farewell, and forgive me!' he cried, and hurried to the shaft.

'If thou hast ever loved,' shrieked Christine, clinging to Arwed's knees, 'suffer yourself this time, only this time, to be softened. Let me follow my husband. For this shall a wife leave father and mother. Hold God's word in honor, and permit an unhappy woman to descend into the bosom of the earth, from which she sprung.'

'I must do my duty; you remain behind!' decided Arwed. Meantime the windlass had commenced its revolutions, and the prisoners had disappeared in the dark and yawning gulf.

'He is gone!' moaned Christine. 'Thou hast done thy duty, barbarian; now will I do mine!'

She took the suckling from her breast, and placed it in Arwed's arms. 'Be its father!' she cried, springing to the shaft.

'Back! the tubs have already descended!' shrieked a miner, whilst Arwed hastened after her to hold her back.

'In God's name!' she exclaimed, and, grasping with both hands the tub-rope which hung suspended in the abyss, and boldly swinging herself over the shaft, she descended with frightful rapidity, and in a moment was lost to view.

'Holy God!' cried Arwed in amazement, staring with stupefaction into the horrible deep.

'She will never reach the bottom alive,' cried one of the miners at the windlass: 'God have mercy on her soul!'

Arwed had handed over the child to one of the miners' wives, and availed himself of the first tub which again came up, to descend into the pit for the purpose of looking after the unhappy mother, and doing every thing in his power for her welfare. The brave youth felt a slight shudder, when, by the celerity of his movement, the black, rocky walls around him, as if raised by some magic power, appeared to fly up into the air so swiftly as soon to shut out the light of day from the entrance, which appeared like a distant star shining down upon him; and, as his eyes gradually became accustomed to the obscurity, the terrors of the subterranean world became more and more distinctly and fearfully perceptible. Nothing was to be seen around him but dark gray rocks in gigantic masses, and occasionally caves and depths so immeasurable that they appeared to open into endless space. In singular contrast with the death-like appearance of all nature in these immense regions, appeared the active and busy movements of living men, who cheerfully labored to rend by force from old mother earth, that which she has so carefully hidden, and so pertinaciously withholds, from the curiosity and avarice of her children. There, upon an isolated group of projecting rocks, were the begrimmed miners, with their mining lamps, appearing in the far distance like so many fire-flies, assiduously digging with mallets and drills into the iron walls, for the purpose of gaining, in the least dangerous, though most tedious manner, the useful metal, which others then removed in troughs, baskets and handbarrows, and finally conveyed to the regions of day. Here, large fires were burning under the overhanging rocks, for the purpose of softening the hard stone by their heat, until they could be detached by their iron crow-bars. Upon slender rafters, supported by inserting their ends into the fissures of the rocks over unfathomable abysses, solitary individuals were composedly boring holes in the rocks for the purpose of blasting them; and near and far to a great distance, the darkness was illuminated by explosions which re-echoed through the natural arches of the pit like a subterranean battery of cannon.

'A true earthly hell!' said Arwed, while going down, 'furnished with all the terrors and torments which mortals can suffer without quickly succumbing. How can Christine prefer servitude in this eternal night to freedom in the blessed light of day? But indeed love will endure all things.'

The tub landed at the bottom of the shaft, Arwed stepped from it, and immediately perceived, by the light of a torch, the poor Christine lying exhausted upon the ground in a recess in one side of the pit. Mac Donalbain was standing by her in silent despair, and the clergyman of the mines was bandaging the bleeding hands of the suffering woman, from which the cord had torn the flesh as it slipped through them.

'So thou hast come after me, Arwed!' cried she, with a glance of heavenly kindness, and extending towards him her already bandaged right hand. 'You have always acted toward me with the best feelings and intentions.'

'My God, what desperation!' said Arwed. 'This descent might have cost you your life. At all events you have accomplished your wish. So give to Mac Donalbain your farewell kiss, and let us again return to your child and to your father.'

'Not so, Arwed!' answered Christine with determined resolution. 'My child is confided to good hands. My presence can afford neither joy nor comfort to my father. I remain with my husband. You have reason to know what will be my alternative if compulsion is used. You would not constrain me to self-murder. Therefore take my last farewell, and with it my thanks for your truly fraternal love.'

'It is now your duty to interfere, Mac Donalbain,' cried Arwed, earnestly. 'Without Christine I dare not appear before her father. The intelligence that she has persisted in remaining here would cause the old man's death, and he has not deserved that from you. Therefore dissolve the magic spell you have cast around her, and give back the daughter to her father.'

'My crimes have forever loosed the bands which bound us,' said Mac Donalbain, with almost suffocating sorrow, to his wife. 'Therefore leave me now, Christine. It would only increase my misery to know that it was shared by you.'

'I do not believe it, Mac Donalbain,' answered the resolute woman. 'That the society, the sympathy, the consolations, of a being who stands in so near a relation that henceforth she will only live and breathe for you, must lighten your sufferings, I am fully convinced; and in despite of your generous untruth I remain your companion.'

'Well, then,' cried Mac Donalbain, wildly, 'if you will at all events remain the wife of a condemned criminal, you must respect the husband's authority. The wife owes obedience to the husband, and I command you to return to your father!'

'You cannot command me to do that,' answered Christine. 'I am your wedded wife. I have never given you cause to be dissatisfied with me, but have always faithfully adhered to you, up to this sad moment. You have no right to separate yourself from me without my consent, and by Almighty God I will never give it!'

'Be merciful, as our Father in Heaven is merciful!' said the preacher to the weeping Arwed. 'So far as I understand this sad history, it appears, even to me, better to permit the unhappy woman to remain with her husband. What but severe reproof and bitter scorn can she now expect in the upper world? Here, on the contrary, she can perhaps preserve a distracted mind from despair and lead it to true repentance and amendment, which is always a commendable work and acceptable to God.'

'How can I venture,' rejoined Arwed, 'to leave the poor woman here, helpless, amid the horrors of nature and the outcasts of society, whose destiny her husband must share?'

'She shall reside in my house,' promised the preacher; 'and together with my good wife I will make every possible effort to render her yoke easy and her burden light. Confide her to me, sir officer, and I will have a father's care of her.'

'Do so, reverend sir,' said Arwed, somewhat relieved by this promise, and placing a purse in the preacher's hand. 'The governor of West Bothnia will gratefully acknowledge whatever kindness you may show to his daughter.'

The preacher raised his hands in astonishment on thus learning the high rank of the person committed to his care. 'I will plead for you with your father!' said Arwed to Christine,--and, to shorten the painful scene, he hastened to re-enter the tub. The signal was given, and Arwed soon mounted to the regions of day, accompanied by the grateful prayers of those he left behind.