Tales from the German. Volume I.

by C. F. van der Velde

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

As Arwed was still sitting in his chamber, his arms convulsively folded upon his breast, as if he would stifle his inward grief by the outward pressure, with large tear-drops occasionally rolling down his pallid cheeks, a stranger suddenly entered the room. He was enveloped in a gray traveling cloak, and his hat was drawn down over his eyes. Stepping directly in front of Arwed, he threw off his cloak and cap.

'Swedenborg!' exclaimed Arwed, in a languid tone.

'The old Fatum,' spoke the seer, 'has again most unhappily kept troth with my presentiments. I see you again in the heaviest hour of your life, as I expected. But what I could not have expected is, to see you sinking under your sorrow. It becomes a man to struggle manfully against this evil fiend, and gloriously to vanquish; not to lay down his arms before him, like a wounded and disabled combatant.'

'You have never loved!' ejaculated Arwed; 'you cannot know the anguish which rends my heart.'

'I have loved!' exclaimed Swedenborg, with radiant eyes; 'I yet love, and with a passion which shall be eternal! Not, indeed, a perishable woman, but the celestial Sophiam! Would to God that you also would choose her for your bride. How vain and trifling would all the earthly sorrows which now afflict you, then appear.'

'Do you know the stroke I have received?' asked Arwed, passionately.

'I know it,' answered Swedenborg mysteriously, 'as well as most things which concern you. Your image has often floated before my inward vision, and the spirits have often conversed with me of you.'

'All my misery,' rejoined Arwed, 'comes from the cold, malicious Ulrika. Her barbarity has torn from my brows the garland with which true love would have crowned me.'

'Sweden's vassal,' cried Swedenborg with solemn earnestness; 'blaspheme not Sweden's queen!'

'How!' cried Arwed, with astonishment, 'You take her part? You, who prophecied wo to Sweden under her reign?'

'That is still my opinion,' rejoined Swedenborg. 'But since Ulrika, by the unanimous voice of the people, sits upon her father's throne, she must be to us an object of veneration only. If she has done evil, she will not escape its punishment; and as the Lord oftentimes takes care to punish the sinner directly in that wherein he sinned, so perhaps will the man for whom she has done every thing, at some time become an instrument of divine wrath and take the crown from her head to place it on his own, repaying her with the basest treachery.'

'Alas, her crimes had wings,' complained Arwed; 'and this requital creeps snail-like after them.'

'Know then, you, who are so eager for vengeance,' indignantly rejoined Swedenborg, 'that the fate of Sweden aids you. Your country is at this moment the prey of her two bitterest enemies, and Ulrika may soon be a queen without a realm.'

'I had already heard of the threatened invasions of the Danes and Russians,' answered Arwed; 'but I did not apprehend such disastrous results.'

'They have already entered,' rejoined Swedenborg. 'Bahuslehn is as good as conquered. Stroemstadt and Marstrand have already surrendered to the Danes; Carlsten has by this time fallen; and the Russians are raging like wild beasts in the eastern part of the kingdom. Norrkoeping, Nykoeping, and many other cities, hundreds of noblemen's seats, and thousands of hamlets, are already in ashes. Heaps of slaughtered animals infect the atmosphere; the youths of our land are borne by Russian ships to ignominious slavery; and, while we are speaking, general Lascy is moving with a strong army directly upon Stockholm.'

Arwed's blue eyes flashed. His heroic form became more erect. He involuntarily grasped the hilt of his sword, and moved towards the door.

'Whither would you go?' Swedendorg asked, in a kindly tone.

'To the garden, into the free air!' quickly answered Arwed. 'It is becoming too warm for me here. Besides, I need solitude, that I may be able to form a proper determination.'

'I know it,' said Swedenborg. 'You will resolve as becomes you, and so, farewell. The Lord be with your sword!'

'We shall see each other again before I go,' said Arwed.

'I must travel still further to-day,' answered Swedenborg. 'I am now going to the Nasaalpe lead mines. I must afterwards visit the iron and copper mines in Tornea-Lappmark, and in a month I must be on my way back.'

'Possibly we may meet in Stockholm,' said Arwed, forgetting his banishment, 'and heaven grant it may be under better auspices!'

'Quo fata trahunt, retrahuntque sequamur!' cried Swedenborg with unction, and the youth hastened out.

'A noble spirit!' said Swedenborg, looking with complacency at his retreating form. 'It lay prostrate, sickened with love's pain and bitter hate; and behold, with only two drops of that steel-tincture, and his country's need, its strength revives, and labors, and throws off the materiam peccantem, and his heart is as pure, and fresh, and strong, as ever it was. Hail to the physician of the soul, who finds the seat of the disease; but thrice hail to the patient whose good disposition aids the cure.'