HERR VON SCHLIEFFEN AND HIS MONKEYS.
I have never elsewhere seen oaks thrust forth their gnarled branches so proudly and vigorously in the air, nor slender shining beech-trees form such majestic arcades overhead, as those in the little wood belonging to the Schlieffen estate of Windhausen, about three miles to the east of Cassel. One is struck with astonishment and admiration on beholding these gigantic works of fertile Nature, with their sturdy trunks, often twenty or thirty feet in girth, and their magnificent foliage, beneath the shade of which the pathway winds through ferns and flowers, among cool grottoes, arbours, hermitages, and monuments of various kinds.
In the midst of this little wood, and on the bank of a tiny lake, stands a moderate-sized mansion, which has been deserted since the death of him who erected it, and the front of which faces the rising sun. Behind are the farm buildings, hemmed in on all sides by luxuriant foliage. So secluded is the spot that a traveller might pass almost close to the mansion without seeing it, while from afar the red-tile roofs are visible only from the high ground.
There lived here not more than thirty or forty years ago, in philosophical repose and contemplation, Lieutenant-General Martin Ernst von Schlieffen, formerly Hessian Minister of State, an honourable old gentleman, and a valiant German soldier, with correct ideas of honour and right; one of the pupils of the Seven Years’ War, a lover of art and science, himself blessed with a lively fancy, and, in addition, a philosopher and somewhat of a character. He was born in Pomerania in the year 1732. It was his lot to receive a defective education, and, when scarcely more than a mere boy, the rank of ensign in a Prussian regiment. A lingering illness, which prostrated him at the expiration of two or three years, caused the King probably to doubt the youth’s further fitness for service, and, instead of the extension of leave demanded, to send him his dismissal. On recovering his health the youth remained for some time without any occupation, till the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War encouraged him to offer his services once more to Frederick II. But the King would not have him, so he went, with recommendations from Prince Henry of Prussia and of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in his pocket, to Cassel, where the Landgrave made him a lieutenant in the Hessian contingent in the pay of England. In this position he so distinguished himself, first under the Duke of Cumberland, and then under the latter’s successor, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, that, within five years, he worked his way up to a colonelcy, and was summoned to Cassel as Adjutant-General and Chamberlain by the Landgrave. Court life, however, detained him captive for only a short time, and he returned to the victorious standard of his celebrated general, who met with so deplorable a death at Jena. Herr von Schlieffen had attracted the attention of his hereditary King, and Frederick the Great now made an attempt to gain once more to his service the man whom, but a few years previously, he had so ungraciously rebuffed. But the Landgrave created him a general, and Herr von Schlieffen continued in his service. By the advice of the Prince he refused, also, a tempting offer from the Emperor of Russia, and, in consideration of his so doing, the Landgrave settled upon him a life annuity of one thousand thalers. While Fortune thus lavished her gifts upon him, he devoted himself zealously to study, in order to make up for his neglected education. He learned Greek and Latin, of which he acquired such a knowledge as to be capable of reading the old classic authors in their original language. He accompanied the Landgrave on his travels to Paris and Berlin. He then proceeded, on business of his own, to Warsaw, and, on his return to Cassel, entered the ministry. He subsequently obtained the post of ambassador in London, where friends and former brothers-in-arms essentially advanced his efforts for the benefit of his sovereign. At length—for what is more fickle than the favour of the great—he incurred the displeasure of the Landgrave, and obeyed a summons to Prussia as general and governor of the fortress of Wesel. A year later, when the Belgian provinces had torn themselves from Austria, and created themselves into an independent State, a message was despatched from the deputies assembled in Brussels to Herr von Schlieffen, inviting him to assume the Stadtholdship. Consideration for Prussia, at that very time engaged in negotiations for a reconciliation with Austria, made him determine to refuse this honour. Hereupon the King, no longer Frederick II., sent for him to Berlin, and offered him the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. But Herr von Schlieffen found the Court in so unfavourable a situation, the influence of England so predominant, and Austria attached in so loose and ambiguous a manner to Prussia, that he refused to enter the ministry. Though he was greatly esteemed by the King, he was, after a short time, induced to send back his general’s staff to his majesty. The fact is that, when Austria and Prussia agreed to take up arms against the revolutionary party in France, Herr von Schlieffen endeavoured to convince the King of the danger and foolishness of such intervention. But his honest efforts were in vain; the campaign against the Republic was resolved on, and Herr von Schlieffen, who should have been one of the first to march out, was left behind. He pressed the King either to alter this arrangement or allow him to retire, because he saw in it an insulting slight. As neither the one course nor the other was taken he resigned his posts, and retired to his estates. The King, however, remained well disposed towards him, and, some years subsequently, Herr von Schlieffen, in order to refute calumnies and envious Court tittle-tattle, felt himself called on once more to place himself at the King’s disposal; as, however, it was not yet decided whether or no Prussia would take part in the projected campaign of 1794, the King, in a gracious letter of thanks, declined his offer. Out of a feeling of patriotism, he had not accepted an invitation he received in the year 1792 to join the French army as a general. At a subsequent period, when Napoleon’s star was in the ascendant, and the relations between France and Germany were becoming more threatening, Frederick William sought, it is true, to obtain once again the services of the holiday-keeping hero, but the latter, assigning his age as an excuse, repressed his desire of reappearing as an actor upon the stage of glory and of honour. Who knows how matters would have ended at Jena had all the other old generals of the Prussian army then followed his example?
His career had brought him into contact with many princes and great men, whose favour and friendship accompanied him into his seclusion. In addition to the estate of Windhausen, he possessed a larger one, Schlieffenberg, in Mecklenburg, but he preferred residing in Hesse, under the standard of which country he had served with honour for thirty-two years. Thenceforth, a robust, vigorous, and cheerful old man, he lived in the lonely forest-residence he had built, devoting himself to his studies, his friends, and his recollections.
When, after the Treaty of Tilsit, a decree of Napoleon, in 1807, created the Kingdom of Westphalia, the young King Jérôme Bonaparte offered the veteran, then seventy-five years old, a position equal to that he formerly held. But the splendour of the new Court did not tempt him, and he preferred continuing his anchorite’s life, to which he had become attached, in Windhausen. He could not, however, as a landed proprietor and former member of the Hessian Chambers, avoid obeying the command for him to take his place in the Westphalian Diet, summoned for occasional gay ceremonials and displays of magnificence, of little importance to the State and yielding no remuneration to its members. He was obliged, also, now and then to attend the Court. But he refused to appear in any other costume than his uniform as a Prussian general, and Jérôme, suppressing his dissatisfaction, allowed him to do so. After the return of the Elector, in the year 1813, Herr von Schlieffen speedily perceived that he was in great disgrace with that prince. Some one had secretly told the latter that, in the action with the Czarmitschen Cossacks, Schlieffen had assisted the usurper. In vain did the grey-haired general exert himself to confound this calumny. The Elector believed it, but perhaps only for the purpose of having an excuse for another act of injustice of which he was guilty. He ordered that the life annuity of one thousand thalers, granted to Schlieffen by the Landgrave Frederick, and expressly confirmed by the Elector himself on his accession to the throne, should no longer be paid. Moreover, Schlieffen was no more invited to Court.
Though the events of the last few years had greatly diminished his income, he would have got over the loss of the thousand thalers a year as easily as he consoled himself for that of Court favour. But the reckless injustice he perceived in such conduct grieved him profoundly and embittered the remainder of his days. He died, unmarried, at the age of ninety two, on the 15th September, 1825, and was buried in a small mausoleum which he had built long previously in the forest at Windhausen. The inscriptions, also, are from his pen. On a tablet of red sandstone let into the side looking towards the east are the following lines:—
The Sepulchre
Of the first Schlieffen,
Possessor of yonder secluded Pile,
In whose calm retreat, and in the woods surrounding it with shade,
From the irksome Life of the Court, and the Troubles of the Warrior in time
of Peace,
Escaping as frequently as possible,
He found, favoured by Fate,
And guided perhaps by his opinions,
More sweet than bitter Hours,
Thankful for the former, resigned to the latter,
Tranquil as to the Future.
On the stone over the coffin in the interior of the mausoleum is the Schlieffen coat of arms and the annexed inscription:—
Martin Ernst
von Schlieffen,
formerly Lieutenant-General and Minister of State
of the Landgrave of Hesse,
afterwards Royal Prussian Lieutenant-General
and Governor of the Fortress
of Wesel,
Knight of the Prussian Orders of the Black and Red Eagle,
And of the Hessian Orders of the Golden Lion,
And of Merit.
Born the 30th October, 1732,
At Sudenzig, near Gallnow,
in Pomerania. Died the 15th Septb., 1825,
at Windhausen.
This life of retirement at Windhausen was passed by the “refugee from the world,” as he was fond of calling himself, in giving a park-like character to, and ornamenting with various buildings, the two estates purchased with the money he had himself earned. This afforded him frequent opportunities of being in the open air and indulging in exercises conducive to health. Once or twice a week he rode, followed by two servants, to Cassel, where he possessed in the Königsplatz, or King’s Square, a house which he had built in the days of his grandeur. The rest of his time was devoted to his friends, with whom he maintained a correspondence; to his monkeys, whom he spoiled by petting; to his classics, which he was never tired of reading; and to his Memoirs, which he continued from year to year.
The Memoirs, intended only for his relations, were published in the year 1840, at Berlin, under the title, Some Occurrences and Experiences in the Life of Martin Ernst von Schlieffen. They contain very interesting information relating to the history of his own times, especially on account of the great number of letters printed in them. They commence with a genealogy of the Von Schlieffen family. With pedantic anxiety the author has avoided all foreign words. It was, in fact, a strange hobby of the “historian of his Sept,” as he also sometimes designated himself, never to employ a word borrowed from another language, though he usually spoke French, and took a pleasure in arranging Latin and Greek proverbs and inscriptions for votive tablets, which he had hung up at his favourite spots at Windhausen and Schlieffenberg. In his old friend, Johannes von Müller, whom, as Ministerial Secretary of the young Kingdom of Westphalia, Fate brought back to Cassel in the year 1807, he found nothing to blame except that, in his immortal books, Müller would not entirely discard the horrible foreign words. But the comic part of the business was that in the invention of German words, which Herr von Schlieffen employed in lieu of foreign ones generally in use, he was decidedly unfortunate, and to understand the words invented by him we must first have a key. This was something, however, which he felt himself, for, as a rule, he added the foreign word in a parenthesis. In addition to this he was noted for certain turns or rather contortions of expression which considerable increased the difficulty experienced by the uninitiated in understanding his book, the value of which was, however, not nullified by these eccentricities. But there was another caprice of the old gentleman, which annoyed, troubled, and plagued in the highest degree the inmates of Windhausen—that is to say, the entire establishment, from the bailiff and gamekeepers down to the dairymaid. This was his affection for his monkeys.
There was a large troop of these tailless, long-armed, brown foreigners at Windhausen, and “the general who has sought refuge from the woods” had placed his whole estate unconditionally at their disposal. They ran about as they chose, and contracted marriages among themselves, so that the oldest speedily beheld, despite the unusual climate, a hopeful circle of healthy sons, daughters, and grandchildren assembled around them. This circumstance was, however, observed by all the human population of the estate, except the General, with dissatisfaction and uneasiness, for scarcely a day passed that one person or another had not reason to complain of the monkeys. They were regarded as a public curse, and it needed all the intensity of the affection, gratitude, and attachment felt towards the old gentleman, for people not to weary of looking with indulgence on this fancy of his. The ill-behaved Africans did nothing but mischief. They soiled the rooms, smashed plates and dishes, ruined the gardens, waged war, frequently to their own great disadvantage, with the beehives, and plucked the fruit from the trees, merely to throw it away as soon as they had tasted it, or fling it at the heads of those persons who might be passing by. No one who had to traverse the small wood ever escaped unmolested; the monkeys would hang on to the clothes of one person, or frighten another by suddenly dashing across his path. All this the worthy General considered exceedingly funny. Distinguished above all their companions, however, for slyness and a love for playing wild pranks, were two large monkeys, Tommy and Troll.
One day a countryman came to Windhausen for the purpose of paying the interest of a loan which the General had advanced him. The bailiff asked him to be seated, and, having had some breakfast brought in for him, left the room for a short time, as he had just been called away to look at some sick beast. The countryman, meanwhile, counted his money and drank a glass of the brandy of the country without the slightest misgiving, when all of a sudden the door was opened gently, and in walked Tommy. For some time he remained close to the door, staring the unknown visitor in the face. He then walked round the table at which the countryman was seated, and finished by placing himself exactly in front of him, grinning and showing his teeth, with his left elbow leaning on the table and his right one stuck in his side. The countryman was struck dumb, and felt his hair stand on end with affright. There he sat, as though the terrible head of Medusa had thrown its spell over him. His face, which had become the colour of lead from superstitious fear, appeared to amuse the brute not a little. At length Tommy had looked at the countryman long enough; his sharp glance fell upon the bright thalers on the table, and he was just stretching out his hand to appropriate some, when something he considered still more desirable—namely, the butter-dish—caught his eye. He took it, sans façon, off the table, and, seating himself on a cask near the stove, devoured the lump of butter, smacking his lips the while. He then put back the empty dish. The return of the bailiff at last rescued the countryman from the state of fright in which he was.
“Hulloa, my boy!” said the bailiff, laughing, and casting a glance at the empty dish, “you seem to have liked the butter at any rate!”
“He did it, Mr. Bailiff!” groaned the countryman, nodding his head timidly at Tommy, as though he feared being at least eaten up by the monkey in consequence of this denunciation.
“What! has the fat blackguard dared to do such a thing?” exclaimed the bailiff very angrily, and at the same time springing towards the window, in the embrasure of which was a riding-whip, “Wait a moment, I’ll pay you out!”
But Tommy, who saw the storm approaching, was in such a hurry to escape from it, that at the door he nearly knocked over his comrade Troll, who was coming in quite innocently. As the two monkeys were very like each other, and the bailiff had not, in his anger, remarked the lucky escape of the malefactor, he seized hold of old Troll by the throat, and believing he had caught the one who had stolen the butter, gave him an awful thrashing. During this time Tommy stood in the courtyard, wiping his greasy mouth, and scratching himself, with a puzzled air, behind his ear, looking up as he did so at the bailiff’s window, through which the howling of his innocent and unjustly-castigated brother found its way to him.
On another occasion the monkeys managed to steal a roll of ducats out of their too indulgent master’s desk, which had been left open. They climbed up with their spoil to the roof. Breaking the seal, they took out a couple of coins, which were inspected on both sides with indescribable curiosity by each monkey in succession. One of the coins accidentally fell out of the hand of the monkey who was holding it, and, rolling over the roof, tumbled, with a sharp ringing sound, into the tin gutter, and thence into the pipe by which the rain-water was conveyed down the house. This kind of music caused the monkeys such delight that they despatched all the remaining coins after the first one. While doing so they hung close together on the pipe, and, with open ears, listened to the sound of the descending ducats.
But a trick played by Troll might have been attended with more disastrous consequences. The bailiff’s wife had left an infant, almost three years old, lying in the cradle while she was busy in the kitchen. Troll crept upstairs, and, opening the door of the room in which the cradle stood, obtained possession of the infant. He then ran off quickly with it. Some maid-servants in the yard noticed him, but, instead of enticing him to them, frightened him away by the fearful screams they uttered. At the end of the yard was a new building of wood, finished in the frame, up to the roof, and to this building Troll hurried off. Pressing the child closely to his breast with one arm, and swinging himself from beam to beam with the other, he clambered over the rafters of the roof, and took his seat on the very ridge. The screams were really heartrending, and enough to deafen any one, when the unhappy mother came rushing out. Wringing her hands in despair, she kept exclaiming—“Help! help! save my poor child!” All the inmates of the place came running to the spot, but the men were, unfortunately, busy at work in the fields or in the wood, and represented only by the General’s French cook, Mons. Lebrun, whose reputation for courage and determination was not exactly the best. Troll, however, had selected him to become the hero of the day. Dressed in his neat white costume, with apron and cap, he sprang into the middle of the crowd of wailing women, and cried out in a voice that would have become a general in the din of battle—“Now you shall all be quite still, you unreasonable womans. You make wild se monkey. I vill obtain tout seul votre enfant!” With these words he stretched out his arms, and drove back all the women into the passage of the gamekeeper’s house, the door of which was open. The mother was the only one he could not force from the spot, so he assigned her a place whence, without being in the way, she might witness his campaign, having first promised him, by the value she set upon her infant’s life, to remain quiet. Meanwhile, unconcerned by what was going on below, the monkey was seated upon the ridge of the roof, with his back leaning against the fir-tree, which, according to the old custom, the carpenters had set up there the day previously on the completion of their labours. At one instant he pressed the child with ecstasy to his breast; at the next he rocked it on his lap. At length he began untying and unrolling the long strip of flannel in which the child was enveloped. The child, in happy ignorance of its danger, was perfectly still. Directly he had pacified and sent away the women, the cook began clambering up the ladder, and when he had reached the end of that, climbing from one beam to another, up to the rafters of the roof. Troll ignored him altogether, though Mons. Lebrun coaxingly held out some preserves, for the purpose of prevailing on him to come down. In order to properly appreciate the boldness of the undertaking, the reader must bear in mind that Mons. Lebrun had long ceased to be a youth, that he was very poorly, and not a practised climber. At last, in order to get quite near the monkey, he was obliged to pursue his perilous course over the fragile laths. Now for the first time did Troll appear to take any notice of him. He half rose, cast an angry look at him, and, quickly grasping the child, together with the roll of flannel, now nearly half undone, prepared to depart. “Ah, Monsieur Troll,” said the courageous cook coaxingly, “vhy you not come down to your dîner? Take un peu de biscuit! Monsieur Troll is a vary good boy! Permeet that I see your poupée, Monsieur Troll. Geeve me your poupée, and I shall geeve you dis confiture!” The above and similar persuasive arguments did the worthy man employ to prevail on the monkey to give up the infant. But Troll remained immovable. The cook threw him a piece of biscuit. Troll did not even stretch out his hand after it. At length Mons. Lebrun approached so near, that the women below uttered a half-suppressed shriek. He was now deterred from seizing the monkey by the throat only by the thought that if he did so the monkey would instantly let the child fall. He had, therefore, recourse once again to the sweetmeats, and held out a candied fig.
Fearful, probably, that it would take the same road as the biscuit, which he had allowed to fall, Troll made a snatch at it, intending to swallow it at once. The cook felt an immense weight removed from his breast, for he knew that the monkey could not resist these sweets if he once tasted them. Troll actually now moved a lath’s distance nearer; the cook retired two laths’ distance, and held out a second fig. In this manner did the monkey follow, lath by lath, and beam by beam, still holding the child closely, and immediately drawing back if the cook made a movement to stretch out his hand towards it. At last he stood once more upon the solid ground. “Move not from your place, madame,” he cried to the mother. “Move not from your place!” Still walking backwards, he enticed Troll over the yard into his room. After bolting the door, he threw some sweetmeats into a white cotton nightcap, which he offered the monkey. To draw the dainties out of the long cap it was necessary for Troll to employ two hands. Without taking long to consider, he gently and carefully laid down the child that had begun crying and kicking as hard as it could. At the same moment the cook clutched him vigorously by the nape of the neck and flung him so violently into a dark room, that he was greatly astonished to see the prisoner come out again alone, when the General himself released him in the evening. An instant afterwards, delighted at the success of his stratagem, the cook placed the child in the arms of the weeping mother, and from that day forward no one ever again dared to cast a doubt on the courage and determination of Monsieur Lebrun.
But it was not always that the acts of the troublesome guests ended so well, and the old gentleman, for whose sake people winked at a good deal, because he was kind, benevolent, and charitable towards everybody, was often exposed by his favourites to vexation. On some occasions they engaged in sanguinary strife with children and harmless pedestrians. He paid liberally doctors’ bills and smart-money, when these were not rejected; but he did not conceal from himself the fact that, if such cases were often repeated, the authorities would take up the matter, and compel him either to send the monkeys away or have them shut up. But he never raised his stick against them; if they ever did anything more extravagant than usual he read them a lesson, and was always of opinion that they understood this better than a beating. It is very certain, too, that they assumed a bearing and appearance as though crushed by remorse. They might, it is true, have pleaded as an excuse for many of their malicious tricks that they were always on the defensive, for, with the exception of their master, every one in the place was their sworn foe. They were beaten, inundated with cold and hot water, plagued and baited in every possible manner by everybody who could do so unobserved. Unfortunately, the want of speech prevented them from formulating their complaints. Under these circumstances, all the affection and attachment of which their apish souls were capable they concentrated on their master, with whom they always found protection and indulgence. They accompanied him to the borders of the wood when he rode off, as was his custom, to Cassel; while, in the evening, they looked out impatiently from the tops of the trees for him, and were perfectly mad with delight as soon as they perceived him, with his two tall servants, riding through the corn-fields.
This state of things lasted for several years, and the monkeys excited the attention of all the country round. Great and small made pilgrimages to Windhausen for the purpose of seeing these strangers, thus transported fifty or sixty degrees of latitude from their tropical home, till, one fine morning, the whole thing was quite unexpectedly brought to a terrible termination.
A young peasant girl was attacked by one of the strongest monkeys as she was proceeding through the forest. Half dead with fear and loathing, she screamed for help, but some time elapsed before the people ran up from the farmyard. They found the girl lying on the ground, and engaged in a desperate struggle with the animal, who had now become perfectly wild. Her long hair was dishevelled and partially torn from her head, while her face, neck, and hands were entirely covered with blood. The monkey was in a state of uncontrollable fury, such as he had never been seen in before. The head ploughman, who courageously sprang forward and seized him by the hair on the top of his head, was, in a few minutes, so bitten and scratched, that he could no longer see or hear. The noise attracted the other monkeys, who were scattered about the forest, as well as all the persons belonging to the farm, and who hastened up, armed with cudgels and flails. Among the first to reach the girl was the gamekeeper. He no sooner perceived the magnitude of the danger than he hurried back to procure his double-barrelled gun. The courageous ploughman was still exposed to the furious attacks of the monkey, when a well-directed bullet, whizzing close past his ear, crushed the animal’s head. Now, however, followed a most strange and unexpected scene. Scarcely was the shot fired, and the bleeding body of their companion stretched writhing on the ground, when all the monkeys, as if at a concerted signal, rushed with a wild howl upon the persons present. A fearful conflict ensued, but, through all the tumult, the bailiff’s voice was distinctly heard, crying, “Kill all the devils! I will take the responsibility on myself, at the risk of losing my place!” It was an obstinate struggle; not a single combatant, man or monkey, made the slightest attempt to withdraw from the scene of action. It seemed as though long-cherished hate had suddenly burst forth on both sides, to end in mutual destruction. But it was not long before the matter was decided. Before the expiration of a quarter of an hour, five monkeys lay dead upon the ground, with their skulls shattered by bullets or blows from cudgels; about as many were running round on the down-trodden grass, with their backs flayed or their limbs broken. The rest were tied up and bound to trees. The lives of these last had been provisionally spared only in compliance with the earnest and warning persuasion of the gamekeeper. The victors, also, were in an evil plight. The bailiff had lost the upper part of his left ear. One of the farm-servants was stretched on the ground by a blow intended for a monkey. He recovered, it is true, but remained, all his life, hard of hearing. Nearly all, except the gamekeeper, had bleeding faces and hands, and their clothes torn to rags. The girl was carried in a swoon to the house, and given into the custody of the women. There was still a troublesome piece of work left to be executed—namely, to place in safe keeping the surviving monkeys, rendered more spiteful and malicious than ever by their defeat. But this also was done. The dead, the wounded, and the living were flung together in one barn, and the door closed upon them.
An hour later the inmates of Windhausen assembled before the gamekeeper’s lodge to consult as to how the “confounded business” might be communicated in the gentlest form to the General. The latter had set off, on horseback, an hour or two previously for Cassel, without any presentiment of the fate awaiting his favourites on that day. Although every person assured everybody else, for the purpose of mutual encouragement, that, under the circumstances, they could not have acted differently to what they had, yet everybody in that small assembly felt as though there was a hundredweight upon his breast. It was at length resolved that the gamekeeper, a faithful old servant, should undertake the unthankful task of going to meet their master, and preparing him for what had happened. With a view to this a man was stationed as an outpost to bring information immediately the General was perceived approaching. It was somewhere about five o’clock in the afternoon when the old soldier, with his stereotyped attendants, the two lanky servants, came in sight. As usual when he returned from Cassel, he had his pockets full of sweetmeats for his monkeys. But what strangely oppressive feeling overpowered him more and more as he neared the wood? What, was not a single one of his merry brown rascals to be seen upon the branches? Why did the spare form of the old gamekeeper, with his earth-coloured face and hang-dog look, stand there, as though rooted to the spot, like some warning notice? He felt compelled to ease his mind by speaking.
“Good evening, my old friend!” he cried to the gamekeeper.
“Thank your honour, your excellency——”
“My house is not burnt down, is it?”
“Oh, your excellency, you will pardon me——”
The strange and scared formality of the old man did not tend to put the General at his ease. Still forcing himself to be jocular, he said—
“I hope your old dame has not run off with any one?”
The gamekeeper wished himself a thousand miles away. Once more he attempted to draw the well-conned speech from out of his confused memory, but stuck fast at—
“May it please your honour——”
“Well!” exclaimed the General, impatiently, “what, in the name of fortune, has occurred? The house not burnt down, your wife not run away from you, and yet you are making a face as if you were going to be hanged! What other evil can possibly cross the path of two old fellows like us?”
“A great misfortune has happened, excellency!”
“Oh, that’s it. Then you would do well to tell it me without more ado.”
“The monkeys, your honour——”
“The monkeys,” repeated the General, as though electrified; “what is the matter with the monkeys?”
“Oh, your excellency, some of them have gone mad, and have terribly ill-treated some of us; some have been killed, and the others made prisoners at the risk of our lives!”
The words “Gracious Heaven!” escaped like a groan from the breast of the grey-haired soldier. He sank together as if one of the bonds which bound him to life was snapped in twain. The fearful news had come upon him as the lightning strikes the oak, and one of his tall servants hurried up to hold him in his saddle.
“Gracious Heaven!” he repeated, and a long pause ensued.
“They must all be shot,” continued the gamekeeper pitilessly, “or else there will be murder.”
“Gracious Heaven! Gracious Heaven!”
“I am the only person who has come off with a whole skin,” pursued the gamekeeper, after a second and longer pause. “The bailiff has one of his ears bitten off; Wagner’s daughter, from Oberkaufunger, is at death’s door, and the head ploughman no longer looks like a human being.”
“Gracious Heaven!” ejaculated the General, and again the words were succeeded by a long pause.
Two or three times the General rode a few paces into the wood, but as often turned back, quite undecided what to do. At length he plucked up courage, rode up to the gamekeeper, down whose cheeks the hot tears were rolling, and, seizing his arm, said in a low, tremulous voice—
“Shoot them all, old friend—shoot them all. That is the best course. But, mind, take good aim, and let me have half-an-hour to get away. Shoot them all, but not sooner!”
With these words he turned his horse, and trotted off in the direction of Cassel, while the two lanky servants followed in angry mood.
After the gamekeeper had stood a good five minutes as if rooted to the spot, shaking his head as he looked after his master, he dashed the butt-end of his gun insolently on the ground, and said, half aloud—
“May I be cursed if I would not give one of my hands to be able to run after him, and say it was none of it true!”
“Why, mate,” exclaimed the bailiff, who had been a secret witness from behind the next bush of the whole scene, “what a strange fellow you are! It must have ended so sooner or later. At present the blow has fallen; the sorrow will pass away, and we have got rid of the confounded beasts. Think of all the annoyances which we, our wives, and our children have had to bear on their account.”
“He looked so happy as he came riding along.”
“Come, come,” observed the other pressingly, “let us go and see what the wounded are doing.”
So saying he left the spot, dragging with him the gamekeeper, now grown so tender-hearted.
It was not till late in the evening that the General returned to Windhausen. For three days he was visible to no one. On the fourth day he rode over, as was his wont, to Cassel, and, going to a sculptor’s, ordered for his favourites a funeral monument, according to the design he had himself made, and with the inscription he had himself drawn up. When completed the monument was erected over the common grave of all the monkeys, on that bank of the quiet lake which was opposite the mansion, and where there is a magnificent south-western prospect. It consists of a smooth, broken column, from seven to eight feet in height, placed upon a square pedestal, two feet in height. The inscription on the column is as follows:—
In this Place
There returned to the great mass of the primitive matters constituting
Human Beings, Representatives
Of a Race of Africans, long naturalised in these Meads,
After many Births.
Not Slavery,
The Lot of their Fellow-Countrymen, the Blacks,
But perfect Freedom,
Was theirs, and the Result:
Love for their Benefactor,
Who unfortunately at last,
In consequence of their being attacked by a fit of fury
As all were fighting for one,
Was compelled to sacrifice
His own pleasures to the general good.
It was decreed that Death
Should strike Sires and Sons, Grandfathers and Grandchildren,
Mothers and Babes.
Men did not quite consider them
As belonging to the Species of their fellow-men.
Them had Prometheus
Favoured with two extra hands; us with greater linguistic capabilities.
In Cunning, in the mixture of Goodness and malicious Tricks,
And in forbidden Amusements
They appeared to be a Generation of Human Beings in the Skin of Monkeys.
And
The Power, which is so striking, of Instinct
Should counsel the ten-fingered Observer
Indulgence towards his Fellows.
The “recluse escaped from the world” did not long survive his monkeys. He had entailed all his estates, and, in default of nearer heirs, settled them upon a collateral branch of his family, for which, previous to his death, he succeeded in obtaining the title of Count. None of his heirs, however, occupied his residence at Windhausen, and it has remained deserted and shut up. Park, forest, and promenades have been suffered to run wild, and the shady seats, with their magnificent views, extending through long arched avenues of green beech-trees, have been partially covered with the grass and weeds that have overgrown them. But the quiet lake with the Monkeys’ monument, the gigantic trees, the grottoes and hermitages, the viaduct and the simple Mausoleum, overshadowed by oaks, all still exist, and are gradually becoming developed in the light mist which legends and traditions spread around the memorials of bygone times.
