'You are yet alive, my Oswald!' cried she, with pious ecstasy, folding her hands as if giving thanks. 'The Lord has passed over us in the tempest; but he has remembered us in mercy!'
'Pious maiden,' said Goes, who stood behind them, leaning like a dying man upon a dragoon. 'Pious maiden, so mayest thou speak, out of the fulness of thy pure heart,--but the sinner must smite upon his breast and cry. The Lord is just, and in his wrath has executed a righteous judgment! Yet I may also give thanks for his mercy; for he has only punished the incorrigibly wicked, warning the deluded with the voice of his thunder, and leaving him yet a space for repentance and amendment. Forgive me, my son. I had unlearned to be a man and a father; but will again become one, even at this late hour of my life.'
'Your goodness restores me to new life, my father,' said Oswald, pressing the paternal hand to his lips. His thoughts then instantly recurred to the monster who had allured, his father there and stimulated him to the commission of crime; and, catching up his sword from the ground, his death-flashing glance sought the captain.
'He whom you seek is not far off,' said Goes, speaking low, so as not to attract the maiden's attention, lest she should be too much shocked. With a trembling hand he directed his son to the enormous rock which, still smoking with the fire of heaven, lay in the path. The youth shuddered as he turned his head and beheld a naked sword projecting from under the mass, in the grasp of a stiffened hand. The captain's plumed hat lay near, and the surrounding snow was reddened by a small rivulet of blood which came trickling forth.
'Behold the judgment of God, and implore his mercy for your repentant father,' said Goes, sinking into the arms of his son.
CHAPTER XXI.
Three months later, Frau Rosen was sitting in the little cottage of the weaver's widow in Friedland, with an expression of soil serenity upon her still pale countenance. On either side of her sat Oswald and Faith, each holding one of her hands, and all rejoicing at her convalescence. The rattle of an approaching carriage was heard without, and directly four black horses, attached to the carriage of colonel Goes, trotted up to the cottage door. The merchant Fessel, yet thin and pale from his past illness and sorrows, descended from the carriage and entered the room.
As calamities suffered in common, only strengthen the bands by which good hearts are united, so the meeting of these friends evinced increased tenderness and affection; while the memory of the dear departed, which it called up, received the tribute of many tears.
'How stand matters in our good city of Schweidnitz? at length asked the matron.
'Badly enough, as yet,' answered Fessel; 'but not near so bad as when you left us. There seems, indeed, no prospect of an end to our oppressions. The Jesuits are constantly multiplying their encroachments and assumptions, and the royal judge whom the count has installed there commands that all shall become catholic communicants, and prohibits attendance upon the Lutheran churches out of town. These commands cannot be very effectively enforced, and the military executions have been discontinued ever since the departure of the tyrannical Dohna. Many of the troops also have been withdrawn, and but two squadrons now remain in the city. I must do the colonel the justice to say, moreover, that he has done every thing in his power to mitigate our sufferings, even at great hazard of injuring himself.'