Legends from River & Mountain

by Carmen Sylva; Alma Strettell

He travelled about for two years, gazing right and left out of his carriage at the houses and lands as he went by; and the first thing he looked for, when he stopped anywhere, was the sign of the tavern. Then he would wander about in the cities, and let all their rarest treasures and most beautiful sights be displayed to him. But nothing gave him pleasure—no picture, no house, no music, no merrymaking; his stone heart could take no interest in anything, and his eyes and ears were deadened to all that was lovely. He had nothing left but the pleasures of eating and drinking, and of sleep; and so he lived, wandering about the world without object, eating for his amusement, and sleeping because he was dull. Now and then he remembered, indeed, that he had been happier and merrier when he was still poor, and had to work for his livelihood. Then every beautiful outlook into the valley, all music and song, still delighted him, and he had even looked forward for hours to the simple meal that his mother was to bring up to the charcoal-kiln for him. It seemed quite strange, as he looked back over the past, and called to mind how he had been wont to laugh at the slightest jest, to think that he could no longer laugh now. When others did so, he drew his mouth, out of politeness, into a wry smile, but his heart had no smile within. Then he knew that, though he was very calm, he was not happy. It was not melancholy or home-sickness, but merely want of interest, and the weariness of his empty, joyless life, that at last sent him home again.

When he drove from Strasbourg and caught sight of the dark woods of his home—when he saw again, for the first time, the powerful forms and the kind, honest faces of the Black Forest folk—when the tones of that familiar speech, deep and loud, yet pleasant withal, fell upon his ear, he hastily put his hand to his heart, for he felt a stir in his blood, and thought that now he must surely both rejoice and weep—but how could he have been so foolish? Had he not a heart of stone? Stones are dead, and neither laugh nor weep.

His first visit was to Dutch Michael, who welcomed him with his old kindness.

“Michael,” Peter said to him, “I have travelled and seen everything now, but it is all foolish stuff, and I only bored myself. This stone thing of yours, to be sure, saves me a great deal. I never get angry and am never sad, but then I am never merry either, and I seem to myself to be only half alive. Could you not make the stone heart a bit livelier? Or—why not give me back my old heart? I would rather have it back; I had got used to it in five-and-twenty years, and if it did sometimes play me a foolish trick, yet it was merry, and a blithe sort of heart.”

The wood-spirit laughed a bitter, grim laugh.

“When once thou art dead, Peter Munk,” he replied, “thou shalt have it fast enough. Yes, then thou shalt have thy soft, easily moved heart again, and be able to feel all that comes, whether joy or pain. But above ground it can never be thine again. Yet, Peter, if thou hast travelled, and reaped no pleasure from it, this was only because of thy foolish way of life. Now settle somewhere in the forest, build a house, marry, use thy money so as to increase thy wealth. Lack of work is all that is amiss with thee; thou wert only dull because thou wert idle, and now thou wouldst put all the blame on this innocent heart?”

Peter admitted that, as far as the idleness was concerned, Michael was right; and he made up his mind to set to work at getting richer and richer. Michael again made him a present of a hundred thousand guldens, and bade him farewell as the best of friends.

The story soon got spread about that Coal-Munk Peter, or “gambling Peter,” had returned, and far richer than before. And thereupon things went as they always do—at the time he had been reduced to beggary, they had turned him out of the Sun Inn, but now when he made his first appearance there on a Sunday afternoon, every one shook him by the hand, praised his horse, and asked about his travels; and when he began to play again for hard coin with fat Ezekiel, he stood as high as ever in the public esteem.

He no longer made glass now, but took up the wood-business, and even that only as a pretence. His real business was that of a corn-broker and money-lender. By-and-by half the Black Forest was in debt to him, but he only lent out money at ten per cent., or sold corn at treble the usual price, to poor people who could not pay at once. He was now fast friends with the sheriff; and if any one failed to pay what he owed Master Peter Munk, punctually and to the very day, out would come the sheriff with his men, and having hastily valued the poor debtor’s goods, they would sell all he had, and turn him out, with wife and child, into the forest.