"Excuse me, father," answered Philipson; "I have neither asked your purpose, nor concealed my own, so far as it concerns you. I repeat, I am bound to the presence of the Duke of Burgundy, and my object, like that of any other merchant, is to dispose of my wares to advantage."
"Doubtless, it would seem so," said the Black Priest, "from the extreme attention to your merchandise, which you showed not above half an hour since, when you knew not whether your bales had crossed the river with your son, or were remaining in your own charge. Are English merchants usually so indifferent to the sources of their traffic?"
"When their lives are in danger," said Philipson, "they are sometimes negligent of their fortune."
"It is well," replied the priest, and again resumed his solitary musings; until another half-hour's travelling brought them to a dorf, or village, which the Black Priest informed Philipson was that where he proposed to stop for the night.
"The novice," he said, "will show you the inn, which is of good reputation, and where you may lodge with safety. For me, I have to visit a penitent in this village who desires my ghostly offices;—perhaps I may see you again this evening, perhaps not till the next morning;—at any rate, adieu for the present."
So saying, the priest stopped his horse, while the novice, coming close up to Philipson's side, conducted him onward through the narrow street of the village, whilst the windows exhibited here and there a twinkling gleam, announcing that the hour of darkness was arrived. Finally, he led the Englishman through an archway into a sort of courtyard, where there stood a car or two of a particular shape, used occasionally by women when they travel, and some other vehicles of the same kind. Here the young man threw himself from the sumpter-horse, and placing the rein in Philipson's hand, disappeared in the increasing darkness, after pointing to a large but dilapidated building, along the front of which not a spark of light was to be discovered from any of the narrow and numerous windows, which were dimly visible in the twilight.
AUTHOR'S NOTES.
There is abundant evidence that in the Middle Ages the office of public executioner was esteemed highly honourable all over Germany. It still is, in such parts of that country as retain the old custom of execution by stroke of sword, very far from being held discreditable to the extent to which we carry our feelings on the subject, and which exposed the magistrates of a Scotch town, I rather think no less a one than Glasgow, to a good deal of ridicule when they advertised, some few years ago, on occasion of the death of their hangman, that "none but persons of respectable character" need apply for the vacant situation. At this day in China, in Persia, and probably in other Oriental kingdoms, the Chief Executioner is one of the great officers of state, and is as proud of the emblem of his fatal duty as any European Lord Chamberlain of his Golden Key.
The circumstances of the strange trial and execution of the Knight of Hagenbach are detailed minutely by M. de Barante, from contemporary MS. documents; and the reader will be gratified with a specimen of that writer's narrative. A translation is also given for the benefit of many of my kind readers.