J. Ketch. What, won't you come out, and have a good dinner for nothing? Punch. Much obliged, Mr. Ketch; but I have had my dinner for nothing already. J. Ketch. Then a good supper? Punch. I never eat suppers: they are not wholesome. J. Ketch. But you must come out. Come out, and be hanged. Punch. You would not be so cruel. J. Ketch. Why were you so cruel as to commit so many murders? Punch. But that's no reason why you should be cruel too, and murder me. J. Ketch. Come, directly. Punch. I can't; I got one bone in my leg. J. Ketch. And you've got one bone in your neck; but that shall be soon broken. Then I must fetch you (he goes to the prison, and after a struggle, in which PUNCH calls out, "Mercy! mercy! I'll never do so again!" JACK KETCH brings him out to the front of the stage). Punch. Oh dear! Oh dear! Be quiet-can't you let me be? J. Ketch. Now, Mr. Punch, no more delay. Put your head through this loop. Punch. Through there! What for? Punch. What for? I don't know how. J. Ketch. It is very easy: only put your head through here. Punch. What, so? (poking his head on one side of the noose). J. Ketch. No, no; here! Punch. Mind who you call fool. Try if you can do it yourself. Only show me how, and I do it directly. J. Ketch. Very well; I will. There, you see my head, and you see this loop. Put it in, so (putting his head through the noose). Punch. And pull it tight, so! (he pulls the body forcibly down, and hangs JACK KETCH). Huzza! Huzza! (PUNCH takes down the corpse, and places it in the coffin). Enter two MEN, who remove the gibbet, place the coffin upon it, dance with it on their shoulders, and exeunt. Punch. There they go. They think they have got Mr. Punch safe enough (sings). They're out! they're out! I've done the trick! I do not care, now, if Old Nick (Goes off, and returns with a stick. He dances Right foll de riddle loll, To thump Old Nick, If he by chance upon me call. Enter the DEVIL Peeps in at the corner, and exit. Punch (much frightened, and retreating as far as he can). Oh dear! Oh Lord! Talk of the devil, and he pops up his horns. There the old gentleman is, sure enough (a pause and dead silence, while PUNCH continues to gaze at the spot where the DEVIL appeared. The DEVIL comes forward). Good, kind Mr. Devil, I never did you any harm, but all the good in my power. There, don't come any nearer. How you do, Sir? (collecting courage). I hope you and all your respectable family well? Much obliged for this visit. Good-morning-should be sorry to keep you, for I know you have a great deal of business when you come to London (the Punch. He, he, he! (laughing). He's off: he knew which side his bread buttered on. He one deep, cunning Devil (PUNOн, alarmed by hearing a strange, supernatural whirring noise, like the rapid motion of fifty spinning-wheels, retreats to the corner). Re-enter the DEVIL, with a stick. He makes up to PUNCH, who retreats round the back of the stage, and they stand eying one another and fencing at opposite sides. At last the DEVIL makes a blow at PUNCH, which tells on the back of his head. Punch. Oh, my head! What is that for? Pray, Mr. Devil, let us be friends (the DEVIL hits him again, and PUNCH begins to take it in dudgeon, and to grow angry). Why, you must be one very stupid Devil not to know your best friend when you see him (the DEVIL hits him again). Be quiet, I say; you hurt me! Well, if you won't, we must try which is the best man-Punch or the Devil. (Here commences a terrific combat between the DEVIL and PUNCH. In the beginning, the latter has much the worst of it; but at length succeeds in planting several heavy blows. Toward the conclusion PUNCH drives his enemy before him. The DEVIL, stunned by repeated blows, falls, when PUNCH kills him; and putting his staff up the DEVIL's black clothes, whirls him round, exclaiming, "Huzza! huzza! the Devil's dead!") www. SON A SONG IN GOLD. ("Du bist mir nah' und doch so fern.") OME men have the spirit of music in their brains. If they sit still and think, their thoughts seem to dissolve into soundless music. Such men become great composers. But they You could almost count them upon are few. your fingers and thumbs. Many years ago there was a youth named Franz who lived with his master, a goldsmith, in a little village which nestled at the foot of a great hill, as if for protection. Beyond the village lay pleasant meadows, through which the brooks glided like singing serpents, Farther on were the blue hills, where none but charcoal-burners and the birds lived. They were high, wooded hills, and over them were but few roads. These were rough and rutty; the charcoal-burners had made them for their wag ons. room, with its back-windows buried in the leaves of some fragrant trees which his own hand had planted, and its front-windows looking out across the meadows and to the blue hills beyond. In that room he had more books than I should care to enumerate. There were great worm-eaten folios which one could not well hold on his knees, and there were curious old volumes bound in parchment and printed in the bastard Latin of the Middle Ages, and fat little volumes that you might easily carry in your pocket. They lay in unregenerate confusion on the table, the chairs, and the floor. Sometimes old Karl would sit there all night vexing his brain over the recondite things of which these volumes treated. Strange volumes some of them were; for he had old Abbot Trithemius, and Albertus Magnus, and Aquinas. He had Delrio too, the grim demonologist, and Paracelsus and Cardanus and Agrippa. There, too, were old Weckerus with his "Book of Secrets," and Reuchlin the cabalist, and many other writers of strange things, in all of whom Few people cared to visit the hills, for the ascent was not of the easiest, and, besides, what was there to tempt the curious? The world is busy, and time is short. So few peo-old Karl delighted, for he thought that by ple ever went up into the hills save now and then some one who had business to transact with the charcoal-burners. Those who lived in the village or in the farm-houses which stood in the pleasant meadow-lands knew and cared little what the blue hills might hide in their for est crowns. Now old Karl, the goldsmith, kept his little shop in the village, and had no other help than Franz, who was a strong, handsome youth, full of vigor and life, and gifted with an industry that was next to tireless. Every morning he was up with the birds, and you could see him at his bench even before the market wagons came into the streets from the surrounding country, and hear him singing too; for he always sang over his work, and perhaps that was one reason why he was always pleasant-faced and bright-eyed; for singing goes with the blithe heart and healthful soul. Besides this, Franz was a perfect gem of a goldsmith. The Line of Beauty must have existed somewhere in the convolutions of his brain. He fashioned the most delicate, filmy webs of gold, and twisted them into a thousand beautiful devices, and snarled them about exquisite little vases of glass that looked as if they were made of congealed light. In fact, he created such marvels of design and artistic beauty that one might have said that they were notations of music in gold-music posed and fixed in some blessed paralysis. Old Karl used often to pause in his own work to look over his spectacles at the apprentice, and wonder from what recess in his brain he spun out his golden fancies. Old Karl used to enjoy asking himself such questions, although it was very certain that he could never answer them; for he was a thoughtful man, fond of discussing curious problems like this, and was forever trying to get at the kernel and reason of things. Up stairs, over his shop, he had a low but wide their aid he might at last come to the pith and kernel of things. If you wanted to read of wonders you should have climbed up into old Karl's book-room. You could have read yourself blind and crazy with them there. Now the work that came from the goldsmith's shop was known far and wide, not only in the great city which lay scarcely a score of miles from the village, but throughout the length and breadth of the land. It commanded the best of prices, and was, you might say, standard. Every body knew that the old goldsmith was as conscientious as his apprentice was wonderful, so that the little village work-shop came into great repute, and the demand for its productions far exceeded the supply. One bright morning, just as the sun shot its slanting rays through the early mists, Franz sat at his bench singing a merry carol and working away at a fruit-piece which had been promised for a wedding-gift. He had risen that morning even before the sun; even before the crows came from the forest-crown of the blue hills and descended into the meadows for food; for the piece had been guaranteed for a certain hour, and many finishing touches had yet to be given. He was plying his burnisher merrily enough, when the door of the shop opened, and a stranger entered. "Greeting to you, Master Goldsmith," cried the new-comer. "One might say that you get to work thus early that you may fashion the sunshine into your piece. A broad bar of it lies now across your bench. May you grow rich, gold-worker, for you are an early and sturdy worker." "Easier wished than realized," laughed Franz. "Riches don't come for the wishing, especially to apprentices. You had better go talk to Master Karl, if the profits of my labors is the only subject that you have in mind. And as for other subjects, I can only say, my The card bore no less a name than that ofNo matter whom. Who can carve for me in gold a singing thought? Who can fashion therein a succession of beautiful sounds? A visible presentment of melody? The façade of the cathedral of Rheims is, they say, frozen music; but it does not suggest a song. That was a happier thought of his who called it a poem in stone. But it is not such frozen music, or music thus molten into gold, that I demand. I ask something more. A person deprived of hearing will watch the lips of a speaker and from their motion understand what is spoken; nay, will, when a word is withheld, apprehend from the mere formation and lines of the lips what that word would have been had it been uttered. So you can imagine a carven face whose lips should, by their position, suggest a word, or even a phrase, just as the face in the wondrous "As for Master Karl," he said, "I know him to be a patient, worthy man and an excellent goldsmith, but he can not do the work which I require. Fifty years ago the case might have been different. I require now a young heart and lissom fingers. In short, I require you. If you serve me well, if you accomplish my work, I will pay you handsomely. I will cover your hand three deep with gold pieces; and, more, I guarantee that Master Karl shall allow you to retain them as the legitimate fruits of a genius which is assuredly not in its apprentice-Laocoon suggests an expression of unutterable ship. What say you, Franz?" "So much gold? Mine?" Franz dropped his burnisher, and the lovely fruit-piece almost tumbled to the floor. woe. Just so must this work in gold suggest the song, so that one might look upon it and have the music bubble from his lips. You see, therefore, how almost hopeless was the task which Franz had imposed upon him. I "Yours!" replied the stranger, with gravity. "And what I say I mean. Listen, Franz. live in Germany, and there I secured one of the best of your works. When I return I must take with me the newest and the best-something more wonderful than any thing you have heretofore made." "And should I fail-" "Not the sight of a coin shall you get, anu I am not quite sure that I shall not take you by the ears for trifling with me." "But why should I fail? Is it any thing so very difficult of execution? You may have seen my Lorelay candelabrum." The visitor nodded and smiled. "It almost made the master's fortune for him. Is it any thing more difficult than that?" When old Karl heard of the undertaking he went nearly insane. He buried himself among his books and read through I know not how many thousand pages of horrible Latin and Greek stuff, with the vague hope that, while fumbling amidst all this rubbish, he might by good fortune come upon some happy inspiration, or some approximation of the idea for which both were now so sedulously seeking. Alas! the books availed him not. The oracles were dumb, and would not be propitiated. The longer he read, the duller grew his brain, and the more hopeless became his quest; until at length, in sheer desperation, he commanded Franz never again to revert to the subject in his hearing, and thenceforth discharged it from his mind. Franz, meanwhile, acted more wisely, but with no better success. He cudgeled his brain night and day, drew design after design in an aimless, unintelligent way, and "Pooh!" cried the stranger. "I have none. even fell to dreaming over the matter at night. If I had, why should I pay you a thousand pieces But all in vain. Each fresh idea was found, of gold? Look to the resources of your genius upon examination, to embody nothing of value, for it. You have made the Lorelay a singer in and after months of patient toiling in the gengold. I want you now to make me a song in eration of successive delusions, each as worthgold. I want no vulgar design, no common- less as its predecessor, Franz was nearly ready place trick of the goldsmith's art. Give me to exclaim that he had undertaken a fool's task music in gold. I have no clearer understand- which could by no possibility result otherwise ing of my own idea than this. I can not ex- than in shamefaced failure. Impressed with press it otherwise. Now, will you execute the such an idea he ceased to give the subject othwork for me? Yes, or no! for I must be gone. er than desultory thoughts, and applied himLike yourself, I have no time to spare. Is it yes?" self once more to the routine of ordinary busiDetermination stood Franz instead of inspi-ness. There are fearful stories told of men "I will assume the task!" he an- who have been buried in trances, and to such song. "Yes. That was the singer. I wish the Write me a song in gold, Franz, and receive a thousand pieces for your genius." "Give me your idea." ration. "In a year from to-day," said the stranger, "bring the work to me, and may Heaven and your fortunate star assist you in the undertaking!" He threw his card on the bench, waved his hand, and left the shop abruptly. VOL. XLII.-No. 252.--54 graves their friends, warned by some horrible inspiration, have returned again and again, with bated breaths and finger on lip, to see if the dead have moved in their coffins. Franz had buried his idea, to be sure, yet he had a vague presentiment, compounded half of hope, half of desire, that its inhumation had been premature. | derly advance of ten centuries, of three and thirAnd so he returned to it again and again, and ty generations of human life, could be merged as frequently turned his back upon it, but nev- into moments. Finite reason rebelled against er without an uneasy sense that some little the infinite thought; and, sick at soul, the good vitality was still remaining. One evening he abbot sighed, and closing the volume, fastened grew so nervous from mentally rehearsing his its brazen clasps. But the doubt haunted him. ill fortunes that, with a hope of diverting his He could not sleep, he could not rest. mind, he went up into the book-room, where old Karl was, as usual, buried to the ears in one of his ponderous volumes. "Well, master," said Franz, ""your books don't help one much when he is in search of practical ideas, do they?" "If you mean by that such fool's-errand ideas as those of your patron with the thousand pieces of gold-they don't! The best book to look for such things in is this," retorted the master, rather sharply; for he always grew cross-grained and red in the face when he thought of the time that he had wasted in the matter. And so saying, he tossed a little book across to Franz. "That's a volume of pious legends and monkish miracles," he said, grimly. "If a miracle's what you want, you'll find plenty of them there." And he dropped his face so suddenly that it almost seemed as if he had split open the great volume on his knees with his nose, and buried his head to the helve in it. "That's all that I'll get out of you to-night," grumbled Franz, as he turned over the pages of the little miracle-book in a listless, discontented way. He thought that he might as well be doing that as moping down stairs in the shop, and thinking over his defeats. At length here a word and there a word attracted his attention, until, without knowing it, he had quite lost himself in When the sun arose Abbot Erro, still pondering upon the mystic words, passed out from the gardens of the monastery. The fresh fragrance of the forest lured him on, the vernal solitudes invited him. Seated beneath an aged tree he pondered again the solemn words: "A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." The sunshine flooded the crowns of the mighty trees, and dripped like yellow rain upon the woodland paths. The brooks rang their flitting bells in hidden pools. The soft winds passed through the leaves like the whispers of invisible beings. But Abbot Erro saw not, heard not. His soul still wrestled with the angel as did Jacob of old, and would not let him go without the blessing. Presently came the song of a bird from the depth of the wood. Erro listened. It came soft and low, like the gurgle of a liquid flute. What the flower is to the plant, that is song to the bird; and such a song was this that Erro arose and followed the beckoning sound. Fresh and clear came the wondrous notes; but no bird did the good monk see, for the fluttering leaves hid it from his longing eyes. It fled before him, and he followed. The burden of his soul was forgotten. He did not even hear the bell of the monastery tolling to prayers. But he followed the gurgling notes as one might follow the song of the brook beside which he walkson through the woodland paths, on through the tangled undergrowth and the ever-green thicket, until the elusive song grew faint in the green distance of leaves, and lost itself in the drone of the early bees. Sorrowfully Erro retraced his steps. He felt that something sweet had eluded him forever. At the gate of the monastery the porter refused him entrance. "Am I not the abbot ?" he asked, mildly. "And yet my brethren refuse me that which they grant to the stranger and the wayfarer." "The abbot is within at matins." "Within! Am I not the Abbot Erro? and is not this my charge?" THE LEGEND OF ABBOT ERRO. ......Old Abbot Erro, of Armentaria, sat with his face bowed above the Sacred Book. It was far into the night. Again and again he had turned the hour-glass, again and again had addressed himself to his studies. He had sat from the time when the sun sank like a blazing world behind the purple hills; and now the thin, tremulous moon hung like a sickle among the ungarnered fields, wherein the stars lay sown like burning seeds. Constellation after constellation had swung up upon Polaris, the glittering pivot of the heavens, and already had Ursa Major swam half his circuit in the Circle of Per-"Farther down by the wood thou shalt find the petual Apparition. Still, Abbot Erro bent painfully above the pages of the Sacred Book, with bitten lip, his deep, solemn eyes fixed upon the mysterious lines which had caused him so much doubting solicitude: "A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." The divine soul within the good man accepted the hidden truth, while his mind, trained in the sophistries and casuistries of the schools, questioned, if it did not deny. He could not understand how, even to Omnipotence, the slow, or ruins of old Erro's monastery; there they have lain for more than a hundred years, and it must be near two centuries ago that Erro himself wandered into the woods and was heard of no more. |