"It won't do, sir; it won't do. My son and I are done with each other. A child that attempts his father's life, sir, has no forgiveness to hope for." "Not if he reform-if he repent?" would. Yes, I will forgive him on my death- "Not easily, I confess. Well, then, suppose you were to die next week-suppose you were to die to-morrow? Or, what security have you that a stroke of apoplexy may not end your life this day-this hour?" "Stuff and nonsense!" "Not at all. You are near your threescore "I would not give much for a repentance that comes only when the attempt has failed, when the tables are turned, and the assassin finds himself at the mercy of his intended victim. If he repents-and-ten.' You are, perhaps, very near your death. which is likely enough, it is not of having meant to kill me, but of having gone about it in such a lubberly way. He repents, sir, of having left it in my power to disinherit him." "Fie, Captain Sturmgang! These are thoughts unworthy of a father. Your son is not to have But your property-well, he submits to the loss. is that a reason that he should have your curse? It is not what you withhold from him that he complains of, but what you bequeath him; and I tell you in the name of God and humanity that you must revoke your curse that horrible word must not continue to the hour of death, to ring in the ear of your son." 66 My curse! bequeath him my curse! What's all that? I know of no curse." "Have not you cursed your son? He told me you had." "Is that possible? Cursed him-I don't believe it. When I break out in a fury, no doubt I say here and there something I don't mean. No, no, I don't curse him-God forbid." "You make me very happy, Captain Sturmgang. May I tell your son what you say?" "No need, sir-no need. I send him no message; I want no communication with him, and I beg I may now hear no more of him." 66 Very well. It is then your determination that he shall live and die in the belief that his father's curse lies upon him." Don't lose the precious moments. Do, to-day, what in a few days will no longer be in your power. Show mercy whilst you have time, lest you should find none when you need it." “By —! I was not so hard pressed by the English frigate in the North Sea!" At the name of Mephistopheles, a chill ran through all my veins. "He will undo all my work," thought I; and the image of the smooth stepson, associating itself with his, reduced my hopes to a still lower ebb. I was opening my lips, however, for a last attempt, when the door opened, and the latter worthy made his appearance. The old gentleman received him with a broadside of oaths, and asked where he had been so long. He answered, with great humility, that he had taken a little walk while his father enjoyed his usual afternoon's nap, not dreaming of his being exposed to intrusion. This he said with a side-glance at me. "Where's Theresa?" demanded the captain, "The devil! No, it is n't. I told you I did n't roughly. "Is she gone to walk, too?" curse him." "You told me. Well, then, tell him so." "Him! I tell him! My good sir, you forget that you talk to an old officer, who would rather blow himself and the enemy up together than strike his colors." "Ay, but you are not blowing up yourself and your son together. You are blowing him up alone. You are wilfully leaving him under the false impression that he has your curse." "Confound it! I can't bandy words with you. I am no match for a lawyer in talk. There! tell him, then, for aught I care; and now, no more about it or him, I beg of you." "A thousand thanks, my dear sir; but one moment more I must beg you to hear me patiently. You will not forgive your son his offence against you?" "No." The young man, I thought, colored a little; and it was with some confusion that he replied, he had not seen the housekeeper since dinner. "Look for her," said old Sturmgang, “and tell her to make coffee presently." "Not for me, I hope," interrupted I, for I had lost all appetite for the stimulating beverage. "It is almost time I were on my way back to town. I must request you, sir," I added, addressing Schein, "not to give yourself the trouble." He complied readily enough with my request, being, no doubt, glad of an excuse to stay in the room, and prevent the continuance of a tête-à-tête between me and his stepfather. I had now an opportunity of observing him with more leisure than at our first meeting. He was dressed in the antique style affected by our students, his hair divided in the middle, and flowing down in long locks on both sides, after the manner of the ancient Teutones, and wore a moustache and a little peaked beard. This affectation of the picturesque has always had the effect of disgusting me, and it strengthened the prejudice I had already conceived against Master Schein. The honeyed tone in which he spoke, his exaggerated attentions towards his stepfather, the insinuating smile that never disappeared from his lips, except when he shot a furtive and sinister glance towards me-all these added to the unfavorable impression he made on me, though I strove to think I was doing him injustice. How- | for imitation, by drubbing the possessor of them ever, to continue in his neighborhood was really soundly, whenever he could catch him in a suitatoo much for my nerves, especially when he began ble place for the operation, for which he was to talk of filial duty, gratitude, and the pain it gave quite sure to be as soundly drubbed in his turn by him to have even seemed for a moment to neglect papa. his benefactor and second parent. I had, therefore, caught up my hat, and was on the point of taking leave, when Mephistopheles entered the room. He looked at me with distended eyes, as if saying inwardly, "What in the devil's name brings you here?" A kind of inclination to defy him, which I could not resist, kept me from immediately fulfilling my intention of going; I did not like to seem driven away by him. With a brief greeting, he passed me by, went up to his brother-in-law, asked how he was, and began to talk of the weather, the roads, and some other equally interesting subjects, taking no further notice of me. I was angry, and the more so, that I felt that was what he wanted to give him the completest triumph, I very wisely suffered his rudeness to make me rude-"Captain Sturmgang," said I, not, I fear, in the calmest tone, "I wish you a good evening ;" and so I walked to the door without bestowing a look on either the sub-rector or his hopeful nephew. As I was leaving the room, the old gentleman, in a constrained manner, and, as it seemed to me, more for ceremony's sake than that he really desired it, begged I would shortly repeat my visit: hurriedly promising to do so, I withdrew. Next day I went again to Ludwig Sturmgang's; for I was now resolved, were it but to spite Mephistopheles and his subordinate unclean spirit with the St. John's head, not to withdraw from the enterprise of reconciliation. The young man was glad to see me; he could not but guess that I had spoken with his father, and his looks expressed impatience to know the result. I began by informing him that he was not under his father's curse, and I never saw a man more thankful than he was, for the assurance. To prove his gratitude, he told me all his history, and the circumstances which had led to the state of things subsisting between himself and his father. At the age of four years he had lost his inother; a short interval had been followed by his father's second marriage, and that event, very speedily, by his stepmother's death. Captain Sturmgang had brought up his son, from the tenderest years, with the severity to which his opinions, no less than his natural temper, inclined him; and the boy had never known what it was to receive a caress from his father, never experienced an indulgence, never heard himself addressed but in the tones of harsh command, nor seen one encouraging smile relax the rigid earnestness of the features whose gloom overshadowed all his childhood. The fruit of this education was, that the young Ludwig, on his part, conceived little love for his father, and acquired a stubborn, headstrong, and daring character, cared neither for blows nor hard words, took his own way, and at an early age was come to regard no one's judgment, and consult no one's will but his own. Between his stepbrother and himself there had never been any harmony. Christian was a boy that never got into scrapes, Ludwig was never out of them; and Ludwig's scrapes were, conscientiously, and on principle, regularly reported by Christian to their father. The captain petted and praised his stepson, and held him up as a pattern to Ludwig, who showed his sense of the virtues proposed to him In his sixteenth year Ludwig Sturmgang was placed by his father in a mercantile house, where, after the expiry of his apprenticeship, he continued some years in the capacity of foreman. During this period he formed an engagement with the daughter of his employer, and henceforth directed all his endeavors to the establishing himself as soon as possible in an independent business, that he might be in a position to marry. To this end he rode to Dornfeld, (he was at this time residing in a town about fifteen miles from Zell,) and requested his father to put him in possession of his mother's fortune, which by the marriage deed had been settled on her children. By the help of this sum he hoped to be able to furnish a shop in Zell. The captain, however, showed himself no ways inclined to further the views of his son, told him he should not have a penny of his inheritance till he knew how to make a better use of it, and upbraided him with great harshness for having entered into a matrimonial engagement at so early an age. The old spirit of defiance, which had long slept, now awoke in young Sturmgang, and bitter words passed between father and son. Ludwig would have left Dornfeld immediately, but he was obliged to defer his journey in consequence of a sickness of his horse. The approved remedy for this sickness was washing the part affected with a solution of arsenic in hot water, and Ludwig went to the apothecary in Zell, and procured a small portion of this poison, which he locked up in his desk. The next day Christian Schein had to drive to the town with corn, and on this account had his dinner an hour earlier than the rest of the family; scarcely five minutes after finishing his meal, he was taken ill, had repeated vomitings, complained of violent. pains in the stomach, and cried out that he was poisoned. The whole house was alarmed; a carriage was immediately sent into Zell for the doctor, and in the mean time the food of which Christian Schein had partaken was examined. In the saucepan in which the soup had been made, and which was still on the fire, a white substance was found, which the old captain carefully took up, and put into a vessel. He cast looks of suspicion and rage upon his son, but spoke not a word on the subject with him. The doctor came, found Schein very much exhausted, but without further symptoms of illness; the hurtful matter seemed to have been brought away by the vomiting; the medical gentleman, therefore, merely ordered him some camomile tea, and drove back to Zell, accompanied by the captain, who after some hours returned. The storm that now broke over Ludwig's head was terrific. Captain Sturmgang called his son a murderer, a parricide, a monster, who, in his accursed greed for money, had attempted to poison his father and his brother; nay, who had not scrupled to involve in the same destruction the lives of the innocent servants and laborers, who, as he must have known, would all have partaken of the deadly meal. Serpent, devil, I-renounce you!" shrieked the old man again and again, in accents which rage rendered almost inarticulate; and as his son stood astonished, bewildered, stupefied before him, not hearing, or not comprehending his furious commands to begone, and to leave 66 "Good God! Mr. Assessor, do you hold me capable of such ?" that house forever, he at length snatched up his one. Appearances are certainly against you, and pistols, and would certainly have committed an ir- I wish you would answer me a few questions, reparable crime, had not the housekeeper and the which, I need not say, I do not put to you officialmaid thrown themselves screaming between the ly, but as a friend. Tell me sincerely, are you two, and forced the young man, confounded and conscious of no negligence, of no thoughtlessness, incapable of resistance, out of the room. At of no fault in this matter?" length, out of his father's presence, he found words to ask, "What have I done?" But the only answer of the women was to entreat him to leave the house as speedily as possible. At the same time they hurried him to the stable, and Theresa, calling to an out-door servant to lead out the young master's horse without delay, hastened back to the captain, in order, as she said, to prevent him following his son, and murdering him in the yard. Meanwhile, between Margareta and the out-door servant, the horse was got saddled, his master looking on passively, and as one stunned, till the maid, who cried bitterly all the time, with many prayers for his welfare, exhorted him to mount and begone. But he now suddenly recovered his recollection, and peremptorily declared that he would not go forth under such accusations as his father brought against him, that he would go back and know with what he was charged, and on what grounds. He would have done so, had not Christian Schein at this moment issued from the house, and, with terror in his looks, cried "Brother! Ludwig! for God's sake no delay! Your father has pronounced his malediction upon you, and is at this moment sending orders to the farm servants to drag you through the horse pond." "Liar!" said Ludwig, " you shall not prevent me from going to my father." "Believe him," cried the house-keeper, who followed the stepson out of the house; he tells you the truth. Your father has given you his curse, and, if you stay a moment longer, you will experience ignominious treatment." "I call everything sacred to witness," said Christian Schein, "that he was giving orders, when I left his presence, to have you dragged through the horsepond, and driven off the grounds with cart-whips." 66 "He was, indeed," said Theresa, wringing her hands. Oh, for pity's sake-for your mother's sake-go at once." 66 Every one is capable of an oversight." "In this matter, I am conscious of none." "Do you believe that the substance in the saucepan was poison?" "I don't know what to think." "Did you carefully lock up the poison you had bought?" 66 Carefully-and put the key in my pocket." "Why did not you use the poison at once, for the purpose you got it for?" "I did use about the half of it?" "What is that?" "That Schein himself put the poison into the soup." "What! You suppose that he meant to poison you, and fell into his own snare? I confess that does not seem to me very likely." "Nay, I do not look on him as capable of such a deed, though I will not deny that I think him a bad fellow God knows." "Christian Schein makes no favorable impres sion upon me, but to practise against the lives of his stepfather and stepbrother, and even of the servants, against whom he could have no cause of enmity-to contemplate such wholesale murder is a stretch of wickedness which I will not impute to him." "Nor I, though all that is less than the crime my own father imputes to me. Silently Ludwig Sturmgang mounted his horse, and left, without a farewell, a house endeared to him by no one recollection of happiness. From X. he wrote to his father, begging only to know what the crime was by which he had deserved a father's malediction, and such abominable outrage as had been threatened him, but the letter was returned Then, supposing he had meditated this crime, unopened. Deeply hurt and embittered against how very improbable that he should have blunderhis father, he now put the business of the inherited so as to eat of the poisoned food himself. But ance into the hands of a lawyer. The law was I will see you again in a few days, and I hope we clearly on his side, and he won his suit with costs. shall be able to get some light on the subject. The little capital thus obtained enabled him to es- Good bye." tablish himself in business, and to marry. Since I proceeded from Sturmgang's to the apothe the circumstances above related, he had spoken cary, and demanded a sight of his poison book. neither with his father, the sub-rector, nor Chris- It appeared that, in the month of August, 18—; tian Schein. All essays towards reconciliation had failed, and the persons just mentioned and himself had, when they casually met, met as strangers. "What you have told me," said I, when Ludwig Sturmgang had finished his narration," is a most curious and suspicious story, and, if some strange error be not at the bottom of the whole, it is clear that a great crime was contemplated by some by virtue of a police certificate, two ounces of arsenic had been sold to Ludwig Sturmgang. Neither Captain Sturmgang, nor Schein, nor any one else in the house, had bought poison that year, nor the year before. After a few days, I went out to Dornfeld again, requested a private conver sation with the captain, told him that his son had communicated to me all the circumstances of their disagreement, so far as they were known to him, and begged him, if he thought me worthy of his confidence, to give me his version of the occurrences. He related them pretty nearly as Ludwig had done, and at the end asked me if I now found his conduct towards his son any way unnatural or inexplicable. "But, my dear captain," said I," are you then convinced beyond all doubt that the substance in the pot was arsenic ?" “I know it, sir,” replied he; "for I drove into town, as I have told you, with the doctor, and had the stuff examined by the apothecary, who at once pronounced it arsenic." “But how can you tell that your son, Ludwig, threw this poison intentionally into the pot?" "I am certain of it. Not only the maid can testify that he was the whole morning prowling about the kitchen, but Theresa-my housekeeper -saw him, from her storeroom, go to the fire and put something into the pot." "No doubt, into the pot in which he was making the wash for his horse.' "Not at all! he was done with that by nine o'clock, and went into the stable, as he pretended, to wash his horse. It was half past ten when the housekeeper saw him at her pot. "If that be true, I cannot deny that there are good grounds for your suspicion-at the same time suspicion is not proof." "Not proof! By sir, you are proof against proof, I think! Look here! My son and I quarrel-a son, mark you, that never loved me; I don't say whose fault that is-mine, perhaps but such is the fact; there never was love between us. Well, we quarrel, he wants his money, he can't marry without it; I refuse to give it him. The easiest way for him to get this money, and the rest of my property into the bargain, is, to put me out of the way. He was, from childhood up, quick in his determinations: he buys arsenic, for his horse he says, but my stepson is near being poisoned next day with his dinner; arsenic is found in the soup-kettle; the housekeeper has seen my son at that very soup-kettle. By sir, I say there's proof there to hang a man: I have knotted a man to the yard-arm myself on less proof: an English jury would send a man to the gallows on a quarter as much.' "I will not say that appearances are in your son's favor, and yet I cannot resist the conviction I have of his innocence. I acknowledge that he would have a bad chance with a jury, even out of England still his frank, honest face, I think, could not but have its effect even in that suspicious nation, where, in direct contradiction to what they boast of the spirit of their law, every man is held guilty till he can prove himself innocent. To my mind, Captain Sturmgang, there is that in your son's countenance and manner which totally forbids the belief of his being capable of the crime you attribute to him. And then the unblemished life he has now, for several years, led in our town -that will weigh in his favor with all reflecting men. Believe me, there is some sad mistake at the bottom of all this business-perhaps something worse." “Aye, truly, is there something worse, and no persuasion will make me think otherwise." "Well, suppose your suspicions just, your son has suffered for his crime-has proved himself a reformed man by his conduct ever since. Do not be implacable: if he had not sinned you would have nothing to forgive; if he has, forgive him." "The sub-rector ?"—cried I, in astonishment. 'Aye, aye, the sub-rector-what do you see so wonderful in that? That's just like him. But I have told him roundly that that's out of the question; to be friendly to my son is not in my power; I can't answer for myself, but I might say something disagreeable to him-it is better we keep separate, give one another as wide a berth as possible. And now, my good sir, if you do not want to make me angry, talk to me no more on this subject." My mouth was closed by the last words. However, I had got a step further, and, although I took good care not to quit the ground I had gained, I was far from intending to stop there. I now did my best to put the old sailor in a good humor with himself and me, led the conversation to his voyages, got him into a discussion about the comparative merits of carronades and cannons, in which-Heaven forgive me! I took up (knowing nothing of the matter) the side I saw he was opposed to, merely for the purpose of letting him beat me, which I must say he did in a very effectual manner. This gave him great pleasure, and when I was going away he begged me, with real heartiness, often to come and see him, squeezed my hand, and declared that he considered me an honest man. I asked him to come see me, and said my wife would be much gratified to make his acquaintance; to which he replied that he did not like going out of his own four walls, but would call me a real good fellow if I would bring my wife with me the next time I came, though, he added, it was scarcely a place for a lady, and she would find little to repay her for the trouble of the visit. This was exactly what I wanted for my plan was to make an attack upon him with the help of his daughter-in-law, an unassuming and amiable young creature, whom, I thought, it was impossible he should hate, although she had been the immediate unhappy cause of the family dissension. Should he conceive a liking for her-or should she inspire him with ever so slight an interest, it might he hoped that he would at least not suffer her and her children to want, and would perhaps even find an excuse for his son, in the matter of the unfortu nate law-suit, in the eagerness of the latter to possess himself of such a treasure as this lovely young woman. I communicated this plan to my wife, and got her to go to Madam Sturmgang for the purpose of inducing the latter to come into it. It was not without hesitation and fear that Madam Sturmgang consented to the project; she had heard too much of the blunt manners, stern temper, and rooted prejudices of her father-in-law, not to tremble at the thought of presenting herself to him; the uncertainty of the result, and the dread of being rudely and savagely treated by the old merman, balanced the hope of rendering her husband a ser vice beyond price. The sense of duty, however, I thought I, does she bring such an animal here triumphed over that of fear, and a day was fixed for our visit to the old gentleman. for? To my no small alarm the music came near- 66 Accordingly, it might be three weeks after my last interview with Captain Sturmgang, my wife and I, with Madam Sturmgang and her eldest boy, took our places in a carriage, and drove out to Dornfeld. "O Lord!" cried I, "no nearer, there's a good The young wife was to be presented to our host as soul! Take the darling little cherub away!" a friend of my wife's, and the rest was to be left to Yes, but I have to tell you something first," the chapter of accidents. I believe there was not rejoined my wife; "the poor little dear has just one of us whose heart did not palpitate as the car-been found in the fields." riage drove up to the door: even the little boy had an agitated look, caught perhaps from the reflection of his mamma's. The captain, who had had notice of our visit, was on the steps to receive us. All right, but―0 mercy! there stood our evil ge-in." nius, the sub-rector, behind him! "I wish you were where the pepper grows," thought I," or in a hotter place." I had reason for the wish: in the moment that we halted, received and returned the captain's greetings, and were preparing to get out of the carriage, the harsh voice of Mephistopheles cried "Eh! what's all this? You here, Madam Sturmgang!" The captain started back, as if he had seen a Gorgon: "Where is Madam Sturmgang!" cried he. Without speaking, the sub-rector lifted his arm, pointed with his fore-finger at the unhappy and trembling young wife, now half-choked with her tears, and stood in this position so long that he gave one the impression of a hand-post, only that he pointed the way old Sturmgang's compassion and kind feelings were not to go. My wife and I, who had already stood up from our places, sank back into them with fright; this saved us a trouble, for the captain, whose astonishment had given place to indignation, called out to me with the iciest politeness "Mr. Assessor, you have mistaken the house. This is not the inn; you will find it about half a mile further on, in the village." "One word, captain.' He turned on his heel, went into the house, and shut the door behind him; the ill-omened hand-post was no longer in view-it had done its work. "Home," said. I to the coachman. "In the fields! Aye, aye! Who found it?" "The people are there in the hall." "Capital! I had too little business on my hands as it was. Well, call them in-call them Four countrywomen and three children were now ushered in, and I glanced involuntarily at the three chairs which the office contained. "If the whole village these good women belong to is coming," said I to my wife, "I must beg you to get the drawing-room in readiness, and to put all the chairs in the house into it, for we must have places for Assessor R and the clerk of the court, whom I will thank you to send for immediately." The examination was begun, and the story told by young and old was this. The three children had gone into the fields to glean, heard a faint cry, and found on a crossway, near a farm house, the child lying. They ran into the house, into the village, spread the news, the four women came about the same time to the spot where the deserted creature lay, and forthwith commenced a procession to town, and to my office. I asked if any of them had given the child drink. Not one-the compassionate souls had been afraid, one and all, to take it into their houses, lest they should have to keep it. They were all agreed that no girl out of their village could be the mother of the child, as there were not the slightest grounds for supposing that a secret accouchement had taken place there. As soon as I had dismissed them, I called in my wife, whom I asked if she had any baby-linen by her. She blushed to the eyes at this question in the presence of the assessor and the clerk, for it was visible enough that she would very soon want baby-linen herself; however, this was quite pro "Oleum et operam perdidi," muttered I to my-pos, and I said thread, and dress it in whatever you have got, for we must take the clothes it has on ad acta-but for Heaven's sake, get it something first to stop its roaring." self, and did all in my power to tranquillize the "There's no help for it; you must act as young wife, who was near fainting, and could re-child's maid; strip the little thing to the last lieve herself only by tears. When we stopped at young Sturmgang's, I had no need to tell him how my attempt had sped; the short time we had been away, and the disconsolate air of his wife, gave him but too sure evidence of its unhappy issue. The pain his features expressed, showed that he had sincerely wished and hoped for peace with his father, and it was most reluctantly that I was compelled to add to his grief, by declaring that I could interfere no further in the matter. Half a year passed after this, without my seeing either the young merchant or old Ironskull again. The little one's clothes were of rather finer materials than ordinary; but there was no mark to be discovered, which might serve as a clue to the mother. The child was given to a woman to take care of, and the tip-staff was sent the same evening to all the shopkeepers in the town, to show them its little coat, and to ask them if they remembered having sold any of that description of calico, and to whom two shopkeepers had had this calico, and named different maid-servants in Zell who had bought some of it; but the inquiries set on The president of the provincial court had obtained leave of absence, for the purpose of visiting the baths of P, and the direction of affairs de-foot gave no grounds of suspicion against any of volved upon me; this confined me almost the whole day to my office, which was contiguous to the sitting-room of my wife. One day the bell rang, my wife went out to see who was there, I heard eager talking in the hall, and presently after the cry of an infant in the next room. What the deuce, these. The next day the tipstaff was sent with the cloth to the neighboring villages, to show it to as many women as possible, in the hope of obtain ing in this way a clue to the delinquent. This measure succeeded before midday he came back with intelligence that several women of a village |