In two hours he heard one puffing down the stream, and saw the white wreaths of steam curling up behind the trees. How his heart bounded! Freedom, hope, and life!—once more sprung through his shriveled veins and to his lips. He signaled the vessel; she rounded to and lowered her yawl. His pulse bounded high, and he gazed with absorbing eagerness at the crew as they pulled lustily towards the shore.
A click—behind him! He turned with a shudder, and there he was! That long rifle was bearing straight upon him—those cold eyes dwelt steadily on his for a moment—and, crash! all was forever blackness to Hinch the Regulator! The men who witnessed this singular scene landed, and found him shot through the eye! And saw the murderer galloping swiftly away over the plain stretching out from the top of the bank! And so the vengeance was consummated, and the stern hunter had wiped out with much blood the stain of stripes on his free limbs; and could now do what I was told he had never done since the night of those fatal and fatally expiated stripes, look his wife again in the eyes, and receive her form to rest again upon his bosom.
Powerful elements sometimes slumber in the breasts of quiet men; and there is in uncultured breasts a wild sense of justice, which, if it often carry retribution to the extremest limits of vengeance, is none the less implanted by Him who gave the passions to repose within us—
“Like war’s swart powder in a castle’s vault
Until the lin-stock of occasion light it.”
MASTER SACRISTAN EBERHART, by Sabine Baring-Gould
The much respected Master Eberhart, Sacristan of the ancient church of S. Sebaldus, lived, as others of his profession have done before, and do still on the continent, in the tower, above the big bells. His office was to keep his keen eye upon the villages around; and, should he detect the rising smoke and flame from a house on fire, to sound the alarm on a separate bell in the turret above his chamber.
This chamber, by the way, requires description. It formed one stage in the square tower; four windows commanded the points of the compass, glazed with the coarse old-fashioned glass, called in some places, ‘bull’s eye’, with the exception of one light in each, that was filled with quarries, and that was just the one to peep through. In the corner of this room rose a crazy wooden stair, leading to the leads; below it descended another to the belfry. There was a table of common deal, a large slope-backed armchair, and another chair for visitors, if they should come, but they didn’t. Against the wall, as is the custom with pious people abroad, there hung a crucifix.
Now, the Sacristan was a pious man, though he was odd too—at least, ‘the people down below’ called him so—I think he was very sensible, but as we may differ on the point, I leave you to judge for yourself. The good old man lived very much to himself up there in the windy old steeple, and very seldom descended into the wicked world, except to hear Mass of a morning, and to fetch his bread and milk; and these were brought for him as far as to the tower door. No one ever thought of going up the three hundred and sixty-five steps leading to the Sacristan’s room, except the bell-ringers just occasionally; and they tried the old man’s temper dreadfully—they were so earthy; and the Priest called now and then, but Master Eberhart, although he respected and honoured him (I said before he was very pious)—yet from being only associated with the birds and the old gargoyles—(those are the old carved spouts) he talked to him, not as if he were flesh and blood, but as if he were a stone man; not a gargoyle exactly, but a church monument. I don’t think the Priest quite liked that.
Master Eberhart had a way of making friends too; but then they were not the ordinary friends ‘people down below” make. You shall hear who they were. On the top of the tower below the broach of the spire, were four carved figures, life-size; one was a horse, another a dragon, a third an eagle, the fourth a monk, and the frost had taken his nose off. These statues had their mouths wide open, and were intended to spout the water off from the spire; but they never did, the rain always ran off another way down an ugly lead pipe. Yellow lichens marbled these grotesques all over, even over their faces. The monk turned west, and at sunset a red light covered him. He looked very terrible then, as if dipped in blood.
It was not to be expected that Master Eberhart should care much for the three animals, at least not more than the people below would for their horses—they haven’t got dragons or eagles—or for their guinea-pigs and fancy pigeons. But it was quite another matter with regard to the monk: the Sacristan loved him dearly, and had long conversations with him—only the talking was all on one side, but that was the pleasanter. On a sunny day, it was so agreeable to sit on the leads, leaning against the battlements, right over against the monk, and discuss the world below: a genial light irradiated the stone face, and it looked quite smiling; if it had not lost the nose, it would have been even handsome. On a moon-bright night also, when the lights were going out, one after another, in the windows far below, like sparks on a bit of tinder, the Sacristan loved to kneel in the shadow of the stone man, whose cowl and mutilated face would be cutting the moon’s disc, and chant clearly some beautiful psalm, finishing with his hymn ‘Te lucis ante terminum’. The old man thought sometimes that the shooting lips of the figure moved; but, of course, we who live on the earth, know well enough that it was only his fancy.
For a long time Master Eberhart did not know his friend’s name, as he had never told him, but he found it out at last; for one day the Priest of S. Sebaldus came up to visit him, bringing under his arm a big book bound in hogskin, and having a quantity of leaves in it. The Sacristan had never seen more; he thought there must be about a thousand five hundred and something over. The Priest talked to the old man a great deal, chiefly about some Egyptian saint whose life he was going to read to him. The Sacristan loved stories, so he listened with all his ears; the life was that of S. Simon Stylites, who lived—I don’t know how long—on the top of a pillar, ate nothing but leeks, and was never once blown off, however high the wind was. As he heard the account, a clear gleam of light shot into the old man’s brain, and looking up through the little door at the top of the stairs, at the monk who was just visible, nodded friendly to him, with a ‘Good morrow, Father Simon!” After that day, the Sacristan always called the gargoyle man ‘Father Simon’.
Master Eberhart had his notions concerning things in general; they were bright and expansive, as the view from his belfry; but as in that he looked over the rising gables of the church below, each topped with a cross, so in every view he took of earthly matters, the cross was in them. It was quite wonderful how clear and panoramic his ideas were; quaint fancies surrounded them, and they were like the gargoyles, from among which he saw the earth. We do not get these broad theories below, for somehow, a neighbour’s garden wall, or a granary gable, or sometimes merely a twig, debars us from taking a general sweep of the horizon.
The old man was one day sitting on the leads, looking up to his stone monk. “I think,” said he, “that the people down below are very self-sufficient, they fancy that all Creation is made to do them service; for that purpose called into being, and may be trimmed and pruned just as suits their wayward fancies; as if the handiwork of God were not made first to do Him praise and glory, and only secondly to rejoice the heart of man. I wish the folk down on earth would know their Benedicite a little better, and remember that all God’s works praise him! Do you not agree with me, Father Simon? I know you do; why—a scud of rain cannot break over this fair spire, and the water trickle down these runnels, but the men down there think it is sent just to clear their gutters and sewers; as if there were not first the yellow lichen stain to rejoice and the pretty moss to make glad before ever it reaches them.”
A ripple of golden sunlight ran over the weathered face of the gargoyle: “Heaven knows,” sighed the old man, “I do not, the exact way in which all the works of God praise Him; perhaps it may be in being always cheerful; perhaps in fulfilling what their mission is; perhaps in having no thought of
themselves; but being beautiful; they work so steadily till they have done all they can, and till they are perfectly beautiful—and how cheerful they always are! There are those men down below! They seek their own interests, their self-advancement, and, if they be the least religious, their own feelings, forgetting all about the duty of praise; and that lifeless—I mean what they would call lifeless—things which cannot praise any other way, praise by doing their duty.”
A bird perched on the monk’s cowl, and sent forth a stream of song; “There! there!” exclaimed the Sacristan—and he was undoubtedly going on to moralize, when, for the first time, he noticed a long crack at the back of the old carved spout. “Bless me,” gasped the good man in alarm, “Father Simon is breaking from the spire; what shall I do? The next high wind or frost, and he will be off—horrible! into the naughty world below. I will save him from that: what shall I do?” Master Eberhart rushed down the stairs; and catching the rope, sent forth peal after peal on the alarm bell. The folk on earth said, ‘There surely must be a whole village on fire somewhere’—but it was only the gargoyle that was cracked. Up the stairs ran the sexton to know what was the matter; and the terrified Sacristan implored him to send a mason and his men at once, that his friend the monk might be saved. The sexton growled and went down the tower, he was quite disappointed that that was all; he had made up his mind that Altdorf was in flames. What men we are!
Well!—next day there came the mason and one man; and they pulled down the stone man, and laid him on the leads. “You had better bring him into my room,” said Master Eberhart. “What shall we do next?” asked the mason, when he had done so. “Put him in my visitor’s chair, wait—one moment—let me move my cash box.” The Sacristan pulled a tin coffer containing all his savings, from the seat, and laid it on the table; then the gargoyle was lifted into the place. “When shall he be put up again?” asked the old man.
“Put up,” exclaimed the mason, ‘He ain’t worth the expense. What’s the good of an ugly bit of stone like that, up aloft? Why, he might have tumbled and welcome, but that people feared for their heads.”
“Not put back again!” groaned the Sacristan; “Never mind my box, leave it alone,” said he sharply, to the mason’s man, who was lifting it. “I don’t care what it costs. I’ll pay for him; and if I haven’t enough, why the monk will wait till my death, and all my savings shall go to put him back again; he shall be my monument.” The mason laughed, and would have brought his hammer down on the head of the monk, but the Sacristan withheld his hand.
“You haven’t got enough to pay for replacing that thing,” said the mason’s man.
“I do not know that,” answered the old man, “What would it cost?”
“Why there’s a new block to be let into the spire, and the figure to be rivetted with iron clamps—”
“Iron clamps!” moaned the Sacristan.
“Don’t know what it would come to exactly,” replied the mason; “Good evening, master.”
Eberhart sat down to supper, in his slope-backed chair, on one side of the table; on the other, in the visitor’s chair, the stone Friar squatted on his haunches, hands on knees, head thrust forward, the mouth protruding and wide open, the cowl half drawn over the dull eyes; the nose, I said before, was gone. The wind moaned at the window, but that it always did; the little fire burned brightly; and Master Eberhart looked lovingly and with a serene brow on his guest. “I never have a meal quite to myself,” said he. “There’s a mouse or two generally comes out at supper time, and a robin is at the window of a morning; it is very strange that my mice do not come tonight! I cannot eat all by myself, I should feel as if doing wrong, not to share with some creature. Father Simon, will you have some?” he laid a piece of bread before him, but the courtesy passed without any acknowledgement.
“I always say my prayers after supper,” said the Sacristan, “and then to bed; would that you could join!” Then he cleared the victuals from his table, moved to it his book of devotions, swept away the crumbs, and knelt down. Long and earnestly did the old man pray, his silver hair trailing over his thin fingers. He said his prayers aloud and sang a psalm or two on his knees, then remained silent for a moment or two. A shadow fell along his book—something cold touched his head—he felt two heavy hands on his hair—like a priest’s, blessing him; then they were withdrawn and Master Eberhart rose joyously from his knees. “That is just as it ought to have been,” murmured he in his happy heart. Afterwards he undressed and went to bed.
It might have been three hours after this that the old man awoke; hearing a heavy tread about the floor, he opened his eyes. The moon lighted up the interior of the room, shining in at one of the four windows: in the corner stood Father Simon, going down the staircase into the belfry. Shortly after, Master Eberhart heard him groping among the bells, every touch of his fingers sounding on them, for those fingers were stone; then up he came again. The old man chuckled, and said to himself—“Friend Simon is curious to know how the bells are hung and worked; he has heard them so very long without having seen them.”
The figure was again in the room, crossed it and coming up to the bedside laid itself down on it. The old Sacristan did feel a little startled, the weight seemed so great, bending down the outer side of the bed; and, as he put his hand to the figure, it was so cold, so bitterly cold; but he drove away these foolish fears, and said, “Father, if you are chilly take the coverlid”; the statue remained immovable, so the old man sitting up, folded the counterpane over his bedfellow, then turning his face to the wall, tried to sleep. Now and then, however, he cast a furtive back-glance at the monk. The moon was on his face—that was cold, white and rigid with deep shadows in the eye sockets, the monstrous mouth gaping wide.
Master Eberhart dozed off, and when morning dawned, the figure was crouching in the visitor’s chair, looking before it out of the opposite window. The day passed, as days usually passed in the tower top; at half-past seven the old man went down to hear Mass, after which he received his bread, milk, and leeks at the door. Breakfast followed; but the bird was not at the window ledge, as was its wont; nor did the mice appear all day. In the evening, the fire was lighted, and Master Eberhart warmed himself at the blaze; he would have moved the monk to the fire, only he was not strong enough. At nine a bell rung in a distant church tower; they had no clock in S. Sebaldus steeple, but that of S. Lorenz had one.
The Sacristan wiped his table, brought out his book and said his evening prayers. Again the shadow fell across the page, and two cold hands were laid in benediction on his head. Strengthened heart and soul, the old man rose from his knees, undressed by the fire; for some time he remained sitting before it, meditating, till at last he grew sleepy (people generally do get sleepy sitting over the grate), and crept to bed. Ten o’clock struck faintly and sweetly in the distant tower, and then the chimes began to play ‘Willkommen, du seliger Abend,’ plaintively, “I am thankful we have no chimes in S. Sebaldus,” muttered the Sacristan, half dozing. “They are like emperors playing spellikens. Bells were made to be pealed, not to be hammered about with little knockers.” Somehow, now that he was in bed, he could not sleep. First he turned his face to the wall, then the other way; then with great misgivings tried his back. In that position he may have slept for half an hour or an hour; I do not know, nor did he; but he was again awake, and his eyes opening fell on the fireplace.
Then he brisked up thoroughly, for he saw, seated before the hearth, the monk, his hands on his knees, the crimson glare of the embers seeming to saturate his maimed face, cowl, and robe with blood, red, red blood. He had the blue grey of the room for a background, and through the window, the indigo sky, in which sparkled one bright frosty star. The foregoing night, Eberhart had felt but little fear; but now, a cold shudder quivered his old flesh; it was so awful, the face of his friend was changed, the brow seemed to be contracted over eyes no longer dull, but burning as iron from a forge; the vast mou
th was closed and the lips firmly set. The features were no longer grotesque, but resolute, inflexible, determined; that was what paralysed the Sacristan. The monk had some errand to perform; he saw it in that unwavering face, on which the reflection of the embers was steady, however it might flicker on cowl and robe.
The clock of S. Lorenz struck twelve, and then the chimes played a simple hymn, now sounding clearly as the wind bore the notes, then feebler as it died away. A falling star glided past the opposite window without haste. The bright star was beyond the window frame, another appeared. A slight clatter from below reached the Sacristan’s ears; an owl must have got in among the bells; but for that stone figure he would have risen to drive the bird out. Slowly the monk rose from his seat and walked deliberately to the head of the stair ladder, stationing himself a little on one side, slightly back. On the other side there was but a narrow strip of flooring to the wall, sufficiently wide for a chest to stand, on which was placed the Sacristan’s cash box. Again a noise below. “Well,” said the old man, half audibly, ‘Father Simon will not hurt me, I know; and I must see what is going on among the bells; those owls and jackdaws”—he put one leg out of bed, “No—! I hear a step on the stair.”
The monk turned his head cautiously round and beckoned with his stone finger. Master Eberhart understood his meaning and settled himself in bed again. There was a stealthy tread on the stair. Surprised and terrified the old man sat up in bed. Thirteen—fourteen—fifteen; whoever it might be, he must be near the top: there!—a head rose through an opening in the floor, and Eberhart recognized the mason’s man by the firelight. The shadow of the slope-backed armchair crossed the corner where the old man sat so as to conceal him. The fellow crept nearly to the top; a large knife was in one of his hands; his eyes roved about the room, seeking something in the obscurity: in an instant they kindled up; he saw, and put out his hand to grasp the money coffer.
The Gothic Terror MEGAPACK™: 17 Classic Tales Page 10
