how Oblivion triumphs in every part of the earth, with ruins crumbling beneath her feet! and Destruction, while with unfeeling malignity she tramples every form of life in the dust! I have just been comforting my good Elizabeth today. But can I really comfort her? She is for ever haunted by the thought of her destiny, of her life, of her lost youth, of her having flung herself away on a worthless being, of her having brought a tiger as her son into the world. In her dreams she is visited by the feeling, whether asleep or waking it pursues her, and thrills through every fibre, that she once loved me, perhaps loves me still; and so her heart has to bear my wretchedness along with her own. True she may now and then relish a morsel somewhat better; she may now and then forget herself, perhaps over some silly book, delighting in the good fortune of others, and feeling interest in afflictions which are merely faint shadows of her own; and this sentimental folly may help her over half a dozen minutes a little more at her ease. Verily it is a grand achievement that I have been able to do this for her. The consciousness however, that neither her husband nor her son, the offspring of her own blood and body, and surely of her soul too, is to know anything of my bounty, as it would be called, or else her sufferings will increase—do you not perceive how pitiful this, and the whole of life is? But let us break off, and tell me instead what news you have heard."
Edward informed him that William had again gone off suddenly and without assigning any cause. "I am glad of it," answered the old man; "I always took him for our thief, and winkt hard in looking at him, that I might not ruin him utterly: this indulgence however must have come to an end. I was exceedingly fond of him, and for that very reason only hated him the more."
"How do you mean?" asked the young man.
"Why," replied the other, "foolishly enough I felt charmed by his countenance, by the soft sound of his voice, by his whole look and air: this perverse sympathy will keep following us everywhere. I took a liking to him: and catching my heart in this piece of folly, I punisht myself by conceiving a downright aversion to the fellow, as we should and must do to everything we are greatly delighted with."
Edward wanted to ask further questions, but the striking of the clock called him to his business, and being dismist by the old man he went away, with a multitude of thoughts concerning this singular conversation, to meditate further upon it at leisure.
Whenever Edward's thoughts now recurred, as they often did, to the nature of his situation, that and every thing connected with it, the appointment which had fixt him in this secluded spot, the business he was engaged in, as well as the persons with whom he had to hold intercourse, appeared to him in a light totally different from before. He was loth to acknowledge to himself how forcibly and singularly his imagination had been wrought upon by his late discourse with Rose. Hitherto he had only lookt on her as a pleasing child; but now the lovely girl became an object to which expectations and silent hopes attacht themselves: he watcht her more attentively; he talked oftener to her and more at length; and the budding of her youthful soul, the frank artlessness of her thoughts, interested his heart more and more. And then, when he recollected the hideous, sallow-faced Eleazar, with his surly morose temper, and thought that this tender flower had already in secret devoted herself as a sacrifice to so odious a creature, his anger was moved by this absurd project, which at other times again he could not help smiling at. Eleazar had been absent for some days past. He had not taken much pains to conceal that he was going into the lonely, remote parts of the mountains in search of those marks which he had read of in the master miner's book. This absurdity sorted well with his strange dreamy character; for he was perpetually poring over books of magic and alchemical treatises, had a laboratory in his room, and would often boast in pretty intelligible hints that he had found the philosopher's stone. When Edward bethought himself of his singular conversation with his old master, and of the sentiments he had given vent to during that confidential hour, he no longer regarded it as improbable that Balthasar should have been led by his wild moody whims to design his blooming foster-daughter for the wife of the gloomy Eleazar. A shudder came over him to think with what dark and perplext spirits he was so closely linkt; his head went round with the giddiness of all about him, and he seemed almost to lose his hold on himself. This made him still more regret the loss of young William: at the same time his annoyances were increast by the robberies of the warehouse, which instead of ceasing were carried on with more audacity than ever. He himself had entertained a slight suspicion of William, and was quite unable to make out how the crime was perpetrated.
In this mood it was with no very friendly welcome that he met Eleazar on his return from his wild-goose chace. Eleazar too grew highly indignant, when he heard that the robberies had been continued during his absence with the greatest impudence; and as he could not justly charge Edward with any negligence or supineness, this first conversation between them, little as they had ever been disposed to agree, took a tone of still more bitterness than usual. As soon as his hateful companion was gone, Edward determined to do what he now could not help regarding as his indispensable duty, by speaking more seriously than ever to Herr Balthasar on this subject.
These depredations, which were prosecuted with so much security, excited the wonder of the whole neighbourhood; and at the public-house in the town there was often much talk about them. Old Conrad was sitting in the wooden arm-chair beside the stove, and was just telling the fat thriving landlord the details of the last robbery, when a stranger came in, who immediately gave himself out to be a travelling miner. The stranger was much younger than Conrad, and therefore at first modestly said but little, and merely asked a few questions, insinuating however that there might probably be means of soon bringing the matter to light, if his advice were but to be followed. By these hints the curiosity of some peasants who happened to be present, having come with corn from the plain several miles off to this town high up among the mountains, was vehemently aroused. Conrad, who lookt upon himself as the wisest person in the company, became grave and monosyllabic, waiting to hear what this new device or scheme for detecting the thief, would end in.
"You must lay a charm," said the stranger, "which the thief, when he has once set foot within it, will not be able to escape from; and so, as soon as the sun rises, you are sure to find him."
"And what is such a charm to be made of?" asked Andrew, who was the forwardest of the peasants.
Conrad laught aloud and scornfully, while he said: "Clownish dolts, don't thrust in your tongues, when people are debating about matters of art and science; stick to your straw and your chaff; they are things you are better skilled in handling. Proceed, knowing sir," he added, looking with suspicious graciousness toward the stranger; "how do you mean that such a charm or spell is to be prepared, so as to be certain of its effect?"
The stranger, whose pale face formed a singular contrast with the stout dusky-hued Conrad, the fat host, and the puffy cheeks of the peasants, said with a somewhat stifled voice: "Yew twigs cut and peeled beneath the new moon, and then boiled at the first quarter in a decoction of wolf's milk and hemlock, which itself must have been previously made on the selfsame night, are to be stuck in the earth, while some words that I know are repeated, at certain distances round the spot where the robbery is committed; and the thief, be he ever so daring, and ever so learned in laying spells and breaking them, will be unable to step out of this circle, and will stand in fear and trembling, till the persons who set the magical trap pounce upon him in the morning. I have often seen this practist in Hungary and Transylvania, and it has always succeeded."
Conrad was about to answer, but the pert Andrew was beforehand with him and cried: "My grandfather, the smith, had a spell with abracadabra, which was to be repeated backward and forward, along with certain verses of the Bible; and when he had said these words, every thief, whether he was in the wood, on the high road, or in the field, was forced to halt on the sudden in the middle of his running—or, if he was riding on horseback, it was just the same—and to wait in terrour and affright, so that even children if they chose might seize hold of him."
Conrad gave the peasant a look of inexpressible contempt, and then turning with ambiguous courtesy to the strange miner, said: "You are a man of experience and knowledge, as it seems; nevertheless your well-meant advice will hardly meet with acceptance here. For first the old man of the mountain will never have anything to do with sorcery and witchcraft, because he hates every kind of superstition, even that which is pious and unavoidable, much more then one of this sort, which he must needs