William Harrison Ainsworth, "The Spectre
Bride"
The castle of
Hernswolf, at the close of the year 1655, was the resort of fashion and
gaiety. The baron of that name was the most powerful nobleman in Germany,
and equally celebrated for the patriotic achievements of his sons, and the
beauty of his only daughter. The estate of Hernswolf, which was situated
in the centre of the Black Forest, had been given to one of his ancestors
by the gratitude of the nation, and descended with other hereditary
possessions to the family of the present owner. It was a castellated,
gothic mansion, built according to the fashion of the times, in the
grandest style of architecture, and consisted principally of dark winding
corridors, and vaulted tapestry rooms, magnificent indeed in their size,
but ill-suited to private comfort, from the very circumstance of their
dreary magnitude. A dark grove of pine and mountain ash encompassed the
castle on every side, and threw an aspect of gloom around the scene, which
was seldom enlivened by the cheering sunshine of heaven.
***********************************************
The castle bells rung out a merry peal at the
approach of a winter twilight, and the warder was stationed with his
retinue on the battlements, to announce the arrival of the company who
were invited to share the amusements that reigned within the walls. The
Lady Clotilda, the baron's only daughter, had but just attained her
seventeenth year, and a brilliant assembly was invited to celebrate the
birthday. The large vaulted apartments were thrown open for the reception
of the numerous guests, and the gaieties of the evening had scarcely
commenced when the clock from the dungeon tower was heard to strike with
unusual solemnity, and on the instant a tall stranger, arrayed in a deep
suit of black, made his appearance in the ballroom. He bowed courteously
on every side, but was received by all with the strictest reserve. No one
knew who he was or whence he came, but it was evident from his appearance,
that he was a nobleman of the first rank, and though his introduction was
accepted with distrust, he was treated by all with respect. He addressed
himself particularly to the daughter of the baron, and was so intelligent
in his remarks, so lively in his sallies, and so fascinating in his
address, that he quickly interested the feelings of his young and
sensitive auditor. In fine, after some hesitation on the part of the host,
who, with the rest of the company, was unable to approach the stranger
with indifference, he was requested to remain a few days at the castle, an
invitation which was cheerfully accepted.
The dead of the night drew on, and when all had
retired to rest, the dull heavy bell was heard swinging to and fro in the
grey tower, though there was scarcely a breath to move the forest trees.
Many of the guests, when they met the next morning at the breakfast table,
averred that there had been sounds as of the most heavenly music, while
all persisted in affirming that they had heard awful noises, proceeding,
as it seemed, from the apartment which the stranger at that time occupied.
He soon, however, made his appearance at the breakfast circle, and when
the circumstances of the preceding night were alluded to, a dark smile of
unutterable meaning played round his saturnine features, and then relapsed
into an _expression_ of the deepest melancholy. He addressed his
conversation principally to Clotilda, and when he talked of the different
climes he had visited, of the sunny regions of Italy, where the very air
breathes the fragrance of flowers, and the summer breeze sighs over a land
of sweets; when he spoke to her of those delicious countries, where the
smile of the day sinks into the softer beauty of the night, and the
loveliness of heaven is never for an instant obscured, he drew tears of
regret from the bosom of his fair auditor, and for the first time she
regretted that she was yet at home
Days rolled on, and every moment increased the
fervour of the inexpressible sentiments with which the stranger had
inspired her. He never discoursed of love, but he looked it in his
language, in his manner, in the insinuating tones of his voice, and in the
slumbering softness of his smile, and when he found that he had succeeded
in inspiring her with favourable sentiments, a sneer of the most
diabolical meaning spoke for an instant, and died again on his dark
featured countenance. When he met her in the company of her parents, he
was at once respectful and submissive, and it was only when alone with
her, in her ramble through the dark recesses of the forest, that he
assumed the guise of the more impassioned admirer.
As he was sitting one evening with the baron in the
wainscotted apartment of the library, the conversation happened to turn
upon supernatural agency. The stranger remained reserved and mysterious
during the discussion, but when the baron in a jocular manner denied the
existence of spirits, and satirically mocked their appearance, his eyes
glowed with unearthly lustre, and his form seemed to dilate to more than
its natural dimensions. When the conversation had ceased, a fearful pause
of a few seconds and a chorus of celestial harmony was heard pealing
through the dark forest glade. All were entranced with delight, but the
stranger was disturbed and gloomy; he looked at his noble host with
compassion, and something like a tear swam in his dark eye. After the
lapse of a few seconds, the music died gently in the distance, and all was
hushed as before. The baron soon after quitted the apartment, and was
followed almost immediately by the stranger. He had not long been absent,
when an awful noise, as of a person in the agonies of death, was heard,
and the Baron was discovered stretched dead along the corridors. His
countenance was convulsed with pain, and the grip of a human hand was
visible on his blackened throat. The alarm was instantly given, the castle
searched in every direction, but the stranger was seen no more. The body
of the baron, in the meantime, was quietly committed to the earth, and the
remembrance of the dreadful transaction, recalled but as a thing that once
was.
***
After the departure of the stranger, who had indeed
fascinated her very senses, the spirits of the gentle Clotilda evidently
declined. She loved to walk early and late in the walks that he had once
frequented, to recall his last words; to dwell on his sweet smile; and
wander to the spot where she had once discoursed with him of love. She
avoided all society, and never seemed to be happy but when left alone in
the solitude of her chamber. It was then that she gave vent to her
affliction in tears; and the love that the pride of maiden modesty
concealed in public, burst forth in the hours of privacy. So beauteous,
yet so resigned was the fair mourner, that she seemed already an angel
freed from the trammels of the world, and prepared to take her flight to
heaven.
As she was one summer evening rambling to the
sequestered spot that had been selected as her favourite residence, a slow
step advanced towards her. She turned round, and to her infinite surprise
discovered the stranger. He stepped gaily to her side, and commenced an
animated conversation. 'You left me,' exclaimed the delighted girl; 'and I
thought all happiness was fled from me for ever; but you return, and shall
we not again be happy?' - 'Happy,' replied the stranger, with a scornful
burst of derision, 'Can I ever be happy again - can there; - but excuse
the agitation, my love, and impute it to the pleasure I experience at our
meeting. Oh! I have many things to tell you; aye! and many kind words to
receive; is it not so, sweet one? Come, tell me truly, have you been happy
in my absence? No! I see in that sunken eye, in that pallid cheek, that
the poor wanderer has at least gained some slight interest in the heart of
his beloved. I have roamed to other climes, I have seen other nations; I
have met with other females, beautiful and accomplished, but I have met
with but one angel, and she is here before me. Accept this simple offering
of my affection, dearest,' continued the stranger, plucking a heath-rose
from its stem; 'it is beautiful as the wild flowers that deck thy hair,
and sweet as is the love I bear thee.' - 'It is sweet, indeed,' replied
Clotilda, 'but its sweetness must wither ere night closes around. It is
beautiful, but its beauty is short-lived, as the love evinced by man. Let
not this, then, be the type of thy attachment; bring me the delicate
evergreen, the sweet flower that blossoms throughout the year, and I will
say, as I wreathe it in my hair, "The violets have bloomed and died - the
roses have flourished and decayed; but the evergreen is still young, and
so is the love of heart!" - you will not - cannot desert me. I live but in
you; you are my hopes, my thoughts, my existence itself: and if I lose
you, I lose my all - I was but a solitary wild flower in the wilderness of
nature, until you transplanted me to a more genial soil; and can you now
break the fond heart you first taught to glow with passion?' - 'Speak not
thus,' returned the stranger, 'it rends my very soul to hear you; leave me
- forget me - avoid me for ever - or your eternal ruin must ensue. I am a
thing abandoned of God and man - and did you but see the scared heart that
scarcely beats within this moving mass of deformity, you would flee me, as
you would an adder in your path. Here is my heart, love, feel how cold it
is; there is no pulse that betrays its emotion; for all is chilled and
dead as the friends I once knew.' - 'You are unhappy, love, and your poor
Clotilda shall stay to succour you. Think not I can abandon you in your
misfortunes. No! I will wander with thee through the wide world, and be
thy servant, thy slave, if thou wilt have it so. I will shield thee from
the night winds, that they blow not too roughly on thy unprotected head. I
will defend thee from the tempest that howls around; and though the cold
world may devote thy name to scorn - though friends may fall off, and
associates wither in the grave, there shall be one fond heart who shall
love thee better in thy misfortune, and cherish thee, bless thee still.'
She ceased, and her blue eyes swam in tears, as she turned it glistening
with affection towards the stranger. He averted his head from her gaze,
and a scornful sneer of the darkest, the deadliest malice passed over his
fine countenance. In an instant, the _expression_ subsided; his fixed glassy
eye resumed its unearthly chillness, and he turned once again to his
companion. 'It is the hour of sunset,' he exclaimed; 'the soft, the
beauteous hour, when the hearts of lovers are happy, and nature smiles in
unison with their feelings; but to me it will smile no longer - ere the
morrow dawns I shall very far, from the house of my beloved; from the
scenes where my heart is enshrined, as in a sepulchre. But must I leave
thee, dearest flower of the wilderness, to be the sport of a whirlwind,
the prey of the mountain blast?' - 'No, we will not part,' replied the
impassioned girl; 'where thou goest, will I go; thy home shall be my home;
and thy God shall be my God.' - 'Swear it, swear it,' resumed the
stranger, wildly grasping her by the hand; 'swear to the fearful oath I
shall dictate.' He then desired her to kneel, and holding his right hand
in a menacing attitude towards heaven, and throwing back his dark raven
locks, exclaimed in a strain of bitter imprecation with the ghastly smile
of an incarnate fiend, 'May the curses of an offended God,' he cried,
'haunt thee, cling to thee for ever in the tempest and in the calm, in the
day and in the night, in sickness and in sorrow, in life and in death,
shouldst thou swerve from the promise thou hast here made to be mine. May
the dark spirits of the damned howl in thine ears the accursed chorus of
fiends - may the air rack thy bosom with the quenchless flames of hell!
May thy soul be as the lazar-house of corruption, where the ghost of
departed pleasure sits enshrined, as in a grave: where the hundred-headed
worm never dies where the fire is never extinguished. May a spirit of evil
lord it over thy brow, and proclaim, as thou passest by, "THIS IS THE
ABANDONED OF GOD AND MAN;" may fearful spectres haunt thee in the night
season; may thy dearest friends drop day by day into the grave, and curse
thee with their dying breath: may all that is most horrible in human
nature, more solemn than language can frame, or lips can utter, may this,
and more than this, be thy eternal portion, shouldst thou violate the oath
that thou has taken.' He ceased - hardly knowing what she did, the
terrified girl acceded to the awful adjuration, and promised eternal
fidelity to him who was henceforth to be her lord. 'Spirits of the damned,
I thank thee for thine assistance,' shouted the stranger; 'I have wooed my
fair bride bravely. She is mine - mine for ever. - Aye, body and soul both
mine; mine in life, and mine in death. What in tears, my sweet one, ere
yet the honeymoon is past? Why! indeed thou hast cause for weeping: but
when next we meet we shall meet to sign the nuptial bond.' He then
imprinted a cold salute on the cheek of his young bride, and softening
down the unutterable horrors of his countenance, requested her to meet him
at eight o'clock on the ensuing evening in the chapel adjoining to the
castle of Hernswolf. She turned round to him with a burning sigh, as if to
implore protection from himself, but the stranger was gone.
On entering the castle, she was observed to be
impressed with deepest melancholy. Her relations vainly endeavoured to
ascertain the cause of her uneasiness; but the tremendous oath she had
sworn completely paralysed her faculties, and she was fearful of betraying
herself by even the slightest intonation of her voice, or the least
variable _expression_ of her countenance. When the evening was concluded,
the family retired to rest; but Clotilda, who was unable to take repose,
from the restlessness of her disposition, requested to remain alone in the
library that adjoined her apartment.
All was now deep midnight; every domestic had long
since retired to rest, and the only sound that could be distinguished was
the sullen howl of the ban-dog as he bayed, the waning moon Clotilda
remained in the library in an attitude of deep meditation. The lamp that
burnt on the table, where she sat, was dying away, and the lower end of
the apartment was already more than half obscured. The clock from the
northern angle of the castle tolled out the hour of twelve, and the sound
echoed dismally in the solemn stillness of the night. Sudden the oaken
door at the farther end of the room was gently lifted on its latch, and a
bloodless figure, apparelled in the habiliments of the grave, advanced
slowly up the apartment. No sound heralded its approach, as it moved with
noiseless steps to the table where the lady was stationed. She did not at
first perceive it, till she felt a death-cold hand fast grasped in her
own, and heard a solemn voice whisper in her ear, 'Clotilda.' She looked
up, a dark figure was standing beside her; she endeavoured to scream, but
her voice was unequal to the exertion; her eye was fixed, as if by magic,
on the form which, slowly removed the garb that concealed its countenance,
and disclosed the livid eyes and skeleton shape of her father. It seemed
to gaze on her with pity, an regret, and mournfully exclaimed - 'Clotilda,
the dresses and the servants are ready, the church bell has tolled, and
the priest is at the altar, but where is the affianced bride? There is
room for her in the grave, and tomorrow shall she be with me.' -
'Tomorrow?' faltered out the distracted girl; 'the
spirits of hell shall have registered it, and tomorrow must the bond be
cancelled.' The figure ceased - slowly retired, and was soon lost in the
obscurity of distance.
The morning - evening - arrived; and already as the
hall clock struck eight, Clotilda was on her road to the chapel. It was a
dark, gloomy night, thick masses of dun clouds sailed across the
firmament, and the roar of the winter wind echoed awfully through the
forest trees. She reached the appointed place; a figure was in waiting for
her - it advanced - and discovered the features of the stranger. 'Why!
this is well, my bride,' he exclaimed, with a sneer; 'and well will I
repay thy fondness. Follow me.' They proceeded together in silence through
the winding avenues of the chapel, until they reached the adjoining
cemetery. Here they paused for an instant; and the stranger, in a softened
tone, said, 'But one hour more, and the struggle will be over. And yet
this heart of incarnate malice can feel, when it devotes so young, so pure
a spirit to the grave. But it must - it must be,' he proceeded, as the
memory of her past love rushed on her mind; 'for the fiend whom I obey has
so willed it. Poor girl, I am leading thee indeed to our nuptials; but the
priest will be death, thy parents the mouldering skeletons that rot in
heaps around; and the witnesses to our union, the lazy worms that revel on
the carious bones of the dead. Come, my young bride, the priest is
impatient for his victim.' As they proceeded, a dim blue light moved
swiftly before them, and displayed at the extremity of the churchyard the
portals of a vault. It was open, and they entered it in silence. The
hollow wind came rushing through the gloomy abode of the dead; and on
every side were piled the mouldering remnants of coffins, which dropped
piece by piece upon the damp mud. Every step they took was on a dead body;
and the bleached bones rattled horribly beneath their feet. In the centre
of the vault rose a heap of unburied skeletons, whereon was seated, a
figure too awful even for the darkest imagination to conceive. As they
approached it, the hollow vault rung with a hellish peal of laughter; and
every mouldering corpse seemed endued with unholy life. The stranger
paused, and as he grasped his victim in his hand, one sigh burst from his
heart - one tear glistened in his eye. It was but for an instant; the
figure frowned awfully at his vacillation, and waved his gaunt hand.
The stranger advanced; he made certain mystic
circles in the air, uttered unearthly words, and paused in excess of
terror. On a sudden he raised his voice and wildly exclaimed - 'Spouse of
the spirit of darkness, a few moments are yet thine; that thou may'st know
to whom thou hast consigned thyself. I am the undying spirit of the wretch
who curst his Saviour on the cross. He looked at me in the closing hour of
his existence, and that look hath not yet passed away, for I am curst
above all on earth. I am eternally condemned to hell and I must cater for
my master's taste till the world is parched as is a scroll, and the
heavens and the earth have passed away. I am he of whom thou may'st have
read, and of whose feats thou may'st have heard. A million souls has my
master condemned me to ensnare, and then my penance is accomplished, and I
may know the repose of the grave. Thou art the thousandth soul that I have
damned. I saw thee in thine hour of purity, and I marked thee at once for
my home. Thy father did I murder for his temerity, and permitted to warn
thee of thy fate; and myself have I beguiled for thy simplicity. Ha! the
spell works bravely, and thou shall soon see, my sweet one, to whom thou
hast linked thine undying fortunes, for as long as the seasons shall move
on their course of nature - as long as the lightning shall flash, and the
thunders roll, thy penance shall be eternal. Look below! and see to what
thou art destined.' She looked, the vault split in a thousand different
directions; the earth yawned asunder; and the roar of mighty waters was
heard. A living ocean of molten fire glowed in the abyss beneath her, and
blending with the shrieks of the damned, and the triumphant shouts of the
fiends, rendered horror more horrible than imagination. Ten millions of
souls were writhing in the fiery flames, and as the boiling billows dashed
them against the blackened rocks of adamant, they cursed with the
blasphemies of despair; and each curse echoed in thunder cross the wave.
The stranger rushed towards his victim. For an instant he held her over
the burning vista, looked fondly in her face and wept as he were a child.
This was but the impulse of a moment; again he grasped her in his arms,
dashed her from him with fury; and as her last parting glance was cast in
kindness on his face, shouted aloud, 'not mine is the crime, but the
religion that thou professest; for is it not said that there is a fire of
eternity prepared for the souls of the wicked; and hast not thou incurred
its torments?' She, poor girl, heard not, heeded not the shouts of the
blasphemer. Her delicate form bounded from rock to rock, over billow, and
over foam; as she fell, the ocean lashed itself as it were in triumph to
receive her soul, and as she sunk deep in the burning pit, ten thousand
voices reverberated from the bottomless abyss, 'Spirit of evil! here
indeed is an eternity of torments prepared for thee; for here the worm
never dies, and the fire is never quenched.'
THE END.
}