Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands by Hezekiah Butterworth (fiction books to read .txt) 📕
- Author: Hezekiah Butterworth
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He also had a lively sense of the beautiful and the sublime. He would stand at night gazing on the stars as though transfixed by the splendors blazing above. His whole being was thrilled with joy on the approach of spring. He would sing all the day as the atmosphere became warm and balmy, and would often prolong his melodies far into the beautiful nights.
He died aged about seventy years.
CHAPTER XIII. THE BELLS OF THE RHINE.Legends of the Bells of Basel and Speyer.—Story of the Harmony Chime.—The Bell-founder of Breslau.
ONE evening, after the story-telling entertainments, Mr. Beal was speaking to the Class of the great bell of Cologne which has been cast from the French cannon captured in the last war.
“It seems a beautiful thing,” he said, “that the guns of war should be made to ring out the notes of peace.”
“There is one subject that we did not treat at our meetings,” said Charlie Leland,—“the bells of the Rhine.”
“True,” said Mr. Beal. “A volume might be written on the subject. Almost every belfry on the Rhine has its legend, and many of them are associated with thrilling events of history. The raftmen, as they drift down the river on the Sabbath, associate almost every bell they hear with a story. The bells of Basle (Basel), Strasburg, Speyer, Heidelberg, Worms, Frankfort, Mayence, Bingen, and Bonn all ring out a meaning to the German student that the ordinary traveller does not comprehend. Bell land is one of mystery.
“For example, the clocks of Basel. The American traveller arrives at Basel, and hurries out of his hotel, and along the beautiful public gardens, to the terrace overlooking the Rhine. He looks down on the picturesque banks of the winding river; then far away his eye seeks the peaks of the Jura.
“The bells strike. The music to his ears has no history.
“The German and French students hear them with different ears. The old struggles of Alsace and Romaine come back to memory. They recall the fact that the city was once saved by a heroic watchman, who confused the enemy by causing the bells to strike the wrong hour. To continue the memory of this event, the great bell of Basel during the Middle Ages was made to strike the hour of one at noonday.
“The bells of Speyer have an interesting legend. Henry IV. was one of the most unfortunate men who ever sat upon a throne. His own son, afterward Henry V., conspired against him, and the Pope declared him an outlaw.
“Deserted by every one, he went into exile, and made his home at Ingleheim, on the Rhine. One old servant, Kurt, followed his changing fortunes. He died at Liege.
“Misfortune followed the once mighty emperor even after death. The Pope would not allow his body to be buried for several years. Kurt watched by the coffin, like Rizpah by the bodies of her sons. He made it his shrine: he prayed by it daily.
“At last the Pope consented that the remains of the emperor should rest in the earth. The body was brought to Speyer. Kurt followed it. It was buried with great pomp, and tollings of bells.
“Some months after the ceremonious event Kurt died. As his breath was passing, say the legendary writers, all the bells began to toll. The bellmen ran to the belfries; no one was there, but the bells tolled on, swayed, it was believed, by unseen hands.
“Henry V. died in the same town. He was despised by the people, and he suffered terrible agonies in his last hours. As his last moments came the bells began to toll again. It was not the usual announcement of the death of the good, but the sharp notes that proclaim that a criminal is being led to justice; at least, so the people came to believe.
THE SILENT CASTLES.
“One of the most beautiful stories of bells that I ever met is associated with a once famous factory that cast some of the most melodious bells in Holland and the towns of the Rhine. I will tell it to you.
THE HARMONY CHIME.Many years ago, in a large iron foundry in the city of Ghent, was found a young workman by the name of Otto Holstein. He was not nineteen years of age, but none of the workmen could equal him in his special department,—bell casting or moulding. Far and near the fame of Otto’s bells extended,—the clearest and sweetest, people said, that were ever heard.
HOTEL DE VILLE, GHENT.
Of course the great establishment of Von Erlangen, in which Otto worked, got the credit of his labors; but Von Erlangen and Otto himself knew very well to whom the superior tone of the bells was due. The master did not pay him higher wages than the others, but by degrees he grew to be general superintendent in his department in spite of his extreme youth.
“Yes, my bells are good,” he said to a friend one day, who was commenting upon their merits; “but they do not make the music I will yet strike from them. They ring alike for all things. To be sure, when they toll for a funeral the slow measure makes them seem mournful, but then the notes are really the same as in a wedding peal. I shall make a chime of bells that will sound at will every chord in the human soul.”
“Then wilt thou deal in magic,” said his friend, laughing; “and the Holy Inquisition will have somewhat to do with thee. No human power can turn a bell into a musical instrument.”
“But I can,” he answered briefly; “and, Inquisition or not, I will do it.”
He turned abruptly from his friend and sauntered, lost in thought, down the narrow street which led to his home. It was an humble, red-tiled cottage, of only two rooms, that he had inherited from his grandfather. There he lived alone with his widowed mother. She was a mild, pleasant-faced woman, and her eyes brightened as her son bent his tall head under the low doorway, as he entered the little room. “Thou art late, Otto,” she said, “and in trouble, too,” as she caught sight of his grave, sad face.
“Yes,” he answered. “When I asked Herr Erlangen for an increase of salary, for my work grows harder every day, he refused it. Nay, he told me if I was not satisfied, I could leave, for there were fifty men ready to take my place. Ready! yes, I warrant they’re ready enough, but to be able is a different thing.”
His mother sighed deeply.
“Thou wilt not leave Herr Erlangen’s, surely. It is little we get, but it keeps us in food.”
“I must leave,” he answered. “Nay, do not cry out, mother! I have other plans, and thou wilt not starve. Monsieur Dayrolles, the rich Frenchman, who lives in the Linden-Strasse, has often asked me why I do not set up a foundry of my own. Of course I laughed,—I, who never have a thaler to spend; but he told me he and several other rich friends of his would advance the means to start me in business. He is a great deal of his time at Erlangen’s, and is an enthusiast about fine bells. Ah! we are great friends, and I am going to him after supper.”
“People say he is crazy,” said his mother.
“Crazy!” indignantly. “People say that of everybody who has ideas they can’t understand. They say I am crazy when I talk of my chime of bells. If I stay with Erlangen, he gets the credit of my work; but my chime must be mine,—mine alone, mother.” His eyes lighted with a kind of wild enthusiasm whenever he talked on this subject.
His mother’s cheerful face grew sad, as she laid her hand on his shoulder.
“Why, Otto, thou art not thyself when thou speakest of those bells.”
“More my real self, mother, than at any other time!” he cried. “I only truly live when I think of how my idea is to be carried out. It is to be my life’s work; I know it, I feel it. It is upon me that my fate is woven inextricably in that ideal chime. It is God-sent. No great work, but the maker is possessed wholly by it. Don’t shake your head, mother. Wait till my ‘Harmony Chime’ sounds from the great cathedral belfry, and then shake it if you can.”
His mother smiled faintly.
“Thou art a boy,—a mere child, Otto, though a wonderful genius, I must confess. Thy hopes delude thee, for it would take a lifetime to carry out thine idea.”
“Then let it take a lifetime!” he cried out vehemently. “Let me accomplish it when I am too old to hear it distinctly, and I will be content that its first sounds toll my dirge. I must go now to Monsieur Dayrolles. Wish me good luck, dearest mother.” And he stooped and kissed her tenderly.
Otto did not fail. The strange old man in his visits to the foundry had noticed the germs of genius in the boy, and grown very fond of him. He was so frank, so honest, so devoted to his work, and had accomplished so much at his early age, that Monsieur Dayrolles saw a brilliant future before him. Besides, the old gentleman, with a Frenchman’s vanity, felt that if the “Harmony Chime” could be made, the name of the munificent patron would go down to posterity with that of the maker. He believed firmly that the boy would some day accomplish his purpose. So, although the revolt of the Netherlands had begun and he was preparing to return to his own country, he advanced the necessary funds, and saw Otto established in business before he quitted Ghent.
In a very short time work poured in upon Otto. During that long and terrible war the manufacture of cannon alone made the fortunes of the workers in iron. So five years from the time he left Von Erlangen we find Otto Holstein a rich man at twenty-four years of age. But the idea for which he labored had never for a moment left his mind. Sleeping or waking, toiling or resting, his thoughts were busy perfecting the details of the great work.
“Thou art twenty-four to-day, Otto,” said his good mother, “and rich beyond our hopes. When wilt thou bring Gertrude home to me? Thou hast been betrothed now for three years, and I want a daughter to comfort my declining years. Thou doest thy betrothed maiden a grievous wrong to delay without cause. The gossips are talking already.”
“Let them talk,” laughed Otto. “Little do Gertrude or I care for their silly tongues. She and I have agreed that the ‘Harmony Chime’ is to usher in our marriage-day. Why, good mother, no man can serve two mistresses, and my chime has the oldest claim. Let me accomplish it, and then the remainder of my life belongs to Gertrude, and thou, too, best of mothers.”
“Still that dream! still that dream!” sighed his mother. “Thou hast cast bell after bell, and until to-day I have heard nothing more of the wild idea.”
“No, because I needed money. I needed time, and thought, too, to make experiments. All is matured now. I have received an order to make a new set of bells for the great cathedral that was sacked last week by the ‘Iconoclasts,’ and I begin to-morrow.”
BELL-TOWER, GHENT.
As Otto had said, his life’s work began the next day. He loved his mother, but he seemed now to forget her in
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