Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 421, November 1850

"Stop!"

The carriage stood still, and the little man walked round it, examining it minutely on all sides, as if to make sure that it was sound and complete in every part. With equal attention he inspected the harness and limbs of the vigorous horses.

"Keep a sharp watch, Abraham, for my return."

"Don't be afraid, Moses."

"The very minute I get in, drive off at full speed. But no sooner – d'ye hear? – no sooner."

"Why should I sooner?" retorted the coachman sharply, in the same dialect.

"Not till I am quite safe in the carriage – till you see, till you hear, that I have shut the door. You must hear it, you must watch with your ears, for you must not take your eyes off the horses."

"Don't frighten yourself, fool!"

"And, Abraham, quit not the box during my absence, and be sure and leave the door open, that I may jump in at once on my return."

The coachman answered not.

"And, one thing more. Dear Abraham, will the horses hold out? – six German miles? – without resting. Are you sure the carriage will not break down?"

"Begone, fearful fool, and leave carriage and horses to my care!"

The little man looked at his watch.

"Exactly five. It is just the time. Once more, dear Abraham, keep a sharp look-out, I entreat you."

At a sort of sneaking run, the timid Jew hurried to a door in the park wall, close to which the road passed. He glanced keenly around him. No one was in sight, and, producing a key, he hastily unlocked the door, opening it only just wide enough to allow him to slip through. In an instant he was in the park, and the door shut behind him.

Completely unseen as the Jew believed himself, there yet was one at hand whose watchful eye had followed all his movements.

At the exact moment that the coachman turned his carriage, and at a short distance from the spot, a man emerged from the thicket. His appearance was very striking. Far above the usual stature, in person he was extraordinarily spare. Large bones, broad shoulders, a muscular arm and a hand like a bunch of sinews, indicated that his meagre frame possessed great strength. His strange figure was accoutred in a remarkable costume. He wore a short brown jacket of the colour and coarse material of the cowls of the mendicant friars, short brown leather breeches, grey linen gaiters and wide strong shoes. His head was covered with an old misshapen gray hat, whose broad brim was no longer in a state to testify whether it had once been round or three-cornered. Across his back was slung a bag, from whose mouth protruded the neck of an old black fiddle. The man's age was hard to guess. His thick strong hair was of that sort of mouse-colour which even very old age rarely alters. His countenance was frightfully furrowed; but if its furrows were deep, on the other hand its outlines were of iron rigidity. The eye was very quick. In short, however narrow the scrutiny, it still remained doubtful to the observer whether the man was fifty, sixty, or seventy years old.

This person, stepping out of the forest, was on the point of springing across the road, when he perceived the carriage and the two Jews. Satisfying himself, by a hasty glance, that he was still unseen, he drew back within cover of the thicket. Concealed behind a thick screen of foliage, he watched with profound attention every movement of the men, who were too distant for him to overhear their words. When one of them had entered the park, the long brown man made a circuit through the wood, and again emerged from it at a point where he could not be seen by the coachman, but which yet was not far distant from the door through which the Jew had passed. After brief reflection, he approached this door and tried to open it. It was locked. He turned back, skirting the wall – but so noiselessly that the sharpest ear, close upon the other side, could hardly have detected his presence. He paused at a place where trees and thick bushes, growing within the park, overtopped the wall. A long branch protruded across, and hung down so low that the tall stranger could easily reach it. He closely examined this branch, its length and strength, then the wall – measuring its height with his eye, and noting its irregularities of surface. Suddenly he seized the branch with both hands, set his feet against the wall, and swung his whole body upwards. Before a spectator could have conjectured his intention, he was seated on a limb of the tree within the park; it was as if an enormous brown cat had sprung up amongst the branches. In another second he was on the ground, the slightest possible cracking of the twigs alone betraying his rapid descent.

He stood in the midst of a thick growth of bushes, the stillness around him broken only by the voices of birds. Cautiously he made his way through the tangled growth of branches into a small winding path, which he followed in the direction of the door. On reaching this he found himself in a broad carriage road, apparently commencing and terminating at the palace, after numerous windings through the park. Opposite the door was an open lawn; to the right were long alleys, through whose vista the rays of the early morning sun were seen reflected in the tranquil waters of a lake. To the left was a prolongation of the copse. Not a living creature was to be seen.

For a minute the man stood undecided as to the direction he should take. Then he re-entered the copse – making his way through it, with the same caution and cat-like activity as before, to a little knoll nearly bare of bushes, and crowned by three lofty fir-trees. He was about to step out into the open space, when he heard a rustling near at hand. He stood still, held his breath and looked around him; but he was still too deep in the bushes and could discern nothing. He saw only leaves and branches, and, towering above them, the three tall fir-trees, with the morning wind whispering through their boughs.

The new-comer was the little Jew, who walked uneasily to and fro beneath the fir-trees, on a narrow footpath which led across the knoll. He evidently expected some one. From behind a tree the tall man with the fiddle watched his movements, and listened to his soliloquy.

"Five minutes late," muttered the Jew, looking at his watch. "Am I the man to be kept waiting? He is not to be relied upon. But I have him now, fast and sure." He resumed his walk, then again stood still. "A good affair this! good profit! a made man! But where can he be?" He paused before the very tree behind which stood the man in the brown jacket. "He is imprudent," he continued, "light-headed, and reckless. But am I not the same? I am lost if he deceives me. I have him, though – I have him."

"Mosey!" said the strong voice of the long brown man, close to his ear. At the same moment, a heavy hand was clapped roughly on the Jew's shoulder. He fell to the ground, as though a thunderbolt had struck him; in falling he caught a view of the stranger. "Geigen – " cried he, in a horror-stricken voice, leaving the word unfinished.

"Speak the word right out!" said the long man, with a calm, sneering smile.

The little Jew's recovery was as sudden as his terror. He was already on his legs, brushing the dust from his clothes.

"How the gentleman frightened me!" he said in a sort of dubious tone.

"Speak the word out, Mosey – the whole word!"

"What should I speak out? – which word? What does the gentleman want?"

"Mosey, speak the word out – Geigenfritz!"

"What is your pleasure? – what is the word to me?"

"Old rogue! old Moses Amschel! what is the word to you? what is Geigenfritz to you? – your old friend?"

"I know no Geigenfritz; I know no Moses Amschel. You are mistaken. And now go your ways – do you hear?" He had become quite bold and saucy.

The brown man looked at him with a smile of scornful pity. "Mosey," he said, "shall I reckon up the prisons and houses of correction in which I have seen you? You have grown a great man, it seems. I have heard of you. You are a rich banker: noblemen associate with you, and princes are your debtors. You are a baron, I believe, and you live in luxury; but you are not the less Moses Amschel, my old comrade. I knew you directly, and your rascal of a brother, too, who is outside with the carriage."

The Jew's confidence left him as he listened to this speech. He made one more effort to assume a bold countenance, but his voice trembled as he muttered, "You are mistaken. I have business here: leave me, or I will have you arrested."

Geigenfritz laughed. "You have business here, I doubt not. But arrest me! Your business will hardly bear daylight, and my arrest would interfere with it."

The truth of these words produced a terrible effect on the little Jew. He stood for a moment helplessly gazing around him; then he looked sharply at his interlocutor, whilst his right hand fumbled in his breast, as though seeking something. But he drew it forth empty, and let it fall by his side, whilst his eyes sought the ground. "Well, Geigenfritz," he said, in a low tone, "leave me for a while. Go and wait by the carriage with my brother; I will soon be back, and we will speak further."

"Not so, old sinner. You said you had business here. You and I have done business together more than once."

"This time there is nothing for you to do."

"That is not for you to decide."

"Don't spoil trade, Geigenfritz."

"What trade is it?"

"You shall know by-and-by."

"Immediately, I expect."

"Impossible."

"I have but to remain here."

Moses Amschel grew very anxious. "I swear to you, Geigenfritz, you ruin me by remaining. The business can't be done in your presence."

"We shall see."

The obstinacy of Geigenfritz was not to be overcome. Moses Amschel ran to and fro, wringing his hands, and straining his eyes to see into the park. Suddenly his anxiety increased to a paroxysm. Geigenfritz followed the direction of his eyes. With extreme swiftness a man ran along one of the alleys, in the direction of the mound on which they both stood.

"For God's sake, go, leave me!" exclaimed Moses Amschel, in abject supplication.

"Fellow, 'tis the Crown-prince. What dealings have you with him?"

"Go, I implore you, go."

"Not a step, till you answer me."

"I have business with him."

"What business?"

"You shall know afterwards; go, I can't escape you."

"What business?"

"Jewel business. But now go, go!"

"You are right; you cannot escape me." And Geigenfritz disappeared amongst the bushes.

Moses Amschel had had barely time to recover breath and composure, when a third person joined him. This was a slender young man, of elegant appearance, and handsome but dissipated countenance. His rich dress was disordered.

"Who was here, Jew?"

"No one. Who should be here. Who would I bring with me?"

"I heard talking; who was with you?"

"No one, your highness."

"Name not my name, Jew, and speak the truth."

"I wish I may die, if a creature, was with me!"

The young man looked suspiciously on all sides, and then drew from under his coat an object enveloped in a silk handkerchief, and handed it to Amschel.

"Here, Jew, and now away with you!"

Moses Amschel would have unfolded the handkerchief, to look at its contents.

"Scoundrel! do you think I cheat you? In three months."

He took a step to depart, but again returned.

"To America, to New York! Not to London, d'ye hear?"

"I know."

At the top of his speed, as he had come, the stranger departed. Moses Amschel unrolled the handkerchief, glanced at its contents, again carefully wrapped it up, and stole swiftly and cautiously to the park-door, which he hastily unlocked, and as hastily relocked behind him. But, as he turned to regain the carriage, his movements were arrested by the iron arm of Geigenfritz, who rose, like an apparition, from a ditch at his side.

"How you frighten me! – I am not going to run away."

"Because you can't. Now, comrade, halves!"

"Are you mad?"

"Not I, but you, if you think you are not in my power."

Moses Amschel looked around him, but help there was none, and the brown man held him so tightly that he could not stir. The carriage, certainly, was near at hand, but the horses were as skittish as they were good, and the driver must not leave them.

"Show it me," said Geigenfritz.

Resistance was impossible. Tardily and unwillingly the Jew untied the handkerchief, and revealed a diamond diadem of extraordinary magnificence. Notwithstanding his alarm, his eyes sparkled at the sight.

"Old rogue! who stole that?"

"Stole! Nonsense."

"What is it worth?"

"Worth? – a couple of hundred dollars."

"Do you take me for a child?"

"Well, perhaps a couple of thousand."

"More than a million."

"You frighten me."

"No matter – halves!"

"But I must sell it first; you shall have your share of the price."

"Of the price? You don't take me in. We will divide at once."

"How is that possible?"

"Very easy. I break the crown into two halves; you take one, I the other. Give it here."

Moses Amschel shook with terror, and clutched the glittering ornament convulsively with both bands. It was in vain: the iron hand of Geigenfritz detached his fingers, one after the other, like those of a child. With the last remains of his exhausted strength, the Jew still clung to his treasure, which, in another second, would have been wrested from him, when suddenly a broad knife, thrust over the shoulder of Geigenfritz, inflicted a swift deep cut across the back of the hand with which he grasped the diadem. Involuntarily, Geigenfritz relaxed his hold both of Jew and jewels.

Moses Amschel and the coachman Abraham, who, having seen from his box his brother's peril, had thus opportunely come to his aid, ran away laughing. The one jumped into the carriage, the other resumed the reins, and they drove off at a gallop.

The prince has stolen the diadem from his own wife, in such a manner as to cast suspicion upon others, and the Jew is to sell it to furnish supplies for the extravagance of this dissolute heir to the crown. Geigenfritz's knowledge of the shameful transaction is afterwards made instrumental in procuring the release of Von Horberg and the other prisoners. Convinced that the time is not yet ripe for the realisation of their schemes of political regeneration, they emigrate to the United States. There, a postscript informs the reader, Von Horberg, divorced from his unworthy wife – who during his imprisonment, has become the mistress of the prince-royal – is married to Anna Hammer. The interest of the story is throughout well sustained.

Anna Hammer will probably soon be, if it be not already, in the hands of the translators. Rendered into English with a little care, by equivalents, instead of with that painful literalness and abundance of foreign idioms which too frequently shock us in translations of German books, it would be very pleasant reading. Notwithstanding its defects, its occasional carelessness and slight improbabilities, it better deserves a translation than many of the foreign novels to which that compliment has been paid within the last few years, and than some which have been lauded to the skies and largely read. And we take this opportunity to express our surprise that no member of the industrious corps of translators from the German has directed his or her attention to the writings of a man, who, for originality and genius, perception of character and power of description, is very far superior even to those of his German cotemporaries who have enjoyed the highest favour in England. We refer to the gifted author of the German-American Romances. Miss Bremer – although a Swede, we here class her amongst German writers, her works having been done into English from the latter language – has been translated at every price, and in every form, from expensive octavo to shilling pamphlets. Not a bookshop or railway station but is, or has been, crowded with her works. Without in the least depreciating the talents of a lady who has written some very pleasing tales and sketches, we should yet be greatly flattering her did we place her on a level with such a writer as Charles Sealsfield. Styles so opposite scarcely admit of comparison; but we apprehend there are few readers to whom the best of her books will not appear tame and insipid, when contrasted with the vigorous and characteristic pages of such works as The Cabin Book, The Viceroy and the Aristocracy, or Pictures of Life in both Hemispheres. Yet Sealsfield has been read in England only to the limited extent of some short extracts in this Magazine,⁴⁶ and of some yet briefer ones in a defunct Review.⁴⁷ In the States he is better known and appreciated. There he has been translated and re-translated in volumes, pamphlets and newspapers, but in a style, if we may judge from one or two specimens that have reached us, which does him grievous injustice. Many of his works, and especially the three above-named, richly deserve the utmost pains a translator could bestow, and would assuredly attain high popularity in any country into whose language they should be rendered.

FOOTNOTES:

ALTON LOCKE, TAILOR AND POET: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. ⁴⁸

Our renowned contributor, Mansie Wauch, tailor in Dalkeith, has, for a long time past, retired from the cares of active business. We fear that, in his case, as in others which we could name, the glory and emolument resulting from distinguished literary success were the means of depriving two or three parishes of the services of a decent fabricator of small-clothes. Mansie, like Jeshurun, grew fat and kicked. Even before his autobiography had reached its sixth edition – now a traditionary epoch, as the nine-and-thirtieth is exhausted, and the trade clamorous for a new supply – Wauch began to turn up his nose at moleskin, and to exhibit a singular degree of indifference to orders for agricultural gaiters. He would still apply, with somewhat of his pristine science, the principles of sartorian mathematics to plush when ordered from the Palace, and was once known to devote three entire days to the exquisite finishing of a pair of buckskins for Mr Williamson, that famous huntsman, whose celebrity is so great, that the mere mention of his name is equivalent to a page of panegyric. And it was acknowledged, on all hands, that Mansie did his work well. The plush fitted admirably; and as for the buckskins, the master of the hounds averred, with a harmless oath, that they were as easy as a kid glove. But those testimonials, however satisfactory and unchallenged, did not avail our contributor as a perfect verdict of acquittal, discharging him from the bar of public opinion, as constituted in Dalkeith, without a stain upon his reputation as an eydent man and a tailor. Mr Hamorgaw, the precentor of the New Light Seceding Anti-pulpit Congregation, esteemed that Mansie acted under the influence of the Old Adam, in declining to reverse, propriis manibus, an ancient garment, dignified by the name of a coat, which had already been three times refreshed in the dyeing-tub, for the beautifying of him, the Hamorgaw: and Deacon Cansh, the leading Radical of the place, was sorely nettled to learn that our friend had intrusted the architecture of his new wrap-rascal to the tender mercies of his firstborn Benjamin. Not that Benjie was a bad hand at the goose, which indeed he drove with amazing celerity, sending it along at a rate nearly equal to the progress of a Parliamentary train; but his style of cutting was somewhat composite and florid, not distinguished by that severe simplicity of manner which was the glory of the earlier masters. In the hands of a Piercie Shafton, Benjamin might have proved a veritable treasure; Sir Thomas Urquhart would have descanted with enthusiasm on the quaint and oblique diversity of his shears, which seemed instinctively to dissever good broad-cloth into quincunxes more or less outrageous; but the age of Euphuism was gone, and neither elder, deacon, nor precentor, was in favour of slashed doublets. Benjamin was not only a tailor but a poet, and we fear it is a lamentable fact that the two trades are irreconcilable. The perpetrator of distichs is usually a bungler at cross-stitch: there is no analogy between the measurement of trousers and the measure of a Spenserian stanza. It will therefore be readily credited, that the business, when devolved upon Benjie, did not prosper as of old; and though Mansie did, in his advanced age, make one effort to retrieve the character of his firm by inventing a kind of paletot, which he denominated "a Fascinator," we have not been given to understand that the males of the royal family adopted it to the exclusion of all other upper garments of similar cut and pretension. Moreover, the prevailing influence and tendency of the age began to be felt in Dalkeith. Competition, as a maxim of political economy, was generally practised and understood: and a young schneider, who had served his apprenticeship with Mr Place of Westminster celebrity, opened an establishment for ready-made clothes, with a Greek title which would have puzzled an Homeric commentator. In process of time the Greek was opposed by a Hebrew, who ought to have been an especial favourite with his people, seeing that if any afflicted person had a fancy for rending his clothes, the garments supplied by Aaron and Son would have yielded to the slightest compulsion. A Polish emigrant next opened shop, and to the astonishment of the Dalkeithians, transferred their breeches' pockets from the waistband to the neighbourhood of their knees, and suggested frogs and braiding. Against this tide of innovation honest Mansie found it impossible to make head. Fortunately, being a saving creature, he had amassed a considerable sum of money, which, still more fortunately, he had abstained from investing in the Loanhead and Roslin Junction; and his annual income was such as to justify him in retiring from business to a pleasant villa on the banks of the Esk, where he now grows cabbages of such magnitude as to be recorded in an occasional newspaper paragraph, and cucumbers which have carried off the prize at several horticultural exhibitions. On the whole, Mr Wauch is a man decidedly to be envied, not only by those of his own trade, but by many of us who, in the vanity of our hearts, have been accustomed to look down, somewhat disparagingly, upon the gallant knights of the needle.

In his retirement Mansie Wauch has not altogether abandoned the pursuits of literature. He has, it is true, ceased, for a good while, to favour us with a continuation of those passages of his personal history which once took Christendom by storm; nor can we charge our memory with his having offered us any article for several years, beyond an elaborate and learned critique upon Mr Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, which, though decidedly able, was rather too technical for our columns. But Mr Wauch is a gluttonous reader, especially of novels and suchlike light gear; and very frequently is kind enough to favour us, by word of mouth, with his opinion touching the most noted ephemera of the season. We need hardly say that we set great store by the judgment of the excellent old man. His fine natural instinct enables him to perceive at a glance, what more erudite critics might overlook, the fitness and propriety of the tale, and the capability of the writer to deal with the several topics which he professes to handle. He can tell at once whether a man really knows his subject, or whether he is writing, as too many authors do now-a-days, in absolute ignorance of the character which he assumes, or the scenes which he selects for illustration. So, the other day, on receipt of a couple of volumes, entitled Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet: an Autobiography, we thought that we could hardly discharge our critical duty better than by despatching the same forthwith to Mansie, with a request that he would communicate to us his candid and unbiassed opinion.

Mr Locke we understand to be no more. He died upon his voyage to Texas, after having been concerned in the Chartist demonstration of 1848, and therefore his feelings cannot be aggrieved by the strictures of his Dalkeith brother. Were it otherwise, we certainly should have hesitated before recording in print the verdict of the indignant Mansie, expressed in the succinct phrase of "awfu' havers!" written at the close of the second volume, with a running commentary of notes on the margin, by no means complimentary to the practical acquirements or the intellectual calibre of the author. These we have diligently deciphered, and we find that friend Mansie's wrath has been especially excited by the discovery that it is no autobiography at all, nor anything like one, but a barefaced and impudent assumption of a specific character and profession by a person who never handled a goose in his life, and who knows no more about tailoring or slop-selling than he has learned from certain letters which lately appeared in the columns of the Morning Chronicle. Mr Wauch is very furious at the deception which he conceives has been practised on the public; and argues, with good show of reason, that any work, professing to set forth the hardships of any particular trade, and yet diverging so evidently into the wildest kind of romance – as to render its acceptance as an actual picture of life impossible – is calculated to do harm instead of good to the interests of the class in question, because no one can receive it as truth; neither can it possibly be acknowledged as an accurate picture of the age, or the state or feelings of that society which at present exists in Great Britain. "Who would have bought MY Autobiography," quoth Mansie, "if I had said that I was in love with a Countess, had been admitted to her society, and my passion partially returned? Or what think ye o' Benjie, fresh from the garret, and smelling of the goose, arguing conclusions wi' Dean Buckland about the Mosaic account o' the creation, and chalking out a new kind o' faith as glibly as he would chalk out auld Harrigle's measure on a new web o' claith for a Sunday's coat? The man that wrote you, take my word for it, never crookit his heugh-bane on a board; and the hail buik appears to me to be a pack o' wearifu' nonsense."

Notwithstanding Mr Wauch's anathema, we have perused the book; and, while agreeing with him entirely in his strictures regarding its artistical construction, and admitting that, as an autobiography – which it professes to be – it is so palpably absurd in its details, as to diminish the effect of the lesson which it is meant to convey, we yet honour and respect the feeling which has dictated it, and our warmest sympathy is enlisted in the cause which it intends to advocate. No man with a human heart in his bosom, unless that heart is utterly indurated and depraved by the influence of mammon, can be indifferent to the welfare of the working-classes. Even if he were not urged to consider the awful social questions which daily demand our attention in this perplexing and bewildered age, by the impulses of humanity, or by the call of Christian duty, the lower motive of interest alone should incline him to serious reflection on a subject which involves the wellbeing, both temporal and eternal, of thousands of his fellow-creatures, and possibly the permanence of order and tranquillity in this realm of Great Britain. Our civil history during the last thirty years of peace resembles nothing which the world has yet seen, or which can be found in the records of civilisation. The progress which has been made in the mechanical sciences is of itself almost equivalent to a revolution. The whole face of society has been altered; old employments have become obsolete, old customs have been abrogated or remodelled, and old institutions have undergone innovation. The modern citizen thinks and acts differently from his fathers. What to them was object of reverence is to him subject for ridicule; what they were accustomed to prize and honour, he regards with undisguised contempt. All this we style improvement, taking no heed the whilst whether such improvement has fulfilled its primary condition of contributing to and increasing the welfare and prosperity of the people. Statistical books are written to demonstrate how enormously we have increased in wealth; and yet, side by side with Mr Porter's bulky tomes, you will find pamphlets containing ample and distinct evidence that hundreds of thousands of our industrious fellow-countrymen are at this moment famishing for lack of employment, or compelled to sell their labour for such wretched remuneration that the pauper's dole is by many regarded with absolute envy. Dives and Lazarus elbow one another in the street; and our political economists select Dives as the sole type of the nation. Sanitary commissioners are appointed to whiten the outside of the sepulchre; and during the operation, their souls are made sick by the taint of the rottenness from within. The reform of Parliament is, comparatively speaking, a matter of yesterday, and yet the operatives are petitioning for the Charter!

These are stern realities – grim facts which it is impossible to gainsay. What may be the result of them, unless some adequate remedy can be provided, it is impossible with certainty to predict; but unless we are prepared to deny the doctrine of that retribution which has been directly revealed to us from above, and of which the history of neighbouring states affords us so many striking examples, we can hardly expect to remain unpunished for what is truly a national crime. The offence, indeed, according to all elements of human calculation, is likely to bring its own punishment. It cannot be that society can exist in tranquillity, or order be permanently maintained, so long as a large portion of the working-classes, of the hard-handed men whose industry makes capital move and multiply itself, are exposed to the operation of a system which renders their position less tolerable than that of the Egyptian bondsman. To work is not only a duty but a privilege; but to work against hope, to toil under the absolute pressure of despair, is the most miserable lot that the imagination can possibly conceive. It is, in fact, a virtual abrogation of that freedom which every Briton is taught to consider as his birthright; but which now, however well it may sound as an abstract term, is practically, in the case of thousands, placed utterly beyond their reach.