LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1366, 2 July 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE COMET. [‘‘Argosy.] There was great commotion in the village. Some of the men had been in the neighboring town, and in the inn there had rea,d tfye county paper, and had come home full of the astounding news thaij a comet was rushing headlong into space, precipitating itself straight upon "our planet'; so that, as the astronomers’ calculated, it must swallow us up on the :-2th August, 1872. The village of A lies in a remote corner cf Austria, and our good people do not come into contact with the ever-pro-gressing world ( beyond its limits. Consequently! they are rather backward in tpe knowledge of natural science, though far from being dull or u"i”t eves ted in things lying nearer t:, them than the stars in the heavens, ■ 1 Hat now, this was a thing to stir up their interest in astronomy : a comet coming straight down upon the earth A ep.mct i d thing imagined so far awry ihat until n w no one had dreau:,t of troubling about it, exceot Ctvy to consider its appearanc in the As a sign of war and various other kinds of woe The villagers quite understood tnere was no fun in the matter, The learned astrono mer himself, from whoso work an extract had he u published in the paper, had his apprehensions as to what effect this violent meeting of coo et and earth would have on the latter; and although the mop of A did net understand the burden of his learned aupjjwutioua, utill it sot them thinking, and

brought them to the conclusion that one might well tremble before the consequences of such an unheard of collision. Would it bo the end of the world?—of the stars beginning to fall from heaven ? Hut the comet was not falling alter all —it was madly rushing straight upon us. How dreadful ! What was the purport of its singular behaviour—was it coming to destroy the earth with lire ? There was a great deal of talk about the new and strange mat'er, but no one was the wiser for it At last the boaters of the news, only half credulous themselves, accompanied by those who refused to be lieve one i-->ta of the tale, repai-ed to the schoolmaster’s hous 1 , a neat whitewashed building, standing in the middle of a wellcultivated orchard. But if the orchard testified to good culture, the schoolmaster’s books told a very different tale ; they had been thrown into a corner of a lumber-closet many years before, and had never seen daylight since. The alphabet, a small volume of Bible stories, and one or two others, were all that was requisite for his daily use. From these few books he had taught one generation of boys and girls after another to read, write, cipher, and sing ; and for thirty-seven years he had never felt the need of increasing his store. He had another book though—a manuscript one, in his own handwriting, out of which he sometimes read to young and old. It was a bulkly volume, composed of a great number of c pybook*, fastened together and neatly bound in cloth by the author himself. In it he had written his experience of practical ga-dening, of b ewing, cultivating bees, nurfing domestic animals, and the like ; and the villagers were in the habit of consulting him in preference to anyone else. There was no husbandman equal to him in the place, and he was held in greater respect by the people for this than if he had possessed the wisdom of a professor of the university. For thirty seven years he had worked in the village without quitting it, except for an excursion into the mountains or a trip to the next town. Now the schoolmaster had read about the comet before anyone else in the place ; but as a wise man he kept silence on a matter he could not explain. Hack bis brain as he would he could not revive any slumbering recollection of astronomy, nor find anything to aid hia better understanding or enable him to expound the subject to others. He was, however, not quite unprepared for the visit, and when the men came to him he thought it best to takr r a cheerful view of the case, and dilated to them on his experience that many things, looking strange in the distance, are quite natural and harmless when viewed close at hand, *So let’s expect the fellow with a calm mind,’ he said. ‘We will see what he is like when he comes ; no use troubling about him before the time.’ ‘ But won’t he set the world on fire ?’ they asked, ‘ We’ll put it out if he does,’ he returned, confidently. ‘ T here would be more flames, I warrant, than all the water in our wells could quench,’ said one. ‘ It may not touch us after all,’ said the schoolmaster, always inclined to hope for the best * Why shouldn tit fall far away on yonder hills, into the wood, or beyond it into the lake ?’ There was a general laugh. If it would but tumble into the lake and drown itself, they would drag it out when 000 l and have a good look at it, and then exhibit it in the market-place, fes, stick it up on a pole with its tail turned upwards, and have a dance around it. After this the good old man thought the occasion a fitting one to produce a few bottles of his own growth, and the cheering influence of a glass of wine dispelled in a great measure the rather gloomy impression the gravity of the matter had made upon their minds. They left the house but little comforted though, and very much inclined to believe that there really was a comet coming, this fact having been tacitly admitted by the schoolmaster. The Pfarrsr’B (Monsieur le Cure) house is not s»r distant from the school. A green slope, cut by an allee of poplar trees, leads up f om the latter to the church, and immediately opposite stands the ‘ Jh'arrei, ’ or Pfarrhaus. Amongst those wh.d were moat eager to call upon tho priest was—to everyone’s surprise— pld B-lasius. tVd Hlasl never entered the church, and the minister of grace was to him only the person to whom he had to pay his tithe in grain, vegetables, &o. He would look away when he chanced to meet the old Pfarrer. that he might save himself the trouble of taking off his hat to him. Not to say that Bl«sl never prayed!—oh, he prayed. Most fervently did he i ray every night that no fire, or thief might come near the treasure he had hidden deep in the earth under his bed, and in which his whole heait was bound up. And now, would all these worshipped eoins go to destruction, with the rest of the world ? Perhaps something more might be learned about thp matter at Pfarrer’s ; therefore he entered the house whose threshold his foot had not crossed since the time of his maniago, thirty years before There was the scrupulous neatness and stillness reigning in the Pfarrei peculiar to a priest’s habitation, showing that there was no wife or children to break the monastic order. The Herr Pfarrer of A was a very aged past eighty at the time of our tale.; and his sister, about eight or nine years younger than himsdf kept house for him. A young priest, his ‘ co-operator,’ who lived in a back room, was the third inmate, of the spacious mansion, aud an old servant the fourth. That was all. The Pfarrer received the men with his usual kindliness was very glad to see them, and happy to be able to give them his advice and consolation. For that purpose he administered to them a good dose of commonplace truths, all very good in themselves and suitable for any tribulation whatever After having warmly assumed them that God would not forsake them if they did not turn from Him, he dismissed th®ra ; and they departed, more, less, 0,” not at all comforted, according to each l * l3l1 ’ 8 n’dmre. Before they had all left the hall, Frau Barbara, the cures sister, noiso’easly emerged from a corridor, aud, catching hold of Blasl’s sle* ve, she whispered to him : ‘ Blasl, I am glad I huvs an opportunity of speaking t -you, " hat is ad this about your daughter $ Surely you will think bettej, of i,t before you make your poor child miserable for life ?’ ‘ Has she been and complained of me ?’ ho enquired angrily. ‘ She has been here ; you know she always comes to help me o i busy davs. The poor child cried bitterly—and no. wonder, after being engaged to that nice young man, Lorenz, and seeing her engagement broken ofli by h' t father, without any just caunp, or reason. Surely you will not do this V 1 That is my own affair,’ he gruffly interrupted. ‘ I suffer no one to meddle with my concerns; you might have known that b fore now, Frau Barbara.’ And impatiently he turned to leave the hall. ‘ Nay, you must not leavp. me without listening to another word. You may have had your own reasons for breaking off with Lenz, but 4V y°« cannot think of giving Maria to Stfffl—Sreffl, the scandal of i the neighbourhood ? You must kc,ow that Steffi is au unprincipled mar,, a good-for nothing, a spendthrift-—"? 5 ' ‘ Stelll is no spendthrift! he is—he has no matter yaat!—you wouldn’t understand my nrotives; and I really don’t that I no d account for my actions tp, anyone In this . world, Frau Barba'a. 5 ‘Not in this wpjfid, Blasl; no, not in this ! but, mind A yoa, this world is coming tog-ief, they «ay. Blasl, Hlasl 1 think of thi,s ! If it be true ; if really in a few dayp this world, with all our trumpery good*; and treasures, is going to d struction ; how shall we appear there, before the judgment seat, divested of all our earthly riphes ?’ For a momeut 'he old mau stared at her with frightened, glazed eyes ; he staggered, and tuning away, tottered down the slope. Her words had startled him to the heart, {To bo continued.)