LITERATURE.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1106, 31 October 1883, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A ot "tlxo Gi’fiTe

CLAUS WEIDE’3 PIPE;

By D. W. C. Nesfield

( Concluded .)

{ Then, mother,’ she said, ‘ iet me tnke my place by his side. lam his wife in spirit at least, ami it lie dies it shall be in my arm. If yon refuse me you will kill me too ’ They let her have her way, anti it was well. From the hour she was admitted to his room, she seemed to grow stronger ns lie grew weaker. It was the worst kind of typhoid fever the doctor said, ami his system was so reduced by dissipation that the case was hopeless. The two women, Fran Bremer and Elise, never left his side. If one of them slept, it was in a cot near the bed, and so they watched him. In his delirium he raved about bis pipe and the miser s grave. He shrieked for his stick and counted by the hour up to eighty-five notches. Then he would sink back exhausted. And so ho lay fur nearly two weeks wasted and thin, and knowing no one. But the crisis passed and he was still alive—just alive, and the delirium left him. Then when ho saw Elise and his mother bending over him, great tears welled into his eyes, and lie moved his lips that were now too feeble to speak. -And so he lay hovering between life and death for many a week, until one day the doctor told them that there was hope and that he was better. It was weeks, however, before he could even sit np in bed, and then a little at a time, for he soon got tired. Ho told his mother and Maibluemchen the whole story of his visit to the cemetery, his opening the grave, and the whole of his dream. The two poor women often wept as he went on, and when the story was finished, Elise said :—‘Hear Yal, may I burn the pipe, the wicked pipe, and the horrid stick with all the notches in it ?’ He bowed his head and said, ‘ Yes, Lischen, burn them before my eyes.’ There was a warm fire in the room, and the two women placed the pipe and the stick in the glowing coals. The stick crackled and burnt in a minute or two, bat the old pipe got to white heat and still maintained its form. At last like the snapping of a branch, it fell into a thousand pieces and was lost for ever. One day when he was getting stronger his mother said to Yal: ‘I am not going to blame thee now my con, or even speak of the the past, only to tell thee how all this might have been spared thee hadst thou told mother tby dream. When Clans Weide died I suspected that he had gold hidden away, for ho was ever in his cellar by night. And soafterhe was buried I went there with our good Mayor, and below the paving, which was of brick, we found more than two thousand gulden. This was placed in thy name at good interest, and with thy savings was to be thy marriage portion. What foul fiend sent thee thy dream I know not nor care, now that the good God has turned it to thy good. No one thinks ill of thee now, for the mystery of thy conduct is known throughout the village.” Oh, how gratefully Yal lay there until he was convalescent. Sometimes the welcome rain of tears relieved his pent-up happiness, for now and again all this seemed too strange to be true. The snow had left the ground and the trees were budding again before Yal was really strong and well, but the first Sunday that he was able, he and Elise, his mother and the parents of Elise might have been seen going slowly op the hill to the pretty Gothic church. The sermon was from the text: ‘ Because this, my son, was dead and is come to life again, was lost and is found. And they began to make merry.’ They were again filing out of church arm in arm, but there were hundreds of hands to shake before Yal and Elise reached the little bridge which leads to the Anlage, and Elise looked more beautiful than ever, as Yal paused there a moment, and said: 'Not this way to-day Maiblucmchen, I can’t bear it yet; let ns stroll by the river. The May blossoms were in full bloom when Yal led Elise to the alter, and even now when the day is coining round, the villagers say, ‘ To-morrow will be fine surely. It is the anniversary of Maiblucmchen’s wedding.’