THE MYSTERY OF THE MOATED-SCHLOSS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 70, 12 June 1869, Page 6

THE MYSTERY OF THE MOATED-SCHLOSS.

(From " All the Year Bound.")

IN FIVE CHAPTERS. — CHAPTER 11.

The night passed ; and soon after breakfast next morning, they set of on their strange and melancholy journey, unaccompanied by any servant. As Magda descended the stops of the gloomy old mansion which had seemed to her as little better than a prison the day before, she felt almost a pang of regret; for here, at least, she and Albrecht had been together, and here no mystery had reigned. Those lonely hours — the picture which had so fascinated her, ajl was now forgotton ; her mind was absorbed by one subject alone.

At the end of half a day's journey they came to a rugged upland country. Here were ravines down which the thread of some now shrivelled mountain stream forced its way through grey slags, and the prone stems of blasted firs. Here, top, were swampy hollows, rank with overgrowth of poisonous vegetation, and rising out of tkein, anon, great strips of slaty rock, tumbled about as if by a giant's hand, and crowded with the. dislocatedtrunks of trees. It was clear that the storms here every winter were very violent, and the hand of man did nothing to repair the injuries of nature. A more desolate district it was impossible to find in the kingdom of Bohemia. And it formed an appropriate prelude to the black, silent forest, in the centre pf which stood Schloss llabensberg. • Here was no song of bird, nor sound of water ; nothing bat the utter stillness of moveless bough?, in the hot summer evening. The road shot like an arrow through the pines, whose tall red stems, in a serried mass, rose to an intolerable height, before they stretched fqr£h their sinuous arms, clasping their hard dark fingers so closely as almost to shut out the blue face of heaven. Now and again there was a cross-road, or narrow path losing itself speedily in the red blackness of the pine-trunks ; and still the main road swerved not, but bore on for upwards of an horn*, without break or point of light on the horison.

They had sat silent for a long time, their hands in each other's ; their faces, the one anxious and excited, the other, repressing by an heroic effort any symptom of nervousnrss ; when Albreeht jumped up, and called to the postillion to stop. Magda, leaning forward, saw that the wood was at last breaking ; what seemed to be an open space lay some few hundred yards before them. Albrecht stooped, and drew out a box from under the seat of the carriage. He then unlocked and took out from it, to Magda' s infinite surprise, a queer little hat, and still queerer little garment, the like of which Magda had never seen, but which she subsequently learnt had been called in former days a " spencer.'* Moreover, there was a short and narrow skirt of silk, having an absurd little flounce round the bottom, such as Magda believed her mother to have worn years ago. She asked, with a smile of wonder, what all this meant.

" Thou dear heart ! " cried Albrecht. embracing her, "it means that here ■vpe must part, and that I beg, as a further favour to me, that thou wilt exchange thy pretty hat and mantle for these faded olcLfashioned ones : nay, if it be possible, thy skirt also. Do not ask any questions. It is a fancy of mme — an absurd fancy, that in the old house where all belongs to another date, another generation, thou shouldst not seem to flout the poor old servants and the pictures on the wall, with thy new fangled clothes And now farewell, my beloved one ! .... God keep thee ! Be of good courage, and Heaven will reward thy going ! " "With that, he" kissed her with an energy akin to desperation, and leaped from the carriage. The tears forced themselves into her blue eyes, though she tried to smile as she tried on the little old hat, and slipped on the spencer. The carriage was then rolling on, and she blew his ktsses, and sent him April smiles through her tears, as long as he" was in sight. Then when the carriage turned sharply to the left, and she could no longer see him, the •sun went in, and the shower was heavy. The poor child felt that she was nowj indeed, alone. A moment afterwards the carriage drew up on the edge of a small square lake, in the centre of which, without an inch of earth to , spare on any side, rose an equally square grey stone building with a high redvtiled roof, and innumei'able towers, turrets, and pinnacles, breaking the sky line. Through the moat — for such the lake was termed — a stream flowed constantly, born among the hills, and growing in its passage through the forest, till it had been widened and deepened by the h,and of man into this broad basin, and was then suffered to escape, a dwindled rivulet, and hjde itself in the forest once again. Looking down from the windows of the schlpss, gne saw to the yery bottom of the dark green water, w.here long weeds and grasses, like dusky plumes, swayed to and fro with the current, and the great brown shadow of a fish darted, ever and anon, athwart the mystery of tangled rushes; and carrying the eye on towards the bank, one caught moreover a confused outline of crawling animal life, wherewith, the black ooze teemed. It was

like looking down into a human heart (if such a thing could be), and watching its network of multifarious miseries and desires, drifted by the secret .currents of passion — the swift thought darting across it — the crawling meanness lurking in the impurity of its muddy places. A long-disused portcullis showed that there once had been a drawbridge : but a narrow one for footpassengers only, had supplanted it, some time in the preceding century, and had already acquired a considerable air of antiquity. Two old men-, in liveries of a strangely old-fashioned make, were standing on the bridge. They were evidently waiting for Magda, and as the" caleche drew up, they let down the steps, and handed her out. The postilion had received his orders, no doubt, before r hand. The grey-headed men had no sooner lightened the carriage of its human freight, and cut the cord of the valises that hung behind, than, without a word, he turaed his horses' heads, and drove off into the forest by the way he had come. To poor Magda, it seemed as if the last link that held her to the dear outer world — that held her to her Albreeht, was now severed. She lookdi up at the stern unfriendly building and down at its black shadow in the moat, and she shuddered as she passed under the iron teeth of its portcullis, and heai'd the gate locked behind her. She found herself in a low stone hall, the groined roof of which rested on arches. At the further end was a winding stair, which led to the dwelling-rooms.

A woman, past middle-age, stood expectant in the middle of the hall, and came forward to kiss Magda'a hand, after the old German custom, as her new mistress entered. But though thei'e was no want of alacrity shown in rendering this conventional act of respect — as there was no want of alacrity, indeed, in anything the woman did — nothing of pleasure was evinced. One might have thought that the greeting a pretty young creature to that grim old place, tenanted hitherto only by grim old servants, might have brought some spark of cordiality into their eyes — which foreign servants are not afraid to let light up their faces. But it was not so here. The old men looked graye — grave and rather sad, it seemed to Magda. The woman looked keen, stern, and resolute. In spite of her years, she w:is evidently still strong, and unusually active. Her eye was quick and -bright; her walk, and all her movements, betokened decision aud promptitude. She was dressed in black stuff, and her grey hair was put back under a black cap ; no speck of white relieved the general mournfulness of her aspect.

Magda tried, to smile, and say something gracious to the old woman. She was perfectly respectful in her reply, but as hard as nails ; the swift eye was raised, and the tight r shut lips unclosed, just so much as was absolutely necessary, no more ; then she pounced upon sh.-vtvlf, and cloaks as an eagle might swoop upon his prey, and led Magda up-stairs without further ado, the two men following with the valises. The geography of the schloss was less intricate than that of most old buildings. At the top of the stairs ran a long passage, which turned and twisted, it is true, and ! from which sundry other flights of j stairs debouched, to the bewilderment of a stranger who was not closely observant. But at the end of this passage was a door, which the woman unlocked from a bunch of keys hanging at her side ; and after this all wos • simple enough. A short flight of steps led into one of the many towers winch Magda had seen from the bridge. This tower — 'that portion of it, at least, into which Magda was now taken — contained two good-sized rooms, one over the other, a winding stair communicating. The lower room was oak panelled, and in it were an old piano, a harp, a few direfully bad prints of the House of Hapsburg, in the beginning of this century, and one of the Retreat from Moscow. Klopstock's Messiah and an odd volume Or two of Lessing were upon one table, together with a very faded woi'k-basket, and an old Spa-box, with the Allee des Soupirs (in which the trees looked like tufts of blue-green feathers upon hairpins), much defaced by time, upon its lid. Upon the other table a cloth, with preparations for supper, was laid.. Itwas the only thing in that strange room, where all seemed to have remained forgotten and nntouched for the last twenty years, that spoke a living language — the same, unchanged by fashion, wherein our fathers made ready to eat. A substantial pie, seme slices of raw ham, and a carp from the moat stewed in red wine, would, from all time, have seemed an excellent German supper. But Magda felt in no wise disposed to do it justice. She asked to see her bedroom, and the old woman led her up-stairs to the corresponding chamber above, the only difference in the shape of the two being that this latter had a wide oriel window overhanging the moat — an excrescence supported by a corbel, like the " Parson's Window " at Nuremberg. |

(Fo Is continued.)

A Portsmouth citizen, in telling about a f wonderful parrot hanging in a c?,ge from the window of a house which he often passed, said "It cries, 'stop thief so naturally that every time I hear it I always stop I"