The Brothers of Goschenen. 149 



with all the fervour of a youthful devotion. Year after year, even 

 when her slight figure became bowed and her hair grew whiter and 

 whiter, his arm encircled her form as fondly and his lips pressed her 

 withered cheek as rapturously, as when he led her from the altar a 

 maiden bride. 



" A.t length, in the full ripeness of eighty years, death had smitten 

 him. For some time his strength had rapidly declined. He felt no 

 pain ; but his cheek grew paler and paler : his Herculean frame look- 

 ed the skeleton of its former self; and on that very morning he had 

 begged Louise to send for one of our brethren at Realp to confess 

 him before he died. 



" An old woman, palsied with age, opened the door. Her voice 

 was so tremulous, that I could with difficulty understand her informa- 

 tion that Karl was rapidly becoming worse, and that his mind occa- 

 sionally wandered. She told me this, however, without any expres- 

 sion of feeling I thought almost peevishly. She seemed to be in 

 that stage of incipient dotage when the heart ceases to feel any thing 

 but the petty annoyances of accumulated years ; and though her eye 

 was moist, it seemed to be not so much with the tear of sorrow as the 

 rheum of age. 



" I passed through the kitchen, and entered the inner room to which 

 she pointed. Wrapped in blankets and supported by pillows, the 

 dying man reclined in a large antique oaken chair, which with its 

 dark grotesque carving seemed as if it might date from the time of 

 Arnold Von Winkelried. As I opened the door, the light of the sun, 

 now getting low in the west, fell through the quivering shadow of a 

 linden upon his haggard features. He opened his languid eyes, and 

 they fell upon me, as I crossed the room, with a cold lack-lustre stare 

 of terror, that showed some ghastly phantom had taken possession of 

 his mind. 



" ' Mercy ! Mercy ! Mercy '.' he moaned, as he feebly clutched the 

 blankets in which he was enveloped, * Not yet ! Oh, not yet! Mercy! 

 Mercy !' 



" I spoke to him, and advanced to a seat that stood beside his. In 

 a few seconds the glazed and fascinated look with which he had re- 

 garded me on my first entrance passed away." 



" * Yes, I know I know,' he said at last, stretching out his yellow 

 hand to me, ' you are come to see me die.' 



" I took his hand in mine. The large joints and the ghastly thin- 

 ness of the spaces between them, the massive bone of his bare arm, 

 and the wasted muscle clinging to it, showed the wreck of a power- 

 ful frame. 



" ' I am come to administer the consolations of our holy religion, my 

 brother, and I trust ' 



" ' Monk !' he replied, in a tone as fierce as his weakness would 

 allow, 'call me not brother and speak not to me of consolation, till you 

 hear my story. I have a secret here, a horrible secret ; and I cannot 

 die with it. I tried last night to die, but I could not. Here ! Here ! 

 When all other feeling was gone I felt it here, gnawing and burning, 

 and stinging me into life again. I cannot die with it, or I would 

 and I have sent for you to hear it.' 



