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All this while the poor Heer remained without
a hope, without a comforter, his mind ever
running on the blue-eyed maiden he had, peradventure,
lost for ever. The judgment which,
according to aunt Edith's theory, had fallen
upon his head, for the punishment of his sinful
delights in contemplating the mild virtues and
gentle, unobtrusive charms of his duteous, affectionate
daughter, seemed only to bind him more
closely to the earth, for he could think of naught
but her. There is no surer sign of a profound
and lasting wound of the heart, than when we
turn in sickening disgust from those little
amusements, habits, or gratifications, which long
custom has either endeared to us, or rendered
difficult to shake off. Thus the good Heer now

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never was seen to smoke his pipe at morn or evening,
or heard to swear in classic High Dutch,
sure evidences that his heart was almost broken.
His sole employment was in doing nothing, although
he was incapable of sitting still more
than a minute at a time. Like Bombie of the
Frizzled Head, he wandered and wandered about,
seeming without purpose, or even consciousness,
until some sound, some object, some
nothing, as it would seem, struck upon one of
those chords by which every thing that is beautiful
or sweet in nature is connected with the
memory of those we love, and have lost. Then
his trembling lip, and wan, wet eye, bore testimony,
that the light still continued to burn,
though the lamp which held it seemed quite broken
to pieces.

He no longer took an interest in the affairs of his
government, which now fell into the hands of master
Wolfgang Langfanger, who thereupon took his
full swing of public improvements. He caused
new streets to be opened in every direction across
the fields, which the good people of Elsingburgh
avoided in dry weather on account of the dust,
and in wet, on account of the mud. Thus the
fine grassy lawns, and rich fields, that whilome
yielded a golden harvest of grain, were cut up and

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laid waste, to wait till the village should grow over
them. The unlucky proprietors were in this
way, as it were, cut with a two-edged sword;
they were obliged to pay for these improvements,
and at the same time lost the products of their
fields. But the masterpiece of Langfanger's
policy was that of pulling down an old market,
and building a new one in another part of the
village, in the management of which business he
is supposed to have laid down the first principles
of the great and thriving science of political
economy, or picking people's pockets on a great
scale. He caused the people living near the
old market to pay roundly for its removal as a
nuisance; and then he caused the people that
lived about where the new one was to be built,
to pay roundly for the vast pleasure and advantage
of its neighbourhood. Thus he pinched
them through both ears, and got the reputation
of a great financier.

There was muckle scratching of heads at Elsingburgh,
and serious complaints made to the
Governor; but that good man paid little or no
attention either to his own wants or to those of
his people. He was, indeed, desolate and forlorn.
The Dominie now seldom came near
him, because he refused to be comforted by his

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assurances that the loss of his only child was a
great blessing, if properly considered; aunt
Edith was quite elevated above the world and
all things in it, save the meeting of the elect at
societies, love feasts, and the like. She held
such bereavements as the loss of children, parents,
friends, and brothers, as trifles which affected
none save the worldly minded, the chosen
vessels of wrath; and considered the performance
of domestic duties as among the filthiest of
those filthy rags, miscalled good works. Nay,
the veritable Bombie of the Frizzled Head, although
she continued duteously to serve up the
favourite dish of pepperpot at supper time, obstinately
refused to sympathize with him in the
extremity of his sorrows.

“Ah! if my poor lost Christina were here,”
would he sometimes exclaim, when any little
string was touched that brought her loss home
to him—“ah! if she were here, I should not be
left thus alone. But what is an old man like
me, without the tender and duteous ministrations
of a virtuous daughter? he is a trunk,
whose roots are decayed—whose branches are
blighted—whose heart, hollow and decayed, is
only the refuge of the worm that never dies.
Snow Ball, witch, devil, whatever thou art, tell

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me, dost thou think I shall ever see my poor
Christina more?”

“I have seen what I have seen—I know what
I know.”

“Well, well,” impatiently rejoined the Heer;
“I suppose you do; most people can say that
of themselves. But hast thou seen, and dost
thou know, more than other people? Answer
me, scourge of satan—dost thou think we shall
ever meet again?”

“There—perhaps,” replied the Frizzled
Head, pointing her horn-headed stick towards
the blue sky, that was studded with stars, among
which the new crescent of the moon held its
course, like a bark of pearl in a sea of azure—
“there, where the purified spirit finds its last
serene abode—or”—dropping her stick to point
to the earth—“there, where”—

“Away, thou screeching day-owl,” interrupted
the Heer; “blasted be the heart that conceived,
the breath that shall utter such a prophecy!
Why, I—I indeed have sometimes
soiled my immortal spirit with the stain of
worldly sins; but she—Oh! she was pure as
the flake of snow in its midway flight from the
heavens, ere it reaches this contaminated earth;
she was”—

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“Ay, Heer, she was—and which of us, in
looking back, cannot put our finger on the point
of time when we too were innocent? Months
have passed away, since thy daughter left thee,
but in less time than that, according to thy book
of faith, the angels lost their place in heaven;
a third part of the stars that glittered around
the throne of Him who made us all, black,
red, and white, alike, tumbled to the earth—ay,
lower than the earth—into the bottomless gulf;
he who was called the Son of the Morning, fell
among the rest, and foremost of them all. Wilt
thou say, then, that because thy daughter was
pure and innocent months ago, she must of necessity
be so still?”

“Pestilent imp of darkness, seed of sulphur,
scourge of my blasted hopes, torturer of my broken
heart,” cried the Heer, “be silent, or tell
me what thou really knowest of my lost child.”

“I know,” replied the Frizzled Head, “that she
still lives, for had she died, I should have seen
and spoken with her, ere her body had passed
into the tomb. I know she lives, but that is all I
know. Whether thou wilt ever see her, here or
hereafter, I cannot tell; and if I cannot, none
other can; for I have seen what I have seen—I
know what I know. I saw thy child carried like

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a lamb from its fold, in company with the wolf
that seeks to devour her; I warned him by the
memory of the past, the hope of the future; I
adjured him by the fate of the mother, by
the kindness of the father, the affection of the
daughter, by all that good men hold sacred and
villains scorn, to be unto her a true and watchful
shepherd: he appealed to heaven he would.
But if man is a wolf to man, what is he to woman?
At first, the cringing slave, and next the
unfeeling tyrant.”

“But, shall I see her again before I die?”
reiterated the Heer, who, in the weakness of sorrow,
sought to wring from the Frizzled Head,
even what he would not dare to believe when it
was uttered.

“The revolving sun often brings every thing
back to where it was before. Thou mayst, perhaps,
see her again; she may one day come to
thee, when she hath forgotten herself and her parent;
when time, and hardships, and the example
of those around her, have worn out all traces of
thy gentle, delicate and duteous daughter. She
may return with a painted face, and limbs dilated
into a clumsy magnitude, by toil and exposure to
the wintry winds, and the labours which brutal
man puts on our sex, when neither honour nor

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shame restrains his wanton tyranny; she may
come with a pappoose!”

“Hence!” burst forth the almost maddened
Heer; “hence, wholesale dealer in the devil's
haberdashery; away! offspring of wrath and
fire; drown thyself in the river, hang thyself on
the highest tree of the forest, or rather live, and
waste away thy black and blasted flesh in tortures,
such as thou hast inflicted upon a poor,
childless old man—begone, and der teufel hole
dich.”

This was the first time the Heer had relapsed into
High Dutch since the loss of Christina, and, if
the truth were known, it is believed the Frizzled
Head purposely provoked him in this manner,
that he might sometimes forget his daughter in rage
against his slave. But she failed in her object.
The anger of the master was momentary; the
grief of the father was without end.

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