16. XVI.
“Carl was not permitted to reach his home in
peace. A group of revellers stood in his path
as he was about to enter the village. They
danced and sang at his approach, and soon gathered
around him with tumultuous cries. They
sang in his ears the praises of revelry, and invited
him to join them.
“`Be not churlish, brother,' was the cry —
`why cherish care? why mate with sorrow? why
deny thyself to live? The wine, the wine, boys,
and here's health and a fresh heart to our new
companion.'
“Carl envied them their felicity; and their
language, for the first time in his life, seemed
sweet in his ears. Hitherto, he had led the life of
an abstemious and wholly studious youth, rejecting
utterly those noisy and spendthrift pleasures
which are so apt to lead astray the young. He
began to think that he had erred in his practice,
and had been guilty of injustice to a class of persons
who were a great deal wiser than himself.
The torments which he had just undergone, prepared
him for this way of thinking. He hesitated,
murmured, looked vacantly around him, and
they took him gently by the arm, and renewed
their solicitations. Among the foremost of these,
he now recognized the bacchanalian who had before
assailed him. But he was not intoxicated on
this occasion; and while he spoke with the words
and warmth of a boon companion, his language
was carefully chosen and gently insinuating. Carl
began to yield; his eyes were already turned in
longing upon the tavern — his feet were at the
guidance of the individual we have just spoken
of — in his thought, the indulgence of wine began
to assume the appearance of a leading and necessary
object: and in another moment the powers of
evil would have made large strides towards the
possession of their victim, when another hand
pressed the arm of Carl Werner, and a gentle,
but strange voice, in his ears pronounced the
name of his wife.
“`Matilda — she waits you, Carl — she suffers
at your long absence. Will you not go to her?'
“The old man whom we have seen setting forth
from the house of the wife in search of the husband,
stood at his elbow. He had come in time. His
words operated like magic, and Carl broke away
from his conductors.
“`Matilda — my wife — my poor wife!' he exclaimed
— `Yes — let me go to her.'
If the words of the aged man were so quick and
powerful to move Carl Werner, his presence seemed
to have no less an effect upon those who sought
to lead the youth astray. They shrank away
from the stranger with hisses, and though reviling
him, they still fled. Carl was surprised at this,
and the more surprised and horror stricken
when he distinguished among the howls and hisses
of the flying crew, the horrible laugh which
had so much haunted him before. The old man
took no heed of their clamor, but composedly
conversed with Carl while they proceeded to the
lodgings of the latter, with all the calmness and
ease of one whom a confidence of superiority keeps
from anger towards an inferior, as certainly as it
protects from harm.
