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cating eagerness from the battlements, might not make a bad son-in-law after all.

Kurt was not in a condition to make any objection to this sudden marriage; for ten minutes after the fatal accident happened, the priests that had assembled for his wedding, were offering up prayers for his departing soul, which soon after left its mortal tenement. His nephew, Cuno, succeeded him in the possessions of Ehrenfels, and thus passed misery and despair from the BRIDE OF RHEINSTEIN.

RICHMUTH VON DER ADUCHT.

In the year of grace 1400 a terrible pestilence desolated the ancient city of Cologne. Such was its violence, that the living could not be found in sufficient numbers to bury the dead; and all that hardness of heart, and deadening of the natural affections, that commonly accompany such visitations, were there to aggravate the horrors of the scene ;--mothers cast away their infants as the first deadly symptoms made their appearance-children deserted their dying parents-the wife of his bosom was as a plague-stricken stranger in the eyes of the panic-struck husband-the friend of many years might die as a dog; it seemed as if the plague that corrupted the bodies had polluted the minds of men. The fear of death was the ruling passion, and death was rioting in unbridled power over the doomed city.

All that could, fled, and the solitude of the charnel reigned in the cheerless streets. Of all the senators, people of note. and nobles, whose habitual residence Cologne was, one noble

pair alone remained to brave the death and desolation of the raging pestilence, and to devote themselves and their fortune to the relief and succour of their despairing fellow-creatures. Many a child had to thank them that it was not a helpless orphan, many a mother invoked a blessing on their head as she clasped her recovering infant to her breast, and it was with unmixed grief, as for a loss to themselves, that the inhabitants of the New-market heard the sad intelligence that Richmuth, the worthy consort of the noble Knight of the Aducht, had at last. paid the penalty of her holy devotion to the poor and afflicted, and was herself stricken down by the plague.

But even the close approach of death did not divert that excellent woman from her mission of mercy, and her latest breath was employed in conjuring her weeping husband to persevere in that noble course of love and charity, to which she was about to yield up her breath a willing sacrifice.

It was no time for refusing her requests, nor indeed had life much value in the eyes of the knight, and, deeply affected, he promised all that she asked. A heavenly smile lit up her pallid features as she bid him farewell, in the sacred hope that even in death she might do good to her fellowcreatures, and Richmuth von der Aducht breathed no more.

No long train of mourners, with the solemn peal of bells, and the affecting anthem for the dead, followed the remains of this holy woman to the tomb. The ceremonies of death had given way before its grim realities, and hastily was the body conveyed to the sepulchre of the family but a few hours after her death; hastily were the prayers offered up by her bier, for all feared to be the next victim, and the vault closed

over the cold remains of as warm and pious a heart as ever beat in the breast of woman. The knight returned to his desolate home, but the dying injunction of his beloved partner was deeply impressed on his soul, and that very evening he found, in making preparation for the morrow's task of mercy, a relief he could not have expected. His mind, thus worthily occupied, rallied with singular energy from the chilling shock that it had received, and attained a state of tranquillity that could not have been looked for under such trying cir

cumstances.

In closing the coffin in the chancel, it had not escaped the searching eyes of the sexton that the lady's marriage ring yet remained on her finger, and he sacrilegiously resolved to possess himself of it; arguing, that as it could be of no further use to her, it might as well do him some service. At midnight, accordingly, when he judged himself secure from observation, he took his keys and a lantern, and proceeded to the vault.

A cold shudder came over him as the harsh bolts rattled back, and the huge key grated in the rusty lock, and at one time he almost thought of turning back, but at last he descended fearfully into the vault, and raised, without much trouble, the lid of the coffin which he had indeed purposely left loosely fastened. There lay the object of his cupidity, glittering in the dim light of his lamp; but scarcely had he touched the sacred trinket when he felt his hand fast-clutched in the cold gripe of the corpse.

Tearing himself away with a fearful yell, he fled through the streets of Cologne, as if the foul fiend himself were at his back, and Richmuth von der Aducht slowly raised herself and

M

gazed around with a fixed and glassy stare. The flickering lamp that the sexton had left shewed the gloomy objects around with an indistinctness that added to the horrors of the place, and it seemed to her as if she had awakened from a hideous dream to a yet more hideous reality. A few minutes, however, restored her suspended faculties, and seizing the lamp, she hastily quitted the abode of death.

On the road to her own home she encountered no one, for the night was piercing cold, and probably the only person in the whole town besides herself, who was not then under shelter, was the yet shuddering sexton; so that this strange apparition of a woman in grave-clothes, and bearing a lamp, passed unobserved into the New-market. It was one o'clock in the morning, and a clear starlight shewed every object distinctly, when she knocked at her own door. For some time she knocked in vain, for such a deep sleep had fallen on the exhausted inmates of that house of mourning, that no one could be made to hear; and when, at last, the sturdy house maid put her head out of the window, to ascertain the cause of this unexpected disturbance, she withdrew it again instantly with many exclamations of horror and surprise. Nor did poor Richmuth fare better with the cook, who almost fainted away on the spot, and whatever the valour of George the coachman might be among the living, it was not equal to facing the dead; not but that they every one saw her clearly, and knew her perfectly, but they were all firmly convinced that it was the spirit of their late mistress, which, for some unintelligible reason, had returned to pay them a visit. So they decided she should stay where she was, while they huddled together, shivering with cold and fear at the frightful apparition.

The poor creature thus singularly arisen from the dead, might literally have perished of cold on her own threshold, had not the increasing confusion, for some of the neighbours had now been aroused, wakened the knight. He dreamed not of ever seeing his wife again, dead or alive, nor did he share in the superstitious horrors of his servants, but his window being considerably higher than theirs, he could not see so distinctly the strange objects below him, nor recognise the features which he thought he had looked on for the last time, and knowing that the Lunatic Asylums had all been thrown open from the utter impossibility of taking care of the patients, he concluded that one of those unhappy beings was labouring under the delusion that she was the deceased lady, and her vehement assurance that she was really and indeed his restored Richmuth, failed to shake his opinion. In answer to her urgent entreaties that he would come down and ascertain with his own eyes that it was truly his own wife that was come back to him, he mournfully shook his head, and his eyes filled with tears as he sadly murmured, "My Richmuth will come back when my old charger comes up stairs."

A rattling crash below followed these words, and the loud clank of a horse's hoof rang through the startled house.

Tramp after tramp, up it came nearer and nearer to the knight's chamber. Step after step was mounted, whilst paralysed with amazement, he listened in breathless expectation.

The iron tread was now close to the door, and when the astonished man went out to investigate the cause of this extraordinary noise, he was confronted in the passage by the stately figure of his black charger. Another minute, and the beloved form of the restored Richmuth was clasped in the delighted

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