Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 099.djvu/84

 72 answered, as he pointed to the feverish and moaning infant. "Have you been to the workshop?" he continued, after a pause; "the large coffin is finished; perhaps it may be our own last home—it would hold us all."

"Oh! if that could only be!" exclaimed Johanna, as she threw her arms round him—"could we only all three be removed together to a better world, there would be no more sorrow for us! But the hour of separation is close at hand; to-morrow, if you cannot pay Mr. Stork, you will be cast into prison, and I shall sit alone here with that dying child."

"What do you say? Cast into prison! How do you know that? Has that man been here frightening you? He has not hinted a syllable of such a threat to me."

Johanna then related to him how Mr. Stork had latterly often called under pretence of wishing to see Frants, but always when he was out. He had made himself very much at home, and had overwhelmed her with compliments and flattering speeches; he had also declared frequently that he would not trouble Frants for the money he owed hint if she would pay the debt in another manner. At first, she said, she did not understand him, and when she did comprehend his meaning she did not like to mention it to Frants for fear of his taking the matter up warmly, and quarrelling with Stork, which would bring ruin on himself. Mr. Stork, however, had become more bold and presuming; and that Tery evening, on her repelling his advances and desiring him to quit her presence, he had threatened, that if she mentioned a syllable of what had passed to her husband—nay, further, if she were not prepared to change her behaviour towards himself—before another sun had set Frants should be thrown into prison for debt, and might congratulate himself, in that pleasant abode, on the fidelity of his wife.

"Well!" said Frants," [sic] with forced composure, "he has got me in his toils, but his pitiful baseness shall not crush me. I have indeed been blind not to detect the villany that lay behind that satanic smile, and improvident to let myself be deluded by his pretended friendship. But if the Almighty will only spare and protect you and that dear child, I shall not lose courage. Be comforted, my Johanna!"

It was now growing late—the child awoke from the restless sleep of fever—it seemed worse, and Frants ran to an apothecary's with the prescription. "The last hope!" sighed he, as he hurried along; "and if it should fail, who will console poor Johanna to-morrow evening, when I am in a prison, and she has to clad her child in its grave-clothes! Oh! how we shall miss you, sweet little angel! Was this the happiness I dreamt of in the old house ? Yes, people are right—it is accursed!" The apothecary's shop was closed, but the prescription had been taken in through a little aperture in the door, and Frants sat down on the stone steps to wait until the medicine was ready. It was a clear, starry, December night, but the sorrowing father sat shivering in the cold, and gazing gloomily on the frozen pavement—he was not thinking of the stars or the skies. The watchman passed, and bade him good morning.

"It will be a good morning indeed for me," thought poor Frants—"a morning fraught with despair." At that moment the clock of a