The official who corresponds to our
sexton, on seeing a well-dressed gentleman, whose object was to attend
the expected funeral, pacing the aisle of the church, hospitably invited
him to share with him the comforts of a blazing wood fire, which as was
his custom in winter time upon such occasions, he had kindled on the
hearth of a chamber which communicated by a flight of steps with the
vault below. In this chamber Schalken and his entertainer seated themselves; and
the sexton, after some fruitless attempts to engage his guest in
conversation, was obliged to apply himself to his tobacco-pipe and can
to solace his solitude. In spite of his grief and cares, the fatigues of a rapid journey of
nearly forty hours gradually overcame the mind and body of Godfrey
Schalken, and he sank into a deep sleep, from which he was awakened by
some one shaking him gently by the shoulder. He first thought that the
old sexton had called him, but _he_ was no longer in the room. He roused himself, and as soon as he could clearly see what was around
him, he perceived a female form, clothed in a kind of light robe of
muslin, part of which was so disposed as to act as a veil, and in her
hand she carried a lamp. She was moving rather away from him, and
towards the flight of steps which conducted towards the vaults. Schalken felt a vague alarm at the sight of this figure, and at the same
time an irresistible impulse to follow its guidance. He followed it
towards the vaults, but when it reached the head of the stairs, he
paused; the figure paused also, and turning gently round, displayed, by
the light of the lamp it carried, the face and features of his first
love, Rose Velderkaust. There was nothing horrible, or even sad, in the
countenance. On the contrary, it wore the same arch smile which used to
enchant the artist long before in his happy days. A feeling of awe and of interest, too intense to be resisted, prompted
him to follow the spectre, if spectre it were. She descended the
stairs--he followed; and, turning to the left, through a narrow passage
she led him, to his infinite surprise, into what appeared to be an
old-fashioned Dutch apartment, such as the pictures of Gerard Douw have
served to immortalize. Abundance of costly antique furniture was disposed about the room, and
in one corner stood a four-post bed, with heavy black cloth curtains
around it. The figure frequently turned towards him with the same arch
smile; and when she came to the side of the bed, she drew the curtains,
and by the light of the lamp which she held towards its contents, she
disclosed to the horror-stricken painter, sitting bolt upright in the
bed, the livid and demoniac form of Vanderhausen. Schalken had hardly
seen him when he fell senseless upon the floor, where he lay until
discovered, on the next morning, by persons employed in closing the
passages into the vaults. He was lying in a cell of considerable size,
which had not been disturbed for a long time, and he had fallen beside
a large coffin which was supported upon small stone pillars, a security
against the attacks of vermin. To his dying day Schalken was satisfied of the reality of the vision
which he had witnessed, and he has left behind him a curious evidence of
the impression which it wrought upon his fancy, in a painting executed
shortly after the event we have narrated, and which is valuable as
exhibiting not only the peculiarities which have made Schalken's
pictures sought after, but even more so as presenting a portrait, as
close and faithful as one taken from memory can be, of his early love,
Rose Velderkaust, whose mysterious fate must ever remain matter of
speculation. [Illustration: SHE DREW THE CURTAINS.] The picture represents a chamber of antique masonry, such as might be
found in most old cathedrals, and is lighted faintly by a lamp carried
in the hand of a female figure, such as we have above attempted to
describe; and in the background, and to the left of him who examines the
painting, there stands the form of a man apparently aroused from sleep,
and by his attitude, his hand being laid upon his sword, exhibiting
considerable alarm; this last figure is illuminated only by the expiring
glare of a wood or charcoal fire. The whole production exhibits a beautiful specimen of that artful and
singular distribution of light and shade which has rendered the name
of Schalken immortal among the artists of his country. This tale is
traditionary, and the reader will easily perceive, by our studiously
omitting to heighten many points of the narrative, when a little
additional colouring might have added effect to the recital, that we
have desired to lay before him, not a figment of the brain, but a
curious tradition connected with, and belonging to, the biography of
a famous artist. [Illustration]

The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh. "The earth hath bubbles as the water hath--
    And these are of them." In the south of Ireland, and on the borders of the county of Limerick,
there lies a district of two or three miles in length, which is rendered
interesting by the fact that it is one of the very few spots throughout
this country in which some vestiges of aboriginal forests still remain. It has little or none of the lordly character of the American forest,
for the axe has felled its oldest and its grandest trees; but in the
close wood which survives live all the wild and pleasing peculiarities
of nature: its complete irregularity, its vistas, in whose perspective
the quiet cattle are browsing; its refreshing glades, where the grey
rocks arise from amid the nodding fern; the silvery shafts of the old
birch-trees; the knotted trunks of the hoary oak, the grotesque but
graceful branches which never shed their honours under the tyrant
pruning-hook; the soft green sward; the chequered light and shade;
the wild luxuriant weeds; the lichen and the moss--all are beautiful
alike in the green freshness of spring or in the sadness and sere of
autumn. Their beauty is of that kind which makes the heart full with
joy--appealing to the affections with a power which belongs to nature
only. This wood runs up, from below the base, to the ridge of a long
line of irregular hills, having perhaps, in primitive times, formed but
the skirting of some mighty forest which occupied the level below. But now, alas! whither have we drifted? whither has the tide of
civilization borne us? It has passed over a land unprepared for it--it
has left nakedness behind it; we have lost our forests, but our
marauders remain; we have destroyed all that is picturesque, while we
have retained everything that is revolting in barbarism. Through the
midst of this woodland there runs a deep gully or glen, where the
stillness of the scene is broken in upon by the brawling of a
mountain-stream, which, however, in the winter season, swells into
a rapid and formidable torrent.