Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1875 — A NIGHT OF ALARM. [ARTICLE]

A NIGHT OF ALARM.

My sister Julia was always courageous. In our youth the country was wilder than now; but it might be said of her that she was not brought up in the woods to be scared by an owl. She would traverse the most unfrequented paths, wondering at my timidity. There was nothing masculine, however, in Julia’s appearance; she was simply a sweet, joyous child, with an absence of fear in her character and a consequent clearness of perception in all cases of supposed or actual danger. When I was sixteen and Julia was eighteen my father hired a laborer named Hans Schmidt, a Hessian, who had been in the British service and who, at the close of the war, had deserted from his regiment. He was a powerful man, witli a heavy, imbruted countenance, and both Julia and myself were struck, at the very first, with an intuitive dread of him. The feeling in Julia hardly took the character of fear, but was one rather of loathing. One evening she read of a horrible murder that thrilled our blood, and upon turning her eyes from the paper they encountered those of Hans Schmidt. There was something terrible in that glance and, from that moment, she resolved that the villain should be turned away. As her wishes and opinions were always of much weight with father, he gave Hans his discharge. Soon after this Julia and I were left alone in the house, both father and mother being absent upon a visit until the following day, and we happened to be without a servant at the time (for we kept more than one). At night we went up to bed and had partly disrobed, when Julia turned hastily to the window. “ I declare,” she said, “the evening is so pleasant that it is a pity to remain indoors. Idon’tfeela bit sleepy; let’s go down on the lawn.” We descended the stairs. How little I imagined ’what was in Julia’s heart! Harry Irving came up just as we reached the lawn. He was only casually passing the house. Julia engaged him in conversation and he joined us. My sister was more than usually lively. “Where are Tom, and Edgar, and Wifi?” she asked. “ Oh,” replied Harry, “ they are over to my uncle’s. They will be coming back soon.” „ The three young men soon appeared upon the road; ana, to my surprise, Julia arose at their approach and called us aside from the door. “ Now, Mary, you need not be nervous,” she said. “ Keep quiet, and do not speak above your breath. ThCre is a man under our bed —there, there!” and she clasped her hand over my mouths* 1 a man under our bed, and the young Irvings are going to secure him.” They all provided themselves with

hsayy sticks and then, guided by Julia, ascended the stairs. As to myself, I could not follow them, but remained trembling and leaned upon the doorsteps. Never did I experience a greater sense of relief than when the assailing party descended, looking partly ashamed and partly amused, having found nothing to justify their sudden armament. Julia was in an agony of mortification and wept piteously; for, although but half convinced that her apprehensions had been groundless, the idea that she, who had never till now feared anything, had placed herself so ludicrously in the eyes of those men was insupportable. The man, she said, must have taken the alarm and fled out the back door, for she could not have been so deceived. Our young friends,, more in pity for her mortification than from any belief in the reality of the night intruder, offered to remain in the vicinity till morning; but she would not listen to the proposition and they took their departure. I was sorry to see them go and watched their forms till they were out of sight, for the affair of the evening had almost frightened me into hysterics. Julia, -however, at once rushed to the chamber, and flinging herself on the bed, continued bitterly weeping. She had exhibited herself in a character which she despised; and her man under the bed would be the talk of the neighborhood. I followed her, but neither of us could sleep. The clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven; and then " tick, tick, tick,” it went on for the next dreary hour. Julia at length ceased weeping, and lay in thought, only an occasional sigh betraying her wakefulness. Again the clock struck, but it had not reached the final stroke when Julia, leaping out of bed, flung herself upon an immense chest at the further end of the room. “ Oh, Mary!” she cried, “quick! quick! He is here! I cannot hold the lid—he will get out!” There was indeed some living thing inside the chest; for, in spite of Julia’s weight, the lid was lifted, and then, as the instinct of self-preservation overcame my terror, I sprang to her assistance. Whom or what had we caught ? Imagine yourself holding down the lid of a showman’s box, with a boa-constrictor writhing beneath; or keeping a cage-top in its place by your own weight alone, with a hyena struggling to tear his way out and devour you. But \ve were not long in suspense. Horrid execrations, half German, half English, chilled our very hearts, and we knew 7 that there, in thejpidniglit, only the lid of an old chest was between ourselves and Hans Schmidt! At times it started up, and once or twice his fingers were caught in the opening. Then finding our combined weight too much for his strength, it w r ould become evident that fee was endeavoring to force out an end of the chest. But he could not work to an advantage. Cramped within such limits his giant power of muscle was not wholly available; he could neither kick nor strike with full force; and hence his chief hope rested upon his ability to lift us up, lid and all. Even then, in the absolute terror that might have been supposed to possess her, a queer feeling of exultation sprang up in Julia’s heart.

“ I was right, Mary,” she cried. “ They won’t think me a fool now, will they ? I sha’n’t be .ashamed to see Harry Irving !” Poor Julia! under the circumstances the idea was really ludicrous; but nature will everywhere assert itself, and Julia hatefl a coward. Thump! thump! thump! Lid and side and end alternately felt the cramped, powerful blows. Then came the lift—the steady, straining lift, and Julia cheered me when the cover shook and rose and trembled. “He can’t get out, Mary! We are safe; only just keep your full weight on the lid, and don’t be nervous, either; it is almost morning.” She knew it was not one o’clock. But one o’clock came. How I wished it was five! And two o’clock came, and three and four; and we hoped that our prisoner had yielded to his fate, which must now appear to him inevitable. A small aperture at one end of the chest, where there was a fracture in the wood, supplied him with air, and hence we could not hope that he would become weak through suffocation. He was evidently resting from the very necessity of the case, for his exertions had been prodigious. There was a faint streak of morning in the sky; and there, upon the chest, we sat and sat and watched' for the gleam to broaden. Suddenly there was a tremendous struggle beneath us, as if the ruffian had concentrated all his energies in a final effort. At my end of the chest there was a crash —and immediately the German’s feet protruded through the aperture that they had forced in the board. So horrible now appeared our position that I uttered a scream, such as I do not think I ever at any other time could have had the power to imitate. To get off the lid in order to defeat the movement through the chest end would have instantly been our destruction; therefore, still bearing our weight on the chest we canght at the projecting feet. In doing this, however, we partially lost our balance and a sudden bracing up of the muscular shape below so far forced open the lid that the head, arms and shoulders of Hans Schmidt were thrust forth, and with a fearful cjutch he seized Julia by the throat. Just then a heavy crash was heard at the door below; the foot tramps springing toward us as if some person were tearing up the staircase with the full conviction that this was an hour of need. The dim daybreak hardly revealed his identity, but I had a faint perception that young Harry Irving had come to us in our peril. Some time during the morning I found myself in bed with Julia, and several of the neighbors standing about me. Julia clasped me in her arms and cried: “We are safe, Mary! Harry Irving was near the house all night. He returned after seeming to go' home. The least scream he would have heard as he at last heard yours; but I am glad you did not scream before, fpr now we have had an experience and know what we can do."

Hans Schmidt had deeided upon the chest as a safer hiding-place than that in which Julia had first discovered him. Upon the very morning on which Harry Irving stunned and secured the ruffian in our room the officers of justice were searching for the old Hessian scoundrel as a supposed murderer, and he was soon convicted and hung. Julia became the wife of Harry Irving, and a most excellent wife she was. Magnanimous and unrevengeful, she was perhaps the only one who felt no gratification at the fate of old Hans Schmidt, but rather a pity for the ignorance which had steeped him in crime.