The southern enterprise. [volume] (Greenville, S.C.) 1854-1870, 1857-03-05
A Swedish Tale,
FROM THE GERMAN or HEpEL.

4, In Fa!un,a mining town in Sweden. a
hundred years or more ago, q young miner
kissed his fair bride, and said to her;
"On st. Lucia's Day, our love will be
blessed by the priests hand Then we shall
be husband and wife, and we will build us
a little nest Of our own"
And peace and love shall dwell in it,"
said the beautiful bride, with a sweet smile,
" for thou art my all in all, and without
thee l would choose to Le in my grave" .
But when the priest, in prociaiming their
bans In the church for the second time be:
fore st. Lucia's Day, pronounced the words,
" II now any one can show reason why these
persons should not be united in the bonds of
matrimony," Death was at hands. The
young man, as he passed her house next
morning in his black mining garb, already
wore his shroud. He raped upon her win
dow and said, good-morning-h he never
returned to bid her good evening. He new.
er came back from the mine and all in vain
She embroidered for him Oh that very morn
ing black cravat with a red border for the
wedding day. This she laid carefully away,
and never ceased 10 mourn or weep for him.
Meanwhile, time passed on; the Seven
Years war WAS fought; the partition of Po-
land took place; America became free the
French revolution and the long war began
Napoleon subdued Prussia, and the EnSlish
bombardcd Copenhagen. The husbandmeu
sowed and reaped, tue miller ground, and
the miners dug after tho veins of metal in
their sub,erranean workshops. As the min,
ers of FaIun, in the year eighteen hundred
and nine, a little before or after St. Johns
Day, were excavatinS an opening between
two shafts, full three hundred ellis below the
ground, they dug from the rubbish and Wit.
riol water, the body of a young man. entire
ly saturated with iron-ritriol, but otherwise
undecayed and unaltered-so that one could
distinguish his features and age ss well AS
u he had died only an hour before, or had
ia len asleep for a little while at his work.
But when they brought him ou. TO the
light of day, father and mother, friends and
acquaintances, had been long dead no one
could identify the sleeping youth or tell
anything of his misto; tune, till she came
who was once the betrothed of that mine,
who had one day gone to the mine and
never returned. Gray and shrivelled, she
came to the place hobbling upon crutch
and recognised her bridegroom, when more
in joyful ecStacy than pain, she sank down
upon the beloved form. As soon as she
had recovered her composurc, she exclaim.
ed, at is my betrothed, whom | have
mourncd for fifty years, and whom God now
permits n,e TO SEQ CEce more before | die
a week before the wedding time lie wen,
under the earth, and never returned"
All the bystanders were moved 10 tears
as they beheld the former bride, a wasted
and feeble old woman, and the bridegroom
still in the beauty of youth and now, after
the lapse of fifty years, her youthful love
awoke again. But he never opened hi,
mouth 10 smile, nor his eyes to recognise
and she, finally, as the onl ly one belonging
to him, and having n right to him, had him
carried TO her own little room, till grave
could be prepared in the churchyard. The
next day, when all was ready, and the min.
ers came to take him away, she opened n
little drawer, and taking opt the black silk
craVat, tied it around his neck, apd then ac
companied him in her Sunday garb, AS il i,
were their wedding. day and not the day Of
his burial. AS they laid him in the grave
in the churchyard, she said "Sleep well
now, for few days, in thy cold bridal bed
and let not the time seem long to thee.
have but little more to do, and will soon die
and then it will he day again" AS she was
going away, she looked back once more'and
said, What the earth has once restored, j,
will not second time withhold"
". Y. Eve. Post.