Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-09-24

b4Oh CT udAG L SEluOuI let the sun u
down on my wrath, nor have I borne i'll
! will to any one. When but a lad I slew
in anger a dog which one day ate my
dinner which l had left in his way
When. as a student, I went on foreign
! travel, l entered, on slight provOcation
/ into a brOil with a German youth il
/ Leipsic, challenged him, and gave him d
wound that endangered his life. Fol-
that deed feel that I merit this which
! has now come upon me after long years;
! but the punishment falls upon my sinful
I head with tenfOld weight, now that | am
! broken down with age, clergyman and
a father. Oh, Father in heaven, it is here
| that the wound IS sorestm
! After pause of anguish, he continued
! . will now confess the crime which no
/ doubt l have committed but of which !
! am, nevertheless, not fully conscious
! That | struck the unhappy man with the
/ spade | know full well, and have already
/ Onfessed-wnether it were with the fiat
| side or the sharp edge l could not in my
! passion discern; that he then fell down,
/ and afterWard again rose up and ran
| away-that is all | know to a surety.
! " hat fOllowed-heayen help me,-tour
| witnesses have seen, namely: that
fetched the corpse from the wood and
| buried it. That this must be true [ am
J obliged to believe, and | will tell YOU
| wherefore. Three or four times in my
| life, that | know Of, it has happened to
| me to walk in my sleep. The last time
(abOut nine years ago., | was next day to
preach funeral sermon over the re-
mains of a man who had unexpectedly
met with a dreadful death I was at a
loss for text, when the words of a wise
man among the ancient Greeks suddenly
occurred to ne: Call no man happy
until he be in his grave To use the
words of a heather for the text of a
Christian discourse was not, methOught
seemly; but l then remembered that the
same thought expressed in well-nigh the
same terms was to be met with some
where in the ApOcrypha. | sought and
sought, but | could not find the passage.
It was late, | was wearied by much
previous labor; [ therefore went to
bed and soon fell asleep. Greatly
did | marvel the next morning
when, on rising and seating myself at my
writing-desk | saw before me, written in
large letters on a sheet Of paper, Let
no man be deemed happy before his end
cometh.' (Sirach XII, 81. But not this
alone: | found likewise funeral dis
cOurse-short, but as well written as any
/ had ever compassionate all in my own
handwriting. In the chamber none other
than | could have been. | knew, there
fore, who it was that had written the dis
course, and that it was none other than
myself. Not more than half year pre-
viOus | had, in the same marvellous state,
gone in the nighttime into the church
and fetched away handkerchief which
7 hnI 1a+t in, n aboir haIi,I 81
Mark now-when the two witnesses this
morning delivered their evidence before
the court, then my previous sleep-walk-
ing suddenly flashed across. me; and
| likewise called to mind that, in the morn
ing after the night during which the
! corpse must have been buried, Ihad been
surprised to see my dressing gown lying
on the floor just inside the door, whereas
it was always my custom to hang it on a
chair by my bedside. The unhappy vic
tim of my unbridled passion must, in all
| likelihood, have fallen down dead in the
woods, and must, in my sleep-waIking,
have followed him thither. 1eS-the
Lord have mercy!-so it was-sO it must
have beenm
On the following day sentence of death
was passed upon the prisoner-a SEN
! tence which many felt to be too severe,
and which led to a friendly conspiracy
on his behalf Had it not been for his
own refusal to be party to anything
unlawful he might have escaped. The
! jailer was gained over, and a fisherman
| had his boat in readiness for a flight to
| the Swedish coast But SOren Qirst re-
| fused to flee. He lOnged, he said, for
| death; and he would not add new stain
to his reputation by furtive flight He
maintained his strength of mind to the
last, and from the sCaffold addressed to
| the by-standerS a discourse of much
! power, which he had composed in prison
| during his last days. 1t treated of anger
and its direful consequences, with touch
| ING illusions to himself and the dreadful
| crime to which his anger misled him.
| Then he DOTTED his coat, bound with his
own hands the napkin before his eyes,
and submitted his neck to the eXecu-
! toners sword.
| One-and-twenty years after the pastor,
SOren Qirst, of Neiiby, had been accused,
tried, condemned and executed for the
murder Of his servant, an old beggar-
man applied for aims to the people OF
Alsoe, the parish adjoining VeilbY. Sus-
! picion was aroused by the exact likeness
! the beggar bore to MOrten Burns, of
| Ingvorstrup, who had lately died, and also
| by the curious and anxious inquiries
/ the man made concerning events long
! past The pastor of Alsoe, who had
| buried Morten Burns, took the yaga-
| bond to his parsonage, and there
| the fellow, all unconscious of the pOr-
| tentiOus nature of the admission, ac-
! knOwledged that he was NielS Burns,
! the very man for whose supposed MUIR
! der the pastor had suffered the shameful
death of a criminal Had his brother
| Morten survived him, it is certain the
/ truth, concealed so long, had never been
known, as Niels had only returned to the
! district in the hope of profting by Nor
tens death, the news of which had ac-
/ cidentally reached him. He protested
and, indeed, plainly experienced, the ut.
most horror on hearing of the pastors
cruel fate 1t was all Morten's doings
he said; but he was so overcome by
the terrible narrative that he could
scarcely gather strength to reply to the
questions put to him. The result of his
| confession may be summed up very brief
ly. Morten had conceived a mortal
hatred of Soren Qirst from the time that
he refused him his daughter, and had de
termined on revenge. 1t was he who
compelled Niels TO take service with the
pastor, and who had spurred him to his
repeated offenses, in the expectation that
violence would result, owing to the pas
tors hasty temper. Niels told him daily
all that took place; and, on leaving the
garden on that fatal day, he had run
over to Ingvorstrup to acquaint his
brother at once with what had happened
Norten shut him up in private room
that no one might see him. Shortly
after midnight, when the whole vii
lage was asleep, the two brothers
went to place where the roads
crnSsel aach nthar and whore two daNs