Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-10-21


fields Gretchen sat in her handsome house.
to be waited on by her maidens, and wore
silk in place Of coarse stuff, and golden
rings upon the fingers whence she had
slipped poor Carls gift the little silver
circlet which was all that he could afford
to give her.
And in year little baby lay within
her arms and looked into her eyes and
taught her to love its father, who had been
SO tender and so kind to her, and she was
the Baroness Claussen, and wife and
mother, and not the peasant girl grieving
for her lover any more.
Just at this time Carl, with his two
years pay in his wallet and some hard
won possessions besides, stepped from the
ships deck upon dry land and hurried as
best he might toward Hesse Darmstadt to
find Gretchen. That she might be dead
was fear that crossed his mind, but that
she might be married never occurred to
him. He had sent her information of his
intentions. He had toiled, drenched by
rain beaten by wind, pelted by hail, in
danger of shipwreck and assaiied by the
fever laden breezes Of southern lands, to
win the little pittance which seemed SO
great sum to him. He had done it for
the sake of her love. He boated it and
footed 1t homeward in an ecstasy of yearn-
ing, and the mermaid, who had followed
the vessel over the ocean, waited for it at
foreign ports and followed it back again,
made her way along the Rhine.
The baron's castle hung over the Rhine,
and the nursery wherein the baroness
watched over her baby looked out upon
the water. 1t was under this window
that the mermaid stopped, her fossy hair
all tangled, her eyelids heavy, her lutte I'M
strung. And Carl hurried down to the
cottage, where Gretchen's grandmother
dwelt, and rushed in and cried, for he
was SO brown and SO long bearded that
they did not know him:
II am Carl Steyer, come back to marry
Gretchen. Tell me where to find her."
But the old granddame answered:
"You can't be Carl, for he is drowned
and has had masses said for him. But even
If you were you have no business to call
the Baroness Won Claussen your Gretch-
en-"
"The baroness!" faltered Carl elbow
the baroness?'
"Aye!" said the old granddame. "She
married the Baron Won Claussen and has
as fine young baron as any one ever set
eyes on"
"Where is sheP" gasped Carl. "Il
believe no one but her."
''She Is where she ought to be, at the
castle" said the old woman. "But you'd
be mad to go there"
Perhaps Carl was mad, for he went. He
put aside porter and maid and page and
made his way to the room where Gretchen
sat singing to her babe, and she, seeing
him, forgot everything else and rushed to
meet him, and he took her in his arms,
and they wept. But soon he put her off
and asked her.
II thought you dead, she said.
Then great horror came upon her.
"Why did you Gomez" she cried. II
am wife. l had learned to love my hus-
band. Now there will be only you again."
And amid these words they heard clatter
of horse's hoofs and voice below bidding
the servant say if it were true that Carl
Steyer really were oloseted with their mis-
tress-the baron's voice.
"See!" cried Gretchen "See! He is
jealous! He will hate me. 1 must not
love you, for am WIFE cannot love
him, for he keeps me from you. Oh, cruel
to come back and seek me and bring me
such shame and sorrow"
"Cruel!" cried Carl "Ah, she calls me
cruel But see, Gretchen. am kinder
than you have been to me. The baron
shall not find me here. Tell him Carl
Steyers ghost came to you. You will
speak the truth, for shall be dead when
you utter the words. Forget me, since
that will make you happy. FAREWELL"
And as he spoke he pushed the lattice
open and jumped into the foaming waters
Of the Rhine.
The jealous baron rushed in the moment
after, but found his wife alone beside her
baby's cradle-alone, muttering and moan
ing Of the sea and Of Carl Steyer as she
muttered and moaned through all her
weary life.
But as for Carl Steyer, he did not drown.
The mermaid caught him in her arms as
he sank beneath the waters and bore him
away to her caves Of coral ard pearl,
where with her songs and her embraces,
she taught him to forget inconstant
Gretchen, the tolls Of the sea, the pleasures
of the land, his own soul and everything
but her.
So now, though the castle Of the Baron
Won Claussen Is ruin, and all the barons
of that name dead long ago, the peasants
often see fair, weeping phantom at its
site and see in the stream below another
fair as maiden Of the sea can be, who
bears in her white arms the most beauti-
full Of mankind, lulled into mystic sleep
by the magic Of her song. And they say
that 1t is the mermaid who followed Carl
Steyer across the ocean and now comes to
taunt and triumph over the phantom Of
Gretchen Baroness Won Claussen.
change.