Wooing the Gallows
In the year 1594 the town-scribent of Nördlingen had an extraordinary visitor. A herculean lad of about twenty, unkempt and ragged, came to the court-room one morning, planted himself squarely before the scribent, and stared at him in silence.
Unto the gruffly put question, “What do you want?” he answered no less gruffly, “A rope!”
The town-scribent told him he had come to the wrong door, the rope-maker lived around the corner. But the fellow replied to the effect that he did not need the rope-maker, but the hangman; he wanted to be hanged. The town-scribent shivered, for he thought the stranger was crazy. He therefore called a vigorous servant before entering further into this extraordinary conversation.
The stranger now confessed himself to be a homeless tramp, called by his companions Jörg Muckenhuber, and his language being pieced together out of as many rags of dialect as his coat was of rags of cloth, there was no further certificate required to make it evident that he was at home everywhere and nowhere.
He then proceeded to relate briefly and coldly how several weeks ago he had murdered a travelling pedlar upon the precincts of Nördlingen, and also between Augsburg and Kaufbeuern a foreign Jew. Both the Jew and the pedlar gave him no peace at night, so he wanted to be hanged, and as the last murder had been perpetrated on the ground of Nördlingen, so the senate of that town could not refuse to hang him on the Nördlingen gallows.
The town-scribent swore furiously, and said it wasn’t every fool could have that for the asking, the town of Nördlingen had built its gallows for its own citizens and not for villainous vagrants; at the same time Muckenhuber was taken into custody, and the scribent presented the affair to the senate.
The senators put their heads together without coming to any definite conclusion as to whether the lad was a fool or a desperate villain. As it was customary, however, in those days to cast the insane into the same dungeon as thieves and murderers, Jörg Muckenhuber was put in safe keeping in the tower, and the business was getting under way in a most correct manner, whatever further details might be brought to light.
The executioner, the parson, and the barber, who went in turn to visit the prisoner and sound him each in his own way, declared with one voice that the fellow was rough and uncared for, but that his mind was very clear, and that there was no gainsaying him in his confession.
Meanwhile the news was scattered through town, and the good citizens had lively quarrels as to whether a person could be hanged upon the strength of his mere confession and urgent demand, even though there was no further proof of the deed of which he accused himself; for nowhere was there to be found a trace of the travelling pedlar and the murder perpetrated on him.
And when Muckenhuber was taken out, well guarded and followed by a curious crowd, to show them the exact spot where he had murdered the pedlar and buried his corpse, he managed to confuse and puzzle his judges by fine-spun evasions and equivocations, but there was no actual evidence of the crime to be found. The prisoner, however, clung with tenacity to his previous declaration, that he had murdered the pedlar upon the precincts of Nördlingen, and must therefore be hanged on the Nördlingen gallows.
Although German burghers of provincial towns were as well accustomed to highly-spiced criminal dramas in those days as they were to their daily bread, the sensation about this unusual case grew from day to day; especially was the reply of the Augsburg and Kaufbeuern magistrate anxiously looked forward to, to whom the acts had been submitted with a neighbourly request to have inquiries made concerning the murder said to have been perpetrated between those two towns upon a foreign Jew. But here too there was not a vestige of a Jew or a murder to be found.
But in the scrupulous proceedings of the sixteenth century, confession of crime was considered a proof by far superior to any other, and so the judges refused to be satisfied, the more so as the prisoner continued to bring forth reasons to explain the absence of all testimony.
It was deemed best to fall back upon that most unrelenting test of truth, the rack. How often had people who objected to being criminals been tortured into a confession; why should it not be possible to reverse the method and torture a man, who had set his mind on being a criminal, into a confession of his innocence?
But in the torturing-chamber the senate of Nördlingen got out of the frying-pan into the fire. For when the thumb-screws were applied Jörg Muckenhuber persisted in piping his old song, and when the effect was heightened by forcing him into the Spanish boots, he proceeded at once to add to his original offence by confessing a list of robberies, each of which alone would have brought him to the gallows. The inquisitor had also a ride upon the sharp-edged ass upon his programme, but fearing lest the invincible Jörg should add two or three cases of arson into the bargain he did not press the point, and the triumphant rogue was conducted back into his dungeon, while the senate was writhing in an agony of impotent rage.
To the more sagacious it became more and more evident that Jörg Muckenhuber was making game of the town authorities, but at the same time a joke of such ghastly grimness was unprecedented. Then too, no one could hit upon a possible motive why the churlish fellow should subject his neck to the rope and his limbs to the rack with an amount of courage and power of will that was worthy of a better cause. This seemed too much for the most vicious facetiousness. Moreover, not only the acknowledged crime but the whole person of this Muckenhuber seemed to have sprung up out of the ground over-night as it were. For his sudden appearance in Nördlingen was surrounded with as much mystery as his crime. There were some who confidentially affirmed that he was the devil, who was out for a lark and had chosen this method of twitting the whole of Nördlingen by the nose.
However, this did not help solve the difficult question of what was to be done with the vagabond.
Public opinion in those days generally inclined to the assumption that where the case was doubtful it was better to hang three innocent men than let one guilty one get away. And, moreover, Jörg Muckenhuber was guilty any way you might look at it. For if he had committed the murder in question then he deserved the gallows, and if he had not committed it, then he deserved the gallows more than ever, because by reason of his iniquity the senate of the town had made a confounded fool of itself. But as there was no unanimity in court in which of these two ways he had deserved the gallows, he was left for the present quietly in the dungeon.
It was not exactly attractive there. The cell was half above ground and half below, in a small tower, which upon three sides faced a swampy bog; there was no surplus of light, but a narrow little window let in a bit of chiaroscuro, which would have enabled one to distinguish a chair from a table on a sunny noon-day—that is, if there had been any such objects of luxury at hand. There was more pleasure to be derived from outside. Under the window the frogs sang in a varied and full chorus. At one side there was another dungeon, occupied by an old hag, who obstinately refused to confess to being a witch. Her so-called window also faced the bog, and when the two neighbours looked out of the window they could converse with facility, although it was without seeing each other, and no one excepting the frogs overheard their conferences.
Jörg had received the first intimation of his neighbour’s presence by hearing her pray aloud one day. It was no soft, humble prayer; it was passionate, almost as if the old woman were storming the Almighty with commands rather than petitions. Jörg had never learned to pray, and at first the devotions of the old woman struck him as very odd; gradually it came to look very grand to him that an old hag should venture to address herself to God with such vehemence, and he came to the conclusion she must be a giant in strength and able to hold her own against ten men.
He did not open the conversation, but waited until his neighbour should discover his proximity and address him. Even heroic women like to talk. Soon an intimacy sprang up between these two comrades in distress who had never seen each other. At first Jörg often interrupted his neighbour’s kind words with many a scornful and dogged remark, but she always answered him so mildly, and at the same time with so much quiet superiority, that Jörg’s insolence was soon tamed.
In the course of a few days Jörg knew the history of his neighbour by heart, but he obstinately kept silence about his own.
The old woman was the well-to-do, childless widow of an innkeeper. In her sixtieth year she had the misfortune to be accused of witchcraft. A wealthy witch is a rarity. But it so happened that during the last five years all ugly poor women had been burned up in Nördlingen, and as every witch was called upon to name accomplices, and as the zeal of the judges increased with each execution, at last it came to be the turn of young, handsome, and rich women as well. There were enough of these unfortunate women, but none was so unfortunate, and at the same time so heroic, as Maria Hollin. She had been in the rack fifty-eight times, and had confessed nothing. She was indeed, as Jörg had rightly judged from her prayer, able to hold her own against ten men. The judges were in despair; it was out of the question to acquit a person who had been tortured fifty-eight times, and it was equally so to condemn her without a confession.
Moreover, the rumour of her firmness had gone among the populace, and there was much sympathy with her, and a threatening murmur of displeasure against the much-feared judges. Up to now everything had gone smoothly and comfortably. Thirty-two women had been accused, put on the rack, convicted, and burned; not one of them had made any trouble. At the worst, the one or the other had to be left hanging with weights on her feet until the judges had had some refreshments. But when they came back from lunch the fullest confession had always rewarded them. And now, through the obstinacy of this woman, the smooth course of events had been most aggravatingly interrupted.
And then, too, there was that provoking affair with Muckenhuber.
The one would not confess her guilt, while they were hankering to condemn her; the other they would have been only too happy to let go, but even the rack was powerless to extract the confession of his innocence. The town-scribent thought if Jörg Muckenhuber were only a woman, then by a bold strategy he might be burned, as it were by mistake, instead of Maria Hollin, and she might be dismissed in his stead, so that each should have his heart’s desire, and the court should preserve its authority.
But the worst of all for the senate was the prospect of a diplomatic storm that was brewing at the horizon in the direction of Regensburg. Maria Hollin had well-to-do relatives at Ulm, and the magistrate of that town, convinced of her innocence, had applied for her release. But that did her little good. The town-scribent thought it would endanger the reputation of a court to put a person on the rack for fifty-eight times and then not even to have the satisfaction of singeing her a little, not to speak of burning. But the burghers of Ulm would not be silenced. At Regensburg there was an important Reichstag that year, and the Emperor, Rudolph II., was present in person. The ambassador from Ulm received orders from his town to intercede for the accused, and as he was not given a hearing he threatened to set the Emperor and the Reich against the law-court of Nördlingen.
The history of Maria Hollin made a deep impression upon Jörg Muckenhuber. Until now he had looked upon himself as a hero before his judges, but by the side of this true heroine he appeared to himself to be playing the part of a bad boy. Out of stubbornness and pride he had kept silent about his true history before his judges; before this woman he kept silent for shame. But finally he could not resist the firm, sympathetic voice of his invisible companion.
So he was tame at last, and began to confess his tale to the old woman. At first he asked her if she had ever seen a pair of fighting dogs that had locked teeth, and so held each other as in a vice, for all the cuffs they got to make them let go. He and his judge, he said, were like such dogs. From a child he had led a bold vagabond life; he had enjoyed all the pleasures of a restless, adventurous rover, and had suffered all the deprivations and distress and shame of such. He had never murdered or robbed, only taken along what he needed. He was tired of the whole business. Life was a burden to him, but to take his own life, and be found later in the water or in the woods like a beast, was not to his taste.
He had often heard death on the gallows lauded as the best, and when his companions spoke of their “heroes,” it was always of such persons as had reached the highest point of their career on the upper round of the ladder leading to the gallows.
To put a showy end to life, which had lost its attraction for him, Jörg went to Nördlingen, a town which was then notorious for its hasty justice.
Dame Hollin thereupon gave Jörg a most terrific lecture. To judge by the tone of her voice, he thought of her as standing in her dark cell like the angel with the flaming sword. For all that her sermon did not touch him specially. He was much more deeply contrite when in the silent night he compared her heroic courage and disdain of death with his own sorry tale, making his invincible obstinacy look like the caricature of her bravery. He admitted the justice of everything she said when with a firm hand she shook his conscience; but he did not admit the justice of what the others said. And when Dame Hollin condemned him it frightened him as much as damnation at the last judgment might; but before that day came he was determined to play his joke upon the senate of Nördlingen, and hang on their gallows.
Months passed. The two neighbours grew to be more and more to each other. The hardened witch succeeded in implanting a little bit of Christianity upon him, at least as much as could be crowded through the narrow-barred window. Jörg accepted her dogmas willingly enough, but would not let go of his own dogma, that he must be hanged on Nördlingen ground.
Jörg had locked teeth with the senate, but the senators had also locked teeth with each other because of this same Jörg.
Two parties formed and quarrelled so heartily that they quite forgot the object of their quarrel. One side, as before mentioned, wished to hang him because he had committed murder; the other, because he had not committed murder. Only the town-scribent constituted, in silence and all by himself, a third party of mediation. He wanted to let Jörg get away. For, he said to himself, if he had been put on the rack the first day, the truth would most likely have come to light; now it is too late. If we wait until both parties agree as to which offence Muckenhuber shall be hanged for, he may meanwhile die of old age in the tower. This would be a clear loss to the town, which supplies the vagabond with food and lodging all for nothing. The town-scribent further concluding with subtle psychological insight that Jörg would probably by this time be mellow and tired of the poor fare of prison, it seemed to him to be the best plan to leave the door open by accident, so that the fellow could run away.
So he gave orders to have the door of his cell left unbolted from time to time. Jörg noticed it, but did not stir; he was determined to be hanged on Nördlingen ground.
But when he told his neighbour of the growing carelessness of his gaoler, things took a new turn. With the knowledge of the open door, though it was not that of her cell, the mighty love of freedom awoke in Dame Hollin. “If I could get out!” she cried, “it would not be to escape; I should but go to come back—go to tell my friends at Ulm of the disgrace I have suffered, and come back with witnesses and testimonials of my innocence. I do not want freedom; I want my honour and reputation——!” She did not finish what she wanted to say, but Jörg understood her.
For some time he had been at work breaking through the thin partition between the two cells. His only tool was a small piece of iron, and the work progressed but slowly. After these words of Dame Hollin he worked day and night with the utmost exertion of his strength, and in the third night he could manage to crawl through the small hole.
There was no time to be lost. This same night Jörg’s door was left unbolted again, so there were a few hasty words of farewell spoken. Dame Hollin crept through into her neighbour’s cell. Thus Jörg, trembling from head to foot, threw his arms about the old woman’s knees, and, as if he wanted to throw the fulness of his obedience and gratitude into one word, he cried, “Mother!” and she passed her hands gently over his face, feeling his features in the darkness, and crying, “My poor, unhappy son!”
Dame Hollin hid in the house of a faithful friend, to escape to Ulm the next day. Jörg slipped over into the deserted cell, and when his gaoler came to the door in the morning to push in a dish of humble fare, he crouched down in a corner, wrapped in the cloak of the old woman, and when the man passed on to his cell, he slipped nimbly through the hole in the wall, and in the garb of Jörg Muckenhuber received his own ration. He kept this up for about a week with much skill and secret delight, if sorrow for the loss of his faithful comrade had not choked his pleasure.
But one day the door was opened wide enough to admit the town-scribent, together with the gaoler, the former ordering Dame Hollin to follow him to the court-room. Jörg played his rôle as long as he could, crouched down in terror in the darkest corners, and repelled his tormentors with silent gestures. But when the town-scribent cried reassuringly, “Woman, come boldly forth; I lead thee not to the rack, but to freedom,” then Muckenhuber forgot his mask, threw his cloak from his shoulders in impotent rage, started up indignantly and cried, with his clenched hands in his side, “You will do no such thing; I want to be hanged, and I won’t let you off!”
The town-scribent tore his hair in despair and rage when he perceived that the witch was gone and the vagabond was left. He had intended to conduct Dame Hollin to freedom, but it was to have been freedom under weighty conditions; and now she had disappeared without any conditions whatsoever. Jörg, however, who was to have disappeared and no questions asked, sat once more firmly upon the neck of the senate. “Fellow, there’s no putting an end to you!” cried the town-scribent, foaming at the mouth. But Muckenhuber replied coldly, “It is this I complain of, that you won’t even try!”
The senators poured bitter reproaches upon each other, at first in a low tone, then louder, until the storm grew, and there was a wild confusion of voices. Then the town-scribent silenced them all with his deep bass, and united the disputants with a word. He cried, “The cause of all this trouble is only Jörg Muckenhuber. Hang him at once if he does not recant his old confessions!” Jörg replied, “I do not recant!” and when the town-scribent asked him for the second time, “Now, I certainly shan’t recant,” and the third time...
There stood old Dame Hollin as if she had grown out of the ground, conducted by two of the most respectable burghers of Nördlingen and Ulm. She looked sharply at Muckenhuber, and said in a firm tone, “Jörg, you will recant your false confession!” The voice struck the insolent fellow like a peal of thunder. He was silent and lowered his eyes. There was no sound, one could hear the laboured breathings; then he spoke, “No other power on earth could have made me recant, but I cannot lie in the face of this woman;—I recant!”
Meanwhile the tumult of the populace without was increasing. The air was filled with wild threats, and with demands for the immediate release of Dame Hollin. The gentlemen saw that there was danger in delay. After a short, whispered debate the town-scribent read aloud the writ the old woman was to swear to. But Dame Hollin replied that she did not want mercy but demanded her right. The gentlemen of the senate made very wry faces and began to try persuasion, but they had learned ere this that there was little to be gained in that way with Dame Hollin.
After a moment’s thought, she said to her judges, “You have tried to make a bargain with me. Having done so, you are no longer my judges, and cannot give me my right. Well then, I too am ready to offer you a bargain. Release that wicked lad yonder, I will adopt him in child’s stead, and take him to Ulm with me, and see if I can do better by him than you have done. My property has lain dead while you kept me in the tower. You should refund the usury I have lost; instead of that give me this wicked lad. On this condition will I sign your writ.”
Already the populace clamoured outside the door. The senate would have had no choice, even though she had demanded much more than this.
As she signed the writ, she found a bill appendixed for her fare during the time of her custody. She returned the leaf with a courteous smile to the town-scribent, and as the rabble was knocking at the door he plucked the interesting supplement into bits as fast as possible, and strewed the pieces under the table.
Meanwhile the chains had been removed from Jörg; he looked about him as in a dream. Dame Hollin took his hand, and went to the door with him, where both were received by the gratified shouts of the shuffling crowd.
The old woman kept her word. In her house Jörg became an honest, valiant man, who in the Thirty Years’ War did great service to Ulm, the town of his adoption, and his name was never spoken but in honour and gratitude. But the witch’s counsel was forced to resign office, and after those five years of terror followed a better decade, during which law and justice reigned once more in the old Reichstadt.
W. H. Riehl.