In this respect he singularly resembles the Bohemian
charcoal-burner, who trembles at the thought of Ruebezahl, that malicious
goblin, who has an army of mountain-dwarfs and gnomes at his command. So
long as the sunlight inspires our Rat with confidence, however, he will
work at his coal-pit, while one comrade is away in the forest, snaring
game, and another has, perhaps, been dispatched to the precincts of
civilization with his wagon-load of coal. Yes! the Pine Rat sometimes
treads the streets of cities,--nay, even extends his wanderings to the
banks of the Delaware and the Hudson, to Philadelphia and Trenton,
to Jersey City and New York. Then, who so sharp as the grimy
tatterdemalion, who passes from street to street and from house to
house, with his swart and rickety wagon, and his jangling bell, the
discordant clangor of which, when we hear it, calls up horrible
recollections of the bells that froze our hearts in plague-stricken
cities of other lands, when doomed galley-slaves and _forcats_ wheeled
awful vehicles of putrefaction through the streets, clashing and
clinking their clamorous bells for more and still more corpses, and
foully jesting over the Death which they knew was already upon them! But
the long-drawn, monotonous, nasal cry of the charcoal-vender--who has
not heard it?--"Cha-r-coa'! Cha-r-coa'!"--is more cheerful than the
demoniac laughter of the desperate galley-slaves, and his bell sounds
musically when we hear it and think of theirs.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133