A Peculiar Ghost Story by Johann Peter Hebel

Nothing much comes of shooting them

The Lonely Tower by Samuel Palmer (1868)

Last autumn, a strange gentleman passed through Schliengen, such a beautiful and honest place. He went uphill by foot, for the sake of the horses, and told a man from Crenzach the following story, which had happened to none other than himself.

Six months earlier, when the gentleman was traveling to Denmark, he comes late one evening to a village, where a small handsome castle stands nearby on a hill, and wants to spend the night there. The innkeeper says there’s no more room, someone’s to be executed tomorrow, and three executioners are lodging with him already. So the gentleman replies: “I want to stay in that little castle over there. The local despot, or whoever owns it, will let me in and have an empty bed for me.” The innkeeper says: “There’s many a fine bed with silk canopy available in the upper chambers; I have the keys in my safekeeping. But I advise against it. About three months ago, our gracious lord went on a long journey with his lady and squire, and from that time on ghosts have wreaked havoc in the little castle. The castellan and servants couldn’t stay; anyone who has entered has never gone in a second time.” The strange gentleman smiles at this, for he’s a hearty man, who doesn’t think much of ghosts, and he says: “I’ll give it a try.” Despite all argument, the landlord was obliged to give him the key; and after the gentleman had provided himself with all the necessities for a ghostly visitation, he went into the castle with a servant that he had with him. At the castle, he did not undress, did not prepare for sleep, but rather waited to see what would happen. He placed two burning candles at the end of the table, laid a pair of loaded pistols beside, and to while away the time, he took out The Rhineland Family Treasury, bound in gold paper, which hung on a red silk ribbon beneath a mirror frame, and contemplated its lovely pictures. For a long time, nothing was felt. But when midnight stirred in the church tower and the bell struck twelve, a storm cloud passed over the castle, and great raindrops beat against the window, and there was a loud knock at the door, three times, and a terrible figure, shaggy all over, with bared teeth, black squinting eyes, a goatee, and a nose half a foot long, entered the room, growling in a terrible voice: "I am the great lord Mephistopheles. Welcome to my palace! Say your goodbyes to wife and child!” A cold shiver ran through the foreign gentleman, from his big toe, over his shoulder, and into his nightcap; one shouldn't think about the poor servant at all. But as Mephistopheles approached him, grimacing terribly, with knees held high, as if he were marching through the sheer flames of Hell, the poor gentleman thought: “in God’s name, so that’s how it’s going to be,” and taking courage, he stood up, leveled a pistol at the monstrosity, and said: "Stop or I'll shoot!” Not every specter can be frightened like this, nothing much comes of shooting them, or else the bullet ricochets, hitting the shooter himself rather than the ghost. But Mephistopheles raised a threatening forefinger, slowly turned around, and walked away with the same high step as he had come in by. Once the gentleman saw that this Satan respected firearms, he thought: “There’s no longer any danger.” And taking a light in the other hand, he followed the specter, as it crept slowly down the corridor, matching its pace, while the servant bolted, as fast as he could, back to the village and sanctuary, thinking he would rather stay overnight with the executioners than with a ghost. – But suddenly, in the corridor, the specter vanished before the eyes of its bold pursuer, the same as if it had sunk directly through the floor. But as the gentleman went a few steps further, to see where the specter had gone, the ground suddenly vanished beneath his feet, and he fell through, a fiery glow approaching, and thought to himself: “Well, now I’m headed to that other place.” But after falling about ten feet, he landed undamaged, on a heap of hay in an underground vault. Six curious fellows were standing around a fire, and so was Mephistopheles. All sorts of wondrous devices lay about, and two tables were piled high with sparkling coins, each more beautiful than the last. Then the gentleman realized what was happening. For it was a secret society of counterfeiters, all of them flesh and blood like him. They had taken advantage of the master’s absence, had installed in his castle a press and die for coining, and had probably been among his own people, those who could give report and knew of the opportunity; and to make sure that they could go about their secret business untroubled and unnoticed, the counterfeiters began making their spectral commotion, and whoever came to the house was so terrified they never came back a second time. And now for the first time, the daring traveler found reason to regret his imprudence, and that he had not listened to the suggestions of the village innkeeper. For he was shoved through a narrow hole into another dark place, and heard well how they held tribunal over his fate, and said: "It will be for the best if we kill him." But someone else said: "We must interrogate him first, find out who he is, what’s his name and where he comes from.” And when they heard that he was a noble gentleman and was going to Copenhagen to see the king, they looked at each other with wide eyes; and after he was shoved back into the dark vault, they said: "Now things are bad. For if he’s missed, and the innkeeper finds out he went to the castle and never came back, then hussars will come overnight, flush us out, and hemp is a sure bet this year, cheap for the hangman’s noose.” So they announced a pardon for their prisoner, if he swore he would not betray them, and threatened that they would have him watched in Copenhagen; and with that oath, he had to tell them where he lived, saying, “By the Wild Man’s left hand, in the big house with the green shutters.” After that, they gave him Burgundy wine for a tonic, and he watched them mint coins until morning. But when the light of day shone down through holes in the cellar, and whips cracked in the street and the cowherds bellowed, the stranger said farewell to his nocturnal companions, thanked them for their good hospitality, and went back to the inn with a cheerful spirit, not remembering that he had left his watch, his tobacco pipe, and his pistols behind. The innkeeper said: "Thank God I'm seeing you again. I haven't been able to sleep all night. What happened?" But the traveler thought: “an oath’s an oath, and to save your life, you needn’t take the Lord’s name in vain, unless you want to lose it.” Therefore he said nothing, and since the bell tolled and the poor sinner was being led to his fate, everyone left. In Copenhagen, too, he kept his mouth clean by keeping it shut, and hardly thought about the matter himself. But a few weeks afterward, a parcel came to him by post, and inside were a set of new pistols of great value, inlaid with silver, a new gold watch set with precious diamonds, a Turkish tobacco pipe with a gold chain, and a silk tobacco pouch with gold embroidery, along with a brief letter inside. The letter read: "We are sending this to you for the shock you endured by us, and as a thanks for your discretion. It's all over now, and you can tell whoever you want.”  That’s why the gentleman told the story to the man from Crenzach, and it was that very same watch he pulled out on the hilltop, as the bells in Hertingen rang out the noon hour, to check whether the clock in Hertingen was accurate, and afterwards a French general offered him seventy-five gold doubloons for the watch, at the inn of Storken zu Basel. But he didn't give it up.

Johann Peter Hebel (1760 –1826) was a Protestant preacher, educator and theologian, a native of what is now southwestern Germany. His essays, poetry and short stories found acclaim with everyday readers as well as the literary elite, with Goethe and the Brothers Grimm among his admirers. He published his work using the popular, inexpensive medium of calendars and almanacs, and it is from a compilation of so-called “Kalendergeschichten” or calendar stories that this story is taken.