And now, much beloved reader, we must bid thee to gird thy loins, take thy staff in hand, and follow us up into the mountains. From the lowlands of the Bodensee, our tale now takes us over to the Helvetian Alps. There, the Säntis stretches out grandly into the blue air,--when he does not prefer to don his cloud-cap,--smilingly looking down into the depths below, where the towns of men, shrivel up to the size of ant-hills. All around him, there is a company of fine, stalwart fellows, made of the same metal, and there, they put their bold heads together, and jestingly blow misty veils into each other's faces. Over their glaciers and ravines, a mighty roaring and rustling is heard at times; and that, which they whispered to each other, respecting the ways and doings of mankind, had already a somewhat contemptuous tinge, a thousand years ago,--and since then, it has not become much better I fear.
About ten days after the monks of the Reichenau had found nothing but a heap of ashes instead of their prisoner, in the castle-dungeon, and had debated a good deal, whether the Devil had burnt him up at midnight, or whether he had escaped,--a man was walking up the hills, along the white foaming Sitter, over luxuriant meadow-lands, interspersed with rocks.
He wore a mantle made of wolves' skins over his monkish garb; a leathern pouch at his side, and he carried a spear in his right hand. Often, he pushed the iron point into the ground, and leaned on the butt end, using the weapon thus, as a mountain-stick.
Round about, there was perfect silence and solitude. Long stretches of mist were hovering over the wild valley, where the Sitter comes out of the Seealpsee; whilst at the side, a towering wall of rocks, fringed by scanty green plants, rose up towards heaven.
The mountain glens, which in the present days, are inhabited by a merry and numerous race of herdsmen, were then but scantily peopled. Only the cell of the Abbot of St. Gall stood there in the valley; surrounded by a few small, humble cottages.
After the bloody battle of Zulpich, a handful of liberty-loving Allemannic men, who could not learn to bend their necks to the Franconian yoke had settled down in that wilderness. Their descendants were still living there, in scattered, shingle-covered houses, and in summer they drove their herds up into the Alps. They were a race of strong and healthy mountaineers, who, untouched by the goings on in the world at large, enjoyed a simple free life, which they bequeathed to the following generations.
The path which was followed by our traveller, became steeper and rougher. He now stood before a steep overhanging wall of rocks. A heavy drop of water had fallen on his head from above; upon which he cast up a searching look, to see whether the grim canopy of stones, would yet delay falling down, till he had passed by. Rocky walls, however, luckily can remain longer in an oblique position, than any structure made by human hands; so nothing fell down, but a second drop.
Leaning with his left hand on the stone wall, the man continued his way, which, however, became narrower with every step he took. The dark precipice at his side came nearer and nearer; a giddy depth yawning up at him, ... and now all trace of a pathway ceased altogether. Two mighty pine-trunks were laid over the abyss, serving as a bridge.
"It must be done," said the man, boldly stepping over it. Heaving a deep sigh of relief, when his feet touched ground again on the other side, he turned round to inspect the dangerous passage, somewhat more at his leisure.
It was a narrow promontory, above and below which there was a steep, yellowish grey wall of rocks. In the depth below, scarcely visible, was the mountain-brook Sitter, like a silver band in the green valley, whilst the seagreen mirror of the Seealpsee, seemed to hide itself shyly between the dark fir-trees. Opposite, in their armour of ice and snow, there rose the host of mountain-giants; and the pen feels a shudder of delight pass through it, when called upon to write down their names. The long stretched bewildering Kamor; the tremendous walls of the Boghartenfirst; the Sigelsalp and Maarwiese, on whose battlements grows a luxurious vegetation, like moss on the roofs of old houses. Then, the mysterious keeper of the secret of the lake, the "old man," with his deeply furrowed stone-forehead, and hoary head,--the chancellor and bosom-friend of the mighty Säntis.
"Ye mountains and vales, praise the Lords!" exclaimed the wanderer, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the spectacle before him. Many hundreds of mountain-swallows fluttered out of the crevices between the rocks. Their appearance was like a good omen for the lonely traveller.
He made some steps onwards. There, the wall of rocks had many a fissure, and he saw a twofold cavern. A simple cross, made of rudely carved wood, stood beside it. Stems of fir-trees, heaped up on one side, and interlaced with branches of the same, in the manner of a blockhouse, bore witness to its being a human habitation. Not a sound interrupted the stillness around.
The stranger knelt down before the cross, and prayed there a long while.
It was Ekkehard,--and the place where he knelt, was the "Wildkirchlein."
He had reached the valley in safety on his stone horse, after Praxedis had freed him. The next morning found him weary and exhausted at the door of old Moengal, at Radolfszell.
"Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people and go from them!" said he in the words of the prophet, after he had told the parish-priest all that had happened to him.
Then, the old man pointed over towards the Säntis. "Thou art right," said Moengal. "The holy Gallus did the same. 'Into the wilderness will I go, and there shall I wait for Him, who will restore my soul's health.' Perhaps he would never have become a saint, if he had thought and acted differently. Try to conquer thy grief. When the eagle feels sick, and his eyes grow dim, then he rises heavenwards, as far as his wings will carry him. The nearness of the sun gives a new youth. Do thou the same. I know a bonny nook for thee to recover thy health in."
He then described the road to Ekkehard.
"Thou wilt find a man up there," continued he, "who has not seen much of the world for the last twenty years. His name is Gottshalk. Give him my greeting, and let us hope that God has forgiven him his trespasses."
The parish-priest did not say for what sin his old friend was doing penance up there. He had once been sent to Italy, when times were bad, to buy corn. When he came to Verona, he was well received by the quarrelsome bishop Ratherius, and he held his devotions in the venerable cathedral, where the remains of St. Anastasia lay unlocked in a golden shrine; and the church was deserted, and the Devil tempted Gottshalk to take a keepsake to Germany. So, he took as much of the saint's body as he could carry away under his habit; an arm, a foot and some spine-bones, and secretly departed with his spoil. But from that hour he had lost his inward peace. By day and night, the saint appeared to him in her torn and mutilated condition; walking with crutches and demanding back her arm and her foot. Over mountains and Alpine glens she followed him, and threateningly approached him even on the threshold of his own cloister. Then he threw away the stolen limbs, and fled half maddened to the heights of the Säntis; there, to expiate his heavy sin in the hermit's cell which he erected for himself.
For two days old Moengal secreted his young friend in his cell, and then he rowed him across the lake during the night-time. "Don't go back to thy convent," said he when they were about to part company, "lest their tittle-tattle should be the ruin of thee. Jeers and derision are worse than punishment. 'Tis true that thou deservest some lecturing; but that must be done for thee, by the fresh mountain-breezes, which are better entitled to set thee right again, than thy fellow-monks."
A spear and a wolf's skin were his parting gifts to Ekkehard.
Shyly and stealthily he continued his journey at night-time, and it was with bitterness of heart that like a stranger he passed his monastery, which still bore visible traces of the ravages of the Huns. Some windows were lighted up, and seemed to beckon to him; but he only hurried onwards the quicker. The Abbot's cell in the mountains, he also passed by, without entering. He did not wish to be recognized by anyone belonging to the monastery.
... His prayers were ended now. Wistfully he gazed at the entrance of the cavern, waiting for Gottshalk the hermit's coming out to welcome the visitor. But nobody appeared; the cavern was empty.
Sancta Anastasia ignosce raptori!Holy Anastasia, pardon thy ravisher! was written with juice from Alpine herbs on the bright-coloured rock. A stone trough caught up the water which came trickling through the crevices. It was so full that the water ran over.
Ekkehard entered the cell. Some earthen dishes stood beside an old stone-flag, which probably had served as a hearth. In a corner there lay a coarse fishing-net, as well as a hammer and spade; a rusty hatchet and a quantity of cut pine-logs.
On some wooden boards was a sort of couch, consisting of straw and dry leaves, which looked rotten and decayed. Two rats, frightened by Ekkehard's entrance, ran to hide in a crevice.
"Gottshalk," cried Ekkehard, using his hand like a speaking-trumpet. Then he uttered a sort of shout; such as is customary amongst the mountaineers in those parts; but nobody answered. In a jug, the milk it had once contained, had become a crusty substance. Mournfully Ekkehard stepped out again on the narrow strip of ground, which separated the cavern from the precipice.
Gazing over to the left, he could see a small bit of the blue Bodensee, coming out behind the mountains. All the magnificence of the Alpine world, however, could not banish a feeling of unutterable woe from his heart. Alone and God-forsaken he stood there on the solitary height. He strained his faculty of hearing to the utmost, in the hope of catching the sound of a human voice, but the low and monotonous moaning of the wind in the pine-wood below, was all that he heard.
His eyes became moist.
It was getting late. What now?... The cravings of hunger, drew off his attention for the moment. He still had provisions for three days with him. So he sat down before the cavern and took his evening meal; moistening his bread with the tears he could not restrain.
His mountain threw long, purple shadows on the opposite rocks, whose peaks only were still glowing in the sunshine.
"As long as the cross stands on yonder rock, I shall not be entirely forsaken," said he. He then collected some grass that grew outside and prepared himself a new couch, in the place of the old one. The cool evening air began to be felt. So he wrapped himself up in Moengal's mantle and lay down. Sleep is the best cure for the sufferings of youth, and in spite of heartache and loneliness, it soon closed Ekkehard's eyelids.
The first dawn of morning rose over the head of the Kamor, and only the morning-star was still shining brightly, when Ekkehard started up from his slumbers. It was as if he had heard the merry tones of a herdsman's shout, and on looking up, he saw a light shining out from the darkest recess of the cavern. He believed himself to be under the delusion of a dream; that he was still in his dungeon and that Praxedis was coming to free him. But the light came nearer and proved to be a torch of pine-wood. A young girl, with high looped-up petticoats, was carrying this primitive candle. He jumped up. Without showing either fear or surprise, she stood before him, and said: "God's welcome to you."
It was a bold, half wild looking maiden, with olive complexion and fiery sparkling eyes. Her dark abundant tresses were fastened behind by a massive silver pin, in the shape of a spoon. The braided basket on her back, and the Alpine stick in her right hand, marked her as being an inhabitant of the mountains.
"Holy Gallus, protect me from new temptation," thought Ekkehard; but she called out cheerfully. "Again I say, be welcome! My father will be very glad to hear that we have got a new mountain-brother. One can well see by the little milk which the cows give, that the old Gottshalk is dead,--he has said many a time."
It did not sound like the voice of a female demon.
Ekkehard was still sleepy and yawned.
"May God reward you!" ejaculated the maid.
"Why did you say, may God reward you?" asked he.
"Because you have not swallowed me up," laughed she, and before he could put any more queries, she ran away with her torch-light, and disappeared in the back of the cavern.
Presently she returned, however; followed by a grey-bearded herdsman, wrapped in a mantle made of lambs' skins.
"Father will not believe it!" cried she.
The herdsman now took a deliberate survey of Ekkehard. He was a hale and hardy man; who in the days of his youth, could threw a stone of a hundred weight above twenty paces, without losing an inch of his ground. His tanned face and his bare sinewy arms, were signs of his not yet having lost much of his strength.
"So you are going to be our new mountain-brother?" said he, good-naturedly extending his hand. "Well, that's right!"
"Ekkehard was a little embarrassed at the strangeness of the apparition.
"I intended to pay a visit to Brother Gottshalk," said he.
"Zounds! there you are too late," said the herdsman. "He lost his life last autumn. 'Twas a grievous affair. Look there!"--pointing to a wall of rocks in the depth below--"on yonder slope he went to gather dry leaves; I was there myself to help him. Suddenly, he started up, as if he had been bitten by a snake, and pointing over at the Hohenkasten, he cried: 'holy Anastasia, thou art made whole again, and standest on both feet, and beckonest to me with both thy arms!' ... and down he jumped, as if there had been no abyss between the rock he stood on and the Hohenkasten. With a 'kyrie eleison!' he went down into the frightful depth.--May God be merciful to his soul! It was only this spring that we found the body, wedged in between the rocks; and the vultures had carried off one arm and one leg, nobody knows whereto."
"Don't frighten him!" said the maiden, giving her father a nudge.
"You can remain here notwithstanding that, all the same," continued he, "You shall get all that we gave to Gottshalk; milk and cheese, and three goats which may graze wherever they like. And if that won't satisfy you, you can ask for more, for we are no niggards and misers up here. In return, you will preach us a sermon each Sunday, and pronounce a blessing over meadows and pasture-grounds, so that storms and avalanches will cause no harm. Further, you have to ring the bell, to announce the hours."
Ekkehard cast a doubtful look into the spacious cavern. It was a delicious feeling for him, to know that there were human beings close at hand: but he could not make out whence they came.
"Are your pasture-lands in the depths of the mountains?" asked he with a smile.
"He does not know where the Ebenalp is!" exclaimed the young girl compassionately. "I will show it you."
Her chip of pine-wood was still burning. She turned round to the back part of the cavern; the men following on her heels. So they went through a dark and narrow passage, into the interior of the mountain; fragments of stones were lying across the path. Often they had to bend down their heads, to be able to proceed. Faint, reddish gleams of light played on the projecting edges of the walls, and soon the flaring daylight appeared. The young girl struck her chip against the strangely formed stalactites, which hung down from the roof, so that it went out. A few steps more, and they stood on a wide and delicious Alpine tract.
Innumerable flowers were exhaling their sweet fragrance. Veronicas, orchises and lovely blue gentians, grew there in great profusion; and the Apollo, the magnificent butterfly of the Alps, with its shining red eyes on its wings, was hovering over the luxuriant petals.
After the oppressive darkness and narrowness of the cavern, a magnificent and extensive panorama, was doubly grateful to the eye.
The early morning mists were as yet lying in heavy and compact masses over the valley, looking like some mighty sea, which in the very moment, when its foam-crested billows were rising up, had been changed into stone. With clear, sharp outlines the mountain-peaks stood out against the blue sky,--like giant isles rising out of the sea of mists. The Bodensee too, was covered up with vapoury clouds, and the rows of the far off Rhetian mountains, with their craggy pinnacles were just visible through the soft haze surrounding them. The melodious tinkling of the cow-bells, was the only sound that broke the silence of that early morning hour. In Ekkehard's soul there rose a proud and yet humble prayer.
"You are going to stay with us," said the old herdsman. "I can tell so by the expression of your eyes."
"I am a homeless wanderer, whom the Abbot has not sent out hither," said Ekkehard sadly.
"That's all the same to us," replied the other. "If but we, and the old Säntis over there, are satisfied, then nobody else need be asked. The Abbot's sovereignty does not extend here. We pay him our tithes, when his stewards come here to look at our cottages, on the day when the milk is examined, because it is an old custom; but except that, we have an old proverb which says 'his fields and grounds I do not till, nor do I bow before his will.'"
"Look there!" pointing out a grey mountain-peak, which in solitary grandeur rose from far-stretching ice-fields,--"that is the high Säntis, who is the Lord and master of the mountains. We take off our hats to him, but to nobody else. There, to the right is the 'blue snow,' where in times long ago, there were meadows and pasture-grounds enough; but a proud and overbearing man lived there, who was a giant, and whose pride increased with his flocks, so that he said: 'I will be king over all, that my eyes survey.' But in the depths of the Säntis, there arose a roaring and trembling; and the ground opened and emitted floods of ice, which covered up the giant, his cottage, herds and meadows; and from the eternal snow which lies there, cold chilling winds blow down, to remind one, that besides the lord of the mountains, nobody is meant to reign here!"
The herdsman inspired Ekkehard with confidence. Independant strength, as well as a kindly heart could be perceived in his words. His daughter, meanwhile, had gathered a nosegay of Alpine roses, which she held out to Ekkehard.
"What is thy name?" asked he.
"Benedicta."
"That is a good name," said Ekkehard, fastening the Alpine roses to his girdle. "Yes, I will remain with you."
Upon this the old man shook his right hand, so as to make him wince, and then, seizing the Alpine horn which hung suspended on a strap at his side, he blew a peculiar signal.
From all sides, answering notes were heard, and soon the neighbouring herdsmen all came over; strong, wild-looking men, and assembled round the old man; whom,--on account of his good qualities,--they had elected master of the Alps, and inspector of the meadows on the Ebenalp.
"We have got a new mountain-brother," said he. "I suppose that none of you will object?"
After this address they all lifted their hands, in sign of approval, and then stepping up to Ekkehard, they bade him welcome; and his heart was touched and he made the sign of the cross over them.
Thus Ekkehard became hermit of the Wildkirchlein, scarcely knowing how it had all come about. The master of the Ebenalp kept his word, and did his best to make him comfortable. The three goats were lodged in the side-cavern. Then, he also showed him an intricate hidden path between the rocks, which led down to the Seealpsee, which contained plenty of fine trout. Further, he put some new shingles into the gaps of the roof, that wind and weather had caused in Gottshalk's blockhouse. By degrees, Ekkehard accustomed himself to the narrow confinement of his new domicile, and on the following Sunday he carried the wooden cross into the foreground of the cavern; adorned it with a wreath of newly gathered flowers, and rang the bell which had hung at the entrance ever since Gottshalk's time, and which bore the mark of Sancho, the wicked bell-founder at St. Gall. When his herdsmen, with their families of boys and girls were all assembled, he preached them a sermon on the transfiguration, and told them how everyone who ascended the mountain-heights with the right spirit, in a certain sense of the word, became transfigured also.
"And though Moses and Elijah may not come down to us," he cried, "have we not the Säntis and the Kamor standing beside us?--and they also are men of an old covenant, and it is good for us to be with them!"
His words were great and bold; and he himself wondered at them, for they were almost heretical, and he had never read such a simile in any of the churchfathers before. But the herdsmen were satisfied, and the mountains also; and there was nobody to contradict him.
At noon, Benedicta, the herdsman's daughter came up. A silver chain adorned her Sunday bodice, which encircled her bosom like a coat of mail. She brought a neat milking-pail; made of ashwood, on which, in simple outlines, a cow was carved.
"This, my father sends you," said she, "because you have preached so finely, and have spoken well of our mountains,--and if anybody should try to harm you, you are to remember that the Ebenalp is near."
She threw some handsful of hazel-nuts into the pail. "These, I have gathered for you," added she, "and if you like them, I know where to find more."
Before Ekkehard could offer his thanks, she had disappeared in the subterranean passage.
"Dark-brown are the hazel-nuts,And brown like they, am IAnd he who would my lover be,Must be the same as I!"
"Dark-brown are the hazel-nuts,And brown like they, am IAnd he who would my lover be,Must be the same as I!"
she sang archly, whilst going away.
A melancholy smile rose to Ekkehard's lips.
The tempest in his heart had not yet been quite appeased. Faint murmurs were yet reverberating within; like the thunderclaps of an Alpine storm, which are repeated by innumerable echoes from the mountains.
A huge, flat piece of rock had fallen down beside his cavern. Melting snow had undermined it in the spring. It resembled a grave-stone, and he christened it inwardly, the grave of his love. There he often sat. Sometimes, he fancied the Duchess and himself lying under it; sleeping the calm sleep of the dead; and he sat down on it, and looked over the pine-clad mountains far away towards the Bodensee,--dreaming. It was not well that he could see the lake from his cell, as the sight called up continual painful recollections. Often, his heart was brimful with bitter, angry pain; often again he would strain his eyes in the direction of the Untersee of an evening, and whisper soft messages to the passing winds. For whom were they meant?
His dreams at night were generally wild and confused. He would find himself in the castle-chapel, and the everlasting lamp was rocking over the Duchess's head as it did then; but when he rushed towards her, she had the face of the woman of the wood, and grinned at him scoffingly. When he awoke from his uneasy slumbers in the early morning, his heart would often beat wildly, and the words of Dame Hadwig, "oh, schoolmaster, why didst thou not become a warrior?" persecuted him, till the sun had risen high in the sky, or the appearance of Benedicta would banish them.
Often again, he would throw himself down on the short, soft grass on the slope, and ponder over the last months of his life. In the pure, keen Alpine air, figures and events assumed clearer and more objective outlines before his inward eye, and he was tormented by the thought that he had behaved shyly and foolishly, and had not even succeeded in fulfilling his task by telling a story like Praxedis and Master Spazzo.
"Ekkehard thou hast made thyself ridiculous," muttered he to himself; and then he felt, as if he must break his head against the rocks.
A melancholy mind broods long over a wrong it has undergone; quite forgetting that a blameworthy action is only blotted out in the memory of others, by better ones following.
Therefore, Ekkehard was as yet not ripe for the healing delights of solitude. The ever-present recollection of past suffering had a strange effect on him. Whenever he sat all alone in his silent cavern, he fancied he heard voices that mockingly talked to him of foolish hopes, and the deceits of this world. The flight, and calls of the birds in the air, seemed to him the shrieks of demons, and all his praying would avail nothing against these fantastic delusions.
When the terrors of the wilderness have once taken hold of a mind, eye and ear are easily deceived and apt to believe all the old legends and tales, which assert that the air, as well as water and earth, is inhabited by legions of immortal spirits.
It was a soft, fragrant midsummer night. Ekkehard was just about to lay himself down on his simple couch, when the moon-beams fell right into the cavern. Two white clouds were sailing along the sky, one behind the other, and he overheard how they were talking together. One of them was Dame Hadwig, and the other Praxedis.
"I should really like to see, what the asylum of a wandering fool looks like," said the first white cloud, and swiftly hurrying down the steep rocky walls, she stood still on the Kamor, right opposite the cavern, and then floating down to the fir-trees which grew in great numbers in the valley below, she cried out: "It is he! Go and seize the blasphemer."
Then, the fir-trees sprang into life and became monks; thousands and thousands, and chaunting psalms and swinging rods in their hands, they began to climb up the rock towards the Wildkirchlein.
Trembling with terror, Ekkehard jumped up and seized his spear,--but now it was as if a host of will-o'-the-wisps, started out from the recesses of the cavern. "Away with you, out from the Alps!" cried they threateningly. All his pulses throbbed in the heat of fever, and so he ran away over the narrow path, along the frightful precipice, into the dark night, like a madman.
The second cloud was still standing beside the moon: "I cannot help thee," said she with Praxedis's voice, "I do not know the way."
Downhill he ran, as fast as his feet would carry him. Life had become a mere torture to him, and yet he caught hold of projecting parts of the rocks, and used his spear as a staff, not to fall down and thus get into the hands of the approaching spectres.
The nightly descent from the Hohentwiel was mere child's play, compared to this. Unconscious of all danger, he darted past precipices, and at last came down to level ground, beside the lake. The goats often fell down there, when they turned their eyes away from the grass, and gazed into the neck-breaking depth below.
At last he stood still beside the mysteriously beckoning, green Seealpsee, over which the silvery moon-beams danced and trembled. The rotten trunks, lying about on the shores, gave forth a spectral light. Ekkehard's eyes grew dim and filmy.
"Take me into thy arms," cried he, "for my heart is panting for rest."
He ran into the cool, silent flood, but his feet still touched ground, and the cooling waters of the mountain-lake, sent a delicious freshness through his feverish limbs. The water already reached to his breast, when he stopped and looked up confusedly. The white clouds had disappeared; the moon-beams having dissolved them into transparent vapours. Magnificently, and yet sadly withal, the stars were glittering high over his head.
In bold, fantastic lines the Möglisalp stretched out its grass-covered horns towards the moon. On its left, stood calm and serious, the furrowed head of the "old man" and to the right, towering above its double belt of glaciers, the stern, grey pyramid of the Säntis, surrounded by innumerable crags and pinnacles; looking like dark spectres of night.
Then, Ekkehard knelt down on the pebbly ground of the lake, so that the waters closed over his head, and rising again after a while, he stood there immovably with lifted arms, as if he were praying.
The moon now sank down behind the Säntis; a bluish light trembled over the old snow of the glaciers. A rocking pain darted through Ekkehard's brain. The mountains around him, began to rock and dance; a wailing sound streamed through the pine-woods, and the lake rose and stirred, and its waves were alive with thousands and thousands of black tadpoles....
But in soft, dewy beauty, the figure of a woman rose from the waters, and floated up to the top of the Möglisalp. There, she sat on the soft velvety grass, and shook the water from her long streaming tresses, and made herself a wreath of Alpine flowers.
In the depths of the mountains there arose a growling and trembling. The Säntis stretched himself out to his full height, and so did the old man to his right. Like gigantic Titans of old, they stormed at each other. The Säntis seized his rocks, and threw them over, and the old man tore off his head and flung it at the pyramid of the Säntis. Now the Säntis stood on the right side, and the old man was flying before him to the left;--but the lady of the lake, looked on in smiling composure, and from her mountain-peak, she mocked the stone combatants. And she shook her yellow curls, out of which there fell down a pearly waterfall; and it flowed down wilder and wilder, till it whirled the maiden with the liquid eyes, back into the lake.
Upon this, the uproar and strife ceased suddenly. The old man took up his head; put it on again, and singing a sad, mournful strain, he returned to his old place. And the Säntis likewise had resumed his post, and his glaciers were glittering calmly as before.
... When Ekkehard awoke the next morning, he lay in his cavern, shaken with feverish cold. His knees felt as if they were broken.
The sun stood at his zenith, when Benedicta flitted past the cavern, and saw him lying there trembling, and wrapped in his wolf's skin mantle. His habit hung heavy and dripping over a piece of rock.
"When you again are going to fish for trout in the Seealpsee," said she, "you had better let me know, so that I can lead you. The goat-boy who met you before sunrise, told us that you had staggered up the hill like a man walking in his sleep."
She went and rang the midday bell for him.
For six days Ekkehard was ill. The herdsmen nursed him, and a decoction of the blue gentian took away the fever. The Alpine air too, helped his recovery. A great shock had been necessary to restore his bodily as well as mental equilibrium. Now he was all right again, and heard neither voices, nor saw phantoms. A delicious feeling of repose and recovering health ran through his veins. It was that state of indolent, pleasant weakness, so beneficial to persons recovering from melancholy. His thoughts were serious, but had no longer any bitterness about them.
"I have learnt something from the mountains," said he to himself. "Storming and raging will avail nothing, though the most enchanting of maidens were sitting before us; but we must become hard and stony outside like the Säntis, and put a cooling armour of ice round the heart; and sable night herself must scarcely know, how it burns and glows within."
By degrees, all the sufferings of the past months, were shrouded and seen through a soft haze. He could think of the Duchess and all that had happened on the Hohentwiel, without giving himself a heartache. And such is the influence of all grand and beautiful nature, that it not only delights and softens the heart of the looker-on, but that it widens the mind in general, and conjures back the days, which have long since, become part and parcel of the inexorable Past.
Ekkehard, had never before cast a retrospective glance on the days of his youth, but he now loved to fly there in his thoughts, as if it had been a paradise, out of which the storm of life had driven him. He had spent several years in the cloister-school at Lorsch on the Rhine. In those days he had no idea what heart-and-soul-consuming fire could be hidden in a woman's dark eyes. Then, the old parchments were his world.
One figure out of that time had, however, been faithfully kept in his heart's memory; and that was Brother Conrad of Alzey. On him, who was his senior by but a few years, Ekkehard had lavished the affection of a first friendship. Their roads in life afterwards became different; and the days of Lorsch had been forced into the background, by later events. But now, they rose warm and glowing in his thoughts, like some dark hill on a plain, when the morning-sun has cast his first rays on it.
It is with the human mind as with the crust of this old earth of ours. On the alluvion of childhood, new strata heap themselves up, in stormy haste; rocks, ridges and high mountains, which strive to reach up to heaven itself, and the ground on which they stand, is forgotten and covered with ruins.--But like as the stern peaks of the Alps, longingly look down into the valleys, and often, overwhelmed by homesickness, plunge down into the depths from which they rose,--in the same way, memory loves to go back to youth, and digs for the treasures which were left thoughtlessly behind, beside the worthless stones.
So Ekkehard's thoughts now recurred often to his faithful companion. Once more he stood beside him, in the arched pillar-supported hall, and prayed with him beside the mausoleums of the old kings, and the stone coffin of the blind Duke Thassilo. With him, he walked through the shady lanes of the cloister-garden, listening to his words;--and all that Conrad had spoken then, was good and noble, for he looked at the world with a poet's eye, and it was as if flowers must spring up on his way, and birds carol gaily, when his lips opened to utter words, sweeter than honey.
"Look over yonder!" Conrad had once said to his young friend, when they were looking down, over the land, from the parapet of the garden. "There, where the mounds of white sand rise from the green fields, there was once the bed of the river Neckar. Thus, the traces of past generations, run through the fields of their descendants, and 'tis well if these pay them some attention. Here, on the shores of the Rhine, we stand on hallowed ground, and it were time that we set to collecting that, which has grown on it, before the tedious trivium and quadrivium, has killed our appreciation of it."
In the merry holiday-time, Conrad and he had wandered through the Odenwald, where, in a valley, hidden by green drooping birch-trees, they had come to a well. Out of this they drank, and Conrad had said: "bow down thy head, for this is the grove of the dead, and Hagen's beech-tree and Siegfried's well. Here the best of heroes received his death-wound from the spear of the grim Hagen, which entered his back, so that the flowers around were bedewed with the red blood. Yonder, on the Sedelhof, Chriemhildis mourned for her slain husband, until the messengers of the Hunnic king, came to demand the hand of the young widow." And he told him all about the princely castle at Worms, and the treasure of the Nibelungen, and the revenge of Chriemhildis, and Ekkehard listened with sparkling eager eyes.
"Give me thy hand!" he cried, when all was over, to his young friend. "When we have become men, well versed in poetry, then we will erect a monument to the legends of the Rhine. My heart is even now brimful with the material for a mighty song of the prowess of heroes, perils, death and vengeance, and I likewise know the art of the horny Siegfried, how he made himself invulnerable; for though there are no more any dragons to be slain in whose blood one could bathe, everyone, who with a pure heart breathes the mountain air, and bathes his brow in the morning dew, is gifted with the same knowledge. He can hear what the birds are singing in the trees, and what the winds tell of old legends, and he becomes strong and powerful; and if his heart is in the right place, he will write it down for the benefit of others."
Ekkehard had listened with an amazed, half fearful surprise at the other's dashing boldness, and had said at last: "My head is getting quite dizzy, when I listen to thee, and how thou intendest to become another Homerus."
And Conrad had smilingly replied: "Nobody will dare to chant another Iliad after Homer, but the song of the Nibelungen has not yet been sung, and my arm is young and my courage undaunted, and who knows what the course of time may bring."
Another time they were walking together on the shores of the Rhine, and the sun, coming over the Wasgau mountains, was mirrored in the waves, when Conrad said: "For thee I also know a song, which is simple and not too wild, so that it will suit thy disposition; which prefers the notes of a bugle, to the roar of thunder. Look up! Just as to-day, the towers of Worms shone and glistened in the sun, when the hero Waltari of Aquitania, flying from the Hunnic bondage came to Franconia. Here, the ferry-man rowed him over, with his sweetheart and his golden treasure. Through yonder dark, bluish looking wood he then rode, and there was a fighting and tilting, a rattling and clashing of swords and spears, when the knights of Worms, who had gone out in his pursuit, attacked him. But his love and a good conscience made Waltari strong, so that he held out against them all, even against King Gunther and the grim Hagen."
Conrad then told him the whole legend with its details. "Around all large trees," he concluded, "wild, young sprouts shoot up in abundance; and so round the trunk of the Nibelungen a whole thicket has sprung up, out of which he who has got the talent can build up something. Couldst thou not sing the Waltari?"
But Ekkehard preferred at that time to throw pebbles, making them skim the water, and he only took in, half the meaning of that which his friend had said. He was a devoted cloister-pupil, and his thoughts were as yet contented with the tasks which fell to his daily share. Time separated the two friends, and Conrad had to fly from the cloister-school, because he had once said that the logic of Aristotle was mere straw. So he had gone out into the wide world, nobody knew whither; and Ekkehard came to St. Gall pursuing his studies assiduously. There, he had grown into a learned and sensible young man, deemed fit to become a professor; and he sometimes thought of Conrad of Alzey with something akin to pity.
But a good seed-corn may for a long time lie hidden in a human heart, and yet at last germinate and bud, like the wheat from Egypt's mummy-graves.
That Ekkehard now delighted in dwelling on these recollections, was a proof that he had undergone a considerable change. And this was well. The caprices of the Duchess, and the unconscious grace of Praxedis, had refined his shy and awkward manners. The time of stirring excitement he had gone through during the invasion of the Huns, had given a bolder flight to his aspirations and had taught him to despise the paltry intrigues of petty ambition. Then, his heart received a mortal wound, which had to be struggled with and overcome; and so, the cloister-scholar, in spite of cowl and tonsure, had arrived at a happy state of transition, in which the monk was about to become a poet, and walked about like a serpent which has assumed a new covering, and only watches for an opportunity to strip off its shabby old coat against some hedge or tree.
Daily and hourly, when contemplating the ever-beautiful peaks of his mountains, and breathing the pure, fragrant Alpine air, it appeared a constant riddle to him, how he could ever have thought to find happiness in reading and poring over yellow parchment-leaves, and how he then almost lost his reason on account of a proud woman. "Let all perish which has not strength to live," said he to himself, "and build up a new world for thyself; but build it inwardly; large, proud and wide,--and let the dead Past bury its dead!"
He was already walking about again quite cheerfully in his hermitage, when one evening after he had rung the vesper-bell, the master of the Ebenalp came to him, carrying something carefully in a handkerchief. "God's blessing be with you, mountain-brother," said he. "Well, you have had a good shaking-fit, and I came to bring you something as an after-cure. But I see that your cheeks are red and your eyes bright, so it has become unnecessary."
He opened his handkerchief, and displayed a lively ant-hill,--old and young ants with a quantity of dry fir-leaves. He shook the industrious little creatures down the hill-side.
"If you had not been well, you would have had to sleep on that to-night," said he with a laugh. "That takes away the last trace of fever!"
"The illness is past," said Ekkehard, "Many thanks for the medicine!"
"You had better provide yourself against the cold, however," said the herdsman, "for a black cloud is hanging over the Brülltobel, and the toads are coming out of their holes; a sure sign that the weather is about to change."
On the next morning all the peaks shone out in a dazzling white cover. A great deal of snow had fallen. Yet it was still much too early for the beginning of winter. The sun rose brightly, and tormented the snow with his rays, so as to make it almost repent having fallen.
When Ekkehard that evening was sitting before his pine-wood torch, he heard a thundering noise, as if the mountains were toppling over. He started, and put his hand up to his forehead, fearing that the fever was coming back.
This time, however, it was no fancy of a sick brain. A hollow echo boomed forth from the other side, rolling through the glens of the Sigelsalp, and Maarwiese. Then, there followed a sound like the breaking of mighty trees,--a clattering fall, and all was silent again. Only a low, plaintive hum, could be heard all the night, coming up from the valley.
Ekkehard did not sleep; yet, since his experiences on the Seealpsee, he did not quite trust the evidence of his senses. In the early morning he went up to the Ebenalp. Benedicta stood before their cottage door and greeted him with a snow-ball. The herdsman laughed when questioned about the nightly disturbance.
"That music you will hear often enough," said he. "An avalanche has fallen down into the valley."
"And the humming?"
"That I suppose to have been your own snoring."
"But I did not sleep," said Ekkehard.
So they went down with him and listened. It was like a distant moaning coming up from the snow.
"If Pater Lucius of Quaradaves were still living," said Benedicta, "I should believe it to be him; as he had such a soft bear-like voice."
"Hush, thou wild bumble-bee!" cried her father. Then, they went to fetch shovels and Alpine sticks, the old man likewise taking his hatchet, and accompanied by Ekkehard, they followed the traces of the avalanche. It had fallen down from the Aesher, over earth and rock; breaking the low fir-trees like straw. Three mighty tors, looking down into the valley like sentinels, stopped the fall. There, the snow had angrily heaped itself up, only a small part had fallen over. The chief bulk, broken to pieces by the violence of the encounter, lay about in fantastic masses. The herdsman stooped down, to place his ear on the snow; then he advanced a few paces, and thrusting his mountain-stick in, he cried: "here we must dig!"
And they shovelled up the snow for a considerable while, and dug a regular shaft, so that the snow-walls on both sides, rose high over their heads. They had often to breathe on and rub their hands during their cold work. Suddenly the herdsman uttered a shout of delight, echoed by Ekkehard, for now a black spot had become visible. The old man ran to fetch the hatchet; a few shovelsful more, and a shaggy object arose heavily, and, snorting and grunting, stretched out its forepaws, as if trying to shake off sleep; and finally it slowly mounted one of the tors, and sat down.
It was a huge she-bear, who, on a nightly fishing-expedition to the Seealpsee, had been buried alive with her spouse. The latter, however, gave no sign of life. He had been stifled by her side, and lay there in the quiet sleep of death. Around his snout there was yet a half angry, half defiant expression; as if he had left this life with a curse on the early snow.
The herdsman wanted to attack the she-bear with his hatchet, but Ekkehard restrained him, saying: "Let her live! One, will be enough for us!"
Then, they drew the bear out, and together could hardly carry him. The she-bear sat on her rock, gazing down mournfully, and uttering a plaintive growl, she cast a tearful look on Ekkehard, as if she had understood his interference in her behalf. Then, she came down slowly, but not as if with hostile intentions. The men meanwhile had made a sling, with some twisted fir-branches, in which to drag their booty along. They both stepped back, hatchet and spear in hand, but the bear-widow bent down over her dead spouse, bit off his right ear and ate it up, as a memorial of the happy Past. After this, she approached Ekkehard walking on her hind-legs, who, being frightened at the prospect of a possible embrace, made the sign of the cross, and pronounced St. Gallus's conjuration against bears: "Go out and take thyself away from this our valley, thou monster of the wood. Mountains and Alpine glens be thy realm; but leave us in peace, as well as the herds of this Alm."
The she-bear had stopped, with a bitter melancholy look in her eyes, as if she felt hurt at this disdain of her friendly feelings. She dropped down on her fore-legs, and turning her back on the man who had thus banished her, walked away on all fours. Twice she looked back, before entirely disappearing from their sight.
"Such a beast, has the intelligence of a dozen men, and can read a person's will, in his eyes," said the herdsman. "Else, I should think you a saint, whom the inhabitants of the wilderness obey."
Weighing the paws of the dead bear in his hand, he continued: "Hurrah! that will be a repast. These we will eat together next Sunday, with a dainty salad, made of Alpine herbs. The meat will be ample provision for us through the winter, and for the skin we will cast lots."
Whilst they were dragging the victim of the avalanche up to the Wildkirchlein, Benedicta sang: