As Wally went back across the bridge, she turned giddy; she felt now for the first time how the blood had mounted to her head. The milder air down here that felt heavy and oppressive after the clear, icy atmosphere of the Ferner, the bird that clung tightly to her shoulder as her rapid movements made his hold insecure--all seemed painful, almost unbearable. At last she came to the village where her home stood, but to reach it she was obliged to go the whole length of the street, to the very last house. All the villagers, who had just finished their dinners, put their heads out of window and pointed at her with their fingers. "See, there goes the Vulture-maiden. Hast ventured down at last, then? And thou's brought the vulture back with thee, thou and he were not frozen together, then? Thy father left thee to shiver up there long enough!" "Let's see, now, how thou'rt looking? As brown and lean as a Schnalser herdsman." "He! he! thou's grown tame enough up yonder; yes, yes, that's the way to serve such as will not obey their father!"
A shower of spiteful comments such as these fell around Wally; she kept her eyes bent on the ground, and the burning red of shame and bitterness mounted to her brow. Insulted--scoffed at--thus the proud daughter of the chief peasant returned to her home. And all--for what? An implacable hatred rose up in her, sorer, bitterer than anger; for anger may subside, but the deep hatred that grows in an embittered, ill-treated heart strikes its roots through the whole being; it is the silent, persistent outcome of helpless revenge.
Silently Wally mounted the hill behind the hamlet whence Stromminger's farm looked proudly down. No one noticed her arrival but the deaf Klettenmaier, who was splitting wood for winter-use under the wooden shed in the yard; all the others were in the field.
"God be praised," he said, and took off his cap to his master's child. She set down her burden, the heavy vulture, on the ground, and gave her hand to the old man.
"Thou's heard?" he said. "Old Luckard?"
Wally nodded.
"Ay! ay!" he continued without interrupting his work. "If Vincenz once takes a dislike to any one he never rests till he's driven them out. He'd be glad enough to see me off the place, for he knows very well I always held by Luckard, and he thinks that if no one was left at the farm to help thee, thou dursn't be so wilful. And because there's nothing else he can do to me, he leaves me always the hardest work; I've a whole waggon load of wood to cut up every day, but I can't do it for long. See, I'm nearly seventy-six years old, and this is the third day. But that's just what he wants, to be able to tell Stromminger that I'm no longer good for anything, or else for me to go away of myself when I can hold out no more. But where could I go--an old man like me? Imusthold out."
Wally had listened with a gloomy countenance to the old man's speech. Now she went quickly into the house to fetch bread and wine for him; but the store-room was locked and so was the cellar. Wally went into the kitchen. Her heart felt a pang--here had been Luckard's peculiar domain, and she felt as if the old womanmustcome to meet her and ask: "How is it with thee?--what does thou want?--what can I do to serve thee?" But all that was over and gone. A strange and sturdy servant girl sat on the hearth, peeling potatoes.
"Where are the keys?" asked Wally.
"What keys?"
"The keys of the store-room and the cellar!"
The girl looked insolently at Wally. "Ho, ho! what next--and who may thou be?"
"That thou might guess well enough," said Wally proudly, "I am the master's daughter."
"Ha, ha," laughed the girl, "then thou may just take thyself out of the kitchen. The master has forbidden that thou should come into the house. Over there in the barn--that's thy place. Dost understand me?"
Wally grew pale as death. Thus, then--thus was she to be received in her father's house. Wallburga, daughter of the Strommingers, must give way to the lowest servant girl on the estate to which she was heir! Not only was she to be forbidden her father's presence--it was intended to break her spirit through degrading humiliations. She, Wally, the Vulture-maiden, of whom her father had once proudly said that a girl like her was worth ten boys!
"Give me the keys!" she commanded in a firm voice.
"Ha! ha! that's better still. The master has ordered us to look on thee as a stable girl--there's no question of keys there. I look after the house, and I give out nothing but what the master allows."
"The keys," cried Wally in an outburst of anger, "I command thee!"
"Thou's no call to command me--dost understand? I'm Stromminger's servant, and none of thine. And I am master in the kitchen, dost understand? It's Stromminger's orders. And if Stromminger holds his own daughter lower than a servant--no doubt he knows the reason why!"
Wally stepped close up to the servant, her eyes flashed, her lips quivered; the girl was frightened. But only for an instant did the struggle last in Wally, then her pride conquered; with the miserable serving maid she had nothing to do. She left the house. Her pulses beat like hammers, her eyes swam, her bosom rose and fell in gasps; it was too much--all that this day had brought her. She crossed the yard, took the cleaver from the hand of the old man who was trembling with his efforts, and led him to a bench that he might rest himself. He honestly resisted, he dared not leave his task incomplete; but Wally made him understand she would do his work for him.
"God bless thee, thou hast a good heart," said the man, seating himself wearily on the bench. Wally went into the shed and split the heavy logs with mighty blows. So wrathfully did she swing the axe that at each stroke she hit it through the wood deep into the block. The old man watched with astonishment how the work went on better in her hands than in a man's, and he took a pride in it--he had seen the child grow up from her birth and loved her in his own way. But Wally saw afar the hated form of Vincenz approaching, and involuntarily she discontinued her work. Vincenz did not see her. He came up from behind Klettenmaier, and suddenly stood close in front of the startled old man, whilst Wally observed him from within the shed. He seized the man by the doublet and pulled him up. "Hallo," he screamed in his ear, "dost call that working? thou lazy dawdle, thou; as often as I come by thou's sitting there doing nothing--now I've had enough of it--be off with thee," and he gave him a push with his knee, so that the trembling old man was flung to a distance on the stone pavement of the yard.
"Help, master! help me up," cried the man imploringly, but Vincenz had seized a cudgel and raised his arm. "Wait a bit--thou shall see how I help up a lazy knave!" he said. At this moment such a blow fell on Vincenz's head that he uttered a loud cry and staggered backwards. "God in heaven, what is that?" he stammered and sank upon the bench.
"It is the Vulture-maiden," answered a voice trembling with rage, and Wally, the hatchet in her hand, stood before him with white lips and staring eyes, struggling for breath as if the wild pulses of her heart were choking her.
"Did thou feel that?" she panted out with breathless pauses. "Dost know now how it feels to get a heavy blow? I'll teach thee to oppress my faithful old servant. Thou'st already sent my Luckard underground, and now thou'll do the same by this old man? Nay, before I'll suffer such a deed, I'll set my whole inheritance in flames and smoke thee out of it as I would a fox." Meanwhile she had helped up old Klettenmaier, and led him out to the barn. "Go in, Klettenmaier," she said, "and recover thyself,Iorder thee."
Klettenmaier obeyed; he felt that at this moment she was master, but at the door he freed himself from her support and said, shaking his head, "Thou shouldn't have done it, Wally--go and look after Vincenz; I fear thou'st given him a heavy blow."
She left the old man and went out again. Vincenz lay quite still. Wally looked at him with half-averted eyes; he had lost consciousness and lay stretched out on the bench, and blood dripped from his head on to the ground. With quick decision, Wally went into the kitchen and called to the girl; "Come out here; bring some vinegar and a cloth and help me."
"What, thou's more orders to give already," said the girl, laughing out loud, without stirring from the spot where she sat.
"It's not for me," said Wally with a dark and evil glance, as she took the vinegar flask from the shelf. "Vincenz is lying out there--I've half killed him."
"Heaven and earth!" shrieked the maid; and instead of hastening to help Vincenz, she ran screaming about the house and yard. "Help, help," she cried; "Wally has struck Vincenz dead!" And from every side the alarm cry was echoed back till it reached even to the village, and every one ran to the spot.
Wally had meanwhile called Klettenmaier to her assistance, and was washing the face of the senseless man with vinegar and water. She could not understand how it was the wound was so deep, for she had struck with the back of the hatchet, and not with the sharp edge; but the blow had been dealt with a force of which she herself was unconscious. Her long restrained rage had concentrated itself in that one stroke, which came crashing down as if she were still splitting the logs of wood.
"What's happened here?" roared a voice in Wally's ear, and her blood stood still--her father had dragged himself out on his crutches. "What's happened here?" repeated twenty or thirty voices, and the yard was filled with people.
Wally was silent.
A buzzing murmur arose all round her, every one pressed forward, touching and examining the lifeless man. "Is he dead?" "Will he die?" "How came it about?" "Did Wally do it?" was asked from one to another.
She stood there as though she neither heard nor saw, and laid a bandage on the wounded Vincenz. "Can thou not speak?" thundered her father. "What hast thou done, Wally?"
"You can see!" was the short reply.
"She owns to it," they all shrieked together. "Gracious Heaven, what insolence!" "Thou gallows-bird, thou!" cried Stromminger. "Is it so thou comes down again to thy home?"
At the word "home," Wally gave a short bitter laugh and fixed a piercing glance on her father.
"Laugh away," cried Stromminger; "I thought thou'd learn better up there, and now, scarce a quarter of an hour in the house, thou's already at mischief again."
"He moves," cried one of the women, "he's still alive."
"Carry him into the house and lay him on my bed," ordered Stromminger, making way by the kitchen door against which he was leaning. Two men raised Vincenz and carried him indoors.
"If only the doctor were here," lamented the women, following the sick man into the room.
"If only we had old Luckard, we should need no doctor," said some of them, "she knew what was good for everything."
"Let her be fetched," cried Stromminger, "tell her to come this instant."
Again Wally laughed. "Yes, truly, old Luckard," she said. "Thou'd be glad to have her back again now, Stromminger! Thou must seek her now in the churchyard!"
The people looked at each other in consternation. "Is she dead?" asked Stromminger.
"Yes, three days ago she died--died heartbroken because of what you did to her. See, Stromminger, it serves thee right, and if yon man dies because there is no one by who knows how to cure him, it serves him right too; so much as that he has well deserved of Luckard."
Now there arose a tumult--this was too bad. "After such a deed to talk like this, and say it served him right, instead of repenting it. Why, no one's life was safe! and Stromminger to stand by and let her talk like that and never say a word! there was a fine father for you!" So they talked together, while Wally, with folded arms, stood defiantly in the kitchen door looking at Stromminger, who, in spite of himself, was hard hit by her reproaches. Now however his wrath returned with double force, and raising himself on his crutch he cried to the crowd; "I'll show you what manner of father I am! seize her and bind her."
"Yes, yes," cried the people confusedly, "bind her, such a one should be under lock and bolt--before the justice she shall go, the murderess."
Wally uttered a dull cry at the word "murderess," and drew back into the kitchen. "Hold," cried Stromminger. "Before a justice my daughter shall never go; do you think I'll live to see the chief peasant's child taken off to prison? Do you know Stromminger no better than that? DoIneed a court of justice to punish a wilful girl? Stromminger himself is man enough for that, and on my own ground and my own territory I am my own judge and justice. I'll soon show you who Stromminger is, though I am lame. Into the cellar she shall go, and there remain under lock and key, till her proud spirit is broken and she comes after me on her knees before you all. You have heard, all of you, and if I don't keep my word you may set me down a rascal."
"Merciful God, hast Thou forgotten judgment?" cried Wally. "No, father no! for God's sake don't lock me up! Turn me out, send me up the Murzoll to perish in the snow--I'll die of hunger--I'll die of cold--but under the open heavens. If you lock me up, harm will come of it!"
"Aha, thou'd like to be off again wandering round like a vagabond--that would please thee better? Not so; I've been too soft with thee. Thou'll stop under lock and key till thou asks pardon on thy knees of me and of Vincenz."
"Father, all that is no good with me; sooner than do that, I'd rot away in the cellar--that you might know of yourself. Let me go, father, or, I tell you once more, harm will come of it."
"There--enough said. Well, you--what are you all standing there for? Are you dreaming? Am I to run after her with my lame foot? Seize her, but hold her fast--she has Stromminger blood in her that'll try your teeth--hold on there!"
The peasants, stung by this mockery, crowded into the kitchen. "We'll soon get hold of her!" they said scoffingly.
But with one spring Wally was at the hearth, and had snatched burning brands from the fire. "The first that touches me, I'll singe him, hair and skin!" she cried, and stood like the archangel with the flaming sword.
All fell back.
"Shame upon you!" cried Stromminger. "All of you together might be a match for a girl! Strike the brands from her hand with a stick," he ordered, in a paroxysm of rage, for it was now a point of honour with him to master his daughter before the eyes of the whole village. Some of them ran and fetched sticks; it was like hunting a wild animal, and a wild animal Wally had in truth become. Her eyes bloodshot, the sweat of agony on her brow, her white teeth clenched, she defended herself against this pack of hounds, fought like the wild beast of the forest, without reflection, without calculation, for her freedom--her life's element. Now they struck with the sticks at the brands in her grasp, her only weapon, and she flung them into the midst of the crowd, so that they fell back on one another, shrieking; then, snatching another brand from the hearth, and yet another, she threw them like fiery shot at the heads of her assailants. The uproar grew louder.
"Water here," cried Stromminger, "fetch water,--put out the fire!"
This would be an end to everything; the fire once out, Wally was lost. One moment more, and the water would be brought--despair seized the girl. All at once there came a thought--a terrible, desperate thought; but there was no time for consideration; the thought was a deed before she could reflect upon it, and waving a burning log in her hand, she rushed swift as an arrow through her pursuers out into the courtyard, and hurled the brand with a mighty fling on to the hay-loft, right into the middle of the hay and straw.
There was a scream of terror and amazement. "Now put the fire out," cried Wally, and flew across the courtyard through the gate, away and away, whilst all in the farm hurried shouting and storming to extinguish the flames that were already blazing upwards through the roof.
With the rising pillar of smoke, as if born of the roaring flame, a dark object rose screeching from the roof, circled two or three times high overhead in the air, and then took flight in the direction in which Wally had fled.
Wally heard the rushing sound behind her; she thought it was her pursuers, and ran blindly on. It was already night, but there was no darkness, clear light quivered all around her, so that she might still be seen from afar. She mounted a steep point of rock whence she could look down the road, and now she saw that her pursuer was coming through the air. She had attained her end, no one thought any more of following her. To save the farm buildings was a more pressing need, and all hands were engaged in the work. The vulture overtook her as she stood there, and bounded against her with such force as nearly to throw her down from the rock. She pressed the bird to her bosom and sank exhausted on the ground. With dazed eyes she looked up at the glare of the fire that shone afar, and lighted up the dark mountain tops around. With a glowing and angry aspect her deed looked down on her--threatening, wrathful, overpowering. From every church tower in the canton round sounded the dismal peal of warning, and the bells rang out quite distinctly, "Incendiary, incendiary." But the terrible song lulled her senses to sleep--unconsciousness dropped a kindly veil over her hunted spirit.
Deep night surrounded Wally when she once more opened her eyes. The red glow was extinguished, the bells were silent; far below her in the ravine the Ache thundered its monotone, and over her head high in the heavens, stood a star. She gazed at it as she lay motionless with upturned face on the ground, and it seemed to beam down upon her with a look of forgiveness. A wonderful sense of consolation breathed through the night. The wind caressingly cooled her burning brow, she sat up and began to collect her thoughts. It could not be late, the moon was not yet up, and the fire must have been very quickly extinguished. It must have been--for how could the conflagration spread when every one was there, and ready that moment to lend a helping hand? She knew not how it was, she searched herself to the very bottom of her soul, and she could not feel herself guilty. She had done it only from necessity, to keep off her pursuers whilst she gave them something else to do. She knew quite well that she would now be called an "incendiary," but was she one indeed? She raised her eyes to the stars over her head; it was as if now, for the first time, she held communion with the great God, and what He said to her was--forgiveness. The pure night-sky looked peacefully down on her, that open sky, for the love of which she had done the deed. Only under this high, vaulted dome of stars could she find space to breathe; to lie imprisoned in the gloomy cellar without light, without air, for weeks, for months--till, to escape, she went to the home of her hated suitor, and made herself a mockery and disgrace by open repentance on her knees before her father! It was worse than death--it was an impossibility!
The girl who in utter loneliness had for six long months been the guest of the inhospitable wilderness of the Ferner, who had watched through many nights with the storm, the hail, the rain for her wild associates; whose brow the fire of heaven had kissed before it quivered to earth; round whom the thunder had warred in all its terror, whilst its power was as yet unspent by the winds; the girl who had almost daily staked her life springing over some bottomless abyss to save a straying goat--this girl could no longer bend herself to the ideas and the tyranny of small minds, could not submit to bit and bridle like an animal, must defend herself for life--unto death. Men had no longer any right over her; she had renounced them and mated herself with the elements. What wonder that she had called one of her wild companions--Fire--to her aid when warring against man?
She could not understand it all, she had never learnt to reflect about her own consciousness; she knew not the "wherefore!" But she felt that God would not call her to account, that He from His supreme throne measured with a quite other standard than that of man; even to her, up on her mountain heights, everything had appeared so small that down in the valley she had thought so large--how much more to Him up there in Heaven? God alone understood her; down below they might think her a criminal--God acquitted her.
She raised herself and shook the burden from her soul, and felt herself as heretofore, vigorous and confident, strong and free.
"Now, Hansl, what shall we do next?" asked she of the vulture, to whom in her solitude she had accustomed herself to talk aloud. Hansl was at that moment watching some reptile of the night, then snatched at it, and killed it.
"Thou'rt in the right," said Wally, "we must seek our bread. For thee, it is well, thou can find it anywhere--but I?" Suddenly the bird became uneasy, flew up and watched something in the distance.
Then it occurred to Wally that as soon as the fire was out she would be searched for, and that she must get farther away as quickly as might be. But whither? Her first thought was Sölden. But the blood mounted to her face--might not Joseph think that she was running after him? And should he see her in disgrace and dishonour, poor, a runaway from home--pointed at and decried as an "incendiary."
No, he at least should never see her thus, rather would she run to the very ends of the earth. And without any further consideration she took the vulture on her shoulder--the only good or chattel that troubled her--and set out in the direction whence she had come in the morning, to Heiligkreuz.
She had walked for two hours, her feet were sore, she was weary to death, when the tower of Heiligkreuz rose up before her in the darkness, and, like a gleam from a lighthouse, the rising moon shone through the open belfry and showed the way to the aimless wanderer.
Stumbling with fatigue, she dragged herself through the sleeping village up to the church. Now and then a dog barked, as with quiet steps she passed along. Whoever observed her now would take her for a thief; she trembled as though she really were one; to what had the proud Wally Stromminger come!
Behind the church was the parsonage; near the door was a wooden bench, and from wooden boxes in the little windows bushes of withered mountain-pinks hung down. Here she would remain till daylight; the priest would at least protect her from ill-usage. She lay down on the bench, the vulture perched on the railing at her head, and in a few minutes nature asserted its rights and she was asleep.
"May the Lord defend us! what foundling has He sent me here!" sounded in Wally's ears, and she opened her eyes. It was broad daylight, and there stood by her none other than the reverend curé himself.
"Praised be Christ the Lord," stammered Wally in bewilderment, and put her feet down from the bench.
"For ever and ever. Amen. My child, how did you come here? who are you, and what strange companion is that you have with you? it is almost enough to frighten one!" said the priest with a friendly smile.
"Your reverence," said Wally simply, "I've something heavy on my conscience, and I would be glad to confess to you. My name is Wallburga, and I belong to Stromminger, the chief-peasant of the Sonnenplatte. I've run away from home; you see--Vincenz Gellner wanted to marry me, and I struck his head open with a blow, and then I set fire to my father's barn--"
The priest clasped his hands together. "God help us, what tales are these! So young, and so wicked already!"
"Your reverence, I am not really wicked, truly I am not--I wouldn't hurt a fly--but they made me do it!" said Wally, and she looked up at the priest with her large honest eyes, so that he was obliged to believe her whether he would or not.
"Come in," he said, "and tell me all about it--but leave that monster outside;" he meant the vulture. Wally flung the bird upwards into the air, so that it flew on to the roof; then she followed the priest into the little house, and he made her come into his sitting-room.
There all was still and peaceful. In the alcove stood a rough wooden bedstead with two flaming hearts painted over it, which to the curé signified the hearts of our Saviour and the Virgin Mary; over the bed was a holy-water cup in porcelain, and a shelf full of books of devotion; in the room there were more shelves with other books and an old writing desk, a brown bench behind a large heavy table, some wooden seats, a praying-stool beneath a great crucifix with a garland of edelweiss, and a few gaily coloured lithographs of the Pope and of various saints. From the ceiling hung a bird-cage with a crossbeak. An antique commode with lions'-heads holding rings in their mouths as handles to the heavy drawers, represented the luxury of the dwelling, and on this commode were all sorts of beautiful things. A little shrine with a carved saint, a glass box with a wax image of the infant Christ in a red silk cradle, a glass spinning wheel, and a bunch of tarnished artificial flowers, such as are made in convents, in a yellow vase under a glass shade; a small box with many coloured shells, a tiny model of a mine in a bottle, and, as a centre-piece, a little manger made in moss and sparkling fragments of spar, with delicately carved figures of men and beasts. A few pretty cups and mugs were not wanting amid these holy surroundings, and two small crystal salt cellars to the right and left of the nativity set off on either hand the central piece.
And all was as clean as if no such thing as dirt existed in the world. This commode with the various objects upon it constituted the child-like altar which the lonely priest, six thousand feet above the sea and above modern culture, had raised to the God of beauty. Here he had stood many a time when the snow was whirling outside and the storm rocked the little wooden house, and gazed musingly at the tiny, neatly-carved world within, shaking his head with a smile and saying, "What will not men do next?"
Much the same, thought Wally in passing by, as her glance fell on the marvellous trifles. Rich as her father was, such things as these had never found their way into his house; what indeed could the clumsy peasant have done with them? In her whole life she had never seen such things--she to whom, in comparison with her scythe and hay-fork, a spinning-wheel seemed the height of elegance. She felt as if in this little room she dare not move for fear of injuring something, as if here she must be particularly well-behaved. She wished to leave her iron-shod shoes at the door, so as not to spoil the smooth, white-scoured boards; but the priest would not allow it, so she trod as softly as she could and seated herself modestly at the farthest end of the bench which the curé offered her. The priest let his clear friendly eyes rest observingly upon her, and saw that she could not remove her astonished gaze from the ornaments on the commode. The old man was a student of humanity.
"You would like first to look at my pretty little things? Do so, my child; besides, you are not just yet collected enough for the serious matters we must speak of."
And he led Wally to the mysterious commode, and explained everything to her, and told her where each thing had come from.
Wally did not venture to speak, and looked and listened full of reverence. When they had come to the manger, the last and the best, "See," said the priest, "here at the back is Jerusalem, and there are the three Wise Kings who travelled to see the Holy Child--see, there is the star that is guiding them--and there lies the child in the manger, and does not dream yet that he is born to suffer for the sins of the whole world. For as yet He cannot think, and has brought no remembrance with him of His Heavenly home; for the Son of God became in all things a real child of man, like any other--else men might have said that there was no miracle in being as good and patient as Jesus Christ was, if He was the Son of God and had the power of God, and that it was no use to strive to follow such an example, if one was only an ordinary man. They say it often enough as it is, and go on in their sins."
Wally looked at the pretty naked infant with his gold paper glory lying there so patiently, and when she thought of the stern dark crucified God as a poor helpless baby born to suffering, it touched her compassion, and she was sorry that she had been "so rude" to the poor crucified Being yesterday when standing by Luckard's bed.
"But why did He let it all happen to Him?" she said involuntarily more to herself than to the priest.
"Because He wanted to show mankind that they should not repay evil for evil, and should not revenge themselves; for God has said, 'Vengeance is mine.'" Wally grew red, and cast down her eyes.
"Now come, my child," said the wise man, "and make your confession."
"That will soon be done, your reverence," said Wally. And honest as was her nature, she related to him, in low and timid tones indeed but without any attempts at palliation, how all had happened, and soon the whole circumstances were made clear to the confessor. A mighty picture of life lay unrolled before him, sketched in rude and rough outlines, and he pitied the noble young blood that had grown wild between rugged rocks and rugged men.
Long after Wally had ended he sat silent, looking meditatively before him. His gaze fixed itself on an old, much-read volume on a book-stand by the wall; a stranger whom he had received hospitably had given it to him; on the back stood printed in gold letters--Das Niebelungen-Lied.
"Your reverence," said Wally, who took the thoughtfulness on his features for an expression of reproof; "it was too much, all coming together. I was still full of anger about poor old Luckard, and then he must needs strike the old man also. I couldn't look on and see the old man beaten, that I could not, and if it were all to come over again, I should do just the same. An incendiary I am not--not even though they call me one. When a house is set fire to in broad daylight when everyone is about, nothing much can be burnt, that is certain. I didn't know how else to help myself, and I thought that if they had to put it out, they couldn't come after me. And if that is a sin, then I don't know what is to be done in this world where men are so wicked and do one all the harm they can."
"We must do as Christ did--suffer and endure!" said the priest.
"But, your reverence," said Wally, "when Jesus Christ let men do as they would with Him, He knewwhyHe did it--He wanted to teach people something. But I don't know why I should do it, for no one would learn anything of me in all the Oetz valley. And if I had let myself be locked up in the cellar ever so patiently, it would all have been for nothing, for nobody would have taken example by me, and it would very likely have cost me my life."
For a moment the priest paused to reflect; then he fixed his kindly observant eyes on Wally and shook his head.
"You wilful child, you. Even now you would like to begin some fresh dispute with me. They have wickedly roused and irritated you, till you imagine enmity and contradiction everywhere. Look round, recollect yourself and see where you are--you are with a servant of God, and God says 'I am Love.' And this shall be no empty word to you, I will show you that it is true. I will tell you that when all men hate and condemn you, still the good God loves you and forgives you. Such as you are, hard men, stern mountains, and wild storms have made you; and that the good God knows very well, for He can look into your heart and see that it is good and upright, however much you have been in fault. And He knows that no garden-flower can bloom in the desert, and that a rude axe never carved a fine image. But now look farther. If our Lord and Master finds a piece of rude carving in particularly good wood, so that it seems to Him worth the trouble of making something better out of it, then He Himself takes the knife and carves the bungling work of man, that under His hand it may grow into beauty. Now listen, for I say take heed not to let your heart grow harder, for when the Lord has cut once or twice at the wood, if He finds it too hard He grudges the trouble, and throws the work away. Take heed then, my child, that your heart be soft and yielding under the shaping finger of God. If its hard pressure seems to you unbearable, yield, and think you feel the hand of God that is working on you. And if pain cuts sharply into your soul, think it is the knife of God cutting away its ruggedness. Do you understand me?"
Wally nodded somewhat doubtfully.
"Well," said the old man, "I will make it still clearer to you. Which would you rather be, a rough stick with which men may perhaps fight and kill each other, and which when it is rotten is broken up and burnt, or a finely carved holy image like that one yonder that is set in a frame and devoutly honoured?"
This time Wally understood and nodded quickly. "Why, of course--rather a holy image like that."
"Well, see now. Rude hands have made a rough block out of you, but God's hand can carve you into a holy image if you will do just as He bids you."
Wally looked at the speaker with wide, astonished eyes; she felt so strangely--pleased and yet ready to weep. After a long silence, she said timidly, "I don't know how it is. Sir, but with you everything is quite different to what it is anywhere else. No one ever spoke so to me before. The priest at Sölden always scolded and talked about the Devil and our sins; and I never knew what he would have, for at that time I had done nothing wrong. But you speak so that one can understand you--I mean that if I might stay with you--that would be the best for me; I'd work night and day and earn my bit of bread."
The curé considered a long time; then he shook his head mournfully.
"That cannot be, my poor child. Even if I myself wished it, it would not do. Though I might grant it to you in God's name, before men I dare not. For God sees the motive, men see only the deed. The priest in the confessional is one thing--the priest in common life is another. In the confessional he is the medium of Grace, in the world he is the medium of Law. He must incite men, by word and example, to honour and keep the law. Think what people would say if the priest took a notorious incendiary into his house. Would they understand why I did so? Never--they would only conclude that I had taken the sinner under my protection, and thereupon sin the more. And if afterwards we lived to see a really wicked incendiarism, I should have to reproach myself bitterly that I had given encouragement to it by my indulgence to you. Can you not understand this, and take it without murmuring as the unavoidable result of your deeds?"
"Yes," said Wally gloomily; and her eyes reddened with repressed tears. Then she rose quickly and said shortly, "I thank your reverence very much then, and wish you good morning."
"Hey, hey," cried the priest, "so high-flown again already? Don't you think it will be shorter to go through the wall than through the door? In your place, I would sooner go straight through the wall!"
Wally stood still ashamed, and looked down at the floor. The old gentleman looked at her with a comical expression of wonder, "How much will it not cost you to subdue that hasty blood? Is that the way you mean to run off? Did I say I would leave you to your fate because I cannot keep you with me in my house? First of all, you must have breakfast with me, for man must eat, and God knows how long it is since you eat last. Then we will talk farther." He went to a sliding panel that opened into the kitchen, and called to the old maidservant to get breakfast for three; then sitting down at his simple desk, he wrote down for Wally the names of a few peasants whom he knew to be worthy people.
"See, here is a whole list of honest men and women in the Oetz and Gurgler valleys," said he to Wally. "Try to find a place with one of them; over the mountain nothing will be yet known of your fault, and by the time people hear of it you can have shown yourself to be an honest girl, so that they will be willing to shut their eyes to it. You must not appeal to me, but you are as tall and as strong as a man, and they will gladly take you; you can work with a will and make yourself useful, if you choose. But you must learn to obey--must give in to custom and order, else you will do no good. I do not ask you to go back to your father, and let yourself be locked up in the cellar; that would be undue punishment, and do you more harm than good. Nor do I ask you to marry Vincenz out of obedience to your father and make yourself miserable for life. But I do ask of you that you should curb your wild spirit in the service of worthy people, in reasonable and regular activity, and so become again a useful member of human society. Will you promise me this?"
"I will try," said Wally, in her unwavering honesty.
"That is all I ask of you in the first instance, for I know well that you cannot with a good conscience promise more. But try to do it with an honest will, and remember always that God throws away wood that is too hard. I will go to-day to your father and speak to his conscience, that he may forgive you and be reconciled to you, or at least not pursue you any farther. Give me news soon of where you are, that I may let you know how things stand."
Marianne brought the breakfast, and the pastor said the morning prayers. Wally, too, devoutly folded her hands, and from her deepest soul prayed God that he would help her to become good and useful; she was in such holy earnest--she would so gladly have been good and useful, if only she had known how.
When prayers were over, all three sat down, she, and the pastor, and Marianne to breakfast. But scarcely had they begun when a shout was heard outside. "A vulture! See, up on the roof there, a vulture! shoot him down, bring guns!"
"Heavens! my Hansl," cried Wally springing up, and would have run out at the door.
"Stop," cried the priest, "what are you doing? Why risk yourself needlessly? You cannot go out now, when at any moment your father's people may come to take you!"
"I'll not leave my Hansl in the lurch, come what may," cried Wally, and with one spring she stood outside the house.
The curé followed her, shaking his head. "The vulture is tame," she cried to the people. "He belongs to me; leave him alone."
"One can't leave a creature like that to fly about as it will," said the people, grumbling.
"Has he taken a sheep or a child?" asked Wally defiantly.
"No."
"Well, then, leave me and my bird unmolested!" said the girl; and she stood there with an air so proud and threatening that the people looked at her with astonishment. "Wally, Wally," gently warned the priest, "think of the hard wood."
"I do think, your reverence!" she said, and beckoned with her hand to the vulture. "Hansl, come back." The bird shot down from the roof, so that the people all shrank back frightened. She took him on her shoulder, and stepped up to the priest. "God keep your reverence," she said gently, "and thank you for all your kindness."
"Will you not come in and finish breakfast?" said the old man.
"No, I'll not leave the bird alone again, and besides I must go on--what have I to stay for?"
"May God and all the Saints preserve thee, then!" said the pastor troubled, while Marianne was furtively thrusting some food into the pocket of her pleated gown.
For a moment her foot lingered on the threshold that had grown dear to her, then she silently stepped forward between the people, who made way for her.
"Who is she?" they asked each other.
"She is a witch!" she heard them whisper behind her.
"She is a stranger," said the priest, "who came to make her confession to me."
Day after day Wally wandered round the canton seeking a place, but no one would take her with her vulture, and from him she would not part. Even if she had abandoned him, he would have flown back to her again, and as to killing the faithful bird, such a thought could not enter her mind, let what might befal her. Now, in very truth, she was the Vulture-maiden, for her destiny was inseparably linked to that of the bird, and he had as much influence over it as a human being. Luckard's old cousin, to whom she once paid a passing visit, would have taken her in gladly, but she would have been too near home, and wholly in her father's power. She must go farther--as far as her feet would carry her. Every day the season grew more severe; it began to snow, and the nights, which Wally was often forced to spend in an open barn, were keenly cold. The clothes she wore grew old and shabby, she began to look like a beggar and a vagabond, and she was every day more summarily dismissed from the doors where she ventured to knock with her companion. She looked so strange that no good housewife now would let her work in the house for even a few hours, and eat at her table afterwards. They gave her a piece of bread at the door for "God's pity's sake;" and Wally, the haughty Wally, daughter of the Strommingers, sat down on the threshold and eat it. For she would not die! Life--tormented, baited, poor and naked--life was still fair to her, so long as she could hope that sooner or later Joseph might come to love her; for the sake of that hope she would bear everything--hunger, cold, weariness. But her frame, hitherto so powerful, began to fail under the constant consuming anxiety and tension, her eyes were dim, her feet refused to serve her, and as soon as she lay down quietly her thoughts whirled in her brain, and she fell into a feverish dose. With overwhelming dread she met the feeling that she might be going to fall ill. It was too much! If she were to lose consciousness in some barn or shed, she might be taken back to her father, she would find herself once more in his power. She had wandered up into the Gurgler valley, and as she had there found nothing to do, she had taken the weary road again over to the Oetz valley; she had been as far as Vent, which lying in the domain of her father Murzoll, seemed to her almost like a home. But there things had gone worse than ever with her; the ruder the place, the ruder the inhabitants, and when Wally arrived there, she found that the news of her deed had hastened to precede her, and that wherever she showed herself she was met with horror and aversion. She did not appeal to the curé of Heiligkreuz; he had desired her not, and she perceived that he had been right to do so; but for that reason she sought no more priests; not one of them would dare to take any interest in her.
The last door in Vent had just been closed upon her. Before her lay nothing but the cloud-reaching wall of the Platteykogel, the Wildspitz, and the Hochvernagtferner, which closed in the valley, and over which no pathway led. Here on all sides the world was shut in like acul-de-sac, and she was at the end of it; she stood still and looked up and around at the steep and towering walls. It was a grey morning; thick snow had fallen during the night and lay all over the valley, which looked like a prodigious trough of snow; every trace of a path was obliterated. She sat down and thought, "If I go to sleep, and am frozen, it is an easy death." But it was not yet cold enough for that; the snow melted under her, and she was soon shivering from the wet. Then she started up and dragged herself up the slope that leads up behind Vent to the Hochjoch; from thence she could look over all the surrounding country, and here she became aware of a sort of furrow in the snow that led behind the village along by the Thalleitspitz into the very heart of the Ferner. It might be a footpath--but whither did it lead? She went up higher to get a wider view, and a bandage seemed to fall from her eyes--that was the path that led from Vent to Rofen--Rofen, the highest inhabited spot in the whole Tyrol, the last in the Oetz valley where men, like eagles, can still dwell, and of them only two families, the Klotz family and the Gestreins; Rofen that lies silent and hidden at the foot of the terrible Vernagt-glacier, on the shore of the lake of ice where no straying foot wanders from year's end to year's end, which a venerable tradition wraps in a mysterious veil. This was the place that Wally must strive to reach, this was the last refuge where she might perhaps find help, or at least could die in peace and unseen, like the wild animal of the desert. Thither would she go--to the Klötze of Rofen; they were the most renowned guides in all the Tyrol, they were at home on the mountains as the mountain-spirits themselves; they would understand how Wally would sooner burn down a house, would sooner die, than let herself be deprived of the breath of freedom; and they could protect her against all the world, for the farms of Rofen had right of sanctuary. Duke Frederick had granted it in token of gratitude, because he once in sore distress had found refuge there from his enemies. Joseph the Second had indeed withdrawn it at the end of the last century, but the peasant clings to old usages, and the villagers of the Oetz valley willingly continued to hold it in honour. No one who sought and found asylum at Rofen could be touched; for the Rofeners--the Klötze and the Gestreins--harboured no one who did not deserve it, and were held in as great respect as their forefathers. An assault on their home-right would have been simply a sacrilege.
Wally lifted her arms to Heaven in passionate thankfulness to God who had shown her this path. Her head swimming, her feet stumbling, she strove for the last goal that her strength might yet avail to reach; first, downwards to the path that led from Vent, then again steeply upwards. For an endless hour she mounted the encumbered path; there they lay before her as if sleeping in the snow, the peaceful, honoured farms of Rofen, which she had so often seen from Murzoll looking like eagles' nests clinging to the cliff. Her heart beat so that she could hear it, her knees almost failed her; if she were to be turned away, even here! A fresh storm of snow whirled silently around her, and wrapped the whole scene in a white, shifting veil. It flitted and glanced before her eyes, and the white veil waved coldly about her head, but it melted on her fevered brow and flowed in drops down her face and hair, and she trembled again with the chill. At last she stood before the door of Nicodemus Klotz, and took hold of the iron knocker; but as she put out her hand, a strange light flashed before her eyes, she fell heavily against the door, then sank down in a heap on the ground.
On and on the white flakes drifted up the narrow valley and wrapped it in a shrouding veil, and heaped themselves before the well-closed door of Nicodemus Klotz over the stiffened body that lay there, till it was a peaceful white hillock.
Nicodemus Klotz sat on his warm bench by the stove, smoked his pipe, and looked comfortably out of window at the snow. So the peaceful half-hours passed by, whilst his brother Leander, a fine-looking hunter, read the weekly news out of a shabby paper. "It is coming down finely," said Nicodemus, blowing out a cloud of smoke.
"Yes," said Leander, looking up at the snowflakes floating and swarming before the little window. Suddenly in the midst of the white whirl a dark wing struck on the panes, something fluttered and croaked, then flew up to the roof.
"There is something there," said Leander standing up.
"What matter?" growled the elder brother, "whatever it may have been, thou can't go out in this storm."
"Why not?" said Leander taking his rifle from the wall; the wing-stroke of the passing bird had roused his hunter's instincts; he must see what it was. He went to the door and opened it cautiously, so as not to disturb the bird by any noise. A mass of snow fell inwards, and he perceived the heap that had piled itself up on the threshold. He could not get out; he must fetch a spade to clear away the wall, and impatiently putting aside his gun, he began to shovel.
"Heavens! what is this?" he cried out suddenly, "Nicodemus, come--quick--here is some one buried under the snow--help me!"
His brother hastened forward; in a moment the heap was dug into, and a beautiful rounded arm appeared, and then from beneath the light covering, they drew forth a lifeless body.
"Good God! a maiden--and what a maiden!" whispered Leander as the beautiful head and the finely-moulded form revealed themselves.
"How can she have wandered up here?" said Nicodemus, shaking his head as he lifted, not without effort, the heavy body out of the snow.
"Is she dead?" asked Leander touching her, while his eyes rested with mingled alarm and pleasure on the pale, sunburnt face.
"She must instantly be rubbed," ordered Nicodemus, "inside, in the bedroom there."
They carried the weighty burthen into the house and laid it on Nicodemus' bed. "She must have lain a good half-hour out there; it must be about that time since I heard a heavy blow against the door, but I thought it was a lump of snow fallen from the roof."
Leander fetched a tub full of snow, and officiously tried to help in pulling off the girl's garments. "Let be," said the older and more discreet man, "that will not do--a youngster like thee; the girl'd be ashamed if she knew it. Do thou go out and see if thou can bring down one of the Gestreins, Kathrine or Marianne. Go!"
Leander could not take his eyes from the lifeless form. "Such a beautiful maid!" he muttered compassionately as he went out.
With gentle care the experienced man now undressed the girl, and rubbed her hard with the snow till warmth revived in her skin, and the blood began to circulate again. Then he dried her well, covered her up carefully, and poured a few drops of a strong cordial extracted from herbs down her throat. At last she recovered consciousness, turned and stretched herself, and looked once round the room; but her eyes were glazed and vacant, and muttering a few unintelligible words, she closed them again.
"She is ill," said Nicodemus to Leander, who at this moment reappeared, whilst a sturdy peasant woman who stopped at the door to shake off the snow followed him.
"Marianne," said Nicodemus--she was his married sister, "thou must help us here. Two men like Leander and me can't look after the girl. There is Leander making eyes at her already."
He threw a dissatisfied glance at the young man, who was again standing by the head of the bed and seemed to devour with his eyes the face of the sick girl; but he turned away hastily and blushed at being found out.
Marianne went up to the bed, and her first question was: "Who can she be?"
"God only knows! Some vagabond," said Nicodemus.
"What should make thee say that?" growled Leander, "one can see plainly enough she's no vagabond."
"Ay, because she's a handsome girl and pleases thee," said Marianne; "there's many a fair face covers a blackened soul--good looks prove nothing; a decent girl doesn't wander round the country at this time of year, all alone in the snow till she falls in a heap. Likely enough she's in some scrape, and God knows what sort she may be to harbour in the house."
"Well, it's all one now," said Nicodemus good-naturedly, "we can't turn a sick girl out in the cold and snow, be she what she may."
"As you will," said the woman, "I'll come over here and welcome, to take care of her for you; but I won't take her into my house, and that you may know once for all."
"No one asked thee; we will keep her ourselves," said Leander irritated, and as Wally again muttered some words to herself, he leaned tenderly over her and asked, "What is it? What dost thou want?"
The elder brother and sister exchanged glances. "As for thee," said Nicodemus, "I have something to say to thee. Thou's willing enough and ready to open house and home before we know who this woman is. There stands the door;--now walk out and come in here no more unless thou'd like to see me turn out the girl, ill as she is. Dost understand?"
"What, one mayn't even look at a girl now," grumbled Leander, "I see no reason why thee should come in before me."
"Thou'st nought to do but to go out; I'll allow none of this so long as I am master of the house and eldest brother to thee." So saying Nicodemus took him by the arm and pushed him out, and remained himself alone with his sister by the sick girl.
Wally did not recover consciousness, she lay in a fever; her throat was swelled, her limbs stiff and aching. The brother and sister soon saw that the stranger must have suffered terribly from cold and over-fatigue, and they tended her to the best of their powers. Leander meanwhile wandered idly and restlessly through the house, and as often as one of them came out of the sick room he was in the way to enquire how things were going on. He was full of grief and vexation; he also would so willingly have tended the beautiful girl. Towards evening it ceased snowing, and he took his rifle and went out. But he had scarcely been away a minute when he came back again and called Nicodemus from the sick room. "Look here," he said, much excited, "there is a vulture on the roof, a splendid golden vulture, and he looks at me quite quietly and confidingly, as though he belonged there."
"Ah!" said Nicodemus, "that is singular."
"Only come and see," said Leander, and drew his brother out, in front of the house. "There--there he sits and never moves. A state prize, and I can't shoot him! The devil take it all!"
"Why can't thou shoot him?" asked Nicodemus.
"How can I fire now, with the sick girl lying indoors?" said Leander, stamping his foot.
"Drive him away," advised Nicodemus, "and then thou can follow him and shoot him further off where she cannot hear."
"Tsch, tsch," said Leander, throwing up balls of snow to scare off the bird. The vulture ruffled his feathers, screamed, and at last rose. But he did not fly away, he floated for a minute high in the air, and then quietly let himself down on to the roof again.
"That is strange, he won't go away; it's just as if he were tame."
Once, twice more they tried to drive it off--always with the same result.
"He's bewitched," said Leander, making the sign of the cross; but it did not seem to trouble the bird--so it was certain the devil could have nothing to do with it!
"It seems to me that he's been shot already, and cannot fly," said Nicodemus, "any way let him be in peace till he comes down of himself, if thou doesn't wish to frighten the girl with the crack of the rifle."
"He's half down already; I believe I might take him with my hand," said Leander. He fetched a ladder, laid it against the wall and cautiously ascended. The bird quietly let him approach; he drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and would have thrown it over the vulture's head, but the bird struck and pecked at him so violently, that he was obliged to beat a hasty retreat.
Nicodemus laughed. "There, he's shown thee how to catch a vulture with the hand. I could have told thee as much as that."
"I never saw such a bird in my life," said Leander grumbling, and shaking his head, "Wait a bit," he added, threatening his foe above, "only wait till I find thee somewhere else."
"Thou can hunt him to-morrow if he's not perished in the night. If he can fly, he'll go farther away, and hardly come so far as this again."
It was getting dark now, and Marianne came out to say she must go home and cook her husband's supper. The brothers went in, and Nicodemus also went to prepare supper, by fetching bread and cheese from the store room. While he was gone, Leander softly opened the door that led from the living room into the bedroom and peeped through the crack at Wally. She lay still now, and slept soundly. It was so long since she had lain in any bed, that it could be seen even in her sleep how comfortable she found it; she lay reclining so softly, so easily amongst the pillows. "God help thee, thou poor soul, God help thee!" whispered Leander to her through the opening, then hastily closed the door again, for he heard Nicodemus coming. He was sitting quite innocently on the bench by the stove when his brother came in with the food.
"To-night," said Nicodemus, "we shall do well enough; as Benedict is not here, I can sleep upstairs in his bed, but to-morrow night, when he's back again, we three must divide the two beds between us."
"Oh, I need no bed," said Leander hastily. "For the sake of her in there, I'd as soon sleep on the bench here, or in the hay-loft; it is all one to me. If any of us is to be put out for her, it shall be me, and no one else."
"Well, if it pleases thee, thou can have it so. But in the hay-loft, not on the bench; that is too near the sick-room--dost understand?"
"Ay, ay, I understand well enough," muttered Leander, and bit into his cheese as if it were a sour apple.
The bedroom of the two younger brothers was exactly opposite that of Nicodemus, who took the bed of the absent Benedict. Two or three times in the night he got up, and went to listen at Wally's door; she talked and wandered a good deal, and once Nicodemus could clearly understand that she was speaking of a vulture. "Ah," thought he, "she too will have seen the vulture when she came up, and the fright comes back to her in her dreams."
Early in the morning, before breakfast even, the restless Leander was up and out; he did not come home till nearly mid-day.
"Well, how is she getting on?" he asked as he came in.
"Just the same; she doesn't come to herself at all, and she's always in dread of people who, she thinks, want to take her away."
Leander scratched his head behind his ear. "Then I can't shoot yet. Only think now--there's the vulture outside still sitting on the roof."
"Never!"
"Ay, when I went out this morning, I couldn't see him anywhere; then I thought, he's flown away, and I went after him for nearly three hours. Then when I get home, there he is, sitting quietly on the roof again."
"Well," said Nicodemus, "that's a thing that might make one really uneasy, if one happened to be superstitious."
"Ay, indeed. One might almost think of the phantom maidens of Murzoll, and that they meant to play me a rogue's trick."
"God be praised!" said a rough deep voice, and Benedict the second brother, who had been away on a journey, now walked in.
"Ay, God be praised thou'rt back again," cried his brothers together. "What's the news? What's thou been doing?"
"Oh, nothing much; they've only sent me from Herod to Pilate again down in the Court-house, and crammed me with half-promises. I only know that all Oetzthal, man and beast of all three genders, may break neck and limb over the road here before we get the path." The speaker threw off his knapsack discontentedly and seated himself on the bench by the stove. "Is there anything to eat?" he said.
"Directly," said Nicodemus, who did the cooking himself, and he fetched in the soup.
He also brought a bowl of milk, and took it in to the sick girl; Leander's eye followed him enviously. Benedict was hungry and fell to on the soup without observing what his brother had done: Nicodemus soon returned, and silently, like all peasants, who seem to fear when performing the solemn act of eating that they will get out of time if they speak, the three spooned up the soup in a measured rhythmical movement, so that neither of them should get more nor less than his share.
When they had eaten, the weary Benedict lighted his pipe and stretched himself comfortably on the bench.
"What's the news in the world? Tell us all about it," said Leander, who knew his brother's habit of silence. Benedict had stuck his pipe aslant in his mouth and yawned. "I know of nought," he said. After a time, however, he went on: "Rich Stromminger of Sonnenplatte, his daughter, the Vulture-maiden, you know--she set her father's place on fire, and is running now about the country begging."
"Ah, when did that happen?" asked the brothers astonished.
"She must be a real bad girl that," continued Benedict. "Her father had sent her up to the Hochjoch before this, because she wouldn't do his bidding, and when she comes down, the first thing is that she half kills Gellner, and sets her father's house on fire."
"Jesu Maria!"
"After that she naturally ran away, and is now wandering about the neighbourhood. Yesterday she was in Vent, and trying to get a place, but who would have such a girl in the house? To add to it all, she drags the big vulture about with her that she took from the nest, and expects folk to take that in too. Naturally every one refuses."
Nicodemus looked at Leander, and Leander grew crimson.
"Well!--" said Nicodemus, "now I know who's lying in there!--The vulture that won't leave the roof--and all night she was raving about a vulture--that's not so bad--we've the Vulture-maiden in the house!"
Benedict sprang up. "What!" he cried.
"Don't cry out so loud," said Leander, "dost want the poor sick girl to hear it all?"
Then Nicodemus related how Leander had found her half dead in the snow, and how they could not do otherwise than keep her in the house, at least till she was able to walk. But Benedict was a rough man, and thought the illness was only a pretence--that his brothers had been too soft and should have sent her away. He would soon have got the better of her. "For incendiaries he had no sanctuary," he cried, and his piercing eyes glanced wrathfully under his bushy brows.
"If thou'd seen the maid, thou'd have taken her in too," said Leander, "It'd have been less than human to turn the poor thing out in the wind and weather."
"Indeed? And in that way we should get at last every robber and murderer in the neighbourhood in asylum here, till it is said that Rofen is a hiding-place for all the rabble--that'd be a fine thing for the justices to get hold of. If you two can be taken in by a cunning chit, I at least must maintain order and decency in Rofen!"
He approached the door. Nicodemus stood before it and said quietly, but firmly, "Benedict, I am the eldest, and I'm master in Rofen as much as thou, and I know as well as thou what is our duty as Rofeners. I give thee my word I will keep the girl no longer in the house than I must for human and Christian duty; but now she is sick, and I will not suffer thee to ill-use her. So long as I live at Rofen I'll have no injustice done under my roof."
Then Leander broke in. "Look here," he said confidently and with flashing eyes; "only let him go in--when he sees her, he'll never send her away."
"I believe thou'rt right, thou simpleton," said Nicodemus smiling, and he softly opened the door.
Benedict hastily and noisily entered; this time Leander ventured to slip in also, and Nicodemus had nothing to say against it; he might help to watch over the harsh Benedict and keep him from being too rough. Marianne was sitting by the bed making new stockings for the sick girl, for she had become so ragged that she would have had none to wear when she could get up again. At Benedict's noisy entrance she made a sign that he should be quiet; but scarcely had he perceived the sick girl, when of himself he hushed his footsteps, and went slowly up to the bed. Wallburga was fast asleep. She lay on her back, and had thrown one beautiful rounded arm over her head; her abundant dark-brown hair fell loosely over the snow-white neck that no sunshine could tan through her thick peasant's bodice, and which her loose linen chemise now left partly uncovered; her mouth was half-open as though smiling, and two rows of pearly teeth shone between the arched lips; on the sleeping brow lay an unspoken expression of nobility and purity that no words can describe. Benedict had grown quite still. He gazed long at the touching and yet innocent picture as if astonished, and his brown face began gradually to redden--like Leander's, which seemed dyed in a crimson glow. Then he ground his teeth together and turned round. "Aye, she is certainly ill," he said in a voice which implied, "There is nothing to be done," and he went out of the room on tiptoe.