In Wally's room, on Wally's bed, lay Joseph, stretched out, insensible. All was silent and still around him; she had sent every one away, she knelt by the bed, she hid her face in her convulsively clasped hands, and prayed.
"Oh, Lord God!--my God! my God! have mercy and let him live; take from me everything--everything--but let him live. I'll ask no more of him, I'll shun him--I'll leave him to Afra even--only he must not die!" And then she stood up again and made fresh bandages for his head where the blood flowed from a gaping wound, and for his breast that had been torn by the crag, and threw herself upon him as though with her body she would close those portals through which his life was streaming away.
"Oh, thou poor lad! thou poor lad! so stricken and brought down--oh, the sin of it--the sin of it! Wally, Wally, what hast thou done? Should thou not sooner have struck a knife into thine own heart--sooner have stood by at Afra's wedding, then gone home quietly and died, than have laid him there to see him perish like cattle that the butcher has felled?"
Thus she lamented out loud whilst she bound his wounds, turning against herself with the same anger with which she had been used to revenge herself on others. She would have torn her heart out with her own hands if she could, in the wild and frenzied remorse that had seized her. Just then the door opened softly. Wally looked round in astonishment, for she had forbidden any one to disturb her. It was the curé of Heiligkreuz. Wally stood before him as before her judge, pale, trembling in her very soul.
"God be praised!" cried the old man, "he is here then." He went up to the bed, looked at Joseph, and felt him. "Poor fellow," he said, "you have been roughly handled."
Wally set her teeth to keep herself from crying out at these words.
"How did they get him up again?" asked the priest, but Wally could not answer.
"Well, thank God, He has averted the worst in His mercy," continued the curé. "Perhaps he will get well, and you will then at least have no murder on your conscience, though before the eternal judge the intention is as bad as the deed."
Wally tried to speak.
"I know everything," he said with severity; "Vincenz came to me when he fled, and confessed all--your love and his jealousy. I refused him absolution, and sent him to join the Papal army; there he may earn God's forgiveness by good service to the Holy Father, or expiate his crimes by death. But what shall I say to thee, Wally?" He looked at her sadly and piercingly with his shrewd eyes.
Wally clasped her hands before her face. "Oh!" she cried aloud, "none can punish me with so bitter a punishment as I have brought on myself. There he lies dying, whom I loved best in all the world, and I have to tell myself that I did it. Can there be greater misery than that? Needs there anything more?"
The priest nodded his head. "This then is what you have done--you have become a rough piece of wood, fit to slay men with! It has happened as I told you; you have resisted the knife of God, and now the Lord casts you on one side and leaves the hard wood to burn in the fire of repentance."
"Ay, your reverence, it is so, but I know of water that will quench that fire. Into the Ache I will fling myself if Joseph dies--then all will be at an end."
"Alas, poor fool! do you think that is a flame that earthly water can quench? Do you really think that, with your earthly body, you can drown your immortal soul? That would burn in the tormenting flame of eternal remorse, even if all the seas in the world were poured upon it."
"What shall I do then?" said Wally gloomily; "what can I do but die?"
"Live and suffer: that is nobler than death."
Wally shook her head. Her dark eyes looked vaguely before her. "I cannot--I feel it--I cannot live, the phantom maidens thrust me down--all has happened as they threatened me in my dream: there lies Joseph crushed and broken, and I must follow him; it is fated so, and it must happen so, none can prevent it."
"Wally, Wally!" cried the priest, clasping his hands in horror, "what are you saying? The phantom maidens? What phantom maidens? In Heaven's name! do we live in the dark heathen times when men believed that evil spirits made sport of them? I will tell you who the phantom maidens are:--your own passions. If you had learnt to tame your own wild unbridled will, Joseph would never have fallen over the precipice. It is easy to lay the blame of your own evil deeds to the influence of hostile powers. For that it is that our Lord came to us, to teach us to acknowledge that we bear the evil in ourselves, and must fight with it. If we control ourselves, we control the mysterious powers which drove even the giants of the past to destruction, because with all their strength they had no moral power to withstand them. And with all your strength, your hardness and your daring, you are but a pitiful, weak creature, so long as you do not know what every homely, simple handmaid of the Lord performs, who, every day in the strict discipline of her cloister-life, lays on God's altar the dearest wish of her heart, and esteems herself blessed in the sacrifice! If you had only one glimmer of such greatness in your soul, you need have no more fear of the 'phantom maidens,' and your foolish dreams would no longer direct your destiny, but your own clear and conscious will. Reflect for once whether that were not nobler and happier."
Wally leaned against the bed-post; she felt as if raised to a newly-awakened and noble consciousness. "Yes," she said shortly and decidedly, and crossed her arms on her heaving breast, "your reverence is right--I understand, and I will try."
"I will try!" repeated the old priest, "once before you said that to me--but you did not keep your word."
"This time, your reverence, I will keep it," said Wally, and the priest silently admired the expression with which she spoke the simple words.
"What security will you give me?" he said.
Wally laid her hand on Joseph's wounded breast, and two large tears sprang to her eyes; no spoken vow could have said more. The wise priest was silent also, he knew no more was needed.
The wounded man turned in his bed and muttered some unintelligible words. Wally made him a fresh bandage for his head; he half-opened his eyes, but closed them again and fell back in a death-like slumber.
"If only the doctor would come!" said Wally, seating herself on a stool by the bed. "What o'clock may it be?"
The priest looked at his watch. "What time did you send for him?" he said.
"About five o'clock."
"Then he cannot be here yet. It is only ten o'clock, and it is quite three hours to Sölden."
"Only ten o'clock," Wally repeated in a low voice, and the good priest was filled with pity to see her sit there so quietly, her hands folded in her lap, whilst her heart beat with anguish so that it could be heard.
He bent over the sick man, and felt his head and his hands, "I think you may be easy, Wally," he said, "he does not appear to me like a dying man."
Wally sat motionless, gazing fixedly before her. "If the doctor comes and says that he'll live, I care for nothing more in this world," she said.
"That is right, Wally, I am glad to hear you say that," said the curé approvingly, "and now relate to me how it was that Joseph was saved--that will help to shorten the time till the doctor comes."
"There's not much to tell," answered Wally shortly.
"Nay, it is a noble deed that does honour to the men of the Sonnenplatte," said the priest, "were you not there?"
"Oh yes!"
"Well then, be less short in your answers. I spoke with no one on the way, and have heard nothing about it. Who fetched him up from the ravine?"
"I!"
"God be gracious! You, Wally? you yourself?" cried the old man, staring at her with astonishment.
"Yes--I!"
"But how can you have done it?"
"They let me down by a rope, and I found him fixed between a rock and the trunk of a fir-tree; if the tree had not been there he must have fallen into the torrent, and no one'd ever have seen him alive again."
"Child," cried the old man, "that is a great thing to have done."
"May be so," she answered quietly, almost hardly, "as I'd had him thrown yonder, it was for me to fetch him up again."
"You are right,--that was only fair," said the priest, controlling his emotion with difficulty. "But it is not the less an act of atonement that may take some part of the guilt from your hapless soul."
"That is all nothing," said Wally, shaking her head. "If he dies, it's I that have murdered him."
"That is true, but you gave a life for a life. You risked your own to save his; you have atoned as far as was in your power for the crime you have committed--the issue is in God's hands."
Wally heaved a deep sigh; she could not take in the comfort that lay in the priest's words. "The issue is in God's hand," she repeated out of the depths of her burdened heart.
The eye of the priest rested on her with content; God would not reject this soul, in spite of its great faults and imperfections. Never yet, old as he was, had he met with her equal in power for good, as for evil. He looked at the wounded man who unconsciously clenched his fist in defiance. It almost angered him that he should despise the noblest gift that earth can offer man--a devoted love; that through his indifference he should have had it in his power to harden a heart so noble in its nature and capable of such high-minded sacrifice. "You stupid peasant-lout," he muttered between his teeth.
Wally looked at him enquiringly: she had not understood.
There was a knock at the door, and at the same moment the doctor entered the room. Wally trembled so that she was obliged to hold by the bedpost. Here was the man on whose lips hung redemption or condemnation. A crowd of people pressed in after him to hear what he would say, but he soon turned them all out again. "This is no place for curiosity; the sick man must have the most perfect quiet," he said decidedly, and shut the door. He was a man of few words. Only, when he took the bandage from the sick man's head, "There has been foul play again here," he muttered.
Wally stood white and silent as a statue. The curé purposely avoided looking at her; he feared to disturb her self-possession. The examination began; anxious silence reigned in the little chamber. Wally stood by the window with averted face while the surgeon examined the wounds and used his probe. She had picked up something from the ground which she held convulsively clasped between her hands, and pressed again and again to her lips. It was the thorn-crowned head of the Redeemer that she had broken in the night. "Forgive, forgive," she prayed, pale and quivering in her deadly anguish. "Have mercy on me--I deserve nothing--but let Thy mercy be greater than my sin."
"None of the wounds are mortal," said the doctor in his dry way. "The fellow must have joints like an elephant."
Then Wally's strength went from her. The chord, too long and too highly strung, gave way, and loudly sobbing she threw herself on her knees by the bed, and buried her face in Joseph's pillows. "Oh, thank God! Thank God!"
"What is the matter with her?" asked the doctor. The priest answered him by a sign that he understood.
"Come, collect yourself," he said, "and help me to put on the bandages."
Wally sprang up at once, wiped the tears from her eyes, and lent a helping hand. The priest observed with secret pleasure that she assisted the doctor as carefully and skilfully as a sister of charity; she did not tremble, she wept no more, she showed a steady and quiet self-control--the true self-control of love. And withal there was a glory on her brow, a glory in the midst of sorrow, so that the priest hardly knew her.
"She will do yet--she will do," he said joyfully to himself, like a gardener who sees some treasured faded plant suddenly put forth new shoots.
When the bandages were all fixed and the doctor had given his further orders, the priest went out with him, and Wally remained alone with Joseph. She sat down on the stool by the bed and rested her arms on her knees. He breathed softly and regularly now, his hand lay close to her on the counterpane--she could have kissed it without moving from her place. But she did not do it, she felt as if now she dared not touch even one of his fingers. If he had lain there dying or dead, then she would have covered him with kisses, as heretofore, when she believed him lost; the dead would have belonged to her--on the living she had no claim! He had died to her in the moment when the doctor had said he would live, and she buried him with anguish as for the dead in her heart, while the message of his resurrection came to her as the message of redemption. So she sat long, motionless by the side of the bed with her eyes fixed on Joseph's beautiful, pale face--suffering to the utmost what a human soul can suffer--but suffering patiently. She neither sighed nor lamented now, nor clenched her fist as formerly, in anger at her own pain; she had in this hour learnt the hardest of all lessons--she had learnt to endure. What sort of right had she, the guilty one, to complain--what better did she deserve? How could she dare still to wish for him, she who had almost been his murderess? How could she dare even to raise her eyes to him? No, she would bewail herself no more. "Thou dear God, let me expiate it as Thou will--no punishment is too great for such as I am--" So she prayed, and bowed her head humbly on her clasped hands.
All at once the door was flung open, and with a cry of "Joseph, my own Joseph!" a girl rushed in, past Wally, and threw herself weeping upon Joseph; it was Afra. Wally had started up as if a snake had touched her: for an instant the battle raged within, the last and hardest fight. She grasped herself, as it were, with her own arms, as though to keep herself back from falling upon the girl and tearing her away from the bed--from Joseph. So she stood for a time, while Afra sobbed violently on Joseph's breast; then her arms fell by her side as if paralyzed, and beads of cold sweat stood on her brow. What would she have? Afra was in her rights.
"Afra," she said in a low voice, "if thou truly loves Joseph, be still and cease these cries--the doctor says he must have perfect quiet."
"Who can be still that has a heart, and sees the lad lie there like that?" lamented Afra, "it's easy for thee to talk, thou doesn't love him as I do. Joseph is all I have--if Joseph dies I am all alone in the world! Oh Joseph, dear Joseph--wake up, look at me--only once--only one word!" and she shook him in her arms.
A low groan escaped from Joseph's lips and he murmured a few unintelligible words.
Then Wally stepped forward and took Afra gently but firmly by the arm; not a muscle of her pale face moved.
"I have this to say to thee, Afra: Joseph is here under my protection, and I am responsible for all being done according to the doctor's orders; and this is my house that thou'rt in, and if thou will not do what I tell thee, and leave Joseph in peace, as the doctor wishes, I'll use my right and put thee out at the door, till thou's come to thy senses and art fit to take care of him again--then," her voice trembled, "I'll leave him to thee."
"Oh, thou wicked thing, thou--" cried Afra passionately, "thou'd turn me out of the house because I weep for Joseph? Dost think everyone has so hard a heart as thou, and can stand there looking on like a stone? Let go my arm! I've a better right than thou to Joseph, and if thou doesn't like to hear me cry, I'll take him up in my arms and carry him home--there at least I can weep as much as I please. I'm only a poor servant-maid, but if I'd to pay for it by serving all my days for nothing, I'd sooner nurse him in my own little room than let myself be shown the door by thee--thou haughty peasant-mistress!"
Wally let go of Afra's arm; she stood before her with a white face, and with marks of such deadly suffering round her closed lips, that Afra cast down her eyes in shame, as if she divined how unjust she had been.
"Afra," said Wally, "thou's no need to show such hatred, I don't deserve it of thee; for it was for thee I fetched him out of the abyss--not for me,--and it is for thee he will live, not for me! Look here, Afra, only an hour ago I'd sooner have throttled thee than have left thee by his bedside--but now all is broken, my spirit, and my pride, and--my heart," she added low to herself "And so I'll make way for thee willingly, for he loves thee, and with me he'll have nought to do. Stay thou with him in peace--thou need not take away the poor sick man. Sooner will I go myself. You two can stay at the farm so long as you will--I will account for it with him to whom it belongs now. And I will take care of you in everything, for you are both of you poor, and cannot marry if you have nothing. And so perhaps some day Joseph will bless the Vulture-maiden--"
"Wally, Wally," cried Afra. "What art thou thinking of? I pray thee--oh Joseph, Joseph--if only I might speak!"
"Let it be," said Wally, "keep thyself quiet--for love of Joseph, keep thyself quiet. And now let me go in peace; torment me no more, for go I must. Only one thing I pray thee in return for what I've done for thee, take good care of him. Promise me thou will, that I may go with an easy mind."
"Wally," said Afra entreatingly, "don't thou do that, don't go away! What will Joseph say when he hears we've driven thee out of thy own house?"
"Spare all words, Afra," said Wally firmly, "when once I have said a thing, it stands, come what may."
She went to the chest, and took out a change of clothes, which she tied together in a bundle and threw over her shoulder. Then from a box she took a bundle of linen. "See, Afra," she said, "here is old and fine linen that thou'll need for bandages, and here is coarser to make lint, which the doctor will want when he comes this evening. Look, there are scissors--thou must cut it into strips the length of my finger. Dost understand? And every quarter of an hour, thou must put a fresh bandage on his head to draw the heat out. Tell me, can I trust thee not to forget? Think what it would be if, after I have fetched him out of the ravine, I should find that thou--thou had been careless in nursing him--here, at his bedside. And see, he must always lie with his head high, that the blood may not go to it--and shake the pillows up often. That is all, I think, now--I know of nought else. Ah, my God, thou'll not be able to lift him and lay him down as I do--thou hasn't got the strength. Get Klettenmaier to help thee; he is trustworthy. Now I leave him in thy hands--" Her voice failed her, her knees trembled, she could hardly hold the bundle that she carried. She threw a last glance at the wounded man: "God keep thee!" she said, and left the room.
Outside, the priest was talking with Klettenmaier. Wally went up to them.
"Klettenmaier," she shouted in the old man's ear, "Go in and help Afra to mind Joseph; Afra is there now in my place. Joseph will stay at the farm, and I am going away. You are all to treat Joseph as if he were the master, and to obey him as if I were by, till I come back; and woe to you, if he has to complain of ought. Let all the servants know!"
Klettenmaier had understood, and shook his head, but he did not venture to make any remark. "Good-bye, mistress," he said, "Come back again soon."
"Never!" said Wally softly.
Klettenmaier went into the house; Wally stood before the priest, and met his questioning glance. "Now nought is my own that my heart clings to, but the vulture," she said sadly, as if exhausted. "But him I cannot give up--he must come with me. Come, Hansl." She beckoned to the bird, which sat puffed up and drowsy on a railing; he came flying towards her with difficulty.
"Thou must learn to fly again now, Hansl," she said, "we're going away."
"Wally," said the priest, much concerned, "what do you mean to do?"
"Your reverence, I must go away--Afra is in there! Is it not plain that I cannot stay? I will do anything, I will all my life go bare and homeless, and wander through the country, and leave everything to him--everything--but I cannot look on at his Afra's love--only that I cannot--cannot bear!" She set her teeth to keep back the springing tears.
"And for his sake you will really give up house and home? Do you know what you are doing, my child?"
"The farm no longer belongs to me, your reverence. Since yesterday I've known that it belongs to Vincenz, whenever he puts in his claim. But my money, what I have besides, shall be for Joseph. If he is crippled by my fault, and cannot earn his bread,--it is my accursed guilt, and I must provide for him."
"What, is it possible," cried the priest, "that your father disinherited you of house and home?"
"What do I care for house and home? The home I belong to is always ready," said Wally.
"Child," said the old man, much disturbed, "you would not do yourself an injury?"
"No, your reverence, never now. I see now how right you are in everything, and that God Almighty will not be defied by us. Perhaps, when He sees that I truly repent, He'll have pity on me and grant peace to my weary soul."
"Now blessed be the hour, hard though it may have been, that broke your proud spirit! Now Wally, you are truly great! But where are you going, my child? Will you go to some charitable refuge? Shall I take you to the Carmelites?"
"No, your reverence, that would never suit the Vulture-maiden. I cannot be shut up in a cell between walls--under God's free sky, as I have lived, will I die--I should feel as if God could not come through such thick walls. I'll repent and pray as if I were in a church, but I must have the rocks and the clouds about me, and the wind whistling in my ears, or I couldn't get on at all--you understand, do you not?"
"Yes, I understand, and it would be folly to try to dissuade you. But where then are you going?"
"I'm going back to my father Murzoll--there is now my only home."
"Do as you will," said the priest. "Go in God's name, my child--I can part from you in peace, for wherever you go now--it is back to your Father!"
High up on the lonely Ferner, near her stony father, once more sits the outcast, solitary child of man--spell-bound, as it were, like a part of the dizzy heights from which she looks down on the little world below, in which no space could be found for the large and alien heart that had matured in the wilderness among the glacier-storms. Men have hunted and driven her forth, and that has been fulfilled that her dream foretold, the mountain has adopted her as its child. She belongs to the mountain now; stone and ice are her home--and yet she cannot turn to stone herself, and the warm and hapless human heart is silently bleeding to death up here between stone and ice.
Twice had the moon's disk waxed and waned since the day when Wally sought this, her last refuge. No familiar face from amongst the dwellers in the valley had she seen. Only once the priest had dragged his old and frail body up the mountain to tell her that Joseph was recovering; further, that news had come from Italy that shortly after enlisting Vincenz had been shot, and had left to her the whole of his possessions. Then she had folded her hands on her knees, and said quietly, "It is well for him--it is soon over," as if she envied him.
"But what will you do with all this money?" the priest had asked her, "who will manage your immense property? You must not let it all go to ruin."
"Gold and goods plentiful as straw--and no help in them," said Wally, "they cannot buy for me one short hour of happiness. When time has gone by, and I can think of things again, I'll go down to Imst and make it all sure that my property becomes Joseph's. For myself I'll keep only enough to have a little house built further on, under the mountain, for the winter--but now I must have peace, I can care for nothing now. Manage things for me, your reverence, and see that the servants get their due, and give the poor what they need; there shall be no poor on the Sonnenplatte from this day forward."
Thus briefly had she settled her worldly affairs as though on the brink of the next world: it remained to her only to await her hour--the hour of deliverance. It seemed to her as if God had said by the mouth of the priest, "Thou shalt not come to me, till I myself fetch thee." And now she waited till He should fetch her--but how long, how terribly long the time might be! She looked at her powerfully-built frame--it was not planned for an early death, and yet death was her only hope. She knew and understood that she must not end her days with violence, that her atonement must be consecrated; but she thought--surely she mighthelpthe good God to set her free when it should please Him! And so she did everything that might injure the strongest body. It was not suicide to take only just enough nourishment to keep herself from starving--fasting is ever a help to penitence--nor to expose herself day and night to the storm and rain from which even the vulture took shelter in a cleft of the rock, so that wet, frost, and privation began gradually to undermine her healthy constitution. It was not self-murder to climb the cliffs no mortal foot had trodden, it was only to give the good God the opportunity to fling her down--if He would! And with a sort of gloomy pleasure she watched her beautiful body waste away, she felt her strength diminish, often she sank down with fatigue if she had wandered far, and when she climbed, her knees trembled and her breath grew short. Thus she sat one day weary on one of Murzoll's highest peaks. Around her, piled one upon another, rose white pinnacles and blocks of ice; it looked like a church-yard in winter where the snow-covered grave-stones stand in rows side by side, no longer veiled by clinging leaf or blossom. Immediately at her feet lay the green-gleaming sea of ice with its frozen waves, that flowed onwards as far as the pass leading over the mountain. Deepest silence as of the tomb dwelt in this frozen, motionless upper world. The distance with its endless perspective of mountains lay dreamily veiled in soft noonday mists. On Similaun, close to the brown Riesenhorn, nestled a small, bright cloud, that clung to it caressingly and was wafted up to sink again, till at last, torn on the sharp edges of the frightful precipices, it disappeared.
Wally lay supported on her elbow, and her eye mechanically followed the drift of the tiny cloud. The mid-day sun burned above her head, the vulture sat not far off, lazily pruning himself and spreading his wings. Suddenly he became uneasy, turned his head as if listening, stretched his neck, and flew croaking a short way higher up. Wally raised herself a little to see what had startled the bird. There, over the slippery, fissured glacier came a human form straight towards the rock where Wally sat. She recognized the dark eyes, the short, black beard, she saw the friendly glance and greeting, she heard the "Jodel" that he sent up to her--as once years ago, when from the Sonnenplatte she had seen him pass through the gorge with the stranger--she, an innocent, hopeful child in those days, not yet cast out and cursed by her father--not yet an incendiary--not yet a murderess. As a whole landscape bursts from the darkness with all its heights and depths revealed, under a flash of lightning--so the whole destined chain of events passed before her soul, and shuddering, she recognized the depth to which she was fallen.
What had she been then--and what was she now? And what did he seek who had never sought her then, what did he seek now of her, the condemned one--the dead-alive?
She gazed downwards in unspeakable terror. "Oh God! he is coming," she cried aloud, and clung to the rock in mortal anguish as if it were the hand of her stony father. "Joseph--stay below--not up here--for God's sake not up here--go--turn back--I cannot, will not see thee--;" but Joseph, who had mounted the rock at a quick run, was coming towards her. Wally hid her face against the stone, stretching out her hands, as if to defend herself against him. "Can one be alone nowhere in this world?" she cried, trembling from head to foot. "Dost thou not hear? Leave me. With me thou'st nought to do--I am dead--as good as dead am I--can I not even die in peace?"
"Wally, Wally, art thou beside thyself?" cried Joseph, and he pulled her from the rock with his powerful arms, as one might loosen some close-growing moss. "Look at me, Wally--for God's sake--why will thou not look at me? I am Joseph, Joseph whose life thou saved--that's not a thing one does for those one cannot bear to look at."
He held her in his arms, she had fallen on one knee, she could not move, she could not defend herself; she was no longer the Wally of former days, she was weak and powerless. Like a victim beneath the sacrificial knife, she bowed her head as if to meet the last stroke.
"Good Heavens, maiden! thou looks ready to die. Is this the haughty Wallburga Stromminger? Wally, Wally--speak then--come to thyself. This comes of living up here in the wilds where one might forget to speak one's mother-tongue almost. Thou'rt quite fallen away; come, lean on me and I'll lead thee down to thy hut. I'm no hero myself yet, but even so I've somewhat more strength than thee. Come--one gets dizzy up here, and I've much to say to thee, Wally--much to say."
Almost without will of her own, Wally let herself be led step by step, as, without speaking, he guided her uncertain footsteps over the glacier and down to her hut. There however they found the herdsman, and pausing therefore, Joseph let the girl glide from his support on to a meadow of mountain grass. She sat silent and resigned with folded hands; it was God's will to send her this trial also, and she prayed only that she might remain steadfast.
Joseph placed himself beside her, rested his chin on his hand, and looked with glowing eyes into her grief-worn face.
"I have much to account for to thee, Wally," he said earnestly, "and I should have come long ago if the doctor and the curé would have let me; but they said it might cost me my life if I went up the mountain too soon, and I thought that were a pity--for--now I first rightly value my life, Wally--" he took her hand, "since thou'st saved it--for when I heard that, I knew how it stood with thee--and just so it stands with me, Wally!" He stroked her hand gently.
Wally snatched it from him in sheer terror; it almost took her breath away.
"Joseph, I know now what thou would say! Thou think'st that because I saved thy life, thou must love me out of gratitude and leave Afra in the lurch after all. Joseph, that thou need not think, for so sure as there is a God in Heaven--wretched am I and bad--but not so bad as to take a reward I don't deserve, nor to let a heart be given me like wages--a heart too that I must steal from another. Nay, that the Vulture-maiden will not do--whatever else she may have done! Thank God, there's still some wickedness even I am not capable of," she added softly to herself. And collecting all her strength, she stood up and would have gone to the hut where the herdsman sat whistling a tune. But Joseph held her fast in both arms.
"Wally, hear me first," he said.
"Nay, Joseph!" she said with white lips, but proudly erect, "not another word. I thank thee for thy good intention--but thou dostn't know me yet."
"Wally, I tell thee thou must hear me for a moment--dost understand? Thoumust." He laid his hand on her shoulder and fixed his eyes on her with an expression so imperious that she broke down and gave way.
"Speak then," she said as if exhausted, and seated herself, far from him, on a stone.
"That is right--now I see thou can obey," he said, smiling good-humouredly.
He stretched his finely-formed limbs on the grass, laid the jacket he had thrown off under his elbow and supported himself on it; his warm breath floated towards Wally as he spoke. She sat motionless with downcast eyes; the internal struggle gradually brought the hot colour to her face, but outwardly she was calm, almost indifferent.
"See, Wally,--I will tell thee exactly how it is," Joseph went on, "I could never bear thee formerly, because I didn't know thee. I heard so much of how wild and rough thou wert, and so I took a bad opinion of thee and would never have to do with thee at all. That thou'rt a fine and handsome maid I could see all the while--but I didn't want to see! So I always kept out of thy way, till the quarrel happened between thee and Afra--but that I could not let pass. For see, Wally--what is done to Afra is done to me, and when Afra is hurt it cuts me to the heart, for thou must know--well, it must come out, my mother in her grave will forgive me--Afra is my sister."
Wally started back, and stared at him as if in a dream. He was silent for a moment, and wiped his forehead with his linen sleeve. "It's not right for me to talk about it," he continued, "but thou must know, and thou'll let it go no further. My mother told me on her deathbed that before ever she knew my father, she had a child out there in Vintschgau, and I solemnly promised her that I would care for the lass as a sister, and it's for that I fetched her from across the mountains and brought her to the Lamb so that she might be near me. But we two promised each other that we'd keep it secret and not bring shame on our mother in her grave. Now dost thou understand how I couldn't let an injury to my sister pass unpunished, and stood up for her when she was wronged?"
Wally sat like a statue and struggled for breath. She felt as if the mountains and the whole world were whirling round her. Now all was clear--now too she understood what Afra had said by Joseph's bedside. She held her head with both hands, as if she could not grasp the meaning of it all. If it were indeed true, how gigantic was the wrong she had done. It was not a heartless man who had scorned her for a lowly maid-servant--it was a brother fulfilling his duty to a sister that she would have killed--she would have bereft a poor orphan of her last remaining stay for the sake of a blind movement of jealousy. "Good God, if it had been so!" she said to herself. She felt giddy--she buried her face in her hands, and a dull groan escaped her. Joseph, who did not observe her agitation, went on.
"So it came to pass that up at the Lamb I swore before them all that I would take down thy pride, and do to thee as thou'd done to Afra, and so we hatched the plot among us, in spite of Afra who'd not have had it done. And all went well; but when we wrestled with one another, and when that dear and beautiful bosom lay upon my heart, and when I kissed thee, it was as if my veins were filled with fire. I'd say no word to thee, because I'd been thy enemy so long,--but from hour to hour the fire grew, and in the night I clasped my pillow to me and thought that it was thou, and when I woke, I cried out loud for thee and sprang out of bed for the ferment and fever I was in."
"Stop, stop--thou'rt killing me," cried Wally, with cheeks and brow aflame; but he went on passionately: "So I went out whilst it was still night, and wandered up to the Sonnenplatte. I'll tell thee all,--I meant to knock at thy window before break of day, and I was full of joy to think how thou'd put out thy sleepy face, and how I'd hold thy head, and make amends for all, and ask thy pardon a thousand, thousand times. And then--then a shot whistled past my head, and directly after another hit my shoulder, and as I stumbled some one sprang on me from behind and hurled me down from the bridge. And I thought, now all is over with love and everything else. But thou came, thou angel in maiden's form, and took pity on me, and saved me, and cared for me--Oh, Wally!" He threw himself at her feet, "Wally, I cannot thank thee as I ought--but all the love of all the men in the world put together is not so great as the love I have for thee."
Then Wally's strength gave way altogether--with a heart-rending cry she thrust Joseph from her, and flung herself in wild despair face downwards on the earth. "Oh, so happy as I might have been--and now all is over--all, all!"
"Wally, for God's sake!--I believe thou'rt really mad! What is over? If thee and me love each other, all is well!"
"Oh Joseph, Joseph, thou doesn't know--nothing can ever be between us two; oh, thou doesn't know, I am outcast and condemned--thy wife I can never be--trample on me, strike me dead--me it was that had thee flung down yonder."
Joseph shrank back at the awful words--he was not yet sure that Wally was not mad. He had sprung up, and was looking down at her in horror.
"Joseph," whispered Wally, and clasped his knees, "I've loved thee ever since I've known thee, and it was because of thee that my father sent me up to the Hochjoch, because of thee that I set fire to his house, because of thee that for three years I wandered lonely in the wilds, and was hungry and frozen and would have died sooner than be married to another man. And out of pure jealousy I treated Afra as I did, because I thought she was thy love and would take thee from me. And thou came at last after long, long years that I had waited for thee, and thou asked me to the dance like a bridegroom--and I believed it, my heart was bursting for joy, and I let thee kiss me as a bride, but thou--thou mocked me before everyone--mocked me!--for all the true love with which I had longed for thee--for all the sore trouble that I had borne for thee--then all at once everything was changed, and I bade Vincenz kill thee."
Joseph covered his face with his hands. "That is horrible," he said in an undertone.
"Then in the night I repented," Wally went on, "and I went out, and would have hindered it--but it was too late. And now thou'st come to tell me that thou loves me, and all would be well if I could stand before thee with a clear conscience. And I have brought it all on myself with my blind rage and wickedness. I thought no wrong could be so great as that thou did to me, and it is all nothing to what I have done to myself--but it serves me right--it serves me quite right."
There was a long silence. Wally had pressed her damp brow against Joseph's knee, her whole body shook as in a death-agony. An agonizing minute passed by. Then she felt a hand gently raise her face, and Joseph's large eyes looked down on her with a wonderful expression.
"Thou poor Wally!" he said softly.
"Joseph, Joseph, thou mustn't be so good to me," cried Wally trembling, "take thy gun and kill me dead--I'll hold still and never shrink, but bless thee for the deed."
He raised her from the ground, he took her in his arms, he laid her head on his breast and smoothed her disordered hair, then kissed her passionately. "And STILL I love thee!" he cried in a voice like a shout, so that the words rang back exultingly from the desert walls of ice.
Wally stood there hardly conscious, motionless, almost sinking under the flood of happiness that flowed over her. "Joseph, is it possible? Can thou really forgive me--can the great God forgive me?" she whispered breathlessly.
"Wally! He who could listen to thy words and look in thy wasted face, and could yet be hard to thee--that man would have a stone in the place of a heart. I'm a hard fellow, but I could not do that."
"Oh God!" said Wally, and the tears rushed to her eyes, "when I think that I would have stilledthatheart for ever--!" She wrung her hands in despair: "Oh thou good lad--the better and the dearer thou art to me, so much the more terrible is my remorse. Oh, my peace is gone, for ever gone, in earth and in Heaven. Thy servant will I be, not thy wife--on thy door-step will I sleep, not at thy side--I'll serve thee, and work for thee, and do all thy will before thou can speak the word. And if thou strike me, I'll kiss thy hand, and if thou tread on me, I'll clasp thy knee--and beg and pray till thou'rt good to me again. And if thou grant me nought but the breath of thy lips, and a glance and a word--still I'll be content--it'll still be more than I deserve."
"And dost think that I should be content?" said Joseph hotly, "dost think a glance and a breath are enough for me? Dost think I'd suffer that thou should lie on the doorstep, and me inside? Dost think I would not open the door and fetch thee in? Dost think perhaps that thou would stay outside, when I called to thee to come?"
Wally tried to free herself from his grasp; she hid her glowing face in her clasped hands.
"Be at peace, sweet soul," Joseph went on in his deep, harmonious voice, and drew her towards him. "Be at peace, and take that which our Lord God sends thee--thou mayst, for thou hast atoned nobly. Torment thyself no more with self-reproach, for I also have sinned heavily towards thee, and provoked thee cruelly and rewarded thy long love and faith with mockery and scorn. No wonder that thy patience gave way at last--what else could one expect?--thou'rt only the Vulture Wally! But thou's quickly repented thee, and despised death itself to bring me from the depths where no man would have had the heart to go, and had me carried to thy room, and laid upon thy bed, and thyself hast tended me, till that foolish Afra came and drove thee away, because thou thought she was my love. And thou wished to give us all thy property that I might be able to marry Afra--as thou thought! And then came away to the wilderness with thy heavy sorrow! Oh, thou poor soul, nought but heart-ache hast thou had for my sake since thou's known me, and shall I not love thee now and shall we know no happiness together? Nay, Wally, and if the whole world were hard to thee--it's all one to me, I take thee in my arms, and none shall do thee an injury."
"Is it really true that out of all my shame and misery thou'll take me to thy heart, thy great and noble heart? Thou'll have no fear of the wild Vulture-maiden that's done so many wicked things?"
"I fear the Vulture-maiden--I, Joseph the Bear-slayer? No, thou dear child, and were thou still wilder than thou art, I fear thee not, I'll conquer thee, that I told thee once before in hatred--I tell it thee now in love. And even if I could not tame thee, if I knew that within a fortnight thou'd murder me, I would not leave thee--I could not leave thee. A hundred times have I climbed after a chamois when I knew that each step might cost me my life--and yet would never leave it, and thou--art thou not worth far, more to me than any chamois? See Wally--for a single hour of thee as thou art to-day, to see thee look at me and cling to me as now, will I gladly die." He pressed her to him in a breathless embrace. "A fortnight hence thou'll be my wife, and have no thought of killing me--I know it, for now I know thy heart."
Then Wally sprang up, and raised her arms towards heaven. "Oh, Thou great and merciful God," she cried, "I will praise Thee and bless Thee my whole life long, for it is more than earthly happiness that Thou hast sent me--it is a message of Grace!"
It was now evening; a mild countenance looked down on them as in friendly greeting; the full moon stood above the mountain. On the valleys lay the shades of evening--it was too late now to descend the mountain-side. They went into the hut, kindled a fire and sat down on the hearth. It was an hour of sweet confidence after long years of silence. On the roof sat the Vulture and dreamed that he was building himself a nest, the rush of the night-wind round the hut was like the sound of harps, and through the little window shone a star.
Next morning Wally and Joseph stood at the door of the hut ready to set out homewards.
"Farewell, God keep thee, Father Murzoll," said Wally, and the first gleam of morning showed a tear glittering in her eye, "I shall never come back to thee more. My happiness lies down yonder now, but yet I thank thee for giving me a home so long, when I was homeless. And thou, old hut, thou'll be empty now, but when I sit with my dearest husband down there in a warm room, I'll still think of thee, and how long nights through I've shivered and wept beneath thy roof, and will always be humble and thankful."
She turned and laid her hand on Joseph's arm. "Come, Joseph, that we may be at the good priest's at Heiligkreuz before mid-day."
"Aye, come--I'm taking thee home, my beautiful bride! You see, you phantom maidens, I've won her, and she belongs to me--in spite of you and all bad spirits."
And he threw out a "Jodel" into the blue distance, that sounded like a hymn of rejoicing on the day of resurrection.
"Be quiet," said Wally, laying her hand on his mouth in alarm, "thou mustn't defy them." But then she smiled with a serene look. "Ah no," she said, "there's no more 'phantom maidens' and no more bad spirits--there is only God."
She looked back once more. The snowy peaks of the Ferner glowed around in the morning light. "Still it is beautiful up here," she said with lingering footsteps.
"Art sorry to come down yonder with me?" asked Joseph.
"If thou wast to lead me into the deepest pit under the earth where no gleam of day ever shone, still I'd go with thee and never question nor complain," she said, and her voice sounded so wonderfully soft that Joseph's eyes were moist.
There was a sudden rush down from the roof of the hut. "Oh, my Hansl--I'd almost forgotten thee!" cried Wally. "And thou--?" she said smiling at Joseph, "thou must make friends with him, for now you two are brothers in fate. I fetched thee from the precipice as well as him."
So they went down the mountain side. It was a modest wedding procession, no splendour but the golden crown that the morning sunshine wove around the bride's head--no follower but the vulture that circled high in the air above them--but in their hearts was hardly-won, deeply-felt, unspeakable joy.
Up yonder on the giddy height of the Sonnenplatte where once "the wild Highland maid looked dreaming down," where later on she let herself into the depths of the gloomy abyss to rescue the beloved one, a simple cross stands out against the blue sky. It was erected there by the village community in memory of Wallburga the Vulture-maiden and Joseph the Bear-hunter--the benefactors of the whole neighbourhood.
Wally and Joseph died early, but their name lives and will be praised so long and so far as the Ache flows. The traveller who passes through the gorge late in the evening when the bell rings for vespers and the silver crescent of the moon stands above the mountains, may see an aged couple kneeling up yonder. They are Afra and Benedict Klotz, who often come down from Rofen to pray by this cross. Wally herself it was who brought their hearts together, and to-day on the brink of the grave they still bless her memory.
Below in the gorge, white, misty forms hover around the traveller and remind him of the "phantom maidens." Down from the cross there is wafted to him a lament as it were out of long-forgotten heroic legends, a lament that the mighty as well as the feeble must fade and pass away. Still this one thought may comfort him--the heroic may die, but it cannot perish from off the earth. Under the splendid coat of mail of the Nibelungen hero, beneath the coarse peasant frocks of a Vulture-maiden and a Bear-hunter--still we meet with it again and again.