Old Luckard.
When about a week later the herdsman came up the mountain with the
flocks, Wally almost frightened him, she looked so wasted away; but
when he said to her, "Thy father bids me ask thee if thou'st had enough
of being up here, and if thou'll do thy duty?"--she set her teeth and
answered, "Tell my father, I'd sooner let myself be eaten piecemeal by
the vultures, than do anything to please them that drove me up here!"
This was for the present the last message that passed between her and
her father.
When Wally had her little flock around her, which consisted only of
sheep and goats, for larger animals could not find sufficient food on
these heights, then her old spirit revived and the mountain lost its
terrors for her. In the midst of her helpless charges she was no longer
alone, she had again some one to work for, something to care about. For
though the vulture had been a faithful companion, yet he could not do
away with the inactivity that had driven her almost to despair, and
allowed dark thoughts to gain the mastery over her.
So little by little she became accustomed to the solitude, and it grew
dear and sweet to her. Life with its daily claims, small and great,
narrows and confines every great nature: up here Wally's untameable
spirit could expand without constraint; up here was freedom--no human
being to gainsay her, no alien will to oppose itself to hers--and
standing there, the only soul-gifted being far and wide, by degrees she
felt herself a queen on her solitary, lofty throne, a sovereign in the
unmeasurable, silent realm that lay beneath her eyes. And she looked
down at last from her heights with a mixture of pity and scorn on the
miserable race below, who, wrapped in earth-born clouds, spent their
lives in longing and grasping, in haggling and hoarding, and a secret
aversion took the place of her first home-sickness. There, far below,
were strife and anguish and crime. Murzoll had spoken truly in her
dream--up here among the pure elements of ice and snow, in the clear
atmosphere, free from all smoke, or pestilential taint of death--here
was peace, here was innocence; here among the mighty tranquil mountain
forms, which in the beginning had terrified her, the sentiment of the
sublime had flooded her soul and had raised it far above the common
measure of mankind. One only of all those low earthly inhabitants
remained to her dear and beautiful and great as before. It was Joseph
the bear-slayer, the Saint George of her dreams. But he, like herself,
dwelt more on the heights than in the valleys, he had climbed all the
sky-piercing peaks on which no other foot would venture, he brought
down the chamois from the steepest rocks, and for him nor height nor
depth had any terror; he was the strongest, the bravest of men, as she
was the strongest, the bravest of maidens. In all the Tyrol no maiden
was worthy of him but herself; in all the Tyrol no man was worthy of
her but he. They belonged to one another, they were the giants of the
mountains; with the puny race of the valleys they had nothing in
common.
So, in her solitude, she lived for him only, and awaited the day when
this promise should be fulfilled to her. That day must come, and being
certain of this, she did not lose patience.
Thus the summer passed away, and winter fell upon the valleys, and soon
Wally must descend with its wild forerunners, the storm and the snow,
to her estranged home. She quailed at the thought. Rather would she
have crept up here into some deepest ice-cave with suspended existence
like the wild bear than go down again to the noise and smoke of the low
spinning-room, and be wedged, together with her morose father, her
detested suitor, and the malicious servants, within the narrow compass
of the house, imprisoned behind walls of snow a foot high, out of
which, often for weeks at a time, no escape was possible.
The nearer the time came, the heavier her heart grew, the more
despondingly did she revolt against the thought of that imprisonment;
but time passed on, and no one came to fetch her; it seemed as though
down there she was entirely forgotten. Colder ever and more wintry grew
the weather, the days ever shorter, the nights ever longer; two sheep
perished in a snow-storm; soon the animals could find no more food, and
the time for fetching home the flocks was gone and past. "They mean to
leave us to die up here of hunger," said Wally to the vulture, as she
divided her last piece of cheese with him, and a secret horror swept
over her; the young healthy life rebelled within her against the
terrible thought. What should she do? Forsake the flock and find the
homeward track, leaving the innocent beasts to perish miserably?
Nay!--that Wally would not do--she would stand or fall like a brave
commander with his troops. Or should she set out together with the
flocks, all ignorant of the road as she was, and wander over the
snow-covered Ferner to see at last one animal after another sink amid
the ice and snow, or fall into the clefts of the rock? This also was
impossible; she could do nothing but wait.
At last, one misty autumn morning when she could not see her hand
before her face for the fog, when the little flock, trembling with
frost, were all huddled together in their fold, and Wally, stiff with
cold, sat over the fire on the hearth--then the boy appeared to conduct
her home. And though she had shrunk with horror from the thought of
slowly starving up here with her flock, yet now all her former dread of
the return home came upon her again, and she knew not which seemed the
greater evil--to sink here by the side of her harsh father Murzoll, or
to be obliged to go back to her real father.
The herd-boy broke the silence: "Thy father bids me tell thee thou's
not to come into his sight unless thou'll do as he bids thee; but, if
thou'll not hear reason, then thou may stay with the cow-herd in the
stable--into the house thou shall not come; that he's sworn." "So much
the better," said Wally, drawing a deep breath, and the boy stared at
her in astonishment.
Now she could go down with a light heart; now she would be spared all
contact with those hated people, and could live for herself in barn and
stable; what her father had devised as a punishment, was to her an act
of kindness. Now she could indulge her thoughts undisturbed; and if she
was in need of encouragement there was old Luckard who was always so
good to her. Yes, in her solitude she had first learned to understand
what was the true worth of such a faithful heart, and that her father
could not take from her.
She set to work almost cheerfully to prepare for her homeward journey;
for now that her dread of the hateful intercourse with her father was
removed, she could think with silent joy on the gladness of the old
woman at the return of her foster-child. There was still some one down
yonder who took pleasure in her, and that thought did her good.
"Come, Hansl," she said when all was packed to the vulture, who, with
ruffled feathers, sat unwilling to move on the hearth, "now we are off
to see old Luckard!"
"But Luckard's not at the farm any more," said the boy.
"Why, where is she, then?" asked Wally startled.
"The master has turned her out."
"Turned her out! old Luckard!" cried Wally. "Why, what's been the
matter?"
"She couldn't get on with Vincenz, and he's everything with the master
now," the boy explained in a tone of indifference, and, whistling, he
hoisted the bundle of Wally's things. Wally had turned quite pale. "And
where is she now?" she asked.
"With old Annemiedel in Winterstall."
"How long ago did it happen?"
"Oh, about three weeks ago. She cried ever so, and could hardly walk,
the fright went to her knees; Klettenmaier and the boy had to hold her
or she'd have tumbled down. All the village stood round and looked on
to see her go away."
Wally had listened motionless, her sunburnt face had turned quite pale,
and her breast heaved painfully. When the boy had ended, she seized her
staff from the wall, flung the vulture on to her shoulder, and stepped
out of the hut.
"Go on first," she commanded in a hoarse voice. The little flock was
quickly assembled, the milking gear packed together, and the procession
set itself in motion. Wally spoke not a word; a fearful tension marked
her features, and with lips pressed together, a threatening line that
recalled her father's look between her thick brows, she led the flock
onwards with long strides, her firm step leaving deep tracks in the
snow. Faster and ever faster she walked, the farther down she got, till
the boy with the flock could scarcely keep up with her, and where the
way was steep she struck the iron point of her staff into the soil and
swung herself down with a mighty spring, so that only the vulture in
the air could follow her path over cliffs and crevasses. Often both
herdsman and flock vanished in the mist behind her; then she stood
still and waited a moment till they were in sight, and when the boy had
indicated the direction of the road, on she went again without rest or
pause, as if it were a matter of life and death.
At last the region of perpetual snow was passed, and at Wally's feet
lay Vent, as it had lain six months before when she had gone up the
mountain; only not now in the glow of the May sunshine, but forlorn,
autumnal, cold and dead. The boy announced that they must rest there
for a while. Wally refused, but the boy declared it would be as good as
killing both man and beast, not to rest for half an hour.
"As thou will," said Wally, "stay--. I am going on. If they ask where I
am when thou gets home, say only that I am gone to old Luckard." And
she strode on, the flapping wings of the faithful Hansl rustling over
her; he could fly now as he liked, for Wally no longer clipped his
wings.
Now she had reached the spot where on her upward journey Luckard had
bid her farewell and turned homewards again. "Dear old Luckard!" Wally
fancied she could see her again quite plainly, crying in her apron as
she turned away, waving her one more farewell with her brown, bony
arms, her silver locks that always hung from below her cap fluttering
in the wind. She had grown grey in honour and fidelity in Stromminger's
house, and now shame had fallen on that white head! And Wally had
parted from her so lightly, and repressed her tears, and had torn
herself impatiently away when the old woman in her grief would not let
her go; and no foreboding had warned her of the fate to which she was
sending the unprotected old servant with that brief farewell, or that
Luckard for her sake would suffer hardship and disgrace. Wally ran and
ran as if she could overtake Luckard going down the road as she had
gone six months before; and in spite of the autumn frost, the sweat
stood on her brow, the sweat of a winged haste to pay her heavy debt of
gratitude; and hot tears gathered in her eyes as she seemed always to
see the old woman silently walking and walking on before her. She went
so slowly, poor old Luckard, and Wally so fast; and yet they remained
always as far apart, and Wally could not overtake her.
For one instant must Wally pause for rest and breath. She wiped the
drops from her brow and the tears from her eyes; then she felt as if
driven inexorably onwards again. "Wait, Luckard, only wait, I'm coming
to thee," she murmured breathlessly to herself, as if for her own
comfort.
At last the church tower of Heiligkreuz rose up before her, and from
thence a giddy path led high over the torrent to a solitary group of
houses on the farther side of the ravine. This was the little spot
called Winterstall, where Luckard was living. Wally passed behind the
houses of Heiligkreuz, and crossed the slight bridge beneath which the
wild waters of the Ache roared and foamed as though they would sprinkle
with their angry froth even the defiant girl who looked carelessly down
into the awful depths as though neither danger nor dizziness existed in
the world. The bridge was passed, still a steep bit of road remained,
and then at last it was reached, the goal for which she had striven
with a beating heart; she was in Winterstall, and there just to the
left of the path stood the hut of Luckard's cousin, old Annemiedel,
its tiny windows deep set beneath the overhanging thatch. Behind
them, no doubt, the old woman sat spinning, as was her custom in the
winter-season, and Wally drew a deep breath out of a lightened heart.
She had reached the cottage, and before entering she looked smiling
through the low window for Luckard. But there was no one in the room;
it looked empty and deserted with an unmade bed in one corner left
standing in a disorderly heap. Above it, a smoke-blackened wooden
Christ stretched his arms on a cross, on which were hung a piece of
crape and a dusty garland of rue. It was a dreary scene, and at the
sight of it all joy forsook Wally; she set down the vulture on a rail,
unlatched the door and stepped into the narrow passage. At one end an
open door led into the little kitchen, where a small fire of brushwood
smouldered on the hearth. Some one was there busily at work; it must
certainly be old Luckard, and with a beating heart Wally walked in. The
cousin stood on the hearth cutting up bread for her soup. No one else
was there.
"Oh, my God! Wally Stromminger!" cried the old woman, and let her knife
fall into the platter in her astonishment. "Oh, my God, what a pity,
what a pity!"
"Where is Luckard?" said Wally.
"She is dead! Oh, my God, if thou'd only come three days sooner--we
buried her yesterday." Wally leant silent and with closed eyes against
the door post; no sign betrayed what was passing in her soul.
"It's a real pity!" continued the old woman loquaciously. "Luckard said
she felt as if she couldn't die without seeing thee once more, and thou
was always coming on the cards, and day and night she would listen to
hear if thou wasn't coming. And when she felt herself near death,
'After all, I must die,' she said, 'and I've never seen the child,' and
then she would have the cards once more, and she wanted to lay them out
for thee in the very death-struggle, but she couldn't do it, her hand
shook on the counterpane. 'I can see no more,' she said, and lay back,
and it was all over."
Wally clasped her hands over her face, but still no word passed her
lips.
"Come into the bedroom," said the old woman goodnaturedly. "I've hardly
borne to go in there since they carried Luckard out. I'm always so
alone, and I was so glad when my cousin came and said now she'd stay
with me. But I soon saw she couldn't live long after her disgrace. It
went to her stomach, she could hardly eat anything, and every night I
could hear her crying, and so she got always weaker and thinner--till
she died."
The old woman had opened the door of the room into which Wally had
looked before, and they went in. A swarm of autumn flies buzzed up. In
the corner stood Luckard's old spinning wheel silent and still, and the
empty disordered bed confronted it sadly.
From a panelled cupboard on which the black Virgin of Altenoetting was
depicted, Annemiedel took a worn pack of German cards.
"There, see; I laid the pack by for thee, I was sure thee would come.
It always stood so on the cards. They're true witches' cards these, and
a pack that has had the touch of a dead hand on it, that is doubly
good. I don't know what misfortune they're sending thee, but Luckard
always shook her head and read them with a fearful heart. She never
told me what she saw in them, but for sure it was no good."
She gave Wally the cards; Wally took them in silence and put them in
her pocket. The cousin wondered that Luckard's death should not touch
her more nearly, that she should be so quiet and not even shed a tear.
"I must go," the old woman said, "I've got my soup on the fire. Say,
thou'll dine with me?"
"Yes, yes," said Wally gloomily, "only go, cousin, and let me rest
awhile. I sprang almost straight down here from the Hochjoch."
Annemiedel went away shaking her head. "If Luckard had only known what
a hard-hearted thing it is!"
Scarcely was Wally alone when she bolted the door behind the old woman
and fell on her knees by the empty bed. She drew the cards from her
pocket, laid them before her, and folded her hands over them as over
some holy relic.
"Oh! Oh!" she cried aloud, in a sudden outburst of grief: "Thou'st had
to die, and I was not with thee; and in all my life long thou's always
been loving and good to me--and I--I did not pay it back. Luckard, dear
old Luckard, can thou not hear me? I am here now--and now it is too
late. They left me up there. There's no herdsman they'd have left so
long, and it was all malice, that I might just be frozen and then give
in! It had already cost me two of my flock--and now thee too, thou poor
good Luckard!"
Suddenly she sprang to her feet; her eyes red with crying flashed with
a feverish light, she clenched her brown fists. "Only wait down yonder,
you scoundrels--only wait till I come. I will teach you to drive
innocent and helpless folk out of house and home. As true as God is
above us, Luckard, thou shall hear even in thy grave how I will stand
up for thee!"
Her eyes fell on the crucifix over the dead woman's bed. "And Thou!
Thou let'st everything go as it will, and Thou helps no one that cannot
help himself," she murmured bitterly in her storm of grief to the
silent enduring image above, whose significance she never could
understand. She was terrible in her righteous anger. All that lay in
her of her father's inflexible nature had developed itself unfettered
up yonder in the wilds, and her great and noble heart that knew none
but the purest impulses drove without suspecting it ill-seething blood
through her veins.
She gathered together her sacred relics, the cards, on which the dying
woman's clammy fingers had traced the last message of her love; then
she went out into the kitchen to Annemiedel.
"I will now go on, cousin," she said calmly, "I only beg thee to tell
me how things fell out between Luckard and Stromminger--" she no longer
called him father. The old woman had just served the soup in a wooden
bowl and she insisted on Wally's sharing it with her.
"Thou must know," she said, while Wally was eating, "Vincenz there, he
knows just how to come over thy father, and he's got the better of him
altogether. Ever since the summer, Stromminger's had a bad foot and
cannot walk. So Vincenz goes up to him every evening and passes the
time for him playing cards, and always lets him win--he thinks he'll
gain once for all when he wins thee. The old man can hardly live now
without Vincenz, and so little by little he's given him the oversight
of everything, because with his lame foot he can never get about
himself. So Vincenz thinks now the house and farm half belong to him
already, and bustles in and out just as he pleases. That was how the
quarrel began with Luckard, for Luckard, she would always see that
everything was right and fair, as she was used to do, and Vincenz took
everything out of her hands and she durst never say a word. Then when
he saw that Luckard was downright pining, he said to her that he'd let
her manage everything just as if she'd been mistress, and that he'd
take care to wink at anything she might like to do, if she'd only help
him to get thee--for he knew very well that she could do anything with
thee. And then Luckard grew angry; 'She'd never stolen in her life,'
she said, 'and wasn't going to begin now in her old age--she wanted
nothing but what she could earn honestly, and that as for the man who'd
look on at cheating and say nothing, she'd never recommend him to
Wally,' she said. And what does the villain do? goes straight to
Stromminger and accuses Luckard. He'd convinced himself now, he said,
that it was only Luckard that had set thee against him and thy father,
and it was all her doing, he said, that thou was so unruly, because she
was fain to hold everything under her own hand. That's how it all came
about. And it just broke her heart to think that such things were
believed of her, when not a word of it all was true. It grieved her
such injustice should be done. Is it not true, she never said to thee
that thou shouldn't obey thy father?"
"Never, never; on the contrary she was always humble and discreet, and
never talked about what she had nothing to do with," said Wally, and
again her burning eyes were wet. She turned away her face and rose to
go. "God keep thee, cousin," she said, "I'll soon come back again." She
took her staff and hat, called her bird, and set out hastily towards
home.