CHAPTER I.

Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Page scan source:

http://www.archive.org/details/hourwillcomeata00firgoog

2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].

3. Vol. I and II are reprinted here as Collection of German Authors,

Vols. 37 and 38.

COLLECTION

OF

GERMAN AUTHORS.

VOL. 37.

* * * * *

THE HOUR WILL COME BY W. von HILLERN.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

"All that Time brings, Time also sweeps away. Therefore have the

fathers recorded the deeds of men for their grandchildren."

Goswin. Chronik von Marienberg. 13..

THE

HOUR WILL COME

A TALE OF AN ALPINE CLOISTER

BY

WILHELMINE von HILLERN,

AUTHOR OF

"THE VULTURE MAIDEN (DIE GEIER--WALLY)" ETC.

FROM THE GERMAN

BY

CLARA BELL.

IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I.

_Copyright Edition_.

LEIPZIG 1879

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.

LONDON: SAMPSON LAW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON.

CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

PARIS: C. REINWALD & Cie, 15 RUE DES SAINTS PÈRES.

_The Author reserves the Right of dramatizing this Tale_.

THE HOUR WILL COME.

PROLOGUE.

ST. VALENTINE'S ON THE HEATH.

The heath or moorland plateau of Mals lies wide--spread, silent, and

deserted where the lofty head of the Grossortler towers up, and

overlooks it in eternal calm. It is five centuries ago--a mere moment

in that world of everlasting snows; the keen autumn wind, as at this

day, is rushing through the grey halms of the charlock, woodrush and

heathgrasses, that have caught a doubtful, golden gleam reflected from

the glaciers which are bathed in the glow of the sinking sun; as at

this day, the gale packs the driving white clouds together in the still

highland valley, as though to rest for the night. They heave and roll

noiselessly, spreading a white, misty sheet over the withered

heathgrass. The mirror-surface of the moorland tarn lies lead-coloured

and dull, wrinkled by the night-breeze, and its icy waters trickle in

tiny rills over the bare plain and down to the valley. All is the same

as it is to this day! Only life is wanting, life warm and busy, which

in these days is stirring in the villages and homesteads that dot the

plain, and that have brought the dead moorland into tilth and

fertility. Profound silence reigns over the immeasurable level,

throughout its length and breadth no living thing stirs; it is as if

this were indeed the neutral space between Heaven and Hell--a vast,

eternal void! Only the monotonous murmur of the Etsch--that cold artery

of the desolate heath--and the roar of the winds that sweep at night

across the plateau; these are the eerie voices of this realm of death.

Woe to the lonely pilgrim who is wandering through the night in this

boundless desert, in storm and snow, in impenetrable darkness; he is

lost in nothingness, owned by neither Heaven nor Hell, and the earth

knows him not! No ear can hear his cry for help, it is lost in vacancy;

the raven and the wolf mark him down, but they tell no one of their

mute prey.

It is true that pitying love has penetrated even to this wilderness and

realm of death, and spreads her arms so far as they may reach; but they

are but human arms, weak and inadequate for the great divine mind that

animates them. Every evening, above the howling of the storm and the

roaring of the highland lake, as dusk creeps on, the Vesper bell rings

softly out like the beat of some metallic heart. Then a dull-red,

flaring blaze is suddenly seen, which parts into wandering storm-blown

flakes of flame that disperse themselves about the moor till they

vanish in the mist and darkness. The shepherd and lay-brethren it is,

who go forth with torches and biers from the Hospice of Saint Valentine

in the moor, which pious faith has erected for the lost traveller here

in the wilderness. Defying the warring elements, they seek in silent

and fearless devotion the strayed, the perishing, and the hungry, and

bring them in to the warm hearth of humanity. Happy is he whom they

find, he is rescued--but the moor is wide, and they are but a forlorn

little handful of men, not all-knowing nor all-seeing.

The sun went down early in angry red; it grows darker and darker. Heavy

clouds are packed over the evening sky, the last glimmer of starlight

is extinguished, all is as dark as though no light survived in Heaven

or earth; for a moment even the howling, shrieking winds are silent,

which nightly carry on their demon-dance round and across the heath;

but from the distance looms a nameless, formless something, a thunder

roll is heard, soft at first like the sound of slow, heavy wheels, then

nearer and nearer--a terror, invisible, intangible but crushing, shakes

the earth to its foundation. Slowly it surges on, like a deep groan of

rage long controlled only to break out all the more fearfully in

raving, annihilating fury. The snow-storm, the first of the year,

sweeps down from the Grossortler over the bare trembling heath--a

mighty, moving mass rolls on before it that breaks incessantly into

powder, and is incessantly renewed--as if the winds had torn the

eternal mantle of snow from the shoulders of the numberless glaciers,

and were flinging it down from the heights. A giant wall reaches from

earth to sky; snow, snow everywhere. Touched by the icy breath, the

shapeless mists over lake and river curdle and turn to snow, the light

evening-clouds form compact masses of snow--whirling pillars that bury

everything in their wild dance; the very air is turned to snow, there

is no tiniest space between sky and earth that is not filled with snow.

The whole moor is overwhelmed in it, and is one vast, white bed, where

the storm and night may work their wild will.

But hark! a cry of distress, from a spot between the two lakes and far,

far from the sheltering Hospice. It is the cry of a human being that

shares that fearful bed with the night and the storm--a woman who lies

sunk to the knees under the cold, crushing coverlet of snow, and on her

breast a newborn baby-boy, closely clasped in her stiffened arms and

wrapped in her cloak. The milk which flows from the young mother's

bosom to nourish her infant has frozen above her fluttering heart, and

the tears on her closed lashes are turned to ice. There she lies. "Poor

feeble mother, who has thrust thee out in this night of storm and

tumult for your child to be born under the open sky?" Thus ask the

storm and the wild uproar of the elements; and as if even they had pity

for the wretched soul, the wind carries the mother's cry of anguish

over her starving infant, bears it on its wings to the scattered party

of seeking, rescuing monks. "Be quick, make haste before it is too

late."

And they hear it, these bold wrestlers with death, themselves

half-buried in the snow, and they set out, wading, digging, shovelling,

till the sweat of their brows runs down on their frozen beards, ever

listening without a word, without a sound after that tremulous

wind-borne cry.

And these storm-proof hearts quake with dread and pity for the hapless

wretch to whose help they are hastening; they go forward painfully on

their deadly and toilsome way, heeding neither danger nor difficulty,

with only one purpose and one aim before their eyes--a struggle for

life with Death.

At last--it is close by--at last they hear a faint cry; even the

death-stricken woman hears them approaching, she collects her remaining

strength and once more opens her eye-lids, on which the restless

whirling snow has already dropped a white shroud; a red gleam meets her

sight, she hears the scraping of iron shovels, the burden that weighs

on her breast and on her feet gets lighter and lighter--here are light

and human voices--a shout of deliverance--of joy. Round her opened

grave stand the snow-whitened storm-beaten group in a flood of red

light from the flaring torches, their eyes shining with the divine

light of devoted love which has triumphed over danger and death. And

they raise her in their rough hands, they lift her out of her cold

tomb, they wrap her and the naked child in warm hair-cloth coats and

carry her home under the sheltering roof of holy Valentine.

"Salve, Frater Florentinus! we bring a precious prize," says one of the

brethren triumphantly to the silver-bearded old man who opens the heavy

creaking door. "A young mother and a new born boy--snatched from

death."

"Deo gratias!" murmurs the old man in a voice husky from age. "The Lord

will bless your labours. Come in quickly, the wind is blowing the snow

in."

They step in and the door falls to with a groan. The storm outside

snorts and rages and hurls against the door, like some wild beast

robbed of its prey, but the door is tight and fast, and within all is

quiet and warm; a smoking pine torch is burning in an iron bracket

fixed to one of the pillars of the entrance hall, and throws wavering

shadows and red lights on the grey stone walls and the black wooden

crucifix which spreads out its arms to welcome all who enter.

"Come, hapless suffering mother, here you may find rest," says the old

man compassionately, and he opens a low, iron-plated door at the

farther end of the hall, through which the procession passes in silence

into a room which is at once the guest-chamber, the kitchen, and the

refectory of the pious brotherhood, and the only warm room in the

little Refuge, whose walls are thicker than its rooms are wide. A vast

chimney-place like a roof projects into the half-dark hall, its broad

shadow cast on the vaulted roof by the crackling fire that burns

beneath it. From the ceiling hangs a small iron oil-lamp covered with

cobwebs and giving too dismal and dim a light to illuminate the whole

room. Over the fire hangs a cauldron in which a warm mess is stewing

for the brethren and for any one they may bring with them on their

return, half-frozen, from the desert outside; the roughly hewn seats

stand round an octagon table, which is immoveably fixed in the middle

of the room on strong supports. The only decoration in the whole

smoke-blackened hall is a picture of St. Valentine, who, himself of

gigantic proportions, stands preaching the gospel on the open heath to

a crowd of very small devotees; the thick clouds of smoke which, all

the winter through, are puffed back from the chimney by the stormy

gusts, have blackened this picture also; yet it is the most treasured

possession of the brotherhood. It was painted by Father Columbanus of

the monastery at Marienberg, and Father Columbanus was an enlightened

and inspired man, to whom the saints were wont to appear in nightly

visions that he might depict them. This picture of Saint Valentine was

the last vision that he saw and painted, for he died shortly after; so

it is of double value! Under the picture hangs a holy-water vessel of

terra-cotta.

On the heavy, rough-hewn table there are wooden platters in which each

man receives his share as it is taken out of the cooking pot, and a

wooden spoon lies by each. This is all the furniture of the bare room;

but such as it is, to the suffering, storm-lashed woman it is full of

unspeakable comfort--a city of refuge from the raging wilderness

without. She is silent, but her eye rests with an unearthly glitter on

the rough, weather-beaten figures, who carry her at once to the chimney

and with clumsy hospitality press her to take a little of the warm

mess. Then, with a quiet bustle, they make her a couch by the glowing

fire; a sack of straw, a pillow filled with white moss, and for

coverlet a woolly sheep-skin--this is all the house has to offer, but

it is a delicious couch after the fearful bed out on the moor--a couch

prepared by careful and kindly human hands. With bashful awkwardness

they untie the band of her tangled golden hair, take off her wet

outside garment and wrap her in a warm, dry monk's frock, then they lay

the frail and trembling form carefully on the bed and put the pale,

half dead baby on her arm. The frozen fount of the mother's breast

thaws under the warm wrapper, the child finds its natural food, and

breathes and lives again. The brethren stand aside in silence, and

tears run down their lean cheeks.

"May the holy mother of God protect thee--poor young mother!" says the

grey-haired brother Florentinus, laying a little metal image of the

Virgin on the suffering woman's breast. "We are unlearned men,

unskilled in serving sick ladies and ignorant of what may comfort you

in your suffering; but this image is of great virtue and famous for

many miracles. It will bestow its grace on you too if your past life

has not rendered you unworthy to receive it."

The young woman looked him calmly and frankly in the face.

"Holy brother," said she, "I am miserable and poor, and have not where

to lay my head, but in that shelter which Heaven provides for the

wretched under the sacred convent roof. But I was faithful, reverend

brother, faithful and obedient at all times!" She pressed the image

long and fervently to her lips, and silently told her sorrows to the

All-pitying Mother.

"Most times when a young wife's first-born is brought into the world a

loving grandmother bends over her bed and takes thought for everything,

and a young father rocks his first-born tenderly on his arms. But I, O

Mother of Grace! am cast off and homeless, and have no one but Thee."

And as the nourishing fount flows freely for her sucking child, the

frozen fountain of her soul thaws too, and overflows from her closed

eyelids in hot but restful tears. The Heavenly Mother bends lovingly

and soothingly over her; the worn out woman rests her weary head on the

unseen but omnipresent and ever-merciful bosom, and overcome by deadly

exhaustion she falls asleep. The brethren slip off their wooden shoes,

and walk barefoot on the stone flags so as not to disturb the exhausted

woman. She looks to them like a martyr as she lies there--so calm, with

the baby that has also gone to sleep looking like a glorified angel.

The flickering fire throws changing lights and shadows on her crisply

curling hair, making it seem like a crown of thorns; the brethren

observe the resemblance, and point to it in silence.

Old Florentinus meanwhile does not forget temporal interests for the

sake of eternal ones. He busily steals about the room on tip-toe, and

carries the stranger's garments to the fire to dry, and for the first

time he sees that there is a richly embroidered border at the hem of

the dress, which glitters in the fire-light, and that the tattered

shoes are embroidered by a skilful hand; he silently shows these

ornaments to the brethren, and they shake their heads in astonishment.

Then he lifts the cauldron from the fire, and dispenses the steaming

contents into the platters with a sign to his companions; they obey the

signal with but small alacrity, they are in no mood to eat. Noiselessly

they draw up to the table, offer up a grace, and take the simple meal

of barley and water standing. The thoughtful old man puts by a little

of it for the sick woman. Then they cross themselves before the picture

of St. Valentine, and withdraw each to his own cell, carefully closing

the clumsy doors behind them. The old man only remains to watch the

sick woman, and he seats himself in silence on the stone window-seat at

the farther end of the room, telling his beads. The storm still roars

round the house in long and violent gusts, but it can do it no

mischief, for poor and bare as it is, it is built of strong masonry, a

fortress against wind and weather, and the narrow air-openings are so

deeply imbedded in the thick walls that no draught can pour in through

them; only now and then the wind rushes howling down the chimney, and

flings the crackling flames and smoke out into the room, so that the

sick woman is startled from her painful slumbers; then all is still

again. The child sighs softly in its sleep as if dreaming of future

sorrow; the mother's breathing goes on in regular rhythm, and even the

old watcher leans his weary head in the niche in the wall, and falls

asleep. Only the gigantic saint on the wall preaches unweariedly on to

his dwarfed heathen in the light of the dying lamp, and the little

figures seem to move and dance dreamily in the growing darkness.

Suddenly a cry of pain broke from the lips of the sick woman; the old

man rose and went to the bed-side. She lay there quite changed, almost

unconscious, her eyes sunken, her lips blue; the hand of death had

passed over her face. She was seized with a violent trembling, and the

bed quaked under her.

"What is the matter?" asked the brother in alarm. "Will you have a

little food? It is standing here by the fire--or shall I make you a

drink of warming herbs?" and he hastily threw some more wood on to the

embers.

"Good brother," she replied, and her white teeth showed below her upper

lip like those of a corpse, "neither food nor drink can help me any

more. As it must come, let it come--I am dying; and when I tell you

that I walked with my unborn child from Görz as far as this, and that

the boy was born on the heath where I was all alone and helpless, you

cannot wonder at it. Hear my confession, and grant me extreme unction."

The old man's eyes overflowed with tears. "Alas, poor flower, who can

so pitilessly have plucked you, and flung you away to wither, and fall

to pieces in the winter-storm. And we are so unskilled in all medical

knowledge, and must see you die so miserably when we would so willingly

rescue you!"

"Do not weep for me, reverend father," she said calmly; "all is well

with me, I am going to rest in the lap of our Blessed Mother. But my

poor child--he loses his mother just as I am finding mine. Take charge

of him, I beseech you, he has no one in the world--he is wholly

forlorn!"

"It shall be as you wish," said the old man. "You may rely on that in

perfect confidence--you may die in peace on that score."

"Then take my boy without delay to the venerable Abbot Conrad of Amatia

at Marienberg. Tell him that the outcast wife of Swyker of Reichenberg

sends the child to him as her last bequest, that she dedicated him to

the church in a sorrowful hour, and the venerable man will help a poor

soul to keep her vow."

"In the name of all the saints!" cried the monk. "You, the most noble

lady of Reichenberg? You, the guardian spirit and good angel of all the

country round! Married only nine months since, if we were rightly

informed? How, tell me, how come you here in this wild spot without one

of your friends, cast out like the poorest beggar or like some

criminal!"

"You say rightly, reverend father," she said quietly, and a gleam of

the reviving fire fell like a glory on her pale brow, "I was banished

like a criminal, and thrust out to be a prey to the fowls of the air, I

and the child, the son of a noble house. And yet I am not guilty of

that of which I was accused, although God himself was pleased to bear

witness against me." A fresh shivering fit came over her, and shook her

as the autumn wind shakes the faded leaves from the trees.

"My time is short--I will make a short story," she said in a failing

voice. "It is nine months to-day since the noble Lord of Reichenberg,

as you know, married me from the house of Ramüss, and soon after

we went to Görz, the gay court of Albert, the count of Tyrol and

Görz.--Egno of Amatia, the companion of my childhood, went with us. Oh!

would we had never gone there--I have never had an hour of happiness

since! The countess of Eppan, a beautiful woman of courtly manners and

accomplishments, stole my husband's heart and with it his confidence in

me; I had to look on while it happened, helpless and with no one to

counsel me, a simple woman, having grown up in a quiet town in the

Lower Engadine--ignorant of the world and of its wickedness. And

then--how can I say it--she whispered to my husband that I and Egno of

Amatia--! Oh! reverend Brother, spare me, spare me--If death had not

already frozen my blood with his cold breath I should blush purple with

shame!"

"I understand you, noble Lady," said the old man.

"My husband believed the falsehood and--oh! that I should have to say

it--disowned his child. He challenged Egno of Amatia to ordeal by

combat. Reverend Father, the ways of the Almighty are inscrutable and

wise--why He, who proves the heart and reins, abandoned the innocent, I

cannot understand; but it was His holy will--and so it fell out. Egno

fell, slain by my husband's hand. God himself was witness against

me--and so my deluded husband cast me out--me and my child. 'Go--bring

your child into the world to be meat for the birds and wolves, and if

tender hands take pity on it, may it be accursed and they who rescue it

also. It is the fruit of sinful love and by sinful love may it perish!'

So he spoke and put me out of his house, and in order that the curse

may not take effect, worthy father, I dedicated the child to the

cloister before it saw the light, for where can it be safer than within

convent walls. I was trying to reach St. Gertrude's, the convent in the

Münsterthal--a well-beloved home.--There I thought to have given birth

to my child. If it were a girl it was to belong to St. Gertrude--if a

boy, I would take it to Marienberg. My brother is there and the Abbot

is well known to me, and kindly disposed towards me--he is of the house

of Amatia and will receive the child, who is an outcast for his

relation's sake, and will bring it up to a holy life in the Lord, so

that it can incur no curse and fall into no sinful love. Swear to me

that you will report all this to him, faithfully--as I tell it to

you--!"

"I swear it by this picture of the Blessed Virgin, who henceforth will

be a mother to your son, born in sorrow. You have dedicated him to

Heaven, and Heaven will accept him--because the gift is pure. I promise

you in the name of the brethren of Marienberg that they will keep and

cherish your child so that the curse may not be accomplished." And the

old man sprinkled the baby with holy water and laid his withered hand

in blessing on his head. The mother suddenly stretched herself out with

a wonderful smile of peace. Her child was safe now, she could die

content.

"Make haste, give me the last sacraments, I am near my end!" The old

man went to wake the brethren--startled, they hurried out of their

rooms and gathered round the dying woman's bed. She still breathed, but

with difficulty, and speech had failed her; but her lips could still

receive the sacred viaticum and smile.

All was still as death in the room; the brethren prayed softly, the old

man concluded the sacred office and made the sign of the cross. Yet

three more feeble breaths--and all was over. The old man closed the

sightless eyes and gently took the sleeping infant from its dead

mother's side.

"Come, poor little one, there is no home on earth for you--you belong

to Heaven."

He wrapped the boy in a warm lamb-skin and lighted a torch at the sooty

lamp.

"Where are you going, brother Florentine? Are you going out in this

stormy night, and with the tender infant?" asked one of the brethren.

"Shall we not accompany you!"

"No! the child's guardian spirit is with me--I need no human aid. You

stay here to pray by the corpse."

"Wait at least till the morning," said even the rough shepherd, the

secular Superior of the convent.

"A vow will not bear any postponement!" said the old man, and with the

new-born child in his arms he quitted the room where its mother's body

was lying. The baby was torn from its mother's breast, torn from the

source of its life; and as if the unconscious child felt the sorrowful

parting it struggled and cried and fought against the bony, masculine

arm that carried it. The old man stepped out of the convent; once more

the heath received the outcast and homeless infant with wild cries from

the storm; the snowfall was over and an icy blast had frozen the

endless expanse of snow quite hard. The old monk's steps crunched upon

it, and the evanescent crystals sparkled with a million rays where the

flare of the torch fell, so that he made his onward way through the

darkness, in the midst of a glory of light. He felt as if it were

Christmas Evening, and as if the angel who guided the three kings were

leading him too on the way, to conduct the child to his Holy Companion

in the manger--to the Child above all children and the city of

salvation. The star on the angel's brow threw a soft light in his path,

he felt the mighty fanning of his wings on his hoary temples, and he

sang joyful praise to the Lord in his heart while he marched stoutly

forward through that stormy, glorious night of wonders.

BOOK I.

UNDER A CURSE.

CHAPTER I.

High up on the rocks above the village of Burgeis stands a watch tower

of faith, the monastery of Marienberg, with heaven-reaching towers and

pinnacles, proudly looking far out and down into the night. Torn, and

as though weary, the clouds hang about the mountain peaks that surround

it, and the snow storm beats its exhausted wings against the mighty

walls; it has spent its rage over night and its power is broken. Now

and again between the parting clouds glimmers the pale crescent of the

setting moon; below, in the valley, a cock crows betimes to announce

the coming morning, but up in the convent as well as down in the

village all are sunk in sleep, no ray of light illumines any one of the

numberless rows of windows, with their small round panes set in lead;

only in the porter's room on the ground floor a feeble light is burning

and keeping watch for the sleeping door-keeper. Three blows of the huge

iron ring on the back door are suddenly heard. The porter starts up,

his lamp has burnt low, warning him that it will soon be morning. He

goes out with his clattering bunch of keys in his hand; meanwhile the

knocking has been hastily and imperatively repeated.

"Who is out there at this early hour?" He asks cautiously.

"The beginning and the end--an infant and an old man," is the answer.

"What am I to understand by that?"

"Open the door and then you will know."

"I must first fetch the Superior. At such an unwonted hour I cannot

open to any one without his sanction." And he goes back into the house

and wakes the Superior, who glances with alarm at the hour-glass

thinking he has overslept himself. It will soon be the hour of matins.

"Come out quickly," cried the gatekeeper. "A stranger asks to be

admitted--I dared not open the gate without your permission."

The Superior threw on his frock and cowl and stepped out.

"An old man and a child--as he says--" continued the porter, as they

crossed the courtyard.

"Open the gate," said the Superior, as the wail of an infant apprised

him that the stranger outside had spoken the truth. The porter obeyed

and at the door, with the infant on one arm and in his other hand the

torch, stood the old monk from St. Valentine's.

"Blessed be the Lord Christ! Brother Florentinus! How come you here

this wild night--and what have we here for a whimpering visitor?" cried

the Superior, admitting the old man.

"Aye, you would never have thought that my stiff old arms would be

bringing round such a fragile, wriggling thing.--But take me quickly to

the reverend Abbot that we may take counsel in the matter--for the

child is hungry and needs womanly care."

"The bell will soon call to matins," said the Superior. "Wait here in

the court-yard till the first stroke, and then you will be sure that no

bad spirit crosses the threshold with you. Meanwhile I will go and

announce you to his reverence, the Abbot."

"Aye, you are right, brother, the child must enter the convent at a

lucky hour, for he must stay in for ever."

The Superior asked no more--the brethren were accustomed to suppress

all curiosity and to accept inexplicable occurrences in silence. He

went in and the gate-keeper remained outside with the old man. They

stood there expectant, till the first stroke should sound that should

scare away the hordes of bad night-spirits.

Florentinus extinguished his torch, for the light from the porter's

window lighted up the narrow court-yard.

"To-day is a great festival, and the fathers were making preparations

far into the night," said the porter. "You did not think of that?"

"I do not know what you mean," said the old man. "To-day is no saint's

day?"

"This day, a hundred years ago, anno Domini 1150, the edifice of this

godly house was begun by Ulrich of Trasp, and a great thanksgiving

service is to be performed in honour of the noble founder."

"To be sure I might have known it. Your house is ten years younger than

ours and we too, ten years since, had a thanksgiving to our founder,

Ulrich Primele."

"But you must not let our reverend brethren hear you say that our

foundation is younger than yours, for they may take it ill in you. You

know of course that our holy house was built two hundred years ago at

Schuls, and was only transferred here because at Schuls and at St.

Stephen we were so often visited by fire and avalanches."

"I know, I know," nodded the old man. "I did not mean to cast any

reflection on the venerable antiquity of your foundation. God grant it

may increase and prosper. It is still a sure bulwark against the decay

of all conventual discipline in these days--God save us--the rule of

St. Benedict is often followed in outward semblance only, but your

severity is everywhere famous."

"Now!" said the guardian, opening the door for the old man. Solemnly

and with silvery clearness, the bell for matins rang out. Inside the

convent, all was alive at once. One after another, the windows were

lighted up but without noise, as in a magic lantern. Brother

Florentinus stepped into the hall. Door after door opened, and the dark

figures of the monks slipped out in their soft sandals, and glided

noiselessly down to the chapel along the long corridor. The deepest

"silentium" reigned in the dusky passages and halls--that sacred

silence by which the still dormant soul prepares itself to wake up to

prayer. But the crying of the hungry baby disturbed the solemn

stillness, and the fathers paused in astonishment, and gathered full of

wonder and bewilderment round the screaming child. The guardian called

the old man to come into the refectory with the infant, and the

brethren went in to matins, shaking their heads over this strange

visit. The Abbot, a reverend man of near seventy years, was standing in

the refectory when Florentinus entered.

"What is this strange story that our brother, the Prior, tells me? You,

Florentinus, bring us a child--a new-born infant. Where, in the name of

all the saints, did you pick it up, and what have we to do with the

helpless baby?"

"Most reverend Abbot, kindly lend me your attentive ear, and then your

questions will be answered. But first of all I beseech your grace to

allow that a woman may be fetched out of the village to suckle the

child, for it has been starving these three hours."

"That cannot be, Brother Florentinus; a woman in the convent! What are

you thinking about? You know very well that our order allows no women

but princesses to come within our walls."

"Your reverence, it _must_ be," said Florentine fearlessly; "I promised

the babe's dying mother in your name that it should be received this

day within the sheltering walls of Marienberg, and 'he will help a poor

soul to keep her vow,' the dying woman said. He is the child of the

noble Lady of Reichenberg."

The Abbot clasped his hands.

"What--where did you see her?"

"We found her at night on the heath, where her child had been born out

in the snow. She is now lying in our house at St. Valentine's--dead."

The Abbot grasped his forehead with his hand as if he thought he was

dreaming.

"The Lady of Reichenberg, the angel of Ramüss! What has happened to

her?"

"She was repudiated by her husband on account of your relative Egno of

Amatia; he fell in trial by combat. But the wife was innocent

nevertheless, the child is Swyker of Reichenberg's child; but he cast

it out to the birds of the air, and loaded it with the heaviest curses.

In order that the curses might not take effect, she dedicated it to the

cloister."

The Abbot Conrad took the child tenderly in his arms.

"Yes, poor orphan, you shall find a home here; none on earth are

motherless to whom the church opens her sheltering bosom."

Then he went to the door, and called the Superior.

"Hasten without delay down into the village, and find some good

woman who will undertake to care for the infant's bodily needs; the

convent will reward her richly. She may live in the Lady Uta's east

turret-chamber; there she will be hidden from the eyes of the brethren;

and you may also open the Lady Uta's chest for her use and the baby's.

Make the room ready so that it may look comfortable and habitable, and

that the woman may not feel as if she were a prisoner."

The guardian brother hurried away.

"The church must give to each severally that which he needs, why should

she let the suckling starve that wants a mother's breast--she, the

All-bountiful, the Mother of all," he went on, giving the child back to

the old man. "In such an unprecedented case it is allowable to make an

exception to the rule, to save a soul for the church."

"You are great and wise, my Lord Abbot," cried Florentinus with

grateful joy, and rocking the child on his arm to quiet it. "It is

strange how soon one gets used to a little thing like this. I have

quite set my old heart on this little brat, it is so helpless and

forsaken!"

"It is no longer helpless nor forsaken," said the Abbot gravely. "When

matins are over, and the child has been properly attended to we will

baptise it. Meanwhile tell me in detail all that has happened, for it

must all be recorded in the chronicles of the monastery, as is

fitting."

He seated himself in the deep arm-chair at the upper end of the table,

supporting himself on the monstrous dragon's heads which formed the

arms of the seat.

Brother Florentinus conscientiously narrated the melancholy occurrences

of the night.

"The body must be fetched and interred in the church," said the Abbot,

"but without any inscription, for if we are to carry out the dead

lady's vows we must efface every trace of her. Nay, the boy himself

must never learn who his parents were, so that none of his family may

dispute our right to him."

"You are always wise and choose the right, most reverend Abbot,"

Florentinus again declared.

They heard a sound of hasty steps on the stone floor of the corridor,

and the Prior knocked at the highly ornamented door.

"Come in, in the name of the Lord," cried the Abbot.

The door opened, and a handsome young woman entered, whose fine, tall

figure was poorly clad in miserable rags. She remained standing timidly

at the door.

"Here is a woman who will be a mother to the child, if your reverence

thinks proper."

"What is your name?"

"Berntrudis."

"Only think, after the pious waiting maid of the Lady Uta of Trasp, our

noble foundress."

"She was my great-grandmother's sister."

"You come of a good stock, so I hope the fruit too is of a good sort,"

said the Abbot kindly.

The woman was modestly silent.

"I know you already by sight. You are the wife of the fisherman whose

business it is to catch fish in the lake for the convent."

"Yes."

"How old is your child?"

"Two weeks."

"Is it a girl or a boy?"

"A girl."

"And you feel that you can nurse another child as well?"

"Six, if you like," said the woman smiling, and showing two rows of

dazzling white teeth.

"Good, healthy and strong," said the Abbot to the Superior; "but," he

added in Latin, casting a thoughtful glance at the blooming figure

before him, "the brethren must not come in her way, you must be

answerable for no scandal coming of it." Then he said to the wet-nurse,

"Take the child then, in the name of the Lord. The Prior here knows

where your room is, and will see that your own child is brought to you.

You may go at your pleasure into the convent-garden so long as the

brethren are at vespers or at their meals, but you must never on any

account go outside the convent-walls. You are henceforth under the

rules of the order, and must submit to live like a nun. Will you?"

The woman hesitated a little, but then said,

"Well--yes; it will not last for ever."

The old white-bearded men looked at each other and shook their heads,

"Oh women--women!"

"Take her away," said the Abbot to the Superior, laying the child in

her arms. "Now do your duty, and the convent will give you a handsome

reward."

The woman pressed the child compassionately to her bosom and was about

to kiss him. But the Abbot checked her severely.

"You are never to kiss the child--do you hear? under the severest

penalties; so that the boy may not be accustomed from his cradle to

foolish caresses and wanton tenderness, for they are not seemly for a

son and future servant of the Church. No woman's lips may ever touch

him--not even those of his nurse."

The woman looked at the Abbot half-surprised and half-indignant.

"Oh! you poor, poor little child!" she murmured in her Rhætian dialect.

"But--when no one sees us I _will_ kiss you, all the same," she

thought, and followed the Superior out of the room. The two old men

looked at each other and again they shook their heads.

"Who would have thought of telling us, brother Florentinus, that at the

end of our days we should be inspecting a wet-nurse?" said the Abbot

laughing. "So it is, the unclean stream of life penetrates even the

strongest convent walls and fouls the very foot of our sacred altars."

"It is the duty of the strong to help the weak," said Florentinus

simply, "and such a humble labour of love disgraces no one, be he ever

so high!"

The Abbot nodded assent.

"Now come to the chapel, brother Florentinus, else we shall miss the

mass."

With slow steps they passed along the corridor and into the choir of

the darkened church, which was lighted only by the scattered wax-lights

of the brethren who were deciphering their manuscript breviaries. A

grateful fragrance of pine-wood pervaded the consecrated place and, so

far as the scattered tapers allowed, a number of festal garlands were

visible, made of pine-branches and red-berried holly twisted round the

pillars and carvings by the brethren who, during the night, had thus

decorated the chapel for the coming anniversary; and with hearts lifted

up in praise the two old men knelt down to perform their deferred

devotions.

Meanwhile the Superior had conducted the wet nurse through the spacious

building to the eastern tower. A shudder came over her as she felt her

way up the narrow spiral stairs, while the pine torch held by the

Prior--who let her pass on in front of him--threw her gigantic shadow

on the steep steps before her, and the solid masonry on each side. It

was so damp and cold, so uncannily still, so painfully narrow--she felt

as if a weight lay on her breast. "Where am I going? How high will this

take me?" She begins to get giddy. Turning after turning--always one

turn more--till she turns round with the stairs, and the stairs with

her--she feels as if she were spinning round and round on one spot and

yet she gets higher and higher, farther and farther from mother earth

on which till this day she has always walked, which hitherto she has

tilled with her own hands, in poverty and want, but happy in her labour

and free!

She climbed wearily up with the child, frequently treading on her gown,

for she had never before mounted steps in her life; she had lived in a

humble hut under a scanty straw-roof, or in the fields and meadows. She

had never thought it possible that men should build such tall high

dwellings, and she was seized by a secret terror, a real anguish of

fear, lest she should never be able to get down again.

The Superior spoke to her. "Only a few steps more, and it will be done;

we shall be at the top directly--in a moment." But the steps seemed to

grow before her, and her guide's "directly" was half an eternity to the

poor frightened soul. At last she almost hit her head against some

wooden beams and rafters; she was under the roof, and before her

was a small low door covered with curious iron-work; this was the

turret-chamber which she was to inhabit. She stood despondingly in

front of the door, but her guide opened it, stooped and went in before

her--she too had to stoop in order not to hit her head as she entered

the room. However, she was used to low doorways, that did not scare

her, and inside the room it was not so inhospitable as on the dark,

stone, spiral stairs. A first glimmer of day-light shone in through the

lens-shaped panes of the turret window; it was only a narrow opening,

high up in a deep niche in the wall, but three stone steps led up to it

and a stone seat was built at the top of them so that one could look

out at the distance or down into the valley according to fancy. A

homely bedstead, brown with age, stood by the wall with a heavy wooden

sort of roof, like a little house by itself, and curtains of faded

Byzantine silk. Old and clumsy as it was, to the poor woman who was

accustomed to sleep on nothing but straw, it appeared strangely

magnificent, and she felt as if some one must be hidden in it--some

grand personage, before whom she must bow low and speak softly so as

not to disturb the sleeper. Puffy-cheeked cherubs were carved on the

four bed-posts, just like round balls with wings attached to them. The

walls were whitewashed and painted with saints; the little ivory

crucifix over the embroidered but faded praying-stool seemed to greet

her as a friend, and a cheerful fire crackled in the chimney. It was an

ancient and venerable little room and it had an oppressive and solemn

smell like that of a reliquary--partly of dried rose-leaves and partly

of mould. The Prior showed her a large worm-eaten chest full of costly

linen; as he opened the heavy lid the dust flew off in a cloud and

little spiders scampered away.

"Look here," he said kindly, "You are in the room which was formerly

occupied by the Lady Uta of Trasp, the wife of our blessed founder,

when she came here on a visit from St. Gertrude's. She had this trunk

full of linen clothes brought here for her use and desired that whoever

might stop here as a guest should have the benefit of it for their use

and comfort. So now you may wrap yourself and the baby in it; it will

bring you a blessing, for it was spun by the innocent hands of the Lady

Uta and her maids, and many a fervent prayer has been said over it."

Berntrudis looked thoughtfully down at the linen garments; it touched

her to think that her ancestress, the pious Berntrudis, should have

helped with her hands to spin the web in which she, so long after,

might clothe herself. But she would not waste time in unpacking the

treasure, she pitied the hungry child.

"Go now, Brother Superior," said she, "while I give the child a drink,

and when my husband comes with my little girl, send him up at once."

But the Prior put on a considering face. "What--" he said, "your

husband up to you? That is not feasible; you heard--you are now under

convent rule!"

The woman started up in horror.

"What! my husband may not come to see me! I shall never see him again?

Then take your child back again. I will not stop. I will go away on the

spot."

"Oh! what a wild fury!" exclaimed the horrified Prior, "to fly into

such a passion at once; think of the sacred place you are in--would you

cause a scandal among our chaste brethren by your foolish worldly

affections?"

"That is all one to me. Only I must see my husband once more, else

I shall die of heartache--if I had known it I would never have

come--never, never."

"Think of the high wages--you will be made rich by the gratitude of the

convent, your house will be raised, your husband freed most likely,

absolved from his bondage to the convent--"

"That is all one to me," repeated the woman with increased vehemence.

"If I can never see my husband I will not stop--do as you will," and

she laid the baby on the bed and was hastening past the Prior and out

of the room, but he held her back.

"In the name of all the Saints--stay; will you leave the poor child to

starve? There is not another woman in the village who can nurse it and

take care of it. Can you be so cruel?"

The woman burst into tears, and turned to the bed again.

"No, you shall not starve, poor little orphan--you cannot help it!" and

she seated herself on the edge of the bed, took the child pitifully in

her arms and unheedful of the monk clasped it to her breast; the child

drank eagerly while her tears ran down upon it. The Prior turned away

and stood puzzled. He remembered how in his childhood he had never

dared to vex his mother while she was nursing his little brother for

fear the baby should not thrive, if the milk were turned by her anger.

What should he do now to soothe the wet-nurse?

"Listen to me," he said at last, "I know of another way out of the

difficulty for you; I will allow you to see your husband again, outside

the convent gate, now and then for half an hour; that I will take upon

myself. If that will satisfy you, we are all content--the child,

ourselves and you."

The woman sighed, but she nodded assent in silence. It was better than

nothing, and she felt she could not let the child starve, she could

never be happy with her husband again, if she had loaded her conscience

with such a dreadful sin for his sake.

"Are you content with that?" asked the Prior again, for he had not seen

her nod. The child had drunk till it was full and had gone to sleep;

she laid it on the bed, she could not speak, but she went up to the

Prior and kissed his hands in the midst of her tears.

"That is all right then," said he, glad of this happy turn, "I will see

whether your husband is already waiting with the child and then you can

speak with him at the little gate while we baptise this one. You shall

be allowed to do so once every week. And I will get our brother, the

carpenter, to carve you out a cradle that you may lay the baby in it,

and you will see that you will not want for anything."

The monk closed the door behind him and the woman went up to the little

loop-hole and pressed her hot brow against the small round panes. In

the early dawn she could hardly see the roofs of Burgeis deep down in

the valley and the scattered huts around it on the declivity and on the

opposite side on the mountains freshly covered with snow. Hers was down

there too, she could distinguish it quite plainly, for her sturdy,

industrious husband had built it better and bigger than the others, and

had loaded the thatch with heavy stones. The crowing of cocks from far

and near came up from the depth below--so homelike! and hers among

them--she knew his voice! She pressed her hand over her eyes--it

was like a dream that she should be mounted up here in the lonely

turret-chamber--so lonely; so high, high up, as if she were in

prison.--Oh! if it were but a dream, if only she could wake up again in

her husband's arms, in her own humble hut; never again would she follow

any one who might come to tear her away from her husband's fond heart.

How could she have done it--how ever could she have done it.

CHAPTER II.

Mass was over. The whole brotherhood had assembled in the underground

founder's hall, to offer up a special thanksgiving before the

effigies of the founders. This hall was the most ancient part of the

whole building, and in it a hundred years ago the brethren had

performed their devotions until the convent-buildings were complete.

Bishop Adelgott of Chur had consecrated it, and remained there

still in effigy. Since then it had been the custom to perform a

thanksgiving-service every year on the founder's day, in honour of the

venerable bishop and the noble patrons of the house, whose portraits

were preserved there for the safe keeping of the subterranean vault.

Here also the pious feelings of the brethren had expressed themselves

in beautifying care, and had clothed the damp walls down in the earth,

where only roots can live, with the fresh green of the tree-tops that

wave gaily in the upper air; the bright gleam of wax-tapers in two tall

seven-branched candlesticks was reflected from the dark walls, as if

the sun-shine, under which the busy convent-bees had gathered their

store, had laid hidden in the wax itself, only awaiting its release.

The natural incense of aromatic pine-wood filled the heavy underground

atmosphere; thick translucent tears of resin hung yellow and sparkling

from the freshly broken boughs, like drops of limpid topaz. The

portraits of Ulrich of Trasp and his veiled wife Uta looked down with a

gentle smile from thick wreaths of heath-plants and rue; and the text,

"They only live who die to the world," which proceeded from the mouth

of the founder on a golden ribband, shone in the light of the tapers

like letters of fire. Over these the two shields of Ulrich of Trasp

were displayed as precious relics; the shield of faith with a gold

cross on a white field, which was presented to him by his companions in

the faith in the Holy Land, and the shield of his house bearing a

rainbow.

The thanksgiving was ended; but the Abbot detained the brethren for a

hasty consultation. The fathers sat silent in a circle, and listened

attentively to the Abbot's story of the fate of the hapless Lady of

Reichenberg.

They are a circle of proud faces that look thoughtfully before them;

proud of superhuman victories, proud of the consciousness of belonging

to a band of men who by their iron strength of will have upheld the

dignity of humanity, and have preserved the thoughts which can govern

the world from the ruins of the decayed Roman Empire, from the horrible

subversion of all social order; through the migrations of peoples, and

the irruptions of barbarians; have saved them, and given them a

sanctuary for the benefit of later and riper generations. Only

one face accords ill with the quiet scene and its solemn setting; a

good-humoured, crafty, smiling, Epicurean countenance with fat cheeks

and piercing, sharp, glittering eyes under grey, bushy brows. It is

brother Wyso, the registrar and historian of the monastery; the

laughing philosopher who knows everything, and lets everything go its

own gait. The world lies below him in a bird's-eye-view--so small, so

insignificant--all humanity is to him like an ant-hill, and altogether

amusing and comical; how they build, how they fight, how they marry,

and at last are buried! he looks on at it all complacently, without

love and without aversion, as at a colony of ants or a hive of bees. He

never troubles himself with any enquiry as to how it began, and how it

will end; he satisfies himself with the knowledge that it is. They

dislike him in the cloister for this lukewarmness; then too he is "foul

of mouth," and now and then gives utterance to loose speech that

scandalises the brethren; for the rule of St. Benedict prohibits

useless and gay discourse, unless it be to cheer the sick or the sorry;

but they cannot accuse him of anything, for his conduct is

irreproachable in all important matters, and much may be excused in a

man of his learning. He needs must read of many unclean things and evil

deeds of men, which are hidden from the other monks.

Brother Wyso is a man of between fifty and sixty years, stout and

somewhat short of breath; for although Saint Benedict forbids the use

of meat there are many other excellent gifts of God, and brother Wyso

is very ready to give his attention to all permitted delicacies. On

this occasion he makes a by no means cheerful face, for the Abbot has

assembled them with fasting stomachs, and has not allowed them their

morning-meal after the cold early mass. He pushes his short fat hands

with a rueful shiver under the sleeves of his hood, and slaps the back

of his left hand with the fingers of his right, casting a side-long

glance meanwhile at his neighbour, brother Correntian, with a sort of

mischievous curiosity as to whether any trace of the weakness of the

flesh could be detected on his stony countenance; but he seems not even

to perceive this, and his passive face is turned to the Abbot with

unmoved attention. This brother is the strongest contrast to the smug

little monk by whom he is sitting. A noble countenance is his, but

furrowed by many a moral struggle, and set to stoniness by an assumed

calm; a tall, lean form mortified by hair-cloth, scourging and

chastisement; deep-set, dark, reproachful eyes--reproachful of the

patience of Heaven that never falls on the sinner to smite him; of the

light that shines alike on the evil and the good; of rosy cheeks and

white arms, such as are often to be met in the village; in short of all

that they gaze on, of all that thrives and rejoices or that is

cherished or enjoyed. It seems as though it were darker just round him,

as though he cast a deeper shadow than the others; and there is a wider

space between his seat and those of his neighbours than between any of

the rest. On his left hand sits Conrad of Ramüss, the brother of the

deceased Lady of Reichenberg, a handsome man of about twenty. He has

only lately come into the monastery, for he was a secular priest, and

an eloquent speaker to the glory of the Lord. But his handsome person

and the sweetness of his voice served the arch-enemy as weapons to turn

against his pious efforts, and to turn all good into evil. There were

too many foolish women who sinfully fell in love with him, and thought

more of the sweet lips whence flowed the sacred lore than of the

teaching itself; more of the servant than of his Lord. Such scandals

vexed Conrad's honest zeal. It had too often occurred that ladies in

the confessional had made him the confidant of their affection for

himself, and had made the chaste blood mount to his cheeks for shame.

So he fled from the world, laid these attractive gifts of nature in all

humility on the altar of the Lord, and hid himself in cloistered

solitude. Now for a year he has been a monk, and has never quitted his

cell but for the services of the church and general refreshment with

the brethren. Now all is peace in his soul, and though he knows that he

is still very far from perfection, he strives towards it cheerfully and

hopefully--his duties are his highest happiness, and what are all the

joys of earth to him compared with this consciousness?

While the grey haired Abbot is speaking, his eyes linger with peculiar

satisfaction on the high pure brow clustered round with fair curls,

which rests thoughtfully on the slender white hand; and old

Florentinus, standing behind the Abbot's throne, is involuntarily

reminded of the still, peaceful corpse lying up there at St.

Valentine's. Even in death the likeness is striking, and the tears

which spring from the monk's eyes as he hears of his sister's hapless

fate, confirm the relationship.

But many another grave and noble face is visible among the sombre

circle in the light of the low-burning tapers, and with them many dry,

hard and angular ones--as the same soil may bear very different fruits.

There sits Bero, the oldest of the brethren, a modest and enlightened

man, but of the severest principles; he has already been privately

chosen to be the successor of Abbot Conrad I. when the old man should

be gathered to the Holy Fathers of the Church. There is Conrad,

surnamed Stiero or the bull, to distinguish him from Conrad the Abbot

and Conrad of Ramüss; a man worthy of his surname,--a bull with a thick

neck, and a broad, angular forehead moulded much as the heathen figured

that Jupiter Ammon whom the Church overthrew after such a severe and

bloody struggle. He is a man of no subtlety, but a strong bulwark of

the faith and of the convent. So long as Conrad the Bull is there, no

enemy will venture near, for his fist and his wrathful temper are

everywhere known and none would brave them without good cause.

There is brother Engelbert, the painter, who writes the exquisite

illuminated manuscripts, Candidus the precentor, Porphyrius the

sculptor, who chisels out the crosses and tombstones of the deceased

brethren, Cyriacus, the Latin--and many more; Josephus, too, the lean

brother-carpenter, sits modestly in the background little dreaming that

his next task will be to make--an infant's cradle.

The Abbot finished his melancholy tale and ended with the words,

"You see, my brethren, the surges of the wicked world, rolling blindly

on, have cast a young life on our sheltering shore. Yet, let us not say

blindly--no, it is doubtless through some high purpose that this child

has been brought to our house on the very anniversary of our founder's

day. I have called you all together to take counsel with you as to

whether we shall take him in or cast him out on the wild ocean of

life?" "Take him in! take him in!" the majority of the brethren hastily

exclaimed; but the sinister Correntian said, "Stay."

The brethren looked at him in surprise.

"If our venerable father, the Abbot, wishes to hear our opinion he may

perhaps listen to my warning; reverend father, do not do it--my

Brethren, do not receive this child within your walls."

The brethren muttered indignantly to each other, but he went on

undisturbed. "It is accursed--it will bring the curse under our roof."

"A poor, innocent child!" murmured the circle of monks.

"Innocent or no it must expiate the sins of its parents, for even the

mother is not free from guilt. She revelled in the dazzling levity of

worldly joys, she consented so long to the courting attentions of the

playmate of her youth that she excited her husband's jealousy, and who

knows--if things had gone so far--how much farther--"

"Be silent!" thundered out a clear full voice. "Do not dare to

calumniate the dead; her brother still lives to avenge her." Conrad of

Ramüss stood before him with his fist raised and his lips pale and

trembling. "I knew that chaste and lofty spirit as well as I know my

own--she is dead--she died like a saint, and no stain shall come near

her so long as my eyes are open and have tears to weep for her."

The scowling monk looked at him with a calm, cold, piercing gaze.

"What is this woman to you?"

"You have heard--my sister."

Correntian turned to the Abbot with an indescribable gesture of his

head.

"I ask our venerable father--I ask all the brethren here in

conclave--Has a Benedictine a sister?"

"No!" was the slow and soft reply--as if reluctantly spoken--from every

man.

Conrad of Ramüss struck himself on the brow, and a bitter, burning tear

forced its way from under his drooping lids. One minute of deep

agonised silence, one brief struggle, and then the proud young head

bowed humbly before the Abbot--"Punish me, my father--I had indeed

forgotten myself."

"Ask your brother's forgiveness on your knees," said the Abbot sadly,

"and for not having yet quite torn your heart free from all the

earthly ties that hang about it, so that the evil demon of wrath could

stir you up against your spiritual brother for the sake of an earthly

sister--this you must expiate by a fortnight's nightly penance."

The young man kissed the Abbot's hand. "I thank you, father, for so

mild a punishment." Then he knelt down before the offended monk and

pressed the hem of his robe to his lips, "Forgive me, Brother."

The inflexible man raised him with the usual formula, "May God forgive

you even as I do."

The brethren stood round in silence; not a face betrayed what one of

them thought, but the culprit sank back on his seat as if exhausted,

and cold sweat stood in drops on his forehead. Correntian went on, as

if nothing had happened.

"And so I say the child must expiate the folly of a mother who thought

more of her amusements than of God and her solemn and happy position,

else would the Lord never have visited her with such a judgment. This

child was dedicated to the Evil One ere yet it was born--it is his

prey--we cannot snatch it from him, we shall only incite him to strive

with us for its possession."

Then rose Conrad Stiero, the broad-browed: "Shame upon you, brother

Correntian! How long have we Marienbergers been afraid of the Devil? In

truth such cowardly counsel ill becomes you who boast of such a stony

heart. Have we come to such a pass that we shall shut ourselves up in

convent walls to pray and stuff in idle piety? Do you call that

fighting for God when, so soon as we have to rescue a poor soul from

the fires of hell, we put our fingers to the tips of our ears like

burnt children and cry out, 'Oh!--it is hot--we will not touch it!'

Give me the boy and I will go out with him into the wilderness, if you

are afraid to keep him here--and wrestle for him with all Hell let

loose!"

"You use too rough and uncouth a tongue, brother Stiero," said the

Abbot. "But it shall be forgiven you for the sake of your good motive.

Yes--brother Correntian, it seems to me that he is right and that it

would be the first time if we now were to shrink like cowards when we

have to snatch a soul from hell. How would God's kingdom prosper--of

which we are the guardians--if it were not stronger than Hell."

"Aye, it is stronger," replied Correntian with eyes raised to heaven,

"and it will and must one day triumph; the light must conquer the

darkness; but as often as on earth the night swallows up the day, so

often will the kingdom of darkness triumph over the kingdom of Light

till the day of Redemption is come--the day when God's patience has an

end and he destroys this earth."

"And shall we therefore withdraw from the fight like cowards?" asked

the Abbot again.

"Nay, never could I think of saying such a thing," said Correntian.

"But I ask you, what is the price of the struggle? Is this wretched

child of sin and misfortune, whom the Devil already has in his

power--is this I say a trophy worth struggling for with those evil

spirits that every one would fain keep at a distance from his

threshold? Besides a single handful may succumb, even if it belong to

the victorious side; and so while the Church triumphs, churches and

cloisters may fall; nay, even this our own convent, for they too are

accursed who succour the child! If the blessing of the father can

establish the childrens' houses and the curse of the mother overthrow

them, will a father's curse be impotent think you? And how can you

believe in the efficacy of a blessing, if you do not believe in the

power of a curse?"

"God is righteous and does not punish the innocent," Bero was now heard

to say. "And why have we been awakened from the darkness of heathenism

to the bright light of the Holy Spirit, if like the ancients we persist

in believing in a blind fate, conjured up by a curse?"

"The Devil--the Devil is the Fate of the ancients, and is at all times

the same!" cried Correntian. "A parent's curse tears a rent in the

divine order and in human nature, in which the seed of hell at once

strikes root and, like a poisonous fungus, feeds its growth on all

around it."

"Well--" said Bero with a bright look. "May be you speak the truth,

brother Correntian, but if we were not fully capable of extirpating the

brood of Hell by the power of the Holy Ghost and pure resolve there

would be no such thing as guilt! We should be the helpless sport of

Satan without any guilt or responsibility, and at the last judgment the

Lord could not ask us, 'Why did ye this or that?'"

The Abbot and the brethren murmured assent; only Wyso and Correntian

were silent.

"I ask you," Bero went on, "since God gives us the power to choose our

own course of life and whether we will follow the path of virtue or of

sin, can we prove incapable of guiding this boy into the way of

righteousness if we all gather round him to watch every thought of his

brain, every impulse of his heart, every glance, every breath."

"And yet it must come."

A voice like the breathing of a spirit spoke in the farthest corner of

the hall; every eye turned towards the spot. A very small monk was

leaning in the deepest shadow against a projecting pillar; his little

grey figure was as inconspicuous as that of some little gnome, but his

eyes were keen and bright, as if they could pierce the depths with

their gaze, and their genial glance shone through the gloomy hall.

"What, is it you, brother Eusebius?" said the Abbot. "It is an event

indeed when you quit your turret-cell to assist at the council of the

brethren, and the occasion must have seemed to you a serious one for

you to open your lips. Speak on--what do you mean? Who or what must

come?"

The old man looked at him with a smile.

"Do you not understand me?" said he, and his eye rested thoughtfully on

the excited circle. "There are only two sorts of just rights--the

rights of Heaven and the rights of man. Man's rights are his share of

the joys of Creation. If he casts them away of his own free impulse for

the sake of the rights of Heaven he makes the highest effort of which

man is capable, and the angels sing Hosannas over him. But never ought

you to steal them from him--as in the case of this infant--for they are

bestowed on him by his Maker, and it is Him whom you aggrieve. Bring

the child up, but bring him up free; and leave him to choose, when he

is ripe to make the choice. If he is called he will remain faithful,

but let it be without compulsion. For if he is not called, better let

him withdraw than that he should remain among you against his will,

with a divided heart, half attached to the world and half to the

Church--a tool with a flaw in it that shivers in the hand, and recoils

on him who would use it. For the hour will come upon him which none can

escape. Do you what you will--it must come upon him as it has come upon

each of us. You know it well--only those that are called can triumph,

and the weak fall in the conflict between pleasure and duty. _Divisum

est cor eorum, nunc interibunt_--their heart is divided and they

perish. And to you it can bring neither glory nor reward; for it

depends upon the Spirit and not on the number of the servants of our

Church, and never can an unwilling sacrifice be dear in the sight of

the Lord."

Then Conrad Stiero struck his fist a mighty blow on the arm of his

chair.

"What spirit, what human right?--'called' or 'not called!' We need

strong arms to protect our venerable house, for we have fallen on evil

times, and the nobles covet our goods and our authority. It is time to

protect them as best we may. Shut him in and keep him close, then he

will be ours and no one's else."

"I know of only one really sure way," said Correntian quietly, "and

that is to blind the boy."

A cry of horror broke from every one.

"Shame on you, brother Correntian! are you a man?" cried Bero in wrath.

"You see how you start at an empty word! Ye feeble ones! Do you call

the physician cruel who by one swift cut obviates future--nay eternal

suffering? If any one had released me from the torment of sight and its

myriad temptations while I was still slumbering in the cradle, I would

have thanked him as my lifelong benefactor. However, fear nothing; I

know well that no shedding of blood beseems us, and it was only an

idea, suggested by the truest pity."

"You are a great man, Correntian, but fearful in your strength," said

the Abbot, and the brethren agreed with a shudder.

But the little gnome leans unmoved and silent against his pillar; he

feels no astonishment, no horror--he knows that there are many

different growths in the Lord's garden; deadly poisonous plants by the

side of wholesome and nutritious ones, and that each has its use and

purpose. This brother Eusebius knows right well, for the hidden

properties and relations of things are clear to his penetrating eye. He

is the herbalist, the astronomer and the physician of the convent. He

watches the still growth of roots and germs in the bosom of the earth

as well as the course of the blood in the human body, and that of the

stars in the immeasurable firmament, and in all he sees the same

ordering, the same great inexorable law against which the creature for

ever rebels, and which ever works out its own vengeance. But he says no

more at present, for he sees that it would be in vain.

But Conrad Stiero would have no mistake as to his meaning,

"I say walls--they are the best security! Let Heaven and Hell fight for

him, our walls are thick, and we will not let him go outside them."

The little man by the pillar folded his hands.

"Oh! human wit and human wisdom!" thought he.

"Allow me to say a few words," said Wyso, addressing the whole

conclave, "and do not take what I say amiss. You are all dreamers,

thrashing empty straw. The small thread of one's patience is easily

broken when one has to listen to such idle talk on an empty stomach.

What have we to do here with the Almighty and the devil? or which of

them we may least offend? This is above all things a matter for the

law, a trifle which it seems to me that you have all forgotten. If you

have a mind to receive the child as a guest, and make a nursery of the

old house, well and good, no one can prevent you; it is not forbidden

either by canon law or by the rule of St. Benedict to give shelter to

the homeless so long as they need it. But if you think of receiving the

boy into the order--and your solemn talk seems to imply it--one of

these days we shall find ourselves laid under ban and interdict, so

that not even a thief on the gallows will ask absolution at our hands."

An uneasy movement ran through the conclave.

"Aha! now there is a stir in the ant-hill. But is it not so? Do you not

remember that in the tenth canon of the Council of Trent under Pope

Clement III. the Order was forbidden to receive as members children

under years of discretion without the express consent of their parents?

What? Have you any fancy to defy pope and bishop, church-law and

interdict for the sake of this infant? I fancy that would be somewhat

worse than a compact with the devil."

"Guard your lips, brother Wyso! remember Duramnus of Predan, who, as a

punishment for his scandalous talk, was burdened for ever with a

hideous, foul snout," threatened the Abbot. "You can never keep

yourself from abuse and scoffing; what you say is good, but the way you

say it is bad. Brother Wyso speaks the truth, my brethren," he

continued, turning to the monks, who were ashamed of their own

ignorance. "It appears that our senses are still clouded by sleep, or

we should have thought of the new law. We cling too naturally to old

usages, and it is difficult to accustom ourselves to such newfangled

ways. However we must submit to them if we would not bring evil

consequences on ourselves. It is true that the mother has given the

child over into our keeping, but the father's consent is wanting, and

so we cannot receive him. I say it with pain, for I would fain have

held the vow of a dead woman as sacred. And I am grieved to thrust the

child out among the wild waves of life. Still, so it must be, and we

can but resign him to the mercy of him who clothes the lilies of the

field."

At this point Conrad of Ramüss rose modestly.

"Pardon me, father, if I, though in disgrace, once more take part in

your discussion."

"Speak, my son, only in a more becoming manner," answered the Abbot.

Then the young monk went on,

"It is indeed true that we may receive no child without its father's

will. But this child has no father. He who is called its father has

cast it out and denied it; it is an orphan. Who--by the laws of the

world--who takes its father's place, brother Wyso?"

"Its next blood-relation on the father's or the mother's side," replied

Wyso.

"Well then," continued Ramüss, "I myself am its nearest relation, the

boy's uncle, his mother's brother; I now am his father, and I dedicate

him to the cloister."

A shout of joy from the brethren answered him.

"Amen, my son," said the Abbot. "I receive him at your hands, and I

hope that we have acted rightly."

He turned to the pictures of the Tarasps. "Give him your blessing,

noble and glorified masters, whose memory we this day keep holy." The

conclave was over, they all crossed themselves before the pictures, and

then went up into the light of day. They hastened to the sacristy to

baptise the child, for the solemn tolling of the big bell was already

calling the inhabitants of the valley to high-mass.

The morning-sun shot its bright beams through the tall arched windows,

and scattered the mists and shadows that Correntian, the sinister

friar, had conjured up.

"The light must be victorious!" This was the happy promise with which

it filled all hearts.

The folding doors sprang open; the Prior entered with the child. It was

prettily wrapped in the Lady Uta's white linen, and lay there flooded

in a ray of morning sun-shine as if transfigured. And drawn by a

strange and tender human emotion the younger monks gathered round the

tiny brother that Heaven had sent them, and pressed a kiss of welcome

on his sweet and innocent lips. And the celestial Mother of Sorrows

smiled down on them from the wall as if she were indeed the mother of

them all, and rejoiced to see her elder sons welcoming the new-born

child as a brother.

No--this is no gift of hell--this heart-winning, sun-lighted child that

rouses so pure and harmless a joy in every breast; and the Abbot lifts

his hands in blessing, and says, "Donatus we will call him, my

brethren, for he is given to us, and his name shall mean a gift."

"Yes, yes--he shall be called Donatus," cried the monks in delight.

"And now swear to me," continued the Abbot, "before we proceed to the

sacred ceremony--swear to me on the innocent head of this infant--that

you will help to preserve him for Heaven; that you will watch over the

boy at every hour, and protect him from every temptation that may

alienate him from us--and above all from that which is the devil's most

dangerous weapon, to which many a youth has fallen a victim--from

earthly love."

The brethren raised their hands in solemn asseveration and, like a

pillar of sacred sacrificial incense, the steamy cloud from thirty

throats rose to Heaven in one united breath, "We swear it!"

The brethren gathered round the child like a wall--stronger than those

walls of stone of which brother Stiero had spoken, and brother

Correntian towered above the rest like an invincible bulwark. But

brother Eusebius silently shook his head and said to himself, "And yet

it must come."

CHAPTER III.

There is an old story of a king of the dwarfs whose wife died in giving

birth to the heir to the throne. This king chose a poor woman from the

human race to be his son's wet-nurse, and as the woman would not come

of her own free will the little dwarf-folk fetched her one night and

brought her by force into the underground kingdom of the gnomes. The

woman was not to be allowed to return till she had fulfilled her office

of nurse to the little dwarf prince, and she lived a year in exile far

from her people under the spell of the strange uncanny folks in their

realm of ore and earth. She had to surrender all of her human nature,

that gave joy to her heart in the fountain of life, by which the

child was nourished--mother's milk and mother's love--but otherwise

she might never be in any way human and her reward was barren gold.

But she persevered, not for the sake of the gold only, but because

motherly-love is so good a thing, a thing that grows with rapid

increase, throwing out aerial roots that cling blindly to any support

that is offered them. As the hen loves her changeling duckling, so the

human foster-mother clung to her dwarf foster-child, and so the

cloistered wet-nurse loved the child of the Church that had been forced

upon her although she also felt that she was in a strange realm; in a

realm between the grave and Heaven, quite other indeed and higher than

the kingdom of the dwarfs, but inhabited too by uncanny beings outside

and beyond all natural relationships, and having nothing in common with

flesh and blood; and that the child to whom she was as a mother

belonged to the same strange race. And the more deeply she felt this,

the more painfully did her heart cling to the child to whom she had no

right; that might never be truly human and that yet was nourished by

the milk of a human mother. She knew not what her feeling was--it was a

strange pity for the boy, so that she loved him almost better than her

own child. Her own child had its natural belongings--a mother and a

father--but this poor child had no one in the world. The cold and

strong church-walls were its home and no human lip might ever touch it,

nor its head ever rest on a soft warm human breast. And as if to

compensate to it for all future privations she loved and kissed it with

double fervour, and cradled it with double tenderness in her bosom.

Almost seven months had passed since the child was received into the

monastery; a long time for the young and ardent wife who, as if it were

a sin, could only slip away from time to time and by stealth to meet

her husband behind the door where for months together the bitter wind

blew the kisses away from their lips.

The cloistered nurse was sitting with her nursling at the dim little

window in the east turret-room. It was a mild spring evening and

death-like stillness reigned all round. Deep shadows fell on the bed of

Lady Uta; one star threw its pale rays into the lonely room and they

fell and were lost on the silk hangings, which Lord Ulrich had brought

from the gorgeous East on his return from a pilgrimage. High up by the

window something whisked by; it was a swallow flying home to the nest

she had built at a giddy height on the ridge of the roof. The swallow

was no better off indeed up there than Berntrudis herself--but she was

free. So Berntrudis thought, and a deep sigh broke from her breast on

which the children lay slumbering. In the corner, in Lady Uta's chest,

she could hear the soft and regular sound of the death-tick, and the

white linen hanging in the room--the linen woven by the chaste hands of

the penitent Berntrudis of old--was stirred by the draught through the

room to a ghostly flutter. But the warm living soul that sat by the

window, looking longingly out to the distance--where human hearts might

beat and not count it a sin--she was thinking neither of death nor of

penance, but her pulses throbbed while she wondered how late it was and

whether her husband would tap for her to-night at the convent gate? She

closed her eyes and threw back her head while her full lips breathed a

kiss upon the air--a message of love sent out to meet her looked-for

husband. But he came seldom, he had quite run wild during this long

separation; he was wandering about unsettled and discontented, she knew

it well; and bitter anxiety gnawed at her heart.

Thus she waits evening after evening till her head-aches, and she

throws herself wearily into bed. Then the soul of the heart-sick woman

is nailed as with iron clamps to two opposite points--the present and

the expected moment, and the farther these two points recede from each

other the more the poor heart is torn--an invisible rack of which the

tension almost cracks her heart-strings.

Out on the other side in the western wing brother Correntian was

leaning his hot brow against his window panes and gazing out on the

falling night. He had closed the window, for the evening breath of

spring wafted up the sweet perfume of half-opened flowers, which

soothed his senses--so he flung the window to. He who cannot resist the

temptations of Satan in small things will never conquer him in great

ones! So there he stood in the soft spring evening shut in by walls

damp with the chills of winter, and he cast a reproving glance across

to the eastern tower where the wet-nurse was housed. He hated this

woman, he himself knew not why, but he hated her with a deadly hatred;

as often as he met her--when occasionally she went down into the

court-yard to fetch water or walked in the little garden with the

child--he turned his eyes earthwards with horror and aversion, as if in

the poor, sweet, blooming woman he beheld the snake that destroyed

Paradise. He would have poisoned her with a glance, have torn her up

like a root of sin if he could; he had to endure her presence, that he

understood; but he could not leave her in peace in his thoughts, his

hatred must needs pursue her even into her quiet turret-chamber--it

dragged him nightly from his bed and forced him to go to his window,

and watch and spy the strong walls that sheltered her, as the foe spies

out in his antagonist's harness the joints through which he hopes

to give him his death-blow. And he could see through those walls as

though the stones were glass--he could always see her and loathe

himself for doing so; see her wake in the morning and hold the

children to her young and innocent breast--comb her long and waving

hair--all--everything--he saw it all, whether he would or not. At this

very moment he could see her, as she flung herself on her bed--and the

kiss that her unguarded lips breathed into space.

But stay! what was that? was it a trick of his senses--the very

spirit of his hatred that had taken bodily form and glided across the

star-lighted court-yard to the eastern tower? He held his breath--he

checked the beating of his heart.

A second figure stole along by its side and cautiously knocked at the

little turret-door. The first, a sturdy, manly figure in a short tunic

such as was worn by serfs, disappeared into the tower; the other--quite

unmistakably the gatekeeper--glided back again and returned to the

gate-house. It is the fisherman--the nurse's husband. He has bribed the

gatekeeper and has stolen in to see his wife. Now--now he is up stairs,

they are clasped in each other's arms.--Oh! shame and disgrace--that

this should happen within the sacred precincts of the convent!

The monk was shivering as in an ague fit, all the suppressed fire in

his blood broke out. Loathing, aversion--he knew not what--all the

furies of hell were lashing him. He rushed raving down the rows of

sleeping brethren.

"Up--get up--the cloister is defiled, do not suffer such disgrace. Up!

holy Abbot--the nurse up there is receiving stolen visits by night from

her husband. Is this house to be the abode of love making and shameful

doings?"

The brethren flung on their cowls in hot haste; the Abbot came out in

high wrath. "She promised me that she would obey the convent-rules and

she is doubly guilty, if she has let in her husband and broken in on

the peace of the cloister."

"We will soon have him out!" snorted Conrad Stiero, delighted that for

once he should have a chance of fighting again.

"Are you possessed by the Evil One that you come screaming us out of

our sleep like this?" said brother Wyso, bustling breathlessly up and

treading on his untied shoe-strings as he went.

"Shame on you, brother Correntian," whispered he in his ear, "to spoil

the poor woman's sport so--that is envy." Correntian started as if

stabbed by a dagger--he threw a glance of flaming rage at Wyso and

raised his hand threateningly. But he as quickly let it fall again, his

face turned as pale as death, and his old stony calm suddenly

overspread his wildly agitated features.

"That," said he, "is so base as to be unworthy of reply."

"A hypocrite even to yourself!" muttered Wyso between his teeth while

the Abbot signed to the brethren to follow him. Then Conrad of Ramüss

came modestly forward. "Most reverend abbot, permit that we--I and the

younger brethren--remain behind. It seems to me that it is no scene for

our eyes."

"True, you are right, brother Conrad," said the Abbot. "Accompany me

alone, you elder brethren! but come softly, that we may not warn the

evil-doers before we visit them with the penalty of sin."

So the stern judges went noiselessly across to the eastern tower with a

lantern.

Up in the turret-room, there is whispering, soft laughter and crying,

and silent happiness; the wife, taken quite by surprise, is folded in

the arms of her husband intoxicated with delight. He has not told her

why or how he has come, but the storm of joy in the poor soul that has

thirsted so for love is so wild that she can only caress him and kiss

him and will neither hear nor know anything, but that he is there--a

lovely fulfilment of a spring night's dream.

But--voices on the stairs! coming up! A beam of light falls with

fearful brightness through the crack of the door. Husband and wife

start from their blissful dream; there is a loud and threatening knock,

"Open the door to his reverence the Abbot," cried Conrad Stiero. There

could be no delay.

"Be easy," said the man to his trembling wife, "am I not your plighted

husband? What have you to fear?" and he went forward with a determined

manner and let in the brethren.

"God and the Saints preserve us," said the Abbot as he went in.

"Berntrudis--unworthy daughter of your pious ancestress, how dare you

carry on such unseemly doings?"

"And what is the harm, reverend father," said the fisherman boldly. "If

a wife makes love to her husband? I never heard any one call such

doings unseemly!"

Correntian, who was carrying the lamp, lifted it up and let its full

light fall on the undaunted speaker's face. It was a handsome, bold,

manly countenance, not free from the traces of a wild life. The deep

lines on the forehead showed that it was long since a woman's loving

hand had smoothed it, his neglected doublet of frieze plainly told of

wild wanderings in wind and weather. Correntian took it all in at a

glance, he understood in that instant as if by inspiration all that the

man had suffered, and, instead of pitying him, he longed to thrust a

dagger into that broad breast where just now the woman had lain--the

eager, loving woman that he scorned and hated. And as if some

suspicion, some comprehension of this hostile glance had dawned upon

the man's mind he answered with a wrathful flash from his large eyes,

and for all at once the humble serf was turned into a raging fiend

checked by no sense of bashfulness.

"Ay, you may look at me, monk," he exclaimed threateningly in his broad

Rhætian accent, "I am what you have made me. Am I not smooth and fine

enough for you great lords? You take away the dearest thing a man

has--take it away as you did from me, so that he wanders alone about

the fields and woods, and then do you think he will care to smarten

himself up and streak himself down?"

"Woe upon you! what are you saying!" cried the Abbot. "You break in

like a thief on the peace of the convent, you bribe the gatekeeper, you

are guilty of such dreadful sin, and then you dare to speak like that?"

"I speak like one whose measure is full, and overfull. I have nothing

but this woman and you take her away from me--take away a man's married

wife and his heart out of his body, to suckle a strange child. What is

the child to me that I am to sacrifice all that is dearest to me to

him? Seven months have I borne it patiently and that is enough. The

brat there can do without a wet-nurse now. My own child has shared its

food with him long enough--look here what a stunted plant it has grown,

while the strange brat has thriven and got strong; my heart ached in my

body when I saw the poor little thing again!--I tell you plainly, for I

am not clever at lying, I came to steal my wife away, my sacred

property. But now I ask you--as you have found me out--give me back my

wife and my child. I desire neither reward nor thanks, but I will have

back what is my own."

"Spare your words, we have shown you too much favour in listening to

you so long. What if we did take an impure and sinful woman within our

sacred cloister walls against all law and usage, do you think we did so

without any necessity and simply for our pleasure? The sacred vow of a

dead woman which we were bound to honour was the solemn duty which

compelled us to such an abominable proceeding. And when we received

your wife we hoped that the sanctity of the place and the sacredness of

her office would purify her vain heart so that she would not succumb to

the temptations of sensual pleasures and base impulses and would cause

no scandal to our chaste brethren. This indeed she solemnly vowed, and

oh! Berntrudis, how badly you have kept your word! Alas! that the pure

child of the Church should be compelled to drink from so impure a

vessel. Willingly would I spare him this, of that you may both be very

sure. Still, so it must be, we cannot yet dispense with your services,

and if you had remained true to your duty, at the end of your probation

we would have rewarded you and raised you up in the sight of God and

man. As it is we must force you to do that which you do not do

willingly. And you," he continued to the husband, "you who have broken

into our house like a weasel into a dove-cot, in contempt of our

prohibition under the severest penalties--you may thank us for the mild

punishment we impose--you are under a ban not to come within a mile

round the convent so long as we need the offices of your wife. You

must go up to the moorland lake and catch fish for us there till the

winter-storms next sweep down on the heath."

A cry of horror from the husband and wife answered this frightful

sentence, the gentle Abbot had no conception of its cruelty. What could

he know--a calm old man whose blood ran so sluggishly in his veins--of

the passion and longing and torment of two hearts that have grown into

one, when they are torn asunder?

Only one there present understood it; he who stood silent, his nails

dug into his crossed arms--and yet of pity he knew nothing, that

unsparing zealot who had no mercy on others because he knew of no mercy

on himself. "I am suffering--you may suffer too" was the frightful

thought by which, in his self-torment, he released himself from the

duty of loving his neighbour. There he stood, the stony man, with an

unmoved stare--the chaste and stern Correntian.

But Wyso shook his head and said to the Abbot in Latin, "Go no

farther."

Berntrudis had fallen crying into her husband's arms and hid her face

on his broad and labouring breast; but Correntian stepped forward with

a hasty gesture, "Stand apart!" he said with pale lips. "Do not offend

our eyes by such a sight."

The man lifted his sturdy head and the words he had kept between his

teeth with so much difficulty broke out, "This is too much! Who is to

forbid me kissing my wife--who can force me to believe that it is a sin

when husband and wife make love to each other? You--you make a sin of

it by forbidding it. By what right do you forbid a man and his wife to

see each other--by what right do you put asunder those whom God and the

Church have joined together?"

"The Church can bind and it can loose," said the Abbot wrathfully. "Do

not call us to account."

"Why waste so many words?" muttered Correntian between his teeth. "He

is the convent's bondsman--he and his wife; you can do what you like

with him."

"You--with your gloomy corpse-face--" cried the infuriated man. "You

are my enemy--even if you said nothing I could see it in your face.

What have I done to you that you pour gall into the poor serf's little

drop of happiness?"

"Now--come away, we are tired. Do you think we are going to spend the

whole night arguing with you as to whether or no you will do the

Abbot's bidding?" Conrad Stiero now threw in.

The veins in the fisherman's forehead were swollen with rage and he

raised his fist threateningly.

"I am going," he said, "but not without my wife and child," and he put

his arm round Berntrudis. "Let me pass or mischief will come of it!"

The Abbot drew back terrified, even brother Wyso started back, only

Correntian remained immoveable. Stiero set his broad back against the

door, but with a heavy lurch of his shoulder the fisherman pushed him

almost off his balance, as if lifting a door off its posts.

"Oho! is that what you mean?" cried the monk, eager to fight, "then you

do not know Conrad Stiero!" And with a mighty blow of his fist on his

opponent's forehead he sent the strong man staggering back with a heavy

fall on to the floor. "I will teach you to behave yourself, you clown!"

said Stiero, kneeling on the vanquished man, and he bound his hands

with the cord which he took from round his own waist. The woman had

sunk on the ground by the side of her husband, and Correntian made a

movement--only one--as though he would raise and support her; but he

started back in horror of himself and left her lying there.

Stiero desired the man to rise. "You have found out now that we are no

women under our cowls, to be frightened by violence. Now kneel down,

poor wretch, and crave for mercy, for your life is no safer than that

of a mad dog."

The man, with his hands tied across each other, stood silent in a

stupor of despair; he knelt down as Stiero bid him, but he did not

utter a word, he fixed his sullen gaze on no one, he knew his fate and

had lost all hope.

"What do you think, my brethren," said the Abbot turning to the others,

"shall we give him up to the provost to be judged?"

"Yes!" replied Correntian.

"Then his sentence is pronounced; he has lifted his hand against a

priest, his life is forfeited," said the Abbot.

The woman gave a piercing shriek of anguish and fell at Correntian's

feet.

"Pity--mercy!" she sobbed out almost mad with terror, and she clasped

his knees with all the strength of despair, for she too felt that her

ruin was lowering in those sinister eyes. A scarlet flush lighted up

the monk's pale face--as the northern lights flash across a winter

midnight-sky--he flung her from him and clung to the bed-post for

support.

"If you do not have some regard for the nurse you will kill the boy,"

said a voice suddenly in Latin, and father Eusebius was seen standing

by the unhappy woman as if he had sprung out of the ground.

"God be thanked!" muttered brother Wyso. "Here at length is a

reasonable man."

Eusebius had looked on at the proceedings, silent and unobserved till

it was necessary to speak; he raised the trembling woman from the

floor, and kindly comforting her he led her to the bed on which she

sank down powerless. Correntian let go the bed-post he was clasping, as

if it had suddenly turned to hot iron.

Eusebius' gaze, which he could not evade, fell upon him with a strange

smile; Correntian hated that gaze, and from that moment he remained

silent as if spell-bound by the gentle power of those clear eyes.

"What do you mean, worthy brother Eusebius?" asked the Abbot, unskilled

in such matters.

"He means," interpreted Wyso in Latin with an impatient yawn, "that the

woman's milk will fly to her brain or turn to poison, if you torment

her so. Brother Correntian may fatten the brat with an extract of his

doctrines of asceticism, but he will then probably not become a man but

an angel at once," he added spitefully.

Correntian trembled with rage, but the eye he feared still rested upon

him and kept him within bounds.

Meanwhile the Abbot had turned to the fisherman.

"We will let justice give place to mercy--for the sake of your wife,

our child's foster-mother. We stand by our first decision; till we

release your wife you are banished as well as the gatekeeper who let

you in. Henceforth no lay-brother shall guard the convent gate, but our

brethren shall have the charge of the little gate-house in turn. Hope

for nothing more and do not attempt again to penetrate our sanctuary--a

second time will be your ruin."

He turned to the Superior who stood in confusion in the background, for

though he was innocent of this intrusion he had good-naturedly

permitted meetings outside the convent walls, and so had made the

gatekeeper too lax in the performance of his duty.

"Lead the prisoner up to the moor; there hand him over to the shepherd

and our lay-brethren at St. Valentine's--they can release him from his

bonds. The shepherd will provide him with nourishment and other

necessaries and will be answerable to me for his not quitting the

moor.--Come now, brethren, we will not waste another hour of our

deferred night's rest."

The brethren followed him in silence.

"I am sorry for the poor creatures," said Stiero to Wyso in an

undertone. "It was Correntian who stirred up all the mischief. Why in

the world can he never sleep?"

"That he and God alone can tell!" said Wyso, shrugging his shoulders.

"Take leave of your wife," said the Prior as the monks disappeared. "I

dare not give you any farther respite, for the stern father Correntian

will assuredly watch us from his window up there."

The husband and wife fell into each other's arms in bitter grief,

but they suddenly started apart again, for a monk still remained

behind--are they not to be allowed to press heart to heart before

parting?

But the monk who has stayed behind is brother Eusebius; his face is

radiant with mild dignity and sweet compassion. He signs to them with

his slender withered hand that they need have no fear of him, for he

has stayed to be a comfort to the miserable wife and not as a spy.

"Do as your heart bids you," he says. "Nature is sacred--woe to those

who violate her rights!"

All was as still in the room as in a church, and he who had spoken

these words stood there in calm grandeur, in divine unselfish peace,

and looked on pityingly while the couple held each other in a close

embrace and could not bear to tear themselves asunder, till the Prior

separated them almost by force. A stifled scream from the woman--and

the door closed, shutting her husband out for ever. The cloistered

nurse was alone with the old monk, the gnome, who lived only between

the grave and Heaven. She threw herself sobbing at his feet and he

whispered words mighty to comfort in her ear, in a tongue as it were

from another world that she but half comprehended; but they quelled the

wild outbreak of her sorrow and lulled her soul, as if it were rocked

by spirit-hands, filling her with strangely melancholy and yet glorious

presentiments.

Dawn was already breaking in the lonely turret-chamber, the bell was

ringing for matins. The mother sat pale and weary on the edge of the

bed and held her child to her breast. She had taken it in her arms

unthinkingly--it had waked before the other child--never remembering

that after this night's work the milk might be poison which her frail

baby was drinking in eager draughts. Father Eusebius had left her to

attend the early mass. She had not yet slept at all; but now she sank

back on the pillow, nature asserted its rights--she fell asleep--while

the poison was slowly but fatally coursing through the veins of the

infant which, in her slumbers, she still held closely and tenderly to

her breast.

CHAPTER IV.

A scream of anguish rang through the still convent court-yard from the

eastern tower; it rang out to the clear spring sky and through the open

turret-window, following the glorified infant soul that had taken its

flight to Heaven up, up into the eternal blue; it startled the brooding

swallow from the roof, and fearing some mortal evil she fluttered round

her nest; it roused the grey monk in the western tower from the books

and writings among which he sat day and night poring over his little

desk and imbibing living food for his soul's roots from the dead

parchment. He closed his book and rose. Meanwhile someone was already

knocking at his door. For father Eusebius was the sick nurse of the

whole convent; whenever any one was ill in the Abbey or in the

neighbourhood he was sent for.

"Come quickly, brother Eusebius," cried the messenger. "The nurse's

baby has died suddenly."

Brother Eusebius was not in the least surprised, he had foreseen it;

since that night of terror three days ago the little girl had been ill

and had defied his utmost skill. Some of the brethren it is true were

of opinion that the child was possessed by the devil, because the

mother had been snatched from her wicked pleasures, and that it ought

to be exorcised; but the wise Eusebius knew better--he knew that the

feeble infant had drunk its death at its mother's breast.

He went up to the little room which was lighted up by the brightest

sunshine; the poor woman lay stretched over her child's body, her wild

sobs betraying the agony which was rending her heart. The other child

lay smiling in his cradle and playing with a wreath of blooming

cowslips[1] that his uncle Conrad of Ramüss had brought up from the

valley where he had been tending a sick man. The poor little corpse had

its eyes still open and they were fixed on the unconscious boy as if

she had something to say to him which her little silent lips could

not utter. But the mother understood--at least she thought she

understood--and she gave that look a cruel and terrible meaning; for

her it had no other interpretation than this: "You have killed me."

Eusebius silently laid one hand on the mother's head and the other on

the child's, and with a practised touch he closed the dead, fixed eyes.

The sobbing mother was pressing her aching head against the cold little

breast as if to break through the icy crust laid over it by death, but

he raised her head with a firm hand, and without a word pointed to the

open window. At that moment a white dove flew through the clear ether,

shining like silver in the sunshine--rising higher, growing smaller, as

it soared on rapturous wing through immeasurable space; soon seen no

more but as a fluttering speck, higher and still higher--till lost in

the blue distance. That was the soul of the dead child--so the mother

believed--nay knew for certain. She sank on her knees and with folded

hands worshipped the miracle that had been accomplished before her

mortal eyes. And so once more the wise old man had been able to triumph

over death and misery in that hapless soul by an alliance with Nature

which he alone understood--Nature who would utter her divine wisdom to

none but him.

But the measure was not yet full.

Out on the moor the lonely outcast husband was rocking in his canoe by

the shore of the lake; his nets lay idle at the bottom of the boat and

he sat sunk in sullen brooding; it was growing dusk, the lake bubbled

and foamed; there was dumb rebellion in its depths--as in the depths of

the exile's soul. Cold gusts dashed frothy, splashing waves on to the

banks which were as bare--up at this height--as if it still were

winter, and which were so sodden with the melting snows that they could

absorb no more of the superfluous moisture; the dry scrub that grew

about the place sighed and rustled softly as the wind swept over it.

The fisherman started from his dreaming, unmoored his bark and pushed

away from the shore; but hardly had he got a yard from the bank when he

heard a voice calling. He stopped and listened; it was a messenger from

the monastery to tell him that that morning his little daughter had

died.

The man let go his oar and hid his face in his hands sobbing aloud like

a child.

The convent servant called out to him compassionately to "come to

shore, to compose himself; that the holy fathers had desired him

to promise the afflicted man all kindness, and good wages for the

future--" the stricken man rose up in the rage of despair.

"Spare your words," he shouted across the roaring of the waves as they

tossed round the frail canoe. "Take yourself off with your hypocritical

convent face or I will choke your false throat with your own lying

promises. Why should I believe you--how have you kept your word to me?

You have stolen my wife and murdered my child. I curse you--I curse the

day when you enticed my wife and child within your dismal walls, I

curse the day when that boy was born who is the cause of all the

mischief. Be advised while still it is time--kill the child before he

does any farther harm--an evil star guides him and he will bring ruin

on all who go near him. And now get you gone if you value your life."

The convent servant crossed himself in horror and hastened to obey the

warning; he was frightened at the infuriated man, standing up in his

bark with his fist clenched, with his tangled hair and flaming eyes

like a "Salwang," one of those most fearful giants, before whom not

mortals only, but even the "phantom maidens" fly.

And as soon as the messenger had disappeared the unhappy man threw

himself on his face again and abandoned himself to his sorrow. The

canoe drove over the waves--rudderless as the boatman's soul. He did

not heed the spring-storm that blew in deeper and deeper gusts across

the lake, nor the waves that ran higher and higher as though Nature

were dreaming uneasily in her sleep--till suddenly a swift current

caught the boat and carried it on with increasing rapidity down the

lake. The man started up, and his aroused consciousness made him clutch

sharply at the oar, for he perceived with horror through the darkness

that he was driving towards the spot where the Etsch[2] rushes out of

the lake with a considerable fall. But alas! the oar was gone--it had

slipped away, escaping him in his anguish without his being aware of

it; the loop of straw which had served to fasten it was hanging broken

to the hook. For an instant he was stunned, then he gave an involuntary

shout for help--then came the knowledge of the danger, the certainty

that he was lost. He went through a brief struggle of vigorous healthy

life against the idea of destruction--a short pang of terror of

death--and then came the calmness of despair, and a still heroism that

none could see but God! The lost man sat with his arms folded in the

boat, driven down the stream beyond all hope of rescue, with one last

prayer on his lips--a loving prayer for the wife he was leaving behind.

Far away on the shore he sees the lights of the brethren of St.

Valentine--they call to him--signal to him--the boat rushes on, in

headlong haste, to its fate. There--there are the falls--a thundering

roar--the canoe tips up on end--then it shoots over head foremost,

turning over twice in its fall, till it lies crushed and smashed among

the stones in the bed of the cataract. It is all over--the swollen

spring-flood of the Etsch carries a mangled corpse and dancing

fragments down into the valley on its sportive and roaring waters.

"Now indeed, poor woman--you have lost all!"

Father Eusebius was sitting in the nurse's little room, which during

the last three days had been to her a cell of torment; he held the

unconscious woman's head between his hands and rubbed her forehead and

temples with strong spirit of lavender; but her mind was wandering far

away in the twilight of oblivion and must return to a consciousness of

nothing but horror--torment and to suffering. Her hands moved with a

feeble gesture to push him away, her dumb lips parted as though she

would say, "Do not be cruel--do not wake me--I am at peace--leave me,

leave me."

But though his heart seemed to stand still for pity, he must call her

back to life.

At last she was roused; she looked round enquiringly, for all her world

was in ruins and she knew not whom she could turn or cling to. Before

her on the floor lay her dead husband's clothes--there stood the cradle

out of which they had carried away her baby only yesterday to the

charnel-house--what was left her in the world? There still was one!

Father Eusebius took the living baby from the bed and brought it to

her. "It is a stranger's child," he said. "But it is yours too!" and

the bleeding heart-strings, torn up by the roots, clung to the strange

child as if he were her own--the poor beggared soul accepted it as the

last alms of love bestowed upon her by the Creator; for she was humbled

in her misfortune, she did not strive, she did not contend, nor did she

bear any malice to the child, for all that it had unconsciously been

guilty of. "The child is yours," spoke comfort to her heart, and she

believed it as father Eusebius himself did when he spoke the words.

"What is yours? Who within these walls may venture to boast that

anything is his own?" said Correntian's stern voice at the door.

"Oh! that man!" shrieked the terrified woman and she fled with the

child into the remotest corner of the room from the sinister monk who

now came in.

"I spoke of the child--to comfort the poor soul, and if you are a man

you will leave her that comfort," said brother Eusebius.

"In this house nothing is ours--but suffering and the hope of

redemption," the dark man went on pitilessly. "Know that, woman; and

remember it at every hour--The venerable fathers have sent me to tell

you that you must now wean the child, that the shock of the last few

days may do him no harm."

A flood of tears burst from the nurse's large and innocent eyes as she

heard this, and she asked with white lips,

"Must I go away then?"

"No, not so long as the child is still little and needs a woman's care.

Now, you know the fathers' determination--act accordingly."

And without vouchsafing her a glance he quitted the room.

Calm, clear and gentle, like the moon in the high heaven when the sun

has set, father Eusebius stood before the poor woman whose sun of life

had set, and in half-inarticulate words she made her lament to him,

telling him her sorrow; to him she dared to weep out all the

unutterable anguish that would have driven her mad if she had had to

bear it alone.

Day after day passed silently away in the lonely turret-room; in a few

weeks the fresh handsome woman had grown pale, thin and old--no longer

a scandal to the chaste eyes of the brethren. Not a word, not a smile

ever came to her lips--she lived only for the child that throve

joyously on her crushed affections.

Every day the little one grew stronger and more blooming; a child as

sweet and winning as if angels came down from Heaven from time to time

to play with him. He was like a ray of sunshine in the gloomy convent

and in the closed hearts of the brethren. He could entice a smile from

the sternest lips--hardly any one could resist giving him a flower in

passing, throwing him a spray, or bringing him some tempting fruit

from any more distant walk--a bunch of wood strawberries, an empty

bird's-nest, a sparkling pebble--whatever came to hand. "Our little

brother," they called him, and the words were repeated here and there

in the early morning, when the nurse would sit with the boy in the

little cloister garden for him to play on the soft grass-plot while she

went on silently with her work, for the little one had begun to run

about quite prettily and she could leave him to himself for hours. But

indeed he never remained alone; hardly was he down in the garden when

all the younger monks gathered round him like bees round a newly opened

flower. And they played with him like children and made him all sorts

of toys; chains of bird-cherries and little parchment wind-mills and

ships--downright waste of time the older brethren called it. The rigid

old brother carpenter carved him out little sheep and cows and a little

manger with a baby Christ in it. Brother Engelbert, the painter,

painted him all sorts of lovely pictures in the brightest colours--the

whale swallowing Jonas and Saint Christopher carrying the infant Christ

through the water; and was delighted with the child's shouts of joy

when he showed some comprehension of one and the other. Brother

Candidus, the precentor, cut him out sweetly tuned pipes and was never

tired of admiring the boy's good ear.

Thus each did what he could for the "little brother." The hour of

recreation was their play-time with the boy and the older men would

look on smiling and observe with satisfaction how such innocent and

childish amusements could please the younger brethren.

The child grew up in bliss--as if in Paradise. Loved by all,

affectionately taught by all, he developed rapidly in body and mind.

One above all others bore him in his heart and cared for him with his

hands--to one above all others he clung with increasing devotion; this

was Conrad of Ramüss, his uncle. However deep the child might be in

some new game, however close the circle of monks around him, when he

heard Conrad's voice he flung everything aside, got up on his tottering

little feet, and trotted jubilant to meet him. It was a striking

picture when the tall, handsome man stooped down to lift the boy; when

the fat baby arms were clasped round the proud neck with its golden

curls and the small round cheeks were pressed caressingly against that

noble, spiritual face.

"My sweet angel, the flower on my cross!" he would often say to him,

and the child would listen almost devoutly and look before him vaguely

with his large brown eyes, as though he already could know the

significance of the Cross which stood in the midst of the convent

garden to the honour of the Most High.

He would sit for hours in the quiet little garden with the child on his

knee and his breviary in his hand; so long as he felt the little heart

beating against his own he was content. Now and then it struck his

conscience that perhaps he clung too closely to the child as an earthly

treasure; and then he would raise his eyes imploringly to Heaven,

"Forgive me for loving him--I am bringing him up for Thee--my God." And

as the child grew bigger and learned to speak, it was Conrad who with

inexhaustible patience taught him his first little prayer; to fold his

baby hands and kiss the wooden Christ in the garden when he lifted him

up in his strong arms. The little one knew every wound as a cruel

torment and would lisp out, "Holy! holy!" while he pressed his rosy

lips to the blood-stained wooden hands and feet. But he who inflicted

these torments on the Redeemer, to the child's fancy was none other

than Correntian; the brethren might do what they would, they could

never get it out of the child's head that "the cruel man" had nailed

the Saviour to the cross.

"The brat has more wit than all of us put together," said Wyso when he

heard it. "If Christ were to come again Correntian would be the first

to crucify him."

From that time Correntian hated him if possible more than before, and

the child was so much afraid of him that he fled from him crying when

by any chance he approached him. Never had he favoured the child with a

single word but one of rebuke, nor a look but one of reproach. The

merriment of the brethren was in his eyes an outrage and a crime

against the rule of Saint Benedict which did not allow of speech "with

gesticulations, nor with showing of the teeth, nor with laughter and

outcry."

But the others who set the spirit above the letter, and who better

understood the rule of Saint Benedict, did not care, but loved the

child all the more. Correntian was like a seceder from the rest of the

brethren, and the unacknowledged breach between them grew daily more

impossible to heal. Here again it was the child that was guilty. "The

seed of hell that I pointed out is beginning to germinate," said the

implacable man.

Three summers had passed over little Donatus and the autumn wind was

once more blowing over the stubble-fields though the midday sun still

blazed with much power. The nurse was sitting with the boy in an arbour

of blossomless juniper; the brethren were busy in the house with their

prayers and duties. She was quite alone; as often as the autumn winds

blew, the old wounds broke out again in the saddened heart and bled

anew; it was now near the season when, four years ago, she had first

left her husband and her lowly home, which was now empty and ruined.

"You--you took everything from me--and yet I cannot help loving you,

you child of sorrow," said she to the boy, who was playing at her feet

at a burial, and was just then placing a cross he had made of two

little sticks on the top of a mound he had thrown up. It was a

delightful occupation and the child was eager at his play; he decked

the grave with red bird-cherries as he had seen done in the grave-yard

when one of the brethren took him there; then he swung his little clay

mug over it by a string for a censer and sang an edifying litany in his

baby way as he had heard the brethren do, and he was so absorbed in his

pretty play that he screamed and struggled when his nurse suddenly

caught hold of him and took him up. But he was easily pacified and,

well-pleased with his foster-mother's caresses, he clung closely to

that faithful breast. It was long since she had forgotten the

prohibition to kiss him. She clasped him again and again with

melancholy fervour and pressed a thousand kisses on his sweet

baby-lips.

At this moment, as if it had sprung from the earth, a dark shadow stood

between her and the sun, which threw a golden light on the grass-plot

in front of the arbour. She looked up startled--again it was Correntian

who stood before her. And as if that most sacred feeling, a mother's

love, were a sin, she blushed and set the child down on the ground. She

was suddenly conscious that she ought not to kiss him--a look of

loathing from the monk told her all and she trembled before him. But he

only shook his head and said,

"This must have an end. Stay here!" he added in a tone of rough command

and quitted her with a rapid step.

The woman sat still as if spell-bound and dared not move from the spot.

What misery would he bring upon her now? All at once it had grown

cloudy and chill, and yet the sun was shining as before; the grass, the

trees--though still green, the sky--though still blue--everything was

all at once autumnal and sere as if metamorphosed by a touch. And the

child looked to her so strange, so distant, so unattainable, and yet

she need only put out her arms to clasp him.

So she waited with folded hands, motionless.

At last she heard returning steps over the path; it was the Abbot and a

few of the elder brethren. The Abbot hurried up with unwonted haste.

"You are an incorrigible woman," he scolded out. "We have shown more

than due pity for you, we have kept you here longer than was fit

although the boy has long since ceased to need you; there was no way

left for you to sin--so we thought--and now I hear that even this child

is not sacred to you! Why, have I not forbidden you to kiss the boy?

'under heavy penalty,' I said; and you--you despise our orders, you

compel the child to submit to your caresses although he struggles with

vague misgiving, and you teach his innocent mouth, which is consecrated

to God's service, to kiss a woman's lips; you outrage the sight of the

brethren who betake themselves to the garden for devout contemplation?

It must come to an end, brother Correntian is right. There," he added,

drawing a little bag full of gold coins out of his frock, and laying it

in her hand, "there is your honest pay. I think you will be satisfied

with us, it is a donation worthy of a prince. You may buy yourself a

farm and land with it down there near Nauders or wherever you will, but

take yourself off out of the sacred precincts of our cloister, for

ever."

The nurse made no answer, she stood there pale and dumb; tears dimmed

her eyes as if she had been plunged into a lake, and saw everything

through water. Her clenched hands trembled so that she had let the

purse fall, the wretched price of her life's ruined happiness. Now the

last treasure was taken from her, the only thing left--the child to

whom she had sacrificed all; this too! "Within these walls nothing is

our own but suffering," Correntian had said, she remembered that.

"Take the child with you at once," said the Abbot, and Correntian's

bony fingers grasped the child; but the boy cried so heart-rendingly,

and clung with such deadly terror to his foster-mother that he had to

be torn away from her, and his screams brought out the younger

brethren. The nurse leaned helplessly against the pillar of the arbour,

and a deep groan broke from her. The younger monks, looking on, were

filled with blind fury; their hatred for Correntian, which had been

growing for many years, could be no longer contained; they forgot all

discipline and obedience, all the rules of their order. They crowded

round Correntian like a pack of hounds.

"Leave the child alone, you blood-hound, you spy, who can never leave

any thing in peace."

"For shame, reverend Abbot, for listening to him, the wolf."

Thus shouted the angry mob who would listen to no farther commands; it

was open revolt. The Abbot and the elder brethren ran about in

confusion, not knowing what to do, when above the tumult they heard the

voice which had so often restored peace and calm; father Eusebius had

just come down from his tower-chamber, and with a rapid glance had

taken in the state of affairs.

"You are forgetting your obedience, my brethren. We could not keep the

woman here for ever; so it is my opinion that Conrad of Ramüss should

take the child into his cell, he loves it, and it clings to him."

"Yes, yes, let Conrad of Ramüss take him," they cried with one voice,

and brother Conrad was fetched out from the chapel.

With a glance of infinite pity at the poor trembling woman he took the

child in his arms. "Be easy, I will take good care of him for you," he

said kindly, and she gratefully kissed the hem of his robe. She took

one last long look at the child, the beloved boy that she had nursed so

faithfully in those arms which might never clasp him again. She dared

not give him any parting kiss, his little hands might never touch her

more. The tall monk carried him away high above the crowd of brethren,

as if he were borne along on a dark stream; now, now the doors close

upon him--it is over!

The woman sat alone under the withered arbour; it was evening, the dew

was falling, the wind rustled in the dry branches, and warned her that

it was time to make up her bundle, and to find her way--out into the

world where all was dead or strange to her. Whither should she go? She

knew not, she must wander about alone and helpless so long as her feet

would carry her, till she dropped and lay down somewhere or other. She

pulled herself up, for so it must be, but she must go upstairs into the

empty room whence they had taken the child, just to fetch a few

wretched garments. No, she could not do it.

She stole away, just as she stood, her knees bending under her, taking

only one thing with her: the little cross with which the child had been

playing at his mimic grave-yard. She pressed it to her lips while she

shed hot tears. Thus she glided like a criminal through the mist and

darkness, out of the little gate where she had so often watched for her

husband. But now no loving arm was waiting to clasp her; the Prior

called out a compassionate farewell; that was all. One more glance up

at the turret-window, and then she went down into the misty valley--a

lonely beggar.

Up in the convent a great conclave was held by the elders in judgment

on the younger brethren and their criminal outbreak against all

discipline. Father Eusebius would willingly have hurried off after the

poor forsaken woman, but his duty to his Order kept him here.

"It has all happened just as I said and prophesied," said Correntian.

"All the mischief comes of the child. It is the child of a curse, and

it will bring the curse under our roof."

Then Eusebius rose, his voice sounded sharp and stern as it never

had before, and his eyes flashed round upon the assembly with an

eagle-like glance.

"I will tell you," said he, "the cause of the curse that clings to the

child. All the conditions of its life are unnatural. Its father's rage

was unnatural that made the child an outcast before it was born; your

demands on the nurse were unnatural, and the husband, wife, and child

have come to ruin in consequence; and the child's life here in the

convent is unnatural. That is the seed of hell of which you spoke,

Correntian, which you have cherished, and which you will reap--the

revenge of outraged nature."

BOOK II.

MARTYRDOM.

CHAPTER I.

Joy, joy in all the fields! for it is harvest-time. In all the fields

up hill and down dale; down in the valley and up on the heights

they are cutting the last swathes, the last Rodnerinnenlocken are

sounding--so they call the old traditional cry with which the hay-maker

calls upon the blessed phantom-maidens to come and help him. He strikes

three times on his scythe with his whet-stone, so that it rings over

hill and valley; the phantom-maidens hear it, and hasten down from

their cliffs to help the mowers, so that they may get in the harvest in

dry weather. For they are kind-hearted and well-disposed to the peasant

who contentedly tills his field, and many old folks are still living

who have seen with their own eyes that they were not too proud to work

in peasant's dress, helping those who were industrious. But since a

rude lad once seized upon one of the "good women," and kissed her by

force, they no longer show themselves to mortal eyes; only their kind

handiwork can be traced. The more industrious a man is, the more they

help him, for they never come to any but the industrious; the idle call

on them in vain. But this year there must have been more of them than

ever, for it is a splendid harvest, and has been got in quicker than

usual. Singing and shouting resound on all the meadows, and the long

lines of hay-waggons with their intractable teams of spanned oxen seem

endless. Children are romping among the odorous hay-cocks in the

meadows, or lie on the top of the soft piled up heaps stretching their

weary limbs luxuriously; lads and lasses together teazing and joking

each other in exuberant merriment.

Up at the window of the eastern tower of Marienberg a pair of large

melancholy eyes were gazing longingly down on this glorious, smiling

scene. A pair of wonderful eyes they were; deep, dark, and yet full of

light as though glowing with some inward fire, so that even the white

seemed to take a ruddy tint, like an opal held against the light. They

gazed down from the tower with a fixed regard, drinking in all the

splendour in one long look.

The gay, social doings of men--the silent, all-powerful day-star that

was riding at its noon-tide height and shedding its rays over all the

wide landscape, so that every roof and turret of the thirteen hamlets

that lay strewn around were distinctly visible up to the very edge of

the gleaming snow-fields and glaciers, which were the only limits set

to the roving eye--the wide verdant plain, like a garden with softly

swelling hills and tufted woods, and traversed by the silvery streak of

the murmuring Etsch--all this was mirrored in those hungry, dreamy,

far-gazing eyes. They followed the course of the wild, swift rivulet

that tosses itself so impatiently over rapids and falls as it leaves

the lonely mountain-tarn on the moor, rushing on to the all-engulfing

sea. And those eyes sent forth a message of enquiry up to the blue sky,

down to the smiling plain, beyond the majestic heads of the great

Ortler-chain--a dumb, burning question.

But no answer came back to him; it vanished, wafted away by the winds,

like broken gossamer-threads.

The eyes, the anxiously enquiring eyes, belonged to a youth so nobly

formed, so full of graciousness, that it seemed as if nature must have

formed him for a world of perpetual Sundays, and not for a world of

weariness, labour and duty--those grim destroyers of the beautiful.

"Oh! sweet child of humanity; here you sit imprisoned and bemoaning

your living death between cloister walls and among pale disfigured

faces. Forgive me, O, God! if it is a sin to regret that all that is

beautiful should be rejected by pitiless asceticism in these rough

times--that it must wander through the world misunderstood and

unprized, and either perish like flowers on a cross or sink in the pool

of perdition."

Father Eusebius was standing behind the young man's chair and his eyes

rested sadly and thoughtfully on the young head, with its thick crown

of dark curls that waved rebelliously round the prescribed tonsure.

Eusebius had grown old and feeble, he was now ninety-three years old.

His hair was like snow, and his body frail and bent, but his spirit was

perennially young and his glance had the same power as of old. The

youth turned his head. "What, Father Eusebius," said he in surprise.

"Are you there? I did not hear you come in. What has brought your weary

feet up here?"

"I knew that you would be up here and dreaming again."

"Are you vexed with me?" asked the boy, and a pleading smile lighted up

his face as sweetly as when a crystal pool reflects the sunshine.

"Who could be vexed with you?" said Eusebius, and his old eyes lingered

with undisguised delight on the beautiful face of the boy, "I only fear

lest the brethren should take it ill in you if you keep apart in the

recreation-hour."

"Ah, reverend brother," answered the youth, "you cannot know how happy

I am up here; I can see out into the wide world, far over hill and

valley! This was my first home, here stood my cradle, here a kind voice

sang me to sleep and in the little nest up there on the roof I first

heard the twittering of birds. I cannot tell you how content I am here.

I feel as if when my time comes I must die here and fly straight out of

that window into eternity after my little foster-sister--as if there

could be no other path-way to Heaven."

Eusebius laid his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"I do understand you, my son. It would be well for you if so it could

be and you need only fly away to reach eternal bliss! But a long and

weary and thorny path lies before you, a path which you must tread with

bleeding feet; and many a heavy cross awaits you that you must bear on

aching shoulders ere you may rest in God!"

"Oh! brother--why may I not die at once? Why may I not depart at once

and be with the Father, for whom my soul pants?"

"Because we must live--live and work, my son; work for our neighbour

and for future generations. Thus only can humanity ripen into

perfection; each must do his duty in his own way by word and by example

and none may escape his task."

"Why must we first be men if we proceed from God and are his children?"

asked the boy with a sigh.

"We do not proceed from God--we shall only go to God! Of dust were we

born and out of dust we shall be raised and purified by the Spirit--to

the Spirit."

The lad rested his head upon his hand and looked out again. "By the

Spirit, to the Spirit--yes--yes--we must cast off this flesh with all

its longings and weakness and yet--Oh! Eusebius, it is so hard! It

would be so much easier to throw off this whole miserable body at once

and die once for all than slowly to crush this throbbing, longing

heart. Eusebius, a feeling comes over me as if I must fling my arms

wide open and embrace the desert air--as if I must throw myself down on

the grass and rest my head on the lap of earth--as if somewhere--in the

earth itself or in the warm summer-air--a heart must be beating towards

mine on which I might fling myself and weep out all my pain. Ah!

Eusebius, it is true you all love me--and I love you; and I love God

too and my Holy Mother Mary above all--and still it is not enough and

my soul still thirsts for some love--for something--that shall be my

own--wholly and solely mine. 'It is not good for man to be alone,' was

said by the Lord himself--and I am alone--so utterly, absolutely

alone."

And the youth raised his glowing eyes with such fervent entreaty to

Eusebius that it cut the old man to the heart. Then he passionately

grasped Eusebius' hand.

"Eusebius," he said, "you are wiser than they all. Tell me why must it

be so? Why must we love nothing but God? Why is that a sin for us which

is permitted to all the rest of mankind?"

Eusebius was startled by this unexpected question. He himself had once

upon a time purchased his salvation with his very heart's blood and the

wounds had healed. But would that which had cured him work a cure in

another? Would the idea that rules the world damp this fire also?

Eusebius looked thoughtfully before him and there was a pause as if he

were seeking the right words; then he said,

"The great mass of people are struggling upwards by degrees--working,

toiling, producing--step by step to the throne of God; but the steps

are centuries and it is only after long centuries that the goal is ever

visible to them. But there are solitary souls that feel a more powerful

impulse towards Heaven than others do and that can separate themselves

from the common herd and by great acts of self-denial attain to that

perfection, for which centuries are needed by mankind as a whole. Such

a soul can tread the direct road to God;--but he must walk alone--for

he is shut out from all community with nature as soon as he sets forth

upon that road. He no longer belongs to the toiling, producing mass,

seething with perpetual reproduction of itself from itself--his life

must be one long death. It demands the noblest heroism, the highest

effort; for one single glance backwards--one false step on his lonely

way to death; and omnipotent nature clutches him again and drags the

lost soul back among her blindly-working wheels. But in the last

judgment God will judge those presumptuous ones who undertook that

which they could not carry through, more hardly than all the others,

and will say, 'Why wouldst thou fain be better and greater than these,

if thou hadst not the strength to achieve it?' Therefore, my son, we

live apart from the world behind these sheltering cloister-walls, that

nothing may tempt us from the path of holiness which we have chosen."

Eusebius paused and watched Donatus, who was leaning against the window

and breathing hard.

"Eusebius!" he exclaimed, fervently grasping the old man's hand, "God

will be merciful and give me strength to carry through that which I

have begun--will he not?"

"Who can tell? What we ourselves undertake we ourselves must carry out.

Therefore prove your heart, my son, before you swear the great

irrevocable vow; you yourself wished to be a priest--you have obtained

your wish, in a few days you will be consecrated to God's service. But

if in your heart you bear such earthly longings will you be strong

enough for such a sacred calling? If not--renounce it rather than some

day break a double vow and so be doubly sinful. Better, better that you

should fly away into the wide world than that you should be false to

your own and to our plighted truth, and so fall lower in the eyes of

God than those who never purposed to be more than men among men."

"I fly! I not be a priest!" cried the youth vehemently. "Nay, nay, my

brother. You only wish to try me--you cannot be in earnest. If I said

anything to make you doubt my truth, forgive me. Never, never has such

a thought crossed my mind. And what should I do out in the world? If

you drive a bird that was hatched in captivity out of doors it will

starve in the midst of plenty--and so it would be with me. Only

sometimes I suddenly feel as if the convent were too narrow for me, as

if you ought not to keep me here like a prisoner! Look out there--is

not that glorious! Must I not long to be out there in the blue

distance? Must not the plain below tempt me down there, down to the

delicious verdure which affords nourishment and refreshment to all?

Must not those solitary heights tempt me up to the everlasting snow, so

high, so near to Heaven? Or over there, near the bed of the silver

stream, out on the heath where I was born? Is not God everywhere--over

there as well as here? And is it not He whom I would seek down in the

valley or up among the frozen glaciers? You--all of you--go in and out;

you strengthen and refresh your souls in wood and field, why may I only

never quit these walls?--why must I, so long as I live, be rooted like

a dumb motionless plant within the narrow limits of the little convent

garden?"

"My son, I have long expected you to question me thus. I will take upon

myself to tell you the reasons why the fathers shelter you so

anxiously--against my advice--for so far as I am concerned you should

not be a monk nor take the vows of priesthood. I have read many books,

old heathen chronicles and histories as well as Christian ones, and I

have always found that human wit and human cunning must fail when

anything was fore-ordained, and that what must be must. And if it must

be, you will be torn from us even if we keep you within seven-fold

walls. You must know then that a curse of interdicted love rests upon

you; that is why your dying mother dedicated you to the cloister, and

the reason of their keeping you so strictly, in order that the last

will of the dead may be faithfully carried out. The fathers dread lest

every step beyond these walls should entail the accomplishment of the

curse; nay, Correntian even proposed that you should be blinded when

you came to us as a new-born infant, to secure you for ever from all

temptation."

"Dreadful man!" said the lad with a shudder. "But--one thing

more--solve, I beg of you, the mystery of my birth. Why was I born out

on the heath, who was my mother, and what crime had she committed that

my father should cast her out?"

"We all took a solemn oath to our Abbot Conrad--the Abbot at that

time--never to breathe the names of your parents either to you or to

any one else, so that every tie between you and the world might be

broken. Your mother died as a saint, and it was her wish that you too

should live and die in an equally saintly manner. You are the child of

the church; ask after no other parents. This was the answer we were to

give you when you should ask, and so I answer you now, as is my duty."

"Oh! now I understand it all!" said Donatus, his voice trembling with

deep agitation. "Woe is me! a curse rested on my innocent head before I

saw the light! Aye, it is true; I was the death of the mother that bore

me, I made the foster-mother that reared me miserable; she lost her

husband and child for my sake. I was born to misfortune, and misfortune

will pursue me wherever I go. Yes, you are right, there is no road for

me but that to God, not a hope but Heaven! and I will keep three-fold

watch over myself now that I know this! I will quell my rebellious

heart even if it must break. I will not dream up here any more; no more

shall the soft breath of the morning-breeze caress me, no more will I

inhale the aromatic fragrance of the limes beneath this window nor let

my gaze wander round the smiling distance--all these things rouse my

longing! And perish the wishes even which may tempt me away from the

step of the Altar to which I am dedicated! I am yours henceforth body

and soul, and the world shall never more rob you of a single thought of

my mind!"

"God grant it may be so!" said Eusebius, and his eyes rested sadly on

the transfigured countenance of his young companion. Did he shake his

head? no, he was only shaking off a startled moth. And Donatus rose.

"Let us go down," he said, "and leave this ensnaring spot which too

much befools my senses! For I feel I had said things that I ought not

to have said, and that it was not God who lent me such words."

So saying he closed the little window with its panes, obscured by dust

and its worm-eaten frame. At this moment a cheery blast from a horn

rang in the distance. "Oh look!" cried Donatus, "a procession of riders

is coming up the mountain!"

Eusebius went to the window.

"It is true," said he, "a riding party--they are coming here; we must

hurry down to announce them to the Abbot; come."

It was eleven o'clock, the hour when the brethren walked in the garden

for recreation. Abbot Conrad of Ramüss, for it was he who now wore the

mitre, was just then walking under a shady alley of trees and

discussing with one of the brethren the preparations for ordaining

Donatus a priest; for his favourite's festival must be kept with all

the pomp of which the rules of the order allowed. Noonday silence lay

on the peaceful little garden. The apricots and pears on the walls

swelled their ruddy cheeks under the hot rays of a July sun and the

brethren rested at their ease, stretched out in the shade of quiet

arbours and trees. The pigeons cooed on the roof, and at the foot of

the Crucifix, where the sun shone hottest, lay the lazy old convent

cat, her green eyes sleepily closed.

Suddenly a wild noise was heard at the gate, the neighing of horses and

barking of dogs, blasts on the horn and confused shouting; the brethren

sprang, up in alarm. Donatus and Eusebius hurried up. "For God's sake,

venerable Abbot--there is a splendid riding party at the gate, desiring

to be admitted," they called out, "What shall we do?"

"What we cannot avoid doing--give them what they require."

"Oh, dear!" lamented fat old Wyso, who had been brought out by the

alarm and who could hardly walk for old age and swelled feet. "Oh,

dear! they will eat us up like the Egyptian locusts--do not let them

in--or ask first who they are. We are not bound to harbour any one but

the lords of the soil and they have already left us poor."

"Good brother Wyso," said the Abbot smiling, "if it pleased the Lord to

let a swarm of locusts fall upon us, should we not be obliged to

submit? so submit to these and act cordially with us in showing

hospitality."

Thus speaking they had reached the gate and the Abbot himself opened it

and met the impatient troop with a dignified demeanour.

High above him on horseback sat a number of nobles with a crowd of

followers. The gay robes of silk and velvet, trimmed with costly furs,

shone splendidly in the sun. Men and beasts were bathed in sweat from

their hot ride up the steep hill.

"_Deo gratias_, noble gentlemen," said the Abbot. "If you are satisfied

to accept what a poor, out-of-the-world mountain-convent has to offer,

step in and be welcome in Christ's name."

"Come in, as many as there is room for," said the foremost horseman

with a laugh, urging his prancing horse through the narrow doorway.

"God save you, my lord Abbot, I do not think you good folks here

starve?" he added with a merry glance at Wyso, who was trying to keep

his gouty feet in safety out of the way of the crowd of horses.

The knight guided his horse under a shed, in order to alight in the

shade; as many of the others followed as could come in; the silent

convent yard was like a bustling camp, the mass of horses and men were

pressed so closely together in crowded confusion. The horses kicked out

in every direction, not liking such close quarters; the hindermost

forcing their way in, the foremost unable to go any farther in the

narrow space. There was pushing and screaming, prancing and stamping.

Wyso escaped into the house, not without abusing the visitors, and even

the other monks were frightened and startled out of their quiet life by

the rough incursion of this high-handed party.

"Oh--locusts! locusts! you would be a lovely sight compared to these

monsters!" Wyso lamented as he looked out of window.

At last all the horses were put up, some in the cattle stalls and

some tied up in a row all round the walls, nay some--and this cut

the brethren to the heart--some to the beautiful promising fruit

trellises--the toil and care of many years all undone in an instant!

And the brethren looked with consternation as they saw great horses'

mouths with rolling tongues and sniffing nostrils poking about in the

trees and eating what they took a fancy to, pending the arrival of

better fare.

"What is to be done?" said the Abbot in a low voice to the brethren,

"We must submit! And this is a friendly incursion--think what it would

be if it were a hostile invasion--God preserve us!"

Meanwhile the marauding visitors had without farther ado overrun the

hay lofts and brought down fodder for their horses, and to facilitate

the beasts' enjoyment of it they stuffed it between the bars of the

fruit trellises, for there were no mangers in the convent. The pack of

dogs let loose in the little garden tore with wild howls across the

flower beds in chase of the convent cat, who had little expected such

visitors.

"Now, my lord Abbot," said the foremost of the riders good-humouredly

enough, but in a tone of rough command. "Where are your cellarers? They

should have appeared long ago to present us with a bowl of wine! True

hospitality does not delay till the rider has his foot out of the

stirrup."

"You shall be served at once, my lords!" said the Abbot. "You must take

the will for the deed, for we are inexperienced and unaccustomed to

receiving so many guests."

"But if I am well-informed you have occasionally received your

seignior, the Count of Matsch--or Amatia, as they prefer to call it,

with all his following?"

"We are the vassals of the Count of Matsch; it is an old right of our

liege lords to visit us once a year," answered the Abbot.

"Then you cannot refuse to your sovereign prince what you grant to your

liege," said the knight. "I am Meinhard the Second of Görtz and Tyrol

and the Duchess is following me immediately."

The Abbot bowed to the very ground in pleasure and respect, "Happy is

the day that procures us the honour of seeing your gracious

countenance! Hail to Duke Meinhard!"

"Hail to Duke Meinhard! our powerful protector. Hail!" rang from all

lips, and even Wyso came hobbling out again, panting and perspiring,

and made his way with unwonted courage among the horses to testify his

respect for the powerful Duke.

"Now the ducal horses might be welcome to eat all the apricots and

pears, and the dogs to trample all the vegetables and flowers--this is

quite another matter!"

"Make way--make way for the Duchess and her suite!" was now the cry of

the marshal at the gate, and all made way for the litters of the

Duchess and her ladies.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Women in the cloister! And we cannot keep them

out, for our wise rule allows princesses to enter!" lamented Wyso slily

and winking with secret delight at Correntian, who was standing near

him. "What do you say to such doings, Correntian?"

The Duke and the Abbot went to meet the procession and receive the

noble lady. Foremost of all on a quiet horse rode the marshal, then

followed the panting and sweating beasts that bore the Duchess' litter,

each walking between two poles which hung from their backs from strong

girths; one went in front and the other behind, each guided by a driver

with a large cracking whip. Between them swung the tall palanquin with

light rustling curtains of red silk, blown about by the hot south-wind,

and inside it, wearily stretched out on soft crimson cushions

embroidered with gold, lay a pale, delicate woman, closely veiled and

so simply dressed that it was visible at the first glance that her mind

was not set on the royal splendour with which her proud husband loved

to surround her. But the ladies of her suite looked all the more

haughty as they followed her on horseback. They rode behind the litter

between the rows of monks, laughing and chattering, swaying their

slender bodies carelessly on their broad-backed palfreys and looking

curiously at the shorn heads around them, from under their broad hats,

adorned with peacock feathers. Suddenly one of them drew her

embroidered rein and whispered to her neighbour, "Look, there is a

handsome one!" And all eyes followed hers to where Donatus was standing

with downcast lids, grave and silent.

"Forwards!" cried the marshal, for a troop of riders were still behind

as an escort for the ladies.

The Abbot had taken the leading-rein of the foremost horse in the

litter and guided it with his own hand through the court to the inner

gateway; here he paused and went up to the lady, "May it please you,

noble lady," he said, "to alight and to put up with the accommodation

of our humble roof."

At a sign from the marshal the squires and pages sprang forward. In an

instant the horses were unharnessed, the litter let down on to the

ground, the ladies lifted from their horses and litter and horses all

led on one side. The Duchess, a lady of middle age and apparently

afflicted by severe illness, bowed her head humbly before the Abbot.

"Give me your blessing, reverend Father," she said softly.

The Abbot blessed her and led her with her ladies into the cool

refectory.

"Will you condescend to rest and cool yourself here for a time, noble

Lady?" he said, "while I see to providing some farther refreshment."

He conducted the men of the party into a large dining hall which

he himself had built and which was only just finished; here the

brother-cellarer had set large goblets which were all dewy outside from

the coolness of the wine they contained; that was a drink after the

frightful heat! hardly could the thirsty lips part with the bowl till

the last drop was drained; there were rich cheese and fragrant rolls

too, to stay their hunger till the noon-day meal was ready. For the

Abbot would fain do everything that the resources of the house

admitted, and its resources were many, for it had long been in a

flourishing condition, and the labours and tillage of the monks had

been blessed. He sent new milk to the ladies and little wheaten cakes

with limpid golden honey, as might beseem fastidious ladies' lips.

Thus he cared paternally and tenderly for his guests, rejoicing at the

evident satisfaction with which they enjoyed it. Even the grooms in the

court-yard had heavy loads of bread and mead carried out to them, and

soon there was such riot and jubilee as if they had entered into the

land of Canaan. Nay the thoughtful host had remembered even the dogs;

they stood in a circle round a great bowl of cool butter-milk and were

lapping it with their hot tongues. Through the railings of the

underground windows there rose up a mighty steam and reek of roast and

stewed. The choicest fowls and fat joints of hastily slaughtered mutton

sputtered on the rarely-used spits, for such a dainty meal was never

prepared but for strangers, and the unusual savour of meat pleasantly

tickled brother Wyso's nostrils. He could not omit this opportunity of

saying spitefully to Correntian,

"Hey! what is that smell?"

"The devil's roast!" said Correntian with a burst of anger, for the

whole occurrence was an abomination to him, and he could hardly control

his indignation. He muttered the words of the prophet Isaiah, chap. 22:

"_Et ecce gaudium et lætitia, occidere vitulos et jugulare arietes,

comedere carnes et bibere vinum_--they slaughter oxen, they slay sheep,

eating flesh, and drinking wine. _Comedamus et libamus, cras enim

moriemur_--let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

"Come, come," said Wyso chuckling. "It is not so bad as all that--we

shall not die quite so soon as to-morrow, unless we may enjoy ourselves

too freely to-day, and eat and drink too much--"

"_Et revelata est in auribus meis vox Domini: si dimittetur iniquitas

hæc vobis, donec moriamini_--and in my ears was the voice of the Lord

of Sabaoth: Verily this sin shall not be forgiven thee till thou die!"

continued Correntian, but Wyso was not to be silenced.

"If the reverend Abbot grants us a dispensation, God too will forgive

us the sin. Not that which goes into the mouth defiles the man, but

that which proceeds out of the mouth. Do you understand? Well, why are

you staring at me like that with your martyr's face?" he added in a

tone of good humoured scolding to Donatus. "When I was your age, would

I have girded my hungry stomach with rough haircloth, that I might ride

lighter on the road to Heaven? Good Lord! they would have to haul me up

with cords now, if I had to take all my earthly ballast up with me. But

as we must leave to the earth all that is of the earth, earthy, it is

all the same what we stuff ourselves with--that is my view."

Meanwhile the guests within had satisfied their first hunger and

thirst, and Duke Meinhard had informed the Abbot of the reason of his

visit. His wife Elizabeth of Bavaria had so long felt herself ailing

and feeble, that before her end came she would fain do some good deed

for the welfare of her soul, and with this end in view she had founded

a House of God at Stams in the Ober-Innthal. The building was now far

advanced, and she had made up her mind to undertake a journey, in order

to inspect all the most distinguished foundations in the country, and

thus to inform herself as to what arrangement of the building, what

system and preparatory dispositions would be most advantageous to the

newly founded religious house. When the noble lady was rested it was

her wish that the Abbot might conduct her round the monastery, so that

she might see everything for herself.

The Abbot declared himself most ready to aid in so Christian a work,

and he designated Donatus, as his favourite and most promising

disciple, for the high honour of conducting the Duchess, as the Duke

took possession of the Abbot himself, to confer in manly fashion about

the neighbourhood, the customs of the inhabitants of Vintschgau, and

all sorts of things ecclesiastical and temporal.

Donatus coloured with surprise when the Abbot informed him of his

good-fortune; nay his imploring look seemed to convey a remonstrance;

but that was impossible, the brethren of the order might never say

"no."

Next to the Duke sat a broad-shouldered, dark man, sunk in sullen,

brooding silence. His hair was grey, but before its time, his brow

morosely wrinkled and marked down the middle with a strong angry vein.

He took no part in the conversation, and from the moment when he had

taken his place he never once had moved his eyes from the end of the

table where Donatus was sitting.

"Well, Count," said the Duke, pushing him to rouse him, and nodding to

him over his glass. "You are staring fixedly at that one spot; does

that young fellow remind you of your own youth?"

"It is strange, but do not you think that the boy is like me?" muttered

the Count.

"He certainly is, to a hair; and if you had a son I could believe it

was he. Only you never looked as gentle and sweet as he does; do not

you agree with me, Count Reichenberg?"

"Count Reichenberg!" For an instant every face turned pale as the monks

heard that name; Donatus only remained quite unconcerned, for he knew

not as yet who and what Count Reichenberg was to him.

"By my soul!" cried another of the gentlemen, "you are as like each

other as young and old, tender and tough can be."

Count Reichenberg sprang up. "My Lord Abbot," said he, "a word with

you."

The Abbot turned paler than before; he exchanged but one rapid glance

with the brethren, but they all understood him; then he rose and

followed the Count into a deep window-bay.

"My Lord Abbot, I am a connection of yours, do you not know me?" said

the knight without farther preface.

"I never saw you," replied the Abbot. "For since my sixteenth year I

have lived out of the world as a monk. But if you are the man who

married my sister and then repudiated her, you are no relation of mine,

there can be no friendship between that man and me."

"I am the man," said Reichenberg defiantly. "I ask you--where that boy

came from to you?" He pointed with an angry expression to Donatus.

"He was bequeathed to us," said the Abbot calmly.

"By whom?" The Abbot looked at Reichenberg, measuring him from head to

foot with a steady gaze.

"That," he said, "is a secret of the confessional."

"I will pay you for it," the Count whispered in his ear. "Your convent

shall benefit largely, I will make over to you by deed a manor and an

alp above Taufers with glebe and pasturage, and all rights secured to

you--only tell me the name of the boy's parents."

"No, my lord--not a word; did you ever hear that a Benedictine sold the

secrets of the confessional?"

The Count stamped his foot.

"Then I will find some means of making you speak by force--at a more

opportune moment."

The Abbot looked at him quietly and proudly. "You may kill me, but you

can never make me speak."

"Then one of your herd will, who is less steadfast that you."

"I will answer for my brethren, man by man," said the Abbot with

dignity.

The Count raised his hand threateningly, "Woe to you if I discover what

I suspect--"

"Ho, ho! Count Reichenberg, what are you making this noise about?" and

the Duke suddenly stepped between them. "What am I to think of you for

thus disturbing the peace of this quiet hour?"

"I will inform you presently, my lord Duke. Just now grant me one word

with the young monk there." He signed to Donatus to approach, and the

boy rose and came modestly forward.

"Will you tell me who you are?"

"I am a monk," said Donatus, shortly and firmly.

"I see that--but who were you originally--who were your parents?"

Donatus looked calmly at him--"I do not know."

The Count cast a glance of hatred at the Abbot, "Oh, you priests, you

priests; who ever got behind your tricks?"

"Pray be easy, Count Reichenberg," said the Duke soothingly. "I did not

come here to torment peaceable monks who entertain us hospitably.--Do

not take this to heart, my lord Abbot--nor you reverend brethren!" he

signed to a servant who was standing by a large chest in a corner.

"Look here, I have something to show you!" He opened, the coffer, which

the man carried with difficulty, and took out of it a magnificent

chalice of pure gold encrusted with garnets and chased with artistic

reliefs representing the Passion, a work so fine and costly that the

monks had never seen the like.

"Look here, this is the work of master Berthold, the goldsmith of Ulm,"

said the Duke.

Then he took out a little golden tube with a mouth-piece of amber, such

as were in use at that time, in order that, when the Cup was presented,

clumsy or greedy partakers might not imbibe too much of the costly

wine. Next he produced a heavy golden Paten; this was in the same way

set with garnets round the edge, and had two finely chased handles,

while on the ground of the dish a cross was engraved. This he set on

the table by the side of the Cup that all the brethren might rejoice in

the sight. Finally he brought out a dozen of pure silver apples of

artistic pierced work and called Calefactories; these were hand-warmers

for the monks. They were filled with glowing charcoal and held in the

hands to prevent the monks' fingers from being frozen at the early mass

in winter.

"Well! how do you like them?" asked the lordly donor, well pleased at

the astonishment and admiration with which the monks gazed at the

costly treasure. "Do you think they will pay you for our dinner?" The

Abbot looked at him enquiringly.

"I do not understand you, my lord!"

"No?--that is my offering in return for your hospitality. You shall

have cause to remember the day when you entertained your Duke under

your roof."

The brethren, with the exception of Correntian and Donatus, sprang up

with confused cries of delighted surprise, "Oh! can it be!" and, "It is

too much!" and the Abbot said with moistened eyes,

"You are magnificent in your favours, my Lord, and may God reward you,

for we are only poor monks and can make you no return but by blessings

and prayers."

"That is all I ask," said Duke Meinhard laughing, "only pray for me

stoutly--I am sure to want it, for I hope to commit many more sins, and

I shall have great need of the intercession of pious folks with the

Almighty." He threw the treasure back into the heavy chest and slammed

down the lid.

"There!" he exclaimed, "now take all the property away into your

treasury and let us have dinner brought in as soon as possible, for we

must proceed to-day to Münster and pass the night there. The Duchess

wishes to spend some time in the convent of St. Gertrude, while we men

ride to market and hunt in the neighbourhood."

"If it please, your lordship, to wait until we have shown her

highness your wife the extent and arrangement of the monastery as she

wishes--" suggested the Abbot.

"Aye--pray do so, my lord Duke," urged Wyso anxiously. "It will be to

the advantage of your teeth if you leave the fat sheep, which were

running about only an hour ago to sweat a little longer in front of the

fire."

Reichenberg looked sharply at the fat monk with his thick lips and

sensual grin. "You are not the man to die for the sake of keeping a

vow," thought he. "When you have well drunk you will make a clean

breast of it."

"Very well," said the Duke. "Then we will wait--less for the sake of my

teeth than of yours, old gentleman--if indeed you still have any left.

You will grant a dispensation this day in our honour, my Lord Abbot,

will you not?"

"I will do so, my Lord," said the Abbot smiling, "they may enjoy

themselves to their heart's content. And so, Donatus, my son, come now

with me that I may conduct you to her ladyship, the Duchess, if she

will accept you as her guide."

Donatus rose with simple dignity, and followed the Abbot. The two

gentlemen, Meinhard and Reichenberg, looked after him in silence.

"Tell me, Count, what passed between you and the youngster that you got

so angry about it?" asked the Duke, pushing back a little way from the

table that the others might not overhear them.

"It is a mere whim, if you will," replied Reichenberg in a low voice.

"But the boy's resemblance to me struck me amazingly. I--I might have

had a child who would have been of just his age, and if it had been a

son he might have looked exactly like that, for not only is the lad

like me, he has just my wife's eyes and soft voice."

"Your wife's?" said the Duke, and he shook his head.

"My first wife's," said the Count, "whom I repudiated just about the

time when my first child would have been born. You were then only a

boy, and you were not at the court of your grandfather Albert. My wife

was a Ramüss, and hardly were we married when that venomous serpent,

the Countess of Eppan, poisoned my ear and heart. Not till last year,

when the wretched woman was on her deathbed and sent to me in her last

agony, did she confess that she had accused my wife falsely, in order

to obtain her place. The name and wealth of the Reichenberg family were

an eyesore to her, for she was both poor and haughty; the castle of

Reichenberg, as you know, formerly belonged to the house of Eppan. She

longed to restore it to them by a marriage with me--her heart was never

mine as I saw very plainly later on. Now for a year past I have been

wandering about the world, seeking in vain for some trace of my outcast

wife. God in Heaven alone knows what may have become of them both,

mother and child; my race ends with me, and I myself have driven out

the heir that God perhaps had granted me--an outcast--to die! And that

boy's eyes struck me like a thunderbolt. He looked just as my wife

looked when I drove her away. Duke, if it were he--" The Count was

silent, and his lips quivered.

"What good would it do you? It would be too late; he has taken the

vows, and you could not break them."

The Count looked darkly before him, and made no reply.

"Your second wife never had much joy of her treason; you repudiated her

too if I remember rightly?"

"Yes; at the end of two years the Pope gave me permission to announce

that my first wife was dead, and to marry again; my mind had already

wandered from the Lady of Eppan, but I had to keep my word--she held me

to it hard and fast--and so she became my wife; but I was always away

from home in battle and danger, for the world was spoilt for me, and so

was all my liking for that false woman. When I returned from my four

years' expedition to the Holy Land I found her carrying on an intrigue

with Master Friedrich von Sunburc, the minnesinger and chronicler of

your father's court. Nay more, a faithful waiting-woman of my first

wife who could never get over the loss of her former mistress, betrayed

to me that the shameless woman had not long since had a daughter, and

had concealed the child with a strange beggar-woman whom she had met

gathering berries and simples in the woods; as soon as the news of my

return was known, the woman and the child had disappeared, leaving no

trace behind. How I punished her, how the minnesinger was expelled from

the court by Meinhard the first, and how she died, abandoned to remorse

in her own ruined castle, all that you know."

"She was an intriguing coquette," said the Duke shaking his head, "and

ensnared all men with her gold-gleaming owl's eyes and her auburn hair.

She had something of the witch about her, and I could almost believe

that she was one, for you know the common people say that you can tell

a witch not by her feet only, but by her eye-brows that meet above her

nose; she had such eye-brows you may remember?"

"I do not believe in such things," said Reichenberg sulkily.

"Nor I either," said the Duke laughing. "But there was something not

quite canny about her, say what you will."

The Abbot meanwhile had taken Donatus to the Duchess.

"May it please you, noble Lady," said he, "that this youth, my

favourite disciple, should have the honour of guiding you in your walk

round the convent."

The Duchess glanced at Donatus with condescending kindness, and the

court-ladies exchanged meaning glances, "That is the one we saw just

now." Donatus stood in the door-way with downcast eyes.

"Come then," said the Duchess rising. "Two of you accompany me; you,

Emerita, and you, Countess Hildegard."

The two chosen ones sprang forward with pleasure; one of them,

Hildegard, was the beauty who had previously pulled up her horse in her

admiration of Donatus' fine figure. She wore a light blue upper-garment

or cappa of a fine and almost transparent woollen stuff, and under it a

dress of heavy yellow silk rich with gold and bordered with white fur.

She had laid aside her broad hat, and her very light hair was bound

with a golden circlet, and crowned with fresh Alpine roses that she had

gathered on the way. Her handsome dress hung round her slender form in

soft folds, and was gathered in round her waist by a girdle of red

velvet embroidered with gold. She was fair to see, that haughty maiden!

Her brow was as white as marble, and the roses in her cheeks were

heightened by a faint touch of the finest Florentine rouge. Her

flashing eyes seemed to ask: "Where is there one fairer than I?"

Nothing was to be got out of the simple God-fearing monks in the

cloister, which she now must explore with the Duchess, nothing but

looks of disapprobation of such worldly court-fashions, and if she

could not ere long produce some sort of sensation, she felt she must

die of tedium.

The other, Emerita, the Duchess' favourite, was dressed no less

splendidly though less elaborately; her hair was modestly fastened up

in a fine net of silver-threads tied with white, and a black velvet cap

embroidered with pearls; her robes of soft white silk and woollen stuff

were bordered with dark fur, and fell heavily and simply to her feet.

The Duchess herself was the most plainly dressed of all; deeply veiled

in matronly fashion, and enveloped from her shoulders in the broad

folds of a brown silk mantle fastened over her bosom with a single gold

clasp; the rest of her dress consisted entirely of grey woollen stuff.

These three figures--so unlike each other--followed their monkish guide

through the cold, damp, musty corridors of the vast building.

He led them first to the library; the Duchess found here a rich harvest

for her craving for pious learning, for sacred books and parchments of

inestimable value and splendour were amassed in it, and she was soon

greedily absorbed in these treasures. Hildegard was almost in despair.

The dust of books and rouge! these have little in common! And no one by

but the coy saint with a head like a heathen god, as fine as any to be

seen in Rome--living, breathing, and yet of marble! A secret revulsion

to spite and hatred sprang up in her soul. Tedium is the parent of all

kinds of crime. But to her great joy just then it occurred to the Duke

to accompany the Duchess on her tour round the convent, and, conducted

by the Abbot, he at this instance entered the library.

"Well, Countess Hildegard, how do you like yourself here?" said he,

laughing and threatening her with his finger. "How fine you are! Come,

come, do not be bewitching the poor young monk with your charms."

"Do not be alarmed, my Lord," said Hildegard mockingly, "he has not

vouchsafed us a single glance; I believe his eyes have grown fixed to

the ground."

The Duke looked at her with a smile. "That is a sad grievance for you,

is it not, Hildegard? If it is but a monk he ought to admire you."

Hildegard coloured and was silent; but the Duke, good-humouredly

carrying on the joke, said to Donatus, "Tell me, pious brother, why do

you keep your eyes so immoveably fixed on the ground; are our fair

maids of honour not worthy to be looked at?"

Donatus was standing before the Duchess, holding a heavy folio which

she was turning over. "It does not become a servant of God to gaze at

anything but the earth, which will be his grave, or Heaven, which is

his hope," he replied with serene gravity.

The Duchess looked at his guileless countenance, and deep compassion

filled her soul, she knew not wherefore. She could have loved this

youth as a son.

"You are right, my child, and may God give you strength to hold to your

principles," she said benevolently.

"Ah! you see," said the Duke in a low voice to tease Hildegard. "Your

arts are wasted on him, pretty Countess; here at length is a man who

can resist you."

"What do you mean, my lord?--I will bring him to look at me this very

day--or I will go for a year in sack-cloth and ashes and break every

looking-glass," whispered Hildegard smiling and showing two rows of

brilliant teeth to the Duke's admiring eyes.

"Aye, aye," he said laughing, "that would indeed be a conquest for you.

You have Princes and Dukes at your apron strings--and now a poor monk's

soul must burn in eternal fires for your sake."

The Abbot suggested that they should proceed; the Duke gave his arm to

his wife, the Abbot went on in front, Emerita followed; Hildegard hung

behind a little.

"You take your vows in the strictest sense, and that no doubt is

right," she said. "But it seems to me, worthy brother, that you must

have very little confidence in your own strength if you have to guard

your glances so strictly. Are you afraid lest a single look should

bring you to ruin?--If so--forgive me, but I cannot help saying it--if

so, your virtue is in a very bad plight." Thus she teased and tried to

pique Donatus who walked by her side in silence.

"Whether I am strong or weak--I do not know. But it is written in the

first epistle of Paul to Timothy, that women shall adorn themselves in

modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided

hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array, but with piety and good

works. And your dress is against this commandment--you are scandal in

the eyes of the Lord--and the eyes of men should avoid seeing you."

"Bless me! That sounds very terrible! Such a severe speech would better

become a father confessor than your youthful years; but even stern

words sound soft from your lips, and I would sooner obey you than any

old lenten preacher." And without pausing to consider, she took off her

golden chaplet with its pearls and preciously wrought trefoils, she

took out the broad gold clasp which held her robe together over her

full bosom, so as to uncover her white throat--and she laid them both

in the young monk's hand.

"There," she said, "take these for your poor; I offer them willingly,

and I will give up everything that I usually wear if you will only give

me one friendly look to repay me." The inexperienced boy stood

speechless; was she in earnest? Was it true that she was so submissive

to his words, so self-sacrificing, so ready to repent? And he

involuntarily raised his eyes and looked at her--a wide, questioning,

admiring gaze. She caught his glance and fixed it with a magic spell,

entangling him in a net, woven as it were of the radiant glances of her

own eyes.

"Oh!" she sighed softly, and her voice fell caressingly on his ear like

the faint whisper of the limes under the eastern turret-window, "You

see, you too can smile. Believe me such a smile on your lips has more

power than a whole epistle of St. Paul."

Donatus was alarmed and his lids dropped again. "God forbid! You were

joking and I thought you were in earnest. Take back your golden

ornaments--they burn my hands as though they had been forged in unholy

fires."

But she pushed the things from her and said with an air of sweet

earnestness, "Nay--you do me an injustice. If I talk the language of

the world teach me a better one. Look at me! your gaze has a purifying

power; look at me, look me in the face and see if I can lie?" And once

more he raised his eyes and drank the sweet poison of beauty such as he

had never dreamed of.

"Come, come!" it was the Duke's voice, "my coy brother; you are already

over head and ears in contemplation of our maid-of-honour! It seems to

me she has converted you more quickly than you have converted her.'"

Donatus started, as from a dream; he blushed deeply, and casting down

his eyes, he turned to the Abbot to present him with the jewels, which

he still held in his hand. The Abbot, much surprised, thanked and

blessed the generous donor.

But the Duchess paused and called Hildegard to her side.

"Why did you disturb us?" whispered Hildegard angrily in the Duke's ear

as she passed him. Her breath came quickly and her cheeks glowed more

scarlet than their rouge.

"You are a perfect fiend, Hildegard," the Duke whispered in return.

"I am much displeased with you, Countess," said the Duchess. "What have

you to do with that innocent young monk? Try your arts where you will,

only not here on these saintly men and do not destroy the peace of

these chaste souls. I fear we shall never suit each other, Hildegard."

Hildegard set her teeth, then she said, "Very well, my lady Duchess,

when we reach Munster I will ask you to grant me an escort to conduct

me back to my father's castle, if my service is no longer acceptable to

you."

"That will be best for you and for me," said the Duchess calmly, and

she passed in by a door which the Abbot unlocked, and which opened into

some steps that led down to the subterranean hall.

"In a few days," said the Abbot, who had not observed what was passing,

"we shall celebrate in this crypt a requiem for the wife of our noble

founder, who died in the Holy Land. Our youngest brother Donatus will

then preach his first discourse, for on the following day he is to be

consecrated to the priesthood." Thus speaking he led the way down the

steep damp stairs, and the sanctity of the spot struck them all

involuntarily silent.

Meanwhile Reichenberg was waiting in the refectory, sunk in gloomy

brooding, and the hungry monks, who had long passed their usual

meal-time, stood about listening if the footsteps of the company might

not haply be coming nearer. At last the brother who was in control of

the kitchen sounded the dinner-bell, and at the same instant the

Duchess entered the refectory with Donatus, the Duke following with the

Abbot. The Duchess was deep in conversation with her companion;

presently turning to the Abbot, she said kindly,

"I thank you, my Lord Abbot; I have seen a great deal that has both

delighted and instructed me. Particularly the library--I could spend

whole hours there, for you have inestimable treasures preserved there

in ancient manuscripts written by pious, learned, and godly men. But

above all, I must honestly confess--nay more than all the books of

wisdom--this child has edified and elevated my spirit. In good truth,

my Lord Abbot, Heavenly blossoms grow in your garden and this world

would be a Paradise if the Lord had many such gardeners."

"Dear me! the Duchess is growing quite young again," said the Duke with

a laughing, threatening gesture. "Hey, hey! my Lord Abbot, what sort of

monks have we here that turn the heads of all the ladies, old and

young?"

"Do not laugh, my lord," said the Duchess gravely. "I assure you, the

wisdom of old age and the innocence of childhood are united in this

youth. If I had only known sooner, my Lord Abbot, what disciples you

could bring up, I should have chosen the monks for my new foundation

from your community, and I deeply regret that I have already made an

agreement with Morimond, the head of the Cistercian Abbey, for none can

have higher qualifications than you possess. But this at least I beg of

you, that you will spare me this youth to be my castle chaplain. You

tell me he is to be anointed priest; let him exercise his holy office

in my service, and God in Heaven will recompense you for the good deed

you will do to a poor sick woman."

The Abbot was silent for a moment from surprise and looked at Donatus.

"Happy child!" said he, "what honours are heaped upon your head. Shall

I grant this gracious lady's wish and give you to her? Speak freely."

"No--Father!" cried Donatus in mortal terror. "You will not cast me

out!"

"Forgive him, Madam," said the Abbot smiling. "We have taught him

always to speak nothing but the truth. You see, it is not compulsion

that keeps him here, and it will not be against his will if I find

myself obliged to refuse your request! The boy, in fact, must never

leave the convent, a sacred vow binds us and him."

"Nay, then God forbid that I should force you to break it, and since it

is so I renounce the wish though with regret. But I tell you--and

remember my words--if ever you find yourselves under the pressure of

any need, if you are threatened by enemies, or if for any cause

whatever you have occasion to crave any favour from me, send this youth

to ask it, and, on my word of honour, whatever you ask shall be granted

you. My noble husband will help me to fulfil this promise."

"Yes!" cried the Duke laughing. "By Heaven! your will is my will,

Elizabeth, but now keep me no longer from my dinner, for I am almost

dead of hunger."

Donatus stepped modestly up to the Abbot. "Father, you granted a

dispensation for to-day, but give me leave, I entreat you, to keep

myself from flesh and wine."

"Do as you will, if you do not wish for meat do not eat any."

"Yes, I wish for it, but for that reason I would deny myself," said

Donatus in a low voice.

"You are right, my son," said the Abbot, and his eye rested with

unutterable affection on the boy's pure brow.

The serving brother now brought in the first dish, and the Duchess

signed to the Abbot to sit by her side.

"Where are your ladies, Madam?" asked the Abbot.

"I did not bring them in with me to dinner, for they are young and

vain, and might disturb the grave souls of your younger brethren. So,

if you please, you will send them out some of the dishes."

"I am obliged to you for your forethought," replied the Abbot. "You

have saved our brethren much scandal. Let us now say grace."

Grace was said and the meal proceeded; the serving brethren could

hardly carry the heavy copper vessels with their savoury contents. All

enjoyed themselves but Correntian and Donatus, who sat at the farther

end of the table, and would touch none of the tempting food.

When dinner was over the Duchess returned to her ladies; the Duke rose

from table, and withdrew to rest for a while in the Abbot's cell; the

brethren and the gentlemen sought the shade and freshness of the cool

arbours in the garden. No one was left in the dining-hall but Count

Reichenberg and Wyso. Wyso, flushed with his intemperate enjoyment of

God's gifts of meat and drink, was resting his red face on the table,

and snoring loudly. Suddenly he felt himself roughly shaken; he looked

up blinking, and saw the Count--Donatus' father--standing by him.

"What is it--what do you want?" said Wyso stuttering, and he lazily sat

up. "Oh, Oh--what a thing is man? Oh! for shame--what have I eaten?"

"Can you still understand what is said to you, in spite of your

drunkenness?" asked Reichenberg in a harsh tone.

Wyso snorted and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. "Oh dear! eating

and drinking is a glorious gift of God!" he stuttered in a lamentable

voice. "But all the time there is a little devil at the bottom called

Too-much, and he spoils the pleasure of it."

The Count gave him another shake. "You have too much wit to be quite

drunk; listen to me, you can and you must."

A glance shot from Wyso's little eyes, all swelled as they were with

drink--a glance at the Count so full of cunning that Reichenberg seized

him roughly by the shoulder.

"I believe," he said, "you take me for a fool."

"I believe I have made a fool of you, my Lord; so at least it would

seem by your not stirring from my side. But take heart, my Lord! Was it

not a splendid dinner?"

"You may henceforth have better dinners than you ever get here; you may

come with me to Reichenberg, I will give you my chaplaincy, there is

not a fatter living in the country; then you may eat all day whatever

your heart desires, and I will furnish your cellar;--only say one

single word--"

Wyso cast a sly sidelong glance at Reichenberg.

"You are very wise, my Lord, not to stint your bacon when you want to

catch your mouse."

"Well, I should think a good broil of bacon would smell better to a

sturdy old glutton like you, than the incense they will burn upon your

coffin when fasting and prayer have brought your miserable life to a

close."

Wyso slowly winked with one eye.

"Ah!" said he. "Is that what you should think?"

"Tell me, whose child is the young monk whom you call Donatus?"

Wyso's head suddenly fell down on his breast again, and he began to

snore.

"Do not pretend to be asleep, I do not believe it. You are a cunning

fellow; what, is the living not enough for you! I will give you a nag

and a sledge, much finer than those of the Bishop of Chur, goat-skins

for shoes, and white lamb-skins--what more shall I offer you? Only say

what you desire, and you shall have it."

Wyso looked at him with a cunning glance.

"You are a very clever man, my Lord, but you do not know us yet! Do you

really suppose that because I do not turn up my eyes, and drawl out the

name of God, nor snap in two from sheer fasting and scourging when any

one touches me like a starved cockchafer--do you suppose that I am a

gluttonous booby who holds his conscience between his teeth, and can

wash away all oaths, all honour, and all fidelity to the Church which

he has served all his life long in one unwonted drinking bout? No, my

Lord, clever as you are, we have not gone so far as that; you may catch

mice with bacon, but not Benedictines; do you understand?" And from

loud laughter he fell to coughing till every vein swelled, and he had

to wipe his face with the corner of the tablecloth.

"You oily priest--you! You mock me, do you? I will see if I cannot find

means to make you speak--" and he unconsciously clutched at the knife

in his girdle; his blood boiled with rage and he hardly knew what he

was doing.

"What do you want, my Lord?" said Wyso coolly. "Would you like to rip

my body up? That would do you no good--I have not written the secret on

parchment and then swallowed it!"

Reichenberg stood for a moment speechless from astonishment, then his

arm dropped as if suddenly sobered. Reflection came back to him and he

understood that his efforts were wasted on this half-drunken cynic.

"The devil only knows what you priests are bound by," he muttered and

put his knife back into its ivory sheath.

"Take a little nap, Count Reichenberg," said Wyso, smiling

mischievously, "when children have not slept they are always

ill-tempered. God grant the dinner may be blest to you! it must have

cost us at least twenty gulden, everything included." The Count turned

away and walked moodily to the window. "Go now, my Lord, and if you

do not want to make an end of me, do not disturb me any more in my

noon-tide sleep," said Wyso, laying his arms on the table and his red

face on them, and pretending once more to be asleep.

"Count Reichenberg," said the Duke laughing, as Reichenberg went out

into the courtyard, his spurs ringing as he walked, "Have you any more

progeny in these parts? If so pray tell me beforehand, for your humour

is enough to spoil the weather for our journey."

"I have given it up, my lord, and must wait for better times to take

the matter up again," answered Reichenberg shortly.

The Duchess now appeared walking between the Abbot and Donatus, and

ready to set out on her journey. The maids of honour followed, very

ill-pleased, for they had been beyond measure dull, and the Countess

Hildegard walked foremost with a broad-brimmed hat and trailing peacock

feather on her pretty head in the place of the golden chaplet. She

fixed her longing eyes immoveably on Donatus, but he did not venture to

lift his gaze to her, and the fine Florentine rouge fell off her cheeks

that turned pale with vexation.

The sundial indicated four o'clock in the afternoon; the Duke had had

the horses saddled and the outriders had already started. The litter

was led out and the Duchess got into it.

"Farewell, my Lord Abbot," she cried once more. "Farewell, Donatus.

Bear in mind the words I spoke to you and do not fail to apply to me if

ever you are in need of help."

Once more the Duke and the Abbot shook hands. The ladies put their

gold-embroidered shoes into their stirrups and sprang, ill-satisfied,

into their saddles; the whole cortège moved off as it came, amid the

cracking of whips and barking of hounds, shouting, trampling, and

hallooing, so that it could be heard long after it was out of sight.

The brethren drew a long breath of relief and went back to their daily

duties, the convent servants swept the court-yard clean with large

besoms; the scared cat sneaked suspiciously back over the granary roof

and all was soon as quiet and peaceful as before.

But a shadow had fallen on the Abbot's soul--a secret anxiety which

would never let him breathe again so freely as he did that morning--a

vague feeling that all was not in fact exactly as it had been before.

CHAPTER II.

The week was ended; it was Saturday, the eve of the ordination. The

busy hands were at rest; harvest was garnered, the doors of the

overflowing barns would hardly close. And the church too was to reap

her harvest; the seed of faith, which the pious monks had sown, twenty

years ago, in the heart of the tiny foundling, had grown fair and

strong and full in ear. Donatus had just preached his first sermon

before all the brethren; with a beating heart he had pronounced the

final "Amen," his eyes flashing with sacred fires; his words had seemed

to fly over the heads of the assembled brethren as if winged by the

Holy Ghost. Nay, even after he had ended, the echo of his words sounded

in the building, and they listened devoutly till it had quite died

away. Then the Abbot rose and clasped the young man to his heart,

"Marvellous boy!" he exclaimed. "You came to us, a stranger, and we

thought that we knew from whence you came, and believed that we should

give to you out of our superfluity and teach you out of the stores of

our wisdom. But now you give to us of your abundance and teach us by

your wisdom so that we are fain to ask, 'Whence are you?' For it was

not in the snows of the wild heath where you were picked up, nor

between our humble convent-walls that you received such a divine

revelation."

Donatus kissed his uncle's hand. "Oh father," he said softly, "I kiss

your faithful and fatherly hand in all reverence, for it is the hand

that has led me to that sacred fount whence I have drawn living waters

for your refreshment. Nothing is my own, I have received everything

from you, and to you I give it back, and whatever I am, that I am

through you! I thank you, my father--I thank you, my brethren!

To-day--on the eve of that sacred day--the day of my new birth in the

Lord--let me offer you all in one word the thanks of a life-time."

And all the brethren--with the exception of that one who was always

irreconcilable--crowded round him and grasped his hands affectionately.

Aye! it was a rich and glorious harvest to the Lord that they were

celebrating that day, and they were proud of it--proud of having

brought up the boy so well--proud that they had all been so wise, and

so good to him. Then the Abbot led him to the chapel that he might

there make his last confession before the holy and solemn festival.

Long, long did Donatus kneel before the confessional, and the iron

grating against which he pressed his brow was wet with his tears. For a

secret sin had weighed upon his soul these three days past. "Oh father,

father!" cried he from an oppressed heart, "I, your son, no longer

appear before you pure as I did a few days since. Father! I dread to

tell you. My eyes have drunk of the poison of woman's beauty and it

courses through my veins like a consuming fire. Always--always--I see

before me the light curling hair, the rosy cheeks, the white throat as

I saw it when her robe fell back, when she took off the clasp--the

whole lovely form and figure. Augustine speaks truly when he says, 'the

eyes every day cast us into all sin and crime; what has been created

that is more subtle than the eye?' My heart was pure, it harboured no

thought but of God; but these eyes, subtle to betray me, have cast me

into temptation, they have destroyed the peace of my soul, for even now

they still bring the sinful image before my mind again and again.

They paint it on the blue sky, on the pillars of the church, on my

prayer-book--nay, on the altar-cloth. I see it wherever I turn my eyes,

it comes between me and my prayers. Oh father, how dare I, with this

snare in my soul, bow my head to receive the consecrating oil; will it

not hiss and dry up as if it were poured on hot iron?"

"Calm yourself, my son," said the Abbot. "There can be no virtue

without a struggle. To be tempted is not to sin, and I know that during

the last three days you have mortified and scourged yourself severely,

and for three nights have not sought your bed, but have knelt here on

the stones of the chapel pavement. He who does such penance for a small

fault must certainly win grace and pardon! But it is true that all sin

comes of a wanton eye, and it is written in the VIth chapter of

Matthew, 'If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of

light; but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of

darkness.' So guard your eye henceforth, my son, and keep it single,

that it may not gaze on forbidden things and that you may continue

chaste and pure before God and man."

"Yes, father!" cried Donatus, raising his hand to Heaven. "And I here

swear in the sight of all the Saints that I will act in accordance with

your precepts. Never again shall my eye rest on the form of woman,

never shall it be raised above the hem of her garment where it sweeps

the ground, never will I be betrayed into a wish or a desire, or else

may God's Grace abandon me, and may He cast me into the deepest

damnation."

"Hold, pause, mad boy! That is a curse and not an oath," cried the

horrified Abbot. "God's grace is far greater than your sick soul can

imagine; He pities even the sinner, and judges him after the measure

of his strength, not according to his guilt. Would you prevent God's

grace and pronounce your own damnation when He in His eternal and

fatherly mercies would most likely pardon you? Whither will your

youthful vehemence carry you? Man may not purify himself by blind

self-destroying zeal, but by faithful and humble submissiveness, by

silent fulfilment of duty, by incessant inward struggles. Take this to

heart, son of my soul, and may the Lord pardon you your wild mood; for

you will fall again, and many a time, and must often need His saving

grace."

It was now late; the door of the chapel closed behind the Abbot.

Donatus' confession was over; he remained alone, praying on the steps

of the altar.

There is silence in earth and Heaven, not a breeze stirs the air, there

is not a sound in the valley below. All is at rest after labour

accomplished, waiting for Sunday, the day of rejoicing.

For all the human beings down in the valley belong to the Church,

literally body and soul, and when the Church rejoices they too rejoice.

A church festival is a festival for them, and they know no others; on

the eve of such a festival each one lays him down to sleep full of

pious thoughts, so that no sinful dreams may scare away the angels

which come down in the night to prepare the souls of the sleepers for

the sacred day that is about to dawn. Silent, but busy the guardian

spirits soar and float from hill to vale all the night through,

till the sun rises and its first rays stream through the little

cottage-windows, falling on the closed eyelids that open again to the

light. Then the wakers rub their eyes with a wonderful sense of

rapture. Sanctification lurks sweetly in their souls though hidden as

yet and not fully understood, but in a few hours the consecrated lips

of the Church will speak the words of absolution; then it will flash

into consciousness like a revelation from Heaven.

The young novice for whom the festival was prepared was still lying on

his face before his praying-stool, just as the Abbot had left him the

evening before. All the night through he had lain there and prayed

without moving, the bridegroom of Heaven; he had triumphed through

fervent prayer, and overthrown all that was earthly. He had purified

himself in the fires of devotion, and his soul burned and glowed whole

and undivided for Her, the celestial Bride. His eyes were sunken, his

cheeks pale with watching and prayer. For what prayer could indeed be

strong, eager, and fervent enough to merit that grace of which no

mortal is worthy, and least of all he--he the weak and erring novice

who had scarcely mounted the first step towards perfection.

The morning-sun streamed brightly down on the towers and pinnacles of

Marienberg, and threw golden disks of light through the circular panes

on to the pavement of the silent chapel. The penitent saw them not, it

was still night to him, for he lay there with his face closely hidden

in his clasped hands.

The bell rang for matins; up flew the angels from the valley to rouse

the bridegroom, and he felt their palm-branches waving over his head.

He roused himself from his acts of contrition, and hastened to the

dormitory to dress, that he might appear in festive attire as a

bridegroom, to receive that invisible Bride to whom his whole heart

went forth in rapture.

Meanwhile down in the valley all were awake and busy; all souls were

purified from sinful thoughts, and water from the sparkling mountain

springs served to cleanse all bodies from the soil of labour. Rosy baby

faces came out from the fresh moisture under their mothers' busy hands,

like flowers after rain, with their bright shining eyes that looked

undimmed upon the world. And many a wrinkle of care and weariness was

washed from the brow of the old by the pure wonder-working glacier

waters; the every day frock of frieze was exchanged for a decent Sunday

dress of stuff, camlet or even better material. The maidens put on

white linen gowns--the garb of innocence--not without a happy thrill of

veneration, for they were to accompany the bridegroom as bridesmaids,

when he walked in procession round the church; then they went out into

the little gardens, resplendent with the glories of summer, carefully

holding up their white gowns in the narrow paths that they might not

sweep the dewy borders; they plucked the ever-sacred elder which must

never be wanting at any solemnity whether joyful or sad; a few sprigs

of hazel because under it the Blessed Virgin once took shelter in a

storm, for which reason it has ever since been blest with peculiar and

marvellous powers; then the juniper with its blackberries, from which

the wholesome juniper-spirit is extracted, that they burn to counteract

the evil spring-mists; tall-grown lilies and humble daisies--which

blossomed under Mary's tears when she was forced to fly into Egypt;

marjoram, rue, and thyme--potent against all devilry; rosemary,

hawkweed, and ground-ivy--all sacred blossoms and plants that grow

under fortunate stars. Of these the girls made the festal garlands,

carefully selecting the flowers according to their emblematic

significance. Last of all they clambered up to break off some boughs of

the Rosa pomifera, which first sprang from the innocent bloodshed by a

pure maiden; which grew luxuriantly, high up on the wall, and when they

tried to pull a branch that was too tough to yield, a sparkling shower

of dew was shaken down upon them so that they had to take hasty flight

with laughter and clamour as though from some saucy teasing companion.

Presently the tramp of horses coming from the direction of Mals broke

the morning stillness. One of the girls in the garden farthest from the

village peeped over the wall at the approaching party. A lady was

riding foremost, she had given the reins to the horse and came rapidly

onward, followed by two women on horseback and a few men servants; by

her side rode a tall knight to guide and protect her. Close to the wall

the lady paused and signed to the astonished girl. "Here--are they not

going to ordain one of the monks up at the monastery to-day?" she

called out.

"Yes--the bell will ring directly," was the answer.

The lady threw her bridle to the rider by her side and sprang from the

horse before a servant could come to her assistance.

"Will you give me your linen frock?" she went on. "I will pay you for

it as if it were a royal robe."

The girl laughed; she thought the lady was jesting.

"Come round and let me in," commanded the stranger.

"Dear Countess--I beg of you--what have you taken into your head?"

whispered the knight.

"I am going to the consecration of this priest," said the Countess

laughing. "But I must not be recognised and shall mingle with the

peasant girls--do you understand?"

"But consider, I beg of you, such a proceeding is most unbecoming for

you," remonstrated the knight.

"I know best what is or is not becoming for myself. You others must

ride off by another way, up to where the ruins of the old fortress of

Castellatz will afford you shelter against sun or rain; there you must

remain concealed till we proceed on our journey."

"Could we not find shelter in the convent itself," said the knight, "as

we did lately with the Duchess?"

The Countess laughed. "And do you think those strict old gentlemen

would receive a wandering maid-of-honour--particularly on a day so

solemn? You little know them. Do as I desire you, my Lord, and your

obedience shall meet with its reward," she added with a meaning glance

of such promise as brought the blood to her companion's cheeks for joy.

"Oh! what a beautiful wreath," she exclaimed, as she went to the girl

who stood waiting for her. "You must give me that too." Her long train

disappeared behind the wall and the little door closed behind her.

There was nothing left for the knight but to console himself by doing

her bidding and to ride slowly away.

"What can she want up there?" muttered he, shaking his head and

carefully leading away her horse by the bridle. If the horse could have

spoken it might have told him--it had carried her on its back that day

when she had entered the convent-yard and had seen the young monk for

the first time.--But snort and blow as it would it could say nothing

and the little procession moved off in silence, behind the village, and

through the dewy woods up to the lonely hill of Castellatz.

The great bell of Marienberg was already tolling, the bell that was the

wonder of the whole neighbourhood and whose mighty voice could be heard

afar over hill and valley. The boys of the village had long since gone

up to help to pull the rope, for the sound of that bell had a

particular sanctity, and besides it was excellent fun to fly up and

down hanging to the rope. The maidens with their large bunches of

flowers walked properly close to their parents, and their hearts beat

in their young breasts with high and holy festival joy. Thus they all

mounted the hill in devotional silence, and high up over the church

door stood troops of angels with seraphs' wings more radiant than the

sun, inviting the people who came pouring in from far and near in their

holiday dresses, to enter their Father's hospitable mansion where they

were welcomed with incense and myrrh and green garlands.

The floor of the church trembled under the feet of the crowds that

flocked in, and those who could not find room within knelt down

outside; for a long, long way round the church the eye could see

nothing but kneeling figures, and as the people could not come in to

the church, the Church went forth to the people. Just as in spring-time

the streams overflow their banks or as a too full heart overflows in

moments of supreme joy, so the Church in her hour of highest happiness

outstepped her walls of stone and poured her blessing on the crowds

outside. When the ceremony of ordination and the high mass were over

the solemn procession came out under the open heaven. "They are

coming--they are coming!" cried one and another; and amid the ringing

of bells, the roar of the organ and the jubilant strains of flutes,

harps, psalteries and cymbals, out they marched with banners flying, in

white surplices; first the musicians, then the choristers, swinging the

censers, while the girls formed a line on each side and strewed flowers

in the way. Then came the standard bearers with the banner with the

image of the Virgin, which was embroidered by the Lady Uta; the deacons

with lighted tapers in their hands forming an escort for the Abbot who

carried the Host, and gave his blessing to all; last of all the troop

of priests with the newly ordained brother in their midst, walking

under the protection of the sacred banners that had been dedicated to

the convent by pious hands. The kneeling people reverently made way on

each side so that the procession might pass through and bestow

salvation on all sides. A scarcely suppressed cry of admiration

trembled on every lip, as the young priest made his appearance. He wore

a long white surplice, the Alb, which was girt round his slim form with

a golden girdle; a richly embroidered stole was crossed on his breast

and from his shoulders fell the black folds of his cope, while on his

head, as signifying innocence and purity, rested the festal chaplet and

a wreath of white roses--he came onwards, his head modestly bent, as if

the honours of this day were crushing him to the earth.

The girls strewed his path with the flowers and plants of good omen

that they had gathered in the morning and his feet fell softly on them,

so close was the green carpet they made. But suddenly he started as if

he had trodden on a thorn. It was only a word that struck him, and with

the word a glance. "What a pity!" one of the girls had said to herself,

and as he involuntarily looked round, his eye met a glance so

appealing, so touching, from such a lovely face--and that face! he knew

it so well. And yet how could it be? A peasant-girl and that haughty

maid-of-honour, how could they be alike? But the resemblance was so

striking that he stood as if blinded by a flash, struck to his inmost

core; only for a second, no longer than it takes to draw a deep breath

or to snatch a flower as you are passing by, but his foot stumbled as

he walked on, as if he were in too great haste to make up for some long

delay. On they went, making three circuits round the hill, each wider

than the last, till the very last of the crowd of believers had shared

the blessing for which he had waited so patiently.

Out at the farthest edge of the hill, almost at the brink of the

precipice, knelt a poor, pale woman with grey hair, miserably clad in

rags; she looked longingly up at the young priest as if she were gazing

at celestial bliss. And close beside her, also clothed in rags,

crouched a being of strange aspect--half child, half girl--with a mass

of reddish-brown hair, and large round eyes with golden lights in them

under dark brows that met in the middle; eyes that looked dreamily out

on the world as if the soul behind them were sleeping still at mid-day,

and yet moved in its sleep--as a golden owl spreads its gorgeous

plumage in the sunshine while night still reigns to its dazzled eyes,

"dark with excess of light." But the strange looking little creature

started up as if suddenly awakened, and grasped the woman's arm in

alarm. "Look there, is that an angel?" she asked, pointing to the

slight figure of Donatus who was coming near them--now close to them,

and the child trembled and shrank back, as from some dread apparition,

behind her companion, who furtively put out her lean hand, and seizing

a fold of his robe pressed it to her lips. "Donatus, my son, do you not

know me?" she murmured. The young man looked enquiringly at her. She

held up before him a tiny cross of rough wood made of two sticks nailed

together, and as if by the waving of a magic wand all the long years

vanish, and he sees before him the autumn-tinted arbour where one

evening--so long ago--he played at the feet of "his mother," as he had

always called her--he sees the little grave-mound, and on it the cross

that he himself had made; then they snatch him from his mother's arms,

the cruel dark man seizes him, he sees her weep and clings to her

knee--and a home-sick longing for all that has vanished, for the warm

shelter of a mother's breast--the bitter home-sickness of a life-time

is reawakened in his heart.

And then--the procession of lofty inaccessible beings moved on, and he

with them! One more unperceived glance round, one hasty look; he saw

the poor soul stretch out her arms after him, and then fall forward on

her face. He had not been able even to ask her the simple question,

"Mother, where do you live and where can I find you?" He saw that she

was starving and he could not even carry a bit of bread to her who had

nourished him so that he had grown to strength and manhood, to her who

had given her heart's blood for him! And two bitter tears dropped

trembling from his lashes and fell into the daisies, which had sprung

from the tears of the Mother of God as she fled homeless into the

desert--and the little flowers seemed to look up at him with answering

eyes, and to ask, "For which mother are you weeping?" His eyes fell for

shame before the innocent blossoms that he trod under his foot. The

unutterable sorrows of the Virgin-Mother were revealed to him in all

their greatness through the woes of his outcast foster-mother; what

must She have suffered who bore to see the God who was her son slain

like a lamb! And could he weep over the sorrows of the nurse who

had not borne him--who need not see him die as Mary had seen her

divine son--nailed to the cross by cruel hands? "Mary, eternal

Mother--forgive, forgive that I could forget Thee for the sake of

any earthly woman. My tears are Thine alone--and I could weep for

another!--forgive, forgive!" Thus he prayed and raised his eyes in

penitence to the floating banner which went on before him, waving in

all its splendour in the fresh mountain breeze.

This was the blessing that the daisies had brought him and he thanked

the hand that had gathered them. If only it were not the hand of the

rosy girl with alluring eyes who had made him start and stumble by her

resemblance to the lady who had robbed him of his peace? How much

fairer too was she in the simple linen frock than the haughty

maid-of-honour in her sinful attire! and the two were so alike, so

indistinguishable that it might be easily thought that the peasant girl

was in fact the maid-of-honour herself.

Oh! Heavenly Mercy! again these earthly thoughts, and on his

festal-day--his wedding-day! For the first time in his life he had

passed beyond the shelter of the cloister-walls, and he felt already

how the world stretched forth its arms to tempt him--fear and trembling

came upon him. Could those arms reach him in the midst of all this

wealth of mercies? Woe unto him! for the greater the grace the more

fearful the retribution if it were not deserved--the greater the

elevation the deeper the fall. "Beware, beware," he said to himself,

and a cold sweat of anguish stood in drops on his shaven head under the

chaplet of roses.

The circuit was over, and it was high time, for he felt that he was on

the point of fainting; the night spent in prayer and scourging, the

fervour which had fired his blood were taking their revenge and he was

exhausted to death. The procession turned towards the church again, the

white-robed maidens forming a passage as before; once more he stood in

their midst, he the pure and pious youth who of all men could never

divine how the operation of a blessing could turn to a curse in the

unhallowed soul! Another glance at that sweet face with its blue eyes

would be rapture--but he resisted it. With a beating heart and tightly

closed lids he walked on, and only breathed again when he found himself

once more within the cool, protecting walls of the church.

The ceremony was over, the crowd was dispersing, all was silent again;

he was alone, prostrate before the altar and still wrapt in prayer. But

the maidens of Burgeis had stayed to pray too--the old folks would go

slowly and they could soon overtake them; they would not go away so

long as the young priest remained there. At last he rose and they

pressed round him, as round a saint; they were eager to lay the few

flowers they had left, at his feet on the altar steps--and the first to

touch him--on whom his eye unconsciously fell was she--whom he dreaded

and yet longed for! She was standing close to him like a bride in

her white dress, crowned with a festal wreath of flowers; half-shy,

half-forward, her eye full of intoxicating invitation. How happy must

the man be into whose hands she would resign that maidenly crown as now

she lay the flowers at his feet! And without knowing or intending it,

his lips repeated the words she had spoken before, "What a pity!" But

as the faint murmur left his lips it seemed suddenly to grow to an

avalanche in his ears and to sound like the crashing thunder-roll that

follows it. Could he say this--he, and to-day! And his oath of

yesterday! Alas! what was sacred, what was sure? The walls of the

church tottered, the flames of the tapers danced before his eyes in

wild circles, he felt dizzy, he saw nothing but bewitching eyes,

glowing cheeks, and white arms stretched out towards him. He must be

steadfast, he must not fall or they will reach him, bend over him,

ensnare him with their love-spells. If he can only get as far as the

door of the sacristy without falling--if he can reach that he will be

safe! But it is so far, so much too far, he can support himself no

longer--he falls; there--they are there--they fling themselves upon

him, he feels soft arms supporting his head--one glance into the dewy

blue eyes that are close to his--. And he is lost--his consciousness

drowned in a deep blue sea.

CHAPTER III.

Night had fallen, the noise of the festival was hushed; a lamp still

burned dismally in Correntian's cell where he was sitting before a

large volume--but he was not reading. He leaned back in his chair,

brooding gloomily. Suddenly there was a light tap at the door, and he

called out in much surprise the usual "_Deo gratias!_" for the rule of

Saint Benedict does not allow two brethren to be alone together in one

cell. It must be an extraordinary occasion that could excuse such a

breach of discipline. The door opened and there entered, divested of

his festal attire, and dressed in a monk's black robe, the newly

ordained priest.

"What can you want with me?" asked Correntian with a look of contempt.

"What can the spoilt darling of the indolent brethren, who can not

sufficiently fill up their time with prayers, what can he want of me

whom he always was afraid of?"

"Do not mock me, Correntian," said Donatus with much solemnity, "I want

your help. Do not forget that we are brothers."

"Brethren of the order, but not brothers in heart. Leave me. You are

sinning against the rules of the order, and you gain nothing by it, for

I hate you as much as I love God and the Church."

"It is precisely because you hate me that I come to you."

"Do you hope to propitiate me? Do you think you can befool me with the

honeyed slaver of your lips as you have the weaker brethren? Never

flatter yourself. I am your enemy, and shall remain so."

"But I tell you again it is not a friend, it is an enemy that I seek.

And if you could hate me more than I hate myself, all the more would I

seek you."

"I do not understand you."

"Listen, and you will understand. I ask you to be my father confessor

because you are the only one who does not love me, the only one who has

no pity on me; now do you understand? The others love me too much and

they show mercy to me. But I ask for no mercy, I desire only stern

inexorable justice--that is why I seek you."

Correntian turned towards him at last, and looked astonished at his

agitated countenance.

"Are you so much in earnest?" he said.

"In fearful earnest!" cried the young man with a burst of despair,

leaning his forehead against the bare wall. "Oh, Correntian, for years

I have hated, abhorred you; only a few days ago I was angry with you

because one of the brethren told me that you wanted to blind me, when I

was first brought here. Oh! would you had done so, it would have been

better for me."

"I understand," said Correntian coldly. "The tempter seeks you in

woman's form, and you are weak. The curse will run its course as sure

as the stars, and you cannot escape it."

"No, no! for God's sake, not that, only not that. Correntian, I will

perform any penance you lay upon me, for none can be too great for my

sins. The Lord hath loved me, and drawn me to Him as he did Peter, and

like Peter I have betrayed Him at the first cock-crow. I was not

faithful even so long as I wore the festal robe, not so long as while I

stood before the altar, not so long as the breath which wafted my vows

to Heaven! Cast me out into misery as my father did, I am worthy of

nothing better, unworthy of the compassion of men. I am mere dust,

flung to every wind; cast it out and scatter it to the blast!"

Correntian slowly nodded his head.

"It has all happened just as I said it would.

"You are not made of the stuff from which the Conqueror chooses his

fighting men. Begotten among the wanton joys of a frivolous court,

nourished at the breast of a wanton woman, your whole breeding has been

wantonness. The loving glances that you raise to Heaven are wanton,

they wanton with the sun and the blue sky that soothe your senses; the

last looks you send after your dead brethren in the grave are wanton,

they wanton with the roses that the wind bends over it. Nay, even the

gaze you fix in devout prayer on the image of our Mother Mary is

wanton, as it looks at the fair woman, at the lovely work of the

painter's brush. And how then should it not wanton with the first

living woman of flesh and blood who comes before you, as the first

woman in Paradise appeared to the first man. You are yourself as fair

to see as sin, and pleasure-loving women will everywhere run after you;

for the doors by which sin may enter into you and go forth from you,

are in truth fair and enticing, and those doors are your love-inviting

eyes."

"True, alas! too true. But what am I to do? Can I shut my eyes?" asked

the youth.

"Yes," was the terrible answer, and Correntian drew the desk with the

heavy Latin Bible towards him, and hastily turned to a page where it

was written, "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from

thee."

The youth turned pale. He stared at his sinister judge as though a

ghost had sprung from the earth before him, a figure so

incomprehensible and inconceivable that his gaze could not take it in.

The monk sat before the big book, his eyes cast down; the uncertain

light of the dingy lamp cast two round shadows in his pale face, like

the empty eye-holes of a skull. The youth felt as if he were looking at

his own face--corpse-like--eyeless! And yet so calm, so sublime!--and

the moon-light that streamed in floated round the bald crown with its

narrow fringe of black hair, like a nimbus, in strange, livid contrast

to the red light of the lamp. The hour-glass ran calmly on, in its even

flow neither hurrying nor tarrying though hearts might throb or break.

Minute after minute passed--the deadly horror that filled the culprit's

breast had paralysed his tongue. The judge leant back quietly in his

chair, and gave him time to grasp the idea--even on the rack an

interval of rest is allowed. At last the young man said with quivering

lips,

"No man ever yet did such a thing!"

"It is because no man ever did it that it is worth doing."

"Correntian," continued the youth, but so timidly, so softly, as if the

air even might not hear, or as if he feared that the sound of his words

might rouse a sleeping tiger, "Correntian, why did you never do it?"

But the dreadful creature was not roused. Without moving a feature,

without raising an eye-lash, Correntian replied,

"Because I was strong enough to triumph though I could see; the harder

the fight the greater the prize."

Again they both were silent. The radiant disk of the moon rose higher

and higher over the convent-roofs and towers, and looked in with a

tender smile. Longingly, eagerly, as if it were for the last time, and

as if he must harvest all the light ere it was yet night, the boy's

large brown eyes drank in the soft radiance. No, no, things have not

gone so far--not yet. He may yet fight and conquer. He covered his face

with his hands as if for protection, as if he saw already the dagger's

point that was turned against it. No, he will fight with all the

strength of his soul; fight not for his eternal salvation only, but for

his eyes too.

Well, he will look neither to the right hand nor to the left, he knows

well that now every forbidden glance must bring him nearer to the

murderous iron that threatens him. "Do not look that way; you are

looking at your death," this is what he must say when temptation

beckons him, and will not that terror enable him to conquer?

He fell on his knees before Correntian,

"Time--give me time, a respite," he groaned with pale lips, like a man

condemned to death.

"Coward!" said Correntian contemptuously.

"No, do not call me so," cried the youth, striving to man himself.

"Send me out into the wilderness to fight for my life with the

snow-storm and wild beasts, or out to the land of the Saracens to shed

my blood for our Mother Church. You will not see me tremble, but do not

ask me to turn the knife against my own eyes; it is our strongest

instinct to cherish them, even stronger than to preserve our life. For

though I have often heard of men who plunged a dagger into their heart,

I never heard of one who thrust it into his eyes. Correntian, have

mercy. Grant me sight, to see--not the earth--but the heavens only,

that eternal home for which we all strive. The wanderer, who is nearing

his final rest, feels his strength revived as he sees the metal star

that shines on the tower of his home, or the smoke that rises from the

paternal roof, and he struggles with renewed vigour to reach the

longed-for goal. How much more must we when we are weary, be refreshed

by a glance upwards at the real stars, at the distant clouds which look

down upon us from our Father's House. Who does not revive after such a

prospect, and hasten joyfully forward? Grant me sight for that, and

that only, it draws me on and upwards."

"Sensual fool," said Correntian smiling, "Do you think to reach Heaven

by roads that are indicated by earthly light, do you believe that you

will lose the way by not being able to see--as an earthly traveller

might fail to find his home if he lost his eyes? It is from within and

not from without that the light shines which must show you the path to

Heaven, and the darker all is without, the brighter it is within; that

path lies through earthly darkness. None have trodden it on whose eyes

death has not first laid its black shroud; and do you not believe that

the heavenly light which can irradiate the night of death can also

illumine our deepest earthly darkness? Do you not believe that God the

Lord is mighty to open in your soul a spiritual eye instead of the

bodily eyes you sacrifice to Him, by which you may discern more and

fairer things than any mortal yet has gazed on?"

"Oh Correntian--I do understand you--I admire you, but I cannot imitate

you--not yet, not yet. If I could, then I should not be the sinner that

I am, and you would not need to judge me. Give me time--for eternal

mercy's sake which God himself shows to sinners--for Christ's blood

sake which was shed in love for us--give me time."

"It is God that has spoken the sentence, not I--the execution of it is

in your power, I have nothing farther to say," and Correntian rose.

"Now leave me, for it is unlawful for us to remain any longer in secret

conference--this is not the confessional."

The youth stood yet a moment before him, hesitating.

"Correntian--you despise me for not doing what the scripture commands?"

"What do you care whether I esteem you or not?"

"Everything--from this hour everything!" cried the youth passionately.

"You are made of other stuff than I am," said Correntian, with a strong

gesture of repulsion. "My whole nature rejects you. If you were a brave

warrior, or a wandering Minnesänger, I might esteem you, for you would

be what you seem. But as a monk I despise you; for under the mask of

self-denial you cloke worldliness and vanity, and the sacred robe you

wear smells of the burning of wild and fevered desires. This is the

true hell-fire, and fearful is the ravage it may commit if it is not

trampled out in time."

"I will trample it out--before God I will!" cried the tortured boy.

"Oh! cannot a drop of holy water mixed with the tears of true

repentance extinguish the very fires of hell? Repentance and

grace--what can the devil do against them?"

"There is but one moisture that can surely and for ever extinguish the

flames in which you are burning, and that is the limpid crystal in

which all the world is mirrored; and it must be spilt by your own hand,

poured over your own cheeks. It is indeed a precious dew, more precious

than tears or blood, and because there is no man who would not keep it

at the cost even of his life, it is so precious that only the highest

crown of martyrdom can requite it! You may win this crown--you may rise

out of the pool of sin of which the flames are already licking you, to

be a saint before whom everyone shall kneel--I the first, I who have so

long despised you; and earth and heaven shall rejoice over you--! And

all this bliss you may obtain by one stroke of a knife, guided by a

steady hand! Now go and choose."

The door closed on the victim. "Now go--and choose." The young man

leaned against the outer door-post unable to go any farther. His heart

quaked and a deadly chill ran through his veins like cold lead at the

thought of such a choice. The highest crown of martyrdom! What! could

he win this with one stroke, without any inward vocation or natural

ripeness for it? And even if he were to succeed in snatching this

super-sensual extasy in one moment by one hasty stroke, could he bear

it and support it worthily? And he must not do the deed for the sake of

the crown--what we do for a reward has no value. It must be an act of

deliverance, of deliverance from the utmost danger--but was it indeed

so with him--was he so weak, so wanting in self-control that he needs

must shut himself up in a dungeon of eternal night like a thief to keep

himself from stealing forbidden fruit?

And oh! what a dungeon it will be! Will he not be crushed in the narrow

confines of such impenetrable darkness--when his eye can see no space

before it--neither before it nor around it? Will not all the torments

of being buried alive come upon him and stop his breath so that his

heart will burst under the pressure of the stagnant blood?

Drop after drop of cold sweat ran down from his forehead. What had he

done to deserve a punishment so unspeakably horrible? Was he indeed a

thief--had he stolen the forbidden fruit? No, he had not done it, he

had only longed for it, and as soon as he was conscious of the

temptation he had prayed and scourged himself till it was conquered.

Was temptation in itself a sin? Nay else there would have been no

Saints, for there was not one of them that had not had to pass through

some struggles. Else Father Onofrius of saintly memory would not have

needed to burn off during a night of visitation all the fingers of his

hands, nor need the holy Founder of the Order, Saint Benedict, have

accustomed himself to sleep on nettles! And must he do more than they

all had done, to win the crown of the Saints? No, no; this could not be

the will of God; it was Correntian's stern severity that lay such

fearful penance upon him; and outraged nature, revolting against it,

tore him from the spot--in wild flight from the lashing of this

superhuman asceticism--away--away--over all the barriers of his

tortured conscience. His body, numbed as it were into unconsciousness,

bereft of all power of resistance and urged by ungovernable terror,

obeyed the impulse--he fled from the door of the terrible monk, as if

he might open it again and by one commanding word stay the flight of

these trembling vital impulses and compel them to a hideous, suicidal,

annihilating struggle--Away--he must away. He fled down the steps with

the swiftness of the whirlwind, pushed back the rusty bolt of the

court-yard door and flew out into the fresh air, across the yard to the

porter's little gate-house. Without pausing to consider, he seized

the key of the outer gate from the table, unseen by the sleeping

warder--opened the gate and went out into the moonlit night, without

stopping to take breath; on and away to the heath--to the harsh mother

that bore him--as though he there might find counsel and consolation.

Never before had his feet borne him on such an expedition, and yet some

unconscious urging guided him on the way that his eyes had so often

longingly traced from the turret-window. Up he went, higher and higher,

his feet winged by terror--higher and higher as he ascended, rose the

guiding light of the broad, bright moon in the pure sky.

His face was streaming with the sweat of exhaustion--fully two hours

had gone by when at last he reached the height, and before him lay the

wide, level heath, a boundless lake of light. The white mists that

floated and broke over it were bathed--soaked--in moonlight, like

silvery billows--now rising, now falling--now floating formless, and

anon swirling together into fearful wreathing pillars as if they

would overwhelm the lonely wanderer in their silent ghostly tide.

Light--light, of which the eye might take its fill--across to the

invisible distance and to where the great Ortler peak seemed wrapped in

sleep and dreams. Light and peace--chaste and divine solitude! the

hapless tortured child of man stood still in intoxicating

contemplation, and spread out his arms to the splendour now first

revealed to him, "Almighty Lord--Thou that art great!" he prayed aloud,

"Thou that art merciful! Thou hast shed upon the world this

inexhaustible ocean of light, and wouldst Thou rejoice if a miserable

worm of earth should bury himself in the night of the grave?" And the

words of the Psalmist sprang from his soul to his lips, "O Lord my God!

Thou art become exceeding glorious, Thou art clothed with majesty and

honour, Thou deckest Thyself with light as it were with a garment, Thou

spreadest out the heavens like a curtain, Thou makest the clouds Thy

chariot and walkest upon the wings of the wind." And then he hastened

on again, farther and farther. Psalteries and harps seemed to sound in

his ears while his feet were cleaving the illusory intangible flood

that closed over him without wetting him. Thus might Christ have walked

dry foot over the waters--for the foundation he stood on was God, and

all earthly things seemed to have vanished like the mist.

And yet the Son of God perished on the cross in the anguish of death

like a torn up flower, and endured in patience and bore the woes of the

whole earth--He who could command the elements, who had need only to

spread his wings in order to soar away into the fields of eternal

bliss! God, the All-merciful, the Omnipotent, suffered this to happen

to his own Son!

Again he stood still, as if face to face with a problem that must be

solved before he could go any farther; and he bowed his head, saying,

"It must be so, for suffering is our portion; that which we call the

hand of fate and which crushes us to the earth, is in fact the hand of

God laid in love upon our shoulders--and what we call the anguish of

death is but His fatherly kiss that drinks our soul! For so great is He

and so small are we that we are destroyed if He do but touch us. And in

like manner he gave his only Son, raising him up that we might see and

acknowledge what His love is. Woe to him who resists his sufferings--he

resists God! O! Father, I will bless Thy hand even if it grind me to

powder--I will die in Thy kiss and the agony of death shall be bliss to

me."

Suddenly--it seemed to him that the fearful Correntian was standing

behind him, saying with freezing scorn, "Thus you swore just now and

yet you refuse to make the first sacrifice that the Lord requires of

you! Look, He holds out a craving hand that you may lay your eyes in

it, and He says graciously, 'Give them to Me that I may keep them for

thee till I give them back to thee one day to see more gloriously in

Heaven above'--just as a father might take from the hand of a child

some dangerous instrument with which it might hurt itself; and you,

like the wilful child, cling to the dangerous possession and push away

the hand that asks when it might strike."

"Woe is me! Correntian! dark, avenging angel! must you follow me

wherever I go?" groaned the tormented soul. "Whither may I fly from

you; and where can I save you, my poor eyes, from the two-edged sword

that he has planted in my heart there to gnaw in fury against myself."

Then again he heard the threatening voice, "Coward, what do you fear?

And what is it after all? You destroy a mirror in which hell focuses

its rays--you destroy a transparent vessel, and empty out once for all

the fount of those tears which you then need never again shed. One

stroke--and it is done; a stroke so slight that a child might drive it

home, a hail-stone, a thorn--and you tremble at that?"

Nay, nay, it was not the stroke of the knife, not the flow of blood

that he quaked at. In losing his eyes, he must extinguish the sun,

moon, and stars, put out all light with this lovely world that is as

the very presentment of God--plunge himself into nothingness, an

outcast in the midst of the joys of all creation.

The sweat poured down his face, his knees failed him; he sank down in

the tall, reedy grass, sobbing as he cooled his burning face in the

moist, dewy earth.

END OF VOL. I.

* * * * *

PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.

* * * * *

COLLECTION

OF

GERMAN AUTHORS.

VOL. 38.

* * * * *

THE HOUR WILL COME BY W. von HILLERN.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

By the same Author,

THE VULTURE MAIDEN (DIE GEIER-WALLY) ... 1 vol.

* * *

THE

HOUR WILL COME

A TALE OF AN ALPINE CLOISTER

BY

WILHELMINE von HILLERN,

AUTHOR OF

"THE VULTURE MAIDEN (DIE GEIER--WALLY)" ETC.

FROM THE GERMAN

BY

CLARA BELL.

IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. II.

_Copyright Edition_.

LEIPZIG 1879

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.

LONDON: SAMPSON LAW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON.

CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

PARIS: C. REINWALD & Cie, 15 RUE DES SAINTS PÈRES.

_The Author reserves the Right of dramatizing this Tale_.

THE HOUR WILL COME.

BOOK II.

MARTYRDOM.

(CONTINUED.)

CHAPTER IV.

The heath lay silent and still, as a mother might refrain from

disturbing her weeping son; thus the night wore on; dew fell on the

victim's head--he heeded it not; the bright moon paled and the young

day painted the first streaks on the rim of the eastern horizon--he saw

it not. The icy morning-breeze swept keenly down from the glaciers--he

did not stir.

Presently a silvery tinkle sounded across the heath through the morning

air; it was the bell ringing for matins at St. Valentine's. This roused

the penitent from his torpor, and so strong are the ties of obedience

that at the first stroke the simple sound of the bell recalled the

whole scattered troop of his vital faculties to their duty. His

rebellious defiance, the first impulse of disobedience he had ever

known, and which had driven him to his nocturnal flight, vanished like

a wild dream. As the bell was ringing up here for matins, he would just

have time to get down to mass; for prayers were an hour earlier here

than at Marienberg. If the brethren met together for common prayer in

the familiar chapel--and he--he were missing!--An unspeakable sorrow

came over him--a home-sick longing for the Abbot, for his companions,

for the place where he was so tenderly brought up; and without further

delay he started up and hastened back to the convent. As day grew

broader reflection and composure returned to him, and he was ashamed of

his weakness. Without once looking behind him, he left the heath--his

mother earth--the earth that had drunk his despairing tears--and walked

stoutly on, down to Marienberg again; but in his too great haste he

missed his way and suddenly found himself on a thickly wooded hill at

one side of the monastery. An extensive ruin stood up among the dark

umbrageous branches; he knew where he was now--on the hill of

Castellatz, where stood the remains of an ancient Roman castle

that had served at a later period as a stronghold of the Trasp family.

Huge walls lay fallen one upon the other; walls that had once been

inhabited by a defiant race who had borne themselves manfully in

many a bloody fight. The labouring peasants still dug out bones of

extraordinary size--broad angular skulls of Huns and high narrow skulls

of Goths--they had all fought round these old walls and none of them

had yielded, only faith had conquered them. When Ulrich, the pious

scion of the race, had built the convent at Marienberg because he

thought that a House of God was the surest fortress that he could take

refuge in, he razed the castle to its foundation so that no enemy of

the Church should henceforth make use of it as a bulwark against the

people of God.

Thus fell the proud walls that had defied the power of man. The youth

trod the soil that had a thousand times been drenched in blood, with a

reverent step; peace now reigned over the spot, and silence--a Sabbath

stillness. High above his head the shadowy tree-tops rustled as though

they were murmuring some long forgotten heroic legend, or a battle-song

of which the echoes had long since died away. And he, the peaceful son

of that stern mother, the Church--he stood there as one ashamed of his

own feebleness, and humbly folding his hands he prayed--"I am no

warrior, no hero--I need not fight with the sword or measure the

strength of my young limbs, man for man with others--my heroism must

lie in obedience. Strengthen me therein, my Lord and God, that I may

never fear to fulfil Thy will."

And he went forward again, renewed in strength; here--on this old scene

of many struggles, where every blade of grass had sprung from blood

that heroes had spilt--here, in this bitter hour, he had grown to be a

man and his courage had ripened within him; courage for that hardest

fight of all, for the heroism of suffering. His resolve was formed--not

in mad terror and haste as before in Correntian's cell, but quietly,

clearly, aye joyfully--his resolve to purchase his salvation. He will

await the Lord's will, and if the Lord give him the strength to close

his eyes against all temptation, he will accept it as a gift of mercy

saving him from the worst. If he fall into one single fault more--if he

turn one single longing look more on a woman's form--then he will carry

out the sentence as it has this night been passed upon him--for then he

will know that it is God's will.

A broad sunbeam broke through the bushes which grew on all sides, their

tough roots forcing their way between the grey stones; close by his

side a bird twittered in a juniper bush which grew out of a ruined

window arch. The little creature had its nest there and it looked at

him with its keen eyes to see if it had any cause to fear for its

brood; and there in the shrub sat the little birds with gaping, yellow

beaks clinging in helpless fright to the swaying branches and screaming

for their mother. A pretty picture!--How many a mother might have sat,

long ago, under this arch, anxiously watching the foe that threatened

her nest while the father was far away--at the chase or fighting in

bloody feud in some enemy's country for all that was dear to him.

"Oh! sweet and wonderful bonds of love, and faith, and closest ties of

blood! can it be that ye are not of God!" The question came

involuntarily from the depth of the young man's heart.

And there!--as if ghosts walked in the ruins--there was a sudden

movement among the shrubs; a tall girlish figure broke hastily through

the boughs and behind her came a boy--a sturdy lad, the wood-cutter to

the monastery. He threw his arm round the girl's buxom form and

whispered, "And if I ask you where you went so early, what will you say

then?"

"To gather berries," she cried laughing and swinging her basket.

"Just wait and I will kiss your lips till they are so red that folks

will think you tumbled down among the berries," said the lad. "Come, we

will find a quiet place to rest in." And he disappeared again amongst

the bushes dragging the girl with him without much trouble.

Donatus hastily turned to go, but suddenly they both gave a little cry

of alarm, "O Lord! a wild woman of the woods!" and they fled crossing

themselves. Donatus stood still; "What was there? what had frightened

the pair so much?" He went towards the spot where they had been

sitting; the briars hid a ruined arch-way through which he could

look into the desolate castle-yard all overgrown with weeds, and

there--wonder of wonders--lay a woman, asleep on a bank of turf

artificially constructed and screened by a projection of the wall, that

might at some former time have formed a niche where the poor and

wretched sat on a stone bench to eat the meal they had begged. But the

woman who was sleeping there was neither poor nor wretched; there she

lay wrapped in a rich cloak of costly furs and dressed in a green robe

embroidered with gold--like a forest-fairy! The playing beams of the

morning sun that fell upon her through the whispering boughs, threw a

bright light on her cheeks that were rosy with sleep, and the morning

breeze blew her soft, silky hair across her dreaming brow, like a film

of golden vapour.

Donatus stood as if spell-bound, incapable of going either forwards or

backwards--he gazed and gazed and the whole world around him was

forgotten. Was it a real living woman--or a trick from hell--it seemed

to him that it was the same woman--yes, it was she--! She opened her

eyes and a flash of delight, brighter than the morning sunshine

sparkled in those eyes.

"Is it you! you?" she exclaimed, springing up. And as Donatus looked

into her blue eyes he knew that it was she--she, who, dressed in a

peasant's garb, had yesterday so bewildered his senses--she, who so

lately had stood before him as the maid-of-honour. And to-day she was

here--up here, sleeping on the grass, with no roof over her head--like

a wood-fairy--Could she be indeed a real woman and yet capable of such

sudden changes? He had never believed in fairies, but could there be

such beings? and were they good or evil spirits? And while he thought

over all this he stood as if rooted to the spot, regarding the

wonderful apparition with astonishment. He saw her sign to him, he

heard her call him, and he made no reply--It was not real, it was only

a vision, a dream.

"Are you turned to stone? Wait a minute, I will go to you as you will

not come to me." The voice was close to his ear and the brilliant

figure lightly climbed up the ruined stone-work and in a moment was

standing close to him under the arch and bending over towards him.

Those azure lakes, in which, only yesterday, his whole consciousness

had been lost, were again close to his intoxicated gaze and pouring

their flood of blueness into his soul. It stopped his breath--it ran

through all his veins--he leaned against the mullion of the window

like one stunned, and gazed and gazed--he could not take his eyes off

her--Heaven and earth had faded from his ken--She was too lovely!

"How come you here? What has troubled you so? You are pale and your

hair is wet with night dews?" she asked him, softly stroking his

tangled curls with her slender white hand.

He staggered as if a flash of lightning had struck him without

destroying him; a strange shiver ran through his limbs, a gentle tremor

as when the morning breeze shakes the dews of night from the topmost

branches of a tree; and nearer, nearer comes the sweet face, and warm

breath floats round him--Still he stirs not.

"Do not fix your eyes on me so--as if I were not a creature of flesh

and blood," she whispered in his ear. "Put away your sternness; I

deserve it of you. For your sake I have passed the night here with my

people; here in this uncanny ruin, under the open sky, only to find

some way of seeing you again. You have done for me, once for all, with

your dreamy face and your severity, and deny it as you will--that which

drove you at night out of your narrow cell was my image which pursued

you, and while you fled from me you went in truth to seek me! Have I

guessed rightly?" And she laid her arm softly round his neck and her

lips were close to his ear, while she spoke so that every word was like

the breathing of a kiss. He let his head drop and lean against her

bosom--he felt dizzy, as if in that instant he had fallen from some

towering height. She took him caressingly by the chin, raising his head

and looking longingly into his eyes.

"Oh, those eyes! those maddening eyes. Who looks into them is lost!

A man who has such eyes as yours can never be a monk!" she exclaimed

in a tone of tender jest. "Those eyes give the lie to all your

severity--they look fire and kindle fire."

"And that fire shall be extinguished for ever!" cried Donatus suddenly,

tearing himself from her arms as if roused from a dream. "It is well

for me that you have warned me. With such eyes a man can never be a

monk!--it is God himself who has spoken by your lips."

And he fled away as from the City of Destruction, leaving the temptress

startled and astonished. She called after him to stay--she implored,

she conjured him--in vain. The matins bell was ringing in the valley

below, and he heard that above all her tempting; that was a mightier

call. Like a hunted deer that can find no shelter, the unhappy man fled

back to the sacred cloister walls where only rest and peace were to be

found.

The gatekeeper on awaking had sought everywhere for the key in the

utmost terror, but he had said nothing for fear of being punished, and

as Donatus came in he started up angrily--"Who dared have done it?" But

he was pacified as soon as he recognized him.

"You!" he said smiling. "Oh! you may be forgiven, for you are to be

trusted."

"Aye, you are indeed to be trusted," said a voice suddenly behind him,

and Correntian stood in the doorway of the little gate-house.

"Oh, Correntian!" cried the youth, making a movement as though to throw

himself on his breast; but Correntian drew back a step.

"That will do," he said. "You know the rules of our order forbid such

caresses. But I repeat it--you are to be trusted--for as you have come

back to-day you now will never flee!"

CHAPTER V.

The day was drawing to its close. It was a sultry evening; lead

coloured clouds swept across the sky; the swallows flew uneasily round

and round the convent towers, their wings widely spread as if the heavy

storm rack weighed upon them and hindered their flight. The veiled

sunlight threw but a faint shadow on the sundial, pointing to the Roman

_VII_.

Vespers were ended, the brethren were walking in the garden, silent for

the most part and oppressed by the stormy atmosphere; not a leaf was

stirring, even the bees hummed but lazily as they went from flower to

flower, inconstant to each and seeking no plunder.

The Abbot detained Donatus as he was going into the house.

"Where are you going all alone, Donatus?" he called out. The youth

stood still, but was silent, and the Abbot beckoned him to come back to

his side.

"What ails you, my son?" he asked. "You seem to be ill. Your temples

are throbbing and your eyes have a feverish wandering glitter; you have

refused every kind of nourishment since yesterday--Tell me what ails

you?"

"Nothing, father; I am quite well."

"Then some new temptation assails you, my son; for it is of no avail to

tell me that all is well with you as usual," said the Abbot, and he

drew him aside into a retired vine-alley. "You cannot deceive me, for I

have brought you up from the time when you were four years old. My

watchful eye has been upon you night and day, in joy and in grief, in

health and in sickness. I know every line of your face and mark every

shade that passes over it, and you have become so completely one with

me that every throb of your heart is felt in mine, and every burden

that weighs on your soul oppresses mine. You cannot deceive me, and I

am filled with a cruel forboding, as if some fearful evil were lowering

over your darkened brow."

Donatus breathed painfully under the Abbot's searching gaze; he was

like a sick man who conceals his sufferings the longest from those that

love him most. His eyes fell; an unutterable and tender sorrow came

over him for the faithful guardian whom he purposed to betray in so

frightful a manner as soon as sleep should have closed his watchful

eyes.

"You are silent! You are concealing some evil from me?" continued the

Abbot. "For I never before saw you thus. I am not satisfied at your

having had so much private talk with Correntian since yesterday--and

indeed one of the brethren declared that he had seen you steal at night

to Correntian's cell! What can you two have to say to each other?--Why,

he has been your mortal enemy ever since you were old enough to think!

How is this! when such an unnatural alliance is formed there must be

some terrible trouble or dividing of heart at the bottom of it. You are

young and generous, you indeed may forget and honestly forgive--but not

Correntian--never. He is a rock on which many a poor young heart has

struck and bled to death when only a loving hand was needed to rescue

it. It is this hard nature of his that alienates him from us all, and

it is with the greatest anxiety that I see you falling into his power."

Donatus walked on in silence and reserve by the side of the Abbot, who

waited in vain for his answer.

Presently the Abbot stood still, as if he would force the young man to

look at him. "My son," he said, "Do you remember the evening when that

sinister man tore you from your nurse's lap, and how you struggled and

screamed till I came and took you in my arms? Do you remember how you

threw your arms round my neck and clung to me, and how I myself put you

into your little bed, and you would not leave go of my hand till you

had sobbed yourself to sleep? This heart of mine is still the same as

when you found refuge in it, these arms are the same as those to which

you then ran for protection; throw yourself into them again, my son,

and shake off the burden that torments you, so that I may once more

protect you against the powers of darkness that threaten you."

Donatus could bear it no longer; tears rushed to his eyes, and crying

out, "My father, my dearest father!" he threw himself into the Abbot's

arms. The two men stood clasped in a mute embrace, but at this instant

of sacred silence Correntian came hurrying up.

"For God's sake," he cried, "go in! The storm is just over our heads,

and it will be a fearful one," and he dragged them apart as if in

dutiful anxiety for their safety.

They went into the house in silence. It was now bed-time; the younger

brethren went to the dormitories, the elders each to his own cell.

"Good night, my son," said the Abbot, and his eye once more rested on

Donatus with a mournful and searching glance. "Remember my words! And

one thing more: Go up to brother Eusebius, and see if he needs

anything. I am sorry that he should have felt too feeble to-day to come

to table. Besides a talk with the wise old man will do you as much

good, as a cooling draught." Then he called to the other brethren,

"See, all of you, to the fires and lights, it will be a dreadful night.

At midnight we perform the mass for the soul of the Lady Uta; see that

you none of you oversleep yourselves!"

Up in Eusebius' cell, as the Abbot had desired him, sat Donatus,

opposite to his old friend in the dim light from the little window; the

lurid clouds swept on in endless succession, grey on darker grey.

Eusebius was weaker than usual, but he was sitting up half-buried in

books, parchments and instruments, writing-materials, rulers,

compasses, and what not. For of all the fields over which the human

mind had roamed there was not one which father Eusebius, in his quiet

cell, had not explored and investigated. While he talked Donatus'

fingers were unconsciously playing in their fevered restlessness with

the thousand objects that were lying about, and thus his hand fell on a

large pair of compasses; they were half open, and the two sharp points

were parted. He took them up as if absorbed in reflection, he closed

his eyes and laid the two points on his eye-lids.

"I could easily put my eyes out with these," said he thoughtfully.

"Both at once with one blow. With a knife or dagger I should have to

strike twice, and even if I had the courage for the first--for the

second never--no never!"

Eusebius took the compasses out of his hand, and laid them on the

table. "What mad words are you saying! What has put such hideous ideas

into your head?"

Donatus looked wildly at him; his eyes glared strangely in the gloom

that had gradually spread itself in the little room.

"I have often thought lately that a man who would fain avoid all love

must put his eyes out," he said in a low and strangely tremulous voice,

like a broken lute jarred by the wind.

Eusebius shook his head slowly and disapprovingly.

"Of what use would that be?" he said. "It would come all the same.

However sadly a man may picture it to himself, and fancy he has hedged

himself in from it--man's wit and man's presumption always succumb to

it; nay, even if he tore out his eyes and stopped his ears, it would be

of no avail. Who would dare suppose he could prevent a tree from

budding and sprouting in February? He can pull off the leaves, and cut

off the branches, but he can not stop the rising sap that is working

within. And it is not the devil that stirs the sap in the tree, and the

blood in man--no, it is all wonderfully ordered by God the Lord who has

made us thus. And though one of us may have succeeded in resisting the

law of nature, it is only by some special grace of God who has stood by

him, and helped him with particular favour; but that which he has

vanquished in the fight is not the devil, but his own weakness which

hindered him from freeing himself from the universal law to which all

creatures are subject."

Donatus started up in horror. "Woe is me," he cried, "I may not listen

to you! What spirit possesses you, your very words are a crime, God

help you!" And snatching up the compasses with which he had been

playing, the boy fled from the room.

"Donatus!" called the old man, rising hastily to follow him. But a

strange dizziness came over him, and he sank back in his chair; his

hands and feet alike refused their service. The door of the cell had

fallen shut, the old man was alone with his books and manuscripts. He

looked up in silent resignation at the wide and stormy heavens. The

winds were rushing and roaring round the tower, nearer and nearer came

the storm--but to the old man it seemed as if all that surrounded him

were passing into the far, far distance. Farther and farther away

sounded the rolling thunder, and the outlines of the narrow walls that

enclosed him grew fainter and fainter. They were parting asunder,

vanishing away, these earthly walls and bonds, and infinity lay before

him.

The hour-glass on the table had run down; it was the hour at which he

was wont to turn it, and as the last grain of sand ran through, the old

habit made him try to put out his hand; but the hand fell helpless by

his side--the sand had ceased to run. The thunders paused, the winds

held their breath, the light was extinguished. "And yet it will come!"

he whispered with his last sigh, and the liberated soul soared away

into the empyrean without pain or struggle. There he sat silent and

peaceful--the lonely dreamer, his head sunk on his breast, his hands

folded--sleeping the eternal sleep.

A thunder-clap came crashing down on the convent, such a clap as shook

the old building to the foundations, and all that were living crossed

themselves in terror; only the still sleeper up in his solitary tower

will wake and tremble no more. The brethren had all shrunk away to

their beds; Correntian only remained without, calmly defying the uproar

of the elements. Suddenly there was a repeated hasty and terrified

knocking at the convent-gate; the porter did not hear it for the

roaring of the storm, but at last it caught Correntian's ever watchful

ear. He went in and opened the door; outside there stood a strange

child clothed in rags; her beseeching eyes shone with a weird

brightness in the darkness, the storm and rain tossed her waving hair

and it shone with a reddish gleam in the fitful flashes of the

lightning.

"Where is Donatus?" asked the trembling child.

"Donatus!" exclaimed Correntian in horror. "Are the messengers of Hell

sent for him already? Away with you--your eyes shine in the darkness

like an owl's--your feet shall not cross this sacred threshold!" and he

made the sign of the cross over her; but she folded her hands over her

innocent bosom and threw herself at the priest's feet.

"My lord! my lord! my mother is dying, she was Donatus' nurse--she asks

to see him; just once more grant her this last comfort."

Correntian pushed her wildly from him, "His nurse--is she there in

spite of our prohibition? And has that snake engendered another snake

that the race may not die out? Away with you, leave clasping my knees,

or I will crush you like an adder."

"My lord! my lord!" cried the child wildly. "My mother is dying down

there in the wood--without shelter--in the storm and rain. Pity, oh,

pity--Donatus, where is he? Oh Donatus!" The storm carried away her

words, the door closed with a loud clatter; no one could hear her cry

of anguish, for it could not reach the monks in the dormitory, above

the rushing and roaring of the rain in the dragon-headed gargoyles.

"Alas! and woe!" rang through the night. "Woe!" howled the storm from

the forest as though with a human voice--"Woe!" groaned the whole

terror-stricken earth under the crashing thunderbolts which fell clap

upon clap in inextinguishable fury, rending the trees to their roots.

Dumbly and silently the old stronghold of faith stood on the giddy

height, facing the unchained elements with its stony brow; and the

uproarious strife raged round about it, as if it were bent on tearing

it from its rocky foundations and hurl it into the roaring abyss. What

is the meaning of all this fury and tumult, why have the whole rage and

might of the elements concentrated themselves on this spot, why does

the hand of Terror knock so fearfully at these silent gates, of all

others, to-night?

They are the agonised cries of Nature, the eternal mother, over one of

her children who this night is outraging her and himself; who is

struggling in solitude with the very madness of self-annihilation, with

none by to pity him. She rouses the brethren from their sleep, she

thunders in their ears, she shouts to them in the wailing of the storm

and in torrents of tears, "Rise up--save your brother!" They hear the

warning indeed, but they understand it not; they start in horror from

their beds and cross themselves, "Help, oh Lord! What is Thy purpose

with us?" They pray in impotent terror and are full of some unspeakable

fear, but they know not whence it came nor how it will end.

Now long drawn groans came up from the forest, each deeper than the

last, striking as it were at the very roots of the building, collecting

their forces for one mighty blow, one overwhelming shock. The house

stood firm, but the beams groaned and the boards cracked under the

pressure; the lime fell from the walls with a dull crack and the lead

and tiles torn from the roof were flung with a rattle like hail on the

stones of the court-yard and on the garden-beds, crushing and

devastating everything. The fiery tongues from the clouds licked the

spires with unsated greediness, discharging their electric tension with

a deafening roar; and as if the waters of the abyss would fain

extinguish the fires of heaven, they rushed in wild and foaming

torrents from the mountains into the valleys, dragging the uprooted

trees with them in their fall and dashing against the rampart-like wall

as if they were Nature's battering-rams.

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against

us!" prayed the brethren who had gathered together; a little trembling

flock in the middle of the dormitory. Suddenly one of the brethren

grasped his neighbour's arm, "Look," he exclaimed, "up there in the

eastern turret-window--do you see a light?" The monks could hardly look

up, for at every instant the sky was all aflame and they hid their

faces in fear. But it was true, they all saw it now--up in the window

of the Lady Uta's room there was in fact a dim light. Was it a fire?

had the lightning struck it? No, for it remained always the same. The

brethren were seized with superstitious horror; was Lady Uta's ghost

watching over her bequests--or was it Stiero the strong, now long since

dead, and of whom it was said that he always walked when all the

elements of nature were in revolt? The monks stood gazing helplessly,

hardly daring to breathe, and half-blinded by the flashes. Should they

call the Abbot? should they let him know? At this instant there was a

blast so mighty that it seemed as if every joint and seam must part--as

if the very earth must be blown out of its course, and they heard a

crash on the pavement of the court-yard, while the windows flew open

and the vessels and utensils danced on the shelves. It was the copper

roof of the eastern tower that had fallen; the light in the turret

window was extinguished. The monks fell on their knees, mechanically

stammering out Paternosters. But what was that? Was it not a cry of

pain from the tower? The brethren held their breath to listen, they

convulsively clasped their rosaries in their cold hands and pressed

them to their trembling hearts. There it was again--their blood ran

cold, a long drawn cry of anguish was audible above the howling of the

storm and the roaring of the waters.

At this moment the door was flung open and the Abbot rushed in, his

lamp in his hand.

"Did you not hear--" he asked. "Was not that a cry from the eastern

tower?"

"Did you hear it too?" whispered the monks, their voices choked with

terror.

"Who can it be? There is no one there, the tower is locked up?"

"What a night!--hark--there, again!"

"But now it sounds from the forest."

"We cannot distinguish in this uproar of noise."

"Very likely it is some wild animal hurt by a falling tree."

"No, no, it is the spirits wailing in the air--a bad omen!"

"Heaven help us--what evil can it bode?"

"Lord, have mercy upon us!"

The Abbot meanwhile had glanced round the room.

"Where is Donatus?" he said, "his bed is empty."

Donatus--in the general panic no one had missed him.

"Donatus--my son, my child!" cried the Abbot, struck by a horrible

suspicion. "Look above, below, every one search the whole house for

him."

And foremost of them all, driven by some inexplicable dread, the Abbot

rushed out into the storm, bareheaded, heedless of the pelting of

stones and tiles, past the lofts that were threatening to fall, across

to the eastern tower--the door was locked.

"The key! see for the key of the eastern tower," he ordered across the

dark court-yard; no one had followed him but Correntian; the rest stood

scared in the door-way--their lamps blown out.

Correntian hurried out to the gate-house. The key was gone! beyond a

doubt Donatus had locked himself up in the tower.

"Hapless, struggling child!" cried the Abbot. "What demon is tormenting

you that you must fly up there and tell your woes to the winds." And

for the first time in his life he turned upon one of the brethren in

anger; in the glare of the lightning that relieved the darkness and

revealed them to each other, he fixed his eye piercingly on Correntian.

"I fear, I fear,"--he said, "that you must have a heavy burden on your

conscience and that the cry of anguish of that poor tortured soul is

gone up to God against you."

Correntian stood before him, dogged and invincible, "I only did my

duty."

"Donatus!" cried the Abbot again. "Donatus, come down, open the door to

me, your father--Donatus--my son."

No answer, all was still; it seemed as though the very storm had paused

to listen; but in vain--nothing was moving.

"He cannot hear us call," said Correntian. "The storm roars too wildly

round the detached tower; leave him, it is midnight and time for the

service for the dead. The bell will soon ring and he will hear that.

When the bell calls him he will come--I know him well." And he went

back into the house.

The Abbot followed him with a deep sigh.

"My poor child! God help him to be victorious."

The storm had exhausted its fury and had swept away towards the heath

at Mals. The pauses between the lightning and thunder were longer, the

rain did not lash the windows so furiously, and the bell for the mass

in memory of the Lady Uta tolled solemnly above the now distant tumult.

The monks assembled in the chapel in grave silence, for they were not

yet free from the spell of the night's alarms, and went down into the

crypt or founders' hall.

All were there but Eusebius and Donatus.

Eusebius was now often absent, excused by reason of his advanced

age--but Donatus had never before been missing. The Abbot delayed

beginning the solemnity, his anxiety increasing with every minute; the

bell had long ceased to toll, still Donatus came not.

The brethren looked at each other in silence; none dared to increase

the Abbot's trouble by uttering a word--but it was a mystery to every

one. In vain did they strive to collect their thoughts for devotion.

Each one secretly felt his heart beating wildly, he himself knew not

why. Hark--what was that? A rustle--a sound of doubtful shuffling

steps; slowly and hesitatingly they came down the stairs--slow,

dragging steps like those of Fate--some one was feeling the way

painfully along the wall--feeling for the latch of the door. Full of an

unaccountable horror all the monks fixed their eyes on the door; it

opened and a figure entered--pale and stark as death, like a walking

corpse--there was a scream of horror, for it was Donatus, his face

streaming with sweat and blood--eyeless.

CHAPTER VI.

A lonely rider was at this same hour of the night traversing the

storm-beaten forest that lay below Marienberg. His cloak clung dripping

round him; his horse's hoofs were inaudible on the soaking moss and he

rode noiselessly forward towards a red, glowing spot in the distance,

which looked to him like a little heap of burning charcoal shining

dimly through the damp night air. He was not deceived, and a woman

close by it lay with a child who vainly endeavoured to keep up the

smouldering fire. The woman was lying on the bare earth, the child

knelt close by, and the rider was startled as he caught sight of her

face lighted up by the ruddy glow, and her large eyes which reflected

the flame she strove to fan with her breath.

At this instant the midnight toll sounded out from the tower on the

mountain, the woman raised her arm and shrieked in a piercing voice,

"Aye! ring away! If there is a God in Heaven that is your knell. On the

heath, in the wilderness, in the wood--thus may you all die as I am

dying; may your house fall as my hovel fell. May despair rend your

hearts, and remorse scorch your brains as they have mine."

"Mother, mother, do not curse, it is a sin, you yourself said so,"

implored the little girl, clasping the woman's outstretched hand with a

soothing gesture.

"It is only what they have done," complained the woman. "Oh, I was

pious and good like you once; I would have been content if only they

would have let me see Donatus for one hour."

The rider pulled up his horse behind the bushes, and dismounted to

listen.

"Only one hour," she went on, "in return for a whole ruined life-time!

But even that they would not grant me--not even that. No, let me be, I

have nothing but curses that I can fling at their heads; give me an arm

to strike with, and I will spare my words."

"Woman," cried a voice suddenly behind her, "here is the arm you need

to carry out your curse, I am just in the mood for such a task!"

The child started up in alarm at seeing the grim looking man, and fled

to the other side of her mother.

The woman gazed thoughtfully at the stranger; something in his face

struck her, but she could not tell what. The rider tied up his horse,

and flung himself down on his cloak by the woman's side.

"Your rage is against the monks of Marienberg; what have they done to

you?"

And the woman told him at full length all that had happened from the

beginning, how she had lost her child and her husband for the sake of

the strange infant, and how she had loved him so much all the same,

that she would willingly have sacrificed everything if only she might

have clasped him once to her heart, and have made her last confession

to him. But not even that would they grant her, a dying woman. They had

driven the little girl from the door, and called her an adder. Ah! and

there was a great weight on her mind about the girl too, and now the

child must perish miserably; for when she was dead there would be no

one to care for her in all the wide world.

The stranger looked absently at the child; he paused for a moment as if

the large, tawny-brown eyes with their dark, meeting brows had struck

him; but another idea possessed him wholly.

"And you do not know who the boy was that you nursed?" he asked almost

breathlessly.

"No, they did not tell me."

"Do not you know either where he was brought from?"

"Yes," said the nurse, "a lay-brother of Saint Valentine's was there

when I went, who had brought him to Marienberg."

The man vehemently grasped the woman's wasted arm.

"Do you not remember his name?"

"I do not know it, my lord, no one told me. But he was very old, and

must be dead long since."

"Saint Valentine's," repeated the stranger between his teeth. "Indeed,

Saint Valentine's--there perhaps I might find a trace," and he started

up in haste to remount his horse; but the woman clutched him by the

sleeve,

"My lord, my lord," she cried, "for God's sake! you will not leave us

in our misery--and my child, the poor orphan--My hour is near--Have

pity on the child or she must starve."

The knight flung a gold-piece into the sick woman's lap. "Here, that is

all I carry with me in case of emergency; now, keep me no longer."

But she clung to him in her dying agony, "Gold is of no use to us, what

does the child know of gold; wicked men may take it from her, and then

she will be as helpless as ever. Shelter, my lord, and protection for

the innocent! Oh, my lord, she is not my child, she is a child of sin;

but the child is pure, my lord, as pure as the dew, as innocent as the

fawn in the forest. I have brought her up in decency and the fear of

God. Take charge of her, she is of noble blood; her mother was a lady,

and the knight, her husband, was so long away in the field that she

thought he was dead; then she fell into trouble. And the child's

father--God save his soul--was a minnesänger at Count Albert's court,

and the child has come by many gifts through him; she can sing and is

full of pretty tunes, and hidden things are revealed to her. You would

find her a joy to you, my lord."

The dark-looking man struck his hand against his forehead with a loud

and scornful laugh.

"It serves me right! I cast out my own flesh and blood, and in exchange

I get a bastard; now I am searching again for my own outcast child, and

again, oh! mocking Fate, you fling the bastard scornfully into my lap.

Ay, Thou art just, Thou severe God, and Thy ways are past finding out."

The woman and the girl looked in alarm at the powerful man; but after a

pause he spoke more calmly,

"I am the Count of Reichenberg," he said, "whose guilty wife gave this

child into your charge."

"Great God!" cried the nurse, crossing herself. "Do not harm her, my

lord, she could not help it."

The count's gaze gradually softened as he looked at the girl's childish

beauty.

"No, you cannot help it. You have your mother's eyes, but they are not

false like hers. I forgave her on her death-bed, and how could I be

cruel to you? By Heaven, the child bewitches me as her mother did

before her. Be off with your sick nurse there to Reichenberg; you shall

no longer wander about homeless. Give this ring to the warder as a

token that I have sent you, and that he is to take you in to the

castle, and take care of you. I shall come after you later, but first I

have important work to do in this neighbourhood."

"Thank you, my lord, and may God reward you," cried the nurse, who was

almost bewildered by such unexpected good fortune; "I cannot get so

far, for I feel my end is near, but the child--I will send her to you

at once."

But the little girl shook her head, and threw the ring from her.

"No," she said, "I will not go with the strange man, I will stay with

you, mother."

"Child, do not be foolish; when I am dead, what then?"

"Then I will stay with the angel, he will take care of me."

"Oh, you silly child!" wailed the woman. "He cannot help you, for he is

only a man, and is himself shut up a prisoner among the monks there."

"Then I will go to the blessed maidens that they may set him free,"

said the child confidently.

The Count had not been listening to the last words; he had thrown

himself on horseback and set off again--away through wind and weather,

straight across country, over roots and broken branches in fevered

haste, to the heath of Mals, and he raised his fist threateningly at

the convent on the height where the gleaming windows shone far out over

the dark scene around.

Up in the convent all were astir. The monks were assembled for a solemn

and fearful task; they were sitting in judgment on a breach of their

holy rule--the crime of self-mutilation--of which Donatus was guilty.

This was _culpa gravis_, punishable by the heaviest penance that could

be inflicted.

One word could absolve the criminal; he had only to say that one of the

priests had ordered the deed, that he had done it in obedience to a

superior command; but this word he did not speak, for his guilt would

then fall on that other one, and he would have none but himself bear

his cross.

And he, that other who could save him, he spoke not. The lips of both

remained sealed. If Donatus had still had eyes, the cruel instigator of

the crime might well have blenched before the silent appeal with which

his victim turned to him; but those eyes were gone which might have

spoken, and the bloodstained bandage concealed even the unspoken

anguish stamped on the pale brow.

The enquiry was ended, the sentence only was wanting; the monks stood

in a half-circle round the Abbot who supported himself on the arms of

his chair; his hands trembled, his face was as pale as death. The

younger brethren covered their faces and wept; Donatus waited in humble

resignation for the sentence to be pronounced.

Three times the Abbot rose, three times his voice failed him--at last

he spoke.

"Seeing that the holy rule of Saint Benedict strictly forbids any

follower of his to lay violent hands upon himself, in that he is no

longer his own but belongs to the holy Church, and, as such, may not

injure himself any more than any sacred vessel, garment, altar, temple

or whatever else is the Church's property--

"Seeing that you, unhappy child, have been instructed and indoctrinated

in that holy rule and have wittingly sinned against it out of your own

pride of judgment as to what is best, and have thus rendered yourself

unfit to do the Church that service for which God had especially chosen

you--

"Seeing that by the commission of this deed, you have rebelled against

the will of your spiritual and temporal superiors and so are guilty of

the gravest disobedience--

"We declare and pronounce that, as a terrible example to the votaries

of all Orders and at all times you--" here again his voice failed and

he had to draw a long breath, "that you shall be imprisoned to all

perpetuity in the Convent dungeon."

Donatus bowed his head in silence--the Abbot sank back in his chair and

clasped his hands over his face which was bathed in tears. One single

inarticulate sob broke from all the conclave; only Correntian stood

unmoved and his eyes were fixed upon the prisoner. A long silence

followed; over their heads stared the fixed stony face of Duty--that

pitiless divinity--suppressing every outward expression of the sorrow

that filled their shrinking hearts.

At last the Abbot rose and turning to Correntian with an awful and

reproachful look,

"You, Correntian," he said, "may fill the office of executioner and

lead him away--for not one of us could bear it."

And, just as he had long ago snatched him from his nurse's arms,

ruthlessly and without delay Correntian grasped the blind man's arm--to

tear him from the last hearth of humanity that was open to him--from

the midst of the brotherhood. Donatus obediently turned to follow him.

"Forgive us!" cried the sobbing group of monks, "We only do our duty."

The blind man spread out his arms as though he would clasp them all in

one embrace, "If I had eyes to weep, my brethren, it should be for you

all and not for myself."

The Abbot could contain himself no longer; with a cry of anguish he

flung himself upon Donatus; "My son, my son--why have you done this to

me?"

The youth sank into his arms with unutterable affection and they stood

in close embrace through a long silence.

But even these loving arms, which had once rescued him from

Correntian's iron grip, could not save him now; that iron hand tore him

from them and led him away--an unresisting prey. Correntian remained

the victor.

"Let us mourn and fast for forty days, my brethren, as for one that

is dead," said the Abbot to the conclave. "And send for brother

Eusebius--why is he not here?--He must bind up that poor boy's eyes to

the best of his skill--the law does not forbid that," and as he spoke

he tottered and put out his hand to cling to the man nearest to

him--the strong man's powers were spent and the brethren had to support

him, or he would have fallen.

Correntian led his victim down the slippery dungeon stair; two of the

convent servants followed him with hand-cuffs. They reached the damp

vault in silence. Correntian led his prisoner to a bed made of a heap

of straw in a corner, close to which, riveted to the wall, were the

rings to which he was to be fastened.

"Chains too?" said Donatus; and in the tone in which he spoke these two

words there was something which penetrated even Correntian's hard heart

to that secret human core, which up to this minute no lament, no dying

sigh of any mortal had ever touched; but he strangled the emotion

before it found birth, and said calmly, "So it must be."

"If it is possible," said Donatus humbly, "spare me that--Yet, not my

will but thine be done."

"So it must be," repeated Correntian, and the lad was silent. Only once

he pressed his hand on the bandage which covered his burning sockets,

then he submissively held out his trembling hands for the chains; it

was quickly done, the irons were riveted and the servants went away.

The two monks were alone.

"Now you have indeed preserved yourself from temptation!" cried

Correntian, as Donatus dropped his fettered hands without a sound of

lamentation passing his lips. "Martyr! open the eyes of your soul, the

crown is hanging above your head!"

Donatus fell on his knees before the terrible monk and folding his

weary, iron-bound hands as if in prayer, he exclaimed, "Now, now, I

understand you."

"Donatus!" cried Correntian, as if his lifelong torpor was suddenly

unpent in a lava-flood of extasy--his eye flashed, his pulses throbbed,

his breast heaved--"At one word from me you would have been exempt from

this fearful punishment--and I was silent. Donatus, tell me, have I

been your salvation or your ruin?"

"My salvation and I thank you!" groaned Donatus, and a terrible smile

of bliss passed over his drawn lips; he feebly grasped Correntian's

hands; the damp walls, like an open grave, echoed back his words: "I

thank you."

Correntian hastily threw his arms round the unconscious boy as he sank

to the ground; for the first time in his life a human form rested on

his breast, and with the first rays of morning, which fell on him

through the slit in the wall, high above him, the first ray of love

sparkled in the stern master's eyes and was merged in the martyr's

crown that shone on the disciple's head.

BOOK III.

GRACE.

CHAPTER I.

Morning dawned slowly over the heath of Mals and the dismal tolling of

the bell of Saint Valentine's proclaimed far and wide that one of the

brethren lay at the point of death. It was brother Florentinus, the

grey-haired watchman, who for more than half a century had lived in

constant warfare with the deadly and inhospitable powers of the moor,

and whose tender and protecting hand had snatched from them their

storm-beaten victims. How old he was no man knew--but it must be near

on a century; yet Death found it no easy task to crush the life that

had defied a thousand snowstorms. He lay close to the chimney,

breathing painfully, his dim eyes fixed on the dingy painting of Saint

Valentine. His withered body was like a dried up mummy, his hands and

feet were already stiff and cold, but his hardly-drawn breath still

fanned the trembling flame. It seemed as though he were waiting for

something; and yet what should he be waiting for? He had closed his

account with the world.

The lonely rider was scouring across the moor from Burgeis at the

maddest pace to which he could urge his horse. He too heard the knell,

and without accounting to himself for the impulse, he struck his spurs

into the horse that started forward with great leaps--he felt that he

_must_ reach the Hospice before the tolling ceased; before the unknown

life was extinct that was in that hour wrestling with death.

The dying man listened to the beating of the hoofs and turned his eyes

to the door.

"He is come," he said in a faint, hollow voice.

"Who?" asked the brethren who knelt round him in prayer.

At this instant there was a violent knocking at the door; the old man

raised himself with a wonderful exertion of strength.

"Open quickly," he said. The astonished brethren obeyed him, and in

walked the rider clanking and clattering, straight up to the dying man;

it was in vain that the brethren signed to him to be silent and not to

disturb the dying man's rest.

"You are old enough--maybe you are he!" cried the Count roughly, and he

threw himself on a stool by the old man's couch. "You must not die--you

must speak with me."

The old man bowed his trembling head. "It is well, it is well," he

muttered feebly, "I have thought of him a great deal--and it was a sin.

We meant it well--but we all must err."

"Do you know me?" asked the knight in astonishment.

"Aye, aye--you will find him again--I know, I know." The Count began to

be frightened at the old man.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"She has appeared to me twice--again this very night and announced to

me that you would come to fetch him."

"She--who?" asked the Count with increasing emotion.

"She, the Countess--the angel of Ramüss."

"Do not make him talk," said one of the brethren, coming up to the

Count. "What good can the wanderings of a dying man do you?"

"Silence!" thundered the Count so loud that the sick man started, "Let

him speak or I will make you all dumb for the rest of your days."

The brethren stood helpless and consulting each other in whispers.

"Did you know the Lady of Reichenberg?" asked the Count, bending over

Florentinus.

"Did I know her--Why she lay here, where I am lying--she and the

baby-boy."

"The boy?" repeated the knight, and his heart laboured sorely; but he

controlled himself to listen to the sick man, whose breathing grew

weaker and weaker, that he might hear the words he might speak before

it had altogether ceased. "The boy--where have you put him?"

"Up there--at Marienberg--they kept him--but the mother has given me no

peace--three times has she come to me and said, 'Give him his son

again'--"

The last words grew fainter--the Count felt as if his head would burst

with its throbbing. He bowed his ear over the dying lips, they still

moved mechanically--

"Do not die--do not die," he implored him in anxious expectation--"Only

say his name--the name they gave the boy in the convent--"

The dying man's lips moved and muttered as though to say "Do--" but he

could no more, his breath failed him. The Count took him in his arms

and raised his head--he would not let him die--he must pronounce that

name on which all depended.

"Don--Don--" he stammered, and his very pulses stood still while

listened.

"--nat--" murmured Florentinus with a last effort.

"Donatus!" cried the Count, no longer master of himself.

The dying man bowed assent--a peaceful smile overspread his face and

his head fell back--no more now than a noble marble image.

The Count's blood boiled as he looked at the peaceful corpse; it

mounted to his forehead and hands till his veins stood out like cords,

and his eyes were ominously blood-shot.

The brethren were in the utmost terror. "He was talking nonsense, my

Lord, do not believe what he said, he had long been childish." But it

was of no use. The Count, without vouchsafing them a glance, walked

straight out of the house, flung himself on horseback and rode madly

off, the blood trickling from the flanks of his tired beast--towards

Marienberg.

"Oh! luckless day!" cried the Abbot, when the brethren who had gone to

seek Eusebius brought down his dead body from the western tower.

"Oh! luckless day!" was echoed by the brethren, who from the upper hall

had seen a rider spring from a horse which fell down dead at the door.

It was Count Reichenberg. Grim rage sat on his brow, grim rage had

ridden the noble horse to death, grim rage flapped her angry wings

above his head as he knocked at the door with the hilt of his sword.

"Open, in the name of God!" said the Abbot; he divined what it was that

hung over him and that nothing now could avert.

He stood in the middle of the still convent-yard, immovable as a

statue, and the brethren gathered round him as round the pillar which

upheld them all.

The Count walked silently up to him, his white lips trembling with such

violent agitation that he had to control himself before he could speak.

The Abbot quietly awaited what he might say, while the Count included

him and the whole circle of monks in one glance of hatred, for which

his tongue could find no adequate expression. At last he muttered

between his teeth,

"And dare you actually look me in the face--can you bear that I should

look at you? You liars and hypocrites--do you not tremble before me?"

"We tremble before no just man," said the Abbot, "for our consciences

are pure. As to the unjust--them the Lord will punish."

"Spare your words!" cried the Count. "Every breath of your throat is a

falsehood."

"My Lord Count," said the Abbot, "do you believe that we--"

"Believe!" interrupted the Count, "I believe nothing--I know.--Do you

understand? Since my visit with the Duke I have lurked round your

convent. The nurse whom you maltreated betrayed the track; the old man

at Saint Valentine's has confessed. He is dead and he made his last

confession to _me_."

At those words, which fell upon them like a thunderbolt, the brethren

turned pale and were dumb. Now was God's judgment come upon them. But

with a comprehension of the danger came resignation; if they had

sinned, God might punish them--if they had done right, He would surely

help them.

"Where is my son?" cried the Count impatiently, glancing round at the

whole circle of monks.

"My Lord, at this moment he is doing penance for a heavy sin," said the

Abbot in an uncertain voice.

"What sin?" asked the Count.

"A breach of obedience to the rules of our Order," explained the Abbot.

"Obedience! that is at an end! A Count of Reichenberg owes obedience to

no man!"

"He is not a Count of Reichenberg--he is a brother of our Order; he has

taken the vows and he cannot be absolved from them."

"It was a forced vow, against all law and justice--he was cheated into

it!" shouted the Count. "I was lately with the Bishop of Chur and

informed myself on the subject. If you refuse to give the boy up to me,

I will accuse you before the Pope himself, and you will be laid under

an interdict. For, as the Bishop told me, that is the law; Pope

Celestin III. decreed that the decisions of the Church in Council at

Toledo and Aix-la-Chapelle should come into force again, and that no

Order might receive a child before he was of age without the consent of

his parents. And will you hold him to a vow thus surreptitiously

extorted from him--will you assert your claim to stolen goods? Am I not

his father and did I ever give my consent to his becoming a monk?

Answer!"

The brethren had come to a rapid understanding among themselves in

Latin.

"Well and good, my Lord," replied the Abbot, "you speak truly, and

according to the letter of the law you are in your rights when you

require at our hands that which is your own. The only question is this:

is that still yours which you threw away of your own free will and

abandoned to destruction? I know very well that such an incredible

instance of a perverted nature is not provided for by any law, and if

you appeal against us the judgment will be in your favour; but, my Lord

Count, you were no doubt also informed that the same Canon law permits

young people when they come to full years of discretion to enter an

order without their parents' consent. Are you or are you not aware of

that?"

"Yes," said the Count, biting his lip.

"Well then, my Lord," continued the Abbot, "you may punish us according

to the letter of the law, for that wherein we have sinned against the

letter of the law--but you cannot break the vows your son has taken,

for he is now of age and if he now renews them, he is answerable to the

law."

"But he will not renew them now that his father is here to fetch him

home to splendour and dominion," said the Count confidently. "Only

bring him here and let me speak to him myself, and put my patience to

no farther proof. A Reichenberg can never learn to wait."

Again a few Latin words passed from mouth to mouth in a low whisper.

"If it please you to follow us into the refectory and refresh yourself

with a cool draught, my Lord," said the Abbot. "You are exhausted and

everything, whatever it may be, is better done when men have rested and

strengthened themselves with a cup of wine."

"Very good--let us go in; and send me the young Count that he may empty

the first bowl with his father," said the Count, somewhat pacified, for

he thought the monks' opposition was broken, and his newly awakened

fatherly feeling made his heart beat impatiently for the son to whom he

must now make up for the neglect of twenty-one long years. So they went

into the refectory where bread and wine had been set ready; still the

Count would touch nothing,

"My son," said he; "first fetch my son."

The monks looked at each other in their difficulty; God had forsaken

them--no farther escape was possible. After another short consultation

father Correntian went "to fetch him." The Abbot stood like a condemned

criminal at the foot of the cross on which he is to be crucified; "God

help us! have mercy on our wrong-doing! Thou who canst read the heart,

Thou knowest we meant it rightly!" Thus he prayed silently.

The brethren were one and all incapable of speech. "When the father

sees the state of his son--what will happen?" That was the thought that

filled every mind.

But Correntian came back alone.

"Your son refuses to appear," he said. "He has this very hour renewed

his oath never to quit the cloister--and he will not see you."

Reichenberg laughed loud and wildly.

"You silly fellow! you crazy fool! Do you suppose that I--the Count of

Reichenberg--can be sent home like a blockhead, with such an answer as

that? Aye, you may glare at me with your wolfish eyes--they cannot

pierce my mailed breast. Fetch the boy, on the spot--or I will search

the building for him through and through."

"He must come, there is no help for it;" the Abbot whispered to

Correntian. "You are not afraid that we cannot rely upon him now, when

this severe punishment--"

Correntian smiled. "Be easy," he said; then turning to Reichenberg, "I

will bring him to you, that he may tell you himself--then you will

believe me."

The Count paced the room with long strides; was it near at last--this

consummation--did he at last see the term set to half a life-time of

remorse and goading despair? Oh! when he held his son in his arms, in

those strong arms, nothing should tear him from them--he would make up

for everything.

Minute after minute passed, louder and faster beat the father's

heart--more and more shrank the terrified souls of the monks--"How will

it end?"

Now--now close to the door--the footsteps of two men--but slow, much

too slow for the father's eager impatience. Reichenberg rushed to the

door to meet him--the monks turned away not to witness the terrible

scene. There stood the longed for son, pale and wasted, and his face

covered with a blood-stained bandage. The father tottered back--his

eyes fixed, petrified with horror at this vision of suffering. But no!

this is not he, he is deceived; this is not Donatus. "Donatus!" he

cried, with a choked utterance, "Donatus, my son--where is he?"

"I am here," answered the youth. The father, to convince himself,

snatched away the bandage from his face--his son was before

him--eyeless!

A cry broke from the strong man that made the monks' blood run cold;

"Blind--blinded--my son--blinded. Who has done it?"

"I myself," said the young monk, in a firm voice.

"You--yourself? and why?" groaned the miserable father.

"Because it was God's will."

There was a moment of silence; not one of the monks dared utter a word

of consolation. But the torrent of blood that for a moment had been

checked in its flow in the heart of the betrayed father, rushed wildly

on again, and he turned on the monks in terrible fury,

"This then--this is what you have made of my son!

Executioners--murderers! A father's pride mutilated and disfigured--the

last scion of an illustrious race! Woe to you! God shall requite you

sorely for this service."

"Count Reichenberg," said the Abbot, "we are innocent of this blood,

nor are your son's eyes upon our conscience, for indeed they were the

sunshine of our gloomy walls and everyone of us would willingly have

given his own in lieu of his."

"Spare your speeches, Abbot, I do not believe them. Even if you have

not yourselves been the executioners your accursed teaching has done

it. Put out your eyes to serve God! Aye, that is your priestly notion

of a hero. If you had given the boy a well-tempered sword in his hand

that, for my part, he could have used against your enemies, he would

never have committed such an outrage on himself! Oh God! great God,

here I stand before Thy face; Thou knowest all my iniquity, Thou

knowest wherein I have sinned--but the sorrow that is now rending my

heart was of no purpose of Thine--no God can be so cruel--but only

man." And he beat his brow in a frenzy of rage as if he would strike

himself dead with his own hand.

Meanwhile the blind man stood by in silence, his hands folded, his head

sunk on his breast; a picture so touching that even the strong man's

heart was melted to pity. "What shall I do?" he went on. "I am a

lonely, childless man and you are a poor, maimed creature, a dishonour

to the chivalrous house of Reichenberg--still you are my own blood and

I feel that I can love you with all your infirmities. I will take you

with me--Come, and like a beggar who picks up pot-sherds, I will gather

up the remnants of my ruined race and carry them home under my roof--to

weep over them. Come, my son." His voice broke as he spoke. "Your

father will lay aside shield and spear and turn sick-nurse to tend the

last of his race till we are carried out of the decaying house to which

we two belong." And he took hold of his son's arm to lead him away with

him; but the blind man stood as if rooted to the spot, not a foot did

he stir to follow his father.

The Count looked at him as if he could not believe it.

"My son!" he shouted in his ear, and he shook his arm as if to rouse

him from a stupor, "my son--it is your father who calls you."

"Forgive me," said Donatus wearily, for fever induced by the wounds was

beginning to exhaust his strength, "but that is not my father's voice."

"In God's name do not you hear me? It is I--your father--Reichenberg,"

urged the Count.

The blind youth shook his head. "I have no father but the Abbot."

"Donatus!" shrieked the Count, "are you in your senses?" He turned to

the Abbot, "If any earthly bond is still sacred in your eyes--tell him

what a son owes to his father."

"Donatus," said the Abbot, "you are this man's son--it is to him that

you owe your existence in the world! According to all human rights and

duties you belong to him--according to the rights and duties of our

Order you belong to us.--You are of age and free to choose--Choose."

All eyes were fixed on Donatus. He felt for the Abbot's hand, "My

father," he said, "I can have but one choice; to live or die with you."

"Son, son!" cried Reichenberg. "Is all your nature subverted? Can you

repel your real father for the sake of a stranger who did not beget

you?"

"My Lord," said Donatus, "how can you say you are my father, when you

have never dealt with me as a father? while these have treated me as

you ought to have done. How can you talk to me and chide me for loving

them and calling them father, when I have never known any other

father?"

Reichenberg's eyes fell; "You speak the truth," he replied. "I have

erred and sinned grievously towards you; an evil spirit possessed my

senses--but of that God is the judge and not you. The children may not

be their parents' judges, for the ties of blood are sacred and no law

can tear them asunder."

"My lord, I am dedicated to Heaven--I recognise no ties of blood--"

"And is this the doctrine in which you have brought up my child?

Almighty God! it would have been better for him if the wild beasts had

devoured him! The son renounces his father who comes remorsefully to

atone for his past crime. Oh! it is hideous, and I turn from you in

horror! You are not men, you are stones--stones of that proud edifice

under which the whole earth groans, and all wholesome life must

perish.--And you, blind shade, out of which they have wrung the very

blood and marrow, can you reconcile it to your creed of mercy to plunge

a dagger in cold blood into the heart of a father who opens his arms to

you with eager longing, and cries for atonement as a hart for the

water-brooks,--to renounce him when he would fain lead you home under

the roof of your ancestors?"

Donatus drew himself up; his father quailed before him.

"My lord," said he, "the winter-night sky was my parental roof; the

bare earth was my cradle; the snow-storm sweeping down from the heights

gave me the first fatherly kiss. Hunger and cold, exhaustion and death

were the nurses that tended your wife in her need. Pitying love came in

monk's garb through the night, and snow, and storm, and snatched the

deserted woman and child from the cruel earth, and carried them home,

and warmed them, and laid them on a soft bed. And when my mother

succumbed to her miseries, again they were monks--these whom you see

here--that made me a cradle in the name of Him who is Love. They have

carried me in their arms, they have sheltered and tended me, and

watched over me all my life; and shall I leave them and follow a

stranger only because an accidental tie of blind nature binds me to

him? My lord, sooner could I tear all love out of my heart, as I have

torn out my eyes, than do such a thing!"

The Count had listened to the words of the son he had lost with

apparent composure, but he now said to the Abbot in a sullen tone, and

with lips that were white with anger,

"That will do; command him to follow me without resistance, or mischief

will come of all this."

The Abbot drew back a step. "I cannot," he said; "I desired him to

choose, I cannot compel him."

The Count grew paler and colder.

"Then I will compel him," he answered. "Send down to the village for a

strong horse that may carry me and the boy."

"My lord," urged the Abbot, "you surely will not against his will--"

"Do you think I will entreat him any longer? He must obey, willingly or

not; he is my son, and he belongs to me," and with a rapid movement he

snatched the enfeebled boy from the midst of the brethren, and threw

his mailed arm round his slight form. "Sooner would I throw you to the

wolves, unnatural child, than leave you here with these monks, and come

what may, I will carry you away."

"Oh, God, help me!" cried the blind man, and in an instant the brethren

had flung themselves on the father, and freed the son; the solitary man

was forced to yield to numbers. Donatus clung to the Abbot and

Correntian who supported him. The Count drew his sword.

"You will have it!" he cried. "Then take it," and he flew like an

infuriated wild boar on the unarmed group, so that the foremost

recoiled in terror.

"A sword, a sword!" Donatus heard them shout, and he understood what

was happening. In an instant he drew a blood-stained weapon from under

his robe--the compasses that he had taken from Eusebius--and he turned

the two sharp points against his breast.

"Father!" he shouted above the tumult, "if indeed you are my father,

will you kill your own son? See this steel which has already pierced my

eyes; I will this instant plunge it into my heart if you touch a hair

of one of my brethren!"

Reichenberg dropped his sword, and for an instant struggled for breath;

then he raised his arm again, and the words poured from his lips like a

fiery torrent. "You have conquered! Your strength is so great, so

unfathomable that it is vain for man to fight against it. But still you

are of flesh and blood, and still you can die! Then hear my solemn

oath. In seven days, when the moon changes, I will return with a force,

strong enough to destroy you and the whole body of your lansquenets, to

rase your convent even with the earth. So bethink yourselves: if by

that time you have not turned the heart of the son to his father, if

you do not give him up willingly, I will mutilate you as you have

mutilated my son; I will rend every tie of humanity as you have rent

them by dividing the son from his father; I will trample on your sacred

rights as you have trampled on the holy rights of nature. Blood for

blood, and struggle for struggle! I will require at your hands the

heart and the eyes of my son, and you shall answer to me for them."

"Count Reichenberg, we do not tremble at your threats," said the Abbot

proudly. "You may indeed destroy a poor and helpless monastery, and

murder a handful of unarmed monks, but you know very well that a whole

world would rise up to avenge us, and, even if you conquered that, our

holy Father can hurl an anathema at you which will overwhelm you to all

eternity, and which you cannot escape from in this world or the next."

"And do you believe," cried the Count with a wild laugh, "do you

believe that I quail before curse and ban?--Do you believe that I can

fear hell when such wrath as mine is boiling in my veins?--Do you

believe that I care for Heaven--for Heaven whose revolting indifference

has let every earthly evil fall upon me?--for Heaven that did not

annihilate you all rather than leave this poor young son of a noble

house to blind himself for your doctrines? Woe upon you! But there is

still a power that you know not of--because you have never felt as men

feel, and that is a father's vengeance; neither death nor damnation can

terrify that!"

He turned towards the door. "So I say again, bethink yourselves; in

seven days I shall return and perform my oath--You yourselves have

taught me that an oath must be kept."

The door closed with a slam--while the brethren, pale with fear, were

still looking after their grim enemy.

"My brethren," said the Abbot, clasping Donatus in his arms, "this our

brother has proved himself such as never a man before him. He might

have escaped the severest penance by following his father, and we gave

him his choice. He has chosen perpetual imprisonment and chains, and

has refused freedom and happiness. My brethren, when we consider this

our disciple's greatness of soul, we must say that we have done right.

And they to whom the Lord vouchsafes such fruition will not be

abandoned in their time of need--for this youth's sake. He will stand

by us."

"By the help of this youth--aye, truly--but not if you put him in

prison," said a voice behind the door. It was brother Wyso who had

slipped in from the infirmary, somewhat paler and leaner than of yore,

but in as good spirits as ever.

"I wonder you were not smothered long since in your own fat!" muttered

Correntian between his teeth.

"Have you heard what threatens us?" asked the Abbot.

"I was standing behind the door. I kept myself discreetly hidden, for

when he slashed about him with his sword it struck me that my whole

head might be of more service to you than the half."

"What do you mean?" asked the Abbot.

"We are lost--lost even if we had reared a whole garden-full of such

holy fruit for the Lord. Why! did you ever see a tree escape the

lightning because its fruit was good? Has not the Almighty let many a

cloister perish for all that it seemed a pity? Think of our convent at

Schuls that was burnt to the ground, and yet it was no man's fault! But

this time you yourselves are in fault! You should have listened to me

when I warned you; now it has come upon you. The Count of Reichenberg

neither can nor will forgive you. Either you must give the boy up to

him--" a cry of horror interrupted him, but he proceeded with his

speech undisturbed--"or he will hack you in pieces with your protectors

and your handful of people, so that at the last day there will be no

knowing the bones of priest and peasant apart. There is one, only one,

who can save us--Donatus!"

"And how is that?" asked the Abbot.

"Do you not remember how he bewitched the Duchess, and how she said,

'Send this lad to me and whatsoever you desire shall be granted.'"

"Aye, aye!" murmured the brethren, beginning to understand him. "But

she will turn from him in horror, now."

"Nonsense! if he pleased her then when he had his pious eyes, he will

please her twice as much now because he has put them out for piety's

sake. Such a thing melts a woman's heart with pity. The Duchess is now

staying at Münster--Count Reichenberg is ruled by the Duke and he is

ruled by the Duchess--send the boy to her and she will help us."

"It seems to me brethren, that brother Wyso's counsel is good," said

the Abbot.

"Listen to me," cried Correntian; but the excited monks would listen to

him no longer.

"No, no; Wyso is right; none but Donatus can help us, Donatus shall go

to the Duchess at Münster."

"My son--you can save us, will you venture on this journey?" asked the

Abbot.

Donatus kissed his hand. "My father may dispose of me as he will and

whatever he does is well."

"Well then, my son--there is indeed no other way--set forth. You do it

for us--your brethren--and for God. You will get there and back again

in two days; but then, my son, your punishment shall be remitted, for

you have this day ransomed yourself by an act of fidelity which

outweighs a whole life-time of penance."

"Donatus," said Correntian in a low voice, "once again the Evil One

sends you forth. Are you strong enough?"

"Strong!" Donatus smiled--a strange and bitter smile.

"What can the world do to me now! I am blind."