greatly refreshed. Unconscious of the manner in which her sister had
past the night, she lost no time in waking her, and advising the
prosecution of their journey. Ida was contented with her short repose,
and obeyed the summons. Yet before they quitted the hospitable cavern,
to whose shelter from the night-blast they undoubtedly were indebted for
life, Ida led her sister to the place, which had appeared to her so
awfully splendid when viewed at midnight; but which (she doubted not)
would produce a different impression than in those moments, when her
fortitude was completely subdued by anxiety of mind and lassitude of
body.
The beams of the morning-sun now stained the waters of the Aar with
crimson light: its streams, as they precipitated themselves into the
vales beneath, glowed with a thousand beautiful colours. A shower of
diamonds seemed to fall from the summit of the ice-rock, and the clifts,
which during the night had thrown such deep and solemn shadows around
them, now were gaily arrayed in verdant moss and covered with such hardy
plants, as can endure cold without inconvenience, and which generally
fasten their roots in the fissures of stones and among the broken crags
of mountains. The sight was at once majestic and enlivening! the two
pilgrims sank upon their knees opposite to the newly-risen sun, and
poured out the sentiments of pious enthusiasm, with which they felt
their hearts overflow. Not complaints, not murmurs, not sighs proceeded
from the lips of these poor forlorn-ones: no; they exprest their delight
at this wonderful creation and their admiration of its Creator, though
at that moment they were themselves struggling against calamities so
desperate, as scarcely to afford them the remote possibility of a
rescue. Never perhaps was a nobler sacrifice offered up by suffering
humanity to the power and magnificence of the Supreme!
Yet Ida’s sacrifice was the greatest, since Constantia possest a source
of satisfaction in her bosom, of which her sister was not yet aware.
—“To-day,” said she, while her countenance was brightened with smiles,
at the same time detaining Ida, who (having finished her orisons,) was
on the point of turning from the cave; “to-day it is my turn to be the
guide through our doubtful journey. Ida, I dreamt last night, that we
were still wandering along the paths, which we traversed yesterday:
methought, that you went foremost, and bewildered yourself in a narrow
nook, where precipices on all sides impeded your further progress. I was
lamenting over your distress; when lo! on a sudden St. Engeltruda stood
before me, such as she is represented on the altar-piece in her Chapel
at Engelberg. A ray of golden light detached itself from the aureol,
which blazed round her head, and guided me to a small opening in a rock,
exactly resembling _that_, which caught my eye in the first moment of my
entering this cavern. I past through it: a narrow winding-way descended
gradually into the valley. Suddenly, as if it had been by some magic
spell, we were transported into those happy plains, where we past the
years of infancy, and which I shall never cease to regret our ever
leaving: there we became once more Mary and Rosanna Tell, and forgot in
the humble tranquillity of Rutelis the sorrows and sufferings of our
lofty hateful station.”—
Ida gave way to the enthusiastic hopes of her sister, and followed her,
as with difficulty she forced her way through a narrow opening, which
she had discovered at no great distance from the torrent. After
springing boldly at the hazard of their lives over a few wide-yawning
chasms, they reached a kind of green plain, where it was possible for
them to proceed above a hundred yards without meeting any obstacle. A
circumstance so new in their painful journey inspired Constantia with
added confidence. She turned smiling to her sister, and pointed out two
small white butterflies, who were sporting in the sunshine, and which
(she was firmly persuaded) were the very same, whom she had seen sinking
exhausted to the ground on the day before.
—“Yesterday,” said she with exultation, “yesterday they were the emblems
of our distress; to-day they are the prophets of our speedy rescue. See,
see! a favourable western gale wafts them kindly to the lower vallies,
where they may flutter through fields of flowers, and forget how much
they suffered from the frost, while they bask in the bright and cheering
sunshine.”—
Her long undisturbed night’s rest, and her confidence in the protection
of her Patron-Saint had greatly improved Constantia’s spirits: Ida’s on
the contrary were much more deprest than at the beginning of their
journey. They soon reached the termination of their easy road; and as
fresh obstacles seemed again to impede their progress with every step,
Ida asserted, that the difficulties, which they found in their present
path were sufficient to prove, that they had judged ill in altering
their direction. It was in vain, that Constantia attempted to
demonstrate, that the course, which she so much regretted, would have
led them into the most remote recesses of the Grimsel-Mountain, which
towered above them on the _one_ side; or that she pointed out the
Tempest-horn, which rose on the other like some threatening giant, and
on whose ice-covered limbs no path was discernable, which could possibly
have been trodden by any mortal feet.
A narrow passage between two almost joining rocks guided them to the
mountain of Gemmi: and now they perceived with joy, that instead of
being one unvaried acclivity, their road every now and then suffered
them to descend. It’s true, this road seemed rather calculated for the
clambering of goats, than for the use of human beings: but though it was
frequently interrupted by extensive chasms, they frequently found
themselves assisted in passing them by broad planks, already laid over
them by some friendly hand. Where there were none, and the Sisters were
obliged to traverse the abyss with extreme hazard on some narrow shelf
by clinging to the broken crags, still Constantia never would proceed,
till she had discovered either an unemployed plank, which she brought
from some other place, or the shattered branch of some wild fig-tree; in
order that she might stretch it across the chasm, and enable any future
wanderer to cross it with less trouble and risque. She also (as they
proceeded onwards) began to relate a wonderful legend, which had been
told her by one of the nuns of Zurich, explaining, why of all these
mountains that of Gemmi alone was observed never to be whitened with
snow or ice. But Ida was too much out of heart, and too fearful of their
being engaged in a wrong direction, to permit herself to pay much
attention to the legend; and as _she_ did not think it worth notice,
there can be no sort of occasion for my repeating it here.
From a rock, whose height made their heads giddy, they had ventured at
mid-day to cast their eyes down into the regions beneath them, and which
the sinking heart of Ida now made her despair of ever reaching. They
could perceive from hence several dark spots, which Ida pronounced to be
abysses, in which their path would at length terminate: and this
decision she delivered with such positiveness, that Constantia would
undoubtedly have consented to return, or else have chosen a different
path, had either a return been now practicable, or another path been to
be found. But as the day advanced, and the road still continued to sink
itself lower and lower, with what rapture did they ascertain, that these
supposed abysses in fact were parts of a village; whose smoking chimnies
announced to them the neighbourhood of domestic comforts, and to whose
peaceable shelter the cattle were at that moment returning from pasture.
The quick-sighted Ida was the first to make this discovery. She sank
weeping upon the bosom of her sister, and entreated her to forgive the
wayward humour, with which she had embittered their journey. Constantia
folded the suppliant to her heart, and the Sisters united in offering up
a prayer of fervent gratitude to the Saint, who had guided their
wanderings so wonderfully and so well.
They resumed their journey, and now how easy did it seem to them! As
they descended, the path gradually enlarged itself; and before the
shutting in of night they found themselves safe under one of the
cottage-roofs, where they learned for the first time after a long, long
interval, what it was to rest without anxiety: in truth the short and
broken slumbers, which visited them in the robber-valley, were scarcely
worthy of being called by the sweet name of rest.
While the Damsels of Werdenberg were engaged in the above adventures;
while one of them was anxiously and vainly expected at the Convent of
Zurich, and while the other was most unjustly censured and despised for
her supposed elopement with the acknowledged bridegroom of her friend;
Count Henry of Montfort was eagerly pursuing the wrong track, into which
he had been enticed by the perfidious chaplain of Castle-March.
Persuaded that he should soon overtake Ida, he continued to rush
forwards without allowing himself to rest for a moment; till in a little
village belonging to the Canton of Glarus he was attacked by a severe
fever, produced by the violence of his mental agitation, and by the
inconsiderate speed, with which his journey had been performed. Nature
at length yielded, and Henry was compelled to stop, and make his option
either of recovering slowly, or of dying at once.
According to the established custom of all knight errants, he had
commenced his expedition, not merely without forming a plan or
consulting common sense, but without furnishing himself with a necessary
supply of cash. He had left all his attendants far behind him; and as
several days had elapsed since his separation from them, and as he had
not thought proper to inform them of the object of his journey, they
were totally unable to form even a guess as to the place, where it would
be most likely for them to rejoin their master. Luckily for Henry, in
the paroxysms of his fever he frequently pronounced the name of
Montfort. From this the good simple people of the village (who in truth
had rendered him all the assistance, which their sorry means could
allow) concluded, that the invalid must certainly belong to the old
Count of Montfort. A messenger was dispatched to verify the fact: and
Count Egbert lost no time in sending able physicians to his nephew’s
aid, by whose care the fever was at length vanquished. As soon as the
step could be taken without endangering his life, the Convalescent was
removed to his paternal mansion, where he saw nothing but frowning
countenances, and heard nothing from morning till night, except
reproaches for his extraordinary conduct on his bridal day with
Elizabeth. It seems, that Count Egbert now thought himself entitled to
assume a higher tone of authority with his nephew, since the news was
just arrived, that Henry’s firm friend and powerful patron, the Emperor,
was no more. He perished, in consequence of a malady which he contracted
during an expedition against the Turks, and was no longer able to
vindicate and enforce the claims of his favourite.
—“You cannot but acknowledge,” said the old Count one day to his pale
and still emaciated nephew, “that I have done every thing in my power to
establish your happiness on a firm basis. Elizabeth of March, young,
lovely, wise, powerful, and (above all!) enormously rich, would have
been your own at this moment, if you had not thought proper to abandon
her for the laudable purpose of scampering away after a
will-o’-the-wisp!—But now the business is over! No regrets can now put
matters to rights again! Elizabeth is Countess of Torrenburg, is lost to
you for ever, and what counsel to give you now, I protest, I know
not!—Truly, your affairs are in a wretched condition: your claims on my
succession cannot avail you till after my decease; and even then, they
stand a fair chance of being worth but little, since I am now seriously
thinking of contracting a matrimonial engagement: though you thought
proper to break off my former match by running away with my intended
bride, the light and wanton Ida!”—
Here Henry assured him for the twentieth time, that he had not beheld
Ida since the bridal day at the Castle of March; and his uncle for the
twentieth time replied, by assuring Henry, that in that case it was very
extraordinary, that nobody else should know any thing at all about her.
However, whether she had gone off with Henry or with any other person,
for his own part he was determined, that anxiety about her should never
turn one more hair of his head grey; but that he would marry the first
woman of a decent family, whom luck or accident should throw into his
way.
In the course of his reproaches the old Count had mentioned Elizabeth’s
marriage: this was a fact. Within a few days after Ida’s disappearance,
Elizabeth became Countess of Torrenburg. It has already been mentioned,
that Count Frederick set forward for the Castle of March, in all the
pomp of a bridegroom, to renew his addresses, fortified by an
encouraging vision of his patron-saint, and assisted by the prayers of
the worthy Father Hilarius. On the other hand, the house-priest of March
had managed to screw the indignation of Elizabeth and her relations to
the highest pitch against the fugitive Montfort and the Heiresses of
Sargans; and the lady’s parents were proportionably penitent for the
ill-judged rejection of Count Frederick’s addresses. Finding his
mistress and her friends in a temper of mind so favourable to his
wishes, the superannuated lover needed only to make his proposals, in
order to have them accepted. But little discussion was necessary; all
parties were soon of the same mind, and Elizabeth in a few days entered
the Castle of Torrenburg as its mistress. From that hour her every word,
her every action was such, as proved her to be worthy of the high
station, in which she was placed by the choice of this excellent
nobleman; against whom no possible objection could be suggested, except
that he was old enough to be the grand-father of his blooming wife. But
to Elizabeth’s disappointed heart his age was rather a recommendation
than an objection. After Montfort’s perfidy she felt it impossible for
her ever to love another man as her husband; but she loved Count
Frederick as her father; she esteemed and reverenced him, nor from her
conduct towards him would any one have supposed, that her happy husband
was not still in possession of all the advantages and charms of youth.
All affection for the ungrateful Henry seemed extinguished in her bosom,
and the good old Count enjoyed with her a much greater share of
happiness, than he had any reason to expect would have been the case.
Nor was her behaviour towards her husband alone praiseworthy: she
conducted herself on all occasions with so much discretion, and
displayed throughout such winning graces and enlarged benevolence, that
she became the object of universal respect, and was proposed as a model
to be admired and imitated by all the daughters of Helvetia.
In one point alone her prudence was in default. There was an individual
in the Castle of Torrenburg, whose influence with her husband was
omnipotent; but for whom she felt an aversion so insurmountable, that
scarcely could she endure him in her presence; and whom she was rash
enough to endeavour at removing, before she had examined whether her
strength was equal to the undertaking, and whether this offence offered
to the antient household gods, might not draw down some heavy punishment
upon her own unsuspecting head.
This detested and persecuted object of Elizabeth’s efforts was no other,
than the keeper of all the consciences in the Castle of Torrenburg, was
no other than the devout Father Hilarius! She was not aware, that it was
to him and his saints, that she was chiefly indebted for the illustrious
title which she bore, and the splendid station which she occupied.
Perhaps, even had she been conscious of her obligation, she would have
but little approved of the crooked paths, by which the Friar had
contrived to conduct her to her elevated situation.
In fulfilment of his vow, Count Frederick had recompensed the
patron-saints of his two clerical allies most liberally for the
possession of his adored Elizabeth. The chaplain of Castle-March (whose
only capital fault was avarice) was well contented with the reward of
his exertions: not so was Hilarius! He had formed far greater plans, and
indulged more glorious expectations. He had made no sort of doubt, that
he should gain no less a share of the wife’s confidence, than he already
possest of the husband’s. Instead of this, he obtained from her nothing
but aversion and contempt; and from the moment of his being convinced,
that such were her sentiments towards him, fury took entire possession
of his misanthropic heart, and he brooded day and night over plans of
swift-coming vengeance.
His disappointment in the present was greatly embittered by his
foreseeing the failure of all those hopes, which he had long grounded
upon the future. Much time had not elapsed since his marriage, when the
superannuated Frederick communicated to the chaplain in confidence
certain dispositions of his estates after his death, which could not
fail to be highly disagreeable to the avaricious Monk. Every day more
fascinated by the perfections of his beautiful wife, the Count tortured
himself to discover some means, by which he might express in the most
striking manner his gratitude to her, whose attentions shed a gleam of
such bright sunshine over the evening of his closing life. He secretly
bequeathed to her every thing, which it was possible for him to give,
without entirely laying aside all justice to the young Countesses of
Werdenberg: since much as he held himself insulted by their late
conduct, still he was too generous to deprive them of any thing, to
which the name which they bore could enable them to advance the claims
of justice.
His confessor was initiated into all these mysteries. Scarcely while he
listened to them, could Hilarius restrain his rage within the bounds of
decency. He saw all the fond hopes, which he had built upon Frederick’s
want of heirs and attachment to the church and its servants, destroyed
at one blow; and he gnashed his teeth for spite to think, that it was
out of his power to prevent the Count’s benevolent intentions towards
his wife from being carried into immediate and complete effect.
As for Elizabeth, she was entirely ignorant of those weighty proofs of
his affection, which Count Frederick designed for her after his decease.
She was equally ignorant of the spite and envy, which this large bequest
had excited against her in one of the most malignant of human hearts.
She continued to proceed in her straight-forward benevolent course
without turning to the right or to the left: she treated her decrepit
husband with unabated kindness and attention unwearied; and she denied
herself no opportunity of convincing Hilarius, that he was the object of
her fixed aversion, and that she was decidedly bent on procuring sooner
or later his expulsion from the Castle of Torrenburg.
Oh! that she had carried that design into execution before one of the
basest attempts, that ever was plotted by a villain’s brain, was ripe
enough for action! Yet perhaps the will of Heaven ordained, that this
plan should be suffered to ripen, in order that it might effect the
overthrow of its guilty author, and exhibit the merits of the noble lady
of the Castle in the fullest blaze of all their purity and lustre!
Oh! generous Elizabeth! you for whom I write, and for whom I trust, that
I have not written in vain! Is it permitted me to relate your own
glorious actions to yourself? Yet why do I hesitate?—She, who (I doubt
not) while perusing these leaves has not hesitated to bestow many a tear
of compassion on the undeserved sorrows, many a tribute of admiration on
the heroic patience, many an expression of delight and gratitude at the
fortunate escape, of those whom she calls—“_her enemies_,”—surely _she_
need not avert her eyes, while my faithful hand places her before the
glass, in which she may behold the reflection of her own excellence! She
knows well, that I am no flatterer. I have not concealed from her, that
she is proud, rash, not disinclined to resentment for injuries, and
obstinate in adhering to her determinations, however inconsiderately
those determinations may have been formed. But neither will I conceal,
that I know her to be generous, benevolent, courageous, resolute,
disinterested; an avowed enemy of vice, however fascinating be the shape
which it assumes; an enthusiastic adorer of virtue, however humble be
the station which it occupies, however lowly be the habit which it
wears. Such is the faint portrait of her, whom future historians will
paint in far more brilliant colours; such is the portrait of Elizabeth
of Torrenburg!
Hilarius had long been secretly connected with a society of
mountaineers, who (by means of the private entrance to the
Donat-Fortress) might be reckoned the Count’s nearest neighbours. The
precise nature of this union between the Monk and the Banditti belongs
to the secret history of these miscreants, in which we are not
sufficiently well instructed to authorize our giving any account of it
in these memoirs. Let it suffice, that the union was a very close one;
perhaps, it was a long-established custom for the robbers to connect
themselves with some ecclesiastic, in memory of the original founder of
their society, the celebrated Abbot Luprian. Alas! it is a very painful
task for me, myself an ecclesiastic, the successor of that Abbot
Luprian, the cotemporary of this Monk Hilarius, to point out the stains,
with which the vices of individuals have polluted the sacred habit!—Yet
it is essential, that the whole truth should be laid before Elizabeth’s
eyes, and I will not hesitate to perform my duty to the full.
The avarice of Hilarius was insatiable. The custody of that deserted
quarter of the Count’s residence, which was now only known by the name
of the Donat-Fortress, was intrusted to him; nothing could be more
convenient for the robbers than such a retreat, where they could either
take refuge, when the pursuit after them was too hot to admit of their
venturing back to their valley; or where they could remain concealed and
unsuspected of being in the neighbourhood, till the precise moment
should arrive for executing their plans of devastation with the most
complete success. Accordingly, no sum appeared to them to counterbalance
the value of such a refuge; and Hilarius annually received an immense
tribute for allowing them the use of the subterraneous passage, and also
of such of the apartments of the Donat-Fortress, as were best adapted to
their purposes and profession. Here they had a well-appointed armoury;
here they deposited their prey, till circumstances admitted of its
removal to the valley; and here (among many other precautions for their
safety) they had not neglected to lay in a large stock of provisions,
and above all several hogsheads of the best old Rhenish wine.
But though they did not neglect any occasion of increasing their wealth
by the plunder of passengers and of the country at large, still there
was one vast undertaking, which lay most at the hearts of _the Warriors
of the Mountains_; for that was the title, by which the free-booters
preferred being distinguished.—Of this undertaking Hilarius was the
original suggestor, and without his aid they were well aware, that it
never could be carried into execution. The object of it was nothing
less, than to put the Warriors of the Mountains in possession of the
whole domains of the Count of Torrenburg, with the exception of such
parts as his pious enthusiasm should have induced him to bequeath to the
Convent, of which Hilarius was a worthy member. The plans were so well
arranged, that nothing could seem more improbable than a failure:
nothing indeed prevented their having been already carried into
execution except the immoderate price, which Hilarius demanded in
recompense of his services.