THE MOUNTAINS
Langler was a great preacher of France and French lucidity--when he was
in England, but in France itself he changed his tune, for nothing now
quite pleased him as we raced through the land--not the food, the
people, the language, the country--but all came under his criticism,
which, indeed, was mostly unuttered, but one felt when he was
criticising by a certain fastidiousness and thickening at the
cheek-bones, as if he tasted acid. At Charleville, where we found a
streaming town, one of the pilgrimages having just got there, the tone
of the _dévotes_ was specially distasteful to him; we saw a throng
kneeling in the twilight on some church-steps, everyone with a certain
beggar-like languishing of the eye-whites--a very Latin thing--which
Langler called "sick-saintly." But he was ever out of joint with the
age, had flinched from its paganism before the miracles, as now he
flinched from its piety. "We are such hapless Midases," he said:
"whatever we happen to touch turns to iron." Swandale itself he found
wanting; he sighed for a rounder world. Now, piety was "_the rage_" in
France, and one day in France was quite long enough to turn Langler
qualmish against the words "male and female Christian," ever chattered
everywhere. At Charleville, when we returned to our hotel from our
stroll, a lively little maid with flaxen curls would have us look at her
first-communion veil, her paroissien, and suchlike pious gems, remarking
meanwhile: "is it not soft and nice, sir, to be a female
Christian--n'est-ce pas, monsieur, que c'est doux et bon d'être
crétienne?" To which Langler replied: "I only hope so: moi je suis
crétien."
Being very weary that first night we slept till two A.M., when we set
out afresh on the car road over the suspension-bridge through Mézières,
under a dark sky most bright with stars. Our trim little chauffeur,
whose name was Hanska, was a "rager,"; but this mode of flight was never
to Langler's taste, and we had meant to travel on rails, till the sight
of Baron Kolár on the Channel-boat had caused me to know that the
rail-train would be much too slow. We had lost sight of the baron at
Calais, but near noon of the second day, when we were shooting some
miles well on past Sedan, a trumpet hooted behind, and there churned
upon us a large chariot travelling urgently. It must have been very
swift, for we were swift, but it rolled pressingly past us, showed its
hind wheels, and travelled on out of our sight. Through the dust I saw
in it Baron Kolár and his two friends.
"Baron Kolár means to be in Styria before us, Aubrey," I said.
"In which case, what is the good of our going on?" asked Langler.
"We are going to investigate some facts," said I: "no one can stop us in
that, unless they kill us; in any case, we have it to do to the end:
your sister's eyes are upon us."
"God's," said he. "On we must, I know; I only question whether we are on
the road to accomplish any real good: I hope so, God grant it; but it is
a world like those jointed marionettes which, however you tug them
straight, stick out crudely somewhere; its piety and its impiety both
curve the lips of the gods. But let us hope that we shall accomplish
something, if only for our poor prisoner."
Well, on we went, hardly knowing toward what: but our object after much
talk had turned out to be threefold--(1) to find out whether there was
really a prisoner Father Max Dees in Baron Kolár's castle of
Schweinstein; (2) to present ourselves with this _fact_ to the
authorities, and so force the release of Dees; (3) to interview the
released Dees, and then give to the world whatever he might have to
divulge of a design against churchmen. And chance favoured us to a
wonderful extent that day between Sedan and Metz, for not fifteen
minutes after Baron Kolár's chariot had vanished ahead we came anew upon
it standing still by the roadside, its occupants standing and prying
round it. As we flew past them I cried to Langler: "they can't repair,
and are miles from anywhere: are bound to lose a day!" nor from that
moment, I think, did we waste ten minutes bootlessly, till we were
climbing the country at the mountain-foot. One morning early I woke in a
village-room, and peeping out from my window saw the village-street
bounded by a wall and some trees; beyond the trees the froths and
freshes of a shallow river lacerated with rocks; beyond the river a
mountain-side with a crucifix on it, a world of mountains; and grouped
about the crucifix the kind of grey goats whose wool had been used by
Dees to tie his tidings round the wren's leg; and I said to myself: "we
have arrived." What a charm was in that place that morning surpasses
expression; it appeared to me the haven of the world; the morning-star
was awane in the heavens; and I had the thought: "how well to have been
born in here, and to have housed here always in peace!" It was a
breathing-space to me, till the burden that was ours darkened down anew
upon my mind with its weight of care and doubt. As to where Baron Kolár
might be we had no idea, having seen nothing of him since his breakdown
near Metz.
My own hostess--Langler had slept in another cottage--had a son named
Piast whom she offered to me as guide, upon which this conversation took
place between us: "does Piast know the alp well?" "Kiss the hand, sir,
he is a Slovene." "But is he to be depended upon as a guide?" "He is a
Slovene, sir." "Yes, but does he know the best way to Schweinstein?"
"Sir, he is a Slovene." She herself was a heavy Slav woman, but as our
Piast looked a brave wight we took him, and began to climb through
higher valleys now and a wilder world. I knew Switzerland very well, but
this was different somehow--a heavier eventide of wood and wonderland of
solitude, for I think that Upper Styria must be about the loneliest of
lands. We travelled up beside one river (with banks of slime, and
forested cliff on either hand) which had a mood of millions of years
gone, before man or brute was; yet the wild goat bounded on the crag,
the boar slouched in the black of the bush. At noon we stopped at a
sennhaus (cow-farm) on the banks of a mountain-tarn, and here, to my
surprise, it got into Langler's head to bathe. "But can we spare the
_time_?" I asked him. "Too cold, too cold," said our host the
cow-keeper, with a shake of the head, for though the day was warm, we
were now at an elevation where oak and ash were giving place to black
fir and yew. But Langler would bathe, the water looked so nice, and as I
knew that he could not swim, and was afraid that the bottom might be
deceptive, I made up my mind to go in first, to try it. Our cow-keeper
lent us two old knee-breeches, for the wagon with our luggage was down
behind, and there we cowered by the shore, Langler with knives in the
flesh because of the sennerin's eyes on his back, for she and three
children stood in a crowd up at the sennhaus door to watch us. Well, I
chose a spot, and plunged in: and the instant I was under, as it were a
thousand whispers were about me urging me to be out. It was too cold for
man, with a certain great gloom of cold, and I was no sooner in than I
was out again. Understanding now that it would hardly do for Langler
with his panting heart, I prayed him not to try it; but his honour, I
suppose, was now at stake--he had ever a large share of what one may
call physical courage--and in he stepped. However, he did not plunge,
but almost at once came out gasping, and seeing his left foot dyed with
blood, I knew that something had gashed it.
On the whole, we had no sort of right in that water, since time might be
so dear to us: but so it happened; Langler's gash proved grave, for he
could not put on his boot, so after our good sennerin had bandaged it up
there we sat for hours before the longish shed which was the sennhaus,
drinking goat's milk, smoking porcelain pipes, and looking toward the
summer snow on the top of high Hochgolling.
"Pity we ever went into the water," said Langler as we sat there
disabled and the afternoon sun sank low: "we have lost a day, and
through me, I'm afraid."
"Bad luck," said I, "not your fault."
"We are such tools of Nature!" said he. "Men rage of their 'power' over
Her, but what of Her unperturbed reign over and in _them_? We should now
be at Schweinstein, yet here we are, the truth being that new lands
induce a vagueness and vagabondage in the mind, so hypnotising it that
one's own concerns seem paltry in comparison with the mass and pageant
of Nature, and irrelevant to her mood; whereupon 'I am here' grows so
uppermost in the mind as to strangle 'why am I here?' However, I think
that the foot is now fast healing."
"Then we may be able to get on to-night," said I. "But who is that man
talking so earnestly to our Piast? He was here an hour ago, went away,
and now is back again."
"I have observed it," said he; "they are at this moment discussing us."
"Are they?"
"Yes, they are talking near the cascade, and louder than they think, for
I have twice heard 'die Herren,' and presently you will see them glance
this way."
"But do you suspect Piast at all?"
"I doubt if he is quite trusty and good."
"Then let us not go one step farther with him."
"But we have the charts, he can't lead us far astray; nor can we allow
ourselves to judge him on a mere suspicion."
I said no more, but felt uneasy. Soon afterwards I left Langler
outside, went up the (external) steps into the middle room of the
sennhaus, and sat by the wheel where the sennerin was spinning flax; she
looked homely and good with her thick waist and calves and dress of
opera-bouffe, so I entered into talk with her, asking her first what had
been the effect of the miracles in the alp. "Kiss the hand, sir!" she
said, and she smiled as she told me that "the good people of the alp
must work hard to keep body and soul together, without troubling the
head about such matters. That is not all gold what glances."
I was astonished! The thought came into my mind, "here is Ambrose Rivers
in the Noric Alps," for, except Rivers and this woman, I had heard of no
one who thus lightly threw off the miracles. "But surely," said I, "such
high events!" She sighed, saying: "ah, dear Heaven, those on the alp had
their miracle six long years ago, and that was enough of miracles, it
seems to me, with great cry and little wool." "Six years ago? a
miracle?" said I. "Yes, sir; but let each sweep before her own
door"--another proverb, and a strong one apparently, for nothing further
could I get from her as to this miracle of six years before.
I then, for the first time in Styria, spoke of Max Dees. "My friend and
I," I said, "are here to visit the Pater Max Dees: do you--know him?"
Again she smiled, saying: "my man did frohn-arbeit on his
buckwheat-field for three years"--(this "frohn-arbeit" being, as she
explained it, a kind of church-due paid in day-labour). "So you know the
Pater well?" I asked. With the same half-a-smile, she answered: "I
_knew_ him." "But isn't he still in the alp, then?" "Not at the church,
sir." "Which church?" "St Photini's in the castle-court." "Oh, he is not
still the priest at St Photini's, so perhaps my friend and I have taken
a voyage in vain. Who, then, is now the priest there?" "There is no
priest," said she; "even if there were, we of this church-parish should
no longer plod to his church, since it is work enough to keep body and
soul together; for burials a priest rides up from Badsögl; but St
Photini's has been shut up near five years--before the birth of the
little sugar-corn Käthchen, in fact."
"But that is strange!" said I. "To whom does St Photini's belong?"
"All this alp, one might say, belongs to the baron, sir."
"All? He must be enormously rich and powerful!"
"Gold makes old, sir; but the baron is not believed to be rich, not as
some of the great landowners are, for glaciers and precipices make no
man rich, and the most of his land is forest, with some flax, beet, and
then the pastures; his lordship has also a share in the glass factory a
mile up."
"So he is not very rich, the baron? But is he powerful? much feared in
the alp?"
"Ah, dear Heaven, he is very much feared, and very much loved, and very
much pitied, by all."
"Pitied? Baron Kolár?"
"Ah, dear Heaven, yes: for nothing less than a very great wrong was done
to his lordship by one in whom he had trust. They say 'one love is worth
the other'; but unthankfulness is ever the world's repayment."
"But what was this great wrong done to his lordship?"
She sighed, and answered: "end good, all good; it is a long story, sir";
nor was there any overcoming her reserves when she chose to be silent.
"But that is strange," said I, "that St Photini's should be shut
up--five years! To what church, then, do you--go?"
"We go to none, since the body is more real than the soul. There is a
little Roman church down there in Speisendorf, but no one goes to it
since the miracle of six years ago; those of the alp once went to St
Photini's, but St Photini's is of the Oriental Greek Church, and the
Pater Max Dees was an Oriental Greek priest." "_Was?_" said I, "but is
the good Pater no longer alive?" "Who knows?" said she. "You do; tell
me," said I. "But I do not know, sir, truly! perhaps the baron himself
could impart to you that information." "But where is the baron?" I
asked, "in the duchy, do you know?" "The baron is at the burg, sir."
"Baron Kolár at Schweinstein! When did he arrive?" "Late last night, I
believe," she answered.
"Strange," I thought, "that we have heard nothing of it, though we have
questioned so many people"; and wondering if he had come in a
clandestine manner, or by another route than ours, I hurried out to give
Langler the news. In telling him, I saw the cow-man trotting toward the
tarn under a load of wurzels, so I called him to us, and asked why he
had told us that the baron was _not_ at the castle. "Kiss the hand,
sirs!" he said, and answered with a blank air, "but this is strange! is
the baron at the castle? and is it the little woman who has told you
this? she must have seen it in a dream"----and he peered sourly up into
the room where the spinning-wheel sounded. Turning to Langler, I asked
him how the foot was going, for I felt that it would be well to make a
move; "you see I have on the boot," was his reply, "I can walk quite
well"; and within some minutes we had started, for eventide was falling,
and we had to get to a sort of guest-court three miles higher. We had
sent the horses back down to Speisendorf, our farther route being rough
for night-travelling; and with our Piast stepping out ahead in his
coloured home-spuns, we tramped toward the bourn where beds and the
trunks awaited us. It had turned bleak now, the fuffs of the
mountain-winds began to tune-up and fife, the gloom deepened toward
night. I confess that I felt afraid, I hardly knew of what, but the mood
of the mountains was undoubtedly morose and dark. When I asked the lad
if he had heard the news that his lordship had arrived he looked
foolish, and said no, he had not heard. We passed by rude altars decked
with gauds, by crucifixes on the crags, and a mile from the sennhaus
reached a river all shut in by ravines, up the banks of which we wound,
till, after about an hour and a half of continuous walking, we came to
some lock-gates, and then, in an opening in the cliff-wall, to a
factory, which Piast said was a glass-factory, and I remember wondering
where the hands could come from to work it; a little higher was a
mill-wheel and other lock-gates, and thenceforward unbroken lines of
cliff, walling-in the river. I had known that we should have to journey
up this or some such river, so had no fear that we were being jockeyed;
yet I felt like one lost, for by this time we could hardly see our hand
before our eyes, the winds waged their business in many a strange
tongue, and my knowledge that Langler was limping made me the more
anxious to come at shelter. As usual in such a case, we were stricken
rather silent, plodding on in patience for the journey to be over and
for a light to arise before us. And in front of us stepped our Piast.
But at one place when I called out "Piast!" to ask him something, I got
no answer; whereupon we both stopped, we called and called, but Piast
was gone.
"Well, we seem to be abandoned," Langler said.
At the same moment I called out sharply: "but do you feel your feet
wet?"
"Yes," said he, "I do. The river seems to be rising."
As he spoke I was already wet above the ankles, for not only was the
river rising, but so very fast, that I understood that this was no tidal
rising, but must be due to some other cause. Langler too understood, for
he now said: "the lock-gates have apparently been closed."
"Purposely to drown us, Aubrey?" I cried.
"Well, the timely flight of Piast seems to indicate as much," he
answered with astonishing composure, to judge from his voice, for he was
merely a voice, since I could only just divine his presence with my
eyes, and I heard the water welter directly upon the cliff-wall, and
felt it at my knees.
"But what are we to do?" I cried.
"What can we do?" said he, "except bear our lot with fortitude."
"But we shall be drowned!"
"Well, so it seems," said he. "I personally never hoped to get through
this adventure."
The water, working actively up, had won to my middle, striking very
cold; and that cold, together with my forlornness in that wild, made my
death the more awful to me. I tried once, and only once, to climb the
cliff-wall; but I could not lift myself a foot, and thenceforth, as in a
glass, I saw that there was no escape. A mile or so lower down was a
water-mill, where the gorge opened somewhat, and thereabouts we might
have got out of the trap (provided that we could climb the lock-gates);
but, as Langler said, long before we could get to the gates the water
would be over our heads; he could not swim; nor did I mean to leave him
before he drowned in any hope of saving myself by swimming, since I knew
that I should very soon perish of cold.
Only one thought, and with it a hope, if it can be called a hope,
occurred within me, and I said to Langler: "but which way did Piast
escape? it must have been forward: let us move forward...." and we did
so, walking on a bottom of grass and slime, I in front with a grip on
Langler's sleeve, and the water at our breasts. But it was slow going,
and still the wall of rock was with us, so we did not go far, but stood
still again near together, and I heard Langler's breaths looser than the
puffs of the wind, and more burdened: a rather horrid sound in my
memory.
"Well, Aubrey," I panted, with my hand on his shoulder.
His jaws chattered: he could make no answer.
It was about then that a light from, say, forty feet above streamed down
comet-wise upon us that must have come from an electric dark-lantern,
for, on looking up, I could see nothing save the dazzlement, though I
have now an impression, too, of the hoofs of a horse on the cliff-edge:
and a voice was shouting to us.
"There is," it cried--_in English_--and stopped; or I may be mistaken,
but I am privately convinced that I did hear those two English words,
though Langler did not.
"There is," it cried in German, "a stair in the rock twenty metres
below"--and at once the light vanished.
We had walked past "the stair"! nor was there any chance that we should
ever have found it, though so near; a stair it was not, but a few jags
notched out of a slanting slip of the cliff. However, we found them, we
contrived to climb to the top: but no one was any longer there when we
got to it.
What followed for us that night was almost as baleful as what we had
evaded: we were abroad hour after hour in an alpine storm, miners in the
colliery of the night, sometimes standing still, dreading to take a
step; indeed, it is strange that we were not many times dashed to death,
for one could not see the mountains, nor the ground, nor the sky on
high, all on all hands was swallowed up in awe, the heart failed at the
great rivers of grief which the deluges of wind poured through the
forests. It must have been long past midnight when, by a feat of luck,
we hit upon a hut in which was one poor woman, living that hermit-life
which they call almen-leben, with a few kine only for companions; she
took us in, and succoured us; and with such greed did we eat out and
still eat out this good Gretel's larder that our griefs ended in
laughter.
When at last we were lying wrapped in blankets in a gloom beshone by a
blush from the stove, I whispered to Langler: "did you hear the '_there
is_' in English from the cliff?" "No," said he, "I think not." "But was
not the voice at all familiar?" "I thought, Arthur, that it resembled
Baron Kolár's." "So did I," I said.
Outside the winds worked, venting brokenly and gruff like breakers of
oceans thundering on unearthly shores, while for some time I lay too
fore-done to sleep, pondering the wonder of that voice in the night. If
it was truly Baron Kolár's--I am still not sure of it!--what, I asked
myself, could be his motive? Had he merely wished to prove to us his
absolute power over our lives? Or had this terrible man meant to destroy
us, but relented in the midst? I oftentimes think that he had a liking
for Langler.... But I could not solve the riddle, and before long was
asleep.