_SCENE ONE--A grassy ledge far up on the mountain side. Tall
pine trunks rise here and there. Down the slope, to the
left, are russet tops of small oaks newly leaved. To the
right, a rocky acclivity of about thirty degrees elevation
with scattered bushes and a sheep path winding back and up.
In the distance, a blue range of mountains with their bases
buried in the white mists of early morning._
_Some distance back from where the path comes down upon
the ledge, Conrad is broiling woodcocks on coals. Brown
feathers are sprinkled about upon the turf. Upon a rock
near by lies a well-filled hunting bag. Fritz, with his
face to the fire, is reclining upon the grass with a_
_shepherd's staff in his hands. From down the slope, comes_
_a tinkle of bells as of sheep browsing on the mountain side._
_TIME--Two days later._
FRITZ--I was with Canzler when the boy climbed up
Among the rocks and handed it to him.
CONRAD--What does it look like?
FRITZ-- It's as long as that,
(_Indicating on his staff._)
And blue as the waters of the tarn down there.
Upon the haft are wrought two eagles' heads
And, twisted round the blade in coil on coil,
A serpent in the talons of the birds
Forms the cross piece upon the lower haft.
On the blade between the coils what may be runes
Are cut in characters of some unknown tongue;
At least, no man has ever made them out.
CONRAD--Where could the boy have gotten it?
FRITZ-- No one knows.
Turn the bird over.
CONRAD-- It is not brown yet.
FRITZ--There is something magical about it all.
In the light, the blade bends like a willow wand,
But when the sky is overcast with clouds
Or in the shade of rock or tree no man
With all his might can bend it, and it slips
Through tree and rock as through a pawpaw leaf.
CONRAD--The boy himself, what did he say?
FRITZ-- He vanished.
CONRAD-- Eh?
FRITZ--When Canzler turned to ask him, he was gone.
CONRAD--And have you seen him since?
FRITZ-- Where is your bread?
CONRAD--I have some here. (_He reaches up into the bag._)
Has no one seen him since?
FRITZ--He was out on the mountains every day
Before, either by the abbey over there
Or climbing in the vines above the tarn,
But always in the shade of rock or tree.
When he crossed spaces where the sunlight fell
'Twas always in the shadow of a cloud.
No one has seen him since he disappeared.
CONRAD-- (_Laying the bread upon the grass._)
You know the song that Wiglaf used to sing,
Of how Val-father wanders over the earth
In human form--
FRITZ-- That is what Rudolph says;
Val-father turns his dark side to the earth.
CONRAD--And leaves swords sticking in the rock and trees.
FRITZ--Rudolph insists that Oswald will return.
He says that Selma learned it from the trees.
She listens in the forest all day long
And when the wind is loud and the boughs sway--
CONRAD--How could he ever find us here?
FRITZ-- I see
How that could be; Woden knows where we are,
And where he turns his face the way is clear.
CONRAD--Oswald has turned his back on Woden's face.
FRITZ--Blind Hoder wandered once as far as Hell,
And he came back, for Woden in his mind
Directed him and--Here comes Canzler now.
CONRAD--Is that the sword.
FRITZ-- Yes.
CONRAD-- What was that he said?
FRITZ--He must be going down to see the priest.
(_With the sword at his side and wearing a cap
made of a wild-cat's skin, its head upon his
head and the rest of the skin hanging down
his back, Canzler comes down the sheep path,
followed by Rudolph._)
CANZLER--More than two years have passed and not a word
Was ever said to throw the claim in doubt;
But now that Hartzel is about to die
They think to get the whole tract for the Church,
Upon the ground that he who sold the land
To Hartzel was apostate to their Faith.
RUDOLPH--They don't deny that the man owned the land?
CANZLER--He owned the land till he disowned the Faith
And by that act he dispossessed himself,
And then, they say, the land reverted to God.
RUDOLPH--And Hartzel's money, to whom does it revert?
CANZLER--That is a matter between infidels,
And proves, when they rob one another so,
There is no honesty outside the Faith.
RUDOLPH--The man that sold the land robbed Hartzel, eh?
CANZLER--If knavery is all outside the Faith.
CONRAD--Will you men have some breakfast?
RUDOLPH-- And did they
Tell Hartzel on what ground they had seized his land?
CANZLER--"All land is God's, and pagans have no right
To own it," was the answer that he got.
That was a month ago, though. When they found
That the wind passed and still the fruit hung on,
Thinking perhaps 'twould fall of its own weight.
They waited until yesterday and then
Unexpectedly they bumped the tree.
Hartzel should hold possession during life--
He is about to die--and at his death
The Church should take the burden of the estate
From his dead shoulders, and carry it without charge
And with it save his soul from Hell.
RUDOLPH-- And save
His children--?
CANZLER-- From the path that leads to Hell.
RUDOLPH--Is that their proposition?
CANZLER-- That is it.
The old man in despair appealed to me.
RUDOLPH--What are you going to tell them, Canzler?
CANZLER--What am I going to tell them? Tell them what
Val-father tells the mountains, tells the rocks,
The trees, the beasts, the birds, all things that live.
Woden, who made all things, made each to be
Different from the rest. He made the oak
To bear its acorns and the pine its cones.
The mole to burrow and the fox to run,
The eagle to hatch her brood upon the crag
Under the sun, the bat, in the dark cave.
The ox to eat grass, and the lion flesh,
And each to go its own particular way
Upon a path as separate and clear
As are the curves and risings of the stars.
(_Fritz and Conrad come forward._)
He made no bell to ring all things that live
To sameness in their lives or in their thought.
To keep them, as he made them, different,
He gave to each an individual taste
And matched the taste within with that without
Which, when the two meet, the result is joy.
Joy is the voice of each thing as it moves
Toward Woden on the path that he laid out.
The eagle finds its way without a guide
To Woden, and the stars without a guide,
Each in its own light, and all things that live,
From the blind worm to the all-seeing sun,
Follow their joy and come at last to him.
The eagle's right to go the eagle's way
Is not conditioned by another thing
Save by the fact alone that it is so:
That Woden gave to it an eagle's wings.
And so with man. To what man has a right,
He has a right because he is a man
And not because he is a kind of man.
Val-father's bells have each a different tone.
You cannot make the million aisles that lead
To him one aisle and drive all things through that,
Or make the right of each to be and to have
Rest on its answering a particular bell.
If we admit their principle that Faith,
Or anything outside the fact that one
Is a man, is the basis of the rights of man,
We shame our Saxon fathers who fought and died
For a lie, if this be true. For when the South
Pushed through the Frankish forest with her sword
Between her teeth, and stained with blood, and held
Her hands out, saying, "Here, take this or this,"
Our fathers chose the darkness of the grave
From the red hand, and left the black hand filled
With that which now to keep itself alive
Eats Hartzel's land and licks its fangs toward us.
When the great night came on and they laid down
Under their battered shields and broken swords,
The trees have told us what their last word was:
"The northern air will kill the southern lie;
Then we will come again. Remember this."
FRITZ--And here we are.
CANZLER-- It may not be dawn yet,
But some are up before the light.
FRITZ-- And all
The dead will rise when Balder comes.
RUDOLPH-- But now
Val-father has his dark side to the earth,
And works in his own shadow.
FRITZ-- But the dawn
Will reach down and lift Balder out of Hell.
CONRAD-- (_Drawing the sword from Canzler's belt._)
If we concede to every man the right,
As you say, Canzler, to his own belief,
We must concede to the villagers the right
To their belief that they own Hartzel's land.
CANZLER--We do concede it.
RUDOLPH-- Their right to their belief.
But not their right to Hartzel's land.
CANZLER-- With them
Men are God's vassals, and the land they hold,
They hold in fief to him, on terms of faith.
RUDOLPH--And while they keep the Faith, they keep the land.
FRITZ--And when they lose the Faith, they lose the land.
CONRAD-- (_Walking aside._)
And when they have no Faith, they have no land.
(_He tries to pierce with the sword a pine tree in
the sunlight._)
CANZLER--Try that one in the shade there.
(_The sword passes deeply into the second trunk._)
FRITZ-- Is it through?
CONRAD-- (_Looking behind the trunk._)
More than a hand's breadth.
FRITZ-- If the village dogs
Snap at you as they are wont to--
CANZLER-- I shall have
No trouble with them.
FRITZ-- And yet you expect
To tell them what you said just--
CANZLER-- I expect
Hartzel to have his rights. Fetch it here, Conrad.
RUDOLPH--The Bailiff, Canzler, is a rabid man.
CANZLER--I have no business with the Bailiff.
RUDOLPH-- Still,
To reach the church, you must pass through the street.
CANZLER--Is it too narrow for two men to pass?
(_He receives the sword and goes left._)
RUDOLPH--For two such men as you two are, it is.
FRITZ--With swords on thighs.
CONRAD-- (_Walking back toward the fire._)
The hilts might knock.
FRITZ--(_Following him._) Or blades.
VOICE OF SELMA-- (_Above._)
I'm going with you, Father!
CANZLER-- No, Selma;
You--
SELMA-- (_Who comes running down the path._)
Just to the dingle; the faries say
The heather-bells are out.
RUDOLPH-- Let her go, Canzler.
CANZLER--Throw the white blooms away.
SELMA-- (_Throwing away a sprig of dog-wood._)
Now may I go?