Part 19

"Here is something; look!" Klaus cried suddenly. They discovered two straws fastened together, and near them the bow made from the pine-bough. On the bushes of the cliff hung a number of torn and broken straws, and below, in the depths of the abyss--in the depths of the abyss lay the old man.

His head was crushed; in his left hand he rigidly held the branch of an Alpine rose-bush. Over his right hand the water was trickling.

So they found him. Who could tell how he came to his death? Perhaps he was searching up there for the gold of the Alpine glow, with which to make himself a new harp, and while doing this, the poor old man had plunged over the cliff into the defile below. While falling, he had evidently tried to hold himself by the rose-bush, and the branch, with its one brilliant blossom, had remained in his hand.--Thus ended the life of the forest singer.

On this Corpus Christi festival we laid him in the ground. There were not many people present. But the birds in the tree-tops sang a melodious slumber song to their brother.

No one in the Winkel forests seemed so poor as this man, and yet no one was so rich. The all-powerful, mysterious, sacred gift of folk-song found its embodiment in this strange being.

Upon Father Paul's grave stands a cross, made from the wood of an ancient pine. Upon the singer's mound I plant a young, living tree.

JULY, 1832.

We are having trouble with Kropfjodel's two boys. They refuse to remain in the Alm hut, insisting that in the night they hear a ceaseless rapping and gnawing upon the hay-mow. Even though it is mid-summer, Kropfjodel is obliged to close the hut and drive down the herd. Veit will no longer wash himself at a spring. He sees in every brook drops of blood, which cling reproachfully to his hands--the same hands which destroyed the old man's harp.

AUTUMN, 1834.

The school has been closed for a few weeks. The children are assisting at the harvest; this has ripened late and must now be garnered before the frosts. The rocky heights are already covered with snow.

I should like once more to climb the Graue Zahn that I might look out over the world. I am living a very retired and solitary life. The old people have died; the younger ones I have educated, but not to be my companions. I am their instructor, but now they desert me, and when, old and grey, I shall sit upon my lonely bench, they will consider my solitude the natural lot of a schoolmaster.

The new priest is a young man, who is better suited to the people; he enters into the sports in the tavern and the bowling-alley. When ordering the new prayer-book from the capital, a short time ago, he also sent for some playing-cards.

Lazarus and his wife Juliana have become owners of the Grassteiger inn; they carry on the business, and sell tobacco and all kinds of trifles. They also keep cloths of foreign manufacture, for there are those in the parish who, no longer content with fustian and ticking jackets, wish to have something especially fine to wear; just for the novelty of it, they say. But I notice this desire soon receives another name.

As in former times, bailiffs occasionally roam about in our woods looking for smugglers and deserters.

SUMMER, 1835.

I relate these things only to the patient leaves of my journal; they will remember the events longer than I, or than all Winkelsteg. I have come to look upon it as a duty to record our fortunes. Other generations will follow who should know our history.

We are sometimes visited by hail-storms and inundations which destroy the harvests, interrupting for years the struggling peasants in the development of their prosperity.

It has happened again this year. The people are now drying straw and bringing it to the mills--there are a half dozen of them in the valley--and this will be the bread for the winter.

In _my_ life there are no storms and there is no sunshine. But at all events I intend to have my spring and my summer, for I have now added a contrivance to my clock. I have taken out the metal bells from the striking-apparatus and made instead, out of a spring and two bits of wood, something which every hour imitates the call of a quail. In this region the bird is rarely heard, but in my room it is now summer at all seasons. The children and I are enjoying it greatly.

Over in the Holdenschlag defile through which a road has been recently constructed, on the borderline of the Winkelsteg parish, the peasants have set up a _weather-cross_. It has triple cross-bars, with carvings representing the instruments of our Lord's martyrdom, and is reverently regarded as a protection against inclement weather. The aged Schwamelfuchs says, however, that it is more harmful than useful; it prevents the storms, which all have their origin on the Zahn, from proceeding farther, consequently they descend upon Winkelsteg.

As a result of this remark, the peasants have torn down the cross. To offset this the Holdenschlagers have built a similar one near the same place, that the storms may be confined here and not reach their fields.

Now the Winkelstegers are doubly embarrassed, and I, their schoolmaster, with them.

Notwithstanding all my teaching, I have been unable to destroy the superstitions bred under these felt hats. Teaching school is a hard enough life, although I seem to spend much of my time in idleness. What a change from those first years when we founded the parish! There remains enough to be done, but the old priest is dead, and the new one ignores me.

I am not yet so advanced in years and I am still at work. I teach a few hours, rule the writing-books, cut the pens, split a little kindling-wood, and perform a number of small duties in the church; this fills neither my time nor my thoughts.

I spend many sleepless nights, and while lying idly in my bed, I am haunted by maddening memories--old times, delicate blooming faces and deathly pale ones. And then I hear a voice saying: "Thou hast mistaken thy way; thou mightest have lived in splendour and happiness." ... I spring from my couch, tear the violin from the wall and scrape the strings that the ghosts may disappear.

And the strings whisper comforting words, telling me that I may be content, I have had the happiness to work profitably for the common weal, to strive constantly for the perfection of my own character. I am surrounded by the glory of nature, and I have learned to know the minds of great men through my books, and I shall still achieve much, according to my strength, and then, content, close my eyes.

*WALDLILIE IN THE LAKE*

FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION, 1835.

An unexpected event has recently occurred.

A few days ago I received a letter from my former pupil, our present master.

Hermann wrote that he had used the herbs, which I had sent him from the wood-cutter, and since then the condition of his health was somewhat improved. This had suggested to him the advisability of visiting the mountains, with which he was not yet acquainted, and of spending a few days here in the mild early autumn. His intention would be to travel alone, for people, especially those of the city, were unspeakably repulsive to him, that being probably a peculiarity of his nervous state, which he was unable to overcome. Weary of the world, he wished to seek restoration in the wilderness and in the primeval freshness of the Alps. He still remembered me, his former tutor, as well as my services in the Winkel forests, and he begged me to be his guide in the mountains and on a certain day to meet him in the village of Grabenegg.

Grabenegg, a good day's journey from here, is not a village, but consists only of a few stone-cutters' huts which stand near the Ziller road and receive their name from the mountain defile which begins at this point.

On the day mentioned I arrived at the appointed place and there awaited the master of the forest, who also came as agreed, having driven over in a hired carriage. I then proceeded with him toward the high mountains. Hermann's appearance thoroughly alarmed me; I should not have recognised him, but he, on the contrary, at the first glance addressed me as Andreas. His greeting was polite, although the poor man showed plainly that he was surfeited with life.

The road extended as far as the rocky mountain-pass. Here Herr von Schrankenheim sent back the carriage and over the rough paths, trodden by the deer, we entered the wilderness, where, upon the heights, gleaming glaciers were lodged. My companion walked ahead, sometimes gloomily and defiantly, sometimes with the eagerness of the hunter on the track of the deer. I did not know where the man wished to go, or what he desired; he himself did not know. I was seized with anxiety lest we should not find shelter for the night, but on my communicating my fears to him, he burst into a laugh and strode onward.

Suddenly the idea occurred to me, what if I should be wandering with a lunatic! Had the Graue Zahn fallen at my feet, my heart could not have beaten more quickly than at this thought.

I begged and warned the Baron, but I was unable to stop him; he would pause only for a moment at the edge of the precipices, cast one glance into the abyss below and then hasten forward. His limbs trembled and great drops stood upon his forehead, as at last in the gathering twilight he fell exhausted beside a mountain spring.

In that hour I promised the dear God everything, everything if He would but lead us to a shelter. He heard my prayer. Not far from the spring, between the two walls of the defile, I discovered a hut, such as are erected by the chamois-hunters.

And under this roof, in the midst of the terrors of the wilderness, I made a fire and from moss and shrubs prepared a bed for the Baron.

We ate the food which we had brought with us and drank the water from the spring. When the meal was over, my companion leaned back against the mossy wall murmuring: "How refreshing! How refreshing!"

And after a while he looked at me and said: "Friend, I thank you for being with me. I am ill. But here I shall be healed. This is the water which the hunted deer drinks, is it not? I have led a wild life--very wild! I have found that man is not a toy! And now at last I have fortunately escaped the doctors. I have no desire to lie in a metallic coffin; it savours of pomp, of gold and silk, of artificial tears--_pfui_!"

To my relief he soon fell asleep. I watched the whole night, endeavouring to devise a means of taking the poor, sick man to some human habitation. We were in a remote place and, to reach Winkelsteg, we should be obliged to cross the mountains.

The next morning, after I had made a new fire and the sun was already shining through the chinks in the wall, the man awoke, and looking about him in astonishment, said: "Good-morning, Andreas!"

He then began to prepare for the journey.

"I wish to climb the high mountain which they call the Graue Zahn," he said; "I should like once to look down upon this world from a high place. Can you not accompany me and arrange to take one or two men with us? Have no anxiety on my account. Yesterday was a bad day. I wandered, restless and forlorn and without aim, through the wilderness, endeavouring to escape from myself as I had escaped from men in the world without. I was overcome with all the pain of my misery. But this air is healing me--oh, this pure, blessed air!"

On leaving the hut, we were obliged to shade our eyes with our hands, the light was so dazzling. The branches of the pines were a golden red and in the shadow of the thicket trembled dew-drops, which already reflected the sunlight through the trees. The birds were holding a jubilee and squirrels were frisking about looking for their mates and their breakfast. The dry leaves of a young beech were gently swaying in the mild morning air.

Hermann smiled and we proceeded on our way. A thin mist shimmered through the branches, and a cool breeze fanned our cheeks. Suddenly a flood of light filled the forest, and each tree stretched out its arms--silently and reverently pointing to a wonderful picture.

A peaceful lake lies at our feet, stretching far into the distance, blue, green, black--who can tell the colour? On the banks of the eastern side, the dark mountain forest, softly veiled in bright sunbeams, slopes upward from the grey, pebbly beach. On the opposite shore towers a massive wall of rock, behind which are piled crag upon crag, precipice upon precipice up to the highest peaks and cones and spires which pierce the blue sky above. The mountains, ever varying in form, stretch away in a great half circle, glorious beyond all description. Here below are grassy slopes dotted with tufts of juniper-bushes, green as velvet. In the distance are waterfalls, milk-white and slender as a thread, their roaring heard by no human ear, for the sound is lost in space; beyond on the mountain sides are rocky wastes and dry river-beds, each little stone clearly outlined in the crystalline air; farther on deep gorges, their dark recesses filled with snow; and above all tower the massive weather-beaten rocks, silent and sinister in their eternal repose.

An eagle soars into the blue ether: now like a black spot, now like a silvery leaf the bird circles about the rocky peaks. And on the distant heights, shining glaciers softly lean against the red gleaming sides of precipices, on which the chisel of Time is constantly cutting, engraving thereon the never-ending history and the inflexible laws of nature.

I see it still, see everything clear and distinct before my eyes,--the lake in the valley, above which towers the Graue Zahn.

I had already beheld similar scenes, nevertheless the glory of this one quite overcame me. But the Baron stood there like a statue. He gazed, absorbed in the endless picture; his trembling lips inhaled the air of the lake.

We then descended to the shady banks, where the water was splashing over the worn stones.

"This lake so smooth to-day, must be very wild at times," my companion remarked. "Just see how far up the precipice the stones have been washed smooth by the waves."

By these words I perceived that Hermann had an intelligent eye for nature. "Yes indeed, this lake can become a boisterous companion, although now it looks so mild and peaceful."

A remarkable incident then suddenly occurred. Below, where the bushes dipped into the lake, a human head emerged. The water dripped from the long, brown curls and blooming face. The neck and throat were somewhat sunburnt, but the softly moulded, undulating shoulders were like snow-white marble. A young, beautiful woman, a mermaid! _Mein Gott_, it was enough to make one a poet!

The Baron, being shorter-sighted than I, approached the apparition, and in the same moment the figure sank out of sight and the alders, swayed over the water as before.

Hermann gazed at me. I gazed into the lake, the surface of which moved in soft rings and bubbles and dark lines, here smooth as a mirror, yonder trembling and rippling. But the head of the maiden did not appear again. Several minutes elapsed while with a beating heart I looked for the bather, for who knew if she were able to swim, and the thought suddenly flashed through my mind: What if the girl out of modesty had sought a grave for herself beneath the waves!

After much anxiety and alarm I at last drew the unconscious child from the water. With our small experience, we finally restored her to life--to her life of seventeen years. And thereupon the shy creature, scarcely revived and having been clothed by our assistance, sprang to her feet and darted away through the forest, her fright giving her strength.

The Baron, holding his head with both hands, cried: "Andreas! my malady is returning; I have visions, I have seen a fairy!"

"That is no fairy," I answered; "it is the daughter of the wood-cutter who sent you the herbs."

It was Waldlilie.

A FEW DAYS LATER.

To-day the Baron rode away from Winkelsteg on Grassteiger's white horse.

Nothing came of the proposed ascent of the Zahn. After Waldlilie had escaped from us there by the lake, Hermann said to me: "My fate is sealed; I shall not climb the mountain. Take me to your Winkelsteg, Andreas."

And here he remained three days, inspecting our arrangements and drinking a great deal of our water. The people could hardly believe that he was the owner of the forest, and one old woman said that she expected the owner of the forest to wear a coat of gold, while this man's coat was only plain brown cloth. His face was an ashen grey, but under the pallor I discovered signs of vitality. I recently remarked that he was surfeited with life; now I believe he is hungry for life. He is in a very strange condition. Yesterday he sent for Berthold, that he might pay him for the herbs.

Old Rothbart died some time ago, so Berthold has now become forester and lives with his family in the Winkel-warden's house. In a few days the marriage ceremony of Berthold and Aga will be quietly celebrated in the church. The Baron has arranged it. This has made me very happy. Hermann has a thoroughly sound heart; a sick man could not act so promptly and with so much assurance. But he is a peculiar man notwithstanding. Before he left, he came to me in the schoolhouse and, drawing me down beside him on a bench, said: "Schoolmaster! She prized her maidenhood more than her life; could I have believed that such a woman existed on earth? The shameless coquettes who dwell in palaces, how recklessly have they played with me! You, Erdmann, have had the experience of looking up at the world from a lower station in life, have become acquainted with it and had your fill. I have viewed it from above, which is quite a different side, full of splendour and beauty, but as contemptible as the other. Nothing extraordinary has befallen me, Erdmann, I have merely lived and have been unhappy. I, too, belong to this forest--Andreas--I, too, belong here! But I must now return to my old father.... God forbid that I should take her with me! Happily she does not know the world. I leave her in your care, Schoolmaster. Should she feel the want of learning, then teach her; if not, then cherish and guard her as a wild-lily of the woods. And keep my secret, Schoolmaster. When I have recovered, I will come again."

By these significant words, having shown that a great change had taken place in his feelings, he rode away towards Holdenschlag on Grassteiger's horse, a workman from this place accompanying him.

Others would have been ruined by the kind of life our young master has led; it has made him a peculiar man. His deep nature has indeed been shaken, but not destroyed.

On the day of his departure, three search-warrants arrived, saying that the young Herr von Schrankenheim, who had long been suffering from melancholia, had strayed away and disappeared. He had probably gone to the mountains, for he had dressed himself like a mountain traveller. And then the clothing, as well as every detail concerning my dear pupil Hermann, was as minutely described as that of an escaped convict. It is all right, he will return. He has merely visited his forest possessions. Must he then travel in the exact manner of the rich? May a Schrankenheim never step beyond his barriers?

Thank God, he is the master for Winkelsteg!

And how relieved I am, for now Berthold and his family are saved. They have weighed so heavily upon my conscience.

The obscure words of the Baron, which he said to me at parting, are partially explained. Waldlilie now comes to school and we practise reading, writing, and everything connected therewith as far as I understand these subjects myself. She is very industrious and apt, can think independently and is becoming lovelier every day.

Her name is more and more suited to her, for there is something lily-like about the girl; she is so slender, white, and gentle, and yet there are traces of the sun's kiss upon her round cheeks and fresh lips. There is also something still clinging to her which she caught from the deer on that long winter night, the graceful alertness and the eyes.

Oh, Andreas! Dost thou look at all thy pupils so closely?

But then she pleases everyone.

She is beloved by the poor, for she knows how to help them. She has comforted many a sad heart by her warm friendly words; she has cheered many a discouraged one by her tender singing. And it is beautiful how all the children in Winkelsteg know Waldlilie and cling to her. If the priest were only living, what great pleasure he would take in such a nature!

And the girl is courageous; regardless of wild animals and vicious people, she climbs the mountains to gather fruit and plants. But then it is written on her forehead: "All evil is powerless before thee!"

She recently brought me a blue gentian with bright red stripes, such as grow only over in the glen.

"Have you been by the lake again, Lili?" I asked. Turning as red as the stripes on the flower, she hastened away.

Perhaps she never knew that I was one of the men who had surprised her at her bath in the lake, and had so alarmed her that she would have gone to her destruction had not one of us brought her to dry land.

The occurrence must be like a dream to her; let it never be mentioned again.

But of the fine young master of the forest, who has rescued her family from distress and poverty, she speaks with pleasure and enthusiasm.

SUMMER, 1837.

It is fulfilled at last. The signs of it have been in the air since one day in the spring, when Hermann, as though newly awakened to powerful manhood, arrived again in Winkelsteg and at once asked me concerning Waldlilie.

He no longer takes pleasure in the noisy, rioting circle called by many the _world_, although the term is entirely misapplied. Hermann has fortunately passed the dangerous crisis. He has now entered mature life, where one longs for the glories of nature and the inner worth of man. Waldlilie has become a wonderfully beautiful young woman, and the pains which I have taken in the development of her intellectual powers have been richly rewarded.

And thus it is fulfilled. A Schrankenheim has burst his barriers. Two days ago, on the festival of our Lord's Ascension, the master of the forest and Waldlilie were united in the church.

Over in the glen by the lake, Hermann wished to erect a summer villa, where he and his wife might spend a few weeks every year in the early autumn. But Waldlilie begged him to abandon the idea. She was very fond of that region, but she could not visit the lake.

They have left us and gone to the beautiful town of Salzburg.

WINTER, 1842.

The years pass by in monotony and solitude; why does no one call me the Einspanig?

The young wife afterwards changed her mind and the summer villa now stands in the glen by the lake. It is very lively there for a few weeks in the early autumn, and the happy home of our master's family is watched over by the grim mountains.

The forester, now a grandfather, lives with his wife the entire year in this house, and the brothers and sisters of Frau von Schrankenheim may hope for a better lot than was prophesied at their cradle.

The old Herr von Schrankenheim was blessed with two grandchildren before he died in Salzburg in the winter of 1840.

Winkelsteg has gained nothing by the house in the glen. A good road has been built to it, and it has now become the headquarters for superintending the forest. Strangers visit the place, and there the great hunting-parties are organised. In the glen, formerly so lonely and neglected, now stands the _manor-house_; but Winkelsteg remains the same poor parish for peasants and wood-cutters, and the condition of things here is not improving, and the schoolmaster--let us not think about that, Andreas.