The Hour Will Come Part 24

"That I do not know," replied Donatus. "But you must have some purpose and some end. What will become of you when our journey is ended and we must part?"

"Oh! no," said the child, "we shall never part."

"Child, you are talking foolishly, we must part, I shall return in two days to the convent, and unless you have the art of making yourself invisible, you cannot follow me there."

"Then I shall go to the blessed maidens up on the heath and ask them to set you free--or I will ask them to let me find the blind worm that makes folks invisible. Then I will go into the convent and stay with you."

"What folly are you talking, child, in the name of all the Saints! The blessed maidens and the blind worm! who put them into your head?"

"Did you never hear of the blessed maidens?"

"No--of such blessed maidens as those--certainly not."

"Don't you know that--not even that? Oh, the folks that brought you up can have very little sense if they did not tell you that. Up there on the heath--going towards Nauders--there is a cave which is called the way to the blessed--that is the entrance to their country. You must have a wis.h.i.+ng-rod made of a white hazel stick which has grown where cross ways meet and that was cut with a pure heart at the new-moon; then the door will fly open. Take hold--here is one," and she gave him the hazel wand she held in her hand that he might feel it; but he fell into a fit of righteous rage and broke the rod into pieces and flung it away.

"Oh, folly, folly! Woe to you if you carry on such night-magic and witches arts--we can never go on together, for these are not the ways that lead to the Light."

The girl had cried out with alarm when she saw him break the hazel-rod that she had been searching for all her life and had never found till the last new-moon; with that wand all she had ever hoped for had fallen into ruins--all the splendour of the kingdom of the blessed that it was to have opened to her--the help of the beneficent phantoms--all, all was gone. But worse even than the loss of her joys was her "Angel's"

wrath and the words he had spoken; their ways could never lie together.

The child threw herself at his feet crushed with despair, and wept bitterly. "Forgive me--I only meant to do it that they might release you from the convent and so I might always stay with you. Only tell me what I am to do so that you may never be angry with me again. I will do anything in the world that you tell me. If you wish that I should hunger and fast, I will do it, and if you wish that I should die, I will die--only be kind to me again, I beseech you."

The blind man laid his hand lovingly on the child's innocent head, and a strange emotion came over him as he felt her trembling beneath his touch. "Do not tremble, young soul! You have had pity on me and I will have pity on you. I will save you from the ways of error and darkness; I will show you a path to the blessed--but to the truly blessed. It opens not to wis.h.i.+ng rods nor spring-herbs--only by penance and prayer may it be found."

"Aye, my lord, teach me to act according to your will, as I guide your blindness do you guide me where you see while I am blind."

"Amen!" said Donatus, and he felt as though the tears which he could no longer shed fell back like heavenly dew on the drought of his lonely heart. G.o.d had sent him this soul to be saved by him for Heaven. For the first time in his life he had found something he could call his own, and he felt that she was wholly his, absolutely given up to him, and that her salvation was in his hand. Thus must a father feel when a child is born to him.

He clasped the girl's head as if he wished to grasp this new-born joy, and said only one word; "My child!" but in a tone like the soft melodious ripple of the newly melted snow as it trickles down from the cliff under the beams of the first spring-suns.h.i.+ne; and the girl bowed under the touch of her "Angel's" hand, speechless and motionless, as though she feared to disturb the miracle even by drawing breath.

The soft breath of noon bore the perfume of lilies and roses from the graves in the churchyard, and the little screech-owl[3] shouted from the wood his cry of "Come here, come here." The girl listened to the call knowing what it betokened, but she only smiled at it; for her life had but just begun--a life in which there is no death. And as soon as Donatus released her she sprang up, and her shout of joy went up to Heaven like the song of the lark, and she ran through the little gate in the wall into the church-yard and flung herself down by the first grave to pray in front of its wooden cross. But she could not pray--could not think; she flung her arms round the cross and pressed her cheek against it as against her mother's breast. Brother Porphyrius meanwhile, sitting under the wall, shook his head.

"We have been deceived in her, Donatus, she is not a spirit, but a child of man like us, and G.o.d only knows whence she came, for her paths lie through the darkness as she herself told us--"

"But I shall lead her to the Light!" interrupted Donatus.

"Be not presumptuous--to me there is something uncanny about her since I have learnt that she is of this world; she is too fair for an earthly maiden and I am uneasy about you." Donatus smiled in melancholy but proud calmness as in the morning.

"What is there to fear?" he said. "Am I not blind!"

CHAPTER III.

It was now night, but not dark; the moon illuminated the valley with a light almost as bright as day, and displaying every object, even in the remotest distance, in trenchant outlines of light and shade. The pinnacles of Reichenberg, of Rotund, and of the tower of "Helf mir Gott" were bathed in a mysterious splendour. Once upon a time a maiden who was wooed by a wicked knight threw herself from this last-named tower down into the valley, but fell unhurt, for the saints spread out their mantles to bear her up. This was the story that the little girl told the monks; but in a low voice, as if her prattle could wake the sleepers upon the heights, and her soft voice mingled with the murmur of the Ram which danced along in the moon-light close to their path.

"Do you know this neighbourhood?" asked Porphyrius.

"Certainly. I was here as a child when the pretty lady used to come and see me at night, and the handsome man whom I used to call father; and then mother had to fly with me to the Trafoy Thal where the Three Holy Springs are, and then, as we were never safe there, across the heath to the forests by Finstermunz. I know every road and turning far and near."

"Why had you to hide so constantly?" asked Porphyrius. "Had your mother committed some crime?"

"Oh! no, my mother never did anything wrong. But she was always afraid they would try to kill me."

"Very strange! What then did she live upon?"

"The pretty lady gave my mother money, and with that we bought food and clothing. It lasted till I was a big girl, but now it is all gone; and we wanted to work by the day, but they drove us away everywhere, and at last we were obliged to beg. Begged bread is hard bread--my mother died of it." The child wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and was silent.

"Here is some dark secret," said Porphyrius softly to Donatus.

"Poor child, when did your mother die?" asked Donatus.

"Last night, in the forest."

"Why, then she is not buried?"

"I laid her in a hole where the storm had uprooted a tree, and I covered her with branches, and I rolled some stones down on her too, as many as I could; and a little wooden cross that she always wore--I stuck that in and prayed by it."

"What was your mother's name?" asked Donatus thoughtfully.

"Berntrudis, my lord, you know her well, for she was your nurse."

"Berntrudis," exclaimed Donatus sorrowfully; "was she your mother?"

"No, she was not really, but she brought me up and I called her so."

"Alas, poor woman, and was this your end--like the beasts of the field, on the wet earth, in storm and whirlwind, and now to lie unburied like them. Could not the Church even give you Christian burial, you who reared a son for her, and why, child, did you not fetch one of us this morning, so that we might have given her a grave in consecrated ground?"

"Whom then should I have fetched? I dared not go up to your people any more since the cruel man drove me away in the night. Ah! if you had only come to her you would certainly have made her well again, and she would not have died."

"I? How could I guess it! If only you had come to fetch me."

"But I did go to fetch you, but the dark man kicked me away from the door."

"Who?"

"The pale dark man, with black eyes--"

"Correntian!" cried Donatus. "Did you tell him that it was Berntrudis that was ill?"

"Indeed I did, and I entreated him to send you to comfort her at the last. But he threatened to tread me to death like an adder."

"You!" groaned Donatus, and as if it were his part to protect her, he threw his arm round the child's shoulder, and pressed her closely to him. "Correntian!" he repeated, "may G.o.d recompense him!"

Porphyrius laid a warning hand on his companion's arm. "Donatus!" he said.

But Donatus heeded not.