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COLLECTION

OF

GERMAN AUTHORS.

VOL. 29.

THE VULTURE MAIDEN BY W. von HILLERN.

IN ONE VOLUME.

TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

By the same Author,

THE HOUR WILL COME . . . . . 2 vols.

THE

VULTURE MAIDEN

[DIE GEIER-WALLY.]

BY

WILHELMINE von HILLERN.

FROM THE GERMAN

BY

C. BELL AND E. F. POYNTER.

Authorized Edition,

LEIPZIG 1876

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.

LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON.
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

PARIS: C. REINWALD, 15, RUE DES SAINTS PÈRES; THE GALIGNANI
LIBRARY, 224, RUE DE RIVOLI.

The Author reserves the Right of dramatizing this Tale.

TO BERTHOLD AUERBACH, Esq.

Permit me to offer you the fruit that I have gathered in a field peculiarly your own. Under your powerful hand the difficult ground of German peasant-life has yielded up its wealth of poetry; and if others, with myself, now reap in the field tilled by you, it is our first duty to think of you with gratitude, and to render to you the honour that is rightly yours.

Freiburg in Brisgau, April 1875.

The Author.

CONTENTS.

THE VULTURE-MAIDEN.

A TALE OF THE TYROLESE ALPS.

Far down in the depths of the Oetz valley, a traveller was passing. On the eagle heights of the giddy precipice above him, stood a maiden's form, no bigger than an Alpine rose when seen from below, yet sharply defined against the clear blue sky, the gleaming ice-peaks of the Ferner. There she stood firm and tranquil, though the mountain gusts tore and snatched at her, and looked without dizziness down into the depths where the Ache rushed roaring through the ravine, and a sunbeam slanting across its fine spray-mist painted glimmering rainbows on the rocky wall. To her, also, the traveller and his guide appeared minutely small as they crossed the narrow bridge, which thrown high over the Ache, looked from above like a mere straw. She could not hear what the two were saying, for out of those depths no sound could reach her but the thundering roar of the waters. She could not see that the guide, a trimly-attired chamois-hunter, raised his arm threateningly, and pointing her out to the stranger said: "That is certainly the Vulture-maiden standing up yonder; no other maid would trust herself on that narrow point, so near the edge of the precipice. See, one would think that the wind must blow her over, but she always does just the contrary to what other reasonable Christian folk do."

Now they entered a pine-forest, dark, damp, and cold. Once more the guide paused, and sent a falcon-glance upwards to where the girl stood, and the little village spread itself out smilingly on the narrow mountain plateau in the full glow of the morning sun, which as yet could hardly steal a sidelong ray into the close, grave-like twilight of the gorge. "Thou needn't look so defiant, there's a way up as well as down," he muttered, and disappeared with the stranger. As though in scorn of the threat, the girl sent up a halloo, so shrilly repeated from every side, that a flying echo reached even the silent depth of the fir-wood with a ghostly ring, like the challenging cry of the chamois-hunter's enemy, the fairy of the Oetz valley.

"Ay, thou may'st scream; I'll soon give it back to thee," he threatened again; and throwing himself stiffly back, and supporting his neck with both hands, he pealed forth, clear and shrill as a post-horn, a cry of mocking and defiance up the mountain-side.

"She hears that, maybe?"

"Why do you call the girl up there the Vulture-maiden?" asked the stranger down in the moist, dim, rustling forest.

"Because, Sir, when she was only a child she look a vulture's nest, and fought the old bird," said the Tyrolese. "She is the strongest and handsomest girl in all the Tyrol, and terribly rich, and the lads let her drive them off, so that it's a shame to see. There's not one of them sharp enough to master her. She is as shy as a wild cat, and so strong that the boys declare no one can conquer her: if one of them comes too near, she knocks him down. Well, if ever I went up there after her, I'd conquer her, or I'd tear the chamois-tuft and feather from my hat with my own hands."

"Why have you not already tried your luck with her, if she is so rich and so handsome?" asked the traveller.

"Well, you see, I don't care for girls like that--girls that are half boys. It's true, she can't help herself. The old man--Stromminger is his name--is a regular wicked old fellow. In his time he was the best wrestler and fighter in the mountains, and it sticks to him still. He has often beaten the girl cruelly and brought her up like a boy. She has no mother, and never had one, for she was such a big strong child that her mother could scarcely bring her into the world, and died of it. That's how it is the girl has grown up so wild and masterful."--This was what the Tyrolese down in the ravine related to the stranger, and he had not deceived himself. The maiden who stood out yonder above the precipice was Wallburga Stromminger, daughter of the powerful "chief-peasant," also called the Vulture-maiden; and he had spoken truly, she deserved this name. Her courage and strength were boundless as though eagle's wings had borne her, her spirit rugged and inaccessible as the jagged peaks where the eagles build their nests, and where the clouds of heaven are rent asunder.

Wherever anything dangerous was to be done, there from her childhood upwards, was Wally to be found, putting the lads to shame. As a child even she was wild and impetuous as her father's young bull, which she had known how to subdue. When she was scarcely fourteen years old, a peasant had descried on a rugged precipice a golden vulture's nest with one young one, but no one in the village dared venture to seize it. Then the head-peasant, scoffing at the valiant youth of the place, declared he would make his Wallburga do it. And sure enough Wally was ready for the deed, to the horror of the women and the vexation of the lads. "It is a tempting of Providence," said the men. But Stromminger must have his jest; all the world must learn by experience that the race of Stromminger down to the children's children might seek its match in vain.

"You shall see that a Stromminger girl is worth ten of you lads," he said laughing to the peasants, who streamed together to witness the incredible feat. Many grieved for the beautiful and stately young life that might perhaps fall a sacrifice to the father's boasting; still, everyone wished to see. As the precipice to which the nest clung was almost perpendicular, and no human foot could tread it, a rope was fastened round Wally's waist. Four men, foremost amongst whom was her father, held it, but it was horrible to the lookers-on to see the courageous child, armed only with a knife, walk boldly to the edge of the plateau, and with a vigorous spring let herself down into the abyss. If the knot of the rope should give way, if the vulture should tear her in pieces, if in her descent she should dash out her brains against some unnoticed crag? It was a God-forsaken act of Stromminger's so to risk the life of his own child. Meanwhile Wally sailed fearlessly through the air, till midway down the precipice she exultingly greeted the young vulture, who ruffled his downy feathers, and piping, gnawed with his shapeless beak at his strange visitor. Hardly pausing to consider, she seized the bird which now raised a lamentable cry with her left hand and tucked it under her arm. There was a rushing sound in the air, and in the same instant a dark shadow came over her, a roaring filled her ears, and a storm of blows fell like hail upon her head. Her one thought was "The eyes--save the eyes," and pressing her face closely against the rock, she hit blindly with the knife in her right hand at the raging bird that threw itself upon her with its sharp beak, its claws and wings. Meanwhile the men above hastily drew in the rope. Still for a time during the ascent, the battle in the air continued; then suddenly the vulture gave way, and plunged into the abyss--Wally's knife must have wounded it. Wally however came up bleeding, her face torn by the rocks, and holding in her arms the young bird, that at no price would she have relinquished.

"But, Wally," cried the assembled people, "why didn't thou let the young one go, then the vulture would have loosed its hold." "Oh," she said simply, "the poor thing can't fly yet, and if I had let him go, he'd have fallen down the precipice and been killed."

This was the first and only time in her whole life that her father gave her a kiss; not because he was touched by Wally's noble compassion for the helpless creature, but because she had performed an heroic action that would reflect honour on the illustrious race of Stromminger.

Such was the maiden who stood out now on the projecting rock, where the foot could hardly find room to rest, and dreamily looked down into the ravine over which she hung; for often, with all her impetuosity, a strange stillness would come over her, and she would gaze sadly before her, as though she saw something for which she longed, and which she yet might not attain. It was an image that always remained the same, whether she saw it in the grey morning twilight, or in the golden glow of noon, in the evening red, or in the pale moonlight, and for a year it had followed her wherever she went or stood, below in the valley, or above on the mountain. And when, as now, she was out and alone, and her large chamois-eyes, at once wild and shy, wandered across to the white-gleaming glaciers, or down into the shadow-filled gorge where the Ache thundered on its way, still she sought him whom the image resembled; and when now and then a traveller, minutely small in the distance, glided past below, she thought, "That may be he," and a strange joy came to her in the fancy that she had seen him, even though she could distinguish nothing but a human form, no bigger than a moving image in a peep-show. And now as those two wayfarers passed along, of whom the one enquired about her, and the other threatened her, she thought again, "It may be he." Her bosom seemed too tight for her beating heart, her lips parted, and like a lark set free, her joy soared up in a pealing song. And as the hunter in the wood below heard its dying echo, so an echo of his reply reached her, and she listened with an intoxicated ear--it might be his voice! and a blushing reflection of her warm rush of feeling spread itself over the wild, defiant face. She could not hear that the song was a song of scorn and defiance. Had she known it, she would have clenched her sinewy fist, she would have tried the strength of her arm, and over her face dark shadows would have passed, till it grew pale as the glaciers after sunset. But now she sat down on the stone that supported her, and swinging her feet as they hung over the abyss, she rested her graceful head on her hands, and gave herself up to dreaming over again all the strange things that had happened that first time that she ever saw him.

[CHAPTER I.]

Joseph, the Bear-hunter.

It was at Whitsuntide, just a year before, that her father had taken her to Sölden for the confirmation; thither the bishop came every other year, because there is a high-road that leads to Sölden. She felt a little ashamed, for she was already sixteen years old, and so tall. Her father would not let her be confirmed before; he thought that with it would come at once love-makings and suitors--and time enough for that! Now she was afraid that the others would laugh at her. But no one took any notice: the whole village when they arrived was in excitement, for it was said that Joseph Hagenbach of Sölden had slain the bear that had shown itself up in Vintschgau, and for which the young men in all the country round had watched in vain. Then Joseph had set out across the mountains, and by Friday last he had already got him. The messenger from Schnalser had brought the news early, and Joseph himself was soon to follow. The peasants of Sölden, who were waiting in front of the Church, were full of pride that it should be a Söldener that had performed the dangerous deed, and talked of nothing but Joseph, who was indisputably the finest and strongest lad in all the mountains, and a shot without a rival. The girls listened admiringly to the tales of Joseph's heroic deeds, how no mountain was too steep for him, no road too long, no gulf too wide, and no danger too great; and when a pale, sickly-looking woman came towards them across the village-green, they all rushed up to her and wished her joy of the son who had won such glory.

"He's a good one, thy Joseph," said the men cordially; "he's one from whom all may take example." "If only thy husband had lived to see this day, how rejoiced he would have been," said the women.

"No, no one would ever believe," cried one quaintly, "that such a fine fellow was thy son--not looking at thee."

The woman smiled, well-pleased. "Yes, he's a fine-grown lad, and a good son, there can't be a better. And yet, if you'll believe it, I never have an hour's peace for him; there's not a day that I don't expect to see him brought home with his limbs all broken. It's a cross to bear!"

The religious procession now appeared upon the place, and put an end to the talk. The people thronged into the little church with the white-robed, gaily-wreathed children, and the sacred office began.

But the whole time Wally could think of nothing but Joseph, the bear-slayer, and of all the wonderful things he must have done, and of how splendid it was to be so strong and so courageous, and to be held in such great respect by every one, so that no one could get the better of him. If only he would come now, whilst she was in Sölden, so that she also might see him; she was really quite burning to see him.

At length the confirmation was over, and the children received the final blessing. Suddenly, on the green outside in front of the church, there was a sound of wild shouting and hurrahs. "He has him, he has the bear!" Scarcely had the bishop spoken the last words of the blessing when every one rushed out, and joyfully surrounded a young chamois-hunter, who, accompanied by a troop of fine and handsome lads from the Schnalser valley and from Vintschgau, was striding across the green. But handsome as his comrades might be, there was not one of them that came near him. He towered above them all, and was so beautiful--as beautiful as a picture. It seemed almost as though he shone with light from afar; he looked like the St. George in the church. Across his shoulders, he carried the bear's fell, whose grim paws dangled over his broad chest. He walked as grandly as the emperor, and never took but one step when the others took two, and yet he was always ahead of them; and they made as much ado about him as though he had been the emperor indeed, dressed in a chamois-hunter's clothes. One carried his gun, another his jacket; all was wild excitement, shouting and huzzaing--he alone remained composed and tranquil.

He went modestly up to the priest, who came towards him from the church, and took off his garlanded hat. The bishop, who was a stranger, made the sign of the cross over him and said, "The Lord was mighty in thee, my son! With his help thou hast performed what none other could accomplish. Men must thank thee--but thou, thank thou the Lord!"

All the women wept with emotion, and even Wally had wet eyes. It was as though the spirit of devotion that had failed her in church, first came to her now, as she saw the stately hunter bow his proud head beneath the priest's benedictory hand. Then the bishop withdrew, and now Joseph's first enquiry was, "Where is my mother? Is she not here?"

"Yes, yes," she cried, "here am I," and fell into her son's arms.

Joseph clasped her tightly. "See, little mother," he said, "I should have been sorry for thy sake not to come back again. Thou dear little mother, thou'd never have known how to get on without me, and I too should have been loth to die without giving thee one more kiss."

Ah, it was beautiful, the way he said it! Wally had quite a strange feeling--a feeling as though she could envy the mother who rested so contentedly in the loving embrace of the son, and clung so tenderly to the powerful man. All eyes rested with delight on the pair, but an unutterable sensation filled Wally's heart.

"But tell us now, tell us how it all happened."

"Yes, yes, I'll tell you," he said laughing, and flung the bearskin on to the ground, so that all might see it. They made a circle round him, and the village landlord had a cask of his best ale brought out and tapped on the green; for one must drink after church, and above all on such an extra occasion as this, and the little inn-parlour could never have held such an unusual concourse of people. The men and women naturally pressed close round the speaker, and the newly-confirmed children climbed on to benches, and up into trees, that they might see over their heads. Wally was foremost of all in a fir-tree, where she could look straight down upon Joseph; but the others wanted her place; there was some noise and struggling because she would not give way, and "Saint George" looked up at them. His sparkling eyes fell upon Wally's face, and remained smilingly fixed on it for a moment. All Wally's blood rushed to her head, and she could hear her heart beating in her very ears with her intense fright. In all her life before she had never been so frightened, and she had not an idea why! She heard only the half of what Joseph was relating, there was such a singing in her ears; all the while she was thinking, "Suppose he were to look up again?" And she could not have told whether she wished it or dreaded it most. And yet, when in the course of his story it did once happen again, she turned away quickly and ashamed, as though she had been found out in something wrong. Was it wrong to have looked at him so? It might be, and yet she could not leave off, though she trembled so incessantly that she was afraid he might notice it. But he noticed nothing; what did he care for the child up there in the tree? He had looked up once or twice as he might have looked at a squirrel--nothing further. She said so to herself, and a strange sorrow stole over her. Never before had she felt as she did to-day; she was only thankful that she had drunk no wine on the road; she might have thought that it had got into her head.

In her confusion she began playing with her rosary. It was a beautiful new one of red coral, with a chased cross of pure silver, that her father had given her for her confirmation. All of a sudden as she turned and twisted it, the string broke and, like drops of blood, the red beads rolled down from the tree. "That is a bad sign," an inner voice whispered to her, "old Luchard doesn't like it--that anything should break when one is thinking of something!" Of something! Of what then had she been thinking? She turned it over in her mind, but she could not discover. Precisely she had been thinking of nothing in particular. Why then should she be so troubled by the string breaking just at that moment? She felt as though the sun had suddenly paled, and a cold wind were blowing over her; but not a leaf was stirring, and the icebound horizon glittered in the radiant sunlight. The shadow of a cloud had passed--within her--or without her? How could she tell?

Joseph meanwhile had finished relating his adventure, and had shown round the purse containing the forty florins paid by the Tyrolese government as the reward for shooting a bear, and there was no end to the handshakings and congratulations. Only Wally's father held sullenly aloof. It angered him that any one should accomplish a great and heroic deed; no one in the world had any right to be strong but himself and his daughter. During thirty years he had been esteemed, without dispute, the strongest man in the whole range of mountains, and he could not bear now to find himself growing old, and obliged to make way for a younger generation. When, however, someone said to Joseph that it was no wonder he should be such a strong fellow--he had it from his father who had been the best shot and the best wrestler in the whole place--then the old man could contain himself no longer, but broke in with a thundering "Oho! no need to bury a man before he's dead!"

Everyone fell back at the threatening voice. "It's Stromminger!" they said, half-frightened.

"Ay, it is Stromminger, who's alive still, and who never knew till this moment that Hagenbach had been the best wrestler in the place. With his tongue, if you like, but with nothing else!"

Joseph turned round like a wounded wild cat, glaring at Stromminger with flaming eyes. "Who says that my father was a boaster?"

"I say it, the head-peasant of the Sonnenplatte, and I know what I'm saying, for I've laid him flat a dozen times, like a sack."

"It is false," cried Joseph, "and no man shall blacken my father's name."

"Joseph, be quiet," the people whispered about him, "it's the head-peasant--thou mustn't make a quarrel with him."

"Head-peasant here, head-peasant there! If God in Heaven were to come down to blacken my father's name, I wouldn't put up with it. I know very well, my father and Stromminger had many a wrestling-bout together, because he was the only one who could stand up with Stromminger. And he threw Stromminger just as often as Stromminger threw him."

"It's not true!" shouted Stromminger, "thy father was a weak fool compared to me. If any of you old fellows have a spark of honour, you'll say so too--and thou, if thou doesn't believe it after that, I'll knock it into thee!" At the word "fool" Joseph had sprung like a madman, close up to Stromminger. "Take thy words back, or--"

"Heavens above us!" shrieked the women. "Let be, Joseph," said his mother soothingly, "he's an old man, thou mustn't lay hands on him."

"Oho!" cried Stromminger, purple with rage, "you'd make me out an old dotard, would you? Stromminger is none so old and weak yet but he can fight it out with a half-fledged stripling. Only come on, I'll soon show thee I've some marrow left in my bones. I'm not afraid of thee yet awhile, not if thou'd shot ten bears."

And like an enraged bull the strong old man threw himself on the young hunter, who in spite of himself gave way under the sudden and heavy spring. But he only staggered for a moment; his slender form was so firmly knit, was so supple in yielding, so elastic in rising again--like the lofty pines of his native soil, that grow with roots of iron in the naked rock, buffeted by all the winds of heaven and bearing up against their mountain-load of snow. As easily might Stromminger have uprooted one of these trees, as have flung Joseph to the ground. And in fact, after a short struggle, Joseph's arms closely clasped Stromminger, tightening round and almost choking him, till a deep groan came with his shortening breath, and he could not stir a hand. And now the young giant began to shake the old man, bending first on one side, then on the other, striving steadily, slowly but surely to force first one foot and then the other from under him, and so loosen his foothold by degrees. The bystanders hardly dared to breathe as they watched the strange scene--almost as though they dared not look on at the felling of so old a tree. Now--now Stromminger has lost his footing--now he must fall--but no; Joseph held him up, bore him in his strong arms to the nearest bench and set him down on it. Then he quietly took out his handkerchief and dried the beads of sweat from Stromminger's brow.

"See, Stromminger," he said, "I've got the better of thee, and I might have thrown thee; but God forbid that I should bring an old man to shame. And now we will be good friends again; we bear no malice, Stromminger?"

He held out his hand, smiling goodhumouredly, but Stromminger struck it back with an angry scowl. "The devil pay thee out--thou scoundrel," he cried. "And you, all you Söldeners who have amused yourselves with seeing Stromminger made a laughing-stock for the children--you shall learn by experience who Stromminger is. I'll have nothing more to do with you, and grant no more time for payments--not if half Sölden were to starve for it."

He went up to the tree, where Wally still sat as in a nightmare, and pulled her by the gown. "Come down," he said, "thou'll get no dinner there. Not a Söldener shall ever see another kreuzer of mine." But Wally, who had rather fallen than got down from the tree, stood as if spell-bound with her eyes fixed almost beseechingly on Joseph. She thought he must see how it pained her to go away; she felt as though he must take her hand in his, and say, "Only stay with me: thou belong'st to me, and I to thee, and to no other!" But he stood still in the midst of a knot of men who were whispering together in dismay, for many in the village owed money to Stromminger, whose wealth circulated in the very veins of the whole neighbourhood.

"Well--wilt thou go on?" said Stromminger, giving the girl a push, and she had to obey him whether for weal or woe; but her lips trembled, her breast heaved painfully; she flung a glance of powerless anger at her father; he drove her before him like a calf. So they went on for a few steps; then they heard some one following them, and turning round, there stood Joseph with a couple of peasants behind him.

"Stromminger," he said, "don't be so headstrong. You can never go, you and the girl, all that long way to the Sonnenplatte, without eating anything."

He stood close to Wally; she felt his breath as he spoke, his eyes rested on her, his hand lay compassionately on her shoulder; she knew not how it happened--he was so good, so dear--and she felt as she did when, taking the vulture's nest, the rushing sound of its wings suddenly filled her ears, and sight and hearing went from her. Even so, something overwhelming to her young heart, lay in his presence, in his touch. She had not trembled when the mighty bird hovered above her, darkening the sun with his broad pinions, she had known how to defend herself calmly and bravely; but now she trembled from head to foot, and stood bewildered and confused.

"Get off!" cried Stromminger, and clenched his fist at Joseph, "I'll hit thee in the face if thou doesn't let me be--I will, if it cost me my life."

"Well--if you won't, you won't, and so let it be,--but you're a fool, Stromminger," said Joseph calmly, and he turned round and went back with the others.

Now no one tried to detain them; they walked on unmolested, farther--at each step farther away from Joseph. Wally looked round, and still for a time she could see his head towering above the others, she could still hear the confused sound of voices and of laughter on the green before the church. She could not yet believe that she was really gone, that she should not see Joseph again--perhaps never again. Now they turned a corner of the rock and all was hidden, the village green with all the people and Joseph--and every thing, every thing was gone. Then suddenly there came upon her, as it were, a revelation of a great joy of which she had had one glimpse, and which was lost to her for ever now. She looked around as though imploring help in her soul's need, in this new, this unknown anguish. And there was none to answer her and to say, "Be patient, presently all will be well!" Dead and motionless were the rocks and cliffs all around, dead and motionless the Ferner looked down upon her. What did they care, they who had seen worlds come and worlds pass away, for this poor little trembling woman's heart? Her father walked on at her side, silent as though he were a moving rock. And he it was that was guilty of all. He was a wicked, hard, cruel man; there was not a creature in the world that took any interest in her. And while she thought all this, struggling with herself, she walked on mechanically farther and farther in advance of her father, up hill and down hill, as though she wished to walk off her heart's pain. The scorching sun glared on the blank wall of rock, she strove for breath, her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, all her veins throbbed; suddenly her strength gave way, she threw herself on the ground and broke into loud sobs.

"Oho! what's all this about?" exclaimed Stromminger in the greatest astonishment, for never since her earliest infancy had he seen his daughter weep. "Art out of thy wits?"

Wally made no reply; she gave herself up to the wild outbreak of her soul's suffering.

"Speak, will thee? open thy mouth or--"

Then from her throbbing, raging heart, like a mountain torrent from the cleft rock, she poured forth the whole truth, overwhelming the old man with the rush and ferment of her passion. She told him everything, for truthful she had always been and unaccustomed to lying. She told him that Joseph had pleased her, that she felt such a love for him as no one in the world had ever felt before, that she had been rejoicing so in the thought of talking to him, and that if Joseph had only heard how strong she was and how she had already done all sorts of strong things, he would certainly have danced with her and he would certainly have fallen in love with her too; and now her father had deprived her of it all, because he must needs fall upon Joseph like a madman; and now she was a laughing-stock and a disgrace, so that Joseph to the last day of his life would never look at her again. But that was always the way with her father, he was always hard and mad with everyone, so that everywhere he was called the wicked Stromminger--and now she must atone for it all.

Then suddenly Stromminger spoke. "I've had enough of this," he cried. There was a whistling through the air, and such a blow from her father's stick crashed down upon Wally that she thought her spine was broken; she turned pale and bowed her head. It was as hail falling on the scarce opened blossom of her soul. For a moment she was in such pain that she could not stir; bitter tears forced themselves through her closed eyes, like sap from a broken stem; otherwise she lay still as death. Stromminger waited by her muttering curses, as a drover stands by a heifer that, felled by a blow, can do no more.

Around them all was still and lonely, no voice of bird, no rustling of trees broke the silence. On the narrow rocky path where father and daughter stood, no tree ever bore a leaf, no bird ever built its nest. A thousand years ago the elements must have warred here in fearful conflict, and far as the eye could reach nothing could be seen but the giant wrecks of the wild tumult. But now the fires were burnt out that had rent the ground, and the waters subsided that had swept away the strong ones of the earth in their raging flood. There they lay hurled one upon another, the motionless giants; the mighty powers that had moved them lay slumbering now, and peace as of the grave lay over all as over monuments of the dead, and pure and still as heavenward aspirations the white glaciers rose high above them. Only man, ever-restless man, carried on even here his never ending strife, and with his suffering destroyed the sublime peace of nature.

At last Wally opened her eyes and gathered her strength to go on; no further lamentation passed her lips, she looked at her father strangely, as though she had never seen him before; her tears were dried up.

"Thou may guess now what'll come of it, if thou thinks any more of yon scoundrel that made thy father a jest for children," said he, holding her by the arm, "for thou may know this, that I'd sooner fling thee down from the Sonnenplatte than let Joseph have thee."

"It is well," said Wally, with an expression that startled even Stromminger; such unflinching defiance lay in the simple words, in the tone in which they were spoken, in the glance of irreconcilable enmity which she threw at her father.

"Thou's a wicked--wicked thing," muttered he between his teeth.

"I have not stolen anything," she answered in the same tone.

"Only wait awhile--I'll pay thee out," he snarled.

"Yes, yes," she answered, nodding her head, as if to say, "only try it!" Then they said no more to each other the whole way back.

When they had reached home, and Wally had gone into her room to take off her holiday finery, old Luckard who had lived with her mother and her grandmother, and who had brought Wally up from her cradle, put her head in at the door. "Wally, hast been weeping?" she whispered.

"Why?" asked the girl with unwonted sharpness.

"There were tears on the cards--I laid out the pack of cards for thy confirmation; thou fell between two knaves and I was frightened at it; it was all as near as if it had happened to-day and close by."

"Like enough," said the girl indifferently, and laid away her mother's beautiful gown in the big wooden chest.

"Does anything ail thee, child?" asked the old woman. "Thou looks so ill and thou'st come home so early. Didn't thou dance?"

"Dance!" The girl laughed, a hard shrill laugh, as though one should strike a lute with a hammer till the strings ring back all jarred and jangled out of tune. "What have I to do with dancing."

"Something's happened to thee, child--tell me--perhaps I can help thee."

"None can help me," said Wally, and shut down the lid of the chest as if she would bury in it all that was oppressing her. It was as though she were closing down the coffin-lid over all her youthful hopes.

"Go now," she said imperiously, as she had never spoken before, "I shall rest awhile."

"Jesus, Maria!" shrieked Luckard, "there lies thy rosary all broken. Where are the beads?"

"Lost."

"Oh! Lord! Lord! what ill luck! only the cross is left and the empty string. To break thy rosary on thy confirmation day! and tears on the cards besides! Our Father in Heaven! what will come of it?"

Thus lamenting, half pushed out by Wally, the old woman left the room, and Wally bolted the door after her. She threw herself on the bed and lay motionless, staring at the picture of the Holy Mother and at the crucifix which hung on the wall opposite. Should she pour out her sorrows to these? No! The Mother of God could bear her no good-will, otherwise she would not have let just her confirmation day above all others be so spoilt for her. Besides, she could not know what love-sorrows were, for she had known suffering only through her Son, and that was something quite different from what Wally felt. And the Lord Jesus Christ!--He certainly did not trouble himself about love-stories; no one might dare to approach Him with such matters as these. All that He desired was that one should be always striving after the kingdom of Heaven. Ah! And all her young, wildly-beating heart was longing and yearning with every throb for the beloved, the best-beloved one down here on earth; the kingdom of Heaven was so far away and so strange, how could she strive after it in this moment when, for the first time, all powerful nature was imperiously claiming in her its right? With bitter defiance she gazed at the images of the Mother and Son, whose pity was for quite other griefs than hers, who demanded of her only what was impossible. She vouchsafed to them no further word, she was angry with them as a child is angry with its parents when they unjustly deny it some pleasure. Long she lay thus, her eyes fixed reproachfully on the holy images; but soon she saw before her only the dear and beautiful face of Joseph, and involuntarily she grasped her shoulder with her hand where his hand had lain, as though to keep firm hold of his momentary touch. And then she saw his mother again of whom she had been so jealous, and she lay once more in Joseph's arms, and he caressed her so fondly; and then Wally pushed the mother away and lay herself instead on Joseph's heart; and he held her clasped there, and she looked down into the depths of his black flaming eyes, and she tried to imagine what he would say, but she could think of nothing but, "Thou dear little one," as he had said, "Thou dear little mother." And what could be sweeter or dearer than that? Ah! what could the kingdom of Heaven, in which those Two up yonder wanted to have her, what could it be in comparison with the blessedness that she felt in only thinking of Joseph--and how much greater must the reality be!

There was a tap at her window, and she started up as if from a dream. It was the young vulture which she had taken two years before from the nest, and which was as faithfully attached to her as a dog. She could leave him quite free, he never hurt anyone, and flew after her with his clipped wings as best he could. She opened the little window, he slipped in and looked trustingly at her with his yellow eyes. She scratched his neck gently and played with his strong wings, now spreading them out, now folding them together again. A cool air blew in through the open window. The sun had already sunk low behind the mountains, the narrow casement framed the peaceful picture of the mountain tops veiled in blue mist. In herself too all grew more peaceful; the evening air revived her spirit. She took the bird on her shoulder. "Come, Hans," she said, "we are doing nothing, as though there were no work in the world." The faithful bird had brought her wonderful comfort. She had taken it for her own from the steep cliff where no one else would venture; she had fought its mother for life or death, she had tamed it and it belonged wholly to her. "And he will also one day be mine," said an inward voice, as she clasped the bird to her bosom.

[CHAPTER II.]

Unbending.

This was the short story of love and sorrow, whose pain even now awoke again in the young heart as she looked down into the valley, thinking to see Joseph who so often passed along it, and never found the way up to her. She wiped her forehead, for the sun was beginning to burn, and she had already mowed the whole meadow-land from the house up to the "Sonnenplatte;" so the point on which she stood was called, because rising high above all around, it ever caught the earliest rays of the morning sun. From it the village took its name.

"Wally, Wally," some one now called from behind her, "come to thy father, he's something to say to thee," and old Luckard came towards her from the house. Her father had sent for her? What could he want? Never since their adventure in Sölden had he spoken with her excepting of what concerned the day's work. Wavering between fear and reluctance she rose and followed the old woman.

"What does he want?" she asked.

"Great news," said Luckard, "look there!"

Wally looked, and saw her father standing before the house, and with him a young peasant of the place named Vincenz, with a big nosegay in his button hole. He was a dark, robust fellow whom Wally had known from her childhood as a reserved and stubborn man. He had never bestowed a kindly word on anyone but Wally, to whom from her school-days upwards he had shown a special goodwill. A few months previously both his parents had died within a short time of each other; now he was independent, and next to Stromminger the richest peasant in the country side. The blood stood still in Wally's veins, for she already knew what was coming.

"Vincenz wants to marry thee," said her father; "I've said 'yes,' and next month we'll have the wedding." Having thus spoken he turned on his heel and went into the house as if there were nothing more to be said.

Wally stood silent for a moment as though thunderstruck; she must collect herself, she must consider what was to be done. Vincenz meanwhile confidently stepped up to her with the intention of putting his arm round her waist. But she sprang back with a cry of terror, and now she knew well enough what it was she had to do.

"Vincenz," she said, trembling with misery, "I beg of thee to go home. I can never be thy wife--never. Thou wouldn't have my father force me to it. I tell thee once for all I cannot love thee."

A look brief as lightning flashed across Vincenz's face; he bit his lips, and his black eyes were fixed with passionate eagerness on Wally. "So thou doesn't love me? But I love thee, and I'll lay my life on it that I'll have thee too. I've got thy father's consent and I'll never give it back, and I've a notion thou'll come to change thy mind yet if thy father wills it."

"Vincenz," said Wally, "if thou'd been wise thou'd not have spoken like that, for thou'd have known I'll never have thee now. What I will not do, none can force me to do--that thou may know once for all. And now go home, Vincenz; we've nothing more to say to each other," and she turned short away from him and went into the house.

"Oh, thou!" Vincenz called out after her in angry pain, clenching his fist. Then he checked himself. "Well," he murmured between his teeth, "I can wait--and I will wait."

Wally went straight to her father. He was sitting all bent together over his accounts and turned round slowly as she entered. "What is it?" he said.

The sun shone through the low window and threw its full beams on Wally, so that she stood as though wrapped in glory before her father. Even he was amazed at the beauty of his child as she stood before him at that moment.

"Father," she began quietly, "I only wanted to tell you that I will not marry Vincenz."

"Indeed!" cried Stromminger, starting up. "Is that it? Thou won't marry him?"

"No, father, I don't like him."

"Indeed! and did I ask thee if thou liked him?"

"No, I tell it you plainly, unasked."

"And I tell thee too unasked that in four weeks thou'll marry Vincenz whether thou likes him or not. I've given him my word, and Stromminger never takes his word back. Now get thee gone."

"No, father," said the girl, "things can't be settled in that way. I'm no head of cattle to let myself be sold or promised as the master pleases. It seems to me I also have a word to say when it has to do with my marriage."

"No, that thou hasn't, for a child belongs to her father as much as a calf or a heifer, and must do what its father orders."

"Who says that, father?"

"Who says so? It's said in the Bible," and an ominous flush rose on Stromminger's face.

"It says in the Bible that we are to honour and love our parents, but not that we are to marry a man when it goes against us merely because our father orders it. See, father, if it could do you any good for me to marry Vincenz, if it could save you from death or from misery--I'd do it willingly, and even if I were to break my heart over it. But you're a rich man that need ask nothing of anyone; it must be all one to you whom I marry; and you give me to Vincenz out of pure spite, that I may not marry Joseph, whom I love, and who would certainly have loved me if he could have got to know me; and it's cruel of you, father, and it says nowhere in the Bible that a child should put up with that."

"Thou--thou pert thing, I'll send thee to the priest; he'll teach thee what the Bible says."

"It will be no good, father; and if you sent me to ten priests, and if they all ten told me that I must obey you in this, I yet wouldn't do it."

"And I tell thee thou shall do it so sure as my name is Stromminger. Thou shall do it, or I'll drive thee out of house and home and disinherit thee."

"That you can do, father, I'm strong enough to earn my own bread. Yes, father, give everything to Vincenz--only not me."

"Foolish nonsense," said Stromminger perplexed. "Shall people say of me that Stromminger cannot even master his own child? Thou shall marry Vincenz; if I have to thrash thee into church, thou shall."

"And even if you thrashed me into church I'd still say no, at the altar. You may strike me dead, but you cannot thrash that 'Yes' out of me; and even if you could, sooner would I fling myself down from the cliff, than I'd go home with a man I've no love for."

"Now listen," cried Stromminger; his broad forehead was cleft as it were, with a swelling blue vein that ran across it, his whole face was suffused, his eyes bloodshot. "Now listen, thou'd better not drive me mad. Thou's already had enough of my cudgel; now give in, or between us things will come to a bad end!"

"Things came to a bad end between us a year ago, father. For when you beat me so that time on my confirmation day, then I felt all was at an end between us. And see, father, since then it's been all one to me whether you are bad to me or good, whether you treat me well or strike me dead--it's all one to me. I have no heart left for you. You're no dearer to me than the Similaun-, or Vernagt-, or Murzoll-glacier."

A stifled cry of rage broke from Stromminger. Half-stupified he had listened to the girl's words, but now, incapable of speech, he sprang upon her, seized her by the waist, swung her from the ground high over his head, and shook her till his own breath failed; then flinging her to the ground he set his heavy heel studded with nails upon her breast. "Unsay what thou has said," he gasped, "or I'll crush thee like a worm."

"Do it," said the girl, her eyes fixed steadily on her father. She breathed hard, for her father's foot weighed on her like lead, but she did not stir; not so much as an eyelash trembled.

Stromminger's power was broken. He had threatened what he could not perform, for at the thought of crushing the fair and innocent breast of his child his anger faded, he grew suddenly calm. He was conquered. Almost staggering he drew back his foot.

"Nay, I'll not end my days in a prison," he said gloomily, and sank exhausted into his chair.

Wally got up, she was pale as death, her eyes were tearless, lustreless, like a stone. She waited passively for what might come next. Stromminger sat for a minute in bitter reflection, then he spoke in hoarse tones.

"I cannot kill thee, but since Similaun and Murzoll are dear to thee as thy father, by Similaun and Murzoll thou may remain for the future, thou may belong to them. Thou shall never more stretch thy feet under my board. Thou shall go and mind the cattle up on the Hochjoch, till thou's found out it's better to be in Vincenz's warm home, than in the snow drift of the glacier. Tie up thy bundle, for I'll see no more of thee. Go up early tomorrow, I'll let the Schnalser people know, and send the cattle after thee next week by the boy. Take bread and cheese enough to last till the beasts come; Klettenmaier will guide thee up there. Now take thyself off. These are my last words and by these I'll stand."

"It is well, father," said Wally softly; she bowed her head, and quitted her father's room.

[CHAPTER III.]

Outcast.

"Up on the Hochjoch!" It was a fearful sentence. For in the inhospitable regions of the Hochjoch there is none of the joyous life of the lower pastures, where the sweet aromatic air resounds with the tinkle of bells, with the calls of the herdsmen and mountain girls--here are eternal winter, and the stillness of death. Sadly and gently as a mother kisses the pale forehead of her dead child, so the sun kisses these cold glaciers. Scanty meadows, the last clinging vestiges of organic life penetrate, as though lost, the wintry desert, till the last shoot perishes, the last drop of rising sap is frozen; it is the slow extinction of nature. But the frugal peasant utilises even these niggard remains; he sends his flocks up to graze on what they may find there, and the straying sheep tempted to reach after a plant which has wandered hither from a milder region, not unfrequently falls into some crevice in the ice.

Here it was that the child of the proud chief peasant, whose possessions extended for miles in every direction and reached up even to the clouds, must spend her bloom in everlasting winter. While on the lower earth May-breezes were blowing, the rising sap opening every bud, the birds building their nests, and all things stirring in joyous unison, she must take the herdsman's staff and quit the spring-meadows for the desert of the glaciers above; and only when autumn winds should be sighing and winter preparing to descend into the valley, might she also return thither, as though she had been sold to winter, life and limb.

No one of the peasants of the neighbourhood would send his shepherds up there, but they let out the meadows to the Schnalser people who lay nearer to the ridge on the farther side, and they sent a few half-wild, weather-beaten fellows, who clothed themselves in skins and lived miles asunder in stone cabins like hermits; and now Stromminger, who hitherto had always leased his pastures, condemned his own child to lead the life of a Schnalser herdsman. But from Wally's lips came no complaint; she prepared herself in silence for her mountain journey. Early in the morning, long before sunrise, whilst her father, the men, and the maids were still sleeping, Wally set out from her father's house for the mountain. Only old Luckard, "who had known it all beforehand from the cards" and who had passed the night with Wally helping her make up her bundle, stuck a sprig of rue in her hat as a farewell-token, and went part of the way with her. The old woman wept as if escorting the dead to the grave. Klettenmaier came behind with the pack. He was a faithful old servant, the only one that had grown grey in Stromminger's service, because he was deaf and did not hear when his master stormed and swore. This was the guide her father had selected for Wally. Luckard went with her till the road began a steep ascent. Then she took leave of them and turned back, for she had to be home in time to prepare the first meal.

Wally climbed the hill and looked down upon the road along which the old woman went crying in her apron, and even her heart almost failed her. Luckard had always been good to her; though she was old and feeble, at least she had loved Wally. Presently the old woman turned once more and pointed above her head. Wally's eyes followed the direction of her finger, and behold! something floated towards the mountain heights clumsily, uncertainly through the air, like a paper kite when the wind fails, now flying on a little way, then falling, and with difficulty rising again. The vulture with his clipped wings had painfully fluttered the whole way after her; but now his strength seemed to give way and he could only scramble along, flapping his pinions.

"Hansl!--oh, my Hansl!--how could I forget thee!" cried Wally, springing like a chamois from rock to rock the shortest way back to fetch the faithful bird. Luckard stood still till Wally once more reached the narrow path, then greeted her again as if after a long separation. At last Hansl too was reached, and Wally took him in her arms and pressed him to her heart like a child. Since last evening the bird was so identified in all her thoughts with Joseph, that it seemed almost as if it were a dumb medium between him and her; or as though Joseph had changed into the vulture, and in holding Hansl she clasped him in her arms.

As an ardent faith creates its own visible symbols to bring near to itself the unattainable and the remote and to seize the intangible, and as to faith a wooden cross and a painted image become miraculous--so ardent love creates its own symbols, to which it clings when the beloved one is far off, unattainable. Even so Wally derived now a wonderful consolation from her bird. "Come, Hansl," she said tenderly, "thou shall go with me up to the Ferner; we two will never be parted more."

"But, child," said old Luckard, "thou never can take the vulture up there, he'd die of hunger. Thou's no meat for him up there, and creatures like him eat nothing else."

"That is true," said Wally sadly, "but I can't part from the bird; I must have something with me up there in the wilderness. And I can't leave him alone at home either; who'd look after him and take care of him when I'm away?"

"Oh! for that thou may be easy," cried Luckard, "I'll look after him well enough."

"Ay, but he'll not follow thee," said Wally; "thou'rt not used to his ways."

"Nay, let me have him," said Luckard. "All this long time I've taken care of thee, surely I can take care of the bird. Give him me here, I'll carry him home," and she pulled the vulture out of Wally's arms. But it would not do; the noble bird set himself on the defensive, and pecked so angrily at Luckard that she was frightened, and let go. It was of no use for her to think of taking him home with her.

"Thou sees," cried Wally joyfully, "he'll not leave me; I must keep him, come what will. I was once called the Vulture-maiden and the Vulture-maiden I must still remain. O, my Hansl, as long as we two are together, we shall want for nothing. I'll tell thee what, Luckard, I'll let his wings grow now, he'll not fly away from me, and then he can find food for himself up yonder."

"God bless thee, then, take him with thee. I'll send thee up some fresh and salt meat by the boy, thou can give him that till he can fly abroad." And so it was settled. Wally took the vulture under her arm like a hen, and parted from Luckard who began to cry afresh. But Wally, without further delay, went up the mountain again after the guide, who had meanwhile gone on ahead.

In two hours they reached Vent, the last village before entering the realms of ice. Wally mounted the hill above Vent; here began the path to the Hochjoch. Once more she paused, and leaning on her Alpenstock looked down on the quiet, still half-dreaming village, and over the lake beyond, and the last houses of the Oetz valley, to the farms of Rofen which, lying almost at the foot of the ever-advancing, ever-receding Hochvernagtferners, seemed defiantly to say to it, "Crush us!"--even as Wally yesterday had defied her father. And like her father the Hochvernagt each time withdrew its mighty foot, as though it could not bear to destroy the home of its brave mountain children, "the Klötze of Rofen."

While she thus stood, looking down on the utmost dwellings of man before mounting to the desert beyond the clouds, there rose from the church-tower of Vent the sound of the bell for matins. Out of the door of the little parsonage, where the buds of the mountain-pink tapped the window in the morning breeze, came the priest and went with folded hands to his pious duty in the church. Here and there the wooden houses opened their sleepy eyes, and one figure after another coming out, stretched itself and took its way slowly to the church. Carefully and losing no tone by the way, the wind-winged angels bore the pious sound up the slope, and it rang in Wally's ear like the voice of a child that prays. And as a child arouses its mother by its sweet lisping, so the peal from Vent seemed to have aroused the sun. He opened his mighty eye, and the rays of his first glance shot over the mountains, an immeasurable shaft of flame that crowned the eastern heights. The dim grey of the twilight sky suddenly lighted up to a transparent blue, each moment the beam grew broader in the heavens, and at length mounted in full splendour over the cloud-veiled peaks, and turned his flaming countenance lovingly to earth. The mountains threw off their misty shrouds, and bathed their naked forms in streams of light. Deep down in the ravines the clouds heaved and rolled, as though they had sunk down thither from the pure heaven above. In the air was a rushing as of wild hymns of joy, and the earth wept tears of blissful waking, like a bride on her wedding morning; and like the tears on the eyelashes of the bride, the dewdrops quivered joyfully on each blade and spray. Joy lay everywhere,--above on the mountain tops where the dazzling rays were mirrored in the farseeing eyes of the chamois,--below in the valley where the lark soared, warbling, from amongst the springing corn.

Wally gazed intoxicated on the awakening world, with eyes that could hardly take in the whole shining picture in its pure morning beauty. The vulture on her shoulder lifted its wings as though longingly to greet the sun. Below in Vent, meanwhile, all was awakening to new life. From where Wally stood she could see everything distinctly in the clear morning light. The lads kissed the maidens by the well. White smoke curled upwards from the houses, vanishing without a trace in the serene spring air, as a sorrowful thought loses itself in a happy soul. On the green in front of the church the men assembled in white Sunday shirt-sleeves, their silver-mounted pipes in their mouths. It was Whit-Monday, when all make holiday and rejoice. Oh! holy Whitsuntide! just such a day must it have been when the Spirit of the Lord fell on the disciples and enlightened them with divine illumination, that they might go forth into all the world and preach the Gospel of Love, preach it to open hearts, touched by the happy spring--for, in the spring-tide of the year appeared also the spring-tide of man--the religion of love. For her only who stood up there on the mountain was there no Whitsuntide, no revelation of love. In her no persuasive voice had quickened the gospel into life. A meaningless letter it had remained to her, a buried seed which needed the vivifying ray to make it spring up in her heart. No dew of peace fell on her from the deep blue heavens; the bird of prey on her shoulder was to her the only messenger of love.

At last Wally broke away from her dreamy contemplation. She gave one farewell glance to the merry, noisy villagers, then she turned to climb the silent snow fields of the Hochjoch--in banishment.

[CHAPTER IV.]

Murzoll's Child.

For five hours did Wally continue to ascend; now over whole fields of fragrant Alpine plants, now sinking ankle-deep in snow-fields, or crossing broad moraines. Last night's sleeplessness lay heavily upon her limbs, and she almost despaired of ever reaching the end of her journey. Her hands and feet trembled, for to struggle for life during five hours against so steep an ascent is hard work. Large drops stood on Wally's brow, when suddenly as by a magic stroke she stood before a dense wall of cloud. She had turned an angle of the rock which hid the sun, and now thick mists enveloped her and an icy breath dried the sweat from her forehead. Her foot slipped at every step, for the ground was like glass; she stood upon ice, she had stepped upon the Murzoll glacier, the highest ridge of the serrated Hochjoch. Nothing grew here but starveling mountain-grass between clefts in the snow; around were the blue gleaming ice-crevasses, the virgin snow-flats, untrodden this year by foot of man or beast. Mid-winter! Wally shuddered at its icy touch. This was the forecourt to Murzoll's ice-palace, of which so many tales are told in the Oetz valley, where the "phantom maidens" dwell, of whom old Luckard had related many a story to the little Wally in the long winter evenings when the snowstorms howled round the house. The air that blew on her now from those desolate walls of ice, those caves and dungeons, came to her with a ghostly thrill like a shudder out of her childhood, as though in very truth there dwelt the dark spirit of the glacier, with whom Luckard had so often frightened her to bed when she had been naughty.

Silently she walked on. At last her deaf guide halted by a low cabin built of stone, with a wide overhanging roof, a strong door of rough wood, and little slits instead of windows. Within were a couple of blackened stones for a hearth, and a bed of old rotten straw. This was the hut of the Schnalser herdsman, who had formerly found shelter here, and here Wally was now to dwell. She did not change countenance however at the sight of the comfortless hut; it was neither more nor less than a bad mountain cabin, there were many such, and she was used to hard living. It was not such things as these that could quench her resolute spirit; but she was exhausted to faintness; since yesterday she had gone through more than even her unusual strength could bear. Mechanically she helped the deaf man, whom Luckard had loaded with a number of good things for Wally, to arrange a better bed, and to make the desolate hut somewhat more habitable. Mechanically she eat with him some of the food Luckard had sent. The man saw that she was pale, and said compassionately, "There, now thou's eaten something, lie down a while and sleep. Thou needs it. I'll fetch thee up some wood meanwhile to last thee a few days, then I must go back, or I shall never be home by daylight, and thy father strictly ordered me to get back to-day." He shook up a good bed of straw that he had brought with him; she sank down on it with half closed eyes and held out her hand gratefully.

"I'll not wake thee," he said. "In case thou'rt still asleep when I go, I'll say goodbye to thee now. Take care of thyself and don't be frightened. I'm sorry for thee all alone up here; but, why didn't thou obey thy father?"

Wally heard the last words as in a dream. The deaf man left the cabin, shaking his head compassionately; the girl was already sound asleep.

Her breast heaved painfully, for even in her sleep her past sorrow weighed on her like a mountain. And she dreamed of her father; he was dragging her into church by her hair, and she thought that if only she had a knife so that she might cut off her hair she would be free. Then suddenly Joseph stood by her, and with one stroke he cut through the long plait, so that it remained in her father's hand; and while Joseph was struggling with her father she ran out and climbed to the height of the Sonnenplatte to throw herself into the torrent. But a terror came over her, and she hesitated; then again she heard her father close behind her, and urged by despair she made the leap. She fell and fell, but could never reach the bottom, and suddenly she felt as if she were met from below by a gust of wind that supported and carried her upwards. So she floated, struggling always to keep the balance she continually feared to lose, up to the very summit of Murzoll. But she could gain no footing on the rock; a terrible whirlwind had seized her, and she strove in vain to cling to the bare precipice, like a ship that cannot reach the land. Black storm-clouds gathered together around her, through which Murzoll's snowy summit rose in ghostly whiteness. Fiery snakes shot through the black mass, the mountains quaked beneath a crashing thunder-clap, and flung whirling backwards and forwards between these mighty powers, a terror came over her that the tempest might cast her head downwards into the abyss. She bowed and turned, like a little ship on the swaying waves of the wind, striving only to keep her head uppermost. But suddenly her feet were raised and she felt that the weight of her head must carry her down, through the storm and thunder and the black darkness of the clouds; she would have cried for help, but could utter no sound--terror choked her voice. Then all at once she felt herself supported, she was on firm ground, she lay in a mountain cleft, as it seemed; but no, it was no cleft, they were giant arms of stone that embraced her, and behold, out of the brightening clouds a mighty face of stone bent over her: it was the hoary countenance of Murzoll. His hair was of snow-covered fir trees, his eyes were ice, his beard was of moss and his eyebrows of edelweiss; on his brow was set as a diadem the crescent moon which shed its mild radiance over the white face; and the icy eyes shone with a ghostly light in its bluish rays. He gazed at the maiden with these cold eyes, piercing but unfathomable, and beneath their glance the drops of agony on her brow and the tears on her cheeks froze and fell down with a faint ringing sound like crystal beads. He pressed his stony lips to hers, and under the long kiss his mouth grew warm and dewy and blossomed with Alpine roses, and when Wally looked up at him again glacier streams flowed from the icy eyes down upon his mossy beard. The black clouds had cleared away and the breath of spring stirred the night.

Now Murzoll moved his lips, and his voice sounded like the dull roll of a distant avalanche. "Thy father has banished thee," he said, "I will receive thee as my child, for a heart of cold stone may more easily be moved than the hardened heart of man. Thou pleasest me, thou art one of mine; there is strength in thy nature as the rocks are strong. Wilt thou be my child?"

"I will," said Wally, and clung to the stony heart of her new father.

"Then stay with me and go no more among men; among them there is strife, with me there is peace."

"But Joseph, whom I love," said Wally, "shall I never have him?"

"Let him be," replied the mountain, "thou mayest not love him; he is a chamois hunter, and to such as he my daughters have sworn destruction. Come, I will take thee to them, that they may deaden thy heart, else thou canst not live in our eternal peace." And he carried her through wide halls and endless galleries of ice till they came to a vast hall that was transparent as though of crystal; the rays of the sun shone through and broke into millions of coloured sparks, and through the walls heaven and earth gleamed in varied and mingled splendour. There white maiden-forms, glistening like snow, with waving veils of mist, were playing with a herd of chamois, and it was charming to see them sporting with the swift-footed animals, catching them and chasing them here and there. These were Murzoll's daughters, the "phantom maidens" of the Oetz valley. They crowded inquisitively round Wally as Murzoll set her down on the slippery glass of the floor. They were as beautiful as angels, and had faces like milk and blood; but as Wally observed them more closely, a slight shudder ran through her, for she saw that they had all eyes of ice, like their father, and that the rosy hue of their cheeks and lips was not that of blood, but the sap of the Alpine rose, and they were as cold as frozen snow.

"Will you receive this maiden?" asked Murzoll. "I like her, she is strong and firm as the rock, she shall be your sister."

"She is fair," said the maidens; "she has eyes like the chamois. But she has warm blood, and she loves a hunter--we know!"

"Lay your hands on her heart that she may be frozen with all her love, and live in bliss with you," said Murzoll.

The damsels hastened to her--it was like the breath of a snow storm--and laid their cold white hands on her heart; already she felt it shrink and throb more slowly. But she kept off the maidens with both arms and cried, "No, no, leave me. I want none of your bliss, I want only Joseph."

"If thou goest back amongst men we will dash Joseph to pieces, and throw thee and him into the abyss," threatened the phantom maidens; "for no one may live among men who has seen us."

"Throw me into the abyss, but leave me my heart to love. All, anything I will bear, but I will not part from my love," and with the strength of despair Wally seized one of the damsels round the waist and wrestled with her; and behold! the tender form was shattered in her arms, and she held in her hand only dripping snow. The daylight was extinguished; suddenly all was veiled in grey twilight. She stood on the bare rock; a sharp wind drove needles of ice in her face, and instead of the "phantom maidens" white mists whirled round her in a wild dance. High above, Murzoll's pale countenance looked darkly down upon her through the clouds, and his voice of thunder said,

"Dost thou rebel against Men and Gods?--Heaven and earth will be thy enemies. Woe is thee!" And all had vanished--Wally awoke. The chill evening wind whistled through the window-slits on the girl. She rubbed her eyes; her heart still trembled at the weird dream; she thought long before she knew where she was, or could separate the images of her dream from the reality; an inexplicable sense of horror remained in her mind and mingled itself with all she saw. She rose from her bed and involuntarily called loudly for the servant. She went out of the hut to seek him; it was a clear and beautiful evening; the mists were scattered, but the sun was low and the breeze blew keenly from the heights. Wally hastened hither and thither in search of the deaf man; she found only the pile of firewood that he had made for her. Then it occurred to her that he had said he would go away while she was asleep. It was so; he had not waited for her awakening. It was not right of him to abandon her while she slept. To wake thus and find no one; it was hard! All was so silent around her, so deserted and empty. It must be six o'clock and milking time. The confiding cattle would look at the stable door, where no mistress would come in with bread and salt for them--she was sitting up here with her hands in her lap, and around her far and wide stirred no living thing. Oh! the deathly stillness and inaction--she knew not how she felt--alone, so terribly alone! She climbed higher still, on to an overhanging point, that she might look down upon the wide world. A vast unknown picture was spread before her eyes in the purple of the setting sun. There lay before her to the very verge of the horizon the great range of the Tyrol, in the distance growing fainter and fainter, close at hand crushing and overpowering her with their great silent sublimity; between them, like children in their father's arms, slept the blooming valleys. A nameless longing seized her for the beloved fields of home, that even now lay reposing peacefully before her eyes in the evening shadows. The sun had set, and on the horizon lay violet clouds shot with streaks of ruddy gold; little by little, the pale full moon began to shine, contesting the victory with the last flickering gleams of day. Down in the valleys it was already night; here and there, scarcely visible in the distance, a light glimmered from afar--a star of earth. Now they were going to rest, her weary companions down yonder. With them all was well; a friendly roof was above their heads; they rested securely in the bosom of a sheltered home--perhaps, already half-asleep, they still listened behind the coloured curtain of the little window to the beloved one's song--only she was alone, thrust forth and banished, exposed defenceless to every terror, her only shelter the inhospitable hut, where the wind whistled through the empty window-slits. "Father, father, how could thou have the heart to do it?" she cried aloud, but near and far nothing answered but the rush of the night-wind. Higher and higher rose the moon, the streaks of light in the west lost their gold, and glimmered only a pale yellow in the darkness of the evening sky. The outlines of the mountains seemed to shift and grow larger in the twilight; threatening, overpowering, her nearest neighbour, the mighty Similaun, looked down upon her. All the giant peaks around seemed to stare at her frowningly, because she had dared to spy out their nightly aspect. It was as though only since Wally's arrival, they had all become so still and quiet--as a company that confers of private affairs is suddenly dumb when a stranger enters. There she stood, the helpless human form, so lonely in the midst of this silent, motionless world of ice, so inaccessibly high above all living things, so strange in the weird company of clouds and glaciers, in the terrible, mysterious silence. "Now art thou all alone in the world!" cried an inner voice, and an unspeakable anguish, the anguish of the forsaken ones, swept over her. It seemed to her all at once as though she were doomed to go on, for ever lost, through vast immeasurable space, and as though seeking help she clung to the steep wall of rock, pressing her wildly-beating heart against the cold stone.

What passed within her in that hour, she herself did not know, but it seemed as though the stone against which she pressed her young, warm, trembling heart, had exercised some mysterious power over her, for that hour left her hard and rough as if she had been in very truth Murzoll's child.

[CHAPTER V.]

Old Luckard.

When about a week later the herdsman came up the mountain with the flocks, Wally almost frightened him, she looked so wasted away; but when he said to her, "Thy father bids me ask thee if thou'st had enough of being up here, and if thou'll do thy duty?"--she set her teeth and answered, "Tell my father, I'd sooner let myself be eaten piecemeal by the vultures, than do anything to please them that drove me up here!"

This was for the present the last message that passed between her and her father.

When Wally had her little flock around her, which consisted only of sheep and goats, for larger animals could not find sufficient food on these heights, then her old spirit revived and the mountain lost its terrors for her. In the midst of her helpless charges she was no longer alone, she had again some one to work for, something to care about. For though the vulture had been a faithful companion, yet he could not do away with the inactivity that had driven her almost to despair, and allowed dark thoughts to gain the mastery over her.

So little by little she became accustomed to the solitude, and it grew dear and sweet to her. Life with its daily claims, small and great, narrows and confines every great nature: up here Wally's untameable spirit could expand without constraint; up here was freedom--no human being to gainsay her, no alien will to oppose itself to hers--and standing there, the only soul-gifted being far and wide, by degrees she felt herself a queen on her solitary, lofty throne, a sovereign in the unmeasurable, silent realm that lay beneath her eyes. And she looked down at last from her heights with a mixture of pity and scorn on the miserable race below, who, wrapped in earth-born clouds, spent their lives in longing and grasping, in haggling and hoarding, and a secret aversion took the place of her first home-sickness. There, far below, were strife and anguish and crime. Murzoll had spoken truly in her dream--up here among the pure elements of ice and snow, in the clear atmosphere, free from all smoke, or pestilential taint of death--here was peace, here was innocence; here among the mighty tranquil mountain forms, which in the beginning had terrified her, the sentiment of the sublime had flooded her soul and had raised it far above the common measure of mankind. One only of all those low earthly inhabitants remained to her dear and beautiful and great as before. It was Joseph the bear-slayer, the Saint George of her dreams. But he, like herself, dwelt more on the heights than in the valleys, he had climbed all the sky-piercing peaks on which no other foot would venture, he brought down the chamois from the steepest rocks, and for him nor height nor depth had any terror; he was the strongest, the bravest of men, as she was the strongest, the bravest of maidens. In all the Tyrol no maiden was worthy of him but herself; in all the Tyrol no man was worthy of her but he. They belonged to one another, they were the giants of the mountains; with the puny race of the valleys they had nothing in common.

So, in her solitude, she lived for him only, and awaited the day when this promise should be fulfilled to her. That day must come, and being certain of this, she did not lose patience.

Thus the summer passed away, and winter fell upon the valleys, and soon Wally must descend with its wild forerunners, the storm and the snow, to her estranged home. She quailed at the thought. Rather would she have crept up here into some deepest ice-cave with suspended existence like the wild bear than go down again to the noise and smoke of the low spinning-room, and be wedged, together with her morose father, her detested suitor, and the malicious servants, within the narrow compass of the house, imprisoned behind walls of snow a foot high, out of which, often for weeks at a time, no escape was possible.

The nearer the time came, the heavier her heart grew, the more despondingly did she revolt against the thought of that imprisonment; but time passed on, and no one came to fetch her; it seemed as though down there she was entirely forgotten. Colder ever and more wintry grew the weather, the days ever shorter, the nights ever longer; two sheep perished in a snow-storm; soon the animals could find no more food, and the time for fetching home the flocks was gone and past. "They mean to leave us to die up here of hunger," said Wally to the vulture, as she divided her last piece of cheese with him, and a secret horror swept over her; the young healthy life rebelled within her against the terrible thought. What should she do? Forsake the flock and find the homeward track, leaving the innocent beasts to perish miserably? Nay!--that Wally would not do--she would stand or fall like a brave commander with his troops. Or should she set out together with the flocks, all ignorant of the road as she was, and wander over the snow-covered Ferner to see at last one animal after another sink amid the ice and snow, or fall into the clefts of the rock? This also was impossible; she could do nothing but wait.

At last, one misty autumn morning when she could not see her hand before her face for the fog, when the little flock, trembling with frost, were all huddled together in their fold, and Wally, stiff with cold, sat over the fire on the hearth--then the boy appeared to conduct her home. And though she had shrunk with horror from the thought of slowly starving up here with her flock, yet now all her former dread of the return home came upon her again, and she knew not which seemed the greater evil--to sink here by the side of her harsh father Murzoll, or to be obliged to go back to her real father.

The herd-boy broke the silence: "Thy father bids me tell thee thou's not to come into his sight unless thou'll do as he bids thee; but, if thou'll not hear reason, then thou may stay with the cow-herd in the stable--into the house thou shall not come; that he's sworn." "So much the better," said Wally, drawing a deep breath, and the boy stared at her in astonishment.

Now she could go down with a light heart; now she would be spared all contact with those hated people, and could live for herself in barn and stable; what her father had devised as a punishment, was to her an act of kindness. Now she could indulge her thoughts undisturbed; and if she was in need of encouragement there was old Luckard who was always so good to her. Yes, in her solitude she had first learned to understand what was the true worth of such a faithful heart, and that her father could not take from her.

She set to work almost cheerfully to prepare for her homeward journey; for now that her dread of the hateful intercourse with her father was removed, she could think with silent joy on the gladness of the old woman at the return of her foster-child. There was still some one down yonder who took pleasure in her, and that thought did her good.

"Come, Hansl," she said when all was packed to the vulture, who, with ruffled feathers, sat unwilling to move on the hearth, "now we are off to see old Luckard!"

"But Luckard's not at the farm any more," said the boy.

"Why, where is she, then?" asked Wally startled.

"The master has turned her out."

"Turned her out! old Luckard!" cried Wally. "Why, what's been the matter?"

"She couldn't get on with Vincenz, and he's everything with the master now," the boy explained in a tone of indifference, and, whistling, he hoisted the bundle of Wally's things. Wally had turned quite pale. "And where is she now?" she asked.

"With old Annemiedel in Winterstall."

"How long ago did it happen?"

"Oh, about three weeks ago. She cried ever so, and could hardly walk, the fright went to her knees; Klettenmaier and the boy had to hold her or she'd have tumbled down. All the village stood round and looked on to see her go away."

Wally had listened motionless, her sunburnt face had turned quite pale, and her breast heaved painfully. When the boy had ended, she seized her staff from the wall, flung the vulture on to her shoulder, and stepped out of the hut.

"Go on first," she commanded in a hoarse voice. The little flock was quickly assembled, the milking gear packed together, and the procession set itself in motion. Wally spoke not a word; a fearful tension marked her features, and with lips pressed together, a threatening line that recalled her father's look between her thick brows, she led the flock onwards with long strides, her firm step leaving deep tracks in the snow. Faster and ever faster she walked, the farther down she got, till the boy with the flock could scarcely keep up with her, and where the way was steep she struck the iron point of her staff into the soil and swung herself down with a mighty spring, so that only the vulture in the air could follow her path over cliffs and crevasses. Often both herdsman and flock vanished in the mist behind her; then she stood still and waited a moment till they were in sight, and when the boy had indicated the direction of the road, on she went again without rest or pause, as if it were a matter of life and death.

At last the region of perpetual snow was passed, and at Wally's feet lay Vent, as it had lain six months before when she had gone up the mountain; only not now in the glow of the May sunshine, but forlorn, autumnal, cold and dead. The boy announced that they must rest there for a while. Wally refused, but the boy declared it would be as good as killing both man and beast, not to rest for half an hour.

"As thou will," said Wally, "stay--. I am going on. If they ask where I am when thou gets home, say only that I am gone to old Luckard." And she strode on, the flapping wings of the faithful Hansl rustling over her; he could fly now as he liked, for Wally no longer clipped his wings.

Now she had reached the spot where on her upward journey Luckard had bid her farewell and turned homewards again. "Dear old Luckard!" Wally fancied she could see her again quite plainly, crying in her apron as she turned away, waving her one more farewell with her brown, bony arms, her silver locks that always hung from below her cap fluttering in the wind. She had grown grey in honour and fidelity in Stromminger's house, and now shame had fallen on that white head! And Wally had parted from her so lightly, and repressed her tears, and had torn herself impatiently away when the old woman in her grief would not let her go; and no foreboding had warned her of the fate to which she was sending the unprotected old servant with that brief farewell, or that Luckard for her sake would suffer hardship and disgrace. Wally ran and ran as if she could overtake Luckard going down the road as she had gone six months before; and in spite of the autumn frost, the sweat stood on her brow, the sweat of a winged haste to pay her heavy debt of gratitude; and hot tears gathered in her eyes as she seemed always to see the old woman silently walking and walking on before her. She went so slowly, poor old Luckard, and Wally so fast; and yet they remained always as far apart, and Wally could not overtake her.

For one instant must Wally pause for rest and breath. She wiped the drops from her brow and the tears from her eyes; then she felt as if driven inexorably onwards again. "Wait, Luckard, only wait, I'm coming to thee," she murmured breathlessly to herself, as if for her own comfort.

At last the church tower of Heiligkreuz rose up before her, and from thence a giddy path led high over the torrent to a solitary group of houses on the farther side of the ravine. This was the little spot called Winterstall, where Luckard was living. Wally passed behind the houses of Heiligkreuz, and crossed the slight bridge beneath which the wild waters of the Ache roared and foamed as though they would sprinkle with their angry froth even the defiant girl who looked carelessly down into the awful depths as though neither danger nor dizziness existed in the world. The bridge was passed, still a steep bit of road remained, and then at last it was reached, the goal for which she had striven with a beating heart; she was in Winterstall, and there just to the left of the path stood the hut of Luckard's cousin, old Annemiedel, its tiny windows deep set beneath the overhanging thatch. Behind them, no doubt, the old woman sat spinning, as was her custom in the winter-season, and Wally drew a deep breath out of a lightened heart. She had reached the cottage, and before entering she looked smiling through the low window for Luckard. But there was no one in the room; it looked empty and deserted with an unmade bed in one corner left standing in a disorderly heap. Above it, a smoke-blackened wooden Christ stretched his arms on a cross, on which were hung a piece of crape and a dusty garland of rue. It was a dreary scene, and at the sight of it all joy forsook Wally; she set down the vulture on a rail, unlatched the door and stepped into the narrow passage. At one end an open door led into the little kitchen, where a small fire of brushwood smouldered on the hearth. Some one was there busily at work; it must certainly be old Luckard, and with a beating heart Wally walked in. The cousin stood on the hearth cutting up bread for her soup. No one else was there.

"Oh, my God! Wally Stromminger!" cried the old woman, and let her knife fall into the platter in her astonishment. "Oh, my God, what a pity, what a pity!"

"Where is Luckard?" said Wally.

"She is dead! Oh, my God, if thou'd only come three days sooner--we buried her yesterday." Wally leant silent and with closed eyes against the door post; no sign betrayed what was passing in her soul.

"It's a real pity!" continued the old woman loquaciously. "Luckard said she felt as if she couldn't die without seeing thee once more, and thou was always coming on the cards, and day and night she would listen to hear if thou wasn't coming. And when she felt herself near death, 'After all, I must die,' she said, 'and I've never seen the child,' and then she would have the cards once more, and she wanted to lay them out for thee in the very death-struggle, but she couldn't do it, her hand shook on the counterpane. 'I can see no more,' she said, and lay back, and it was all over."

Wally clasped her hands over her face, but still no word passed her lips.

"Come into the bedroom," said the old woman goodnaturedly. "I've hardly borne to go in there since they carried Luckard out. I'm always so alone, and I was so glad when my cousin came and said now she'd stay with me. But I soon saw she couldn't live long after her disgrace. It went to her stomach, she could hardly eat anything, and every night I could hear her crying, and so she got always weaker and thinner--till she died."

The old woman had opened the door of the room into which Wally had looked before, and they went in. A swarm of autumn flies buzzed up. In the corner stood Luckard's old spinning wheel silent and still, and the empty disordered bed confronted it sadly.

From a panelled cupboard on which the black Virgin of Altenötting was depicted, Annemiedel took a worn pack of German cards.

"There, see; I laid the pack by for thee, I was sure thee would come. It always stood so on the cards. They're true witches' cards these, and a pack that has had the touch of a dead hand on it, that is doubly good. I don't know what misfortune they're sending thee, but Luckard always shook her head and read them with a fearful heart. She never told me what she saw in them, but for sure it was no good."

She gave Wally the cards; Wally took them in silence and put them in her pocket. The cousin wondered that Luckard's death should not touch her more nearly, that she should be so quiet and not even shed a tear.

"I must go," the old woman said, "I've got my soup on the fire. Say, thou'll dine with me?"

"Yes, yes," said Wally gloomily, "only go, cousin, and let me rest awhile. I sprang almost straight down here from the Hochjoch."

Annemiedel went away shaking her head. "If Luckard had only known what a hard-hearted thing it is!"

Scarcely was Wally alone when she bolted the door behind the old woman and fell on her knees by the empty bed. She drew the cards from her pocket, laid them before her, and folded her hands over them as over some holy relic.

"Oh! Oh!" she cried aloud, in a sudden outburst of grief: "Thou'st had to die, and I was not with thee; and in all my life long thou's always been loving and good to me--and I--I did not pay it back. Luckard, dear old Luckard, can thou not hear me? I am here now--and now it is too late. They left me up there. There's no herdsman they'd have left so long, and it was all malice, that I might just be frozen and then give in! It had already cost me two of my flock--and now thee too, thou poor good Luckard!"

Suddenly she sprang to her feet; her eyes red with crying flashed with a feverish light, she clenched her brown fists. "Only wait down yonder, you scoundrels--only wait till I come. I will teach you to drive innocent and helpless folk out of house and home. As true as God is above us, Luckard, thou shall hear even in thy grave how I will stand up for thee!"

Her eyes fell on the crucifix over the dead woman's bed. "And Thou! Thou let'st everything go as it will, and Thou helps no one that cannot help himself," she murmured bitterly in her storm of grief to the silent enduring image above, whose significance she never could understand. She was terrible in her righteous anger. All that lay in her of her father's inflexible nature had developed itself unfettered up yonder in the wilds, and her great and noble heart that knew none but the purest impulses drove without suspecting it ill-seething blood through her veins.

She gathered together her sacred relics, the cards, on which the dying woman's clammy fingers had traced the last message of her love; then she went out into the kitchen to Annemiedel.

"I will now go on, cousin," she said calmly, "I only beg thee to tell me how things fell out between Luckard and Stromminger--" she no longer called him father. The old woman had just served the soup in a wooden bowl and she insisted on Wally's sharing it with her.

"Thou must know," she said, while Wally was eating, "Vincenz there, he knows just how to come over thy father, and he's got the better of him altogether. Ever since the summer, Stromminger's had a bad foot and cannot walk. So Vincenz goes up to him every evening and passes the time for him playing cards, and always lets him win--he thinks he'll gain once for all when he wins thee. The old man can hardly live now without Vincenz, and so little by little he's given him the oversight of everything, because with his lame foot he can never get about himself. So Vincenz thinks now the house and farm half belong to him already, and bustles in and out just as he pleases. That was how the quarrel began with Luckard, for Luckard, she would always see that everything was right and fair, as she was used to do, and Vincenz took everything out of her hands and she durst never say a word. Then when he saw that Luckard was downright pining, he said to her that he'd let her manage everything just as if she'd been mistress, and that he'd take care to wink at anything she might like to do, if she'd only help him to get thee--for he knew very well that she could do anything with thee. And then Luckard grew angry; 'She'd never stolen in her life,' she said, 'and wasn't going to begin now in her old age--she wanted nothing but what she could earn honestly, and that as for the man who'd look on at cheating and say nothing, she'd never recommend him to Wally,' she said. And what does the villain do? goes straight to Stromminger and accuses Luckard. He'd convinced himself now, he said, that it was only Luckard that had set thee against him and thy father, and it was all her doing, he said, that thou was so unruly, because she was fain to hold everything under her own hand. That's how it all came about. And it just broke her heart to think that such things were believed of her, when not a word of it all was true. It grieved her such injustice should be done. Is it not true, she never said to thee that thou shouldn't obey thy father?"

"Never, never; on the contrary she was always humble and discreet, and never talked about what she had nothing to do with," said Wally, and again her burning eyes were wet. She turned away her face and rose to go. "God keep thee, cousin," she said, "I'll soon come back again." She took her staff and hat, called her bird, and set out hastily towards home.

[CHAPTER VI.]

A Day at Home.

As Wally went back across the bridge, she turned giddy; she felt now for the first time how the blood had mounted to her head. The milder air down here that felt heavy and oppressive after the clear, icy atmosphere of the Ferner, the bird that clung tightly to her shoulder as her rapid movements made his hold insecure--all seemed painful, almost unbearable. At last she came to the village where her home stood, but to reach it she was obliged to go the whole length of the street, to the very last house. All the villagers, who had just finished their dinners, put their heads out of window and pointed at her with their fingers. "See, there goes the Vulture-maiden. Hast ventured down at last, then? And thou's brought the vulture back with thee, thou and he were not frozen together, then? Thy father left thee to shiver up there long enough!" "Let's see, now, how thou'rt looking? As brown and lean as a Schnalser herdsman." "He! he! thou's grown tame enough up yonder; yes, yes, that's the way to serve such as will not obey their father!"

A shower of spiteful comments such as these fell around Wally; she kept her eyes bent on the ground, and the burning red of shame and bitterness mounted to her brow. Insulted--scoffed at--thus the proud daughter of the chief peasant returned to her home. And all--for what? An implacable hatred rose up in her, sorer, bitterer than anger; for anger may subside, but the deep hatred that grows in an embittered, ill-treated heart strikes its roots through the whole being; it is the silent, persistent outcome of helpless revenge.

Silently Wally mounted the hill behind the hamlet whence Stromminger's farm looked proudly down. No one noticed her arrival but the deaf Klettenmaier, who was splitting wood for winter-use under the wooden shed in the yard; all the others were in the field.

"God be praised," he said, and took off his cap to his master's child. She set down her burden, the heavy vulture, on the ground, and gave her hand to the old man.

"Thou's heard?" he said. "Old Luckard?"

Wally nodded.

"Ay! ay!" he continued without interrupting his work. "If Vincenz once takes a dislike to any one he never rests till he's driven them out. He'd be glad enough to see me off the place, for he knows very well I always held by Luckard, and he thinks that if no one was left at the farm to help thee, thou dursn't be so wilful. And because there's nothing else he can do to me, he leaves me always the hardest work; I've a whole waggon load of wood to cut up every day, but I can't do it for long. See, I'm nearly seventy-six years old, and this is the third day. But that's just what he wants, to be able to tell Stromminger that I'm no longer good for anything, or else for me to go away of myself when I can hold out no more. But where could I go--an old man like me? I must hold out."

Wally had listened with a gloomy countenance to the old man's speech. Now she went quickly into the house to fetch bread and wine for him; but the store-room was locked and so was the cellar. Wally went into the kitchen. Her heart felt a pang--here had been Luckard's peculiar domain, and she felt as if the old woman must come to meet her and ask: "How is it with thee?--what does thou want?--what can I do to serve thee?" But all that was over and gone. A strange and sturdy servant girl sat on the hearth, peeling potatoes.

"Where are the keys?" asked Wally.

"What keys?"

"The keys of the store-room and the cellar!"

The girl looked insolently at Wally. "Ho, ho! what next--and who may thou be?"

"That thou might guess well enough," said Wally proudly, "I am the master's daughter."

"Ha, ha," laughed the girl, "then thou may just take thyself out of the kitchen. The master has forbidden that thou should come into the house. Over there in the barn--that's thy place. Dost understand me?"

Wally grew pale as death. Thus, then--thus was she to be received in her father's house. Wallburga, daughter of the Strommingers, must give way to the lowest servant girl on the estate to which she was heir! Not only was she to be forbidden her father's presence--it was intended to break her spirit through degrading humiliations. She, Wally, the Vulture-maiden, of whom her father had once proudly said that a girl like her was worth ten boys!

"Give me the keys!" she commanded in a firm voice.

"Ha! ha! that's better still. The master has ordered us to look on thee as a stable girl--there's no question of keys there. I look after the house, and I give out nothing but what the master allows."

"The keys," cried Wally in an outburst of anger, "I command thee!"

"Thou's no call to command me--dost understand? I'm Stromminger's servant, and none of thine. And I am master in the kitchen, dost understand? It's Stromminger's orders. And if Stromminger holds his own daughter lower than a servant--no doubt he knows the reason why!"

Wally stepped close up to the servant, her eyes flashed, her lips quivered; the girl was frightened. But only for an instant did the struggle last in Wally, then her pride conquered; with the miserable serving maid she had nothing to do. She left the house. Her pulses beat like hammers, her eyes swam, her bosom rose and fell in gasps; it was too much--all that this day had brought her. She crossed the yard, took the cleaver from the hand of the old man who was trembling with his efforts, and led him to a bench that he might rest himself. He honestly resisted, he dared not leave his task incomplete; but Wally made him understand she would do his work for him.

"God bless thee, thou hast a good heart," said the man, seating himself wearily on the bench. Wally went into the shed and split the heavy logs with mighty blows. So wrathfully did she swing the axe that at each stroke she hit it through the wood deep into the block. The old man watched with astonishment how the work went on better in her hands than in a man's, and he took a pride in it--he had seen the child grow up from her birth and loved her in his own way. But Wally saw afar the hated form of Vincenz approaching, and involuntarily she discontinued her work. Vincenz did not see her. He came up from behind Klettenmaier, and suddenly stood close in front of the startled old man, whilst Wally observed him from within the shed. He seized the man by the doublet and pulled him up. "Hallo," he screamed in his ear, "dost call that working? thou lazy dawdle, thou; as often as I come by thou's sitting there doing nothing--now I've had enough of it--be off with thee," and he gave him a push with his knee, so that the trembling old man was flung to a distance on the stone pavement of the yard.

"Help, master! help me up," cried the man imploringly, but Vincenz had seized a cudgel and raised his arm. "Wait a bit--thou shall see how I help up a lazy knave!" he said. At this moment such a blow fell on Vincenz's head that he uttered a loud cry and staggered backwards. "God in heaven, what is that?" he stammered and sank upon the bench.

"It is the Vulture-maiden," answered a voice trembling with rage, and Wally, the hatchet in her hand, stood before him with white lips and staring eyes, struggling for breath as if the wild pulses of her heart were choking her.

"Did thou feel that?" she panted out with breathless pauses. "Dost know now how it feels to get a heavy blow? I'll teach thee to oppress my faithful old servant. Thou'st already sent my Luckard underground, and now thou'll do the same by this old man? Nay, before I'll suffer such a deed, I'll set my whole inheritance in flames and smoke thee out of it as I would a fox." Meanwhile she had helped up old Klettenmaier, and led him out to the barn. "Go in, Klettenmaier," she said, "and recover thyself, I order thee."

Klettenmaier obeyed; he felt that at this moment she was master, but at the door he freed himself from her support and said, shaking his head, "Thou shouldn't have done it, Wally--go and look after Vincenz; I fear thou'st given him a heavy blow."

She left the old man and went out again. Vincenz lay quite still. Wally looked at him with half-averted eyes; he had lost consciousness and lay stretched out on the bench, and blood dripped from his head on to the ground. With quick decision, Wally went into the kitchen and called to the girl; "Come out here; bring some vinegar and a cloth and help me."

"What, thou's more orders to give already," said the girl, laughing out loud, without stirring from the spot where she sat.

"It's not for me," said Wally with a dark and evil glance, as she took the vinegar flask from the shelf. "Vincenz is lying out there--I've half killed him."

"Heaven and earth!" shrieked the maid; and instead of hastening to help Vincenz, she ran screaming about the house and yard. "Help, help," she cried; "Wally has struck Vincenz dead!" And from every side the alarm cry was echoed back till it reached even to the village, and every one ran to the spot.

Wally had meanwhile called Klettenmaier to her assistance, and was washing the face of the senseless man with vinegar and water. She could not understand how it was the wound was so deep, for she had struck with the back of the hatchet, and not with the sharp edge; but the blow had been dealt with a force of which she herself was unconscious. Her long restrained rage had concentrated itself in that one stroke, which came crashing down as if she were still splitting the logs of wood.

"What's happened here?" roared a voice in Wally's ear, and her blood stood still--her father had dragged himself out on his crutches. "What's happened here?" repeated twenty or thirty voices, and the yard was filled with people.

Wally was silent.

A buzzing murmur arose all round her, every one pressed forward, touching and examining the lifeless man. "Is he dead?" "Will he die?" "How came it about?" "Did Wally do it?" was asked from one to another.

She stood there as though she neither heard nor saw, and laid a bandage on the wounded Vincenz. "Can thou not speak?" thundered her father. "What hast thou done, Wally?"

"You can see!" was the short reply.

"She owns to it," they all shrieked together. "Gracious Heaven, what insolence!" "Thou gallows-bird, thou!" cried Stromminger. "Is it so thou comes down again to thy home?"

At the word "home," Wally gave a short bitter laugh and fixed a piercing glance on her father.

"Laugh away," cried Stromminger; "I thought thou'd learn better up there, and now, scarce a quarter of an hour in the house, thou's already at mischief again."

"He moves," cried one of the women, "he's still alive."

"Carry him into the house and lay him on my bed," ordered Stromminger, making way by the kitchen door against which he was leaning. Two men raised Vincenz and carried him indoors.

"If only the doctor were here," lamented the women, following the sick man into the room.

"If only we had old Luckard, we should need no doctor," said some of them, "she knew what was good for everything."

"Let her be fetched," cried Stromminger, "tell her to come this instant."

Again Wally laughed. "Yes, truly, old Luckard," she said. "Thou'd be glad to have her back again now, Stromminger! Thou must seek her now in the churchyard!"

The people looked at each other in consternation. "Is she dead?" asked Stromminger.

"Yes, three days ago she died--died heartbroken because of what you did to her. See, Stromminger, it serves thee right, and if yon man dies because there is no one by who knows how to cure him, it serves him right too; so much as that he has well deserved of Luckard."

Now there arose a tumult--this was too bad. "After such a deed to talk like this, and say it served him right, instead of repenting it. Why, no one's life was safe! and Stromminger to stand by and let her talk like that and never say a word! there was a fine father for you!" So they talked together, while Wally, with folded arms, stood defiantly in the kitchen door looking at Stromminger, who, in spite of himself, was hard hit by her reproaches. Now however his wrath returned with double force, and raising himself on his crutch he cried to the crowd; "I'll show you what manner of father I am! seize her and bind her."

"Yes, yes," cried the people confusedly, "bind her, such a one should be under lock and bolt--before the justice she shall go, the murderess."

Wally uttered a dull cry at the word "murderess," and drew back into the kitchen. "Hold," cried Stromminger. "Before a justice my daughter shall never go; do you think I'll live to see the chief peasant's child taken off to prison? Do you know Stromminger no better than that? Do I need a court of justice to punish a wilful girl? Stromminger himself is man enough for that, and on my own ground and my own territory I am my own judge and justice. I'll soon show you who Stromminger is, though I am lame. Into the cellar she shall go, and there remain under lock and key, till her proud spirit is broken and she comes after me on her knees before you all. You have heard, all of you, and if I don't keep my word you may set me down a rascal."

"Merciful God, hast Thou forgotten judgment?" cried Wally. "No, father no! for God's sake don't lock me up! Turn me out, send me up the Murzoll to perish in the snow--I'll die of hunger--I'll die of cold--but under the open heavens. If you lock me up, harm will come of it!"

"Aha, thou'd like to be off again wandering round like a vagabond--that would please thee better? Not so; I've been too soft with thee. Thou'll stop under lock and key till thou asks pardon on thy knees of me and of Vincenz."

"Father, all that is no good with me; sooner than do that, I'd rot away in the cellar--that you might know of yourself. Let me go, father, or, I tell you once more, harm will come of it."

"There--enough said. Well, you--what are you all standing there for? Are you dreaming? Am I to run after her with my lame foot? Seize her, but hold her fast--she has Stromminger blood in her that'll try your teeth--hold on there!"

The peasants, stung by this mockery, crowded into the kitchen. "We'll soon get hold of her!" they said scoffingly.