Findelkind

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer

FINDELKIND

By Louise de la Ramee (AKA Ouida)

Works of Louisa de la Ramee ("Ouida")

Findelkind

Muriella

A Dog of Flanders

The Nurnberg Stove

A Provence Rose

Two Little Wooden Shoes

FINDELKIND

There was a little boy, a year or two ago, who lived under the shadow of

Martinswand. Most people know, I should suppose, that the Martinswand is

that mountain in the Oberinnthal, where, several centuries past, brave

Kaiser Max lost his footing as he stalked the chamois, and fell upon a

ledge of rock, and stayed there, in mortal peril, for thirty hours, till

he was rescued by the strength and agility of a Tyrol hunter,--an angel

in the guise of a hunter, as the chronicles of the time prefer to say.

The Martinswand is a grand mountain, being one of the spurs of the

greater Sonnstein, and rises precipitously, looming, massive and lofty,

like a very fortress for giants, where it stands right across that

road which, if you follow it long enough, takes you through Zell to

Landeck,--old, picturesque, poetic Landeck, where Frederick of the

Empty Pockets rhymed his sorrows in ballads to his people,--and so on by

Bludenz into Switzerland itself, by as noble a highway as any traveller

can ever desire to traverse on a summer's day. It is within a mile

of the little burg of Zell, where the people, in the time of their

emperor's peril, came out with torches and bells, and the Host lifted

up by their priest, and all prayed on their knees underneath the steep,

gaunt pile of limestone, that is the same today as it was then, whilst

Kaiser Max is dust; it soars up on one side of this road, very steep and

very majestic, having bare stone at its base, and being all along its

summit crowned with pine woods; and on the other side of the road are

a little stone church, quaint and low, and gray with age, and a stone

farmhouse, and cattle-sheds, and timber-sheds, all of wood that is

darkly brown from time; and beyond these are some of the most beautiful

meadows in the world, full of tall grass and countless flowers, with

pools and little estuaries made by the brimming Inn River that flows

by them; and beyond the river are the glaciers of the Sonnstein and the

Selrain and the wild Arlberg region, and the golden glow of sunset in

the west, most often seen from here through the veil of falling rain.

At this farmhouse, with Martinswand towering above it, and Zell a mile

beyond, there lived, and lives still, a little boy who bears the old

historical name of Findelkind, whose father, Otto Korner, is the last

of a sturdy race of yeomen, who had fought with Hofer and Haspinger, and

had been free men always.

Findelkind came in the middle of seven other children, and was a pretty

boy of nine years, with slenderer limbs and paler cheeks than his rosy

brethren, and tender dreamy eyes that had the look, his mother told him,

of seeking stars in midday: de chercher midi a quatorze heures, as the

French have it. He was a good little lad, and seldom gave any trouble

from disobedience, though he often gave it from forgetfulness. His

father angrily complained that he was always in the clouds,--that is, he

was always dreaming, and so very often would spill the milk out of the

pails, chop his own fingers instead of the wood, and stay watching the

swallows when he was sent to draw water. His brothers and sisters were

always making fun of him; they were sturdier, ruddier, and merrier

children than he was, loved romping and climbing, and nutting, thrashing

the walnut-trees and sliding down snow-drifts, and got into mischief of

a more common and childish sort than Findelkind's freaks of fancy. For,

indeed, he was a very fanciful little boy: everything around had tongues

for him; and he would sit for hours among the long rushes on the river's

edge, trying to imagine what the wild green-gray water had found in its

wanderings, and asking the water-rats and the ducks to tell him about

it; but both rats and ducks were too busy to attend to an idle little

boy, and never spoke, which vexed him.

Findelkind, however, was very fond of his books: he would study day and

night, in his little ignorant, primitive fashion. He loved his missal

and his primer, and could spell them both out very fairly, and was

learning to write of a good priest in Zirl, where he trotted three times

a week with his two little brothers. When not at school, he was chiefly

set to guard the sheep and the cows, which occupation left him very much

to himself, so that he had many hours in the summer-time to stare up to

the skies and wonder--wonder--wonder about all sorts of things; while in

the winter--the long, white, silent winter, when the post-wagons ceased

to run, and the road into Switzerland was blocked, and the whole world

seemed asleep, except for the roaring of the winds--Findelkind, who

still trotted over the snow to school in Zirl, would dream still,

sitting on the wooden settle by the fire, when he came home again under

Martinswand. For the worst--or the best--of it all was that he was

Findelkind.

This is what was always haunting him. He was Findelkind; and to bear

this name seemed to him to mark him out from all other children, and to

dedicate him to heaven. One day, three years before, when he had been

only six years old, the priest in Zirl, who was a very kindly and

cheerful man, and amused the children as much as he taught them, had not

allowed Findelkind to leave school to go home, because the storm of snow

and wind was so violent, but had kept him until the worst should pass,

with one or two other little lads who lived some way off, and had let

the boys roast a meal of apples and chestnuts by the stove in his little

room, and, while the wind howled and the blinding snow fell without,

had told the children the story of another Findelkind,--an earlier

Findelkind, who had lived in the flesh on Arlberg as far back as 1381,

and had been a little shepherd lad, "just like you," said the good man,

looking at the little boys munching their roast crabs, and whose country

had been over there, above Stuben, where Danube and Rhine meet and part.

The pass of Arlberg is even still so bleak and bitter that few care to

climb there; the mountains around are drear and barren, and snow lies

till midsummer, and even longer sometimes. "But in the early ages," said

the priest (and this is quite a true tale that the children heard with

open eyes, and mouths only not open because they were full of crabs and

chestnuts), "in the early ages," said the priest to them, "the Arlberg

was far more dreary than it is now. There was only a mule-track over

it, and no refuge for man or beast; so that wanderers and peddlers, and

those whose need for work or desire for battle brought them over that

frightful pass, perished in great numbers, and were eaten by the bears

and the wolves. The little shepherd boy Findelkind--who was a little

boy five hundred years ago, remember," the priest repeated--"was sorely

disturbed and distressed to see these poor dead souls in the snow winter

after winter, and seeing the blanched bones lie on the bare earth,

unburied, when summer melted the snow. It made him unhappy, very

unhappy; and what could he do, he a little boy keeping sheep? He had as

his wages two florins a year; that was all; but his heart rose high, and

he had faith in God. Little as he was, he said to himself he would try

and do something, so that year after year those poor lost travellers and

beasts should not perish so. He said nothing to anybody, but he took the

few florins he had saved up, bade his master farewell, and went on his

way begging,--a little fourteenth century boy, with long, straight hair,

and a girdled tunic, as you see them," continued the priest, "in the

miniatures in the black-letter missal that lies upon my desk. No doubt

heaven favoured him very strongly, and the saints watched over him;

still, without the boldness of his own courage, and the faith in his own

heart, they would not have done so. I suppose, too, that when knights in

their armour, and soldiers in their camps, saw such a little fellow all

alone, they helped him, and perhaps struck some blows for him, and

so sped him on his way, and protected him from robbers and from wild

beasts. Still, be sure that the real shield and the real reward that

served Findelkind of Arlberg was the pure and noble purpose that armed

him night and day. Now, history does not tell us where Findelkind went,

nor how he fared, nor how long he was about it; but history does tell

us that the little barefooted, long-haired boy, knocking so loudly at

castle gates and city walls in the name of Christ and Christ's poor

brethren, did so well succeed in his quest that before long he had

returned to his mountain home with means to have a church and a rude

dwelling built, where he lived with six other brave and charitable

souls, dedicating themselves to St. Christopher, and going out night

and day to the sound of the Angelus, seeking the lost and weary. This

is really what Findelkind of Arlberg did five centuries ago, and did

so quickly that his fraternity of St. Christopher, twenty years after,

numbered among its members archdukes, and prelates, and knights without

number, and lasted as a great order down to the days of Joseph II. This

is what Findelkind in the fourteenth century did, I tell you. Bear

like faith in your hearts, my children; and though your generation is

a harder one than this, because it is without faith, yet you shall move

mountains, because Christ and St. Christopher will be with you."

Then the good man, having said that, blessed them, and left them alone

to their chestnuts and crabs, and went into his own oratory to prayer.

The other boys laughed and chattered; but Findelkind sat very quietly,

thinking of his namesake, all the day after, and for many days and weeks

and months this story haunted him. A little boy had done all that;

and this little boy had been called Findelkind: Findelkind, just like

himself.

It was beautiful, and yet it tortured him. If the good man had known

how the history would root itself in the child's mind, perhaps he would

never have told it; for night and day it vexed Findelkind, and yet

seemed beckoning to him and crying, "Go thou and do likewise!"

But what could he do?

There was the snow, indeed, and there were the mountains, as in the

fourteenth century, but there were no travellers lost. The diligence did

not go into Switzerland after autumn, and the country people who went

by on their mules and in their sledges to Innspruck knew their way very

well, and were never likely to be adrift on a winter's night, or eaten

by a wolf or a bear.

When spring came, Findelkind sat by the edge of the bright pure water

among the flowering grasses, and felt his heart heavy. Findelkind of

Arlberg who was in heaven now must look down, he fancied, and think him

so stupid and so selfish, sitting there. The first Findelkind, a few

centuries before, had trotted down on his bare feet from his mountain

pass, and taken his little crook, and gone out boldly over all the

land on his pilgrimage, and knocked at castle gates and city walls

in Christ's name, and for love of the poor! That was to do something

indeed!

This poor little living Findelkind would look at the miniatures in the

priest's missal, in one of which there was the little fourteenth-century

boy, with long hanging hair and a wallet and bare feet, and he never

doubted that it was the portrait of the blessed Findelkind who was in

heaven; and he wondered if he looked like a little boy there, or if he

were changed to the likeness of an angel.

"He was a boy just like me," thought the poor little fellow, and he felt

so ashamed of himself,--so very ashamed; and the priest had told him

to try and do the same. He brooded over it so much, and it made him so

anxious and so vexed, that his brothers ate his porridge and he did

not notice it, his sisters pulled his curls and he did not feel it, his

father brought a stick down on his back, and he only started and stared,

and his mother cried because he was losing his mind, and would grow

daft, and even his mother's tears he scarcely saw. He was always

thinking of Findelkind in heaven.

When he went for water, he spilt one-half; when he did his lessons, he

forgot the chief part; when he drove out the cow, he let her munch the

cabbages; and when he was set to watch the oven he let the loaves burn,

like great Alfred. He was always busied thinking, "Little Findelkind

that is in heaven did so great a thing: why may not I? I ought! I

ought!" What was the use of being named after Findelkind that was in

heaven, unless one did something great, too?

Next to the church there is a little stone lodge, or shed, with two

arched openings, and from it you look into the tiny church, with its

crucifixes and relics, or out to great, bold, sombre Martinswand, as you

like best; and in this spot Findelkind would sit hour after hour while

his brothers and sisters were playing, and look up at the mountains or

on to the altar, and wish and pray and vex his little soul most wofully;

and his ewes and his lambs would crop the grass about the entrance, and

bleat to make him notice them and lead them farther afield, but all in

vain. Even his dear sheep he hardly heeded, and his pet ewes, Katte

and Greta, and the big ram Zips, rubbed their soft noses in his hand

unnoticed. So the summer droned away,--the summer that is so short

in the mountains, and yet so green and so radiant, with the torrents

tumbling through the flowers, and the hay tossing in the meadows, and

the lads and lasses climbing to cut the rich, sweet grass of the alps.

The short summer passed as fast as a dragon-fly flashes by, all green

and gold, in the sun; and it was near winter once more, and still

Findelkind was always dreaming and wondering what he could do for the

good of St. Christopher; and the longing to do it all came more and more

into his little heart, and he puzzled his brain till his head ached. One

autumn morning, whilst yet it was dark, Findelkind made his mind up, and

rose before his brothers, and stole down-stairs and out into the air,

as it was easy to do, because the house-door never was bolted. He had

nothing with him; he was barefooted, and his school-satchel was slung

behind him, as Findelkind of Arlberg's wallet had been five centuries

before.

He took a little staff from the piles of wood lying about, and went out

on to the highroad, on his way to do heaven's will. He was not very

sure what that divine will wished, but that was because he was only

nine years old, and not very wise; but Findelkind that was in heaven had

begged for the poor; so would he.

His parents were very poor, but he did not think of them as in any want

at any time, because he always had his bowlful of porridge and as much

bread as he wanted to eat. This morning he had nothing to eat; he wished

to be away before any one could question him.

It was quite dusk in the fresh autumn morning. The sun had not risen

behind the glaciers of the Stubaithal, and the road was scarcely seen;

but he knew it very well, and he set out bravely, saying his prayers to

Christ, and to St. Christopher, and to Findelkind that was in heaven.

He was not in any way clear as to what he would do, but he thought he

would find some great thing to do somewhere, lying like a jewel in the

dust; and he went on his way in faith, as Findelkind of Arlberg had done

before him.

His heart beat high, and his head lost its aching pains, and his feet

felt light; so light as if there were wings to his ankles. He would not

go to Zirl, because Zirl he knew so well, and there could be nothing

very wonderful waiting there; and he ran fast the other way. When he was

fairly out from under the shadow of Martinswand, he slackened his pace,

and saw the sun come on his path, and the red day redden the gray-green

water, and the early Stellwagen from Landeck, that had been lumbering

along all the night, overtook him.

He would have run after it, and called out to the travellers for alms,

but he felt ashamed. His father had never let him beg, and he did not

know how to begin.

The Stellwagen rolled on through the autumn mud, and that was one chance

lost. He was sure that the first Findelkind had not felt ashamed when he

had knocked at the first castle gates.

By and by, when he could not see Martinswand by turning his head back

ever so, he came to an inn that used to be a post-house in the old days

when men travelled only by road. A woman was feeding chickens in the

bright clear red of the cold daybreak.

Findelkind timidly held out his hand. "For the poor!" he murmured, and

doffed his cap.

The old woman looked at him sharply. "Oh, is it you, little Findelkind?

Have you run off from school? Be off with you home! I haves mouths

enough to feed here."

Findelkind went away, and began to learn that it is not easy to be a

prophet or a hero in one's own country.

He trotted a mile farther, and met nothing. At last he came to some cows

by the wayside, and a man tending them.

"Would you give me something to help make a monastery?" he said,

timidly, and once more took off his cap. The man gave a great laugh. "A

fine monk, you! And who wants more of these lazy drones? Not I."

Findelkind never answered: he remembered the priest had said that the

years he lived in were very hard ones, and men in them had no faith.

Ere long he came to a big walled house, with turrets and grated

casements,--very big it looked to him,--like one of the first

Findelkind's own castles. His heart beat loud against his side, but he

plucked up his courage, and knocked as loud as his heart was beating.

He knocked and knocked, but no answer came. The house was empty. But he

did not know that; he thought it was that the people within were cruel,

and he went sadly onward with the road winding before him, and on his

right the beautiful impetuous gray river, and on his left the green

Mittelgebirge and the mountains that rose behind it. By this time the

day was up; the sun was glowing on the red of the cranberry shrubs, and

the blue of the bilberry-boughs: he was hungry and thirsty and tired.

But he did not give in for that; he held on steadily; he knew that there

was near, somewhere near, a great city that the people called Sprugg,

and thither he had resolved to go. By noontide he had walked eight

miles, and came to a green place where men were shooting at targets, the

tall, thick grass all around them; and a little way farther off was

a train of people chanting and bearing crosses, and dressed in long

flowing robes.

The place was the Hottinger Au, and the day was Saturday, and the

village was making ready to perform a miracle-play on the morrow.

Findelkind ran to the robed singing-folk, quite sure that he saw the

people of God. "Oh, take me, take me!" he cried to them; "do take me

with you to do heaven's work."

But they pushed him aside for a crazy little boy that spoiled their

rehearsing.

"It is only for Hotting folk," said a lad older than himself. "Get

out of the way with you, Liebchen." And the man who carried the cross

knocked him with force on the head, by mere accident; but Findelkind

thought he had meant it.

Were people so much kinder five centuries before, he wondered, and felt

sad as the many-coloured robes swept on through the grass, and the crack

of the rifles sounded sharply through the music of the chanting voices.

He went on, footsore and sorrowful, thinking of the castle doors that

had opened, and the city gates that had unclosed, at the summons of the

little long-haired boy whose figure was painted on the missal.

He had come now to where the houses were much more numerous, though

under the shade of great trees,--lovely old gray houses, some of wood,

some of stone, some with frescoes on them and gold and colour and

mottoes, some with deep barred casements, and carved portals, and

sculptured figures; houses of the poorer people now, but still memorials

of a grand and gracious time. For he had wandered into the quarter

of St. Nicholas in this fair mountain city, which he, like his

country-folk, called Sprugg, though the government calls it Innspruck.

He got out upon a long, gray, wooden bridge, and looked up and down the

reaches of the river, and thought to himself, maybe this was not Sprugg

but Jerusalem, so beautiful it looked with its domes shining golden in

the sun, and the snow of the Soldstein and Branjoch behind them. For

little Findelkind had never come so far as this before. As he stood on

the bridge so dreaming, a hand clutched him, and a voice said:

"A whole kreutzer, or you do not pass!"

Findelkind started and trembled.

A kreutzer! he had never owned such a treasure in all his life.

"I have no money!" he murmured, timidly, "I came to see if I could get

money for the poor."

The keeper of the bridge laughed.

"You are a little beggar, you mean? Oh, very well! Then over my bridge

you do not go.

"But it is the city on the other side?"

"To be sure it is the city; but over nobody goes without a kreutzer."

"I never have such a thing of my own! never! never!" said Findelkind,

ready to cry.

"Then you were a little fool to come away from your home, wherever that

may be," said the man at the bridge-head. "Well, I will let you go, for

you look a baby. But do not beg; that is bad."

"Findelkind did it!"

"Then Findelkind was a rogue and a vagabond," said the taker of tolls.

"Oh, no--no--no!"

"Oh, yes--yes--yes, little sauce-box; and take that," said the man,

giving him a box on the ear, being angry at contradiction.

Findelkind's head drooped, and he went slowly over the bridge,

forgetting that he ought to have thanked the toll-taker for a free

passage. The world seemed to him very difficult. How had Findelkind done

when he had come to bridges?--and, oh, how had Findelkind done when he

had been hungry?

For this poor little Findelkind was getting very hungry, and his stomach

was as empty as was his wallet.

A few steps brought him to the Goldenes Dachl.

He forgot his hunger and his pain, seeing the sun shine on all that

gold, and the curious painted galleries under it. He thought it was real

solid gold. Real gold laid out on a house-roof,--and the people all so

poor! Findelkind began to muse, and wonder why everybody did not climb

up there and take a tile off and be rich? But perhaps it would be

wicked. Perhaps God put the roof there with all that gold to prove

people. Findelkind got bewildered.

If God did such a thing, was it kind?

His head seemed to swim, and the sunshine went round and round with

him. There went by him, just then, a very venerable-looking old man with

silver hair; he was wrapped in a long cloak. Findelkind pulled at the

coat gently, and the old man looked down.

"What is it, my boy?" he asked.

Findelkind answered, "I came out to get gold: may I take it off that

roof?"

"It is not gold, child, it is gilding."

"What is gilding?"

"It is a thing made to look like gold; that is all."

"It is a lie, then!"

The old man smiled. "Well, nobody thinks so. If you like to put it so,

perhaps it is. What do you want gold for, you wee thing?"

"To build a monastery, and house the poor."

The old man's face scowled and grew dark, for he was a Lutheran pastor

from Bavaria.

"Who taught you such trash?" he said, crossly.

"It is not trash. It is faith."

And Findelkind's face began to burn, and his blue eyes to darken and

moisten. There was a little crowd beginning to gather, and the crowd was

beginning to laugh. There were many soldiers and rifle-shooters in the

throng, and they jeered and joked, and made fun of the old man in

the long cloak, who grew angry then with the child. "You are a little

idolater and a little impudent sinner!" he said, wrathfully, and shook

the boy by the shoulder, and went away, and the throng that had gathered

around had only poor Findelkind left to tease.

He was a very poor little boy indeed to look at, with his sheepskin

tunic, and his bare feet and legs, and his wallet that never was to get

filled.

"Where do you come from, and what do you want?" they asked; and he

answered, with a sob in his voice:

"I want to do like Findelkind of Arlberg."

And then the crowd laughed, not knowing at all what he meant, but

laughing just because they did not know, as crowds always will do. And

only the big dogs that are so very big in this country, and are all

loose, and free, and good-natured citizens, came up to him kindly, and

rubbed against him, and made friends; and at that tears came into his

eyes, and his courage rose, and he lifted his head.

"You are cruel people to laugh," he said, indignantly; "the dogs are

kinder. People did not laugh at Findelkind. He was a little boy just

like me, no better and no bigger, and as poor, and yet he had so much

faith, and the world then was so good, that he left his sheep, and

got money enough to build a church and a hospice to Christ and St.

Christopher. And I want to do the same for the poor. Not for myself, no;

for the poor! I am Findelkind too, and Findelkind of Arlberg that is in

heaven speaks to me."

Then he stopped, and a sob rose again in his throat.

"He is crazy!" said the people, laughing, yet a little scared; for the

priest at Zirl had said rightly, this is not an age of faith. At that

moment there sounded, coming from the barracks, that used to be the

Schloss in the old days of Kaiser Max and Mary of Burgundy, the sound

of drums and trumpets and the tramp of marching feet. It was one of the

corps of Jagers of Tyrol, going down from the avenue to the Rudolfplatz,

with their band before them and their pennons streaming. It was a

familiar sight, but it drew the street-throngs to it like magic: the

age is not fond of dreamers, but it is very fond of drums. In almost

a moment the old dark arcades and the river-side and the passages near

were all empty, except for the women sitting at their stalls of fruit

or cakes, or toys. They are wonderful old arched arcades, like the

cloisters of a cathedral more than anything else, and the shops under

them are all homely and simple,--shops of leather, of furs, of clothes,

of wooden playthings, of sweet and wholesome bread. They are very

quaint, and kept by poor folks for poor folks; but to the dazed eyes of

Findelkind they looked like a forbidden paradise, for he was so hungry

and so heart-broken, and he had never seen any bigger place than little

Zirl.

He stood and looked wistfully, but no one offered him anything. Close

by was a stall of splendid purple grapes, but the old woman that kept it

was busy knitting. She only called to him to stand out of her light.

"You look a poor brat; have you a home?" said another woman, who sold

bridles and whips and horses' bells, and the like.

"Oh, yes, I have a home,--by Martinswand," said Findelkind, with a sigh.

The woman looked at him sharply. "Your parents have sent you on an

errand here?"

"No; I have run away."

"Run away? Oh, you bad boy!--unless, indeed,--are they cruel to you?"

"No; very good."

"Are you a little rogue, then, or a thief?"

"You are a bad woman to think such things," said Findelkind, hotly,

knowing himself on how innocent and sacred a quest he was.

"Bad? I? Oh, ho!" said the old dame, cracking one of her new whips in

the air, "I should like to make you jump about with this, you thankless

little vagabond. Be off!"

Findelkind sighed again, his momentary anger passing; for he had been

born with a gentle temper, and thought himself to blame much more

readily than he thought other people were,--as, indeed, every wise child

does, only there are so few children--or men--that are wise.

He turned his head away from the temptation of the bread and fruit

stalls, for in truth hunger gnawed him terribly, and wandered a little

to the left. From where he stood he could see the long, beautiful street

of Teresa, with its oriels and arches, painted windows and gilded signs,

and the steep, gray, dark mountains closing it in at the distance; but

the street frightened him, it looked so grand, and he knew it would

tempt him; so he went where he saw the green tops of some high elms and

beeches. The trees, like the dogs, seemed like friends. It was the human

creatures that were cruel.

At that moment there came out of the barrack gates, with great noise

of trumpets and trampling of horses, a group of riders in gorgeous

uniforms, with sabres and chains glancing and plumes tossing. It looked

to Findelkind like a group of knights,--those knights who had helped and

defended his namesake with their steel and their gold in the old days

of the Arlberg quest. His heart gave a great leap, and he jumped on the

dust for joy, and he ran forward and fell on his knees and waved his cap

like a little mad thing, and cried out:

"Oh, dear knights! oh, great soldiers! help me! Fight for me, for the

love of the saints! I have come all the way from Martinswand, and I am

Findelkind, and I am trying to serve St. Christopher like Findelkind of

Arlberg."

But his little swaying body and pleading hands and shouting voice and

blowing curls frightened the horses; one of them swerved and very nearly

settled the woes of Findelkind for ever and aye by a kick. The soldier

who rode the horse reined him in with difficulty. He was at the head

of the little staff, being indeed no less or more than the general

commanding the garrison, which in this city is some fifteen thousand

strong. An orderly sprang from his saddle and seized the child, and

shook him, and swore at him. Findelkind was frightened; but he shut his

eyes and set his teeth, and said to himself that the martyrs must have

had very much worse than these things to suffer in their pilgrimage. He

had fancied these riders were knights, such knights as the priest had

shown him the likeness of in old picture-books, whose mission it had

been to ride through the world succouring the weak and weary, and always

defending the right.

"What are your swords for, if you are not knights?" he cried,

desperately struggling in his captor's grip, and seeing through his

half-closed lids the sunshine shining on steel scabbards.

"What does he want?" asked the officer in command of the garrison, whose

staff all this bright and martial array was. He was riding out from the

barracks to an inspection on the Rudolfplatz. He was a young man, and

had little children himself, and was half amused, half touched, to see

the tiny figure of the little dusty boy.

"I want to build a monastery, like Findelkind of Arlberg, and to help

the poor," said our Findelkind, valorously, though his heart was beating

like that of a little mouse caught in a trap; for the horses were

trampling up the dust around him, and the orderly's grip was hard.

The officers laughed aloud; and indeed he looked a poor little scrap of

a figure, very ill able to help even himself.

"Why do you laugh?" cried Findelkind, losing his terror in his

indignation, and inspired with the courage which a great earnestness

always gives. "You should not laugh. If you were true knights, you

would not laugh; you would fight for me. I am little, I know,--I am very

little,--but he was no bigger than I; and see what great things he did.

But the soldiers were good in those days; they did not laugh and use bad

words--"

And Findelkind, on whose shoulder the orderly's hold was still fast,

faced the horses, which looked to him as huge as Martinswand, and the

swords, which he little doubted were to be sheathed in his heart.

The officers stared, laughed again, then whispered together, and

Findelkind heard them say the word "crazed." Findelkind, whose quick

little ears were both strained like a mountain leveret's, understood

that the great men were saying among themselves that it was not safe for

him to be about alone, and that it would be kinder to him to catch and

cage him,--the general view with which the world regards enthusiasts.

He heard, he understood; he knew that they did not mean to help him,

these men with the steel weapons and the huge steeds, but that they

meant to shut him up in a prison--he, little free-born, forest-fed

Findelkind. He wrenched himself out of the soldier's grip, as the rabbit

wrenches itself out of the jaws of the trap even at the cost of leaving

a limb behind, shot between the horses' legs, doubled like a hunted

thing, and spied a refuge. Opposite the avenue of gigantic poplars and

pleasant stretches of grass shaded by other bigger trees, there stands

a very famous church, famous alike in the annals of history and of

art,--the church of the Franciscans, that holds the tomb of Kaiser Max,

though, alas! it holds not his ashes, as his dying desire was that it

should. The church stands here, a noble, sombre place, with the Silver

Chapel of Philippina Wessler adjoining it, and in front the fresh cool

avenues that lead to the river and broad water-meadows and the grand

Hall road bordered with the painted stations of the Cross.

There were some peasants coming in from the country driving cows,

and some burghers in their carts, with fat, slow horses; some little

children were at play under the poplars and the elms; great dogs were

lying about on the grass; everything was happy and at peace, except the

poor throbbing heart of little Findelkind, who thought the soldiers were

coming after him to lock him up as mad, and ran and ran as fast as his

trembling legs would carry him, making for sanctuary, as, in the old

bygone days that he loved, many a soul less innocent than his had done.

The wide doors of the Hofkirche stood open, and on the steps lay a

black-and-tan hound, watching no doubt for its master or mistress, who

had gone within to pray. Findelkind, in his terror, vaulted over the

dog, and into the church tumbled headlong.

It seemed quite dark, after the brilliant sunshine on the river and the

grass; his forehead touched the stone floor as he fell, and as he raised

himself and stumbled forward, reverent and bareheaded, looking for

the altar to cling to when the soldiers should enter to seize him, his

uplifted eyes fell on the great tomb.

The tomb seems entirely to fill the church, as, with its twenty-four

guardian figures around it, it towers up in the twilight that reigns

here even at midday. There are a stern majesty and grandeur in it which

dwarf every other monument and mausoleum. It is grim, it is rude, it

is savage, with the spirit of the rough ages that created it; but it

is great with their greatness, it is heroic with their heroism, it is

simple with their simplicity.

As the awestricken eyes of the terrified child fell on the mass of stone

and bronze, the sight smote him breathless. The mailed warriors standing

around it, so motionless, so solemn, filled him with a frozen, nameless

fear. He had never a doubt that they were the dead arisen. The foremost

that met his eyes were Theodoric and Arthur; the next, grim Rudolf,

father of a dynasty of emperors. There, leaning on their swords, the

three gazed down on him, armoured, armed, majestic, serious, guarding

the empty grave, which to the child, who knew nothing of its history,

seemed a bier; and at the feet of Theodoric, who alone of them all

looked young and merciful, poor little desperate Findelkind fell with a

piteous sob, and cried, "I am not mad! Indeed, indeed, I am not mad!"

He did not know that these grand figures were but statues of bronze.

He was quite sure they were the dead, arisen, and meeting there, around

that tomb on which the solitary kneeling knight watched and prayed,

encircled, as by a wall of steel, by these his comrades. He was not

frightened, he was rather comforted and stilled, as with a sudden sense

of some deep calm and certain help.

Findelkind, without knowing that he was like so many dissatisfied poets

and artists much bigger than himself, dimly felt in his little tired

mind how beautiful and how gorgeous and how grand the world must

have been when heroes and knights like these had gone by in its daily

sunshine and its twilight storms. No wonder Findelkind of Arlberg had

found his pilgrimage so fair, when if he had needed any help he had

only had to kneel and clasp these firm, mailed limbs, these strong

cross-hilted swords, in the name of Christ and of the poor.

Theodoric seemed to look down on him with benignant eyes from under the

raised visor; and our poor Findelkind, weeping, threw his small arms

closer and closer around the bronze knees of the heroic figure, and

sobbed aloud, "Help me, help me! Oh, turn the hearts of the people to

me, and help me to do good!"

But Theodoric answered nothing.

There was no sound in the dark, hushed church; the gloom grew darker

over Findelkind's eyes; the mighty forms of monarchs and of heroes grew

dim before his sight. He lost consciousness, and fell prone upon the

stones at Theodoric's feet; for he had fainted from hunger and emotion.

When he awoke it was quite evening; there was a lantern held over his

head; voices were muttering curiously and angrily; bending over him were

two priests, a sacristan of the church, and his own father. His little

wallet lay by him on the stones, always empty.

"Boy of mine! were you mad?" cried his father, half in rage, half in

tenderness. "The chase you have led me!--and your mother thinking you

were drowned!--and all the working day lost, running after old women's

tales of where they had seen you! Oh, little fool, little fool! What was

amiss with Martinswand, that you must leave it?"

Findelkind slowly and feebly rose, and sat up on the pavement, and

looked up, not at his father, but at the knight Theodoric.

"I thought they would help me to keep the poor," he muttered, feebly, as

he glanced at his own wallet. "And it is empty,--empty."

"And are we not poor enough?" cried his father, with natural impatience,

ready to tear his hair with vexation at having such a little idiot for

a son. "Must you rove afield to find poverty to help, when it sits cold

enough, the Lord knows, at our own hearth? Oh, little ass, little dolt,

little maniac, fit only for a madhouse, talking to iron figures and

taking them for real men! What have I done, O heaven, that I should be

afflicted thus?"

And the poor man wept, being a good affectionate soul, but not very

wise, and believing that his boy was mad. Then, seized with sudden rage

once more, at thought of his day all wasted, and its hours harassed and

miserable through searching for the lost child, he plucked up the light,

slight figure of Findelkind in his own arms, and, with muttered thanks

and excuses to the sacristan of the church, bore the boy out with him

into the evening air, and lifted him into a cart, which stood there with

a horse harnessed to one side of the pole, as the country-people love

to do, to the risk of their own lives and their neighbours'. Findelkind

said never a word; he was as dumb as Theodoric had been to him; he felt

stupid, heavy, half blind; his father pushed him some bread, and he ate

it by sheer instinct, as a lost animal will do; the cart jogged on, the

stars shone, the great church vanished in the gloom of night.

As they went through the city toward the riverside along the homeward

way, never a word did his father, who was a silent man at all times,

address to him. Only once, as they jogged over the bridge, he spoke.

"Son," he asked, "did you run away truly thinking to please God and help

the poor?"

"Truly I did!" answered Findelkind, with a sob in his throat.

"Then thou wert an ass!" said his father. "Didst never think of thy

mother's love and of my toil? Look at home."

Findelkind was mute. The drive was very long, backward by the same way,

with the river shining in the moonlight, and the mountains half covered

with the clouds.

It was ten by the bells of Zirl when they came once more under the

solemn shadow of grave Martinswand. There were lights moving about his

house, his brothers and sisters were still up, his mother ran out into

the road, weeping and laughing with fear and joy.

Findelkind himself said nothing.

He hung his head.

They were too fond of him to scold him or to jeer at him; they made him

go quickly to his bed, and his mother made him a warm milk posset, and

kissed him.

"We will punish thee tomorrow, naughty and cruel one," said his parent.

"But thou art punished enough already, for in thy place little Stefan

had the sheep, and he has lost Katte's lambs,--the beautiful twin lambs!

I dare not tell thy father tonight. Dost hear the poor thing mourn? Do

not go afield for thy duty again."

A pang went through the heart of Findelkind, as if a knife had pierced

it. He loved Katte better than almost any other living thing, and

she was bleating under his window childless and alone. They were such

beautiful lambs, too!--lambs that his father had promised should never

be killed, but be reared to swell the flock.

Findelkind cowered down in his bed, and felt wretched beyond all

wretchedness. He had been brought back; his wallet was empty; and

Katte's lambs were lost. He could not sleep.

His pulses were beating like so many steam-hammers; he felt as if his

body were all one great throbbing heart. His brothers, who lay in the

same chamber with him, were sound asleep; very soon his father and

mother snored also, on the other side of the wall. Findelkind was alone

wide awake, watching the big white moon sail past his little casement,

and hearing Katte bleat.

Where were her poor twin lambs?

The night was bitterly cold, for it was already far on in autumn; the

rivers had swollen and flooded many fields, the snow for the last week

had fallen quite low down on the mountainsides.

Even if still living, the little lambs would die, out on such a night

without the mother or food and shelter of any sort. Findelkind, whose

vivid brain always saw everything that he imagined as if it were being

acted before his eyes, in fancy saw his two dear lambs floating dead

down the swollen tide, entangled in rushes on the flooded shore, or

fallen with broken limbs upon a crest of rocks. He saw them so plainly

that scarcely could he hold back his breath from screaming aloud in the

still night and answering the mourning wail of the desolate mother.

At last he could bear it no longer: his head burned, and his

brain seemed whirling round; at a bound he leaped out of bed quite

noiselessly, slid into his sheepskins, and stole out as he had done the

night before, hardly knowing what he did. Poor Katte was mourning in

the wooden shed with the other sheep, and the wail of her sorrow sounded

sadly across the loud roar of the rushing river.

The moon was still high.

Above, against the sky, black and awful with clouds floating over its

summit, was the great Martinswand.

Findelkind this time called the big dog Waldmar to him, and, with the

dog beside him, went once more out into the cold and the gloom, whilst

his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, wore sleeping, and poor

childless Katte alone was awake.

He looked up at the mountain and then across the water-swept meadows to

the river. He was in doubt which way to take. Then he thought that in

all likelihood the lambs would have been seen if they had wandered the

river way, and even little Stefan would have had too much sense to let

them go there. So he crossed the road and began to climb Martinswand.

With the instinct of the born mountaineer, he had brought out his

crampons with him, and had now fastened them on his feet; he knew every

part and ridge of the mountains, and had more than once climbed over to

that very spot where Kaiser Max had hung in peril of his life.

On second thoughts he bade Waldmar go back to the house. The dog was a

clever mountaineer, too, but Findelkind did not wish to lead him into

danger. "I have done the wrong, and I will bear the brunt," he said

to himself; for he felt as if he had killed Katte's children, and the

weight of the sin was like lead on his heart, and he would not kill good

Waldmar, too.

His little lantern did not show much light, and as he went higher

upwards he lost sight of the moon. The cold was nothing to him, because

the clear still air was that in which he had been reared; and the

darkness he did not mind, because he was used to that also; but the

weight of sorrow upon him he scarcely knew how to bear, and how to

find two tiny lambs in this vast waste of silence and shadow would

have puzzled and wearied older minds than his. Garibaldi and all his

household, old soldiers tried and true, sought all night once upon

Caprera in such a quest, in vain.

If he could only have awakened his brother Stefan to ask him which way

they had gone! but then, to be sure, he remembered, Stefan must have

told that to all those who had been looking for the lambs from sunset to

nightfall. All alone he began the ascent.

Time and again, in the glad spring-time and the fresh summer weather, he

had driven his flock upwards to eat the grass that grew, in the clefts

of the rocks and on the broad green alps. The sheep could not climb to

the highest points; but the goats did, and he with them. Time and again

he had lain on his back in these uppermost heights, with the lower

clouds behind him and the black wings of the birds and the crows almost

touching his forehead, as he lay gazing up into the blue depth of the

sky, and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.

He would never dream any more now, he thought to himself. His dreams had

cost Katte her lambs, and the world of the dead Findelkind was gone for

ever: gone were all the heroes and knights; gone all the faith and the

force; gone every one who cared for the dear Christ and the poor in

pain.

The bells of Zirl were ringing midnight. Findelkind heard, and wondered

that only two hours had gone by since his mother had kissed him in his

bed. It seemed to him as if long, long nights had rolled away, and he

had lived a hundred years.

He did not feel any fear of the dark calm night, lit now and then by

silvery gleams of moon and stars. The mountain was his old familiar

friend, and the ways of it had no more terror for him than these hills

here used to have for the bold heart of Kaiser Max. Indeed, all he

thought of was Katte,--Katte and the lambs. He knew the way that the

sheep-tracks ran; the sheep could not climb so high as the goats; and he

knew, too, that little Stefan could not climb so high as he. So he began

his search low down upon Martinswand.

After midnight the cold increased; there were snow-clouds hanging near,

and they opened over his head, and the soft snow came flying along. For

himself he did not mind it, but alas for the lambs!--if it covered them,

how would he find them? And if they slept in it, they were dead.

It was bleak and bare on the mountain-side, though there were still

patches of grass such as the flocks liked, that had grown since the hay

was cut. The frost of the night made the stone slippery, and even the

irons gripped it with difficulty; and there was a strong wind rising

like a giant's breath, and blowing his small horn lantern to and fro.

Now and then he quaked a little with fear,--not fear of the night or the

mountains, but of strange spirits and dwarfs and goblins of ill repute,

said to haunt Martinswand after nightfall. Old women had told him of

such things, though the priest always said that they were only foolish

tales, there being nothing on God's earth wicked save men and women who

had not clean hearts and hands. Findelkind believed the priest; still,

all alone on the side of the mountain with the snowflakes flying around

him, he felt a nervous thrill that made him tremble and almost turn

backward. Almost, but not quite; for he thought of Katte and the poor

little lambs lost--and perhaps dead--through his fault.

The path went zigzag and was very steep; the Arolla pines swayed their

boughs in his face; stones that lay in his path unseen in the gloom

made him stumble. Now and then a large bird of the night flew by with a

rushing sound; the air grew so cold that all Martinswand might have

been turning to one huge glacier. All at once he heard through the

stillness--for there is nothing so still as a mountainside in snow--a

little pitiful bleat. All his terrors vanished; all his memories of

ghost-tales passed away; his heart gave a leap of joy; he was sure it

was the cry of the lambs. He stopped to listen more surely. He was now

many score of feet above the level of his home and of Zirl; he was, as

nearly as he could judge, half-way as high as where the cross in the

cavern marks the spot of the Kaiser's peril. The little bleat sounded

above him, very feeble and faint.

Findelkind set his lantern down, braced himself up by drawing tighter

his old leathern girdle, set his sheepskin cap firm on his forehead, and

went toward the sound as far as he could judge that it might be. He was

out of the woods now; there were only a few straggling pines rooted here

and there in a mass of loose-lying rock and slate; so much he could tell

by the light of the lantern, and the lambs by the bleating, seemed still

above him.

It does not, perhaps, seem very hard labour to hunt about by a dusky

light upon a desolate mountainside; but when the snow is falling

fast,--when the light is only a small circle, wavering, yellowish on

the white,--when around is a wilderness of loose stones and yawning

clefts,--when the air is ice and the hour is past midnight,--the task

is not a light one for a man; and Findelkind was a child, like that

Findelkind that was in heaven.

Long, very long was his search; he grew hot and forgot all fear except a

spasm of terror lest his light should burn low and die out. The bleating

had quite ceased now, and there was not even a sigh to guide him; but he

knew that near him the lambs must be, and he did not waver or despair.

He did not pray; praying in the morning had been no use; but he trusted

in God, and he laboured hard, toiling to and fro, seeking in every nook

and behind each stone, and straining every muscle and nerve, till the

sweat rolled in a briny dew off his forehead, and his curls dripped with

wet. At last, with a scream of joy, he touched some soft close wool that

gleamed white as the white snow. He knelt down on the ground, and peered

behind the stone by the full light of his lantern; there lay the little

lambs,--two little brothers, twin brothers, huddled close together,

asleep. Asleep? He was sure they were asleep, for they were so silent

and still.

He bowed over them, and kissed them, and laughed, and cried, and kissed

them again. Then a sudden horror smote him; they were so very still.

There they lay, cuddled close, one on another, one little white head on

each little white body,--drawn closer than ever together, to try and get

warm.

He called to them, he touched them, then he caught them up in his arms,

and kissed them again, and again, and again. Alas! they were frozen and

dead. Never again would they leap in the long green grass, and frisk

with each other, and lie happy by Katte's side; they had died calling

for their mother, and in the long, cold, cruel night, only death had

answered.

Findelkind did not weep, or scream, or tremble; his heart seemed frozen,

like the dead lambs.

It was he who had killed them.

He rose up and gathered them in his arms, and cuddled them in the skirts

of his sheepskin tunic, and cast his staff away that he might carry

them, and so, with their weight, set his face to the snow and the wind

once more, and began his downward way.

Once a great sob shook him; that was all. Now he had no fear.

The night might have been noonday, the snow-storm might have been

summer, for aught that he knew or cared.

Long and weary was the way, and often he stumbled and had to rest; often

the terrible sleep of the snow lay heavy on his eyelids, and he longed

to lie down and be at rest, as the little brothers were; often it seemed

to him that he would never reach home again. But he shook the lethargy

off him, and resisted the longing, and held on his way; he knew that his

mother would mourn for him as Katte mourned for the lambs. At length,

through all difficulty and danger, when his light had spent itself, and

his strength had well-nigh spent itself too, his feet touched the old

highroad. There were flickering torches and many people, and loud cries

around the church, as there had been four hundred years before, when the

last sacrament had been said in the valley for the hunter-king in peril

above.

His mother, being sleepless and anxious, had risen long before it was

dawn, and had gone to the children's chamber, and had found the bed of

Findelkind empty once more.

He came into the midst of the people with the two little lambs in his

arms, and he heeded neither the outcries of neighbours nor the frenzied

joy of his mother; his eyes looked straight before him, and his face was

white like the snow.

"I killed them," he said, and then two great tears rolled down his

cheeks and fell on the little cold bodies of the two little dead

brothers.

Findelkind was very ill for many nights and many days after that.

Whenever he spoke in his fever he always said, "I killed them!"

Never anything else.

So the dreary winter months went by, while the deep snow filled up lands

and meadows, and covered the great mountains from summit to base, and

all around Martinswand was quite still, and now and then the post went

by to Zirl, and on the holy-days the bells tolled; that was all. His

mother sat between the stove and his bed with a sore heart; and his

father, as he went to and fro between the walls of beaten snow from the

wood-shed to the cattle-byre, was sorrowful, thinking to himself the

child would die, and join that earlier Findelkind whose home was with

the saints.

But the child did not die.

He lay weak and wasted and almost motionless a long time; but slowly, as

the springtime drew near, and the snows on the lower hills loosened, and

the abounding waters coursed green and crystal clear down all the sides

of the hills, Findelkind revived as the earth did, and by the time the

new grass was springing, and the first blue of the gentian gleamed on

the alps, he was well.

But to this day he seldom plays and scarcely ever laughs. His face is

sad, and his eyes have a look of trouble.

Sometimes the priest of Zirl says of him to others, "He will be a great

poet or a great hero some day." Who knows?

Meanwhile, in the heart of the child there remains always a weary pain,

that lies on his childish life as a stone may lie on a flower.

"I killed them!" he says often to himself, thinking of the two little

white brothers frozen to death on Martinswand that cruel night; and

he does the things that are told him, and is obedient, and tries to be

content with the humble daily duties that are his lot, and when he says

his prayers at bedtime always ends them so:

"Dear God, do let the little lambs play with the other Findelkind that

is in heaven."

End of 's Findelkind, by Louise de la Ramee (AKA Ouida)