CHAPTER XIV.
LOST IN THE FOREST.
In the meanwhile Schilder-David's house seemed to be no longer a small house, belonging to a small family. Every one went in and out, and many left the door standing open, which Schilder-David's wife invariably gently closed without saying one word; indeed she did not even object to the neighbours for forgetting to knock off the snow from their feet, and the floor of the room was like a small lake; she only placed fresh cloths on the place and wrung them out into a pail, which she emptied at the door.
Leegart drew the footstool, on which she placed her feet, closer to her, to prevent any of the women seated round the table having any share of it; for Leegart was not at all accustomed to sit in a damp room, more especially in such a thoroughfare as Schilder-David's room was turned into on this particular day.
David's wife always kept a fierce fire in the stove—the heat was positively stifling; but Leegart had the art of keeping a whole audience awake, and herself into the bargain.
While all the community were rushing about in the night and in the snow, on rocks and in ravines, and the whole village in a state of excitement, there were only two objects that remained steady and stationary and kept time together—these were the clock on the church tower, and Leegart beside her huge pincushion.
Martina had left the room along with the men, but several women remained there. They complained loudly that their husbands were so rash as to expose their lives to danger, for the sake of one single child, perhaps only to cause their own children to suffer want and misery. Leegart, however, while waxing her thread, said, "Indeed it is very dreadful to lose your way in the forest. I can well tell you about it, for it happened to me once in my life, but I found that once quite enough. For God's sake, never, never be tempted to take a near cut through the wood, unless you are thoroughly acquainted with every corner of it. A short cut is the Devil's cut. Am I right or not? It takes a very short cut to go to the Devil. I remember it as if it were only yesterday; and who knows whether poor Joseph may not have done the very same thing. I went through that very forest, and the hatter met the boy at the large beech tree, which I also passed. God forbid that the child should have to go as far as I did, before I found my way back! It was on the Sunday after All Saints—no, it was on a Monday; at all events it was a holiday, St. Peters and St. Paul's. We don't keep it holy, but the Catholics do. I left home on a fine bright day, carrying nothing with me but a velvet cap in a handkerchief for Holderstein's daughter, in Wenger. You know who I mean. She is now a widow: they say she is going to marry a very young man, who lives near Neustädtle; for she went there two Sundays following, and he walked back with her both times: it is not very wise in her to marry such a boy. At the time I speak of, she was betrothed to her first husband, a nephew of the Forest Miller—I mean of the old miller. So I set out and went first along the valley. It was a very fine season; it is long since we have had one like it—just the quantity of rain and sunshine that we required. In the wood I met the beadle's children—the boy and Maidli. The boy became a soldier, and was shot by the Freischärfer. Maidli lives in Elsass, where they say she is happily married. They were herding an old and a young goat, beside the hedge where there are so many hazel nuts. So I asked the children—I don't know why—if there was not a nearer path to Wenger. 'Yes, indeed,' said the children. 'I must not keep on the beaten track; but when I came to the group of juniper trees, turn to the left through the wood.' I wanted one of the children to show me the way, that I might be quite sure of the right road. I can't tell the reason, but I somehow anticipated evil; but the children were so stupid, that they would neither go alone nor together with me. So I walked on, and when I arrived at the wood, where the Rössleswirth has now his field—at the time it was still part of the wood—I called out to the children below to know if I was on the right path, and they shouted 'Yes;' at least I imagined I heard them say so. So I went on, and it was very cool and pleasant in the forest I thought it so fortunate that I was now in the shade of the wood, for the heat was so great outside. It was about ten o'clock, and here it was quite a cool fresh morning still. Such a walk is very beneficial to any one obliged to be constantly sitting and working; and at that time I was quite young, and I could run and jump about like a foal. I saw a quantity of strawberries beside the hornbeam hedge; I gathered a few, but did not stop long, and soon went forward. I climbed, and climbed I don't know how long, and could see nothing; and the path went sometimes up hill and sometimes down. What could be the reason? Had I got into a labyrinth? The proverb says of those who are on a wrong path, that they have got into a labyrinth, and indeed this was one, for it seemed to lead nowhere. I did not know this when I entered it, but I soon found it out, and to my cost too. Oh, nonsense! thought I, the time only seems long to you, because you are so accustomed to sit still, that any walk appears too much for you. I felt so tired, however, that I sat down. Then I heard a slight rustling and something moving, and a dry branch fell from the tree. And look, look! a squirrel, I declare. He hangs on the trunk of the tree and peeps down at me with his quick bright eyes and sharp muzzle. I watch him as he creeps up the tree; and now there are two, and they frolic about and snap at each other. Whish! quick as lightning!—now up, now down! I must say I have a particular love for these little creatures; and I have my mother to thank for that. She said to us a hundred times—'Children, look at all you see attentively, for then you will be aroused wherever you go, and it costs nothing; and you never can tell what use it may be of to you some day, to observe closely what goes on round you.' But no one ought to allow themselves to be detained on the way by anything, for it only tends to perplex you still more. I went on and arrived at a fir-plantation: the trees are so thick that it is quite dark there, but charmingly cool. There is something lying on the ground—it is a stag asleep. I gave a scream of terror, and the animal started up and fixed his great eyes on me, as if to say—'You stupid thing, why do you come and disturb my noonday's sleep?'
"I ran away as fast as I could; I fancied the stag was following me, and then I fancied what I should do if he took me on his horns, and threw me down the hill; and if a branch fell from a tree, I was so terrified that I shook in every limb. God be praised! at last the wood came to an end, and so many hundred butterflies I never saw in all my life as there, and the meadow was quite red with flowers. I stood still to enjoy the sight. A falcon was soaring high in the sky, screeching, and I watched the bird as it flew along. A pretty sight, I must say; he looked as if he were only swimming in the air—but now away! I must not stop again; and surely it is all right at last, for I saw a small footpath. Now, thought I, you are safe—now you can go on boldly, for this must lead to where men are. I saw a bone button lying on the path, I picked it up, and put it into my pocket; and it was lucky I did so, for I had quite forgotten that I had still a piece of bread there. I thought I never tasted anything better—no, not even at a wedding feast. In an intricate wood like this, it seems as if you could no longer imagine that men ever sow grain, and reap, and thresh, and grind, and bake. The path was so narrow, that I was obliged to thrust aside the branches before I could get through. And now I saw that the path went straight down, as steep as the side of a house. Good heavens! what if some wicked man were to come at this moment, and rob me, and throw me down yonder; no one would ever find me again. No, no! was I resolved to say to him; here, here is all I have; here is my silver thimble, and fifteen kreuzers. You have it all now, so let me go, and I will swear an oath never to betray you. Should I be forced to keep such an oath? I think, for the sake of other people, I ought to tell what has happened, that others may not be robbed as I have been. In my terror I began to sing, but search in my head as I would, I could think of no pious song except 'The grave is deep and still,' and that was really too dismal. I therefore sang all sorts of gay, frolicsome songs, although my heart was beating with fear. Thank Heaven! at last I got to the top, and then a spacious, pretty level meadow lay before me; but by this time I was much heated, so overheated that I did not know what to do. My cheeks were burning, and if I had been dragged through water I could not have been worse. I could not venture to sit down to rest, and I could scarcely recover my breath sufficiently to proceed; and in the meadow I heard the humming and buzzing of thousands and thousands of bees. Gracious powers! suppose I were to put my foot on a bee's nest, and they were all to fly out and settle on me, and I to become dizzy. My mother told me how that is—you become quite dizzy, and the only thing that can save you is to jump into the water; and there is no water here. I wish there was some water, for I am frightfully thirsty. What is the meaning of this? Does the path end here? And there is a precipice; and there are the great wild rocks. Am I actually on the rocks of the Rockenthal, where since the creation of the world no human foot has ever trod? Here lie the forest trees decaying, and no man can fetch them away. The birds alone know how things look up there. No, surely I cannot have got so far as that, and yet my way home cannot lie down in that direction. I called out—'Heavenly powers! where am I?' And never did I hear an echo so distinct and beautiful as then, calling out after me—'Where am I? where am I? where am I?' It sounded at least seven times following, and just as if some one were dwelling on the tones in the sky, loud and long; it proceeded from the rocky precipices and the clefts like lovely music, as if something were singing the words, but taking a longer breath than a man could do. I shouted out the names of all those whom I loved, and all those who loved me. I shouted, and shouted—I seemed to love all mankind. In such an extremity as mine, all discord and strife are at an end. I called, and called, but no one heard me—not a living soul. It is no good, I must go on. I search about everywhere—famous! There is another path that goes through the wood; but after pursuing it for a little way I found that it again turned to the left. I thought, however, well! I will go forward, and so I did; but once more I came to a wall of rock, with no path whatever, so I crossed the meadow, and suddenly came on the edge of a precipice going straight down into a fearful abyss. I started back as far as I could, my head began to turn, and I felt as if the precipice were dragging me thither to dash me over the rock. Then I stood still, and thanked God that I was still on solid ground. A yellowhammer sat on a tree above my head, singing so prettily, and when I looked up at him he flew away to the opposite hill—yellowhammers when they fly, raise their backs like a cat, and fly higher than the spot on which they wish to alight, and then let themselves gently down. A bird like that is very well off; he does not care either for hill or valley. Oh! if I could only fly like him! I turned to the right. God be thanked! I could see fields beyond the hills, and the valley looked like a tray, or a flat pan. But, good heavens! am I on the famed Todten Hof? I saw a lilac bush, and that is a proof that men either are, or were here. Yes! the lilac in the ground, and the swallow in the air, show that the dwellings of man are not far away. But no house is to be seen, and all around there is a mysterious dim light, like that on the day of the great eclipse; it is not day, and yet it is not night, and the trees and hills seem trembling with fear. Alas, alas! I am actually in the Todten Hof. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago a rich farmer lived here, so rich and so godless that he and his wife and children bathed every day in milk, and never gave a single drop to the poor—they were even more wicked than the Röttmännin. But in those days our Lord thought fit to punish their sin, and one Sunday, when they were playing at football in the meadow with cheeses, the earth suddenly opened, and swallowed up the whole farm, men, and cattle. There is a particular time, however, when they all wake up again, and show themselves for, one single hour. It is not right to tell children such histories, it only makes them superstitious. I am not at all superstitious, besides it was still daylight; but there was no sun to be seen in the sky, nothing but black clouds, and my hair really stood on end. What terrified me most, was not the dread of the dead men waking up again, but the dogs starting up out of the ground, and beginning suddenly to bark—that would be very horrible. 'There's not a word of truth in it,' I exclaimed, in a loud voice, far into the valley, and this rather revived my courage. I thought, however, that my best plan was to retrace my steps, and not to attempt to go to Wenger that day; still going back was such a long journey, and I knew my way back just as little as my way forward. I would have been quite ashamed to show my face, if I had been obliged to go back, and say that I had lost my way. I said to myself—'No, on I must go. If I do not reach Wenger, at least I am sure to arrive at a house. Don't give way to superstition, and it is still daylight, and tonight there is a full moon; then you can go home when you have rested for a time, or you may remain at Wenger. No one is expecting you.' Unluckily I live quite alone; and it was a sad thought to me at that moment, that I was so solitary and uncared-for. No one would inquire for me, or weep for me, if I were lost I must say I could scarcely help crying; but no! said I to myself, there are people who feel an interest in me, and how frightened they will be, and yet how pleased, when I can relate to them my adventures. Surely they will soon end now. I have quite enough to tell them already, indeed more than enough; and tired, terribly tired I was. Suddenly I heard a boy jodeln, on the hill above. In my fright I never thought of jodeln, but I can jodeln, and right well too. In my youth I could utter this peculiar cry louder than anyone. I could be heard two miles off."
Leegart laid her hand on her cheek, and uttered a shrill, sharp cry, rising like the sharp point of a mountain, and descending again into the valley in scattered fragments. She could uplift her voice in the most marvellous way for her years.
David's wife, who had not hitherto heard one word of the whole story, started up from the bench beside the stove, and asked—"For Heaven's sake! what is the matter?" The women present, and Leegart, had great difficulty in pacifying her, and explaining why Leegart had uttered so loud a cry. The old woman again sunk down on the bench, muttering—"I am well rested now. I wish I could lend poor Martina my feet."
The women entreated Leegart to continue her story. She waxed her thread afresh, and sewed the collar on over and over to the jacket, which had in fact been finished for some time past; but she was resolved not to leave off sewing, for nothing is more sure and certain, than that no mortal man or child can die so long as any one is sewing for their benefit. Moreover, Leegart's story kept them all awake, and they did not wish to sleep till their husbands returned home, when they intended all to go together to the midnight service in church.
After Leegart had quietly blown her nose, she resumed—"So I began to jodeln, and the boy answered me, as if we were doing it for pleasure. I called out—'Which is the right road?' but his only answer was to jodeln again. 'Go to the deuce with your jodeln,' said I. I felt afraid when I had said this, but I cannot deny that I did say it. Come, I see a fresh path leading through the wood. I truly hope and trust it is not a labyrinth this time; it is wet enough, but among these thick trees it probably is never dry all the year round. Here is a clear spring. If I could only be able to drink some water; but all I contrive to get is wet feet. I followed the path into the wood, and soon it was as soft as a bed underfoot, and the moss so deep, that since the beginning of the world I felt sure no single handful of it had ever been plucked; indeed, who was likely to mount up here to get it? The path is no longer wet, and down the hill it seems dry enough; but all trace of a path has disappeared. In a fir wood you cannot see the traces of footsteps, and my shoes were as slippery as if they had been polished. Then I caught on a prickly thorn, and tore my feet till they bled. No matter. God be thanked! here I saw a piece of brick lying on the ground. I lifted it up, and found it really was a brick. So far well, for it was a proof that human beings must have been here; bricks don't grow of their own accord. The finest diamond could not have been more welcome to me than this brick. I went on my way quite tranquillized, and I did not even start on seeing an adder lying coiled up in the sun; I threw my brick at him, and he slipped away in a hurry. Oh! what a lot of strawberries here!—no one gathers them; for no one is likely to be here who has not lost their way, and as for me, stupid, silly creature, I dare not venture to pluck some to quench my thirst, because I have an idea that the adder has poisoned all the strawberries. Good! I saw a dry channel on the face of the bank where the trees, when felled, are slid down to the valley beneath. It surely must go down to the river, and I suddenly thought I heard the rushing of a stream; no doubt it is our river, but perhaps it may only be the tops of the trees rustling in the wind. When you have lost your way your hearing is not acute.
"Be it what it may, I resolved to run down the dry channel into the valley. I lifted up my gown, still holding fast the handkerchief with the cap in it. That packet had given me no end of trouble. When you are forced to go perpetually up and down hill, carrying something in your hand, even though it may not be very heavy, you feel as if one hand was tied fast, and quite useless. Hush! I thought I heard a carriage in the valley, so there must be a good road there; probably a one horse chaise from Bern, or perhaps with two horses, it trots along so rapidly. Soon it turned the corner, and then I no longer heard it at all.
"Gracious goodness! I had again allowed myself to be misled: it was only the leaves rustling in the forest that I had heard, and now the sound was far above me. I resolved not to listen to any other sounds, but to do my best for myself. I tried to climb up again, but the way was so steep that I found it impossible to get any footing on the bank. The ground, too was so hard, from the trees being shoved down it, that I could no longer dig my heels into the ground to get a firmer footing, and so I tore a pair of shoes that had cost me two gulden. I was not to get half of that for making the velvet cap. What matter! if I only get home safe, without damage to life or limb! I only fell once. No one should trust to anything they grasp, unless they have first proved its strength. Broom has a good hold, it stands very fast in the soil: once I seized hold of the roots of a tree, but the roots came away in my hand, and I slipped back a long way. I closed my eyes: now I must die, it is all over with me! I was brought up, however, by a rock, in the middle of a large anthill. I managed to get away from it at last. I went close to the dry channel on the side of the hill, and kept it in view, and jumped from tree to tree; but it could scarcely be called jumping, it was as if I had been cast forwards; my progress was just like sparrows flying and clapping their wings, and then tumbling topsy turvy in the air. I felt almost inclined to laugh when this thought struck me, but it was no laughing matter. I thought to myself, this will be a story for you to tell all your life long; and then it occurred to me again—if you could talk about it, you would by that time be well out of the scrape. I plucked up courage, and hoped it would soon be all right, and that there was no fear of dying; only I must get on. And so by dint of first seizing one branch, and then another, I got forward by degrees, and only slipped back once more, but I had no more tumbles. Fragments of rock rolled down beside me, jumping into the air, and rebounding as they went, till at last I seemed to hear them splash into the river. And I thought to myself that if I fell, I should fall, just like them, to the bottom and into the river. I stuck my nails into the earth, and crept on and on, and then sideways into the underwood, close to the dry channel, where a footing was to be found. Slowly, slowly, I crawled along. But stop! one step further and I must have been killed! A rock as steep and high as a house, as if cut out with a knife, overhung the river. I stopped short, and could have seized the tops of the larches with my hands, but there was no path. I went back two steps, and leant on a tree, and now my mind was easier. I saw running water. God be praised and blessed for all His mercies! this is the valley, and to have reached the valley is to have reached home. How pleasant was the rushing of water to my ears—so calm, so peaceful, so homelike! even seeing and hearing it quenched my thirst. I now accomplished the greatest feat of the whole, when, after a long round, I at last contrived, after much scrambling, to land in the valley. And when I actually found myself there, then, and not till then, I thought myself safe.
"Big drops of heat were running down my cheeks. I seated myself on a large log of wood, lying on the ground, close to the very beech tree where the hatter met Joseph. I was so overheated that I would gladly have got rid of some of my wraps; but there was a very cool breeze in the valley. The sun was just sinking behind the hills, and it was not yet noon when I left home. I saw swallows flying about. Oh! what a pleasant sight that was to me! And then I heard a cock crow. No nightingale's song could sound half so sweet as the crowing of a cock to a person who has lost his way. Well! I felt that I was now in the world again. I heard a hen cackling: wherever an egg is laid, there is sure to be a woman near. I heard a dog barking: where a dog barks a man is not far off. I am once more among my fellow-creatures. Presently I heard the rushing of a mill. Where am I, then?
"So long as I was wandering about and lost, even in my anguish, I never shed a tear; but now, when I was safe, I for the first time became fully aware of the dangers I had undergone, and I began to cry so dreadfully that I thought I must dissolve away, and yet I could not stop myself. Then, luckily, I saw a woodcutter coming along. I asked him where I was. 'Röttmannshof is close by up there,' said the man, passing on. I called after him to ask what o'clock it was. 'Past five.' So I had actually been running about for seven hours. I could scarcely believe it—seven mortal hours! If I had been superstitious, I should have certainly believed that some wood demon had purposely led me astray, for after seven o'clock has struck their delight is to mislead people, and there are day spirits as well as night spirits. By following the river I was sure to reach the Forest Mill; so I set off towards it. Scarcely, however, had I gone two hundred paces when I discovered that I had left my small parcel lying on the trunk of the tree; and it had caused me so much trouble, and I had taken such care of it! Gracious me! this too! Perhaps the woodcutter stole it, and I shall be obliged to pay for the velvet cap, instead of receiving a sum for making it. I ran back. Men are very good and honest, especially when they don't know the value of a thing. My parcel had slipped down behind the tree, and there I found it. The Forest Miller's wife was an excellent woman, and her daughter Tony takes after her. The good creature gave me dry clothes, and took as much care of me as if I had been her sister. But for three days I felt as if all my limbs had been dislocated. I started for home at last.
"When any one has been lost in a wood, it is scarcely possible to realise that they have a home of their own—a place where your bed stands, your looking-glass, your table, your chest of drawers, your Psalm Book. Oh! what good old friends these all seem, and how you love them all when you come home, and would gladly thank the tables and chairs for having stood steadily in the same place, and quietly waited for your return. And do you know the worst part of losing your way?—that you are so laughed at when you tell the story afterwards. But I wish no one—not even the Röttmännin herself—to have such a thing happen to them.
"It was a lovely summer's day, the Sunday after All Saints—no, not Sunday, the Monday of Peter and Paul. Oh! what must it be to wander about in the snow at night, and such a child, too! what could it do but lie down and die! Oh heavens! I see the child before me, fast in the snow, or in the cleft of a rock, its hands struggling, and its feet frozen, so that it cannot move; and crying out, 'Mother!' and listening, and hoping that some one will come, and no one answers but the raven on the tree. And a hare runs past him—whish!—over the snow. It is afraid of the child, and the child looks after the hare, and forgets his misery for the moment. 'Mother! mother!' he goes on calling, and it is a blessing that he falls asleep at last, never to wake again. Good heavens! what an unhappy creature I am to have such thoughts pass through my mind; and come they will, I can't help it; but it runs in our family, and my mother was right in saying, that she knew more than that two and two made four. And you know what happened to the poor child that lies buried up yonder in Wenger. He was found in the wood on the third day, quite covered with snow, and only close to his heart was the snow melted. All those who saw it could not help sobbing their very hearts out; and the mother became an idiot. The Herr Pastor wrote a beautiful epitaph on the tombstone: I knew it once by heart, but I could not repeat it now. And what happened to the hatter, who was carrying a bundle of newly dyed hats on New Year's Day to Knusling? He arrived at the Schröckenhalde, the very precipice where I was when I lost myself, and went on through the meadow; and there was such a fog that you could not see your hand before you. He went round and round the village at least seven times, and could never find his way in. The bells were ringing, but they always seemed to him to come from the other side, and so he never got there. At last he heard geese cackling, so he followed the cry, and soon got safe to the village. But if you could but have seen him! he looked just as if he had been buried, and dug up again. But one thing I forgot to tell you, which was that the Forest Miller"—
Here Leegart was interrupted by loud cries in front of the house.