The Courtship of Morrice Buckler: A Romance

by A. E. W. Mason

I had yet one other consolation during this winter. For at times Otto Krax would come up from the valley to inquire after the prisoner. At first he would but stay for the night and so get him back; but his visits gradually lengthened and grew more frequent, an odd friendship springing up between us. For one thing, I was attracted to him because he came from Lukstein, and, indeed, might have had speech with Countess Ilga upon the very day of his coming. But, besides that, there was a certain dignity about the man which set him apart from these rude peasants, and made his companionship very welcome. He showed his good-will towards me by recounting at great length all that happened at Lukstein, and on the eve of the Epiphany, which 'tis the fashion of this people to celebrate with much rejoicing, he brought me a pipe and a packet of tobacco. No present could have been more grateful, and it touched me to notice his pleasure when I manifested my delight. We went out of the cottage together, and sat smoking in the starlight upon a boulder, and I remember that he told me one might see upon this evening a woman in white clothing, with a train of little ragged children chattering and clattering behind her. 'Twas Procula, the wife of Pontius Pilate, he explained. 'Twas her penance to wander over the world until the last day attended by the souls of all children that died before they had been baptized, and at the season of the Epiphany she ever passed through the valleys of the Tyrol. However, we saw naught of her that night.

Early in May Groder carried me back to the hollow, and I began seriously to consider in what way I should be most like to effect my escape. At any cost I was firmly resolved to venture the attempt, and during this summer too, dreading the thought of a second winter of such unendurable monotony as that through which I had passed.

We were now set to drag from the hillside to the brink of the torrent the wood which we had felled in the autumn, so that as the stream swelled with the melting of the snows we might send the timber floating down to the valley. 'Twas a task of great labour, and since we had to saw many of the trunks into logs before we could move them, one that occupied no inconsiderable time. Indeed we had not the wood fairly stacked upon the bank until we were well into the first days of June. Meanwhile I had turned over many projects in my mind, but not one that seemed to offer me a possibility of success. I realised especially that if I sought to escape by the way we had come, I should, even though I were so lucky as to hit upon the right path, nevertheless, have to pass through the most inhabited portion of the district. And did I succeed so far, I should then find myself in the valley, close by Castle Lukstein, with not so much as a penny piece in my pocket to help me further on my way. Besides, by that route would Groder be certain to pursue me the moment he discovered my escape, and being familiar with the windings of the ravines, he would most surely overtake me. Yet in no other direction could I discover the hint of an outlet. I was in truth like a fly with wetted wings in the hollow of a cup.

It was our custom to launch the trunks endwise into the torrent, but one of them, which was larger than the rest, being caught in a swirl, turned broadside to the stream, and floating down thus, stuck in the narrow defile, through which the water plunged out of the hollow. The barrier thus begun was strengthened by each succeeding log, so that in a very short time a solid dam was raised, the water running away underneath. To remedy this, Groder bade the peasants and myself take our axes to the spot and cut the wood free.

Now this defile was no more than a deep channel bored by the torrent, and on one side of it the cliff rose precipitously to the height of a hundred feet. On the other, however, a steep slope of grass and bushes, with here and there a dwarf-pine clinging to it, ran down to a rough platform of rock, only twenty feet or so above the surface of the current. To one of these trees we bound a couple of stout ropes, and two men were lowered on to the block of timber, while the third remained upon the platform to see that the ropes did not slip, and to haul the others up. So we worked all the day, taking turn and turn about on the platform.

To this lower end of the dale I had never come before, and when the time arrived for me to rest, I naturally commenced to look about me and consider whether or no I might escape that way. Beneath me the torrent leaped and foamed in a mist of spray, here sweeping along the cliff with a breaking crest like a wave, there circling in a whirlpool about a boulder, and all with such a prodigious roar that I could not hear my companions speak, though they shouted trumpet-wise through their hands. 'Twas indeed no less than I had expected; the stream filled the outlet from side to side.

Then I looked across to the great snow-slope opposite, and in an instant I understood the position of Captivity Hollow, as, for want of a better name, I termed the place of my confinement. The slope finished abruptly just over against me, as though it had been shorn by a knife, and I could see that the end face of it was a gigantic wall of rock. I saw this wall in profile, as one may say, and for that very reason I recognised it the more surely. 'Twas singularly flat, and unbroken by buttresses; not a patch of snow was to be discovered anywhere upon its face, and, moreover, the shape of its apex, which was like the cupola upon a church belfry, made any mistake impossible. In a word, the mountain was the Wildthurm; the wall of cliff blocked the head of the Senner Thal, and the slope on which I gazed was the eastern side, which I had likened to one of the canvas sides of a tent.

If I could but cross it, I thought! No one would look for me in that direction. I could strike into one of the many ravines that led into the Vintschgau Thal to the west of Lukstein, and thence make my way to Innspruck. If only I could cross it! But I gazed at the slope, and my heart died within me. It rose before my eyes vast and steep, flashing menace from a thousand glittering points. Besides, the early summer was upon us, and the sun hot in the sky, so that never an hour passed in the forenoon but blocks of ice would split off and thunder down the incline.

The notion, however, still worked in my head throughout the day, and as we returned to the hut I eagerly scanned the upper end of our ravine, for at that point the slope of the Wildthurm declined very greatly in height. Whilst the Tyrolese went in to prepare supper I stayed by the door.

"Come!" shouted one of them at length--it was not Groder. "Come, unless you prefer to sleep fasting."