Their way now became more desolate, the mountains rose above rugged heaps of boulders, and it often looked as if the road ended abruptly, closed by a great stone door. But just as on the previous day they had met large numbers of wagons, pedestrians and muleteers, so here too they met people, teams and animals. All at once the gray rocks separated, and they reached a wide spreading mountain meadow. The road led between two small, still, dark mountain lakes, to three massive but unhomelike looking buildings. This was the hospice among the Italian Alps.
Chapter VII
Stephen Fausch: stood once more at the anvil as at Waltheim, and his workshop was even blacker and gloomier than the one in the woods. It had a single blind window, but a huge door. The house was built of great blocks of granite, with the workshop in the lower part, and the superstructure projected far out over the workshop door, and was supported on wooden pillars, so that a sort of large, covered portico resulted. The sun never made its way into the dark room, but that did not trouble Stephen Fausch. He would have been somewhat out of place in a more cheerful workshop.
This large building was the oldest of the hospice buildings. Formerly the monks had lived here and had for many years kept the travelers' shelter in the mountain pass. The traffic over the long Alpine road was now increasing from year to year. Simmen, the landlord of the hospice, had been for the past ten years managing the new tavern, which stood opposite to the old shelter, and he had at this time become a man of substance.
Stephen Fausch, whose hammer was ringing through the stillness of a cloudless morning, the second since his arrival at the hospice, was just as he had always been. He was wearing his stiff, greasy leather apron, a dirty shirt, and fresh coal dust had already settled in his tangled curly hair.
"Lord!" laughed the stout landlord, Simmen, who was leaning against one of the wooden pillars and looking into the workshop, "Hallheimer had no eye for beauty, when he sent you to us."
"You must have forgotten to put it in the contract, that a man must be handsome if he wants your blacksmith shop," said Fausch; but he laughed too--an odd, contented laugh--and stepped outside to Simmen. In some way the two men liked each other, perhaps because each one saw in the other that he had been accustomed to hard work and that his life depended upon it.
Simmen was in his speech, bearing and appearance a peasant like Fausch but less rugged, and stouter, though strong and broad shouldered. He had a fat red face, a grayish white beard, and was not as large as the smith, though he was a well grown man, and had rather a large stomach, and very large arms, but he was as quick at his work as a young and slender man. The expression of his face was intelligent, and his manner of speaking was loud and commanding; one saw at once that on the mountain he was like a king whose word was the only law in his dominion.
There began to be quite a commotion in the courtyard with its worn stone pavement that lay between the two buildings. Muleteers and travelers, who had spent the night at the hospice, were getting ready to leave. A stable boy led two horses to the smith in his workshop; in his short, selfsufficient way, Stephen took one by the halter and tied him. He did not ask what work was to be done, but cast a look over both animals and started to shoe the first. The stable boy was accustomed to take hold and help, but Fausch did not seem to notice his well meant offers, and managed the horse alone, every motion he made being peculiarly quick and sure. Simmen and the stable boy exchanged glances, and then laughed. "He knows his job," said the latter. Then he turned to leave. But just then Cain came along toward the smithy bringing a pail of milk from one of the little sheds which were scattered here and there on the meadow land around the hospice. As Simmen saw the boy coming toward the shop, he paused again and looked at him.
The morning was warm, for it was summer, and the sunlight was already flooding the meadow from which the young man was approaching. He was barefooted, like the Alpine peasants, indeed he had been used to run barefooted as a child. His well worn trousers were turned up above his ankles, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up nearly to his elbows. He came forward with a light, swaying step, dressed only in shirt and trousers. Everything about him seemed as fresh and free as the morning.