"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 Rudolf Platz. He was a young man, and had little children himself, and was half amused, half touched, to see the tiny figure of the dusty little 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 mutter the word "toll." Findelkind, whose quick little ears were both strained like a mountain-leveret's, understood that the great men were saying amongst 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—him, 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 the broad water-meadows, and the grand road bordered with the painted stations of the Cross.
There were some peasants coming in from the country driving cows; 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 Hof Kirche stood open, and on the steps lay a black and tan hound, watching no doubt for its master and 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 round it, it towers up in the twilight that reigns here even at midday. There is a stern majesty and grandeur in it which dwarfs 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.