The lonely church now lay silent! Silent, too, was the Wiesherrle in his glass shrine, while the wayfarer pressed steadily down through the mist toward home and the cross! Freyer moved on more and more swiftly across the hill-sides and through the woods till he reached the path leading down the mountain to the "Halb-Ammer," which flowed at its base. Gradually he emerged from the strata of mist, and now a faint ray of moonlight fell upon his path.
Hour after hour he pursued his way. One after another the lights in the houses were extinguished. The world sank into slumber, and the villages were wrapped in silence.
In the churches only the ever-burning lamps still blazed, and he made them his resting-places.
The clock in the church steeple of Altenau struck twelve as he passed through. A belated tippler approached him with the reeling step of a drunkard, but started back when he saw his face, staring after him with dull bewildered eyes as if he beheld some spectre of the night.
"An image of horror I glide through the land!" Freyer murmured softly. To-night he did not sing his song. This evening his pain was soothed, his soul was preparing for another pæan--on the cross!
Now the little church of Kappel appeared before him on its green hill, like a pious sign-post pointing the way to Ammergau. But patches of snow still lingered amid the pale green of the Spring foliage, for it is late ere the Winter is conquered by the milder season and the keen wind swept down the broad highway, making the wayfarer's teeth chatter with cold. He felt that his vital warmth was nearly exhausted, he had walked two days with no hot food. For the soup at the parsonage that day was merely lukewarm--he stood still a moment, surely he had dreamed that! He could not have begged for bread? Yes, it was even so. A tremor shook his limbs: Have you fallen so low? He tried to button his thin coat--his fingers were stiff with cold. Ten years ago when he left Ammergau, it was midsummer--now winter still reigned on the heights. "Only let me not perish on the highway," he prayed, "only let me reach home."
It was now bright cold moonlight, all the outlines of the mountains stood forth distinctly, the familiar contours of the Ammergau peaks became more and more visible.
Now he stood on the Ammer bridge where what might be termed the suburb of Ammergau, the hamlet of Lower Ammergau, begins. The moon-lit river led the eye in a straight line to the centre of the Ammer valley--there lay the sacred mountains of his home--the vast side scenes of the most gigantic stage in the world, the Kofel with its cross, and the other peaks. Opposite on the left the quiet chapel of St. Gregory amid boundless meadows, beside the fall of the Leine, the Ammer's wilder sister. There he had watched his horses when a boy, down near the chapel where the blue gentians had garlanded his head when he flung himself on the grass, intoxicated by his own exuberant youth and abundance of life.
He extended his arms as if he would fain embrace the whole infinite scene: "Home, home, your lost son is returning--receive him. Do not fall, ye mountains, and bury the beloved valley ere I reach it!"
One last effort, one short hour's walk. Hold out, wearied one, this one hour more!