(CONTINUED.)
CHAPTER IV.
The heath lay silent and still, as a mother might refrain from disturbing her weeping son; thus the night wore on; dew fell on the victim's head--he heeded it not; the bright moon paled and the young day painted the first streaks on the rim of the eastern horizon--he saw it not. The icy morning-breeze swept keenly down from the glaciers--he did not stir.
Presently a silvery tinkle sounded across the heath through the morning air; it was the bell ringing for matins at St. Valentine's. This roused the penitent from his torpor, and so strong are the ties of obedience that at the first stroke the simple sound of the bell recalled the whole scattered troop of his vital faculties to their duty. His rebellious defiance, the first impulse of disobedience he had ever known, and which had driven him to his nocturnal flight, vanished like a wild dream. As the bell was ringing up here for matins, he would just have time to get down to mass; for prayers were an hour earlier here than at Marienberg. If the brethren met together for common prayer in the familiar chapel--and he--he were missing!--An unspeakable sorrow came over him--a home-sick longing for the Abbot, for his companions, for the place where he was so tenderly brought up; and without further delay he started up and hastened back to the convent. As day grew broader reflection and composure returned to him, and he was ashamed of his weakness. Without once looking behind him, he left the heath--his mother earth--the earth that had drunk his despairing tears--and walked stoutly on, down to Marienberg again; but in his too great haste he missed his way and suddenly found himself on a thickly wooded hill at one side of the monastery. An extensive ruin stood up among the dark umbrageous branches; he knew where he was now--on the hill of Castellatz, where stood the remains of an ancient Roman castle that had served at a later period as a stronghold of the Trasp family. Huge walls lay fallen one upon the other; walls that had once been inhabited by a defiant race who had borne themselves manfully in many a bloody fight. The labouring peasants still dug out bones of extraordinary size--broad angular skulls of Huns and high narrow skulls of Goths--they had all fought round these old walls and none of them had yielded, only faith had conquered them. When Ulrich, the pious scion of the race, had built the convent at Marienberg because he thought that a House of God was the surest fortress that he could take refuge in, he razed the castle to its foundation so that no enemy of the Church should henceforth make use of it as a bulwark against the people of God.
Thus fell the proud walls that had defied the power of man. The youth trod the soil that had a thousand times been drenched in blood, with a reverent step; peace now reigned over the spot, and silence--a Sabbath stillness. High above his head the shadowy tree-tops rustled as though they were murmuring some long forgotten heroic legend, or a battle-song of which the echoes had long since died away. And he, the peaceful son of that stern mother, the Church--he stood there as one ashamed of his own feebleness, and humbly folding his hands he prayed--"I am no warrior, no hero--I need not fight with the sword or measure the strength of my young limbs, man for man with others--my heroism must lie in obedience. Strengthen me therein, my Lord and God, that I may never fear to fulfil Thy will."
And he went forward again, renewed in strength; here--on this old scene of many struggles, where every blade of grass had sprung from blood that heroes had spilt--here, in this bitter hour, he had grown to be a man and his courage had ripened within him; courage for that hardest fight of all, for the heroism of suffering. His resolve was formed--not in mad terror and haste as before in Correntian's cell, but quietly, clearly, aye joyfully--his resolve to purchase his salvation. He will await the Lord's will, and if the Lord give him the strength to close his eyes against all temptation, he will accept it as a gift of mercy saving him from the worst. If he fall into one single fault more--if he turn one single longing look more on a woman's form--then he will carry out the sentence as it has this night been passed upon him--for then he will know that it is God's will.
A broad sunbeam broke through the bushes which grew on all sides, their tough roots forcing their way between the grey stones; close by his side a bird twittered in a juniper bush which grew out of a ruined window arch. The little creature had its nest there and it looked at him with its keen eyes to see if it had any cause to fear for its brood; and there in the shrub sat the little birds with gaping, yellow beaks clinging in helpless fright to the swaying branches and screaming for their mother. A pretty picture!--How many a mother might have sat, long ago, under this arch, anxiously watching the foe that threatened her nest while the father was far away--at the chase or fighting in bloody feud in some enemy's country for all that was dear to him.
"Oh! sweet and wonderful bonds of love, and faith, and closest ties of blood! can it be that ye are not of God!" The question came involuntarily from the depth of the young man's heart.
And there!--as if ghosts walked in the ruins--there was a sudden movement among the shrubs; a tall girlish figure broke hastily through the boughs and behind her came a boy--a sturdy lad, the wood-cutter to the monastery. He threw his arm round the girl's buxom form and whispered, "And if I ask you where you went so early, what will you say then?"
"To gather berries," she cried laughing and swinging her basket.