In two hours they reached Vent, the last village before entering the realms of ice. Wally mounted the hill above Vent; here began the path to the Hochjoch. Once more she paused, and leaning on her Alpenstock looked down on the quiet, still half-dreaming village, and over the lake beyond, and the last houses of the Oetz valley, to the farms of Rofen which, lying almost at the foot of the ever-advancing, ever-receding Hochvernagtferners, seemed defiantly to say to it, "Crush us!"--even as Wally yesterday had defied her father. And like her father the Hochvernagt each time withdrew its mighty foot, as though it could not bear to destroy the home of its brave mountain children, "the Klötze of Rofen."
While she thus stood, looking down on the utmost dwellings of man before mounting to the desert beyond the clouds, there rose from the church-tower of Vent the sound of the bell for matins. Out of the door of the little parsonage, where the buds of the mountain-pink tapped the window in the morning breeze, came the priest and went with folded hands to his pious duty in the church. Here and there the wooden houses opened their sleepy eyes, and one figure after another coming out, stretched itself and took its way slowly to the church. Carefully and losing no tone by the way, the wind-winged angels bore the pious sound up the slope, and it rang in Wally's ear like the voice of a child that prays. And as a child arouses its mother by its sweet lisping, so the peal from Vent seemed to have aroused the sun. He opened his mighty eye, and the rays of his first glance shot over the mountains, an immeasurable shaft of flame that crowned the eastern heights. The dim grey of the twilight sky suddenly lighted up to a transparent blue, each moment the beam grew broader in the heavens, and at length mounted in full splendour over the cloud-veiled peaks, and turned his flaming countenance lovingly to earth. The mountains threw off their misty shrouds, and bathed their naked forms in streams of light. Deep down in the ravines the clouds heaved and rolled, as though they had sunk down thither from the pure heaven above. In the air was a rushing as of wild hymns of joy, and the earth wept tears of blissful waking, like a bride on her wedding morning; and like the tears on the eyelashes of the bride, the dewdrops quivered joyfully on each blade and spray. Joy lay everywhere,--above on the mountain tops where the dazzling rays were mirrored in the farseeing eyes of the chamois,--below in the valley where the lark soared, warbling, from amongst the springing corn.
Wally gazed intoxicated on the awakening world, with eyes that could hardly take in the whole shining picture in its pure morning beauty. The vulture on her shoulder lifted its wings as though longingly to greet the sun. Below in Vent, meanwhile, all was awakening to new life. From where Wally stood she could see everything distinctly in the clear morning light. The lads kissed the maidens by the well. White smoke curled upwards from the houses, vanishing without a trace in the serene spring air, as a sorrowful thought loses itself in a happy soul. On the green in front of the church the men assembled in white Sunday shirt-sleeves, their silver-mounted pipes in their mouths. It was Whit-Monday, when all make holiday and rejoice. Oh! holy Whitsuntide! just such a day must it have been when the Spirit of the Lord fell on the disciples and enlightened them with divine illumination, that they might go forth into all the world and preach the Gospel of Love, preach it to open hearts, touched by the happy spring--for, in the spring-tide of the year appeared also the spring-tide of man--the religion of love. For her only who stood up there on the mountain was there no Whitsuntide, no revelation of love. In her no persuasive voice had quickened the gospel into life. A meaningless letter it had remained to her, a buried seed which needed the vivifying ray to make it spring up in her heart. No dew of peace fell on her from the deep blue heavens; the bird of prey on her shoulder was to her the only messenger of love.
At last Wally broke away from her dreamy contemplation. She gave one farewell glance to the merry, noisy villagers, then she turned to climb the silent snow fields of the Hochjoch--in banishment.
[CHAPTER IV.]
Murzoll's Child.
For five hours did Wally continue to ascend; now over whole fields of fragrant Alpine plants, now sinking ankle-deep in snow-fields, or crossing broad moraines. Last night's sleeplessness lay heavily upon her limbs, and she almost despaired of ever reaching the end of her journey. Her hands and feet trembled, for to struggle for life during five hours against so steep an ascent is hard work. Large drops stood on Wally's brow, when suddenly as by a magic stroke she stood before a dense wall of cloud. She had turned an angle of the rock which hid the sun, and now thick mists enveloped her and an icy breath dried the sweat from her forehead. Her foot slipped at every step, for the ground was like glass; she stood upon ice, she had stepped upon the Murzoll glacier, the highest ridge of the serrated Hochjoch. Nothing grew here but starveling mountain-grass between clefts in the snow; around were the blue gleaming ice-crevasses, the virgin snow-flats, untrodden this year by foot of man or beast. Mid-winter! Wally shuddered at its icy touch. This was the forecourt to Murzoll's ice-palace, of which so many tales are told in the Oetz valley, where the "phantom maidens" dwell, of whom old Luckard had related many a story to the little Wally in the long winter evenings when the snowstorms howled round the house. The air that blew on her now from those desolate walls of ice, those caves and dungeons, came to her with a ghostly thrill like a shudder out of her childhood, as though in very truth there dwelt the dark spirit of the glacier, with whom Luckard had so often frightened her to bed when she had been naughty.
Silently she walked on. At last her deaf guide halted by a low cabin built of stone, with a wide overhanging roof, a strong door of rough wood, and little slits instead of windows. Within were a couple of blackened stones for a hearth, and a bed of old rotten straw. This was the hut of the Schnalser herdsman, who had formerly found shelter here, and here Wally was now to dwell. She did not change countenance however at the sight of the comfortless hut; it was neither more nor less than a bad mountain cabin, there were many such, and she was used to hard living. It was not such things as these that could quench her resolute spirit; but she was exhausted to faintness; since yesterday she had gone through more than even her unusual strength could bear. Mechanically she helped the deaf man, whom Luckard had loaded with a number of good things for Wally, to arrange a better bed, and to make the desolate hut somewhat more habitable. Mechanically she eat with him some of the food Luckard had sent. The man saw that she was pale, and said compassionately, "There, now thou's eaten something, lie down a while and sleep. Thou needs it. I'll fetch thee up some wood meanwhile to last thee a few days, then I must go back, or I shall never be home by daylight, and thy father strictly ordered me to get back to-day." He shook up a good bed of straw that he had brought with him; she sank down on it with half closed eyes and held out her hand gratefully.
"I'll not wake thee," he said. "In case thou'rt still asleep when I go, I'll say goodbye to thee now. Take care of thyself and don't be frightened. I'm sorry for thee all alone up here; but, why didn't thou obey thy father?"
Wally heard the last words as in a dream. The deaf man left the cabin, shaking his head compassionately; the girl was already sound asleep.