Behind the church was the parsonage; near the door was a wooden bench, and from wooden boxes in the little windows bushes of withered mountain-pinks hung down. Here she would remain till daylight; the priest would at least protect her from ill-usage. She lay down on the bench, the vulture perched on the railing at her head, and in a few minutes nature asserted its rights and she was asleep.
"May the Lord defend us! what foundling has He sent me here!" sounded in Wally's ears, and she opened her eyes. It was broad daylight, and there stood by her none other than the reverend curé himself.
"Praised be Christ the Lord," stammered Wally in bewilderment, and put her feet down from the bench.
"For ever and ever. Amen. My child, how did you come here? who are you, and what strange companion is that you have with you? it is almost enough to frighten one!" said the priest with a friendly smile.
"Your reverence," said Wally simply, "I've something heavy on my conscience, and I would be glad to confess to you. My name is Wallburga, and I belong to Stromminger, the chief-peasant of the Sonnenplatte. I've run away from home; you see--Vincenz Gellner wanted to marry me, and I struck his head open with a blow, and then I set fire to my father's barn--"
The priest clasped his hands together. "God help us, what tales are these! So young, and so wicked already!"
"Your reverence, I am not really wicked, truly I am not--I wouldn't hurt a fly--but they made me do it!" said Wally, and she looked up at the priest with her large honest eyes, so that he was obliged to believe her whether he would or not.
"Come in," he said, "and tell me all about it--but leave that monster outside;" he meant the vulture. Wally flung the bird upwards into the air, so that it flew on to the roof; then she followed the priest into the little house, and he made her come into his sitting-room.
There all was still and peaceful. In the alcove stood a rough wooden bedstead with two flaming hearts painted over it, which to the curé signified the hearts of our Saviour and the Virgin Mary; over the bed was a holy-water cup in porcelain, and a shelf full of books of devotion; in the room there were more shelves with other books and an old writing desk, a brown bench behind a large heavy table, some wooden seats, a praying-stool beneath a great crucifix with a garland of edelweiss, and a few gaily coloured lithographs of the Pope and of various saints. From the ceiling hung a bird-cage with a crossbeak. An antique commode with lions'-heads holding rings in their mouths as handles to the heavy drawers, represented the luxury of the dwelling, and on this commode were all sorts of beautiful things. A little shrine with a carved saint, a glass box with a wax image of the infant Christ in a red silk cradle, a glass spinning wheel, and a bunch of tarnished artificial flowers, such as are made in convents, in a yellow vase under a glass shade; a small box with many coloured shells, a tiny model of a mine in a bottle, and, as a centre-piece, a little manger made in moss and sparkling fragments of spar, with delicately carved figures of men and beasts. A few pretty cups and mugs were not wanting amid these holy surroundings, and two small crystal salt cellars to the right and left of the nativity set off on either hand the central piece.
And all was as clean as if no such thing as dirt existed in the world. This commode with the various objects upon it constituted the child-like altar which the lonely priest, six thousand feet above the sea and above modern culture, had raised to the God of beauty. Here he had stood many a time when the snow was whirling outside and the storm rocked the little wooden house, and gazed musingly at the tiny, neatly-carved world within, shaking his head with a smile and saying, "What will not men do next?"