Edelweiss Part 43

Annele and Lenz held each other in a close embrace. "So let us die and shelter our child!" cried Annele.

"Hark! there is a hollow sound without. It is our deliverers; they are coming, they are coming! they will save us!--"

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

SAVED.

"There are two blows following close upon each other," cried Lenz. "I will make the clocks play together, as a sign to those without."

He set the two musical clocks in motion, but the dreadful confusion of sounds drove him almost frantic. Even in this hour of deadly danger a discord was intolerable to him. He stopped them suddenly. With a pang as of the severing of a heart-string he heard something in his great clock snap at the hasty check.

Again they held their breath and listened; no further sounds were heard.

"You rejoiced too soon," said Petrovitsch, his teeth chattering so that he could hardly speak. "We are nearer death than life now."

The pounding was repeated from above. "b.u.m, b.u.m!" imitated the child, while Petrovitsch complained that he felt every blow of the hammer in his brain.

Lenz could not have touched the right spring in one of the clocks, for it suddenly began to play the air of the grand Hallelujah. "Hallelujah, blessed be G.o.d the Lord!" sang Lenz with the full force of his voice.

Annele sang too, keeping one hand upon Lenz's shoulder, and the other upon the head of the child. "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" cried a voice from above.

Once more that piercing cry of old rang through the house "My Pilgrim!

my faithful brother!"

The chamber-door was battered down with an axe.

"Are you all alive?" cried Pilgrim,

"All; thank G.o.d!"

Pilgrim embraced Petrovitsch first, taking him for Lenz, and the old man returned the greeting with a kiss on both cheeks, after the Russian fashion.

Close upon Pilgrim came the engineer, followed by Faller, Don Bastian, and the members of the Liederkranz.

"Is my William safe?" asked Lenz.

"Yes indeed, safe in my house," answered Don Bastian.

Some of the men shovelled away the snow from the outside of the windows.

"Sun, sun! I behold you again!" cried Annele, sinking upon her knees.

The clock kept on playing the Hallelujah, the schoolmaster added his voice, and the whole Liederkranz joined in with full, firm tones. As if shaken by the mighty song, the snow-fortress in front of the house suddenly loosened and rolled down the valley.

The house stood free.

The door into the kitchen was opened, and, upon the window being lifted, the raven darted across the room above the head of the child out into the open air.

"Birdie gone!" cried the child. A second raven was waiting without, and the two now soaring high in the air, now swooping towards the ground, flew up through the valley.

The first woman who made her way to Annele was Ernestine, who, having heard of the disaster on the Morgenhalde, and also of the landlady's death, had lost no time in coming to her cousin's help. She knelt beside her. Lenz leaned upon Pilgrim's bosom.

Petrovitsch was beginning to be angry because no one paid him any attention, when happily the engineer approached him, and, with a manner at once respectful and cordial, congratulated him on his deliverance.

The best fellow of the whole company, thought the old man. Pilgrim politely apologized for the embrace he had inadvertently given, and was treated to a cordial shake of the hand.

"I have found a sc.r.a.p of your mother's handwriting in the snow," said Faller hoa.r.s.ely; "most of the writing is washed out, but these few words are left: 'This little plant is called edelweiss. Marie Lenz.'"

"The paper is mine!" cried Annele, rising. All looked at her in astonishment. "Why, Annele!" screamed Ernestine, "what in Heaven's name have you on your head? your hair is all white!"

Annele went to the mirror, and, with a cry of anguish, clasped both hands above her head.

"An old woman! an old woman!" she moaned, and fell upon Lenz's neck.

After a while she rose, sobbing, dried her tears and whispered in his ear, "That is my edelweiss that has grown for me under the snow."

CHAPTER XL.

ALL IS WELL.

The ravens flew across the valley and over the mountains, past a humble cottage where sat an old woman at the window, spinning coa.r.s.e yarn, while big tears rolled down her withered cheeks upon the threads she spun. It was Franzl. The tidings that Lenz with his whole household had been buried in the snow had reached Knuslingen, and men from her village had gone to their rescue. Franzl would gladly have gone with them and done her part; but her poor old feet refused to bear her.

Moreover, she had lent her one good pair of shoes to a poor woman who had to go to the doctor's. In the midst of her sorrow Franzl often clapped her hands to her stupid head and said to herself: Why did I not think of it yesterday, while he was here? it is too late now. I had it on my tongue's end to tell him he must make provision against being snowed up. We were thrice snowed up for days at a time, and such an accident should be provided for every winter. It is too late now. The old mistress was right in saying, as she did a hundred times: "Franzl, you are always very clever, an hour behind the time."

The ravens that now flew past her window might have told Franzl to dry her tears, for the buried family was saved. Unhappily man cannot understand the ravens, and is a long while conveying his good news across mountain and valley.

At evening a sleigh with merry jingling bells came driving up to the door. What could it want? there was no one at home but Franzl. It stopped just before her window. Who was getting out from it? was it not Pilgrim? She tried to go to meet him, but her strength failed her.

"Franzl, I have come for you," cried Pilgrim. The old woman rubbed her forehead. Was it a dream? or what was it? "Lenz and his household are saved," continued Pilgrim; "and I am sent to fetch you, most high and mighty princess Cinderella. Will you trust yourself to the Swan."

"I have no shoes," stammered out Franzl.

"For that reason I have brought you fur boots that will just fit your little foot," returned Pilgrim; "and here is the skin, I mean the sheep-skin, of the monster Petrovitsch. You must drive with me, well-beloved Franzl of Knuslingen, Fuchsberg, and Knebringen. Your magic spinning-wheel you must leave behind, unless it chooses to hop after us on its wooden legs.

"'So gird thyself, my Gretchen, Thou must with me to-day; The corn is cut and garnered, The wine is stored away.'"

Thus merrily singing, Pilgrim offered old Franzl his arm, as if to lead her to the dance. She was in a state of perfect bewilderment. Happily her sister-in-law came home at this moment, and was by no means displeased at the idea of having Franzl carried off in a sleigh. The old woman, however, turned her unceremoniously out of the room when she wanted to help her pack up her things: she could have no one by to see her stow away that mysterious shoe.

"The bed is my own; can you not pack it away in the sleigh?" she asked.

"Let Knuslingen have it to sleep upon," answered Pilgrim. "Use your pillow for a footstool and leave the rest behind. You will be cushioned like a queen."

"Must I leave my hens and my geese behind too? They are all my very own, and my gold-hammer has been sitting for six weeks."

The hen thus complimented thrust her gay crest through the bars of her coop.