The Last Miracle Part 16

CHAPTER XVII

THE MOUNTAINS

Langler was a great preacher of France and French lucidity--when he was in England, but in France itself he changed his tune, for nothing now quite pleased him as we raced through the land--not the food, the people, the language, the country--but all came under his criticism, which, indeed, was mostly unuttered, but one felt when he was criticising by a certain fastidiousness and thickening at the cheek-bones, as if he tasted acid. At Charleville, where we found a streaming town, one of the pilgrimages having just got there, the tone of the _devotes_ was specially distasteful to him; we saw a throng kneeling in the twilight on some church-steps, everyone with a certain beggar-like languishing of the eye-whites--a very Latin thing--which Langler called "sick-saintly." But he was ever out of joint with the age, had flinched from its paganism before the miracles, as now he flinched from its piety. "We are such hapless Midases," he said: "whatever we happen to touch turns to iron." Swandale itself he found wanting; he sighed for a rounder world. Now, piety was "_the rage_" in France, and one day in France was quite long enough to turn Langler qualmish against the words "male and female Christian," ever chattered everywhere. At Charleville, when we returned to our hotel from our stroll, a lively little maid with flaxen curls would have us look at her first-communion veil, her paroissien, and suchlike pious gems, remarking meanwhile: "is it not soft and nice, sir, to be a female Christian--n'est-ce pas, monsieur, que c'est doux et bon d'etre cretienne?" To which Langler replied: "I only hope so: moi je suis cretien."

Being very weary that first night we slept till two A.M., when we set out afresh on the car road over the suspension-bridge through Mezieres, under a dark sky most bright with stars. Our trim little chauffeur, whose name was Hanska, was a "rager,"; but this mode of flight was never to Langler's taste, and we had meant to travel on rails, till the sight of Baron Kolar on the Channel-boat had caused me to know that the rail-train would be much too slow. We had lost sight of the baron at Calais, but near noon of the second day, when we were shooting some miles well on past Sedan, a trumpet hooted behind, and there churned upon us a large chariot travelling urgently. It must have been very swift, for we were swift, but it rolled pressingly past us, showed its hind wheels, and travelled on out of our sight. Through the dust I saw in it Baron Kolar and his two friends.

"Baron Kolar means to be in Styria before us, Aubrey," I said.

"In which case, what is the good of our going on?" asked Langler.

"We are going to investigate some facts," said I: "no one can stop us in that, unless they kill us; in any case, we have it to do to the end: your sister's eyes are upon us."

"G.o.d's," said he. "On we must, I know; I only question whether we are on the road to accomplish any real good: I hope so, G.o.d grant it; but it is a world like those jointed marionettes which, however you tug them straight, stick out crudely somewhere; its piety and its impiety both curve the lips of the G.o.ds. But let us hope that we shall accomplish something, if only for our poor prisoner."

Well, on we went, hardly knowing toward what: but our object after much talk had turned out to be threefold--(1) to find out whether there was really a prisoner Father Max Dees in Baron Kolar's castle of Schweinstein; (2) to present ourselves with this _fact_ to the authorities, and so force the release of Dees; (3) to interview the released Dees, and then give to the world whatever he might have to divulge of a design against churchmen. And chance favoured us to a wonderful extent that day between Sedan and Metz, for not fifteen minutes after Baron Kolar's chariot had vanished ahead we came anew upon it standing still by the roadside, its occupants standing and prying round it. As we flew past them I cried to Langler: "they can't repair, and are miles from anywhere: are bound to lose a day!" nor from that moment, I think, did we waste ten minutes bootlessly, till we were climbing the country at the mountain-foot. One morning early I woke in a village-room, and peeping out from my window saw the village-street bounded by a wall and some trees; beyond the trees the froths and freshes of a shallow river lacerated with rocks; beyond the river a mountain-side with a crucifix on it, a world of mountains; and grouped about the crucifix the kind of grey goats whose wool had been used by Dees to tie his tidings round the wren's leg; and I said to myself: "we have arrived." What a charm was in that place that morning surpa.s.ses expression; it appeared to me the haven of the world; the morning-star was awane in the heavens; and I had the thought: "how well to have been born in here, and to have housed here always in peace!" It was a breathing-s.p.a.ce to me, till the burden that was ours darkened down anew upon my mind with its weight of care and doubt. As to where Baron Kolar might be we had no idea, having seen nothing of him since his breakdown near Metz.

My own hostess--Langler had slept in another cottage--had a son named Piast whom she offered to me as guide, upon which this conversation took place between us: "does Piast know the alp well?" "Kiss the hand, sir, he is a Slovene." "But is he to be depended upon as a guide?" "He is a Slovene, sir." "Yes, but does he know the best way to Schweinstein?"

"Sir, he is a Slovene." She herself was a heavy Slav woman, but as our Piast looked a brave wight we took him, and began to climb through higher valleys now and a wilder world. I knew Switzerland very well, but this was different somehow--a heavier eventide of wood and wonderland of solitude, for I think that Upper Styria must be about the loneliest of lands. We travelled up beside one river (with banks of slime, and forested cliff on either hand) which had a mood of millions of years gone, before man or brute was; yet the wild goat bounded on the crag, the boar slouched in the black of the bush. At noon we stopped at a sennhaus (cow-farm) on the banks of a mountain-tarn, and here, to my surprise, it got into Langler's head to bathe. "But can we spare the _time_?" I asked him. "Too cold, too cold," said our host the cow-keeper, with a shake of the head, for though the day was warm, we were now at an elevation where oak and ash were giving place to black fir and yew. But Langler would bathe, the water looked so nice, and as I knew that he could not swim, and was afraid that the bottom might be deceptive, I made up my mind to go in first, to try it. Our cow-keeper lent us two old knee-breeches, for the wagon with our luggage was down behind, and there we cowered by the sh.o.r.e, Langler with knives in the flesh because of the sennerin's eyes on his back, for she and three children stood in a crowd up at the sennhaus door to watch us. Well, I chose a spot, and plunged in: and the instant I was under, as it were a thousand whispers were about me urging me to be out. It was too cold for man, with a certain great gloom of cold, and I was no sooner in than I was out again. Understanding now that it would hardly do for Langler with his panting heart, I prayed him not to try it; but his honour, I suppose, was now at stake--he had ever a large share of what one may call physical courage--and in he stepped. However, he did not plunge, but almost at once came out gasping, and seeing his left foot dyed with blood, I knew that something had gashed it.

On the whole, we had no sort of right in that water, since time might be so dear to us: but so it happened; Langler's gash proved grave, for he could not put on his boot, so after our good sennerin had bandaged it up there we sat for hours before the longish shed which was the sennhaus, drinking goat's milk, smoking porcelain pipes, and looking toward the summer snow on the top of high Hochgolling.

"Pity we ever went into the water," said Langler as we sat there disabled and the afternoon sun sank low: "we have lost a day, and through me, I'm afraid."

"Bad luck," said I, "not your fault."

"We are such tools of Nature!" said he. "Men rage of their 'power' over Her, but what of Her unperturbed reign over and in _them_? We should now be at Schweinstein, yet here we are, the truth being that new lands induce a vagueness and vagabondage in the mind, so hypnotising it that one's own concerns seem paltry in comparison with the ma.s.s and pageant of Nature, and irrelevant to her mood; whereupon 'I am here' grows so uppermost in the mind as to strangle 'why am I here?' However, I think that the foot is now fast healing."

"Then we may be able to get on to-night," said I. "But who is that man talking so earnestly to our Piast? He was here an hour ago, went away, and now is back again."

"I have observed it," said he; "they are at this moment discussing us."

"Are they?"

"Yes, they are talking near the cascade, and louder than they think, for I have twice heard 'die Herren,' and presently you will see them glance this way."

"But do you suspect Piast at all?"

"I doubt if he is quite trusty and good."

"Then let us not go one step farther with him."

"But we have the charts, he can't lead us far astray; nor can we allow ourselves to judge him on a mere suspicion."

I said no more, but felt uneasy. Soon afterwards I left Langler outside, went up the (external) steps into the middle room of the sennhaus, and sat by the wheel where the sennerin was spinning flax; she looked homely and good with her thick waist and calves and dress of opera-bouffe, so I entered into talk with her, asking her first what had been the effect of the miracles in the alp. "Kiss the hand, sir!" she said, and she smiled as she told me that "the good people of the alp must work hard to keep body and soul together, without troubling the head about such matters. That is not all gold what glances."

I was astonished! The thought came into my mind, "here is Ambrose Rivers in the Noric Alps," for, except Rivers and this woman, I had heard of no one who thus lightly threw off the miracles. "But surely," said I, "such high events!" She sighed, saying: "ah, dear Heaven, those on the alp had their miracle six long years ago, and that was enough of miracles, it seems to me, with great cry and little wool." "Six years ago? a miracle?" said I. "Yes, sir; but let each sweep before her own door"--another proverb, and a strong one apparently, for nothing further could I get from her as to this miracle of six years before.

I then, for the first time in Styria, spoke of Max Dees. "My friend and I," I said, "are here to visit the Pater Max Dees: do you--know him?"

Again she smiled, saying: "my man did frohn-arbeit on his buckwheat-field for three years"--(this "frohn-arbeit" being, as she explained it, a kind of church-due paid in day-labour). "So you know the Pater well?" I asked. With the same half-a-smile, she answered: "I _knew_ him." "But isn't he still in the alp, then?" "Not at the church, sir." "Which church?" "St Photini's in the castle-court." "Oh, he is not still the priest at St Photini's, so perhaps my friend and I have taken a voyage in vain. Who, then, is now the priest there?" "There is no priest," said she; "even if there were, we of this church-parish should no longer plod to his church, since it is work enough to keep body and soul together; for burials a priest rides up from Badsogl; but St Photini's has been shut up near five years--before the birth of the little sugar-corn Kathchen, in fact."

"But that is strange!" said I. "To whom does St Photini's belong?"

"All this alp, one might say, belongs to the baron, sir."

"All? He must be enormously rich and powerful!"

"Gold makes old, sir; but the baron is not believed to be rich, not as some of the great landowners are, for glaciers and precipices make no man rich, and the most of his land is forest, with some flax, beet, and then the pastures; his lordship has also a share in the gla.s.s factory a mile up."

"So he is not very rich, the baron? But is he powerful? much feared in the alp?"

"Ah, dear Heaven, he is very much feared, and very much loved, and very much pitied, by all."

"Pitied? Baron Kolar?"

"Ah, dear Heaven, yes: for nothing less than a very great wrong was done to his lordship by one in whom he had trust. They say 'one love is worth the other'; but unthankfulness is ever the world's repayment."

"But what was this great wrong done to his lordship?"

She sighed, and answered: "end good, all good; it is a long story, sir"; nor was there any overcoming her reserves when she chose to be silent.

"But that is strange," said I, "that St Photini's should be shut up--five years! To what church, then, do you--go?"

"We go to none, since the body is more real than the soul. There is a little Roman church down there in Speisendorf, but no one goes to it since the miracle of six years ago; those of the alp once went to St Photini's, but St Photini's is of the Oriental Greek Church, and the Pater Max Dees was an Oriental Greek priest." "_Was?_" said I, "but is the good Pater no longer alive?" "Who knows?" said she. "You do; tell me," said I. "But I do not know, sir, truly! perhaps the baron himself could impart to you that information." "But where is the baron?" I asked, "in the duchy, do you know?" "The baron is at the burg, sir."

"Baron Kolar at Schweinstein! When did he arrive?" "Late last night, I believe," she answered.

"Strange," I thought, "that we have heard nothing of it, though we have questioned so many people"; and wondering if he had come in a clandestine manner, or by another route than ours, I hurried out to give Langler the news. In telling him, I saw the cow-man trotting toward the tarn under a load of wurzels, so I called him to us, and asked why he had told us that the baron was _not_ at the castle. "Kiss the hand, sirs!" he said, and answered with a blank air, "but this is strange! is the baron at the castle? and is it the little woman who has told you this? she must have seen it in a dream"----and he peered sourly up into the room where the spinning-wheel sounded. Turning to Langler, I asked him how the foot was going, for I felt that it would be well to make a move; "you see I have on the boot," was his reply, "I can walk quite well"; and within some minutes we had started, for eventide was falling, and we had to get to a sort of guest-court three miles higher. We had sent the horses back down to Speisendorf, our farther route being rough for night-travelling; and with our Piast stepping out ahead in his coloured home-spuns, we tramped toward the bourn where beds and the trunks awaited us. It had turned bleak now, the fuffs of the mountain-winds began to tune-up and fife, the gloom deepened toward night. I confess that I felt afraid, I hardly knew of what, but the mood of the mountains was undoubtedly morose and dark. When I asked the lad if he had heard the news that his lordship had arrived he looked foolish, and said no, he had not heard. We pa.s.sed by rude altars decked with gauds, by crucifixes on the crags, and a mile from the sennhaus reached a river all shut in by ravines, up the banks of which we wound, till, after about an hour and a half of continuous walking, we came to some lock-gates, and then, in an opening in the cliff-wall, to a factory, which Piast said was a gla.s.s-factory, and I remember wondering where the hands could come from to work it; a little higher was a mill-wheel and other lock-gates, and thenceforward unbroken lines of cliff, walling-in the river. I had known that we should have to journey up this or some such river, so had no fear that we were being jockeyed; yet I felt like one lost, for by this time we could hardly see our hand before our eyes, the winds waged their business in many a strange tongue, and my knowledge that Langler was limping made me the more anxious to come at shelter. As usual in such a case, we were stricken rather silent, plodding on in patience for the journey to be over and for a light to arise before us. And in front of us stepped our Piast.

But at one place when I called out "Piast!" to ask him something, I got no answer; whereupon we both stopped, we called and called, but Piast was gone.

"Well, we seem to be abandoned," Langler said.

At the same moment I called out sharply: "but do you feel your feet wet?"

"Yes," said he, "I do. The river seems to be rising."

As he spoke I was already wet above the ankles, for not only was the river rising, but so very fast, that I understood that this was no tidal rising, but must be due to some other cause. Langler too understood, for he now said: "the lock-gates have apparently been closed."

"Purposely to drown us, Aubrey?" I cried.

"Well, the timely flight of Piast seems to indicate as much," he answered with astonishing composure, to judge from his voice, for he was merely a voice, since I could only just divine his presence with my eyes, and I heard the water welter directly upon the cliff-wall, and felt it at my knees.

"But what are we to do?" I cried.

"What can we do?" said he, "except bear our lot with fort.i.tude."

"But we shall be drowned!"