The World's Greatest Books - Volume 7 Part 27

I shall have to study these rough folk and gain their confidence before I can set to work.

_The Forest Folk_

Strange trades are carried on in this wilderness. These people literally dig their bread out of earth and stone and ant-heaps, sc.r.a.pe it off the trees, distill it out of uneatable fruit. There is the root-digger, whose booty of mountain ovens is said to go to far Turkey to be turned into scent. He would long have given up digging, to live entirely on poaching, but for his hope to unearth some day treasure of gold and jewels. One of these "forest-devils" has just died. He never worked at all. His profession was eating. He went from village to village and from fair to fair, eating cloth and leather, nails, gla.s.s, stones, to the amazement of his audience. He died from eating a poisonous root given him by some unknown digger--they say it was the devil himself. His funeral oration was delivered by a pale, bent, quiet man, known as the Solitary, of whose life n.o.body can give one any information.

Then there is the pitch-boiler. You can smell him from afar, and see him glitter through the thicket. His pitch-oil is bought by the wood-cutter for his wounds, by the charcoal-burner for his burns, by the carter for his horse, by the brandy-distiller for his casks. It is a remedy for all ailments. The most dangerous of all the forest-devils is the brandy-distiller. He is better dressed than the others, has a kind word for everybody, and plays the tempter with but too great success.

Black Matthias is dying in his miserable hut. His little boy and girl are playing around him, and his wife bids them be silent. "Let them shout," says Matthias; "but try and keep down Lazarus' temper." On his death-bed Matthias told me the story of his life--how he, a jolly, happy fellow, fell into the recruiting-officers' trap, escaped from their clutches, was betrayed by his own village people, and flogged through the line, and how they rubbed vinegar and salt into his wounded back; how he escaped from the battlefield and found refuge in this wilderness--a changed man, quarrelsome, with an uncontrollable temper, which led him into many a brawl; and how, under great provocation, he had stabbed a wood-burner at the inn, and had been beaten within an inch of his life by the wood-cutters. His life was now ebbing away fast, and he had good reason to fear that his uncontrollable temper would live in his son. Hence his exhortation to his wife. Black Matthias died a few hours after he had told me of his sad life.

And so I get to know them all, and make friends with them all, especially with the children, and with the shepherd lad Berthold and the poor milkmaid Aga. There was a wedding down at Heldenichlag, where they have a parish church, and dancing and merrymaking at the inn all night.

Next morning Berthold went to the priest. He wanted to marry Aga, but the priest told him he was too young, too poor; he could come back again in ten years! The poor lad is left speechless and does not know how to explain _why_ he wants to be united for ever with his Aga. Sadly he leaves the room, but out in the open air his spirit returns to him. On the second day of the wedding feast there was no holding him. He was the wildest and merriest of the lot. In the afternoon we all returned to Winkelsteg in the forest.

1815.

I know I must begin with a church. And at last I have obtained the baron's consent. I have designed the plan myself--it must be large enough to hold all who are in need of comfort here, and bright and cheerful, for there is darkness enough in the forest. And the steeple must be slender like a finger pointing heavenwards. Three bells there must be to announce the Trinity of G.o.d in one Person, and to sing the song of faith, hope, and love. And an organ there must be, but no pictures and gilding and show.

_Autumn_, 1816.

I have been taking a census. How very limited is their range of names.

They have no family names, and only some half dozen Christian names!

This must be altered. I must invent names for them, according to their occupation or dwelling or character: Sepp Woodcutter, Hiesel Springhutter, and so forth. They like their new names; only Berthold gets angry and refuses to take a name. "A name for me? I want no name; I am n.o.body. The priest won't let me marry. Call me Berthold Misery, or call me Satan!"

_May_, 1817.

I have been ill--the result of being snowed up on the way home from a visit to a forester who had been wounded by a poacher. The danger is over now, but my eyes continue to suffer. The forest folk have been very good to me, and much concerned about my progress. And now I am able to go out again. To-day I was watching a spider in the thicket, when I saw Aga rushing towards me. "Ah, it's you!" she cried. "You must help us. We want to live in honour and decency. The priest won't marry us. You can ask for our blessing." The next moment Berthold had joined her and they were kneeling before me. And I p.r.o.nounced the words which I had no right to p.r.o.nounce. I married them in the heart of the green forest.

_St. James's Day_, 1817.

Matthias's widow is in despair. Lazarus has disappeared. In a fit of temper he threw a stone at her, then gave a wild yell and rushed away.

"It was a _small_ stone, but there is a heavy stone upon my heart,"

laments the mother; "his running away is the biggest stone he could have thrown."

_St. Catherine's Day_, 1817.

Lazarus' sister found a letter pinned on to a stick on her father's grave, which she often visits. It was from her brother, and told them not to worry--he is "in the school of the Cross." And then there was another letter to say that he was well, and thinking of them all. They answered, imploring him to return, and fixed the note and a little cross on the tomb. It is still there, and has never been opened.

_March_, 1818.

Berthold is gone among the wood-cutters, and has got his hut. A little girl was born to Aga yesterday, and I was sent for to baptise it. I am no priest, and must not steal a name from the calendar. So I called her Forest Lily, and baptised her with the water of the priest.

_Summer_, 1818.

The first Sunday in these forests! The church is finished, and the bells have summoned the people from the whole neighbourhood. The priest has come from Heldenichlag to dedicate the church, and the schoolmaster to play the organ. But some of the folk grumble because there is no inn by the church; and I hear that the _gra.s.steiger_ has applied for a spirit license. This is the shadow of the church!

In the evening, as I went back to the church, I saw a youth, apparently at prayer, who took to his heels the moment he found he was discovered.

I caught him up and recognised. Lazarus! But I could not get a word out of him. I rang the church bells, and soon the lad was surrounded by the astonished villagers. He only murmured, "Paulus, Paulus!" and refused to take the proffered food, though he looked half starved. I took him back to his mother the same evening.

_December_, 1818.

Lazarus must have been through a miraculous school. He has completely lost his evil temper, but he refuses to speak clearly of his life during the past year, though he mumbles of a rock-cave, a good dark man, of penance, and of a crucifix. We have no priest. I have to look after the church, ring the bells, play the organ, sing and conduct prayer on Sundays. I hear bad news of Hermann, my old pupil. He is said to be leading a wild life in the capital. I cannot believe it.

_Summer_, 1819.

And now we have a priest--as strange and mysterious as the altar crucifix which I had taken to the church from the rock valley. On the last day of the hay-month, when I entered the church to ring the bells, I found "the Solitary" reading ma.s.s on the highest step of the altar. I asked for an explanation, and he answered with a rusty voice that he would tell me all next Sat.u.r.day at a desolate place he appointed in the forest.

The Solitary has told me the whole sad story of his life. He was born in a palace, and had been rocked in a golden cradle. He had drained the cup of pleasure to the very dregs, and then, prompted by his tutor, had joined a religious order, taken the binding vow, and renounced his fortune to the order. A girl, whom he had known before, implored him not to leave her and her child in distress. It was too late--he was now penniless and irrevocably bound. She drowned herself and haunted his dreams, even after he had become a priest under the name of Paulus.

Blind obedience was exacted from him by his order, and when he refused to betray a king's confession he was sent as missionary to India. After his return he became a zealot, exacting severe penance from sinners, and through his severity driving a man to suicide. In his remorse he, too, had sought refuge in this wilderness, where no one knew him, and where one day he found Lazarus, took him to his cave, and taught him to tame his quick temper. I had always thought the first pastor at Winkelsteg should be a repentant sinner, and not a just man. We have now our priest.

_Winter_, 1830.

For more than ten years I have neglected my diary, partly because I was no longer alone, but had a friend and companion in "the Solitary,"

partly because I was busy with the building of the schoolhouse. I have my own ideas on education. The child is a book in which we read, and into which we ought to write. They ought to hear of nought but the beautiful, the good, the great. They ought to learn patriotism--not the patriotism which makes them die, but that which makes them live for their country.

Berthold has become a poacher. I have already had to intercede for him with the gamekeeper. Then, one winter's night, Forest Lily, his daughter, was sent out to beg some milk for the babies. Snow fell heavily, and she did not return. For three days they searched, and finally found her huddled up with a whole herd of deer in a snow-covered thicket of dry branches--kept alive by the animals' warmth and the pot of milk she was taking home. When Berthold heard that the forest animals had saved his child, he smashed his gun against a rock, and shouted, "Never again! never again!"

_Carnival Time_, 1832.

In the parsonage lies a farm-hand with a broken jaw. Drink and quarrel and fight--it is ever the same. The priest has warned them often enough.

He has called the brandy-distiller a poison-brewer, and a few days ago the distiller came to the parsonage, armed with a heavy stick. He poured out his complaints. The priest was spoiling his honest business. What was he to do? He took up a threatening att.i.tude. "So you have come at last," said Father Paulus; "I was going to come to you. So you won't give them any more spirits--you are a benefactor of the community! I quite agree with you. You will prepare medicines and oils and ointments from the roots and resin? I'll help you, and in a few years you will be a well-to-do man."

The distiller was speechless. He had said nothing of the sort, but it all seemed so reasonable to him. He grumbled a few words, stumbled across the threshold, and threw his stick away as far as it would fly.

_March 22_, 1832.

Our priest died to-day.

I can scarcely believe it. But there is no knocking at the window as I pa.s.s the parsonage--no friendly face smiling at me. And I can scarcely believe that he has gone.

_Ascension Day_, 1835.

A few days ago I had a letter from my former pupil, our present master.

He was ill, tired of the world, and wanted to find peace and rest in the mountains. He remembered his old teacher, and asked me to be his guide.

I went to meet him, and he behaved so strangely that I thought I was walking with a madman. On the second day he seemed better. He wanted to ascend at once the highest peak, known as the "Grey Tooth." And as we pa.s.sed the dark mountain lake, we saw a beautiful young woman bathing.

She looked like a water-nymph. But when she saw us she disappeared under the water, and did not show herself again. Was she drowning herself from very modesty? I pulled her out of the water, we dressed her; then fear gave her strength, she jumped up and ran away. It was my "Forest Lily."

Hermann no longer insisted on climbing the mountain. He came with me to Winkelsteg, remained three days, made Berthold gamekeeper, and arranged that he should forthwith marry Aga in our church. Before he left he said to me: "She thought more of her maidenhood than of her life. I never knew there were such women. This is a new world for me--I, too, belong to the forest. I entrust her to you--teach her if she wants to learn, and take care of her. And keep the secret If I can be cured, I shall return."

_Summer_, 1837.

It has come to pa.s.s. Schrankenheim has broken through cla.s.s prejudice.

Two days ago he was married to Forest Lily in our church. They have left us, and have gone to the beautiful city of Salzburg.

The years pa.s.s in loneliness and monotony. Yet they have brought a great change. A prosperous village now surrounds the church, and orchards surround the village. And the folk are no longer savages. How smartly they are now dressed on Sundays! The young people have more knowledge than the old, but too little reverence for the old. But they still smoke tobacco and drink spirits. What can an old schoolmaster do quite by himself?

_Spring_, 1848.

Hermann's beautiful sister, she who turned my head so many years ago, is coming here to seek refuge from the troubles in town, where they are building barricades. I must see that everything is made pleasant and comfortable for her.