Part 15 (1/2)
THE
HOUR WILL COME
A TALE OF AN ALPINE CLOISTER
BY WILHELMINE von HILLERN, AUTHOR OF ”THE VULTURE MAIDEN (DIE GEIER--WALLY)” ETC.
FROM THE GERMAN BY CLARA BELL.
IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. II.
_Copyright Edition_.
LEIPZIG 1879
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.
LONDON: SAMPSON LAW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON.
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
PARIS: C. REINWALD & Cie, 15 RUE DES SAINTS PeRES.
_The Author reserves the Right of dramatizing this Tale_.
THE HOUR WILL COME.
BOOK II.
MARTYRDOM.
(CONTINUED.)
CHAPTER IV.
The heath lay silent and still, as a mother might refrain from disturbing her weeping son; thus the night wore on; dew fell on the victim's head--he heeded it not; the bright moon paled and the young day painted the first streaks on the rim of the eastern horizon--he saw it not. The icy morning-breeze swept keenly down from the glaciers--he did not stir.
Presently a silvery tinkle sounded across the heath through the morning air; it was the bell ringing for matins at St. Valentine's. This roused the penitent from his torpor, and so strong are the ties of obedience that at the first stroke the simple sound of the bell recalled the whole scattered troop of his vital faculties to their duty. His rebellious defiance, the first impulse of disobedience he had ever known, and which had driven him to his nocturnal flight, vanished like a wild dream. As the bell was ringing up here for matins, he would just have time to get down to ma.s.s; for prayers were an hour earlier here than at Marienberg. If the brethren met together for common prayer in the familiar chapel--and he--he were missing!--An unspeakable sorrow came over him--a home-sick longing for the Abbot, for his companions, for the place where he was so tenderly brought up; and without further delay he started up and hastened back to the convent. As day grew broader reflection and composure returned to him, and he was ashamed of his weakness. Without once looking behind him, he left the heath--his mother earth--the earth that had drunk his despairing tears--and walked stoutly on, down to Marienberg again; but in his too great haste he missed his way and suddenly found himself on a thickly wooded hill at one side of the monastery. An extensive ruin stood up among the dark umbrageous branches; he knew where he was now--on the hill of Castellatz, where stood the remains of an ancient Roman castle that had served at a later period as a stronghold of the Trasp family.
Huge walls lay fallen one upon the other; walls that had once been inhabited by a defiant race who had borne themselves manfully in many a b.l.o.o.d.y fight. The labouring peasants still dug out bones of extraordinary size--broad angular skulls of Huns and high narrow skulls of Goths--they had all fought round these old walls and none of them had yielded, only faith had conquered them. When Ulrich, the pious scion of the race, had built the convent at Marienberg because he thought that a House of G.o.d was the surest fortress that he could take refuge in, he razed the castle to its foundation so that no enemy of the Church should henceforth make use of it as a bulwark against the people of G.o.d.