Part 16 (2/2)

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 lords.h.i.+p 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 lords.h.i.+p 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 lords.h.i.+p?”

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 lords.h.i.+p 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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!”

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