Day after day pa.s.sed silently away in the lonely turret-room; in a few weeks the fresh handsome woman had grown pale, thin and old--no longer a scandal to the chaste eyes of the brethren. Not a word, not a smile ever came to her lips--she lived only for the child that throve joyously on her crushed affections.

Every day the little one grew stronger and more blooming; a child as sweet and winning as if angels came down from Heaven from time to time to play with him. He was like a ray of sunshine in the gloomy convent and in the closed hearts of the brethren. He could entice a smile from the sternest lips--hardly any one could resist giving him a flower in pa.s.sing, throwing him a spray, or bringing him some tempting fruit from any more distant walk--a bunch of wood strawberries, an empty bird"s-nest, a sparkling pebble--whatever came to hand. "Our little brother," they called him, and the words were repeated here and there in the early morning, when the nurse would sit with the boy in the little cloister garden for him to play on the soft gra.s.s-plot while she went on silently with her work, for the little one had begun to run about quite prettily and she could leave him to himself for hours. But indeed he never remained alone; hardly was he down in the garden when all the younger monks gathered round him like bees round a newly opened flower. And they played with him like children and made him all sorts of toys; chains of bird-cherries and little parchment wind-mills and ships--downright waste of time the older brethren called it. The rigid old brother carpenter carved him out little sheep and cows and a little manger with a baby Christ in it. Brother Engelbert, the painter, painted him all sorts of lovely pictures in the brightest colours--the whale swallowing Jonas and Saint Christopher carrying the infant Christ through the water; and was delighted with the child"s shouts of joy when he showed some comprehension of one and the other. Brother Candidus, the precentor, cut him out sweetly tuned pipes and was never tired of admiring the boy"s good ear.

Thus each did what he could for the "little brother." The hour of recreation was their play-time with the boy and the older men would look on smiling and observe with satisfaction how such innocent and childish amus.e.m.e.nts could please the younger brethren.

The child grew up in bliss--as if in Paradise. Loved by all, affectionately taught by all, he developed rapidly in body and mind.

One above all others bore him in his heart and cared for him with his hands--to one above all others he clung with increasing devotion; this was Conrad of Ramuss, his uncle. However deep the child might be in some new game, however close the circle of monks around him, when he heard Conrad"s voice he flung everything aside, got up on his tottering little feet, and trotted jubilant to meet him. It was a striking picture when the tall, handsome man stooped down to lift the boy; when the fat baby arms were clasped round the proud neck with its golden curls and the small round cheeks were pressed caressingly against that n.o.ble, spiritual face.

"My sweet angel, the flower on my cross!" he would often say to him, and the child would listen almost devoutly and look before him vaguely with his large brown eyes, as though he already could know the significance of the Cross which stood in the midst of the convent garden to the honour of the Most High.

He would sit for hours in the quiet little garden with the child on his knee and his breviary in his hand; so long as he felt the little heart beating against his own he was content. Now and then it struck his conscience that perhaps he clung too closely to the child as an earthly treasure; and then he would raise his eyes imploringly to Heaven, "Forgive me for loving him--I am bringing him up for Thee--my G.o.d." And as the child grew bigger and learned to speak, it was Conrad who with inexhaustible patience taught him his first little prayer; to fold his baby hands and kiss the wooden Christ in the garden when he lifted him up in his strong arms. The little one knew every wound as a cruel torment and would lisp out, "Holy! holy!" while he pressed his rosy lips to the blood-stained wooden hands and feet. But he who inflicted these torments on the Redeemer, to the child"s fancy was none other than Correntian; the brethren might do what they would, they could never get it out of the child"s head that "the cruel man" had nailed the Saviour to the cross.

"The brat has more wit than all of us put together," said Wyso when he heard it. "If Christ were to come again Correntian would be the first to crucify him."

From that time Correntian hated him if possible more than before, and the child was so much afraid of him that he fled from him crying when by any chance he approached him. Never had he favoured the child with a single word but one of rebuke, nor a look but one of reproach. The merriment of the brethren was in his eyes an outrage and a crime against the rule of Saint Benedict which did not allow of speech "with gesticulations, nor with showing of the teeth, nor with laughter and outcry."

But the others who set the spirit above the letter, and who better understood the rule of Saint Benedict, did not care, but loved the child all the more. Correntian was like a seceder from the rest of the brethren, and the unacknowledged breach between them grew daily more impossible to heal. Here again it was the child that was guilty. "The seed of h.e.l.l that I pointed out is beginning to germinate," said the implacable man.

Three summers had pa.s.sed over little Donatus and the autumn wind was once more blowing over the stubble-fields though the midday sun still blazed with much power. The nurse was sitting with the boy in an arbour of blossomless juniper; the brethren were busy in the house with their prayers and duties. She was quite alone; as often as the autumn winds blew, the old wounds broke out again in the saddened heart and bled anew; it was now near the season when, four years ago, she had first left her husband and her lowly home, which was now empty and ruined.

"You--you took everything from me--and yet I cannot help loving you, you child of sorrow," said she to the boy, who was playing at her feet at a burial, and was just then placing a cross he had made of two little sticks on the top of a mound he had thrown up. It was a delightful occupation and the child was eager at his play; he decked the grave with red bird-cherries as he had seen done in the grave-yard when one of the brethren took him there; then he swung his little clay mug over it by a string for a censer and sang an edifying litany in his baby way as he had heard the brethren do, and he was so absorbed in his pretty play that he screamed and struggled when his nurse suddenly caught hold of him and took him up. But he was easily pacified and, well-pleased with his foster-mother"s caresses, he clung closely to that faithful breast. It was long since she had forgotten the prohibition to kiss him. She clasped him again and again with melancholy fervour and pressed a thousand kisses on his sweet baby-lips.

At this moment, as if it had sprung from the earth, a dark shadow stood between her and the sun, which threw a golden light on the gra.s.s-plot in front of the arbour. She looked up startled--again it was Correntian who stood before her. And as if that most sacred feeling, a mother"s love, were a sin, she blushed and set the child down on the ground. She was suddenly conscious that she ought not to kiss him--a look of loathing from the monk told her all and she trembled before him. But he only shook his head and said,

"This must have an end. Stay here!" he added in a tone of rough command and quitted her with a rapid step.

The woman sat still as if spell-bound and dared not move from the spot.

What misery would he bring upon her now? All at once it had grown cloudy and chill, and yet the sun was shining as before; the gra.s.s, the trees--though still green, the sky--though still blue--everything was all at once autumnal and sere as if metamorphosed by a touch. And the child looked to her so strange, so distant, so unattainable, and yet she need only put out her arms to clasp him.

So she waited with folded hands, motionless.

At last she heard returning steps over the path; it was the Abbot and a few of the elder brethren. The Abbot hurried up with unwonted haste.

"You are an incorrigible woman," he scolded out. "We have shown more than due pity for you, we have kept you here longer than was fit although the boy has long since ceased to need you; there was no way left for you to sin--so we thought--and now I hear that even this child is not sacred to you! Why, have I not forbidden you to kiss the boy?

"under heavy penalty," I said; and you--you despise our orders, you compel the child to submit to your caresses although he struggles with vague misgiving, and you teach his innocent mouth, which is consecrated to G.o.d"s service, to kiss a woman"s lips; you outrage the sight of the brethren who betake themselves to the garden for devout contemplation?

It must come to an end, brother Correntian is right. There," he added, drawing a little bag full of gold coins out of his frock, and laying it in her hand, "there is your honest pay. I think you will be satisfied with us, it is a donation worthy of a prince. You may buy yourself a farm and land with it down there near Nauders or wherever you will, but take yourself off out of the sacred precincts of our cloister, for ever."

The nurse made no answer, she stood there pale and dumb; tears dimmed her eyes as if she had been plunged into a lake, and saw everything through water. Her clenched hands trembled so that she had let the purse fall, the wretched price of her life"s ruined happiness. Now the last treasure was taken from her, the only thing left--the child to whom she had sacrificed all; this too! "Within these walls nothing is our own but suffering," Correntian had said, she remembered that.

"Take the child with you at once," said the Abbot, and Correntian"s bony fingers grasped the child; but the boy cried so heart-rendingly, and clung with such deadly terror to his foster-mother that he had to be torn away from her, and his screams brought out the younger brethren. The nurse leaned helplessly against the pillar of the arbour, and a deep groan broke from her. The younger monks, looking on, were filled with blind fury; their hatred for Correntian, which had been growing for many years, could be no longer contained; they forgot all discipline and obedience, all the rules of their order. They crowded round Correntian like a pack of hounds.

"Leave the child alone, you blood-hound, you spy, who can never leave any thing in peace."

"For shame, reverend Abbot, for listening to him, the wolf."

Thus shouted the angry mob who would listen to no farther commands; it was open revolt. The Abbot and the elder brethren ran about in confusion, not knowing what to do, when above the tumult they heard the voice which had so often restored peace and calm; father Eusebius had just come down from his tower-chamber, and with a rapid glance had taken in the state of affairs.

"You are forgetting your obedience, my brethren. We could not keep the woman here for ever; so it is my opinion that Conrad of Ramuss should take the child into his cell, he loves it, and it clings to him."

"Yes, yes, let Conrad of Ramuss take him," they cried with one voice, and brother Conrad was fetched out from the chapel.

With a glance of infinite pity at the poor trembling woman he took the child in his arms. "Be easy, I will take good care of him for you," he said kindly, and she gratefully kissed the hem of his robe. She took one last long look at the child, the beloved boy that she had nursed so faithfully in those arms which might never clasp him again. She dared not give him any parting kiss, his little hands might never touch her more. The tall monk carried him away high above the crowd of brethren, as if he were borne along on a dark stream; now, now the doors close upon him--it is over!

The woman sat alone under the withered arbour; it was evening, the dew was falling, the wind rustled in the dry branches, and warned her that it was time to make up her bundle, and to find her way--out into the world where all was dead or strange to her. Whither should she go? She knew not, she must wander about alone and helpless so long as her feet would carry her, till she dropped and lay down somewhere or other. She pulled herself up, for so it must be, but she must go upstairs into the empty room whence they had taken the child, just to fetch a few wretched garments. No, she could not do it.

She stole away, just as she stood, her knees bending under her, taking only one thing with her: the little cross with which the child had been playing at his mimic grave-yard. She pressed it to her lips while she shed hot tears. Thus she glided like a criminal through the mist and darkness, out of the little gate where she had so often watched for her husband. But now no loving arm was waiting to clasp her; the Prior called out a compa.s.sionate farewell; that was all. One more glance up at the turret-window, and then she went down into the misty valley--a lonely beggar.

Up in the convent a great conclave was held by the elders in judgment on the younger brethren and their criminal outbreak against all discipline. Father Eusebius would willingly have hurried off after the poor forsaken woman, but his duty to his Order kept him here.

"It has all happened just as I said and prophesied," said Correntian.

"All the mischief comes of the child. It is the child of a curse, and it will bring the curse under our roof."

Then Eusebius rose, his voice sounded sharp and stern as it never had before, and his eyes flashed round upon the a.s.sembly with an eagle-like glance.

"I will tell you," said he, "the cause of the curse that clings to the child. All the conditions of its life are unnatural. Its father"s rage was unnatural that made the child an outcast before it was born; your demands on the nurse were unnatural, and the husband, wife, and child have come to ruin in consequence; and the child"s life here in the convent is unnatural. That is the seed of h.e.l.l of which you spoke, Correntian, which you have cherished, and which you will reap--the revenge of outraged nature."

BOOK II.

MARTYRDOM.

CHAPTER I.

Joy, joy in all the fields! for it is harvest-time. In all the fields up hill and down dale; down in the valley and up on the heights they are cutting the last swathes, the last Rodnerinnenlocken are sounding--so they call the old traditional cry with which the hay-maker calls upon the blessed phantom-maidens to come and help him. He strikes three times on his scythe with his whet-stone, so that it rings over hill and valley; the phantom-maidens hear it, and hasten down from their cliffs to help the mowers, so that they may get in the harvest in dry weather. For they are kind-hearted and well-disposed to the peasant who contentedly tills his field, and many old folks are still living who have seen with their own eyes that they were not too proud to work in peasant"s dress, helping those who were industrious. But since a rude lad once seized upon one of the "good women," and kissed her by force, they no longer show themselves to mortal eyes; only their kind handiwork can be traced. The more industrious a man is, the more they help him, for they never come to any but the industrious; the idle call on them in vain. But this year there must have been more of them than ever, for it is a splendid harvest, and has been got in quicker than usual. Singing and shouting resound on all the meadows, and the long lines of hay-waggons with their intractable teams of spanned oxen seem endless. Children are romping among the odorous hay-c.o.c.ks in the meadows, or lie on the top of the soft piled up heaps stretching their weary limbs luxuriously; lads and la.s.ses together teazing and joking each other in exuberant merriment.

Up at the window of the eastern tower of Marienberg a pair of large melancholy eyes were gazing longingly down on this glorious, smiling scene. A pair of wonderful eyes they were; deep, dark, and yet full of light as though glowing with some inward fire, so that even the white seemed to take a ruddy tint, like an opal held against the light. They gazed down from the tower with a fixed regard, drinking in all the splendour in one long look.

The gay, social doings of men--the silent, all-powerful day-star that was riding at its noon-tide height and shedding its rays over all the wide landscape, so that every roof and turret of the thirteen hamlets that lay strewn around were distinctly visible up to the very edge of the gleaming snow-fields and glaciers, which were the only limits set to the roving eye--the wide verdant plain, like a garden with softly swelling hills and tufted woods, and traversed by the silvery streak of the murmuring Etsch--all this was mirrored in those hungry, dreamy, far-gazing eyes. They followed the course of the wild, swift rivulet that tosses itself so impatiently over rapids and falls as it leaves the lonely mountain-tarn on the moor, rushing on to the all-engulfing sea. And those eyes sent forth a message of enquiry up to the blue sky, down to the smiling plain, beyond the majestic heads of the great Ortler-chain--a dumb, burning question.

But no answer came back to him; it vanished, wafted away by the winds, like broken gossamer-threads.

The eyes, the anxiously enquiring eyes, belonged to a youth so n.o.bly formed, so full of graciousness, that it seemed as if nature must have formed him for a world of perpetual Sundays, and not for a world of weariness, labour and duty--those grim destroyers of the beautiful.

"Oh! sweet child of humanity; here you sit imprisoned and bemoaning your living death between cloister walls and among pale disfigured faces. Forgive me, O, G.o.d! if it is a sin to regret that all that is beautiful should be rejected by pitiless asceticism in these rough times--that it must wander through the world misunderstood and unprized, and either perish like flowers on a cross or sink in the pool of perdition."

Father Eusebius was standing behind the young man"s chair and his eyes rested sadly and thoughtfully on the young head, with its thick crown of dark curls that waved rebelliously round the prescribed tonsure.

Eusebius had grown old and feeble, he was now ninety-three years old.

His hair was like snow, and his body frail and bent, but his spirit was perennially young and his glance had the same power as of old. The youth turned his head. "What, Father Eusebius," said he in surprise.

"Are you there? I did not hear you come in. What has brought your weary feet up here?"

"I knew that you would be up here and dreaming again."