CHAPTER XXX.

THE "WIESHERRLE."

High above the rushing Wildbach, where the stream bursts through the

crumbling rocks and in its fierce rush sends heavy stones grinding over

one another--a man lay on the damp cliff which trembled under the shock

of the falling masses of water. The rough precipices, dripping with

spray, pressed close about him, shutting him into the cool, moss-grown

ravine, through which no patch of blue sky was visible, no sunbeam

stole.

Here the wanderer, deceived in everything, lay resting on his way home.

With his head propped on his hand, he gazed steadfastly down into the

swirl of the foaming, misty, ceaseless rush of the falling water! On

the rock before him lay a small memorandum book, in which he was slowly

writing sorrowful words, just as they welled from his soul--slowly and

sluggishly, as the resin oozes from the gashed trees. Wherever a human

heart receives a deep, fatal wound, the poetry latent in the blood of

the people streams from the hurt. All our sorrowful old folk-songs are

such drops of the heart's blood of the people. The son of a race of

mountaineers who sung their griefs and joys was composing his own

mournful wayfaring ballad for not one of those which he knew and

cherished in his memory expressed the unutterable grief he experienced.

He did not know how he wrote it--he was ignorant of rhyme and metre.

When he finished, that is, when he had said all he felt, it seemed as

though the song had flown to him, as the seed of some plant is blown

upon a barren cliff, takes root, and grows there.

But now, after he had created the form of the verses, he first realized

the full extent of his misery!

Hiding the little book in his pocket, he rose to follow the toilsome

path he was seeking high among the mountains where there were only a

few scattered homesteads, and he met no human being.

While Countess Wildenau in the deserted hunting-castle was weeping over

the cast-off garments with which he had flung aside the form of a

servant, the free man was striding over the heights, fanned by the

night-breeze, lashed by the rain in his thin coat--free--but also free

to be exposed to grief, to the elements--to hunger! Free--but so free

that he had not even a roof beneath which to shelter his head within

four protecting walls.

"Both love and faith have fled for aye,

Like chaff by wild winds swept away--

Naught, naught is left me here below

Save keen remorse and endless woe.

"No home have I on the wide earth--

A ragged beggar fare I forth,

In midnight gloom, by tempests met,

Broken my staff, my star has set.

"With raiment tattered by the sleet,

My brain scorched by the sun's fierce heat,

My heart torn by a human hand,

A shadow--I glide through the land.

"Homeward I turn, white is my hair,

Of love and faith my life is bare--

Whoe'er beholds me makes the sign

Of the cross--God save a fate like mine."

So the melancholy melody echoed through the darkness of the night, from

peak to peak along the road from the Griess to Ammergau. And wherever

it sounded, the birds flew startled from the trees deeper into the

forest, the deer fled into the thickets and listened, the child in the

cradle started and wept in its sleep. The dogs in the lonely courtyards

barked loudly.

"That was no human voice, it was a shot deer or an owl"--the peasants

said to their trembling wives, listening for a time to the ghostly,

wailing notes dying faintly away till all was still once more--and the

spectre had passed. But when morning dawned and the time came when the

matin bells drove all evil spirits away the song, too, ceased, and only

its prophecy came true. Whoever recognized in the emaciated man, with

hollow eyes and cheeks, the Christus-Freyer of Ammergau, doubtless made

the sign of the cross in terror, exclaiming: "Heaven preserve us!" But

the lighter it grew, the farther he plunged into the forest. He was

ashamed to be seen! His gait grew more and more feeble, his garments

more shabby by his long walk in the rain and wind.

He still had a few pennies in his pocket--the exact sum he possessed

when he left Ammergau. He was keeping them for a night's lodgings,

which he must take once during the twenty-four hours. He could have

reached Ammergau easily by noon--but he did not want to enter it in

broad day as a ragged beggar. So he rested by day and walked at night.

At a venerable old inn, the "Shield," on the road from Steingaden to

Ammergau, he asked one of the servants if he might lie a few hours on

the straw to rest. The latter hesitated before granting permission--the

man looked so doubtful. At last he said: "Well, I won't refuse you, but

see that you carry nothing off when you go away from here."

Freyer made no reply. The wrath which had made him hurl the lackey from

the countess' door, no longer surged within him--now it was his home

which was punishing him, speaking to him in her rude accents--let her

say what she would, he accepted it as a son receives a reproof from a

mother. He hung his drenched coat to dry in the sun, which now shone

warmly again, then slipped into the barn and lay down on the hay. A

refreshing slumber embraced him, poverty and humility took the

sorrowing soul into their maternal arms, as a poor man picks up the

withered blossom the rich one has carelessly flung aside, and carrying

it home makes it bloom again.

Rest, weary soul! You no longer need to stretch and distort the noble

proportions of your existence to fit them to relations to which they

were not born. You need be nothing more than you are, a child of the

people, suckled by the sacred breast of nature and can always return

there without being ashamed of it. Poverty and lowliness extend their

protecting mantle over you and hide you from the looks of scorn and

contempt which rend your heart.

A peaceful expression rested upon the sleeper's face, but his breathing

was deep and labored as if some powerful feeling was stirring his soul

under the quiet repose of slumber and from beneath his closed lids

stole a tear.

During several hours the exhausted body lay between sleeping and

waking, unconscious grief and comfort.

Opposite, "on the Wies" fifteen minutes walk from the "Shield," a bell

rang in the church where the pilgrims went. There an ancient Christ

"our Lord of the Wies," called simply "the Wiesherrle," carved from

mouldering, painted wood, was hung from the cross by chains which

rattled when the image was laughed at incredulously, and with real

hair, which constantly grew again when an impious hand cut it. At times

of special visitation it could sweat blood, and hundreds journeyed to

the "Wies," trustfully seeking the wonder-working "Wiesherrle." It was

a terrible image of suffering, and the first sight of the scourged

body and visage contorted by pain caused an involuntary thrill of

horror--increased by the black beard and long hair, such as often grows

in the graves of the dead. The face stared fixedly at the beholder with

its glassy eyes, as if to say: "Do you believe in me?" The emaciated

body was so lifelike, that it might have been an embalmed corpse placed

erect. But the horror vanished when one gazed for a while, for an

expression of patience rested on the uncanny face, the lashes of the

fixed eyes began to quiver, the image became instinct with life, the

chains swayed slightly, and the drops of blood again grew liquid. Why

should they not? The heart, which loves forever can also, to the eye of

faith, bleed forever. Hundreds of wax limbs and silver hearts,

consecrated bones and other anomalies bore witness to past calamities

where the Wiesherrle had lent its aid. But he could also be angry, as

the rattling of his chains showed, and this gave him a somewhat

spectral, demoniac aspect.

Under the protection of this strange image of Christ, whose power

extended over the whole mountain plateau, the living image of Christ

lay unconscious. Then the vesper-bells, ringing from the church, roused

him. He hastily started up and, in doing so, struck against the block

where the wood was split. A chain flung upon it fell. Freyer raised and

held it a moment before replacing it on the block, thinking of the

scourging in the Passion Play.

"Heavens, the Wiesherrle!" shrieked a terrified voice, and the door

leading into the barn, which had been softly opened, was hurriedly

shut.

"Father, father, come quick--the Wiesherrle is in the barn!"--screamed

some one in deadly fright.

"Silly girl," Freyer heard a man say. "Are you crazy? What are you

talking about?"

"Really, Father, on my soul; just go there. The Wiesherrle is standing

in the middle of the hay. I saw him. By our Lord and the Holy Cross.

Amen!"

Freyer heard the girl sink heavily on the bench by the stove. The

father answered angrily: "Silly thing, silly thing!" and went to the

door in his hob-nailed shoes. "Is any one in here?" he asked. But as

Freyer approached, the peasant himself almost started back in terror:

"Good Lord, who are you? Why do you startle folks so? Can't you speak?"

"I asked the man if I might rest there, and then I fell asleep."

"I don't see why you should be so lazy, turning night into day.

Tramp on, and sleep off your drunkenness somewhere else! I want no

miracles--and no Wiesherrle in my house."

"I'll pay for everything," said Freyer humbly, almost beseechingly,

holding out his little stock of ready money, for he was overpowered

with hunger and thirst.

"What do I care for your pennies!" growled the tavern keeper angrily,

closing the door.

There stood the hapless man, in whom the girl's soul had recognized

with awe the martyred Christ, but whom the rude peasant turned from his

door as a vagrant--hungry and thirsty, worn almost unto death, and with

a walk of five hours before him. He took his hat and his staff, hung

his dry coat over his shoulder, and left the barn.

As he went out he heard the last notes of the vesper-bell, and felt a

yearning to go to Him for whom he had been mistaken, it seemed as if He

were calling in the echoing bells: "Come to me, I have comfort for

you." He struck into the forest path that led to the Wiesherrle. The

white walls of the church soon appeared and he stepped within, where

the showy, antiquated style of the last century mingled with the crude

notions of the mountaineers for and by whom it was built.

Skulls, skeletons of saints, chubby-cheeked cupids, cruel martyrdoms,

and Arcadian shepherdesses, nude penitents and fiends dragging them

down into the depths, lambs of heaven and dogs of hell were all in

motley confusion! Above the chaotic medley arched on fantastic columns

the huge dome with a gate of heaven painted in perspective, which,

according to the beholder's standpoint rose or sank, was foreshortened

or the opposite.

A wreath of lucernes beautifully ornamented, through which the blue sky

peeped and swallows building their nests flew in and out, formed as it

were the jewel in the architecture of the cornice. Even the eye of God

was not lacking, a tarnished bit of mirror inserted above the pulpit in

the centre of golden rays, and intended to flash when the sun shone on

it.

And there in a glass shrine directly beneath all the tinsel rubbish, on

the gilded carving of the high altar, the poor, plain little Wiesherrle

hung in chains. The two, the wooden image of God, and the one of flesh

and blood, confronted each other--the Christ of the Ammergau Play

greeted the Christ of the Wies. It is true, they did resemble each

other, like suffering and pain. Freyer knelt long before the Wiesherrle

and what they confided to each other was heard only by the God in whose

service and by whose power they wrought miracles--each in his own way.

"You are happy," said the Wiesherrle. "Happier than I! Human hands

created and faith animated me; where that is lacking, I am a mere

dead wooden puppet, only fit to be flung into the fire. But you were

created by God, you live and breathe, can move and act--and highest of

all--_suffer_ like Him whom we represent. I envy you!"

"Yes!" cried Freyer; "You are right; _to suffer_ like Christ is highest

of all! My God, I thank Thee that I suffer."

This was the comfort the Wiesherrle had for his sorely tried brother.

It was a simple thought, but it gave him strength to bear everything.

It is always believed that a great grief requires a great consolation.

This is not true, the poorer the man is, the more value the smallest

gift has for him, and the more wretched he is--the smallest comfort! To

the husbandman whose crops have been destroyed by hail, it would be no

comfort to receive the gift of a blossom, which would bring rapture to

the sultry attic chamber of a sick man.

In a great misfortune we often ask: "What gave the person strength to

endure it?" It was nothing save these trivial comforts which only the

unhappy know. The soul lamenting the loss of a loved one while many

others are left is not comforted when the lifeless figure of a martyr

preaches patience--but to the desolate one, who no longer has aught

which speaks to him, the lifeless wooden image becomes a friend and its

mute language a consolation.

Beside the altar stood an alms-box. The gifts for which it was intended

were meant for repairs on the church and the preservation of the

Wiesherrle, who sometimes needed a new cloth about his loins. Freyer

flung into it the few coins which the innkeeper had disdained, because

he looked like the Wiesherrle, now they should go to him. He felt as if

he should need no more money all his life, as if the comfort he had

here received raised him far above earthly need and care.

Twilight was gathering, the sun had sunk behind the blue peaks of the

Pfrontner mountains, and now the hour struck--the sacred hour of the

return home.

Already he felt with joy the throbbing of the pulses of his home, a

mysterious connection between this place and distant Ammergau. And he

was right: Childish as was the representation of the divine ideal, it

was, nevertheless, the rippling of one of those hidden springs of faith

which blend in the Passion Play, forming the great stream of belief

which is to supply a thirsting world. As on a barren height, amid

tangled thickets, we often greet with delight the low murmur of a

hidden brook which in the valley below becomes the mighty artery of our

native soil, so the returning wanderer hurried on longingly toward the

mysterious spring which led him to the mother's heart. But his knees

trembled, human nature asserted its rights. He must eat or he would

fall fainting. But where could food be had? The last pennies were in

the alms-box--he could not have taken them out again, even had he

wished it. There was no way save to ask some one--for bread. He dragged

himself wearily to the parsonage--he would try there, the priest would

be less startled by the "Wiesherrle" than the peasant. Thrice he

attempted to pull the bell, but very gently. He fancied the whole world

could hear that he was ringing--to beg. Yet, if it did not sound, no

one would open the door. At last, with as much effort as though he was

pulling the bell-rope in the church steeple, he rang. The bell echoed

shrilly. The pastor's old cook appeared.

Freyer raised his hat. "Might I ask you for a piece of bread?" he

murmured softly, and the tall figure seemed to droop lower with every

word.

The cook, who was never allowed to turn a beggar from the door, eyed

him a moment with mingled pity and anxiety. "Directly," she answered,

and went in search of something, but prudently closed the door, leaving

him outside as we do with suspicious individuals. Freyer waited, hat in

hand. The evening breeze swept chill across the lofty mountain plateau

and blew his hair around his uncovered head. At last the cook came,

bringing him some soup and a bit of bread. Freyer thanked her, and ate

it! When he had finished he gave the little dish back to the woman--but

his hand trembled so that he almost let it fall and his brow was damp.

Then he thanked her again, but without raising his eyes, and quietly

pursued his way.