CHAPTER I.
My worthy uncle, Bernard Hertzog, the historian and antiquary, surmountedwith his grand three-cornered hat and wig, and with a long iron-shodmountain-pole firmly grasped in his hand, was coming down one evening bythe Luppersberg, hailing every turn in the landscape with enthusiasticexclamations.
Years had never quenched in him the love of knowledge. At sixty he wasstill at work upon his _History of Alsacian Antiquities_, and neverallowed himself to write a complete account of a ruined and defacedmonument, or any relic of former days, until he had examined it a hundredtimes from every point of view.
"No man," said he, "who has had the happy privilege of being born in theVosges, between Haut Bar, Nideck, and Geierstein has any business tothink of travelling. Where are there nobler forests, older fir and beechtrees, more lovely smiling valleys, wilder rocks? Where is the countrywith richer possessions in memorable story? Here, in olden times, usedthe high and powerful lords of Lutzelstein, Dagsberg, Leiningen, andFenetrange, to fight clad in mail from head to foot. Here the eldest sonof the Church and the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire exchanged blows inthe Middle Ages with swords two yards long. What are our wars comparedwith those terrible battles where warriors fought hand to hand, wherethey hammered upon each other's skulls with huge battle-axes, and drovethe dagger between the bars of the closed visor? Were not those heroicfeats of arms? was not that a courage worthy to be chronicled to allposterity? But our young people want to see new things; they are notsatisfied with their own native land: they must wander through Germany,make tours in France. Worse still, they abandon science and its noblefields for trade, arts, industry, as if there had not been in the formerglorious days much more curious industrial arts and pursuits than in ourown day! Witness the Hanseatic League, the maritime enterprise of Venice,Genoa, and the Levant, Flemish manufactures, Florentine art, the triumphsin art of Rome and Antwerp! No! all that is laid aside; people now-a-dayspride themselves upon their ignorance of those glorious days; above all,they neglect our dear old Alsace. Now, candidly, Theodore, don't allthose tourists remind you of husbands leaving their fair sweet lawfulwives to run after ugly coquettes?"
And Bernard Hertzog shook his learned head, his eyes rounded with wonderand excitement, just as if he had been standing before the ruins ofBabylon.
His partiality to the usages and customs of old times accounted for hishaving, for forty years past, worn the full-skirted plush coat, thevelvet breeches, the black silk stockings, and the silver shoe-buckles ofour grandfathers. He would have thought himself disgraced had he put ontrousers; and to cut off his pigtail would have been a profane deed.
So the worthy chronicler was going to Haslach on the 3rd of July, 1835,to examine with his own eyes a little bronze Mercury recently unearthedin the old cloister of the Augustins.
He trotted on with a tolerably elastic stop under a burning sun.Mountains succeeded mountains, valleys sank into other valleys, thefootpath went up, then went down again, turned, now to the right, now tothe left, until Maitre Hertzog began to wonder how it was that he had notcaught sight of the village spire an hour ago.
The fact was that after leaving Saverne he had inclined to the right, andwas now penetrating into the Dagsberg woods with juvenile energy. At therate he was going, in five or six hours he would have reached Phramond,eight leagues from his destination. But night was coming on apace, andthe path was now becoming fainter, and under the tall trees only anindistinct track appeared.
The approach of night among the mountains is a melancholy sight; theshadows lengthen in the valleys, the sun withdraws, one by one, his raysfrom the darkening foliage, the silence deepens every minute. You lookbehind you; the groups and clumps of trees assume colossal proportions;a blackbird at the summit of a tree bids farewell to the parting day,then silence covers all like a funeral pall. You can only hear now thelast year's dead leaves crisping under foot, and far, far, away awaterfall filling the valley with its monotonous hum. Bernard Hertzogbegan to pant a little; his clothes adhered to his skin with the runningperspiration. His legs were beginning to give hints of surrendering.
"Confound that foolish Mercury!" he cried. "At this moment I ought tohave been quiet at home in my own arm-chair, and Berbel, according to herpraiseworthy custom, ought to be bringing me up upon a tray a cup ofsmoking hot coffee, while I am winding up my chapter upon the ancientarmoury at Nideck. Instead of which, here I am floundering in holes,stumbling everywhere, and suppose I lost my way altogether and then brokemy neck! There!--I said so! Was that a tree I knocked against? A hundredthousand bans and maledictions fall upon Mercury and Haas, the architect,who sent for me to look at it! and the scoundrels, too, who dug it up!I'll lay any wager that the boasted Mercury is nothing but some defacedand corroded bit of stone, without either nose or legs--some shapelessdeformity like that little Hesus last year at Marienthal. Oh, youarchitects! you architects!--you are always finding antiquitieseverywhere. Luckily I had not my spectacles on, or I should have smashedthem against that tree; but now I shall be obliged to find a bedsomewhere among the bushes. What a road this is!--nothing but ruts, andholes, and pits, and loose rocks and boulders!"
In one of those moments when the good man, getting exhausted, wasstopping for breath, he thought he could hear the grating of a saw fardown the valley. What was his joy when he became certain that it wasthat!
"Heaven be praised!" he cried, plucking up his spirits; "now to push onwith halting steps. Now I shall get a little rest. What a lesson thiswill be for me! Providence had compassion upon my rheumatism. What anold fool to go and expose myself to have to lie out in the woods at mytime of life, to ruin my health and undermine my constitution! I shallremember this! Never shall I forget this warning!"
In a quarter of an hour the noise of falling water became more distinct;then a faint light broke through the trees. Maitre Bernard then foundhimself at the top of the wood; he observed below the heath a streamrunning down the winding valley as far as he could see, and just beforehim the saw-mill, with its long dark posts and beams crossing andrecrossing in the gloom like a huge spider.
He crossed the high-arched bridge over the rushing dam, and lookedthrough the little window into the woodman's hut.
It was a low, dark shed leaning against a hollow in the rock. At thefarther end of the natural cavity was a small pile of smoulderingsawdust. In the front the boarded roof, weighted with heavy stones,descended to within three feet of the ground; in a corner at the right,a kind of box, full of dried heather; a few logs of oak, an axe, amassive bench, and other implements of toil, were lost in the shade.A resinous odour of pine-wood impregnated the air, and the ruddy smokeeddied through a fissure in the rock.
Whilst the good man was observing these objects, the woodman, coming outfrom the mill, saw him, and cried--
"Halloo!--who is that?"
"I beg your pardon; pray pardon me," said my worthy uncle, ratherstartled. "I am a traveller who has lost his way."
"Hey!" cried the other man; "good guide us! Is not that Maitre Bernard,of Saverne? You are very welcome indeed, Maitre Bernard. Don't you knowme?"
"No, indeed! How should I in this dark night?"
"_Parbleu!_--of course not! But I am Christian; I bring you yourcontraband snuff every fortnight. But come in, come in! We will soon geta light."
They passed stooping under the little low door, and the woodman, havinglighted a pine-torch, stuck it into a split iron rod to serve as acandlestick, and a bright light, clear and white as moonshine, filled thehut, lighting up every corner of it.
Christian, standing in shirt-sleeves, his broad chest uncovered, andwith a pair of canvas trousers hitched up about his hips, looked agood-natured fellow enough; his tawny beard came down in a point to hiswaist; his huge bull head was covered with bristling brown hair; hissmall grey eyes inspired confidence.
"Take a seat, master," he said, rolling a log of wood before the fire."Are you hungry?"
"Why, you know, my lad, your mountain air does excite one's appe
tite."
"Very well; you are just in time. I have got some very good potatoesquite at your service."
At the mention of potatoes Uncle Bernard could not help grimacing; heremembered, with the longing of affection, old Berbel's good suppers, andhad a difficulty in coming down to the humble realities before him.
Christian seemed to take no notice; he took five or six potatoes out ofa sack, and put them into the embers, taking care to cover them entirely;then, sitting down on the hearthstone, he lighted his pipe.
"But just tell me, master, how is it that you are here to-night, at sixleagues' distance from Saverne, in the gorge of Nideck?"
"The gorge of Nideck!" cried my uncle Bernard, springing from his seat ingreat surprise.
"To be sure! You may see the ruins from here, about two gunshotsdistant."
Master Bernard looked out, and really did recognise the ruins of Nideck,just as he had described them in the twenty-fourth chapter of his_History of Alsacian Antiquities_, with their high towers crumbling awayat the foot, and dominating over the abyss into which the torrent falls.
"But I thought I was near Haslach!" he cried with amazement.
The woodcutter burst out laughing.
"Haslach!--you are two leagues away from it! I see how it is. You wentwrong at the old oak-tree. You took the right instead of the left path.When you are in the woods you must look well about you. A few yards wrongat starting come to leagues at the end!"
Bernard Hertzog at this discovery was in consternation.
"Six leagues from Saverne," he murmured, "and all mountains!--and if Ihave to go two more to-morrow, that will be eight!"
"Oh, don't mind that! I will guide you to the road down the valley. Anddon't forget. You are very fortunate."
"Fortunate? You are joking with me, Christian."
"Yes, you are lucky. You might have had to spend the night in the woods.There is a thunderstorm coming on from Schneeberg; if that had overtakenyou you might have had some reason to complain, with the rain at yourback and thunder and lightning all round. But now you shall sleep in agood bed," pointing to the box in the corner; "you will sleep there likea log, and to-morrow, when the sun is up, we will start; you will berested, and you will get there in very good time."
"You are very kind, Christian," said Uncle Bernard with tears in hiseyes. "Give me a potato, and then I will go to bed. I am more tired thananything else. I am not hungry. One hot potato will be quite enough forme."
"Here is a couple as mealy as chestnuts. Taste that, master; take a smallglass of kirschwasser, and then lie down. I have to set to work again. Ihave got to saw fifteen more planks before I can go to bed."
Christian rose, set the bottle of kirschwasser on the window-sill, andwent out. The alternate movement of the saw, which had for a time ceased,now recommenced amidst the rushing of the stream.
Maitre Hertzog, astonished as he was to find himself in those remotesolitudes between Dagsberg and the ruins of Nideck, sat long meditatingwhat he must do to rejoin his household gods; then, gliding down thestream of his usual meditations, he went over the fabulous, heroic, orbarbarous legends and chronicles of the former lords of that land. Hewent back to the Tribocci, that German nation settled about Strasbourg,remembering Clovis, Chilperic, Theodoric, Dagobert, the furious strugglebetween Brunehaut, Queen of Austrasia, and Fredegonde, queen of Chilpericof France, and many heroes and heroines besides. All these fiercepersonages passed in review before his eyes. The vague murmuring of thetrees, the inky blackness of the rocks, favoured this strange invocation.All the distinguished personages of his chronicle were there, and theboar, and the wolf, and the bear were among them.
At last, unable to hold out any longer, the good man hung histhree-cornered hat upon a peg in the wall and lay down upon the heath.The cricket sang its monotonous song upon the hearth, a few survivingsparks were running hither and thither in the smouldering fire, hiseyelids dropped, and he slept a deep, sound sleep.