(He pauses a moment, then proceeds with more and more animation.)
Gray in the heavens when the chase began,
Foamed, and, flying black before the winds,
Grappled the woods and threw his thick, green hair
Into the swirling rack of livid sky.
Lightnings and thunders, winds and tumbling rocks
Charged on the pack of dogs as though they were
Devils come up from Hell, and hurled them down
Into the pit again. Under the beech
Where the white talbot had pulled down the buck
Behold the miracle the Virgin wrought!
Out of a dallop of green boughs that hung
Close to the haunches of the hart appeared
A pair of small pink hands that with one wrench
Tore the hound's jaws apart. The deer rose up
As from a sleep, shook his brown coat and browsed
The succulent green twigs, then wandered off
Up the dark mountain side, whilst like a star
Between the dim, dissolving antlers shone
A crucifix of silver, dripping blood.
(Several shutters in the second story have opened and faces are seen white in the glare of the torch. Old Andrew, frightened, has drawn back in the shadow against the wall.)
Will visit to these dying eyes of mine
In their last hour. The louring mountain brows
Brightened beneath a drift of golden feet,
And wings waved in the air, and faces bloomed
In the edding sky, and the dark towering ridge,
Lifting its weight of crags above the storm,
Sloughed off its shadow, and the field of pines,
Like a green army climbing to the clouds
Out of the darkness of the dale below,
Shook their victorious plumes, and every rock,
Tree, bush, and vine, and weed, and flower sent up
Voices of joy till all the mountains rang.
Leo—"I say unto you that joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that returneth."
Who is the sinner?
He finishes to-morrow.
To the Abbot. (The hunter disappears round the corner.)
(The shutters are closed hurriedly.)
The Devil is a big, long-legged crane,
Wading the marsh of life, and we are frogs,
Tadpoles and water-bugs. I'll fast and pray.
(He shields his flickering taper with his gown and makes his way across the court toward the chapel.)
SCENE FOUR—A desolate mountain road along the top of a cliff that plunges down from the edge of a pine-wood. Overhead the wind is heard moaning in the trees, and upon the ground patches of moonlight wave to and fro. From the left, past some bushes which almost hide the road from view, the dwarf, Sigurd, appears carrying the monk, Oswald, limp in his arms. The latter's face is so emaciated that one would never recognize him as the same person as was seen in the forest some three years ago. His feet, upon which are heavy wooden shoes, drag along the road. Suddenly from somewhere in his clothing the large silver crucifix falls to the ground. The dwarf stoops, and, resting the monk upon his knee, reaches down and secures the crucifix, which he puts between his teeth. Then, having gotten a new hold, he rises and, with difficulty, makes his way up the road.
ACT THREE.
SCENE ONE—A grassy ledge far up on the mountain side. Tall pine trunks rise here and there. Down the slope, to the left, are russet tops of small oaks newly leaved. To the right, a rocky acclivity of about thirty degrees elevation with scattered bushes and a sheep path winding back and up. In the distance, a blue range of mountains with their bases buried in the white mists of early morning.
Some distance back from where the path comes down upon the ledge, Conrad is broiling woodcocks on coals. Brown feathers are sprinkled about upon the turf. Upon a rock near by lies a well-filled hunting bag. Fritz, with his face to the fire, is reclining upon the grass with a shepherd's staff in his hands. From down the slope, comes a tinkle of bells as of sheep browsing on the mountain side.
TIME—Two days later.
Among the rocks and handed it to him.
(Indicating on his staff.)
Upon the haft are wrought two eagles' heads
And, twisted round the blade in coil on coil,
A serpent in the talons of the birds
Forms the cross piece upon the lower haft.
On the blade between the coils what may be runes
Are cut in characters of some unknown tongue;
At least, no man has ever made them out.
Turn the bird over.
In the light, the blade bends like a willow wand,
But when the sky is overcast with clouds
Or in the shade of rock or tree no man
With all his might can bend it, and it slips
Through tree and rock as through a pawpaw leaf.
Has no one seen him since?
Before, either by the abbey over there
Or climbing in the vines above the tarn,
But always in the shade of rock or tree.
When he crossed spaces where the sunlight fell
'Twas always in the shadow of a cloud.
No one has seen him since he disappeared.
You know the song that Wiglaf used to sing,
Of how Val-father wanders over the earth
In human form—
Val-father turns his dark side to the earth.
He says that Selma learned it from the trees.
She listens in the forest all day long
And when the wind is loud and the boughs sway—
How that could be; Woden knows where we are,
And where he turns his face the way is clear.
And he came back, for Woden in his mind
Directed him and—Here comes Canzler now.
(With the sword at his side and wearing a cap made of a wild-cat's skin, its head upon his head and the rest of the skin hanging down his back, Canzler comes down the sheep path, followed by Rudolph.)
Was ever said to throw the claim in doubt;
But now that Hartzel is about to die
They think to get the whole tract for the Church,
Upon the ground that he who sold the land
To Hartzel was apostate to their Faith.
And by that act he dispossessed himself,
And then, they say, the land reverted to God.
And proves, when they rob one another so,
There is no honesty outside the Faith.
To own it," was the answer that he got.
That was a month ago, though. When they found
That the wind passed and still the fruit hung on,
Thinking perhaps 'twould fall of its own weight.
They waited until yesterday and then
Unexpectedly they bumped the tree.
Hartzel should hold possession during life—
He is about to die—and at his death
The Church should take the burden of the estate
From his dead shoulders, and carry it without charge
And with it save his soul from Hell.
His children—?
The old man in despair appealed to me.
Val-father tells the mountains, tells the rocks,
The trees, the beasts, the birds, all things that live.
Woden, who made all things, made each to be
Different from the rest. He made the oak
To bear its acorns and the pine its cones.
The mole to burrow and the fox to run,
The eagle to hatch her brood upon the crag
Under the sun, the bat, in the dark cave.
The ox to eat grass, and the lion flesh,
And each to go its own particular way
Upon a path as separate and clear
As are the curves and risings of the stars.
(Fritz and Conrad come forward.)
To sameness in their lives or in their thought.
To keep them, as he made them, different,
He gave to each an individual taste
And matched the taste within with that without
Which, when the two meet, the result is joy.
Joy is the voice of each thing as it moves
Toward Woden on the path that he laid out.
The eagle finds its way without a guide
To Woden, and the stars without a guide,
Each in its own light, and all things that live,
From the blind worm to the all-seeing sun,
Follow their joy and come at last to him.
The eagle's right to go the eagle's way
Is not conditioned by another thing
Save by the fact alone that it is so:
That Woden gave to it an eagle's wings.
And so with man. To what man has a right,
He has a right because he is a man
And not because he is a kind of man.
Val-father's bells have each a different tone.
You cannot make the million aisles that lead
To him one aisle and drive all things through that,
Or make the right of each to be and to have
Rest on its answering a particular bell.
If we admit their principle that Faith,
Or anything outside the fact that one
Is a man, is the basis of the rights of man,
We shame our Saxon fathers who fought and died
For a lie, if this be true. For when the South
Pushed through the Frankish forest with her sword
Between her teeth, and stained with blood, and held
Her hands out, saying, "Here, take this or this,"
Our fathers chose the darkness of the grave
From the red hand, and left the black hand filled
With that which now to keep itself alive
Eats Hartzel's land and licks its fangs toward us.
When the great night came on and they laid down
Under their battered shields and broken swords,
The trees have told us what their last word was:
"The northern air will kill the southern lie;
Then we will come again. Remember this."
But some are up before the light.
The dead will rise when Balder comes.
Val-father has his dark side to the earth,
And works in his own shadow.
Will reach down and lift Balder out of Hell.
If we concede to every man the right,
As you say, Canzler, to his own belief,
We must concede to the villagers the right
To their belief that they own Hartzel's land.
But not their right to Hartzel's land.
Men are God's vassals, and the land they hold,
They hold in fief to him, on terms of faith.
And when they have no Faith, they have no land.
(He tries to pierce with the sword a pine tree in the sunlight.)
(The sword passes deeply into the second trunk.)
More than a hand's breadth.
Snap at you as they are wont to—
No trouble with them.
To tell them what you said just—
Hartzel to have his rights. Fetch it here, Conrad.
To reach the church, you must pass through the street.
(He receives the sword and goes left.)
The hilts might knock.
I'm going with you, Father!
You—
Just to the dingle; the faries say
The heather-bells are out.
Now may I go?
I'll be gay, Father, if you let me go.
(She turns and looks questioningly at Rudolph, who nods to her. Then, skipping forward, she takes hold of the hilt of her father's sword and steadies herself with it as they go down the slope.)
(Rudolph walks back.)
O Canzler!
(Rudolph joins the others, and the three stand looking off left.)
Up that way from the Abbey.
Back to see Hartzel. (Shouting.) Canzler!
SCENE TWO—The courtyard of the abbey, as in Scene three of the second act. The large crucifix which was seen in the forest in the first Act is fixed above the door of the chapel. On either side of the door is a stained glass window, the farther one depicting the Transfiguration, the nearer one, the legend of St. Giles. The deer with blood dripping from a wound in its haunch stands behind the saint who holds in his hand an arrow with blood upon its tip. The emporer and his huntsmen are presenting the saint with golden cups. The deer is watching them. Several rude benches of stone are ranged alongside of the dormitory. In the rear, about ten feet back from the building, a low stone wall extends across, passing behind the dormitory on the one side and the chapel on the other. To the left, far back, is seen the side of the mountain on which the abbey stands. The upper part is thickly wooded, and below, where the timber is sparse, a road winds down the cliff to the village. Farther down, the slope becomes more precipitous and is covered with bowlders and stunted evergreens, some of which have been broken off by rocks tumbling from the cliff above. Off to the right, a space of sky with the snow-peaks flashing in the sunlight. To the left in the last Scene, they are now far to the right.
From a door in the dormitory facing the court, Ely and Pierre enter. The former has a hunting horn suspended from his shoulder by a chain, and in his hand a small wooden crucifix. Pierre carries two large silver candelabra. They come out talking.
And when I showed him this and said: "Good man,
Here is a rood he carved with his own hands,"
Light filled his eyes.
(Ely walks forward and looks around the corner of the dormitory.)
I must be at the gate when father comes—
Four miles on crutches. Suddenly he looked up.
He must have seen a wing flash in the sky,
For his face brightened with the light of faith,
And like a seed he seemed to scent a shower.
Oh, what a power there is in holy things!
No sooner had I touched him with the rood
Than like a plant he rose up from the stones
And blossomed; cried: "Lord Jesus, I am cured!"
And down the mountain ran shouting for joy.
Ran down. I watched him till he disappeared,
Then turned to stone. I could not stir, but stood
Frightened as though an angel hovered near
In the blue sky.
These two days have to me been like a dream
And I am dizzy as on some high place.
At night I feel the stars are not far off,
And when I wake, it seems to me the dawn
Is breaking far below us on the world.
So near we are to that which lights the sun, (He holds up the candelabra.)
These candles, if I should dare to speak the word,
Would burst out into flame.
Surely the hands that lifted Oswald up,
Lifted our abbey too, and we are close
To heaven. Perhaps about us in the air
Are voices and the wings of those that hear
Our very whispers,—martyrs, saints, Saint Giles.
Where every word drops in an angel's ear.
I feel that every breath should be a prayer.
(He starts toward the chapel.)
These healings and this rescue from the gulch,
Mere sparks?
The same great light hath kindled one and all.
Is it not so?
And little beams flash on us from the chinks,
But the full glory, flooding all the vault,
Awaits the angel.
That it is Oswald whom the hounds of Hell
Will chase up some vast mountain of the soul?
(While Ely stands hoping that Pierre will reappear, loud laughter breaks from the open door of the dormitory, and Simon and Basil come sprawling out. The former is pulling at a piece of flesh. Ely's face shows anger, and he starts left.)
(He laughs aloud.)
The beggar left his crutches for his gift.
(Laughter within.)
(Ely unlocks the iron gates and passes out.)
Simon's got the gout.
(Rene comes out and joins Basil in laughing at Simon. The latter, eating his meat, walks back in the court. Basil whispers to Rene.)
When the old codger's shouting waked me up.
And there he was. (He points up to the road.)
I thought the man was mad,
Or had been in the gables robbing nests,
For his white hair fluttering in the wind
Looked like a pair of pigeons on his poll.
He must have thought the Devil— (He sits down on a bench.)
He left his sole support.
(They all laugh. Basil, who has come forward, peeps round the corner of the dormitory. Withdrawing quickly, he hurries back toward the door.)
(He points back over his shoulder with his thumb.)
(Simon leaps up, jerks away his meat, and, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, hurries after the others into the dormitory. From the right, the Abbot enters followed by a train of monks. He wears a miter and a flowing cope of scarlet, richly apparelled. From the end of a rosary about his neck dangles an ivory crucifix. The monks are all in black and wear their hoods. Upon reaching the center of the court, the Abbot raises his staff and the procession stops.)
And put the clouds to flight. The kingly sun
Looks on the world like our new-risen Lord
Driving the night before Him. And the fiends,
That fly with darkness from the pit of death
To conjure with the baleful midnight stars
And wreck God's holy chime of human souls,
Are scourged to Hell, and all the rebel orbs
Are thunder-stunned. Vapors and noxious fogs
That hatch contagion in rank, drizzling swamps,
Will soon beneath the lightning's flagellum
With breezes fan their fevers from the blood,
And with pure sea-dews from green ocean urns
Sprinkle the parched earth to cool the vines
Preparing clusters of our dear Lord's blood.
The serpent spawn of imps and evil dreams,
Fairies and watching wanderers of the night,
That kennel in the bowels of the earth
And taint its waters, blight the tender sprouts,
And sow infections through the flocks and herds,
Have flown like bats into the squalid caves,
And there are numb with fear. O'er Zion's towers
The virgin dawn brings forth the sun of God
And smiles upon the world. The blessed light
Spreads o'er the earth its bright, archangel wings,
Dripping with balmy dews and cassia smells.
The day will—
(High up on the mountain is heard the blast of a trumpet.) Hark!