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Updated: May 14, 2025
No wonder Findelkind of Arlberg had found his pilgrimage so fair, when if he had needed any help he had only had to kneel and clasp these firm, mailed limbs, these strong cross-hiked swords, in the name of Christ and of the poor.
It looked to Findelkind like a group of knights, those knights who had helped and defended his namesake with their steel and their gold in the old days of the Arlberg quest. His heart gave a great leap, and he jumped on the dust for joy, and he ran forward and fell on his knees and waved his cap like a little mad thing, and cried out: "Oh, dear knights! oh, great soldiers! help me!
One autumn morning, whilst yet it was dark, Findelkind made his mind up, and rose before his brothers, and stole down-stairs and out into the air, as it was easy to do, because the house-door never was bolted. He had nothing with him; he was barefooted, and his school-satchel was slung behind him, as Findelkind of Arlberg's wallet had been five centuries before.
As they went through the city toward the riverside along the homeward way, never a word did his father, who was a silent man at all times, address to him. Only once, as they jogged over the bridge, he spoke. "Son," he asked, "did you run away truly thinking to please God and help the poor?" "Truly I did!" answered Findelkind, with a sob in his throat. "Then thou wert an ass!" said his father.
The diligence did not go into Switzerland after autumn, and the country people who went by on their mules and in their sledges to Innspruck knew their way very well, and were never likely to be adrift on a winter's night, or eaten by a wolf or a bear. When spring came, Findelkind sat by the edge of the bright pure water among the flowering grasses, and felt his heart heavy.
There, leaning on their swords, the three gazed down on him, armored, armed, majestic, serious, guarding the empty grave, which to the child, who knew nothing of its history, seemed a bier; and at the feet of Theodoric, who alone of them all looked young and merciful, poor little desperate Findelkind fell with a piteous sob, and cried, "I am not mad! Indeed, indeed, I am not mad!"
I ought!" What was the use of being named after Findelkind that was in heaven, unless one did something great, too?
This poor little living Findelkind would look at the miniatures in the priest's missal, in one of which there was the little fourteenth-century boy, with long hanging hair and a wallet and bare feet, and he never doubted that it was the portrait of the blessed Findelkind who was in heaven; and he wondered if he looked like a little boy there, or if he were changed to the likeness of an angel.
She only called to him to stand out of her light. "You look a poor brat: have you a home?" said another woman, who sold bridles and whips and horses' bells and the like. "Oh yes, I have a home by Martinswand," said Findelkind with a sigh. The woman looked at him sharply: "Your parents have sent you on an errand here?" "No, I have run away." "Run away? Oh, you bad boy!
Findelkind was very ill for many nights and many days after that. Whenever he spoke in his fever he always said, "I killed them." Never anything else.
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