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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-hilted swords, in the name of Christ and of the poor.
A few steps brought him to the Goldenes Dachl. He forgot his hunger and his pain, seeing the sun shine on all that gold, and the curious painted galleries under it. He thought it was real solid gold. Real gold laid out on a house roof and the people all so poor! Findelkind began to muse, and wonder why everybody did not climb up there and take a tile off and be rich?
The sun had not risen behind the glaciers of the Stubaithal, and the road was scarcely seen; but he knew it very well, and he set out bravely, saying his prayers to Christ, and to St. Christopher, and to Findelkind that was in heaven.
Even if still living, the little lambs would die, out on such a night without the mother or food and shelter of any sort. Findelkind, whose vivid brain always saw everything that he imagined as if it were being acted before his eyes, in fancy saw his two dear lambs floating dead down the swollen tide, entangled in rushes on the flooded shore, or fallen with broken limbs upon a crest of rocks.
If the good man had known how the history would root itself in the child's mind perhaps he would never have told it, for night and day it vexed Findelkind, and yet seemed beckoning to him and crying, "Go, thou, and do likewise!" But what could he do? There was the snow, indeed, and there were the mountains, as in the fourteenth century, but there were no travellers lost.
The dog was a clever mountaineer, too, but Findelkind did not wish to lead him into danger. "I have done the wrong, and I will bear the brunt," he said to himself; for he felt as if he had killed Katte's children, and the weight of the sin was like lead on his heart, and he would not kill good Waldmar too.
The short summer passed as fast as a dragon-fly flashes by, all green and gold, in the sun; and it was near autumn once more, and still Findelkind was always dreaming and wondering what he could do for the good of St. Christopher; and the longing to do it all came more and more into his little heart, and he puzzled his brain till his head ached.
But the soldiers were good in those days; they did not laugh and use bad words " And Findelkind, on whose shoulder the orderly's hold was still fast, faced the horses, which looked to him as huge as Martinswand, and the swords, which he little doubted were to be sheathed in his heart. The officers stared, laughed again, then whispered together, and Findelkind heard them say the word "crazed."
Next to the church there is a little stone lodge, or shed, with two arched openings, and from it you look into the tiny church with its crucifixes and relics, or out to the great, bold, sombre Martinswand, as you like best; and in this spot Findelkind would sit hour after hour, while his brothers and sisters were playing, and look up at the mountains or on to the altar, and wish and pray and vex his little soul most woefully; and his ewes and his lambs would crop the grass about the entrance, and bleat to make him notice them and lead them farther afield, but all in vain.
"Well, I will let you go, for you look a baby. But do not beg: that is bad." "Findelkind did it." "Then Findelkind was a rogue and a vagabond," said the taker of tolls. "Oh, no, no, no!" "Oh, yes, yes, yes, little saucebox! and take that," said the man, giving him a box on the ear, being angry at contradiction.
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