IV.

When Spring came again, and Kaspar got his little family together, what could they have done without Franziska. She cooked, and scrubbed, and sewed, and mended, and kept the patches on Heinrich’s knees; she knit the long woolen stockings, and taught Gretchen all she could, just as the good “Mutter” would have wished. And as the years passed away, Kaspar and the children thought there never was a lovelier, sweeter maid than Franziska Ulrich.

Karl Schultzer thought so too; he told her so one day and asked her to be his wife. She put her hand in his, and, looking into his honest eyes, said, “Karl, I love you too, but the last thing ‘die Mutter’ said on that--that dreadful day when she gave me Gretchen, was, ‘Take care of her’;--I cannot leave her.”

“But now Gretchen is old enough to take care of herself,” urged Karl.

With a faint smile Franziska answered,--“Karl, you cannot change me; I thought it all out as I lay upon my bed when my head was no longer queer, and the first time I went to the church to pray to the ‘Heilige Mutter’ I told her I would be faithful;--my word I cannot break”; and seeing how it was with her, Karl kissed the eyes now full of tears and went back home disappointed, but not despairing.

So the years sped until Gretchen’s nineteenth birthday.

One evening she hid her head in Franziska’s lap, and, with many a break, confessed that the brave hunter from over the mountains had said that he loved her, and asked her to be his wife.

“His wife you wish to be?” asked the tender voice.

“I love him,” was the whispered answer, “and to-morrow he comes to ask ‘der Vater.’”

If, for a moment, Franziska’s faithful heart ached, Gretchen never knew it; and when “der Vater’s” yes had been spoken, no one entered more heartily into the work and plans than she. What love and sympathy and counsel, as well as work, she gave, no one save Gretchen ever knew.

On a bright morning, to the sound of music, there came marching down the long street Gretchen in gay attire, followed by her mates; the bridegroom and his friends, who had come over the mountain-passes to see him married. And when, in the dim old church, the gray-haired, fatherly priest had counselled them, married them, and blessed them, Gretchen kissed “der Vater” and Heinrich good-bye; clung for a moment to Franziska, as though she could not let her go;--then turned her face toward the snow-clad mountains, beyond which lay her husband’s home.

As the day passed, how desolate was the house without bright, laughing Gretchen. It seemed to Franziska as though she could not bear it, and when her work was done she stepped out into the twilight that “der Vater” and Heinrich might not see her grieving and her tears.

Suddenly Karl stood before her. He held out his hands and said, “So long have the years been, Franziska, and the home so lonesome is; will you now come?”

Then was her sorrow turned into joy, and she answered, “If you want me, oh so gladly will I come to you, my Karl”; and Karl was content.

All this happened long ago, and both Gretchen and Franziska lived to tell the story of their marvellous escape to their many grandchildren; while “der Vater” never wearied of repeating, or Heinrich’s children of hearing, how brave Franziska encouraged and cheered little Gretchen through that long and terrible night.

Some time ago I stood above the buried village and looked up at the Rossberg. The mountain has never smiled since that awful day. No trees or shrubs or grassy meadows grow upon its sides; all is bare and desolate. But in the valley the grass and moss grow green; the vines twine themselves over and around the great rocks, from under whose shadows ferns and lovely little flowers lift their heads.

Suddenly the soft, clear tones of the evening bell floated through the air,--that sweet-voiced bell whose music reached Franziska and called her back to hopes of life and home so long ago. How sweetly it sounded on the quiet air,--coming,--going,--softer,--fainter; and when at last it died away the sun had dropped behind the mountains, leaving the rosy-tinted clouds peeping over their rocky edges; while in the valley the shadows lay thick upon grass and vine.

Stepping softly, reverently, over the dead homes, Goldau and the night were left alone together.

[Illustration]