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FOURTH STORY:
THE BRIDE OF THE ICE-KING.
THERE is not a prettier valley in Switzerland than
that of Lauterbrunnen. Whoever has seen it
upon a fair day of Summer, when the meadows were
green, the streams full, and the sun shining upon the
crystal glaciers which lie, from the beginning to the end
of the year, at the head of the valley, can never forget
it. I do not think it can be more than a half mile broad
at its widest: and in many places, I am sure it is much
less. On one side, the rocks, brown and jagged, and
tufted with straggling shrubs, rise almost perpendicularly;
and a stream of water which comes from higher
slopes, far out of sight from below, leaps over the edge
of the precipice. At first, it is a solid column of water;
then it breaks and spreads and wavers with the wind:
surface of the meadow of Lauterbrunnen, a thousand
feet below. They call it the Dust-fall.
The opposite side of the valley does not change so
suddenly into mountain. There are slopes, green or
yellow, as the season may be, with the little harvests
which the mountain people raise; there are cliffs with
wide niches in them, where you may see sheep or kids
cropping the short herbage which grows in the shadow
of the rocks: and there is a path zig-zagging up from
the road below, I scarce know how. It would be very
tiresome, were it not for the views it gives you at every
turning. Sometimes from under a thicket of trees you
look sheer down upon the bridge you have traversed in
the bottom of the valley—so near that you could toss your
Alpenstock into the brook. Sometimes the green of the
meadow, and the sparkle of its stream are wholly shut
out from sight, and you look straight across upon the
Dust-fall, where it leaps from the cliff abreast of you,
and catch sight of its first shiver, before it is yet broken
into spray. As you mount still higher toward the plateau
of the Ober-Alp, the pretty valley you have left
dwindles to a mountain chasm, over whose farther edge,
the shimmering Dust-fall seems only a bit of gauze
swaying in the wind.
The first time I made this ascent from the valley of
Lauterbrunnen, was many years since, on a midsummer's
their white skirts and the jagged spurs of the glaciers,
which lie between the peaks, and pour down their clumsy
billows of ice toward the head of the valley, were
glowing with warm sunlight: warm and golden, the
sunlight lay upon the green slopes around me—golden
upon the farther side of the meadow below, where the
peasants were gathering in their July crop of hay, and
golden upon the gush and vapor of the Dust-fall. A
mountain girl from a near cottage, in the hope of a few
pennies, was singing a plaintive Swiss air, whose echoes
mingled pleasantly with the tinkle of the bells the kids
wore, upon the cliffs above, and with the faint murmur
of the stream trailing below. And as I lay down to
rest under the shadow of a broad-limbed walnut (how
well I remember it!) the song, the tinkling bells, the
murmur of the stream, the broad full flush of mid-afternoon,
the emerald meadows from which came perfume
of new-mown hay, the Jungfrau warmed to its very
peak by the yellow sunshine, that sent a glory of golden
beams through every mountain cleft—all these made a
scene, an atmosphere, a presence, where it seemed to
me, a man might dream a life out, without one thought
of labor or of duty.
But summers end; and so does sunshine. Upon
my last visit, after an interval of six years, the scene
was totally different. It was not in summer, but autumn.
upon the slopes toward the Wengern Alp, were stripped
of half their leaves, and through the bleached company
of those yet lingering, there went sighing a harsh wind
of October. The clouds hung low, and dashed fitfully
across the heights. From hour to hour, fragments of
the great glacier upon the shoulder of the Jungfrau,
burst away, and fell thundering into the mountain
abysses. There was no sunlight upon either valley, or
ice.
It hardly seemed the same spot of country which
had so caught my fancy, and so bewildered me with its
beauty, years before. And yet there was a sublimity
hanging about the frowning peaks, and the cold gray
sky, of which I had no sense upon the former visit. In
that sunny summer tide, the mountains, the air, and
even the lustrous glacier were subdued into quiet harmony
with the valley, and the valley brook below.
Now the gray landscape wore a sober and solemn hue,
that lifted even the meadow into grand companionship
with the mountain and the glaciers; and the crash of
falling icebergs quickened and gave force to the impressions
of awe which crept over me like a chill.
I began to understand, for the first time, that strange
and savage reverence which the peasants feel for their
mountains. It seemed to me that darkness would only
be needed to drive away all rational estimate of the
silence which brooded among the cliffs. I entertained
with a willingness that almost frighted me, the old stories
of Ice-gods ruling, and thundering through the
mountain chasms. I strode on to the little shelter place
which lies under, and opposite the Jungfrau, with the
timid step of one encroaching upon the domain of some
august and splendid monarch. I did not once seek to
combat the imaginative humors which lent a tone and
a consistency to this feeling.
A terrific storm burst over the mountains, shortly
after I had gained shelter in the little chalet of the Ober-Alp.
The only company I found was the host, and a
flax-haired German student. The latter abandoned his
pipe as the storm increased in violence and listened
with me silently, and I thought with some measure of
awe to the crash of the avalanches, which were set
loose by the torrents of rain.
“The Ice-king is angry to-night,” said our host. I
could not smile at the superstition of the man; too much
of the same weird influence had crept over my own
mind: there was a feeling born of the mountain presence,
which forbade any smiling—a feeling as if an Ice-King
might be really there to avenge a slight. Presently
there was a louder shock than usual, and the
echoes of the roar thundered for several moments
among the cliffs. The host went hurriedly to the door,
summoned us to see, what he called—the Maid of the
glacier.
The bald wall of rock we could see looming darkly
through the tempest, and the immense caps of snow,
which lay at the top. The host directed our attention
to a white speck half-way up the face of the precipice
which rose slowly in a wavy line, and presently disappeared
over the edge of the glacier.
“You saw her?” said the host excitedly; “you
never see her, except after some terrible avalanche.”
“What is it?” said I.
“We call her the Bride of the Ice-King,” said our
host; and he appealed to the German student, who, I
found, had been frequently in the Alps, and was familiar
with all the legends. And when we were seated
again around the fire, which the host had replenished
with a fagot of crackling fire-wood, the German relighted
his pipe, and told us this story of the Bride of
the Ice-King. If it should appear tame in the reading,
it must be remembered that I listened to it first in a
storm at midnight, upon the wild heights of the Scheideck.
Many years ago, (it was thus his story began,)
there lived upon the edge of the valley of Lauterbrunnen
a peasant, who had a beautiful daughter, by
in ringlets upon a neck as white as the snows of the
Jungfrau. Her eye was hazel and bright, but with a
pensive air, which, if the young herdsmen of the valley
looked on only once, they never forgot in their lives.
The mother of Clothilde, who had died when she
was young, came, it was said, from some land beyond
the Alps; none knew of her lineage; and the people of
the valley had learned only that the peasant, whose wife
she became, had found her lost upon the mountains.
The peasant was an honest man, and mourned for the
mother of Clothilde, because she had shared his labors,
and had lighted pleasantly the solitary path of his life.
But Clothilde clung with a mysterious tenderness to her
memory, and believed always that she would find her
again—where her father had found her—upon the
mountains. It was in vain they showed her the grave
where her mother lay buried, in the village church-yard.
“Ah, no,—not there,” she would say; and her eyes
lifted to the mountains.
Yet no one thought Clothilde crazed; not a maiden
of all the village of Lauterbrunnen performed better her
household cares than the beautiful Clothilde. Not one
could so swiftly ply the distaff; not one could show
such a store of white cloth, woven from the mountain
flax. She planted flowers by the door of her father's
cottage; she provided all his comforts; she joined with
of the village, she would accept no lover. There were
those who said that her smiles were all cold smiles, and
that her heart was icy. But these were disappointed
ones; and had never known of the tears she shed when
she thought of her mother, who was gone.
The father, plain peasant that he was, mourned in
his heart when he thought how Clothilde was the only
maiden of the village who had no lover; and he feared
greatly, as the years flew swiftly over him, for the days
that were to come, when Clothilde would have none to
watch over her, and none to share her cottage home.
But the pensive-eyed Clothilde put on gaiety when she
found this mood creeping over her father's thought, and
cheered him with the light songs she had learned from
the village girls. Yet her heart was not in the light
songs; and she loved more to revel in the wild legends
of the mountains. Deeper things than came near to
the talk of the fellow-villagers, wakened the fancy of
the pensive-eyed Clothilde. Whether it came from
dreamy memories of the lost mother, or daily companionship
with the glaciers, which she saw from her father's
door, certain it was, that her thought went farther
and wider than the thoughts of those around her.
Even the lessons she learned from the humble curé
of the village, were all colored by her vagrant fancy;
and though she kneeled, as did the father and the good
she seemed to see Him plainer in the mountains: and
there was a sacredness in the pine-woods upon the slope
of the hill, and in the voice of the avalanches of spring,
which called to her mind a quicker sense of the Divine
presence and power, than the church chalices or the
rosary.
Now the father of Clothilde had large flocks, for a
village peasant. Fifty of his kids fed upon the herbage
which grew on the mountain ledges; and half a score
of dun cows came every night to his chalet, from the
pasture-grounds which were watered by the spray of
the Dust-fall. Many of the young villagers would have
gladly won Clothilde to some token of love; but ever
her quiet, pale face, as she knelt in the village church,
awed them to silence; and ever her gentle manner, as
she clung to the arm of the old herdsman, her father,
made them vow new vows to conquer the village beauty.
In times of danger, or in times when sickness came
to the chalets of the valley, Clothilde passed hither and
thither on errands of mercy; and when storms threatened
those who watched the kids upon the mountain
slopes, she carried them food and wine, and fresh store
of blankets.
So the years passed; and the maidens said that
Clothilde was losing the freshness that belonged to her
young days; but these were jealous ones, and, like
forgive her who bore away the palm of goodness and
of beauty. And the father, growing always older, grew
sadder at thought of the loneliness which would soon
belong to his daughter Clothilde. “Who,” said the
old man, “will take care of the flocks, my daughter?
who will look after the dun cows? who will bring the
winter's store of fir-wood from the mountains?”
Now, Clothilde could answer for these things; for
even the curé of the village would not see the pretty and
the pious Clothilde left destitute. But it pained her
heart to witness the care that lay upon her father's
thought, and she was willing to bestow quiet upon his
parting years. Therefore, on a day when she came
back with the old herdsman from a village-wedding, she
told him that she, too, if he wished, would become a
bride.
“And whom will you marry, Clothilde?” said the
old man.
“Whom you choose,” said Clothilde; but she added,
“he must be good, else how can I be good? And he
must be brave, for I love the mountains.”
So the father and the village curé consulted together,
while Clothilde sang as before at her household
cares; and lingered, as was her wont at evening, by
the chapel of Our Lady of the Snow, in view of the
glaciers which in the front of the valley. But the
wholly worthy to be the bridegroom of Clothilde. The
people of the valley were honest, and not a young villager
of them all but would have made for her a watchful
husband, and cared well for the flocks which belonged
to her father's fold.
In that day, as now, village fêtes were held in every
time of spring, at which the young mountaineers contended
in wrestling, and in the cast of heavy boulders,
and in other mountain sports which tried their manliness,
and which called down the plaudits of the village
dames. The spring and the spring fêtes were now approaching,
and it was agreed between the father and
the curé, that where all were so brave and honest, the
victor in the village games should receive, for reward,
the hand of Clothilde.
The villagers were all eager for the day which was
to decide the fortune of their valley heiress. Clothilde
herself wore no cloud upon her brow; but ever, with
the same serene look, she busied her hands with her
old house-cares, and sang the songs which cheered her
old father's heart. The youth of the village—they
were mostly the weaker ones—eyed her askance, and
said, “She can have no heart worth the winning, who
is won only by a stout arm.” And others said, “She
is icy cold, and can have no heart at all.”
But the good curé said, “Nay;” and many a one
were mothers, too, of the village—thinking perhaps, as
mothers will, of the fifty kids and of the half-score of
dun cows which would make her dowry—who said with
a wise shake of the head—“She who is so good a daughter
will make also a good wife.”
Among those who would gladly, long ago, have
sought Clothilde in marriage, was a young villager of
Lauterbrunnen, whose name was Conrad Friedland.
He was hunter as well as herdsman, and he knew the
haunts of the chamois upon the upper heights as well
as he knew the pasturage-ground where fed the kids
which belonged to the father of Clothilde. He had nut-brown
hair, and dark blue eyes; and there was not a
maiden in the valley, save only the pensive Clothilde,
but watched admiringly the proud step of the hunter
Friedland.
Many a time her father had spoken of the daring
deeds of Conrad, and had told to Clothilde, with an old
man's ardor, the tale of the wild mountain-hunts which
Conrad could reckon up—and how, once upon a time,
when a child was lost, they had lowered the young
huntsman with ropes into the deep crevasses of the glacier;
and how, in the depths of the icy cavern, he had
bound the young child to his shoulder, and been dragged,
bruised and half-dead, to the light again. To all this
Clothilde had listened with a sparkle in her eye; yet
heart of a maiden should warm toward an accepted
lover.
Many and many a time Conrad had gazed on Clothilde
as she kneeled in the village church. Many and
many a time he had watched her crimson kirtle, as she
disappeared among the walnut-trees that grew by her
father's door. Many and many a time he had looked
longingly upon the ten dun cows which made up her father's
flock, and upon the green pasturage-ground, where
his kids counted by fifty. Brave enough he was to
climb the crags, even when the ice was smooth on the
narrow foot-way, and a slip would hurl him to destruction;
he had no fear of the crevasses which gape frightfully
on the paths that lead over the glaciers; he did
not shudder at the thunders which the avalanches sent
howling among the heights around him; and yet Conrad
had never dared to approach, as a lover might approach,
the pensive-eyed Clothilde.
With other maidens of the village he danced and
sang, even as the other young herdsmen, who were his
mates in the village games, danced and sang. Once or
twice, indeed, he had borne a gift—a hunter's gift of
tender chamois-flesh—to the old man, her father. And
Clothilde, with her own low voice, had said, “My father
thanks you, Conrad.”
And the brave hunter, in her presence, was like a
listened—as though he dreamed that leaves were fluttering,
and birds were singing over him. If she was
silent, he gazed on her—as he had gazed on cool mountain-pools
where the sun smote fiercely. The idle raillery
of the village he could not talk to her; of love she
would not listen; of things higher, with his peasant's
voice and mind, he knew not how to talk. And the
mother of Conrad Friedland, a lone widow, living only
in the love of her son, upon the first lift of the hills,
chid him for his silence, and said, “He who has no
tongue to tell of love, can have no heart to win it!”
Yet Conrad, for very lack of speech, felt his slumbrous
passion grow strong. The mountain springs
which are locked longest with ice, run fiercest in summer.
And Conrad rejoiced in the trial that was to
come, where he could speak his love in his own mountain
way, and conquer the heart of Clothilde with his
good right arm.
Howbeit, there was many another herdsman of the
valley who prepared himself joyously for a strife, where
the winner should receive the fifty kids and the ten dun
cows, and the hand of the beautiful Clothilde. Many a
mother, whose eye had rested lovingly on these, one
and all, bade their sons “Be ready!” Clothilde alone
seemed careless of those, who on the festal day, were
to become her champions; and ever she passed undisturbed
village church, singing the songs that gladdened her
father's heart, and lingering at the sunset hour, by the
chapel of Our Lady of the Snow, whence she saw the
glaciers and the mountain-tops glowing with the rich,
red light from the west.
Upon the night before the day of the village fête, it
happened that she met the brave young hunter, Conrad,
returning from the hills, with a chamois upon his shoulder.
He saluted her, as was his wont, and would have
followed at respectful distance; but Clothilde beckoned
his approach.
“Conrad,” said she, “you will contend with the
others at the fête to-morrow?”
“I will be there,” said Conrad; “and—please the
blessed Virgin—I will win such prize as was never won
before.”
“Conrad Friedland, I know that you are brave, and
that you are strong. Will you not be generous also?
Swear to me that if you are the winner in to-morrow's
sports, you will not claim the reward which my father
has promised to the bravest, for a year and a day.”
“You ask what is hard,” said Conrad. “When
the chamois is near, I draw my bow; and when my arrow
is on the string, how can I stay the shaft?”
“It is well for your mountain prizes, Conrad; but
bethink you the heart of a virgin is to be won like a
gazelle of the mountains?”
“Clothilde will deny me, then!” said Conrad reproachfully.
“Until a year and a day are passed, I must deny,”
said the maiden. “But when the snows of another
spring are melted, and the fête has returned again, if
you, Conrad Friedland, are of the same heart and will,
I promise to be yours.”
And Conrad touched his lips to the hand she lent
him, and swore, “by Our Lady of the Snow,” that, for
a year and a day, he would make no claim to the hand
of Clothilde, though he were twice the winner.
The morning was beautiful which ushered in the
day of the fêtes. The maidens of the village were arrayed
in their gayest dresses, and the young herdsmen
of the valley had put on their choicest finery. The
sports were held upon a soft bit of meadow-land at the
foot of the great glacier which rises in the front of
Lauterbrunnen. A barrier of earth and rocks, clothed
with fir-trees, separated the green meadow from the
crystal mountain which gleamed above. All the people
of the village were assembled; and many a young
hunter or herdsman from the plains of Interlacken, or
from the borders of the Brienzer-Zee, or from the farther
vale of Grindelwald. But Conrad had no fear of
these; already, on many a day of fête, he had measured
forces with them, and had borne off the prizes, whether
in wrestling or in the cast of the boulders.
This day he had given great care to his dress; a
jerkin of neatly tanned chamois-leather set off his muscular
figure, and it was dressed upon the throat and
upon the front with those rare furs of the mountains,
which betokened his huntsman's craft. Many a village
maiden wished that day she held the place of Clothilde,
and that she, too, might have such champion as the
brown-haired Conrad. A rich cap of lace, worked by
the village hands, was around the forehead of Clothilde;
and to humor the pride of the old man, her father, she
had added the fairest flowers which grew by the cottage-door.
But, fair as the flowers were, the face of Clothilde
was fairer.
She sat between the old herdsman and the curé,
upon one of the rustic benches which circled the plateau
of green, where the sports were held. Tall poles of
hemlock or of fir, dressed with garlands of Alpine laurel,
stood at the end of the little arena, where the valley
champions were to contend. Among these were some
whose strong arms and lithe figures promised a hard
struggle to the hopeful Conrad; and there were jealous
ones who would have been glad to humble the pretensions
of one so favored by the village maidens, as the
blue-eyed hunter, Friedland. Many looks turned curiously
toward the bench, where sat the village belle,
whose fortunes seemed to hang upon the fate of the day;
but her brow was calm; and there, as ever, she was
Half of the games had passed over indeed before she
showed any anxiety in the issue of the contest. Conrad,
though second in some of the lesser sports, had
generally kept the first rank; and the more vigorous
trials to come would test his rivals more seriously, and
would, he believed, give him a more decided triumph.
When the wrestlers were called, there appeared a
stout herdsman from the valley of Grindelwald, who
was the pride of his village, and who challenged boldly
the hunter, Conrad. He was taller and seemed far
stronger than the champion of Lauterbrunnen; and
there were those—the old herdsman among them—who
feared greatly that a stranger would carry off the prize.
But the heart of the hunter was fired by the sight of
Clothilde, now bending an eager look upon the sports.
He accepted the challenge of the stout herdsman, and
they grappled each other in the mountain way. The
stranger was the stronger; but the limbs of Conrad
were as supple and lithe as those of a leopard. For a
long time the struggle was doubtful. The peasants of
Grindelwald cheered the brawny herdsman; and the
valley rang with the answering shouts of the men of
Lauterbrunnen. And they who were near, say that
Clothilde grew pale, and clutched eagerly the arm of
the curé—but resumed her old quietude when at last,
the match ended, with the cry of “Lauterbrunnen for
ever!”
After this came the cast of the boulders. One after
another, the younger men made their trial, and the
limit of each throw was marked by a willow wand;
while in the cleft of each wand fluttered a little pennant
ribbon, bestowed by well-wishing maidens.
Conrad, taking breath after his wrestling match, advanced
composedly to his place at the head of the arena,
where stood the fir saplings with the laurel wreaths.
He lifted the largest of the boulders with ease, and
giving it a vigorous cast, retired unconcerned. The
blue strip of ribbon which presently marked its fall, was
far in advance of the rest. Again there was a joyous
shout. The men of Grindelwald cried out loudly for
their champion; but his arm was tired, and his throw
was scarce even with the second of the men of Lauterbrunnen.
Again the shout rose louder than before, and
Conrad Friedland was declared by the village umpires
of the fête to be the victor; and by will of the old herdsman,
to be the accepted lover of the beautiful Clothilde.
They led him forward to the stand where sat the curé,
between the old herdsman and the herdsman's daughter.
Clothilde grew suddenly pale. Would Conrad keep his
oath?
Fear may have confused him, or fatigue may have
forbid his utterance; but he reached forth his hand for
the guerdon of the day, and the token of betrothal.
Just then an Alpine horn sounded long and clear,
of the Dust-fall. It was the call of a new challenger.
By the laws of the fête, the games were open until
sunset, and the new-comer could not be denied. None
had seen him before. His frame was slight, but firmly
knit; his habit was of the finest white wool, closed at
the throat with rich white furs, and caught together
with latchets of silver. His hair and beard were of a
light flaxen color, and his chamois boots were clamped
and spiked with polished steel, as if he had crossed the
glacier. It was said by those near whom he passed,
that a cold current of air followed him, and that his
breath was frosted on his beard, even under the mild
sun of May. He said no word to any; but advancing
with a stately air to the little plateau where the fir spars
stood crowned with their laurel garlands, he seized upon
a fragment of rock larger than any had yet thrown, and
cast it far beyond the mark where the blue pennant of
Conrad still fluttered in the wind.
There was a stifled cry of amazement; and the wonder
grew greater still, when the stranger, in place of
putting a willow wand to mark his throw, seized upon
one of the fir saplings, and hurled it through the air
with such precision and force, that it fixed itself in the
sod within a foot of the half-embedded boulder, and
rested quivering with its laurel wreath waving from the
top. The victor waited for no conductor; but marching
maiden, and her wonder-stricken father, bespoke them
thus: “Fair lady, the prize is won; but if within a
year and a day, Conrad Friedland can do better than
this, I will yield him the palm: until then I go to my
home in the mountains.”
The villagers looked on amazed; Clothilde alone
was calm, but silent. None had before seen the
stranger; none had noticed his approach, and his departure
was as secret as his coming. The curé muttered
his prayers; the village maidens recalled by timid
whispers his fine figure, and the rich furs that he wore.
And Conrad, recovering from his stupor, said never a
word; but musingly, he paced back and forth the
length of the throw which the white-clad stranger had
made. The old man swore it was some spirit, and bade
Clothilde accept Conrad at once as a protector against
the temptations of the Evil one. But the maiden, more
than ever wedded to her visionary life by this sudden
apparition, dwelt upon the words of the stranger, and
repeating them, said to her father, “Let Conrad wait a
twelvemonth, and if he passes the throw of the unknown,
I will be his bride.”
The sun sank beyond the heights of the Ober-Alp,
and the villagers whispering low, scattered to their
homes. Clothilde fancied the stranger some spiritual
guardian; most of all, when she recalled the vow which
as they went toward their chalet, that an eagle of
the Alps, long after its wonted time of day, hovered
over their path; and only when the cottage-door was
closed, soared away to the cliffs which lift above the
glaciers of the Jungfrau.
The old herdsman began now to regard his daughter
with a strange kind of awe. He consulted long and
anxiously with the good curé. Could it be that the
mind so near to his heart was leagued with the spirit-world?
He recalled the time when he had met first her
mother wandering upon the mountains;—whence had she
come? And was the stranger of the festal day of some
far kindred, who now sought his own? It was remembered
how the mother had loved the daughter, with a
love that was jealous of the father's care; and how she
had borne her in her arms often to the very edge of the
glacier, and had lulled Clothilde to sleep by the murmur
of the water which makes mysterious music in the
heart of the ice-mountains. It was remembered how
Clothilde had mourned her mother, seated at the opening
of the blue glacier caverns, and how, of all roses,
she loved best the Alpine rose. From this she made
votive garlands to hang upon the altar of “Our Lady of
the Snow.” Did the mother belong to the genius of the
mountains, and was the daughter pledged to the Ice
King again?
The poor old herdsman bowed his head in prayer;
the good curé whispered words of comfort; Clothilde
sang as she had sung in the days gone; but the old man
trembled now at her low tones which thrilled on his ear
like the syren sounds, which they say in the Alps, go
go always before the roar of some great avalanche. Yet
the father's heart twined more and more around the
strange spirit-being of Clothilde. More and more, it
seemed to him that the mother's image was before him
in the fair child, and the mother's soul looking at him
from out the pensive eyes of Clothilde. He said no
word now of the marriage, but waited with resignation
for the twelvemonth to pass. And he looked with pity
upon the strong-hearted Conrad, who fiercer and more
daring than before—as if a secret despair had given
courage—scaled the steepest cliffs, and brought back
stores of chamois flesh, of which he laid always a portion
at the door of the father of Clothilde.
It was said, too, that the young herdsman might be
heard at night, casting boulders in the valley, and nerving
his arm for the trial of the twelvemonth to come.
The mother of the young herdsman spoke less often
of the ten dun cows which fed upon the pasture grounds
of her father, and counted less often the fifty kids
which trooped at night into her father's folds upon the
mountains. Yet ever Clothilde made her sunset walks
to the chapel of “Our Lady of the Snow,” and ever in
as before, for Heaven to bless the years of the life of
the old man, her father. If she lived in a spirit-world,
it semeed a good spirit-world; and the crystal glory of
the glacier, where no foot could go, imaged to her
thought the stainless purity of angels. If the curé
talked with Clothilde of the heaven where her mother
had gone, and where all the good will follow—Clothilde
pointed to the mountains. Did he talk of worship, and
the anthems which men sang in the cathedrals of cities?
Clothilde said—“Hark to the avalanche!” Did he
talk of a good spirit, which hovers always near the
faithful? Clothilde pointed upward, where an eagle was
soaring above the glacier.
As the year passed away, mysterious rumors were
spread among the villagers: and there were those who
said they had seen at eventide-Clothilde talking with a
stranger in white, who was like the challenger of the
year before. And when winter had mantled the lower
hills, it was said that traces of strange feet could be
seen about the little chapel of “Our Lady of the Snow.”
Howbeit, Clothilde neglected not one of the duties which
belonged to her in the household of her father; and
her willing heart and hand forbade that either the kind
old herdsman or the curé should speak aught ill of her,
or forbid her the mountain rambles.
The old mother of Conrad grew frighted by the
all thought of the strange Clothilde, and to marry a
maiden whose heart was of warmer blood, and who
kept no league with the Evil one. But Conrad only the
more resolutely followed the bent of his will, and
schooled himself for the coming trial. If they talked
to him of the stranger, he vowed with a fearful oath,
that—be he who he might—he would dare him to
sharper conflict than that of the year before.
So, at length, the month and the day drew near
again. It was early spring-time. The wasting snows
still whitened the edges of the fields which hung upon
the slopes of the mountains. The meadow of the fête
had lost the last traces of winter, and a fresh green sod,
besprinkled with meadow flowers, glittered under the
dew and the sunlight.
Clothilde again was robed with care; and when
the old herdsman looked on her under the wreath she
had woven from the cottage flowers, he gave over all
thought of her tie to the spirit-world, and clasped her to
his heart—“his own, his good Clothilde!”
On the day preceding the fête, there had been heavy
rain; and the herdsmen from the heights reported that
the winter's snows were loosening, and would soon
come down, after which would be broad summer and
the ripening of the crops. Scarce a villager was away
from the wrestling ground; for all had heard of Clothilde,
the pride of the valley, and had disappeared—
none knew whither. Was Conrad Friedland to lose
again his guerdon?
The games went on, with the old man, father of
Clothilde, watching timidly, and the good curé holding
his accustomed place beside him. There were young
herdsmen who appeared this year for the first time
among the wrestlers, and who the past twelvemonth
had ripened into sturdy manhood. But the firm and
the tried sinews of the hunter Conrad placed him before
all these, as he was before all the others. Not so
many, however, as on the year before envied him his
spirit-bride. Yet none could gainsay her beauty; for
this day her face was radiant with a rich glow, and her
clear complexion, relieved by the green garland she
wore, made her seem a princess.
As the day's sports went on, a cool, damp wind blew
up the valley, and clouds drifted over the summits of the
mountains. Conrad had made himself the victor in
every trial. To make his triumph still more brilliant,
he had surpassed the throw of his unknown rival of the
year before. At sight of this, the villagers raised one
loud shout of greeting, which echoed from end to end
of the valley. And the brave huntsman, flushed with
victory, dared boldly the stranger of the white jerkin
and the silver latchets to appear and maintain his claims
to the queen of the valley—the beautiful Clothilde.
There was a momentary hush, broken only by the
distant murmur of the Dust-fall. The thickening clouds
drifted fast athwart the mountains. Clothilde grew
suddenly pale, though the old herdsman her father was
wild with joy. The curé watched the growing paleness
of Clothilde, and saw her eye lift toward the head of
the glacier.
“Bear away my father!” said she, in a quick tone
of authority. In a moment the reason was apparent.
A roar, as of thunder, filled the valley; a vast mass of
the glacier above had given way, and its crash upon the
first range of cliffs now reached the ear. The fragments
of ice and rock were moving with frightful volume
down towards the plateau. The villagers fled screaming;
the father of Clothilde was borne away by the
curé; Clothilde herself was, for the time, lost sight of.
The eye of Conrad was keen, and his judgment rare.
He saw the avalanche approaching, but he did not fly
like others. An upper plateau and a thicket of pine-trees
were in the path of the avalanche; he trusted to
these to avert or to stay the ruin. As he watched,
while others shouted him a warning, he caught sight
of the figure of Clothilde, in the arms of a stranger flying
toward the face of the mountain. He rushed wildly
after.
A fearful crash succeeded; the avalanche had crossed
the plateau, and swept down the fir-trees; the trunks
rocks were hurled down in showers; immense masses
of ice followed quickly after, roaring over the débris of
the forest, and with a crash that shook the whole valley,
reached the meadow below. Swift as lightning, whole
acres of the green sod were torn up by the wreck of the
forest trees and rocks, and huge, gleaming masses of
ice; and then, more slowly, with a low murmur—like a
requiem, came the flow of lesser snowy fragments, covering
the great ruin with a mantle of white.
Poor Conrad Friedland was buried beneath!
The villagers had all fled in safety; but the green
meadow of the fêtes was a meadow no longer. Those
who were hindermost in the flight said they saw the
stranger in white bearing Clothilde, in her white robes,
up the face of the mountain. It is certain that she was
never seen in the valley again; and the poor old herdsman,
her father, died shortly after, leaving his stock of
dun cows and his fifty kids to the village curé, to buy
masses for the rest of his daughter's soul.
“This,” said the German, “is the story of the Bride
of the Ice-King;” and he relit his pipe.
The snow had now passed over, and the stars were
out. Before us was the giant wall of the Jungfrau,
with a little rattle of glacier artillery occasionally breaking
the silence of the night. To the left was the tall
and far away to the right, we could see the
shining glaciers at the head of the Lauterbrunnen
valley.
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