The Blue Flower [64]
The boy's eyes sparkled. He turned to his grandmother.
She shook her head vigorously.
"Nay, father," she said, "draw not the lad away from my
side with these wild words. I need him to help me with my
labours, to cheer my old age."
"Do you need him more than the Master does?" asked
Winfried; "and will you take the wood that is fit for a bow to
make a distaff?"
"But I fear for the child. Thy life is too hard for him.
He will perish with hunger in the woods."
"Once," said Winfried, smiling, "we were camped on the
bank of the river Ohru. The table was set for the morning
meal, but my comrades cried that it was empty; the provisions
were exhausted; we must go without breakfast, and perhaps
starve before we could escape from the wilderness. While they
complained, a fish-hawk flew up from the river with flapping
wings, and let fall a great pike in the midst of the camp.
There was food enough and to spare! Never have I seen the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread."
"But the fierce pagans of the forest," cried the
abbess,--"they may pierce the boy with their arrows, or dash
out his brains with their axes. He is but a child, too young for
the danger and the strife."
"A child in years," replied Winfried, "but a man in
spirit. And if the hero fall early in the battle, he wears
the brighter crown, not a leaf withered, not a flower fallen."
The aged princess trembled a little. She drew Gregor
close to her side, and laid her hand gently on his brown hair.
"I am not sure that he wants to leave me yet. Besides,
there is no horse in the stable to give him, now, and he
cannot go as befits the grandson of a king."
Gregor looked straight into her eyes.
"Grandmother," said he, "dear grandmother, if thou wilt
not give me a horse to ride with this man of God, I will go
with him afoot."
II
Two years had passed since that Christmas-eve in the cloister
of Pfalzel. A little company of pilgrims, less than a score
of men, were travelling slowly northward through the wide forest
that rolled over the hills of central Germany.
At the head of the band marched Winfried, clad in a tunic
of fur, with his long black robe girt high above his waist, so
that it might not hinder his stride. His hunter's boots were
crusted with snow. Drops of ice sparkled like jewels along
the thongs that bound his legs. There were no other ornaments
of his dress except the bishop's cross hanging on his breast,
and the silver clasp that fastened his cloak about his neck.
He carried a strong, tall staff in his hand, fashioned at the
top into the form of a cross.
Close beside him, keeping step like a familiar comrade,
was the young Prince Gregor. Long marches through the
wilderness had stretched his legs and broadened his back, and
made a man of him in stature as well as in spirit. His
jacket and cap were of wolf-skin, and on his shoulder he
carried an axe, with broad, shining blade. He was a mighty
woodsman now, and could make a spray of chips fly around him
as he hewed his way through the trunk of a pine-tree.
Behind these leaders followed a pair of teamsters, guiding
a rude sledge, loaded with food and the equipage of the camp,
and drawn by two big, shaggy horses, blowing thick clouds of
steam from their frosty nostrils. Tiny icicles hung from the
hairs on their lips. Their flanks were smoking. They sank
above the fetlocks at every step in the soft snow.
Last of all came the rear guard, armed with bows and
javelins. It was no child's play, in those days, to cross
Europe afoot.
The weird woodland, sombre and illimitable, covered hill
and vale, table-land and mountain-peak. There were wide moors
where the wolves hunted in packs as if the devil drove them,
and tangled thickets where the lynx and the boar made their
lairs. Fierce bears lurked among the rocky passes, and had
not yet learned to fear the face of man. The gloomy recesses
of the forest gave shelter to inhabitants who were still more
cruel and dangerous than beasts of prey,--outlaws