Findelkind | Page 5

suppose, too, that when knights in
their armour, and soldiers in their camps, saw such a little fellow all
alone, they helped him, and perhaps struck some blows for him, and so
sped him on his way, and protected him from robbers and from wild
beasts. Still, be sure that the real shield and the real reward that served
Findelkind of Arlberg was the pure and noble purpose that armed him
night and day. Now, history does not tell us where Findelkind went, nor

how be fared, nor how long he was about it; but history does tell us that
the little barefooted, long-haired boy, knocking so loudly at castle gates
and city walls in the name of Christ and Christ's poor brethren, did so
well succeed in his quest that before long he had returned to his
mountain home with means to have a church and a rude dwelling built,
where he lived with six other brave and charitable souls, dedicating
themselves to St. Christopher, and going out night and day to the sound
of the Angelus, seeking the lost and weary. This is really what
Findelkind of Arlberg did five centuries ago, and did so quickly that his
fraternity of St. Christopher, twenty years after, numbered among its
members archdukes, and prelates, and knights without number, and
lasted as a great order down to the days of Joseph II. This is what
Findelkind in the fourteenth century did, I tell you. Bear like faith in
your hearts, my children; and though your generation is a harder one
than this, because it is without faith, yet you shall move mountains,
because Christ and St. Christopher will be with you.
Then the good man, having said that, blessed them, and left them alone
to their chestnuts and crabs, and went into his own oratory to prayer.
The other boys laughed and chattered; but Findelkind sat very quietly,
thinking of his namesake, all the day after, and for many days and
weeks and months this story haunted him. A little boy had done all that;
and this little boy had been called Findelkind: Findelkind, just like
himself.
It was beautiful, and yet it tortured him. 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 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. Findelkind of
Arlberg who was in heaven now must look down, he fancied, and think

him so stupid and so selfish, sitting there. The first Findelkind, a few
centuries before, had trotted down on his bare feet from his mountain
pass, and taken his little crook, and gone out boldly over all the land on
his pilgrimage, and knocked at castle gates and city walls in Christ's
name, and for love of the poor! That was to do something indeed!
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.
"He was a boy just like me," thought the poor little fellow, and he felt
so ashamed of himself,--so very ashamed; and the priest had told him
to try and do the same. He brooded over it so much, and it made him so
anxious and so vexed, that his brothers ate his porridge and he did not
notice it, his sisters pulled his curls and he did not feel it, his father
brought a stick down on his back, and he only started and stared, and
his mother cried because he was losing his mind, and would grow daft,
and even his mother's tears he scarcely saw. He was always thinking of
Findelkind in heaven.
When he went for water, he spilt one-half; when he did his lessons, he
forgot the chief part; when he drove out the cow, he let her munch the