desire for battle
brought them over that frightful pass, perished in great numbers and
were eaten by the bears and the wolves. The little shepherd-boy,
Findelkind--who was a little boy five hundred years ago, remember,"
added the priest--"was sorely disturbed and distressed to see those poor
dead souls in the snow winter after winter, and to see the blanched
bones lie on the bare earth unburied when summer melted the snow. It
made him unhappy, very unhappy; and what could he do, he a little boy
keeping sheep? He had as his wage two florins a year--that was all--but
his heart rose high and he had faith in God. Little as he was, he said
to himself he would try and do something, so that year after year those
poor lost travellers and beasts should not perish so. He said nothing to
anybody, but he took the few florins he had saved up, bade his master
farewell and went on his way begging--a little fourteenth-century boy,
with long, straight hair and a girdled tunic, as you see them,"
continued the priest, "in the miniatures in the black-letter missal that
lies upon my desk. No doubt Heaven favored him very strongly, and the
saints watched over him; still, without the boldness of his own courage
and the faith in his own heart they would not have done so. I suppose,
too, that when knights in their armor 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 he fared, nor how long he was about it, but
history _does_ tell us that the little barefooted, long-haired boy,
knocking so boldly 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 well that his fraternity of St. Christopher twenty years
after numbered amongst its members archdukes, prelates and kni