choolmaster to
play the organ. But some of the folk grumble because there is no inn by
the church; and I hear that the _grassteiger_ has applied for a spirit
license. This is the shadow of the church!

In the evening, as I went back to the church, I saw a youth, apparently
at prayer, who took to his heels the moment he found he was discovered.
I caught him up and recognised. Lazarus! But I could not get a word out
of him. I rang the church bells, and soon the lad was surrounded by the
astonished villagers. He only murmured, "Paulus, Paulus!" and refused to
take the proffered food, though he looked half starved. I took him back
to his mother the same evening.

_December_, 1818.

Lazarus must have been through a miraculous school. He has completely
lost his evil temper, but he refuses to speak clearly of his life during
the past year, though he mumbles of a rock-cave, a good dark man, of
penance, and of a crucifix. We have no priest. I have to look after the
church, ring the bells, play the organ, sing and conduct prayer on
Sundays. I hear bad news of Hermann, my old pupil. He is said to be
leading a wild life in the capital. I cannot believe it.

_Summer_, 1819.

And now we have a priest--as strange and mysterious as the altar
crucifix which I had taken to the church from the rock valley. On the
last day of the hay-month, when I entered the church to ring the bells,
I found "the Solitary" reading mass on the highest step of the altar. I
asked for an explanation, and he answered with a rusty voice that he
would tell me all next Saturday at a desolate place he appointed in the
forest.

The Solitary has told me the whole sad story of his life. He was born in
a palace, and had been rocked in a golden cradle. He had drained the cup
of pleasure to the very dregs, and then, prompted by his tutor, had
joined a religious order, taken the binding vow, and renounced his
fortune to the order. A girl, whom he had known before, implored him not
to leave her and her child in distress. It was too late--he was now
penniless and irrevocably bound. She drowned herself and haunted his
dreams, even after he had become a priest under the name of Paulus.
Blind obedience was exacted from him by his order, and when he refused
to betray a king's confession he was sent as missionary to India. After
his return he became a zealot, exacti