The Project Gutenberg EBook of Findelkind, by Louise de la Ramee (AKA Ouida)

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Findelkind

Author: Louise de la Ramee (AKA Ouida)

Posting Date: August 20, 2008 [EBook #1367]
Release Date: June, 1998

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FINDELKIND ***

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer

FINDELKIND

By Louise de la Ramee (AKA Ouida)

Works of Louisa de la Ramee ("Ouida")

Findelkind
Muriella
A Dog of Flanders
The Nurnberg Stove
A Provence Rose
Two Little Wooden Shoes

FINDELKIND

There was a little boy, a year or two ago, who lived under the shadow of
Martinswand. Most people know, I should suppose, that the Martinswand is
that mountain in the Oberinnthal, where, several centuries past, brave
Kaiser Max lost his footing as he stalked the chamois, and fell upon a
ledge of rock, and stayed there, in mortal peril, for thirty hours, till
he was rescued by the strength and agility of a Tyrol hunter,--an angel
in the guise of a hunter, as the chronicles of the time prefer to say.

The Martinswand is a grand mountain, being one of the spurs of the
greater Sonnstein, and rises precipitously, looming, massive and lofty,
like a very fortress for giants, where it stands right across that
road which, if you follow it long enough, takes you through Zell to
Landeck,--old, picturesque, poetic Landeck, where Frederick of the
Empty Pockets rhymed his sorrows in ballads to his people,--and so on by
Bludenz into Switzerland itself, by as noble a highway as any traveller
can ever desire to traverse on a summer's day. It is within a mile
of the little burg of Zell, where the people, in the time of their
emperor's peril, came out with torches and bells, and the Host lifted
up by their priest, and all prayed on their knees underneath the steep,
gaunt pile of limestone, that is the same today as it was then, whilst
Kaiser Max is dust; it soars up on one side of this road, very steep and
very majestic, having bare stone at its base, and being all along its
summit crowned with pine woods; and on the other side of the road are
a little stone church, quaint and