he
dog, and into the church tumbled headlong.

It seemed quite dark, after the brilliant sunshine on the river and the
grass; his forehead touched the stone floor as he fell, and as he raised
himself and stumbled forward, reverent and bareheaded, looking for
the altar to cling to when the soldiers should enter to seize him, his
uplifted eyes fell on the great tomb.

The tomb seems entirely to fill the church, as, with its twenty-four
guardian figures around it, it towers up in the twilight that reigns
here even at midday. There are a stern majesty and grandeur in it which
dwarf every other monument and mausoleum. It is grim, it is rude, it
is savage, with the spirit of the rough ages that created it; but it
is great with their greatness, it is heroic with their heroism, it is
simple with their simplicity.

As the awestricken eyes of the terrified child fell on the mass of stone
and bronze, the sight smote him breathless. The mailed warriors standing
around it, so motionless, so solemn, filled him with a frozen, nameless
fear. He had never a doubt that they were the dead arisen. The foremost
that met his eyes were Theodoric and Arthur; the next, grim Rudolf,
father of a dynasty of emperors. There, leaning on their swords, the
three gazed down on him, armoured, armed, majestic, serious, guarding
the empty grave, which to the child, who knew nothing of its history,
seemed a bier; and at the feet of Theodoric, who alone of them all
looked young and merciful, poor little desperate Findelkind fell with a
piteous sob, and cried, "I am not mad! Indeed, indeed, I am not mad!"

He did not know that these grand figures were but statues of bronze.
He was quite sure they were the dead, arisen, and meeting there, around
that tomb on which the solitary kneeling knight watched and prayed,
encircled, as by a wall of steel, by these his comrades. He was not
frightened, he was rather comforted and stilled, as with a sudden sense
of some deep calm and certain help.

Findelkind, without knowing that he was like so many dissatisfied poets
and artists much bigger than himself, dimly felt in his little tired
mind how beautiful and how gorgeous and how grand the world must
have been when heroes and knights like these had gone by in its daily
sunshine and its twilight storms. No wonder Findelkind of Arlberg had
found his pilgrimage so fair, when if he had needed any help he had
only had to kneel and clasp these firm, mailed limbs, these str