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.
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