Page:Ernestus Berchtold or the Modern Œdipus.djvu/17

 our family; for there was nothing to be found, except some linen and a locket, with my mother’s portrait.

Berchtold was a man whose humble endeavours had always been engaged in the attempt to fulfill those duties his profession imposed upon him. In these mountainous districts, the office of a parish priest is extremely arduous; he is often called up in the middle of the night, while the snow is falling, to go many miles over the frozen glaciers, to administer to the dying peasant the sacraments of the church. Berchtold never allowed the most distant hamlet to want religious comfort; he was old, yet often has he crossed to the foot of the Holgaut, merely to help the unfortunate in their attempt at resignation, under domestic calamity. He was not, therefore, likely to cast us from him; he immediately had us conveyed to the cottage of a married sister, and caused us to be brought up as luxuriously as an Alpine village allowed.