If it was possible to climb the wall, he might hide behind it.

The horsemen were already close at his heels, when he summoned all his remaining strength, rushed to a stone projecting from the wall, and began to clamber up.
The day before it would have been a small matter for him to reach the cemetery; but now the exhausted boy only dragged himself upward, to slip on the smooth stones and lose the hold, that the dry, snow-covered plants growing in the wide crevices treacherously offered him.
The horsemen had noticed him, and a young man-at-arms exclaimed: "A runaway! See how the young vagabond acts.

I'll seize him." He set spurs to his horse as he spoke, and just as the boy succeeded in reaching his goal, grasped his foot; but Ulrich clung fast to a gravestone, so the shoe was left in the trooper's hand and his comrades burst into a loud laugh.

It sounded merry, but it echoed in the ears of the tortured lad like a shriek from hell, and urged him onward.

He leaped over two, five, ten graves--then he stumbled over a head-stone concealed by the snow.
With a great effort he rose again, but ere he reached the chapel fell once more, and now his will was paralyzed.