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The Forest Farm




[Illustration: _Frontispiece._] THE FOREST FARM. [_Drawn by Milicent
Norris._]




  The Forest Farm

  _Tales of the Austrian Tyrol_

  By
  Peter Rosegger

  With an Appreciation by Maude Egerton King
  And a Biographical Note by Dr. Julius Petersen

  The Vineyard Press
  London: A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford's Inn, E.C.
  1912




WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH




  Contents


                                                             PAGE

         FRONTISPIECE: THE FOREST FARM. Drawn by MELICENT
           NORRIS

         ROSEGGER: AN APPRECIATION. By MAUDE EGERTON KING       9

         PETER ROSEGGER: A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. By DR. JULIUS
           PETERSEN. With a portrait                           15

      I. MY FATHER AND I. Illustrated by M. E. K. and L. E.    29

     II. HOW I GAVE GOD MY SUNDAY JACKET. Translated by A. T.
           DE MATTOS                                           36

    III. CHRISTMAS EVE. Translated by M. E. K.                 42

     IV. A LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. Translated by M. E. K.     61

      V. HOW LITTLE MAXEL'S HOUSE WAS BURNED DOWN. Translated
           by M. E. K. and L. G.                               74

     VI. THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FOUR NIGHTS AND A NIGHT.
           Translated by A. T. DE MATTOS                       80

    VII. HOW THE WHITE KID DIED. Translated by A. T. DE
           MATTOS                                              86

   VIII. CHILDREN OF THE WORLD IN THE FOREST. Translated by
           A. T. DE MATTOS                                     93

     IX. HOW MEISENSEPP DIED. Translated by LOUISE EVERS      105

      X. THE CORPUS CHRISTI ALTAR. Translated by A. T. DE
           MATTOS                                             114

     XI. ABOUT KICKEL, WHO WENT TO PRISON. Translated by
           ETHEL BLOUNT                                       124

    XII. HOW I CAME TO THE PLOUGH. Translated by A. T. DE
           MATTOS                                             142

   XIII. THE RECRUIT. Translated by A. T. DE MATTOS           146

    XIV. A FORGOTTEN LAND. Translated by A. T. DE MATTOS      161

     XV. THE SCHOOLMASTER. Translated by A. T. DE MATTOS      170

    XVI. THE STAG ON THE WALL. Translated by MELICENT NORRIS
           and M. E. KING                                     179

   XVII. FOREST-LILY IN THE SNOW. Translated by A. T. DE
           MATTOS                                             186

  XVIII. THE SACRED CORNFIELD. Translated by M. E. KING and
           L. SWIETOKOWSKI                                    190

    XIX. ABOUT MY MOTHER. Translated by A. T. DE MATTOS       195




Rosegger: An Appreciation


The unmistakable trend of our time is the civilisation--which, in its
modern form, is largely urbanisation--of the whole habitable globe.
From its centres outwards it is thrusting itself upon places, men,
processes--ultimate sanctuaries, never before reached by alien
trespassing. Most men are looking on at its destruction of the old
order with shrugging acceptance of the inevitable, or hailing the
chaotic stuff of the new in its making with so far unjustified joy.
With a wit worn somewhat threadbare with use they invariably counsel
the few eccentrics who deny its inevitability and question its
beneficence to quit the hopes and mops of Mrs. Partington for the
discreet submission of the wiser Canute. Then they grow properly grave,
and declare that this modern civilisation, for all its shortcomings,
has been well described as a banquet, the like of which, for those
below as for those above the salt, has never been spread before.
However that may be, there is no question that here and there a guest
is sometimes moved to look round on the company and scan its several
types with a sudden sense of their significance. Some of these, good
and bad, are common to all late civilisations, he perceives, others as
hatefully peculiar to our own as certain diseases. Where, in God's
name, were there ever till now men like these, who bend a complaisant
spectacled gaze on a world going under, content if they may but first
secure their museum sample (including one carefully chosen, perfectly
embalmed, stuffed and catalogued peasant) of every species? Or their
younger kindred--men whose intellect obeys no inspiration save
curiosity nor law save its own limit, whose inventions, therefore,
cannot foster good and beauty but only spoil these in Nature and men's
souls? As for that splendid group beyond, one may question if Athens,
Rome, or Byzantium, whose sumptuous culture of brain and body achieved
an almost criminal comeliness by Christian standards, ever equalled
them: question, too, whether their selfish perfection or the travesty
of it in this mob of women dull with luxury, of men brutalised by the
scramble of getting it for them--be less desirable for the race!
Thankfully his eye passes from them to those who turn such a cold
shoulder upon their vulgarity: a little company, fine-edged, polished
and flexible with perpetual fence of wit and word, hardly peculiar to
our day perhaps, but rather such as might have played their
irresponsible game on the eve of any red revolution. Now and again they
lend an amused ear to various gassy gospels over the way, where, as he
perceives, he is once more among the children of this latter day alone:
notably certain insignificances who, because they have raised their
self-indulgence to the dignity of a problem play, are solemnly
mistaking themselves (as actors and audience too) for pioneers of
social progress; and some earnest women who have slammed the front door
on their nearest and dearest stay-at-home duties and privileges, to go
questing after problematical rights. It looks, too, as if the same
types, modified for worse and better by class conditions, were repeated
below the salt; but there the multitude is so great that the
individuals are soon lost in a far-off colourless mass--sometimes a
menacing mass--by no means so content with stale bread as the others
with caviare.

Is then this civilisation to become the universal order? he asks
himself; and must the world it has laid waste be repeopled from these?
The very fear of it summons a shadowy memory of fathers' fathers among
Sussex sheepfolds, Highland crofts, Tuscan vineyards, or German
forests. After that the banquet grits in the teeth like husks, and
there is nothing possible but to get up and go out from it, sick with
longing for those simpler, saner people. To them, it is said,
fatherhood, motherhood, home, were chiefest of prides and sanctities
outside Heaven. They either kept or consciously broke the ten
commandments, but they never set up the _Seven deadly Sins_ in their
place. They won life out of the earth, sometimes with difficulty
enough, but the struggle bred a muscle and fortitude only now failing
their descendants in hyper-civilisation. They laboured, and took their
pleasures too, under open skies and in quiet places where the divine
voice could clearly be heard at times, and unperplexedly obeyed.

Between fear and hope these famished feasters come at last to the
ancestral places; only too often to find them ruined, or sheltering
some sad survival unaware of his own splendid history. On the cold
thresholds they stand, stricken with the sense of the world's
irreparable loss in a virile and faithful race.

Just so far have many thinking people come to-day, and there remain,
needing a leader who can turn regretful retrospect to rational hope.
Such a one is Peter Rosegger, whose life is a type of our own day and a
prophecy of better. He, too, left the land for the city, and now,
because all his culture and experience do but confirm his faith that
_Bauernthum_ is as necessary for the world's soul as the bread which
the peasant grows for its body, he has gone back to it. When he wants
new vigour for daily life, or for his mission of protecting and
pleading for a vanishing folk, he touches earth and gets it.
Peasant-born, in most of his books he _is_ Peasantry grown conscious
and articulate,--he gives us that life from within. But culture has
enabled him to see the peasant in his true relation to the world as
well, to measure the life he was born into with the civilisation whose
guest he has been. And so in one invaluable book, _Erdsegen_, he writes
of the folk life from without, and that with great truth and
consistency. The story is given in a series of letters from a city
journalist, who for a frivolous wager goes to live "the simple life" as
a peasant among peasants for one year. Looking through the townsman's
eyes, we find there no stage-peasant's Arcady, no rose-bowered cottages
pleasantly ready for week-end lodgers; rather we stare aghast at the
coarse food, rough work, some very unwholesome conditions, and
obstinate superstitions. The journalist's earlier letters treat of
these things with humorous realism, and we respect his pluck for
putting up with them. Gradually the tone of the letters changes, and we
see the innate fineness--not the cultured refinement--of the townsman,
responding to the strong faith behind the superstition, to the beauty
of the traditional labours, the heroic endurance of their undoing by
storm and bad fortune, and the acceptance of good and ill alike as from
the hands of a good if sometimes incomprehensible Father. The faint
sneer, even the amused smile, die from the townsman's face; dirt and
discomfort are lost sight of in the divine realities which draw him,
humbly enough at last, to throw in his lot with these humble people.

Rosegger is a true prophet, he never disguises truth in defending it.
His passion for essential Peasantry is too great for sentimentalities,
too honest for whitewash; and so while he exhilarates us with its
elemental force he does not fear to show where this merges into
brutality, nor when its simplicity opens the door to superstition. And
yet in the end we are one with his faith in _Bauernthum_ and the
world's need of it. The land-folk who emigrate to cities, and their
children there born, are fast losing and will soon quite lose what no
money or experience can compensate them for. Age after age, great
shaping influences from the forest, the mountain and the waters of the
mountain, the solitudes, the mastery and love of beasts, the
disciplinary tragedies and triumphs of agriculture, came and wrought
upon the humanity in their midst, gradually creating the customs,
traditions, lore and art--everything except religion in its _Church_
sense--which is part of the collective soul of Peasantry. Whatever
these uprooted land-folk gain in the city, though they gain the whole
world, they certainly lose their own soul--the soul special to
Peasantry and until now the fullest spring of the world's imaginative
life.

At times, perhaps when he has stayed too long in Graz, Rosegger writes
of _Bauernthum_ as of something irrevocably passing; at others he
utters his faith--for it is deeper than hope--that it will come again.
To him his own life is racially prophetic. He has had the best of
civilisation, intellectual intercourse, fame, travel, wealth: but from
these and all others of its benefits or lures, he has again and again
run back, mastered by a _Heimweh_ which saved him. Sometimes, in
terrible trouble, once at the point of death, he went back, and every
time the touch of the earth renewed him, body and soul. Signs of this
saving _Heimweh_ he sees here and there among those who remain at the
banquet, actually starving in satiety, some of them; and from the quiet
valley where his genius, long since the consecrated champion of the
ancient peasantry, does its best work, he calls upon these to come back
and make possible a new. His loyal traditionalism does not hinder his
belief that a new peasantry, not born, but becoming such from a choice
inspired by heart's hunger and a surfeit of civilisation, must have a
strong redemptive value of its own among the decadent nations.

Of the earth he writes as he wrote of the stern tender woman who bore
him in the Forest Farm,--with a worship that makes a town-bred creature
drag at his chain or break his heart to run home to her. She has never
failed him, he says, in any need of spirit or flesh, nor will she ever
fail her prodigals. When they come back in a hundred or a thousand
years they will find her patiently waiting to teach them all the vital
forgotten things over again: and, even if she take the gewgaws and
lumber out of their hands, she will leave them whatever of learning she
can with her ancient processes and gift of wonder transmute into
wisdom.

  M. E. K.


[Illustration: PETER ROSEGGER

(_By kind permission of Messrs. Staackmann, Leipsic_)

_To face page 15 "The Forest Farm."_]




Peter Rosegger

A Biographical Note

By Dr. Julius Petersen


I

In the heart of Austria lies Steiermark (Styria), a rough mountain
country on the eastern slope of the Alps. Its inhabitants, protected
from the levelling influences of modern civilisation and cut off from
that mingling with other peoples which destroys racial character, have
retained their old individuality and customs longer than any other
German people. Rough though the climate is, the soil stony, the
struggle for existence hard, these sons of the mountains have grown
stubbornly inseparable from their home; it is with difficulty that they
take root in other soil--they are evermore drawn back to the place
where once their cradle stood. In former centuries the Swiss soldiers
in French service could not hear the home-like chime of cow-bells
without a temptation to desert their colours; and time after time sons
of Steiermark have been driven back to their free hills by the
constraint of garrison life. The deserters were always easily caught:
the sergeant in pursuit had simply to look for the culprit in his
father's house. The _Heimweh_ (other languages can hardly express the
meaning of this word) is the national sickness to which all natives of
the Alps driven into foreign parts are subject, and it is but the other
side of that impassioned joy in the home, which finds expression in
jubilant songs and shouts rising for ever from the mountains to the
sky.

Peter Rosegger is the national poet of Styria. If it can be said that
all men on their way through life carry with them a clod of home-soil,
as the pious pilgrim carries a handful of sacred earth, then one may
say that this poet is home personified. "Styria on two legs," he is
called by his own people. All that can move the soul of this people,
from the lightest jest to the deepest longings and searchings, has
found expression in his writings.

He has passed through many phases of life, from peasant to craftsman,
to schoolmaster, to theologian, and all these phases are reflected in
his life-work. The son of the peasant, who on his journey has attained
the heights of humanity, is always turning back to his starting-point.
Like the old giant Antæus, he draws new strength from his mother Earth.
Close touch with the home soil is for him a condition of life. When
Rosegger was on a lecturing tour through the great German cities, where
he was enthusiastically greeted by audiences of thousands, there never
left him the longing for the silent peace of the mountains; and
_Heimweh_ drove him away even from the shining Gulf of Naples. Even
Graz, the beautiful capital of Steiermark, where Rosegger has his
vine-covered house, cannot take the place of home for him. In the
summer months he escapes to Krieglach in the Mürztal; there he lives
among his native people, and from his window he looks out to those
heights where, out of sight, stands a deserted farm--his birthplace.

In Alpl, near Krieglach, a forest community which has now almost ceased
to exist and even at the time of his birth consisted only of
twenty-three farms, Rosegger came into the world on July 31st, 1843. It
was almost by accident that he learnt to read and to write. An old
schoolmaster, whom the Church had dismissed from his office because of
his leanings towards freedom in 1848, wandered a beggar through the
mountains, and when he came to the peasants of Alpl they said: "Beggars
we have anyhow in plenty, but a schoolmaster we have not and never
have had since the world began. He shall be schoolmaster here, and our
children shall learn to read and to write; if it does no good, it can
do no harm." And so the old schoolmaster went hawking his learning from
house to house, and his school fees consisted of the right to eat as
much as ever he liked.

Peter, the son of the _Wald-bauer_ (forest peasant),[1] was soon known
for his learning. Once in the dead of winter he was taken to one of the
highest-lying farms, where the old peasant owner wanted to make her
will. There being neither paper nor ink, he wrote the will with
charcoal inside a coffer lid, for the boy was gifted with a bright
mother-wit which never left him at a loss. He read everything printed
that he could lay hands on, but as he did not find enough to read, he
began to write himself; stories of saints, sermons, works of devotion
and calendars. These he illustrated with drawings of his own invention.
A student who had spent his holidays in the mountains had left him a
little box of watercolours. The boy cut a lock of hair from his own
head, bound it to a little stick, and so made himself a brush with
which to paint his pictures of his saints. This story is a symbol of
all Rosegger's achievement of learning. However much outside help he
may have received, he may thank himself for the best, after all. "My
little saddle-horse," says he, "has never fed upon the dry hay of
school-knowledge, but only on the green grass of life itself. The
little that I know, Life has taught me, and the little that I can do,
Necessity. The inability to express myself by word of mouth has taught
me to write, and my desire to share that written word with others
taught me to read. As the father of a family, with a very uncertain
income, I learnt arithmetic; as a herdsman on the pasture land,
zoology; as farmer and stonecutter, mineralogy; as hay-maker and
woodcutter, botany. Geography I learnt in travelling; history from
events which followed one another as cause and consequence; folklore I
learnt as a travelling journeyman; and astronomy in sleepless nights,
when I lay and looked up at the stars. Thoughts about physiology,
anatomy, medicine, and patience have come to me in illness; theology I
have turned to in times of need and loneliness; and law has been learnt
in self-examination. Music became dear to me from the birds of the
woods and the sound of waterfalls. The telling of stories I never
learnt at all. My first baby stammer--so says our old cousin--was a
story in Styrian dialect; and my life, according to the belletristic
newspapers, was a romance."

His life, indeed, is rich in wonders, and the evolution of the peasant
boy a sort of fairy tale. Rosegger has described for us his youth in
the form of a novel, _Heidepeters Gabriel_ (1872), in which it all
reads like an impossible romance. Later he has published the story of
his life in a series of autobiographical writings, _Waldheimat_ (_The
Forest Home_, 1875); _Als Ich jung noch war_ (_When I was still young_,
1895); _Mein Weltleben_ (_My Life in the World_, 1898); in these the
same course of events is given with a wonderful truth to life. As
documents of a rare human evolution they may stand on a level with
Rousseau's _Confessions_; they are more lovable, though no less honest.

The boy very early saw something of the world. As a little fellow his
father took him with him on a pilgrimage to Maria Zell; his godfather,
on another pilgrimage, pointed out to him the first railway as an
uncanny bit of devil's invention; and on one occasion the
eleven-year-old boy set out alone for Vienna, reaching the Imperial
city after a several days' tramp. His aim was to visit the Kaiser Josef
II, of whose friendliness so many stories were going about among his
people. As a matter of fact, Josef II had been lying in his grave for
more than sixty years, and his visitor was conducted to his mausoleum.
Later, as he was again wandering in the streets and casting about how
to get home (for of his travelling money--the proceeds of the sale of a
lamb--only just the equivalent of the little beast's tail was left), a
bearded man came up to him and offered him five florins if he would
pose for half an hour in his studio. And, wonder on wonder, the
water-colour which the artist painted from this sketch now hangs in the
Rosegger Room at Mürzzuschlag, which is the nucleus of a future
Rosegger Museum! Here also is preserved the tailor's goose, which later
the boy, then in his apprenticeship, had to carry after his master; and
beside it is a peasant's waistcoat--the same apprentice's claim to
journeymanship! It appears that, though his brothers and sisters all
became farm-workers, the Waldbauer's first-born proved to be too sickly
for the ancestral calling. He was to become a priest. The parish priest
of Birkfeld offered to instruct him in Latin. Peter, as a candidate for
holy orders, was entrusted to the care of a peasant in that parish.
After three days he ran away in the night--home-sickness was too much
for him. So in 1860 he became apprentice to a master-tailor of his own
district, and played his part in his itinerant trade. He worked on more
than sixty farms in the neighbourhood, and in this way learned to know
the life of the people in Styria more intimately than would have been
possible in any other calling. The inexhaustible wealth of strange
character and peasant originality and the unique acquaintance with the
most ancient and characteristic native customs which Rosegger displays
in his later writings, are the fruit of those years of close
observation.

With the passion for reading grew the desire to write. One day his
master set out, leaving his carefully guarded paper-patterns lying
about. He was accustomed to apprentices, anxious to become independent,
making use of such an opportunity to copy the patterns for themselves.
His apprentice Peter seized on them too, concerning himself with their
shape not at all, but only with the contents of the cut-out newspapers
whose stale news he devoured. This made his master almost despair of
him. "Honesty's a very fine thing, Peter," he said, "but I can clearly
see you'll never be much of a credit to me. Here you are, waiting from
week to week for the end of your time, and have never yet stolen one
pattern from your master!"

Others, too, prophesied to the youth that he would never make a proper
tailor. Once he had to share quarters with a shoemaker's apprentice.
Then it was that the little note-book in which he used to write songs
of his own making was discovered. The song which made Rosegger
celebrated, and which as a genuine folk-song is not only sung in
Styria, but all over Germany, was amongst them: "Darf ih's Dirndl
liabe." The beauty of this song, which is inseparable from its dialect,
can scarcely be rendered in a translation: without the charming form
the idea is almost too primitive. The boy goes in succession to priest,
father, and mother, and puts the question to them, whether he may love
the maid? Each puts him sharply off until at last he goes to the Lord
God Himself, and there finds sympathy with his inquiry.

  "Why yes, of course," He smiled and said;
  "Because of the boy I have made the maid."

The shoemaker's apprentice found this moral most enlightening and
determined to send the song to his sweetheart, but could not believe
that the young tailor could make such verses without having a
sweetheart of his own. "Get along--and look here, you tell me of anyone
else who can turn out verses like that!" he said admiringly. "And don't
be angry, tailor; I don't understand much of your trade, but after
looking at your father's new jacket I don't mind telling you that
you'll never make a first-rate tailor. Your song now, _that's_ a
masterpiece if you like. Now, don't you forget, that down here on the
plain and in the farmer's oat-straw I told you how it would be--you'll
never remain a tailor. You'll go to the towns and become somebody;
you'll be a bookbinder! Mark my word, in the end you'll become a
bookbinder!"

That was the highest the shoemaker's apprentice could conceive of. But
it soon happened otherwise. Passing tourists had come across the verses
which the country folk had already set to music, and they encouraged
the author to send certain of them to town. As a result, the editor of
the Graz _Daily Post_ took an interest in the people's poet, and asked
him to send him all the poetry he had written and to give him an
account of his life. Peter packed up, and, carrying a bundle of
manuscripts weighing fifteen pounds, set off on his way to Graz. The
postage for such a parcel would have been quite beyond his means.


II

At the end of 1864 an article appeared in the Graz _Daily Post_,
entitled _A Styrian Poet of the People_, in which a larger
public was called upon to assist the young talented writer. And
now from all quarters sendings poured into the post office in
Krieglach--congratulations, books, small sums of money, and provisions.
A bookseller in Leibach offered him an apprenticeship. Rosegger
accepted it, but after a few days _Heimweh_ again drove him from the
unfamiliar district. However, a free scholarship was found for him at
the Graz Commercial Academy; friends and teachers were not wanting, and
here, between the years 1865-9 the farmer's son, not yet able, when he
entered it, to write correctly, received an intellectual training which
left him no longer inferior to the well educated. In the same year that
he left this institution his first book, a volume of poems in dialect,
and entitled _Zither und Hackbrett_ (_Zither and Dulcimer_), was
published. A second collection, _Tannenharz und Fichtennadeln_
(_Pine-resin and Fir-needles_), came out in the following year; and in
1870 also appeared his first picture of Styrian peasant life,
_Sittenbilder aus dem Steierischen Oberlande_. These won him some fame;
already publishers began to approach him with offers. And now once more
miracle entered his life. In the summer of 1872 a young and beautiful
Graz lady, accompanied by a friend, made a pilgrimage to the birthplace
of her favourite poet; there by chance she and her poet met, and a year
later they were married. Their happy life together lasted but a short
time; after the birth of a second child the young wife died. Six years
after his sad loss Rosegger made a second and equally happy marriage.

About his life since then there is not much to tell. One fact, however,
should be emphasised; namely, that Rosegger, who in his early years had
become indebted to so many friends, very soon began to pay them back,
and the account has long since been balanced in his favour and now
shows a debit on the other side. Many a time has he introduced the work
of young writers to the literary world with warm words of
recommendation, just as the distinguished poet Robert Hammerling once
did for his first collection of poems. The greater part of the profits
of his extensive lecture tour have been used for the public good.
Through him, a Catholic, Mürzzuschlag has got a Protestant church; his
home-parish, Alpl, has for some years now had a school-house of its own
for which it has to thank Rosegger. And only a short time ago it was
his eloquent intervention that obtained a large contribution for the
German School-Society--a society which aims at preserving
race-characteristics and culture where they are threatened on the
language frontiers. Were I to give data of his public life during the
last ten years, they would consist of such services as these, and of
the grateful homage which is rendered him by the many who love and
honour him. But his inner development is revealed in the writings of
his maturity; for Rosegger has written nothing but what in his inmost
heart he has experienced. Since 1876 he has edited a monthly magazine,
_Heimgarten_, which is his public diary. "Heimgarten," he tells us, "is
the name given in various districts to that house in the Alpine village
in which of an evening the village folk come together, bringing in
small handwork to do and enjoying one another's company. Here are to be
found the brightest of the inhabitants, those readiest in storytelling
and description, those who are men of the world, or who would like to
be such, assembled for educative and stimulating intercourse. In the
Heimgarten, stories and legends, tragic and comic incidents from life
are repeated; songs and ballads are sung; poems are improvised; farces
and comedies are given, or incidents of the day and important events in
the life of the village or the wide world are discussed by the village
wiseacres. Intercourse in the Heimgarten enlightens and enriches the
mind, quickens, warms, and ennobles the heart. This homely type from
Alpine village life furnishes the title and programme for my monthly
magazine."

And to this programme the paper, which has become a home for true
national education, has held faithfully for thirty-four years. Here all
stories, articles, and poems of Rosegger's first appeared, and in this
paper he expresses his views on all vital questions of the day.

"All we poets are foresters and woodwards in the great forest of
mankind," said once Berthold Auerbach, another poet of the people, to
Rosegger. Such a one the editor of the _Heimgarten_ feels himself to
be, expending, as he does, all his ripe experience and loving care upon
the husbandry which has been entrusted to him. To protect the vanishing
traditional customs of his forefathers, their natural conceptions of
right and wrong, the blessing of family life, their healthy
contentment--the outcome of bodily toil and the love of the
home--against the demoralisation of modern hyperculture, is his most
earnest aim.

The principal heroes of his romances are by preference those whose
calling involves the task of cherishing and teaching the people:
schoolmasters and priests. The _Writings of the Forest Schoolmaster_
(1878) is the name of Rosegger's most popular work, which already in
1908 appeared in its seventy-eighth edition, and which, let us hope,
may within the author's lifetime still reach its hundredth edition. The
theme is the gradual emergence of a forest parish from a group of
demoralised and utterly uneducated men to a social organisation, to a
lawful and religiously organised community. A similar _Kulturroman_ is
_Der Gottsucher_ (_The God-seeker_, 1883), which leads us back into
past centuries. A parish has been excommunicated by the Church for
murdering its priest. The people cannot exist without religion, and,
deprived of their old church, they create a new one, a religion of
Nature, by means of which the leader of the community brings back order
and industry to the village. The third novel belonging to this series,
_Das Ewige Licht_ (_The Light Eternal_, 1897), is a pessimistic
counterpart to the _Waldschulmeister_. This treats of the dangers to
religion which arise from modern civilisation. The faithful priest of a
mountain parish has to look on helplessly while the modern world
thrusts itself into the mountain idyll; while the atmosphere of the
great cities, brought up by mountain climbers and summer visitors, and
the smoke from the chimneys of the ever-spreading industrialism in the
valleys below, poison the pure air, and, morally and economically, ruin
the old inhabitants.

But the peasantry has yet another enemy: the love of sport among the
nobility. As once Karl Marx, the theorist of collectivism, studied in
Scotland the expropriation of man from the soil in favour of deer, and
in his _Kapital_ exposed the tragic consequences of such excessive
sport, so now Rosegger in his home must look on at the depopulating of
entire villages. By this means his own birthplace has been nearly
ruined. In his first novel, _Heidepeters Gabriel_, he already shows the
hopeless struggle of the peasant against the devastation of his fields
by game, a struggle which leads to poaching and to prison. And in his
novel _Jacob der Letzte_ (1888), which, from an artistic point of view,
is perhaps the most complete of his works, the principal character, the
last descendant of an old peasant family, who clings tenaciously to the
old soil, is beaten and goes under in the struggle. Such a single case
becomes for Rosegger an alarming symptom of the universal decline of
the free peasantry. "What will come of it?" he asks, when he receives
from numerous parts of Germany letters all witnessing to the same
facts: "I am no practical teacher of political economy, I am only a
poet; but they say that poets are seers, and I verily see that future
generations will have to go home to the land again, that only on the
land can the social question be peacefully and lastingly solved. Here
master and man live on far more friendly footing than in the city, and
come humanly nearer together. For twenty-five years I have been
preaching in every way the return to natural living. I have built my
little house in a peasant village and I live right among the
peasants.--I am utterly dissatisfied with the leading spirits of our
time: they don't teach us to live, they teach us only to think. One
thing we have still to learn--to forget what they have taught us. Our
true Mother is the Earth: from her spring our bread and our ideals."

The return of the townspeople to nature forms the theme of two later
novels, _Erdsegen_ (_The Earth and the Fullness Thereof_, 1900) and
_Weltgift_ (_The Poison of the World_, 1903). In the former the editor
of a paper pledges himself to live a whole year as farm-labourer in
the country. He not only earns his wager, but in the course of the
year so richly experiences and realises the blessedness of life on the
land that, cured of the fever of city life, he marries a village girl
and starts his own farm. This thesis, with its obvious strong purpose,
aroused opposition. The chief objection brought forward was that it
would be impossible for a thoroughly town-bred person to take such deep
root in the country. In reply to this, Rosegger points in the other
novel to the fate of a townsman, who, unlike the character in the
former book, is too full of the city virus for recovery. The poison of
the world has eaten right into him, and he cannot escape his doom.

Rosegger can only compare town and country by the strongest contrast of
light and shade. And in the talks which he collected in 1885 under the
title of _Mountain Sermons, delivered in these latter days in the open
air, and dedicated to the reviling and derision of our Enemies, the
Weaknesses, the Vices and the Errors of Civilisation_, a fanatical
anger is occasionally apparent: one misses the beatitudes which the
title leads one to expect.

And yet love is the gospel which Rosegger proclaims at all times, and
religious questions pervade his writings from first to last. He is
himself, like the chief character in his book, a God-seeker. "Man
creates for himself an ideal, an always nobler image of himself, calls
it God and strives after it. So he climbs as if on a rope ladder,
throwing the upper end higher and higher up the rugged wall of rocks
towards the heaven of perfection. But who taught him to do this? Surely
He who has put the power and spirit of growth in His creature's heart,
God the Father, who from everlasting created the world and will create
it to everlasting."

These conceptions are not exactly canonical, and it has been Rosegger's
experience to have an article of his, _How I picture to myself the
personality of Christ_, confiscated by the licensing authorities as
blasphemous. This induced him twice afterwards openly to state his
convictions; once in _Mein Himmelreich_ (_My Kingdom of Heaven_, 1900),
and again in _I.N.R.I: Frohe Botschaft eines armen Sünders_ (_The
Gospel of a poor Sinner_, 1904). These much-discussed writings give us
an image of Christ as Rosegger made it, putting it together from the
four gospels: a Christ rejoicing in God, intimate with man's heart,
filled with joy of the earth, with mighty creative energy, with
consuming wrath in due season; the Superman, the God-man in the highest
sense.

Rosegger is as strongly opposed to all the violent "Missions" movements
in the Church as to the faith-destroying tendency of the modern world's
point of view. He holds piously by many an old belief, not because it
is for him an article of faith, but because it is a piece of poetic
childhood's remembrance; and he has saved many a dogma for himself by
interpreting it symbolically and not literally. To the most poetic of
his interpretations belongs that of the Cross: "The Cross has a foot
rooted in Earth; that means 'Man, make use of the Earth.' The Cross has
a head that towers up into the air of heaven; that means 'Man, remember
thy ideals.' The Cross has two arms stretching out to right and left,
not to chastise men, but to embrace all the world; that means 'Man,
love thy brothers.' Love, Joy,--those are the two beams of our Cross.
The world is not here as a penance, but a joy." In such sentences as
these is contained Rosegger's whole Gospel of Joy, which looks for its
fulfilment on this side. For him the highest aim of civilisation, as of
religion, is the happiness of mankind.

This brings us to a conclusion. We have now seen Rosegger develop from
peasant to craftsman, to teacher, to preacher. And now another question
arises: Has he not possibly reached a greater height still--is he a
prophet? Of that only late generations may judge; to them it is given
to see whether the new birth of mankind, which Rosegger, like Tolstoy,
looks for from a return to the simplicities of life on the land, will
be realised. With Rosegger's prophecy, which we shall do well to
consider, I close this paper. "The future generations will find peace
and happiness again when they turn back to Nature and give themselves
up to the healthy influences of the life of the soil. As yet, when the
leaves turn yellow, the townsfolk hurry back into their walls; but
there will come a time when the well-to-do citizens will buy land and
farm it themselves like peasants, and when artisans will clear and
reclaim such land from the wilderness itself. They will renounce
hyper-intellectualism, and find pleasure and new vigour in bodily toil;
and they will make laws under which a firm-rooted and honourable
peasantry can once more thrive."

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _Wald-bauer_, one whose farm included forest-land.




I

My Father and I


On the whole I had not a bad bringing up, rather I had none at all.
When I was a good, devout, obedient, apt child, my parents praised me;
when I was the reverse they gave me a downright scolding. Praise almost
always did me good and made me feel inches taller; for some children
like plants shoot up only in sunshine.

But my father was of opinion that I ought not to grow in height only,
but also in breadth, and that to this end reserve and austerity were
good.

My mother was love itself. My father may have been the same by nature,
but he did not know how to express his warm and loving heart. With all
his gentleness this care and labour-laden man had a taciturn, serious
bearing: only later, when he judged me man enough to appreciate it, did
he ever give his rich humour free play before me.

During those years when I was tearing my first dozen pairs of breeches,
he concerned himself with me but little except when I had done
something naughty; then he allowed his severity full play. His
harshness and my punishment generally consisted in his standing over
me, and in loud angry tones, holding up my sin before me and pointing
out the punishment I deserved.

When such an outburst occurred, it was my habit to plant myself in
front of my father and remain standing before him as if petrified, with
my arms hanging down, and looking steadily in his angry face
throughout the vehement rebuke. In my inmost heart I always repented my
wrongdoing and had the clearest sense of guilt; but I also remember
another feeling that used to come over me during those homilies: a
strange trembling, a sense of charm and ecstasy when the storm burst
over my head. Tears came to my eyes and trickled down my cheeks; but I
stood rooted there like a little tree, gazing up at my father, and was
filled with an inexplicable sense of wellbeing, that increased mightily
the longer and louder he thundered.

When after such a scene weeks went by without my concocting mischief,
and my father, kind and silent as ever, went about his business without
taking notice of me, the longing to devise something to put him in a
rage gradually began and ripened in me again. This was not for the sake
of vexing him, for I loved him passionately; nor yet from malice; but
from another cause which I did not understand at the time.

Thus it once happened on the sacred eve of Christmas. In the previous
summer in Maria Zell[2] my father had bought a little black cross on
which hung a Christus in cast lead, and all the instruments of the
Passion in the same material. This treasure had been put safely away
until Christmas Eve, when my father brought it out of his press and set
it on the little house-altar. I profited by the time when my parents
and the rest of our people were still busy on the farm outside and in
the kitchen making ready for the great festival, and, not without
endangering my sound limbs, I reached the crucifix down from the wall,
and crouched down behind the stove with it, and began taking it to
pieces. It was a rare joy to me when with the aid of my little
pocket-knife I loosened first the ladder, then the pincers and hammer,
then Peter's cock, and at last the dear Christ Himself from the cross.
The separated parts seemed to me much more interesting now than before
as a whole; but when I had finished and wanted to put the things
together again and could not, I began to grow hot inside and thought I
was choking. Would it stop at a mere scolding this time? To be sure, I
told myself: the black cross is now much finer than before; there is a
black cross with nothing on it in the chapel in Hohenwang too, and
people go there to pray. Besides, who wants a crucified Lord at
Christmas time? At that time He ought to be lying in the manger--the
Priest said so; and I must see about that now.

I bent the legs of the leaden Christus back and the arms over the
breast, then laid Him reverently in my mother's work-basket, and so set
my crib upon the house-altar; while I hid the cross in the straw of my
parents' bed--forgetting that the basket would betray the taking down
from the cross.

Fate swiftly overtook me. My mother was first to observe how absurdly
the work-basket had got up among the Saints to-day!

"Who can have found the crucifix in his way up there?" asked my father
at the very same moment.

I was standing a little apart, and I felt like a creature thirsting for
strong wine to drink. But at the same time a strange fear warned me to
get still farther into the background if possible.

My father approached me, asking almost humbly if I did not know where
the crucifix had got to? I stood bolt upright before him and looked him
in the face. He repeated his question. I pointed towards the bed-straw;
tears came, but I believe there was no quiver of my lips.

My father searched for and found it, and was not angry, only surprised
when he saw the mishandling of the sacred relic. My craving for the
strong bitter wine grew apace. My father put the bare cross on the
table.

"I can see," he said, speaking with perfect calmness, and he took his
hat down from the nail, "I can see he'll have to be thoroughly punished
at last. When even the Lord Christ Himself is not safe----! Mind you
stay in the room, boy!" he bade me darkly, and then went out to the
door.

"Run after him and beg for pardon!" cried my mother to me. "He's gone
to cut a birch-rod."

I was as if welded to the floor. With horrible clearness I saw what
would befall me, but was quite incapable of taking a single step in
self-defence. My mother went about her work; I stood alone in the
darkening room, the mutilated crucifix on the table before me. The
least sound scared me. Inside the old case of the Black Forest clock
standing there on the floor against the wall, the weights rattled as
the clock struck five. At last I heard someone outside knocking the
snow off his shoes; that was my father's step. When he entered the room
with the birch-rod I had vanished.

He went into the kitchen and demanded in abrupt and angry tones where
the rascal was? Then began a search throughout the whole house; in the
living-room the bed and the corner by the stove and the great coffer
were rummaged through. I heard them moving about in the next room, in
the loft overhead. I heard orders given to search through the very
mangers in the byres and the hay and straw in the barns; they were to
go out to the shed, too, and bring the fellow straight to his
father--he should remember this Christmas Eve all the rest of his life!
But they came back empty-handed. Two farm-hands were to be sent about
among the neighbours; but my mother called out that if I had gone over
the open and through the forest to a neighbour I should certainly be
frozen to death, for my little coat and hat were still in the room.
What grief and vexation children were!

They went away, the house was nearly empty and in the dark room there
was nothing visible but the grey squares of the windows. I was hidden
in the clock-case and could peep through the chinks. I had squeezed in
through the little door meant for winding up the works and let myself
down inside the panelling, so that I was now standing upright in the
clock-case.

What anguish I suffered in my hiding-place! That no good could come of
it all, and that the hourly increasing commotion was certainly working
towards an hourly more dangerous conclusion, I clearly perceived. I
bitterly blamed the work-basket which had betrayed me from the very
beginning, and I blamed the little crucifix; but I quite forgot to
blame my own folly. Hours passed, I was still in my up-on-end coffin,
already the icicles of the clock-weights touched the crown of my head,
and I had to duck myself down as well as I could lest the stopping of
the clock should lead to its winding up and thereby the discovery of
myself. For my parents had at last come back into the room again and
kindled a light and were beginning to quarrel about me.

"I don't know anywhere else to look for him," said my father, and he
sank exhausted on a chair.

"Just think, if he's gone astray in the forest, or if he's lying under
the snow!" cried my mother, and broke into audible weeping.

"Don't say such things!" said my father, "I can't bear to hear it."

"You can't bear to hear it, and yet you yourself have driven him away
with your harshness!"

"I shouldn't have broken any bones with these twigs," he replied, and
brought the birch-rod swishing down upon the table: "but if I catch him
now, I'll break a hedge-pole across his back!"

"Do it, do it!--perhaps it will never hurt him any more!" said my
mother, and wept again. "Do you think that children were given you
only to vent your anger on? In that case our dear Lord is quite right
when He takes them again betimes to Himself. One must love little
children if they're to come to any good!"

Thereupon he said, "Who says that I don't love the boy? I love him with
my whole heart, God knows, but I don't care to tell him so: I don't
care to, and what's more I can't. It doesn't hurt him half as much as
me when I have to punish him, that I _know_!"

"Well, I'm going out for another look!" sighed my mother.

"I can't rest here, neither!" he said.

"You must just swallow a spoonful of warm soup, to please me--it's
supper-time," she said.

"I couldn't eat now, I'm fairly at my wits' end," said my father, and
knelt down by the table and began to pray silently.

My mother went into the kitchen to get together my warm clothes for the
fresh search in case they should find me anywhere, half frozen. The
room was silent again, and I, in the clock-case, felt as if my heart
must burst for sorrow and anguish. Suddenly, in the midst of his
prayer, my father began to sob convulsively. His head fell on his arm
and his whole body shook.

I gave a piercing cry.

A few seconds later I was lifted out of my shell by my parents, and I
fell at my father's feet and clung whimpering to his knee.

"Father, father!" were the only words I could stammer out. He reached
down to me with both his arms, lifted me up to his breast, and my hair
was wet with his tears.

In that moment the eyes of my understanding were opened.

I saw how dreadful it was to anger and offend such a father. But I saw,
too, why I had done so--from sheer longing to see my father's face
before me, to be able to look into his eyes and hear his voice speaking
to _me_. If he could not be cheery as others were with me, and as he,
at that time so care-laden, seldom was, then I would at least look into
his angry eyes, hear his harsh words. They went tingling deliciously
all through me, and drew me to him with irresistible might. At least
they were my father's eyes and words.

No further jar unhallowed our Christmas Eve, and from that day on
things were very different. My father had become deeply aware of his
love for me and my devotion to him; and, in many an hour of play, work,
and rest, bestowed upon me his dear face and kindly conversation, so
that I never again needed to get them by guile.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] A place of pilgrimage in Styria.




II

How I Gave God My Sunday Jacket


The church of the Alpine village of Ratten contains a nearly life-size
equestrian statue, standing to the left of the high altar. The horseman
is a splendid warrior; he wears a crested helmet and moustaches black
as ebony. He has drawn his broad and gleaming sword and is using it to
cut his cloak in half. At the foot of the prancing steed cowers the
figure of a ragged beggar-man.

My mother used to take me to this church when I was still a little
whipper-snapper, hardly up to the height of an ordinary person's
trousers. Near the church stands a lady-chapel, famed for its many
graces; and here my mother loved to pray. Often, when there was not
another soul remaining in the chapel and twelve o'clock struck and the
steeple sent the midday Angelus clanging out across the summer Sunday,
mother would still be kneeling on one of the chairs and sending up her
plaint to Mary. The Blessed Virgin sat on the altar, with her hand in
her lap, and moved not head, nor eyes, nor hands; and so, little by
little, my mother was able to say what she wanted.

I preferred to stop in the church and gaze at the fine rider on his
horse.

And once, when we were on our way home and mother leading me by the
hand (and I had always to take three steps for every one of hers), I
raised my little head to her kind face and asked:

"Why does the man on horseback keep on standing against the wall up
there? Why does he not ride out through the window into the street?"

Then mother answered:

"Because you put such childish questions and because it is only a
statue, the statue of St. Martin, who was a soldier and a very
charitable and pious man and is now in Heaven."

"And is the horse in Heaven too?" I asked.

"I will tell you all about St. Martin," said mother, "when we come to a
nice place where we can sit down and rest."

And she led me on and I skipped along beside her. But I was very
anxious for the resting-place and constantly cried out:

"Mother, here's a nice place!"

But she was not content until we came to the shady wood, where a flat,
mossy stone stood; and then we sat down. Mother fastened her kerchief
tighter round her head and was silent, as though she had forgotten her
promise. I stared and stared at her lips and then peeped through the
trees; and once or twice it appeared to me as though I had seen the
grand horseman riding through the wood.

"Yes, true enough, laddie," mother began, suddenly, "we must always
help the poor, for the love of God. But you won't find many fine
gentlemen like St. Martin nowadays, trotting about on their tall
horses. You know how the icy blast rushes over our sheep-walk, when
winter is nigh--your own little paws were nearly frozen there last
year! Well, it was just such a stretch of heath that St. Martin came
riding over one evening late in autumn. The earth is frozen hard as
stone; and it makes a fine noise each time the horse puts hoof to
ground. The snowflakes dance all round about; not one of them melts
away. Night is just beginning to fall; and the horse clatters over the
heath and the rider draws his white cloak round him as close as ever he
can. Well, as he rides on like that, suddenly he sees a little
beggar-man squatting on a stone, with nothing to cover him but a torn
jacket; and he shivering with cold and lifting his sad eyes to the tall
horse. Whoa! When the horseman sees that, he pulls up his steed and
bends over and says to the beggar, 'Oh, my dear, poor man, what alms
can I give you? Gold and silver I have none; and my sword you could
never use. How can I help you?' Then the beggar lets his white head
fall on his half-naked breast and heaves a sigh. But the horseman draws
his sword, takes his cloak from his shoulders and cuts it across the
middle. One half of the garment he hands down to the poor shivering
grey-beard: 'Take this, my needy brother!' he says. The other half of
the cloak he flings round his own body, as best he can, and rides
away."

This was the story my mother told me; and, with those cold autumn
evenings of hers, she made that lovely midsummer day feel so chilly
that I shivered.

"But it's not quite finished yet, my child," mother continued. "You
know now what the horseman with the beggar in the church means; but you
have not heard what happened afterwards. When the rider, later on at
night, lies sleeping peacefully on his hard bolster at home, the same
beggar whom he met on the heath comes to his bedside, smiles and shows
him the half cloak, shows him the marks of the nails in His hands and
shows him His face, which is no longer old and sorrowful, but radiant
as the sun. This same beggar from the heath was Our Lord
Himself.--There, laddie, and now we must be getting on."

Then we stood up and climbed into the woods on the mountain-side.

On the way home, we met two beggar-men; I peered very closely into
their faces; for I thought:

"Our Lord may be concealed behind one of them."

On the evening of the same day, I was told to take off my Sunday
suit--for father was a thrifty man--and was playing and skipping about
in my shabby workaday breeches, with only the brand-new grey jacket,
which I did not want to take off and had begged to be allowed to wear
for the rest of the day. Mother was attending to her household duties
and I ran out to the sheep-walk, for it was my business to bring the
sheep home to the fold, including a little white lamb that was my own
property.

As I hopped along, throwing stones into the air and trying to hit the
golden evening clouds, suddenly I saw an old, white-headed and very
poorly dressed man squatting on a rock a little way off. I stopped,
greatly startled; dared not take another step; and thought to myself:

"Now this is most certainly Our Lord."

I trembled with fear and joy and simply had no notion what to do.

"If it _is_ Our Lord," I said to myself, "then surely I must give Him
something. If I go home now, so that mother comes and looks out and
sees me and tells me how the matter stands, He might be gone in the
meantime; and that would be disgraceful and ridiculous. I think it is
He beyond a doubt: the one whom the horseman met looked just like
that."

I went a few steps back and began to tear at my grey jacket. It was no
easy work: the coat fitted so tightly over my coarse linen shirt; and I
did not want to be puffing and panting, lest the beggar-man should
notice me too soon. I had a yellow-handled pocket-knife, brand-new and
just lately sharpened. I took it out of my pocket, put the little coat
under my knee and began to divide it down the middle.

It was soon done and I stole up to the beggar-man, who seemed to be
half asleep, and put his part of my coat on his head:

"Take this, my needy brother!" I said, silently, in my thoughts.

Then I put my half of the coat under my arm, gazed at Our Lord a little
longer and then drove the sheep from the walk.

"He is sure to come in the night," I thought, "and then father and
mother will see Him and, if He wishes to stop with us, we can fit up
the back room and the little altar for Him."

I lay in the cupboard-bedstead, beside father and mother, and I could
not sleep. The night passed and He Whom I was expecting did not come.

But, early in the morning, when the barn-door cock crowed the men and
maids out of their beds and when the noisy working-day began in the
yard outside, an old man--he was nicknamed Mushroom Moses--came to my
father, brought him the piece of my jacket which I had given away and
told how I had wantonly cut it the evening before and flung one half at
his head as he was taking a rest on the sheep-walk after hunting for
mushrooms.

Thereupon my father came up softly to my bed, with one hand hidden
behind his back.

"Look here, lad, just you tell me what you've done with your new Sunday
jacket!"

That soft slinking with his hand behind his back at once struck me as
suspicious; and my face fell; and, bursting into tears, I cried:

"Oh, father, I thought I was giving it to God!"

"Lord, lad, what a duffer--what an idiot you are!" cried my father.
"You're much too good for this world and yet quite too silly to die!
What you want is to have your soul thrashed out of your skin with a
stout besom."

And then, when the hand with the twisted birch-rod came in view, I
raised a great hullabaloo.

Mother came rushing up at once. As a rule, she seldom interfered when
father was correcting me; but, this time, she caught hold of his hand
and said:

"I dare say I can sew the jacket together again, father. Come with me:
I have something to tell you."

They both went out into the kitchen; I think they must have discussed
the story of St. Martin. Presently, they came back to the room.

Father said:

"All right now, be quiet; there's nothing going to be done to you."

And mother whispered in my ear:

"It's all right, your wanting to give your jacket to Our Lord; but
it'll be better still if we give it to the poor boy down in the valley.
Our Lord lies hidden in every poor man. St. Martin knew that too, you
see. So there. And now, lad, jump out of bed and get your breeches on;
father's not so very far off yet with that birch of his!"




III

Christmas Eve


Year in, year out, there stood by the grey clay-plastered wall of the
stove in our living-room an oaken footstool. It was always smooth and
clean, for, like the other furniture, it was rubbed every Saturday with
fine river sand and a wisp of straw. In spring, summer, and autumn-time
this stool stood empty and lonely in its corner, save when of an
evening my grandmother pulled it a little forward to kneel on it and
say her evening prayer. On Saturdays, too, while my father said the
prayers for the end of the week, grandmother knelt upon the stool.

But when during the long evenings in late autumn the farm-hands were
cutting small household torches from the resinous logs, and the maids,
along with my mother and grandmother, spinning wool and flax, and all
during Advent time, when old fairy tales were told and hymns were
sung--then I always sat on the stool by the stove.

From out my corner I listened to the stories and songs, and if they
became creepy and my little soul began to be moved with terror, I
shoved the stool nearer to my mother and covertly held on by her dress;
and could not possibly understand how the others still dared to laugh
at me, or at the terrible stories. At last when bedtime came, and my
mother pulled my little box-bed out for me, I simply could not go to
bed alone, and my grandmother must lie beside me until the frightful
visions had faded and I fell asleep.

But with us the long Advent nights were always short. Soon after two
o'clock, the house began to grow restless. In the attics above one
could hear the farm-lads dressing and moving about, and in the kitchen
the maids broke up kindling wood and poked the fire. Then they all went
out to the threshing floor to thresh.

My mother was also up and about, and had kindled a light in the
living-room; soon after that my father rose, and they both put on
somewhat better clothes than they wore on working-days and yet not
their Sunday best. Then mother said a few words to grandmother, who
still lay a-bed, and when I, wakened by the stir, made some sort of
remark, she only answered, "You lie nice and quiet and go to sleep
again!" Then my parents lighted a lantern, extinguished the light in
the room, and left the house. I heard the outer door close, and saw the
gleam of light go glimmering past the window, and I heard the crunching
of footsteps in the snow and the rattling of the house-dog's chain.
Then, save for the regular throb of the threshers at work, all was once
more quiet and I fell asleep again.

My father and mother were going to the Rorate[3] at the parish church,
nearly three hours away. I followed them in my dream. I could hear the
church bell, and the sound of the organ and the Advent song, "Hail
Mary, thou bright morning star!" I saw, too, the lights on the high
altar; and the little angels that stood above it spread out their
golden wings and flew about the church, and the one with the trumpet,
standing over the pulpit, passed out over the heath and into the
forests and blew throughout the whole world that the coming of the
Saviour was near at hand.

When I awoke the sun had long been shining into the windows; outside
the snow glittered and shimmered, and indoors my mother went about
again in workaday clothes and did her household tasks. Grandmother's
bed, next mine, was already made, and she herself now came in from the
kitchen and helped me to put on my breeches, and washed my face with
cold water, that stung me so that I was ready to laugh and cry at the
same moment. That over I knelt on my stool and prayed with grandmother
the morning prayer:

    In Gottes Namen aufstehen
    Gegen Gott gehen,
    Gegen Gott treten,
    Zum Himmlischen Vater beten,
    Dass er uns verleih
    Lieb Engelein drei:

    Der erste, der uns weist,
    Der Zweite, der uns speist,
    Der dritt' der uns behüt' und bewahrt,
    Dass uns an Leib und Seel' nichts widerfahrt.[4]

After these devotions I received my morning soup, and then came
grandmother with a tub full of turnips which we were to peel together.
I sat close beside it on my stool. But in the matter of peeling turnips
I could never quite satisfy grandmother: I constantly cut the rind too
thick, or here and there even left it whole upon the turnip. When,
moreover, I cut my finger and instantly began to cry, my grandmother
said, very crossly, "You're a regular nuisance, it would be a good
thing to pitch you right out into the snow!" All the while she was
binding up my wound with unspeakable love and care.

So passed the Advent season, and grandmother and I talked more and more
often about Christmas Eve and of the Christchild who would so soon be
coming among men.

The nearer we came to the festival the greater the stir in the house.
The men turned the cattle out of the stall and put fresh straw there
and set the mangers and barriers in good order; the cowman rubbed the
oxen till they looked quite smooth; the stockman mixed more hay than
usual in the straw and prepared a great heap of it in the hayloft. The
milkmaid did the same. Threshing had already ceased some days ago,
because, according to our belief, the noise would have profaned the
approaching Holy Day.

Through all the house there was washing and scrubbing; even into the
living-room itself came the maids with their water-pails and straw
wisps and brooms. I always looked forward to the cleaning, because I
loved the turning topsy-turvy of everything, and because the glazed
pictures in the corner where the table was, the brown clock from the
Black Forest with its metal bell, and the various things which, at
other times, I saw only at a distance high above me, were taken down
and brought nearer to me, and I could observe them all much more
closely and from all sides. To be sure, I was not allowed to handle
such things, because I was still too clumsy and careless for that and
might easily damage them. But there were moments in that eager
scrubbing and rubbing when people did not notice me.

In one such moment I climbed from the stool to the bench, and from the
bench to the table, which was pushed out of its place and on which lay
the Black Forest clock. I made for the clock, whose weights hung over
the edge of the table, looked through an open side-door into the very
dusty brass works, tapped several times on the little cogs of the
winding-wheel, and at last even laid my finger on the wheel itself to
see if it would go; but it didn't. Eventually I gently pushed a small
stick of wood, and as I did so the works began to rattle frightfully.
Some of the wheels went slowly, others quicker, and the winding-wheel
flew round so fast that one could hardly see it at all. I was
indescribably frightened, and rolled from the table over bench and
stool down on to the wet, dirty floor; then my mother gripped me by my
little coat--and there, sure enough, was the birch-rod![5] The whirring
inside the clock would not leave off, and finally my mother laid hold
of me with both hands, carried me into the entrance, pushed me through
the door and out into the snow, and shut the door behind me. There I
stood like one undone; I could hear my mother--whom I must have
offended badly--still scolding within doors, and the laughing and
scrubbing of the maids, and through it all the whirring of the clock.

When I had stood there sobbing for a while and still nobody came to
call me back into the house, I set off for the path that was trodden in
the snow, and I went through the home meadow and across the open land
towards the forest. I did not know whither I would go, I only conceived
that a great wrong had been done me and that I could never go home
again.

But I had not reached the forest when I heard a shrill whistle behind
me. That was the whistle my grandmother made when she put two fingers
in her mouth, pointed her tongue, and blew. "Where are you going, you
stupid child?" she cried. "Take care; if you run about in the forest
like that, Moss-Maggie will catch you! Look out!"

At this word I instantly turned round, for I feared Moss-Maggie
unspeakably. But I did not go home yet. I hung about in the farmyard,
where my father and two of our men had just killed a pig. Watching them
I forgot what had happened to myself, and when my father set about
skinning it in the outhouse I stood by holding the ends of the skin,
which with his big knife he gradually detached from the carcase. When
later on the intestines had been taken out and my mother was pouring
water into the basin, she said to me, "Run away or you'll get
splashed."

From the way in which she spoke I could tell that my mother was once
more reconciled with me and all was right again; and when I went into
the dwelling-room to warm myself a bit, everything was back in its own
place. Floor and walls were still moist, but scrubbed clean, and the
Black Forest clock was once more hanging on the wall and ticking. And
it ticked much louder and clearer than before through the freshly
ordered room.

At last the washing and scrubbing and polishing came to an end, the
house grew peacefuller, almost silent, and the Sacred Vigil was upon
us. On Christmas Eve we used not to have our dinner in the living-room,
but in the kitchen, where we made the large pastry-board our table, and
sat round it and ate the simple fasting fare silently, but with
uplifted hearts.

The table in the dwelling-room was covered with a snow-white cloth, and
beside it stood my stool, upon which, when the twilight fell, my
grandmother knelt and prayed silently.

The maids went quietly about the house and got their holiday clothes
ready, and mother put pieces of meat in a big pot and poured water on
them and set it on the open fire. I stole softly about the room on
tiptoe and heard only the jolly crackling of the kitchen fire. I gazed
at my Sunday breeches and coat and the little black felt hat which were
ready hanging on a nail in the wall, and then I looked through the
window out at the oncoming dusk. If no rough weather set in I was to be
allowed to go with the head farm-servant, Sepp, to the midnight Mass.
And the weather was quiet, and moreover, according to my father, it was
not going to be very cold, because the mist lay upon the hills.

Just before the "censing," in which, following ancient custom, house
and farm were blessed with holy water and incense, my father and my
mother fell out a little. Maggie the Moss-gatherer had been there to
wish us all a blessed Christmastide, and my mother had presented her
with a piece of meat for the feast-day. My father was somewhat vexed at
this; in other ways, he was a good friend to the poor, and not seldom
gave them more than we could well spare; but in his opinion one ought
not to give Moss-Maggie any alms whatever. The Moss-gatherer was a
woman not belonging to our neighbourhood, who went wandering around in
the forests without permission, collecting moss and roots, making fires
and sleeping in the half-ruined huts of charcoal-burners. Besides that,
she went begging to the farmhouses, offering moss for sale, and if she
did but poor business there she wept and railed at her life. Children
at whom she looked were sore terrified, and many even became ill; and
she could make cows give red milk. Whoever showed her kindness, she
would follow for several minutes, saying, "May God reward you a
thousand and a thousandfold right up into heaven!" But to anyone who
mocked, or in any other way whatsoever offended her, she said, "I pray
you down into the nethermost hell!"

Moss-Maggie often came to us, and she loved to sit before
the house on the grass, or on the stile over the hedge, in
spite of the loud barking and chain-clanking of our house-dog,
who showed singular violence towards this woman. She would remain
there until my mother took her out a cup of milk or a bit of
bread. My mother was glad when Moss-Maggie thereupon gave her a
thousandfold-right-up-to-heaven-may-God-reward-you; but my father
considered the wish of this person worthless, whether as curse or
blessing.

Some years earlier, when they were building the school-house in the
village, this woman had come to the place with her husband and helped
at the work, until one day the man was killed at stone-blasting. Since
then she had worked no more, nor did she go away; but she just idled
about, nobody knowing what she did nor what she wanted. She could never
again be persuaded to do any work--she seemed to be crazed.

The magistrate had several times sent Moss-Maggie out of the district,
but she always returned. "She wouldn't always be coming back," said my
father, "if she got nothing by begging in the neighbourhood. As it is
she'll just stay about here, and when she's old and ill, we shall have
to nurse her as well: it's a cross that we ourselves have tied round
our necks."

My mother said nothing in reply to such words, but when Moss-Maggie
came she still gave the usual alms, and to-day in honour of the great
feast a little more.

Hence then arose the little dispute between my father and mother, which
however was at once silenced when two farm-hands bearing the incense
and holy water entered the house. After the censing my father placed a
lighted candle on the table; to-day pine-splinters might only be burned
in the kitchen. Supper was once again eaten in the living-room. During
supper the head farm-servant told us all manner of wonderful stories.

When we had finished my mother sang a shepherd's song. Rapturously as I
listened to these songs at other times, to-day I could think of nothing
but the churchgoing, and longed above everything to get at once into my
Sunday clothes. They assured me there would be time enough for that
later on; but at last my grandmother yielded to my urgent appeal and
dressed me. The cowman dressed himself very carefully in his festal
finery, because he was not going home after the midnight mass, but
would stay in the village till morning. About nine o'clock the other
farm-servants and the maids were also ready, and they kindled a torch
at the candle flame. I held on to Sepp, the head servant; and my
parents and grandmother, who stayed at home to take care of the house,
sprinkled me with holy water that I might neither fall nor freeze to
death. Then we started off.

It was very dark, and the torch, borne before us by the cowman, threw
its red light in a great disk on the snow, and the hedge, the
stone-heaps and the trees past which we went. This red illumination,
which was broken too by the great shadows of our bodies, seemed very
awful to me, and I clung fearfully to Sepp, until he remarked, "Look
here, leave me my coat; what should I do if you tore it off my back?"

For a time the path was very narrow, so that we had to go one behind
the other, and I was only thankful that I was not the last, for I
imagined that he for certain must be exposed to endless dangers from
ghosts.

There was a cutting wind and the glowing splinters of the torch flew
far afield, and even when they fell on the hard snow-crust they still
glowed for a while.

So far we had gone across open ground and down through thickets and
forest; now we came to a brook which I knew well--it flowed through the
meadow where we made hay in summer. Then the brook had been noisy
enough; to-day one could only hear it murmur and gurgle, for it was
frozen over. We passed along by a mill where I was badly scared because
some sparks flew on to the roof; but there was snow lying upon it and
the sparks were quenched. When we had gone some way along the valley,
we left the brook and the way led upwards through a dark wood where the
snow lay very shallow but had no such firm surface as out in the open.

At last we came to a wide road, where we could walk side by side, and
now and again we heard sleigh-bells. The torch had already burned right
down to the cowman's hand, and he kindled another that he had with him.
On the road were visible several other lights--great red torches that
came flaring towards us as if they were swimming in the black air,
behind which first one and then several more faces of the churchgoers
gradually emerged, who now joined company with us. And we saw lights on
other hills and heights, that were still so far off we could not be
sure whether they were still or moving.

So we went on. The snow crunched under our feet, and wherever the wind
had carried it away, there the black patch of bare ground was so hard
that our shoes rang upon it. The people talked and laughed a great
deal, but this seemed not a bit right to me in the holy night of
Christmas. I could only think all the while about the church and what
it must be like when there is music and High Mass in the dead of night.

When we had been going for a long time along the road and past isolated
trees and houses, then again over fields and through a wood, I suddenly
heard a faint ringing in the tree-tops. When I wanted to listen, I
couldn't hear it; but soon after I heard it again, and clearer than the
first time. It was the sound of the little bell in the church steeple.
The lights which we saw on the hills and in the valley became more and
more frequent, and we could now see that they were all hastening
churchwards.

The little calm stars of the lanterns floated towards us, and the road
was growing livelier all the time. The small bell was relieved by a
greater, and this one went on ringing until we had almost reached the
church. So it was true, what grandmother had said: at midnight the
bells begin to ring, and they ring until the very last dweller in the
farthest valleys has come to church.

The church stands on a hill covered with birches and firs, and round it
lies the little God's-acre encircled by a low wall. The few houses of
the village are down in the valley.

When the people came close to the church, they extinguished their
torches by sticking them head downwards in the snow. Only one was
fixed between two stones in the churchyard wall, and left burning.

And now from the steeple in slow, rhythmical swing, rang out the great
bell. A clear light shone through the high, narrow windows. I longed to
go into the church; but Sepp said there was still plenty of time, and
stayed where he was, laughing and talking with other young fellows and
filling himself a pipe.

At last all the bells pealed out together; the organ began to play
inside the church, and then we all went in. There it looked quite
different from what it did on Sundays. The candles burning on the altar
were clear, white, beaming stars, and the gilded tabernacle reflected
them most gloriously. The lamp of the sanctuary light was red. The
upper part of the church was so dark that one could not see the
beautiful painting of the nave. Mysterious shapes of men were seated in
the chairs, or standing beside them; the women were much wrapped up in
shawls and were coughing. Many had candles burning in front of them,
and they sang out of their books when the _Te Deum_ rang out from the
chancel.

Sepp led me between two rows of chairs towards a side altar, where
several people were standing. There he lifted me up on to a stool
before a glass case, which, lighted by two candles, was placed between
two branches of fir trees, and which I had never seen before when I
went to church with my parents. When Sepp had set me on the stool, he
said softly in my ear, "There, now you can have a look at the crib."
Then he left me standing, and I gazed in through the glass. Thereupon
came a friendly little woman and whispered, "Look here, child, if you
want to see that, somebody ought to explain it to you." And she told me
who the little figures were. I looked at them. Save for the Mother
Mary, who had a blue wrapped garment round her head which fell down to
her very feet, all the figures represented mere human beings: the men
were dressed just like our farm-servants or the elder peasants. Even
St. Joseph wore green stockings and short chamois-leather breeches.

When the _Te Deum_ was over, Sepp came back, lifted me from the stool,
and we sat down on a bench. Then the sacristan went round lighting all
the candles that were in the church, and every man, including Sepp,
pulled a little candle out of his pouch, lighted it, and fastened it on
to the desk in front of him. Now it was so bright in the church that
one could see the paintings on the roof clearly enough.

Up in the choir they were tuning fiddles and trumpets and drums, and,
just as the little bell on the door of the sacristy rang, and the
priest in his glittering vestments, accompanied by acolytes and tall
lantern-bearers, passed over the crimson carpet to the altar, the organ
burst forth in all its strength, joined by a blast of trumpets and roll
of drums.

The incense smoke was rising, and shrouding the shining high altar in a
veil. Thus the High Mass began, and thus it shone and sounded and rang
in the middle of the night. Throughout the offertory all the
instruments were silent, only two clear voices sang a lovely
shepherd-song; and during the Benedictus a clarionet and two horns slow
and softly crooned the cradle-song. During the Gospel and the Elevation
we heard the cuckoo and nightingale in the choir, just as in the midst
of the sunny spring-time.

Deep down in my soul I understood it, the wonder and splendour of
Christmas. But I did not exclaim with delight; I remained grave and
silent, I felt the solemn glory of it all. But while the music was
playing I could not help thinking about father and mother and
grandmother at home. They are kneeling by the table now in the light of
the single candle, and praying; or they are even asleep, and the room
is all dark--only the clock ticking--while a deep peace lies upon the
forest-clad mountains, and the Eve of Christmas is spread abroad over
all the earth.

The little candles in the seats were burning themselves out, one after
another, as the service neared its close at last; and the sacristan
went round again and extinguished the lights on the walls and altars
and before the pictures with the little tin cap. Those on the high
altar were still burning when a joyous march music sounded from the
choir and the folk went crowding out of the incense-laden church.

When we came outside, in spite of the thick mist which had descended
from the hills, it was no longer quite so dark as before midnight. The
moon must have risen; no more torches were lighted. It struck one
o'clock, but the schoolmaster was already ringing the prayer bell for
Christmas morning.

I glanced once more at the church windows. All the festal shine was
quenched, I saw only the dull red glimmer of the sanctuary lamp.

And now, when I wanted to renew my hold on Sepp's coat, he was no
longer there: I found myself among strangers, who talked together for a
little, and then immediately set out for their several homes. My guide
must be already on ahead. I hurried after him, running quickly past
several people, hoping soon to overtake him. I ran as hard as my little
feet were able, going through a dark wood and across fields over which
such a keen wind was blowing, that warm as I otherwise was I scarcely
felt my nose and ears at all. I passed houses and clumps of trees; the
people who were still on the road a short time before had dropped off
little by little; I was all alone, and still I hadn't overtaken Sepp. I
thought he might just as well be still behind me, but I determined to
hurry straight home. Here and there I saw black spots on the road, the
charcoal that folk had shaken down from their torches on their way to
church. I made up my mind not to look at the bushes and little trees
which stood beside the way and loomed eerily out of the mist, for they
scared me. I was specially frightened whenever a path cut straight
across the road, because that was a cross-road, where on Christmas Eve
the Evil One loves to stand, and has chinking treasure with him with
which he entices the hapless children of men to himself. It is true the
cowman had said he did not believe it, but such things must be or
people would not talk so much about them. I was very agitated; I turned
my eyes in all directions, lest a ghost should be somewhere making for
me. Then I determined to think no more of such nonsense; but the harder
I made up my mind, the more I thought about it.

And now I had reached the path which should take me down through the
forest and into the valley. I turned aside and ran along under the
long-branched trees. Their tops rustled loudly, and now and again a
great lump of snow fell down beside me. Sometimes it was so dark that I
did not see the trunks until I ran up against them; and then I lost the
path. This I did not mind very much, for the snow was shallow and the
ground nice and level. But gradually it began to grow steep and
steeper, and there were a lot of brambles and heather under the snow.
The tree-stems were no longer spaced so regularly, but were scattered
about, many leaning all awry, many with torn-up roots resting against
others, and many, in a wild confusion of up-reaching branches, lying
prone upon the ground. I did not remember seeing all this on our
outward journey. Sometimes I could hardly get on at all, but had to
wriggle in and out through the bushes and branches. Often the
snow-crust gave way under me, and then the stiff heather reached right
up to my chest. I realised I had lost the right path, but told myself
that when I was once in the valley and beside the brook I should follow
that along and so was bound to come at last to the mill and our own
meadows.

Lumps of snow fell into the pockets of my coat, snow clung to my little
breeches and stockings, and the water ran down into my shoes. At first
all that clambering over fallen trees and creeping through undergrowth
had tired me, but now the weariness had vanished; I didn't heed the
snow, and I didn't heed the heather, nor the boughs that so often
scratched me roughly about the face, but I just hurried on. I was
constantly falling, but as quickly picking myself up again. Then, too,
all fear of ghosts was gone; I thought of nothing but the valley and
our house. I had no notion how long I had been astray in the
wilderness, but felt strong and nimble, terror spurring me on.

Suddenly I found myself standing on the brink of a precipice. Down in
the abyss a grey fog lay, with here and there a tree-top rising out of
it. The forest was sparser about me, it was bright overhead and the
half-moon stood in the sky. Before me, and away beyond that, there was
nothing but strange cone-shaped, forest-clad mountains.

Down there in the depths must be the valley and the mill. It seemed to
me as if I heard the murmur of the brook; but it was only the soughing
of the wind in the forest on the farther side.

I went to right and to left, searching for a footpath that might take
me down, and I found a place where I thought I should be able to lower
myself by the help of the loose rocks which lay about, and of the
juniper bushes. In this I succeeded for a little, but only just in time
I clutched hold of a root--I had nearly pitched over a perpendicular
cliff. After that I could go no farther, but sank in sheer exhaustion
to the ground. In the depths below lay the fog with the black
tree-tops. Save for the soughing of the wind in the forest, I heard
nothing. I did not know where I was. If only a deer would come I would
ask my way of it; quite probably it would be able to direct me, for
everyone knows that on Christmas Eve the beasts can talk like men.

I got up to climb back again, but only loosened the rocks and made no
progress. Hands and feet were aching. I stood still and called for
Sepp as loud as ever I could. Lingering and faint, my voice fell back
from the forests and cliffs. Then again I heard nothing but the
soughing of the wind.

The frost was cutting right into my limbs. "Sepp! Sepp!" I shouted once
more with all my might. Again nothing but the long-drawn-out echo. Then
a fearful anguish took possession of me. I called quickly, one after
another, my parents, my grandmother, all the farm-hands and maids of
our household by name. It was all in vain.

I began to cry miserably.

There I stood trembling, my body throwing a long shadow aslant down the
naked rock. I went to and fro along the ledge to warm myself a little,
and I prayed aloud to the holy Christchild to save me.

The moon stood high in the dark heavens.

I could no longer cry or pray, I could scarcely move any more. I
crouched down shivering on a stone and said to myself, "I shall go to
sleep now; it's all only a dream, and when I wake up I shall either be
at home or in heaven."

Then on a sudden I heard a rustling in the juniper bushes above me, and
soon after I felt that something was touching me and lifting me up. I
wanted to scream, but I couldn't--my voice was frozen within me. Fear
and anguish kept my eyes fast shut. Hands and feet, too, were as if
lamed, I could not move them. Then I felt warm, and it seemed to me as
if all the mountain rocked with me.

When I came to myself and awoke it was still night; but I was standing
at the door of my home and the house-dog was barking furiously.
Somebody had let me slip down on the hard-trodden snow, and had then
knocked loudly on the door and hurried away. I had recognised this
somebody; it was the Moss-wife.

The door opened, and grandmother threw herself upon me with the words,
"Jesus Christ, here he is!"

She carried me into the warm living-room, but from thence quickly back
again into the entrance. There she set me on the bread-trough, and
hastened outside and blew her most piercing whistle.

She was quite alone. When Sepp had come back from church and not found
me at home, and when, too, the others came and I was with none of them,
they had all gone down into the forest and through the valley and up
the other side to the high road, and in all directions. Even my mother
had gone with them, and everywhere, all the time, had called out my
name.

So soon as my grandmother believed it could no longer harm me, she
carried me back into the warm room, and when she drew off my shoes and
stockings they were quite frozen together and almost frozen to my feet.
Thereupon she again hurried out of doors, whistled again, brought some
snow in a pail, and set me barefoot down in it. Standing thus I felt
such a violent pain in my toes that I groaned; but grandmother said,
"That's all right; if it hurts, your feet aren't frozen."

Soon after that the red morning light shone in through the window, and
one by one all the farm-hands came home. At length my father, and quite
last of all--when the red disk of the sun was rising over the
Wechselalpe, and after grandmother had whistled countless times--came
my mother. She came to my little bed, where they had tucked me up, my
father sitting beside me. She was quite hoarse.

She said I ought to go to sleep now, and she covered the window with a
cloth so that the sun should not shine in my face. But my father seemed
to think I ought not to go to sleep yet: he wanted to know how I had
got away from the servant without his noticing it, and where I had been
wandering. I at once related how I had lost the path, and how I got
into the wilderness; and when I had told them about the moon and the
black forests, and about the soughing of the wind and the rocky
precipice, my father said under his breath to my mother, "Wife, let us
give God praise and thanks that he is here--he has been on the Troll's
rock!"

At these words my mother gave me a kiss on the cheek, a thing she did
but seldom, and then she put her apron before her face and went away.

"Well, you young scaramouch, and how did you get home after all?" asked
my father. I said I didn't know; that after a prolonged sleeping and
rocking, I found myself at our door, and that Moss-Maggie had stood
beside me. My father asked me yet again about this circumstance, but I
told him I hadn't got anything else to say about it.

My father then said he must be off to High Mass in the church, because
to-day was Christmas Day; and he bade me go to sleep.

I must have slept many hours after that, for when I awoke it was
twilight outside, and in the dwelling-room it was nearly dark. My
grandmother sat nodding beside my bed, and from the kitchen I heard the
crackling of the fire on the hearth.

Later, when the servants were all sitting at the evening meal,
Moss-Maggie was with them at table. During the morning service she had
been out in the churchyard, cowering on her husband's grave; and after
High Mass my father went and found her there and brought her with him
to our house.

They could get nothing out of her about the event of the night, save
that she had been searching for the Christchild in the forest. Then she
came over to my bed and looked at me, and I was scared at her eyes.

In the back part of our house was a room in which there were only old,
useless things and a lot of cobwebs. This room my father gave
Moss-Maggie for a dwelling, and put a stove and a bed and a table in it
for her.

And she stayed with us. She would still very often go rambling about in
the forest, and bring home moss, and then return and sit for hours upon
her husband's grave; from which she could never more tear herself away
to return to her own district--where, indeed, she would have been just
as lonely and homeless as everywhere else. Of her circumstances we
could learn nothing more definite: we could only conjecture that the
woman had once been happy and certainly in her right mind; and that
grief for the loss of her mate had robbed her of reason.

We all loved her, for she lived peacefully and contentedly with all and
caused nobody the least trouble. The house-dog alone, it seemed, would
never trust her, he barked and tore furiously at the chain whenever she
came across the home meadow. But the creature was meaning something
quite different than we thought, all the time; for once when the chain
broke he rushed to the woman, leapt whining into her bosom and licked
her cheeks.

At last in the late autumn, when Moss-Maggie was almost always in the
graveyard, there came a time when, instead of barking cheerily, the dog
howled by the hour together, so that my grandmother, herself very worn
and weary by then, said, "You mark my words; there'll soon be somebody
dying in our neighbourhood now, when the dog howls like that! God
comfort the poor soul!"

And a little while after that Moss-Maggie fell ill, and when winter
came she died.

       *       *       *       *       *

In her last moments she held both my father and mother by the hand and
uttered the words, "May God requite you a thousand and a thousandfold,
right up into heaven itself!"

FOOTNOTES:

[3] A morning service of the Catholic Church held during Advent.

[4]

    In God's name let us arise
    Towards God to go,
    Towards God to take our way,
    To the Heavenly Father to pray,
    That He lend to us
    Dear little angels three:

    The first to guide us,
    The second to feed us,
    The third to shelter and protect us
    That nothing mischance us in body or soul.


[5] The birchen Lizzie--_Die birkene Liesel_.




IV

A Last Will and Testament


When of a Saturday evening my father sat at his shaving I had to creep
under the table because it was dangerous above.

When my father sat shaving himself, and when he had lathered his cheek
and lips to such a snowy whiteness that he looked like the herd-boy
after he has been lapping cream behind the milkmaid's back; when,
further, he sharpened his gleaming razor on his brown-leather braces
and then passed it slowly over his cheek, he would straightway begin to
twist mouth, cheeks, and nose--indeed, his whole countenance--in such a
fashion as made his dear kind face quite unrecognisable. He drew both
lips deep into his mouth, till he was like nothing so much as old
neighbour Veit who had lost all his teeth; or he stretched his mouth
crosswise, from left to right, like Köhler-Sani scolding his hens; and
he screwed one eye up tight and blew out a cheek, for all the world
like poor Tinili the tailor, after his virago wife had been caressing
him. All the funniest faces in the whole neighbourhood came to my mind
in turn when my father sat at his shaving. And that set me off.

At this point my father, still friendly, would say, "Do be quiet,
laddie." But scarcely had he spoken when again there came such a
wonderful face that I simply couldn't help laughing outright. He peered
into the little looking-glass, and I fully expected to see his
distorted features relax into a smile. Then he suddenly called out,
"If you're not quiet, boy, I'll break the shaving-brush over your
pate!"

It was now high time to creep under the table, where my smothered
giggles kept me shaking like a wet poodle. After that he could shave
peacefully and without danger of breaking out into untimely mirth over
his own or my grimaces.

And so it came to pass one winter evening that my father was sitting
before the soap-bowl and I under the table when I heard someone in the
entrance stamping the snow from his boots. A moment later the door
opened and in came a big man whose thick red beard had icicles hanging
from it just like our shingle roof outside. He at once sat down on a
bench, drew a big tobacco-pipe from under his homespun cloak, gripped
it between his front teeth, and, while striking a light, remarked,
"Having a shave, Farmer?"

"Yes, I'm having a bit of a shave," answered my father, and went on
scraping with the razor, and cut a really God-forsaken grimace.

"That's all right," said the stranger.

And later, when he was quite hidden in tobacco smoke and the icicles
were dripping from his beard, he uttered himself thus:

"I don't know if so be you know me or not, Farmer. Five year agone I
passed your place and took a drink of water at your spring. I come from
Stanz; I'm Frau Drachenbinder's farm-hand, and I've come about the
matter of that big lad of yours."

Under the table, I went hot to the tips of my toes at these words. My
father had but one big lad at the time, and that was myself. I drew
back into the darkest corner.

"Come about my boy?" returned my father. "You can have him if you want
him--we can easily spare him; he's just too bad for anything!"

(Peasant folk are very fond of talking like that for the sake of
teasing and overaweing their forward children.)

"Come, come, Farmer! Not so bad as all that! Frau Drachenbinder wants
to get something written down--a will or some such matter--and she
don't know anybody, far and wide, that's a good writing scholar. But
now she's heard tell that the farmer at Vorderalpel has got an uncommon
kind of boy that can do such things as that with his little finger
alone! And so she's sent me off here, and I was to beg of you, Farmer,
if you'd be so kind as to lend her the loan of the boy over there for a
day. She'll soon pack him off back again, and give him something for
his trouble as well."

When I heard him say that I rattled my shoe-tips against the table
legs: that wouldn't come at all amiss, I thought.

"Go along with you!" said my father when he had scratched one cheek
quite smooth. "However is my small boy to go to Stanz in the dead of
winter? It must be at least a four hours' walk!"

"Just so," answered the big man, "and that's why I'm here. He's only
got to climb up on my back and open his legs and shove 'em along past
my ribs, both sides of me, towards the front, where I'll lay hold of
them; and then he must hug me round the neck with his hands, like as if
he was my sweetheart, so that he don't go falling off backwards."

"I see," replied my father; "you needn't make such a talk about a
pig-a-back ride!"

"Well, after that I'll manage all right, and when Sunday comes I'll
bring him back home again."

"I'm not afraid of your not bringing him back safe and sound," said my
father; "and if Frau Drachenbinder really wants to have something
written down, and seeing that you're her man, and if the lad will go
with you--there's no objection so far as I'm concerned."

He uttered these words with a smooth, ordinary countenance.

A little later I was rigged out in my Sunday clothes. Elated with my
so suddenly acquired importance I strutted up and down the room.

"You wandering Jew, you!" exclaimed my father. "Haven't you got
anything to sit upon?"

But there was no more peace for me. Better than anything I should have
liked to settle myself there and then on the big man's broad back, and
ride straight away. But just then my mother came in bringing a steaming
savoury dish, saying, "Eat that, you two, before you start off!"

Not in vain did she say it. I had never yet seen our biggest wooden
spoon piled up so high as then when the strange big man plied it
between the meat-platter and his bearded mouth. But I walked up and
down all the while and thought about how I was going to become Frau
Drachenbinder's scrivener.

Presently, when matters had gone so far that my mother could turn the
dish upside-down on the hearth without a crumb falling out, I hopped up
on to the man's back, held on hard by his beard, and rode away in the
name of God.

The sun was already setting; the valleys were full of blue shadow; the
far snow-heights of the Alps were a dull rose-colour.

So long as my nag was trotting uphill over the bare pastures the snow
bore his weight well, but when he came in among the young larch and
pine-woods the surface became treacherous and broke under him. He was
prepared for that, however. When he came up to an old hollow larch with
wild arms stretching out into the air, he pulled up, thrust his right
hand into the dark cavity, and fished out a pair of snow-shoes of woven
willow which he bound under his shoe-soles. Upon these wide things he
began the pilgrimage anew. Progress was slow, for in order to manage
the shoes he must keep them far apart; but with such duck's feet there
was no more breaking through.

Suddenly--it was already dark and the stars shining clear--my mount
began to undo my shoes, pulled them clean off my feet and put them away
in his turned-up apron. Then he said, "Now, laddie, stick your little
hoofs in my breeches pocket, so that your toes don't freeze off." He
took my hands in his own and breathed warm breath upon them--and that
was instead of gloves.

The cold bit my cheeks, the snow creaked under the snow-shoes; I rode
on lonely through the forest and over the heights. I rode all along the
ridge of the Hochbürstling, where even in summer I had never yet been.
Now and again, when progress was too deliberate, I pressed my knees
into the yielding flesh, and my horse took it all in good part, going
on as well as ever he could--there was no doubt about his knowing the
way! I rode past a post whereon, summer and winter, that holy patron of
cattle, St. Erhardi, stood. I knew St. Erhardi at home, he and I
between us had charge of my father's herd. He was always much
carefuller than I: if a cow came to grief, I the herdboy was blamed; if
the others throve, St. Erhardi got the credit for it.--It did my heart
good he should see that I had become a horseman while he stood there
nailed to his post for ever and ever.

At last our path took a turn and I began riding downwards over stumps
and stones, making towards a little light that glimmered in the valley
below. And just when all the trees and places had passed me by and I
had nothing but the dark mass with the one little pane of shining light
before me, my good Christopher came to a halt and said, "Now look here,
my dear boy--seeing as how I'm a stranger to you and you've come with
me like this without taking thought what you were doing--how d'you know
that I mayn't have got a life-long grudge against your father and am
just now going to carry you into a robbers' den?"

I listened a moment. Then, as he added nothing to these words, I
answered in the same tone:

"Considering my father trusted me to Frau Drachenbinder's man and that
I've come with him like this, it's not likely Drachenbinder's man has
got a grudge against us, and he won't carry me into a robbers' den."

At these words of mine the man snorted into his beard, and soon after
he lowered me on to the stump of a tree, saying, "And now here we are
at Frau Drachenbinder's house."

He opened a door in the dark mass and went in.

The small living-room had a stove with glowing embers on it, a burning
pine-splinter,[6] and a straw bed with a child asleep on it. Near it
stood a woman, very old and bent and with a face as pallid and creased
as the coarse nightgown she was wearing. As we entered, this person
uttered a strange cry, a sort of crowing, began to laugh violently, and
then hid herself behind the stove.

"That's Frau Drachenbinder," remarked my guide. "She'll soon come and
speak to you, and meantime you sit down there on the stool near the bed
and put on your shoes again."

I did what he bade me, and he seated himself on a block of wood near
by.

When the woman became composed, she moved lightly about the stove and
soon brought us a steaming grey meal-soup in an earthenware pot, and
two bone spoons with it. My man ate solemnly and steadily, but I
couldn't quite fancy it. Then he got up and said softly to me, "Sleep
well, boy!" and went away. And when I found myself alone in the close
room with the sleeping child and the old woman I began to feel
downright creepy.

Frau Drachenbinder came up to me, laid her light, lean hand on my
cheek, and said, "I thank the dear Lord God that you've come!--It's
barely six months since my daughter died. That there"--she pointed to
the child--"is my young branch--such a dear mite--he's my heir. And
now I hear Death knocking at the door again. I'm very old. I've saved
all my life--I'm going to beg my coffin from kind folks' charity. My
husband died long ago and left this little house to me. My illnesses
have cost me the house--but they weren't worth it. Whatever I leave
behind me is for my grandchild's very own. As yet he's too young to
take it into his heart, and I can't give it into any man's hand, and so
I want to have it written down so that it's kept. I won't do it through
the schoolmaster in Stanz, and the doctor can't do it without the
stamp-duty. And then people told me about the son of the farmer at
Vorderalpel, and how he was such a scholar that he could write out
people's last wills without the stamp! That's why I've had you brought
all this long way. Do this favour for me to-morrow, and to-night go and
get a good rest."

She ushered me, by the light of the burning splinter, into the little
room adjoining. It was made only of boards. A bed of hay, with a
covering in the shape of the woman's thick, best Sunday dress, was
there, and in a corner stood a little brown church with two small
towers in which little bells were set a-tinkling whenever one trod the
shaky floor. Frau Drachenbinder stuck the burning pine-wood in the
window of one of the towers, made the sign of the cross on me with her
thumb, and then I was alone in the room. It was cold: I was shivering
with the bitter winter, and with a fear of my hostess too, but, before
ever I crept into my nest, curiosity impelled me to open the door of
the little church. Out sprang a mouse who had just made her supper off
the gold-paper altar and St. Joseph's cardboard hand. Saints and angels
were there within, and gay banners and wreaths--it was a lovely toy. I
thought to myself that this must be Frau Drachenbinder's parish church,
for the little body was far too feeble to walk to Stanz for mass. I
said my evening prayer before it, asking Our Lord to protect me during
that night; then I extinguished the splinter so that it should not burn
right down to the window-frame, and after that laid myself down on the
hay, in God's name.

It seemed to me as if I had been torn away from myself and were some
learned clerk in a far-away cold house, while the real boy of the
forest farm was sleeping at home in his own warm little nest. Just as I
was falling asleep I heard the short, sharp cries of joy again in the
living-room, and soon after that the loud laughter. Whatever was it
that delighted her so much, and at whom was she laughing? I was
terrified, and thought of running away. One of the boards could be
easily shifted, but then--the snow!

Only towards morning did I fall asleep, and I dreamed and dreamed about
a red mouse that had bitten off the right hand of all the saints in the
church. And my father was looking out of the window of the tower with
his lathered, distorted cheeks and holding a lighted pine-splinter in
his mouth: and I sobbed and giggled together, and was hot with fear.
When at last I awoke I thought I was in a cage with silver bars, for so
the white daylight looked through the vertical cracks in the woodwork.
And when I went outside the house door I was astonished to see how
narrow the ravine was, and how high and wintry the mountains.

Within doors the child was screaming, and then Frau Drachenbinder broke
out into her jubilant cries again.

At breakfast there was my horse again, but he hardly spoke at all,
giving all his attention to his food; and when that was finished he got
up, put on his huge hat, and went off to church at Stanz.

When the old woman had comforted the child, fed the fowls, and done
other household work, she pushed the wooden bolt of the house door,
went into the inner room, and began ringing the bells of the little
church. She lighted two candles that stood on the altar, and then she
made a prayer, and one more moving have I never heard. She knelt
before the church, held out her hands, and murmured: "By the most
sacred wound of Thy right hand, O my crucified Saviour, save my parents
if they be still in torment. Though they have lain for half a century
in the earth I can still hear my father in the dead of night crying out
for help.--By the most sacred wound of Thy left hand I commend to Thee
the soul of my daughter. She had hardly looked round upon the world and
she was just going to lay her little one in her husband's arms, when up
comes cruel Death and takes and buries her out of our sight!--By the
most sacred wound of Thy right foot, I pray Thee from my very heart for
my husband, and for my kindred and benefactors, and that Thou wilt not
forget this little lad from the forest farm.--By the most sacred wound
of Thy left foot, O crucified Saviour, in love and mercy remember also
all my enemies, who have smitten me with their hands and trodden me
with their feet. Blinded men crucified Thee to death, and yet Thou hast
forgiven them.--By the most holy wound of Thy sacred side, I invoke
Thee a thousand and a thousand times.--O crucified God, take up my
grandchild to Thy Divine Heart. His father is far away with the
soldiers, and perhaps I have not long to live. Be Thou a guardian to
the child, I beseech Thee."

That was how she prayed. The little red candles burned devoutly. At
that moment it seemed to me that if I were Our Lord I would come down
from Heaven and take the child in my arms, and say, "See for yourself,
Frau Drachenbinder, I am holding him close to My heart, and I will be
his guardian." I would let him grow white wings, so that he could fly
away to the Better Land.

But then, I wasn't Our Lord.

Presently Frau Drachenbinder said, "Now let's get to the writing." But
when we wanted to begin there was no ink and no pen and no paper. We
had forgotten every one of these things.

The old woman leant her head on her palm, murmuring, "What a
misfortune!"

I had heard somewhere the story of the doctor who in default of the
necessary things wrote his prescription on the door of the room with
chalk. His example was worth following now; but there was no chalk to
be found in the house. I didn't know what else to suggest, and was
unspeakably ashamed of being a scribe without a pen.

"My boy," said the woman suddenly, "maybe you learned to write with
charcoal too?"

Yes, yes--with the charcoal--just like that on the hearth there; that
would do!

"And this, in God's name, must be my writing-paper," she went on, and
lifted the lid of an old coffer standing near the stove. Inside the
coffer I could see cuttings of cloth, a piece of linen, and a rusty
spade. When she saw me looking at the spade, she looked sadly confused,
covered her old face with her brown apron, muttering, "It's a real
disgrace!"

I was stricken, for I took this to be a reproach for my having no
writing things about me.

"I expect you'll be making fun of me," she said. "But don't you go and
think badly of me--I can't do more than I do, I really couldn't do a
thing more--I'm a fairly worn-out old body!"

Then I thought I understood: the poor old woman felt herself disgraced
because she could no longer handle the spade, and it had therefore gone
rusty. I looked about on the hearth for a bit of soft charcoal. The
pine-tree was obliging, and lent me the pen wherewith to write out Frau
Drachenbinder's will, or whatever it might prove to be.

Just when the grey coffer was opened and I standing there ready to take
down her words, that they might deliver their message to her grandchild
in the years to come, the old woman beside me uttered a loud cry. She
turned away quickly, crowed again, and then broke into hoarse laughter.

In terror I broke the charcoal in my fingers and glanced askance at the
door.

When she had done laughing, she grew quiet, drew a deep breath, wiped
the sweat from her face, and turning again to me, said, "Write this--it
won't come to much altogether--still, you'd best begin up in the top
corner, there."

I placed my hand on the topmost corner of the lid. Then the woman spoke
as follows:

"One and one is God alone.--That, child of my child, is thy very own."

I wrote this on the wood.

    "Two and two," she went on, "Two and two is man and wife.
    Three and three the child of their life.
    Four and five to eight and nine--
    For griefs are countless, darling mine.
    Pray as if thou hadst no hand,
    Work as if thou knewest no God,
    Carry fuel, and think the while,
    God will cook the broth for me."

When I had written these things, Frau Drachenbinder let down the coffer
lid, bolted it carefully, and said, "You've done me a great
service--and there's a great stone lifted off my heart. That coffer
there is my legacy to my grandchild.--And now you must tell me what I
owe you for this."

I shook my head. I wouldn't ask for anything, not anything at all.

"What--learn to write so finely and then come all this long way and
suffer cold the long night through and then in the end take nothing for
it--that would be fine indeed!" she cried. "Why, my boy, I couldn't
allow it!"

I glanced through the open door into the next room where the little
church stood. It certainly would be heavenly company for my little bed
at home. She guessed at once. "You're thinking of my little
house-altar!" she said. "Then, in God's name, you shall have it. I
can't shut it up in the chest--my dear little church--and the people
would only steal it from me when I'm gone. With you it will be
respected, I know, and you'll think of old Frau Drachenbinder in sacred
moments, when you're saying your prayers."

And she gave me the little church as it stood. And that was the
greatest bliss of all my childhood.

I dearly wanted to take it on my shoulders at once and carry it away
over the hills to my home. But she said, "You dear little goose, that's
impossible. When the man's back, he'll contrive something for you."

And sure enough, when the man was back again and had eaten the midday
meal with us, he knew what to do. He bound the little church on to my
back with a string, then stooped down in front of the wood block, and
said, "Now, boy, mount again!" So for the second time I got up on his
back, thrust my feet in his breeches pockets, and clung with my hands
round his neck. The old woman held the waking child so that it might
put out its little hand to me, uttered more thanks, and then dived
behind the stove and crowed as before.

I rode away from the place, and with every movement the saints in the
church kept tapping behind my back and the bells in the towers kept
tinkling.

When the man had climbed with me as far as the heights of the
Bürstling, and there again bound the snow-shoes fast to his feet, I
asked him why Frau Drachenbinder was continually screaming for joy and
laughing.

"That's not screaming nor yet laughing neither," said my horse; "Frau
Drachenbinder has a lot of suffering to bear. For some years she used
to have a sort of catch in the breath--such as you may get through a
chill or the like: she didn't take any notice of it, let it just go its
own way, and so, little by little, the barber says, that cramp-crowing
and cramp-laughing came on. Her inside just twists itself up together,
and when she gets excited the fits come on strong. She can hardly touch
any food, and she's face to face with death all the time."

I said nothing. I looked up at the snow-white heights, at the twilight
forests, and saw we were gradually climbing down towards my home in the
clear Sunday afternoon. I was thinking about the little church I had
got as a legacy--how I would set it up in the living-room and hold a
service in it, and how my father and mother would now no longer have to
trudge all that long way to the parish church.

My good horse trotted patiently on, and behind me all the way the
little bells in the towers kept on chiming. What were they saying?...

Old Frau Drachenbinder died soon after that.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] With these small torches the peasants light their rooms.




V

How Little Maxel's House was Burned Down


How well I remember that night!

A dull report, as if the trap-door of the hay-loft had slammed to, woke
me up. And then someone rapped on the window and called into the
living-room: whoever wanted to see little Maxel's house burning must
get up and go and look.

My father sprang out of bed; I began to cry, and immediately thought
about rescuing my rabbit. When other people lost their heads in moments
of emergency it was always blind Julia, our old servant, who calmed us
down again. So now, too, she remarked it wasn't our house that was
burning, but little Maxel's, and that was half an hour away; that it
was not even certain that little Maxel's house was burning; that a wag,
passing by, had thrown the lie in through the window; and that quite
possibly no one _had_ done so at all, but it had only happened to us in
a dream.

Meanwhile she pulled on my breeches and shoes, and we hurried out of
the house to look.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried my father. "It's all gone already!"

Over the Waldrücken, which stretches like a wide-bowed saddle across
our part of the country, dividing it into Highlands and Lowlands, the
flame streamed steady and clear toward us. No hissing nor crackling
was to be heard; the beautiful new house, only finished a few weeks
before, was burning like oil. The air was damp, the stars were hidden;
now and again there was a growl of thunder, but the storm was drawing
gently away in the direction of Berkfeld and Weitz.

The lightning--so the man who had wakened us now said--had been darting
hither and thither, had described a great cross in the sky, and then
descended. The fiery point at its lower end had never died out, but had
grown rapidly larger, and then he--the man--had thought to himself,
"There now, it's gone and struck little Maxel's!"

"We must go and see if we can't do something to help," said my father.

"Help, would you?" rejoined the other. "Where the thunderbolt falls,
_I_ shan't meddle! Man mustn't work against his Maker, and if He casts
fire upon a house He certainly intends that house to burn. Besides, you
know, anything struck by lightning can't be quenched!"

"Nor your idiocy neither!" cried my father; and then, angry as I had
seldom seen him, he shouted in his face, "You've been struck silly!"

He left him standing there, and took me by the hand and quickly away.
We descended into the Engtal and went along by the Fresenbach, where we
could see the fire no longer, only the fiery clouds. My father carried
a two-handled pail, and I advised him to fill it at the Fresen. My
father didn't listen, but said several times to himself, "Maxel--to
think of that happening to Maxel!"

I knew little Maxel quite well. He was an active, cheery little chap,
somewhere in the forties; his face was full of pock-marks, and his
hands were brown and rough as the bark of the forest trees. So long as
I could remember he had been a woodcutter in Waldbach.

"If it was anyone else's house that was burning down," said my father,
"well--it would just be his house burning down!"

"Isn't it the same with little Maxel?" I asked.

"With him it's his all that's being burnt: everything that he had
yesterday, and has to-day, and might have had to-morrow."

"D'you mean the lightning has struck Maxel himself?"

"It were better so, boy! I don't grudge him his life--God knows I don't
grudge it him--but if he might have confessed first, and not been in
any mortal sin, I could say downright it were best for him if the
lightning had struck him too."

"Then he would be already up there in Heaven," I remarked.

"Here, don't go paddling about in that wet grass. Keep close behind me
and catch on by my coat-tail. About Maxel--I'll tell you something
about him."

The path sloped gently upwards. My father said, "It must be about
thirty years since Maxel came. Poor people's child. At first he went
out as herdboy among the peasants; later, when he'd grown up a bit, he
went in for the woodcutting--a thorough workman, and always industrious
and thrifty. When he became foreman, he asked the landlord to allow him
to clear the Sour Meadow on the Gfarerhöhe and keep it for life,
because he was so mighty set upon having his own little bit of land.
This was willingly granted, and so, every day, when his woodcutting
hours were over, Maxel was up there on the Sour Meadow, cutting away
the undergrowth and trenching it, and grubbing up stones and burning
the roots of the weeds; and in two years the whole place was drained;
and there's good grass growing there, and he's even sown a little patch
of rye. When he'd got on so far that he had tried it with cabbage and
seen how much the hares relished it, he set about getting some timber.
They couldn't give him that, like the Sour Meadow--he must purchase it
with labour. So he let his wages stand, and he felled the trees and
hewed them square and cut them up for building timber, and all that in
the free time when the other workmen were long since lying on their
stomachs smoking their pipes! And the next thing was he began to get
some of the other woodcutters to help him at such work as a man
couldn't do single-handed, and this way he built his house on the Sour
Meadow. Five years he laboured at it, but there--you've seen for
yourself how it stood there with the golden-red walls, with the clear
windows, and the decoration all round the roof--something grand to see!
There's quite a fine little property been made of the Sour Meadow; and
how long ago was it that our pastor in the catechism class held little
Maxel up as an example of energy and industry? Next month he was
meaning to get married: and to think he's risen from being a poor
pauper lad to the brave householder and house-father!--Take off your
cap to him, boy--And now suddenly there's an end of everything; all the
industry and toil of years has gone for nothing; Maxel stands again
to-day on the same spot as he did at the very beginning."

At that time I derived all my piety from the Bible, and so I met my
father's story with: "Our Heavenly Father has punished Maxel because he
was set upon earthly things like the heathen, and has probably taken
too little thought for Eternity. Look at the birds of the air, they sow
not, neither do they reap----"

"Hold your tongue!" interrupted my father angrily. "The man who said
that was King Solomon--it's easy enough for _him_ to say it: only let
some of our sort try it! I wouldn't be sure of myself; if it happened
to me like little Maxel, I should just lose all heart--I'd just turn
idle and good for nothing. Why, if a man puts a match to a thatched
roof he's put in prison, and quite right too--he doesn't deserve
anything better. But when Someone throws fire down out of Heaven on a
brand-new house that a poor, plucky working-man has built----"

He stopped himself. We were now upon the height, and in front of us
blazed the homestead of little Maxel. The house was just falling in.
Several people were there with axes and pails, but there was nothing to
be done but just stand and look on as the last charred bits tumbled
into ruins. The fire wasn't raging, it didn't roar nor crackle, it
didn't flicker wildly in the air: the whole house was just one flame
rising, hot and steady, towards the Heaven whence it had come.

A little way off from the conflagration lay the stone-heap where Maxel
had carried the stones from the Sour Meadow. Thereon he was now
sitting, the little brown, pock-marked man, and looking at the furnace,
the heat of which was streaming towards him. He was half clad, had
thrown his black Sunday coat, the only thing he had rescued, over him.
The neighbours were holding a little aloof. My father greatly desired
to utter a word of sympathy and comfort, but somehow he too didn't
venture to go near him. Maxel went on sitting there in a way that made
us think every moment, now, _now_ he would leap up and utter some
fearful curse against Heaven, and then throw himself into the flames!

And at last, when the fire was only licking the ground and the bare
wall of the hearth was staring out of the ashes, Maxel got up. He
walked over to the glowing mass, picked up an ember, and lighted his
pipe with it.

I was still very small at that time and didn't think much. But this I
remember: when I saw little Maxel in that dawn-twilight standing before
the burnt ruin of his home, sucking the blue smoke from his pipe and
blowing it away from him, my heart grew suddenly hot within me. As if I
felt how mighty man is, how much greater than his fate, and how there
was no finer scorning of it than calmly blowing tobacco-smoke in its
face.

And when the pipe was well alight, he sat down again on the stone-heap
and gazed away into the distance. You would like to know what he was
thinking? So should I.

Later, little Maxel went rummaging among the ashes of his house, and
drew from them his great wood-axe, and made it sharp again on a
grindstone of the neighbourhood and set to work again. Since then many
years have passed, and to-day on the Sour Meadow there lie beautiful
fields, and on the place of the burnt-out farm a new one has arisen. It
is lively with young folk, and the house-father, little Maxel, teaches
his sons to work--but also allows them to smoke. Not too much, but just
a pipe in due season.




VI

Three Hundred and Sixty-four Nights and a Night


The white kid was gone.

But my father still had four big nanny-goats in the stable, just as he
had four children, who always stood in close relationship to the goats.
Each of the goats had her own little manger, out of which she ate hay
or clover while we milked her. Not one of them would give milk at an
empty manger. The goats were called Zitzerl, Zutzerl, Zeitzerl and
Heitzerl, and were the property of us children--a welcome present which
father had made us. Zitzerl and Zutzerl belonged to my two little
sisters; Zeitzerl to my eight-year-old brother Jakoberle; Heitzerl was
mine!

Each of us faithfully tended and looked after his allotted charge; but
we put all the milk together in a pot, mother boiled it, father gave us
the slices of bread that went with it--and the Lord God blessed the
spoonful of soup for us.

And, when we had ladled up our suppers with our broad wooden spoons,
which had been carved by our uncle and which, because of their size,
would hardly go into our mouths in the first place or out of them in
the second, we would each of us take our horsehair pillow and lie down,
one and all, in the goats' mangers. These were our beds for a time; and
the beloved animals used to fan our cheeks with their soft beards and
lick our little noses with their tongues.

But, when we lay thus in our cribs, we did not always go to sleep at
the very first lick. My head was crammed with a multitude of wonderful
stories and fairy-tales of our grandfathers. I would tell these stories
in those evening-hours; and my brothers and sisters revelled in them
and even the goats were fond of listening to them too. Only now and
again, when the thing struck them as too incredible, they would give a
little bleat to themselves or bang at the mangers impatiently with
their horns. Once, when I was telling of the corn-wraith who blackens
the oats when she cries at midnight in the fields, and eats nothing but
the grey beards of old charcoal burners, my Heitzerl began to bleat so
violently that the other three joined in until at last my brother and
sisters burst into wild peals of laughter and I was shamefully obliged
to hold my tongue like a convicted boaster.

For a long time after that, I told my sleeping-companions no more
stories and I resolved never to speak another word to Heitzerl so long
as I lived.

Then came Ascension Day, on which day mother made us the usual
egg-cake, my favourite dish in all the world. That year, however, the
hawks had taken our best laying-hens; the egg-basket would not fill;
and, when the cake appeared on Ascension Day, it was only a tiny little
loaf. I gave a woe-begone look at the wooden dish.

My little five-year-old sister peeped up at me; and, as though noticing
my longing, she suddenly cried:

"I say, Peterle, look here! If you will tell us a short story every
night for a whole year long, I will give you my share of the cake."

Strange to say, the others all chimed in and echoed this noble
renunciation on the little one's part; they clapped their hands; and--I
entered into the bargain. So, suddenly, had I attained the object of my
desire.

I tucked my cake under my jacket and went with it to the dairy, where
no one could see or disturb me. I bolted the door, sat down on an
overturned tub and allowed my ten fingers and the well-ordered host of
my teeth to work their will on the poor cake.

But now came this anxiety. There could not be a doubt that my brother
and sisters would insist strictly on their due. When I went
out a-herding, I begged a story of every pitch-maker, every
charcoal-burner, every keeper and every knowing little woman that I met
in the wood and on the fields. They were productive sources, and I was
able to meet my liabilities every evening. Meanwhile, of course, it was
a daily misery until I hit upon something fresh; and, after a time, it
happened not seldom that little sister would interrupt me and call out
from her manger:

"Look here, we know that one! You have told it us before!"

I could see that I must think of new ways and I therefore struggled to
improve my reading, so as to draw treasures from the many story-books
which lay idling on the sooty shelves in our little house in the
forest. Now I had new sources: the story of the Countess-palatine
(Jakoberle always said, "The Countess-Gelatine") Genovefa; the four
sons of Aymon; the Fair Melusina; Wendelin von Höllenstein: wonderful
things by the dozen. And my brother would often say from his manger:

"I don't mind going without my cake a bit! This is just _too_ lovely.
What do you say, Zeitzerl?"

Now the evenings grew too short; and I had to tell some of these
stories in serials and sequels, a proceeding to which little sister
refused point-blank to agree, for she stuck to it that a _whole_ story
every night was what we bargained for.

So the year went by. Little by little, I acquired a real skill in
telling stories and even told them in High German, as they stood
printed in the books! And it often happened that, during the telling,
my listeners buried themselves in their coverlets and began to groan
with fright at the stories of robbers and ghosts; but I was not allowed
to stop, for all that!

Ascension Day was very nearly there again, and with it, the completion
of my bargain. But--it was like my luck!--just before the last evening,
my thread gave out entirely. All my recollections, all the books which
I could get hold of, all the little men and women whom I met were
exhausted, drained, pumped dry beyond all hope. I implored my brother
and sisters:

"To-morrow is the last evening; make me a present of it!"

There was a general outcry:

"No, no, no presents! You got your Ascension cake!"

Even the goats bleated their approval.

The next day, I went about like a lost sheep. Then the thought suddenly
came to me: "Deceive them! _Invent_ something!"

But my conscience at once stepped in and cried aloud:

"What you tell must be real! You really had the cake!"

Nevertheless, an event occurred in the course of that day which made me
hope that, in the heat of the excitement, it would release me from my
duty.

My brother Jakoberle lost his Zeitzerl. He went this way and that over
the heath, he went into the wood and, crying and calling, hunted for
the goat. But, at last, he brought her home, late in the evening. We
ate our porridge quietly and went to our cribs; and a story was
expected of me.

All was silent. The listeners waited eagerly. The goats clashed their
teeth together as they chewed the cud.

"Very well, they shall have their story," said I.

I reflected. I began:

"There was once a great, great wood. And everything in the wood was
dark. No little birds sang: only the screech-owl's cry was heard. But,
even though the other birds had sung, all the boughs and all the
leaves on the trees wept thousands and thousands of tears. In the
middle of this wood is a heath, silent as the graveyard; and he who
goes over it and does not turn back is never seen again. Once upon a
time, two knees went over this heath; and inside those knees was
blood."

"Jesus Mar...!" gasped the elder of my little sisters; and all three
crept under their coverlets.

"Yes, two knees with blood inside them," I continued, "and they passed
over the heath towards the dark wood, like a lost soul. But, all at
once, the two bloody knees...."

"I say, I'll give you my blue trouser-belt if you stop!" whimpered my
brother in his fear and hid still deeper in the coverlet.

"The two bloody knees stopped," I continued, "and on the ground lay a
stone as white as a winding-sheet. Then two flickering lights appeared
between the trees; and thereupon four more knees, _all with
blood_--hovered to the same place...."

"I'll give you my new pair of shoes if you stop!" Jakoberle panted in
his trough and, for sheer terror, drew Zeitzerl to him by her beard.

"And so they all six together passed through the dark wood and out upon
the heath and over the oat-field to our house ... and here into the
stable...."

Now they all three cried out and whimpered; and there was no end to
their terror, and my little sister timidly promised me her share of
to-morrow's Ascension cake, which was expected this year too, if I
would only stop. But I went on:

"Well, ah, yes, I forgot to begin by saying that the first two
knees--with blood--belonged to our Jakoberle and the last four to his
Zeitzerl ... as they went about in the wood to-day."

Suddenly, they all burst out laughing.

"Why, everybody has two knees with blood in them!" cried little
sister; and the goats bleated their share of the jubilation.

I had played my part right out. For three hundred and sixty-four nights
long, I had shone as a wise and veracious story-teller; the
three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth had unmasked me as a deceitful humbug.
The promise of the second Ascension cake was withdrawn; little sister
declared that her offer had been made in self-defence.

And I had shattered the confidence of my public for good and all; and,
thereafter, whenever it wanted to express its doubts of anything I
related, it cried, with one voice:

"Ah, that's only one of your old knees again!"




VII

How the White Kid Died


There was yet another time when I just escaped the birch.

My father had a snow-white kid, my Cousin Jok had a snow-white head.
The kid loved chewing stalks and twigs; my cousin loved chewing a short
pipe. We--I and my younger brother and sisters--were ever so fond of
the kid and of Cousin Jok too. And so we lighted upon the idea of
bringing the kid and our cousin together.

One bright, sunny day in July, I took my brother and my two sisters out
into the cabbage-patch and there put this question to them:

"Which of you has a hat without a hole in it?"

They examined their hats and caps, but the sun shone through all of
them, making little flecks of light in the shadow on the ground. Only
Jakoberle's hat was without a flaw; so I took it in my hand and said:

"Cousin's called Jok and to-morrow is St. Jokopi's[7] Day. Now what
shall we give him for a present on his name-day? Why not the white
kid?"

"The white kid belongs to father!" cried little sister Plonele, shocked
at this arbitrary suggestion.

"That's just why I am sending the hat round," said I. "You, Jakoberle,
sold your rabbit to Sepp, the Knierutscher, yesterday; you, Plonele,
have had three groschen as a tip from your god-father; you, Mirzerle,
got a present from father two days ago. Look, I'll put in the five
kreuzer which I've saved up; and we must manage to buy the kid from
father between us. And then we'll give it to cousin to-morrow. Now here
goes for the collection!"

They looked into the hat for a moment and then began to feel in their
pockets. Then Plonele said, "Mother's got my money!" And Mirzerle
cried, in alarm, "I don't know wherever mine's got to!" And Jakoberle
stared at the ground and muttered, "There must be a hole in my pocket!"

And so my plan fell to pieces.

None the less, we petted and fondled the snow-white kid. It stood up
and put its fore-feet on our knees and looked at us roguishly with its
squinny eyes, as though it were mocking us for not being rich enough to
buy it between the lot of us. It tittered and bleated at us like
anything and showed us its snow-white teeth. It was hardly three months
old and already had a beard; while I and Jakoberle were seven years old
and more and had to make ourselves a beard of grey tree-moss when we
wanted one. And the kid ate even that off our faces!

In spite of that, each one of us was much fonder of the little
four-footed creature than of all the others put together! And so I cast
about for some other means of rejoicing my cousin with the gift of the
animal.

When father came home from the fields that afternoon, we all swarmed
about him and tugged at his clothes.

"Father," I asked, "is it true that 'The early morn has gold in its
mouth'?"

This being one of his own proverbs, he answered promptly:

"Indeed it _is_ true."

"Father!" the four of us immediately cried together. "How early must we
get up every day for you to give us the white kid?"

Father did not seem to jump at this business view of the matter. But,
when he heard of our proposal to give the kid to Cousin Jok, he
bargained that we should get up half an hour earlier every morning and
thereupon made the dear little beast over to us.

The kid was ours. We resolved with one accord to creep out of bed next
morning before cousin's time for getting up--and that was saying a
great deal--to tie a red ribbon round the kid's neck and to take it to
old Jok's bedside before he thrust his body into his long grey fur,
which he wore winter and summer alike.

This was our sacred intention.

But, next day, when mother called us and we opened our eyelids, the sun
shone so fiercely into our eyes that we had to shut them again until
she covered the window with her kerchief.

Now there was no excuse left. But cousin had gone out long before,
taking his fur with him. He had driven the sheep and goats to the
meadow in the valley where he always tended them and where he sat all
day smiling and chewing his pipe. And the little animals nibbled busily
at the dewy grasses and shrubs and skipped and gambolled merrily on the
sunny meadow.

The little kid was among them. And had nobody reminded Jok that this
was his name-day?

       *       *       *       *       *

At the time of which I speak, lucifer-matches had not yet been invented
and so the beloved fire was a precious thing. You could not carry it in
your pocket as easily as to-day, without burning your trousers. It had
to be knocked out of stones with hard blows; no sooner hatched, it must
be fed with tinder, and it was long ere it derived strength enough from
this to peck at coarser food and then become fledged. On every separate
occasion, fire had to be formally brought into the service of man.

It was a toilsome and ticklish piece of work; my own mother, who was
usually so gentle, could get quite cross over it.

The glowing embers, however carefully preserved overnight in the
hearth, were generally dead by morning. Whatever pains mother might
take to blow up the sparks in the ashes, it was all in vain: the fire
had died during the night. And then the striking with flint and steel
began, and we children were often quite hungry before mother produced
the fire that was to cook the morning-porridge.

So it was on the morning of cousin's name-day. We had heard the
bellows-blowing and fire-striking for some time out in the kitchen.
Then our mother suddenly exclaimed:

"It's no good at all! One would think the devil had spat on the hearth!
And the flint hasn't a spark of fire left in it, and the tinder's damp,
and here's everybody waiting for their porridge!"

Then she came into the room and said:

"Come, Peterle, quick, and run across as fast as you can to the
Knierutscher woman. Tell her that I beg her to send me a handful of
embers from her hearth. And take her that loaf of bread over there for
her kindness. Hurry up, Peterle, so that we can get our porridge
quickly."

I had my little white linen breeches on in no time and, as I was,
barefoot and bareheaded, I took the heavy round loaf under my arm and
ran off to the Knierutschers' house.

"You old sunshine!" I said, as I went. "You ought to be ashamed of
yourself, that you can't even warm a mouthful of porridge, and here
I've got to go running to the Knierutscher woman for fire--But just you
wait: things will soon be bright and jolly on our hearth--the flames
will leap over the sticks, the walls will light up red, the pots will
bubble, the smoke will rush out of the hearth and the chimney and hide
you from sight! And quite right too, for then we shall eat our
porridge and our stew in the shadow, and the pancake, too, that's to be
fried to-day for Cousin Jok, and you shall see nothing of all these
nice things!"

As I went down the hill after my lecture to the sun, I had a happy
thought. My loaf was as round as a ball and as hard as if it had been
turned out of larch-wood. In my part of the country, they let bread
grow stale, because it makes it last twice as long; even though it has
occasionally to be smashed up, at mealtimes, with a sledge-hammer.

Well, seeing that my loaf was so round that there was nothing rounder
on the face of the earth, I let it run loose down the slope, raced
nimbly after it and caught it up again.

That was a thoroughly jolly game; and I should have liked to call all
my brothers and sisters to see it and share in it. But, as I was
jumping up and down the slope in my delight, my loaf suddenly played me
a trick and darted like the wind between my legs. Hurrying and hopping
away it went, fleeter than a roe before the hounds--it bounded down the
hill, leapt far over the edge into the valley below and vanished from
my sight.

I stood there like a block, feeling as if I should drop with fright and
go rolling into the valley in my turn. I went to and fro and up and
down for a while; and, then as I could nowhere see the loaf, I slunk
with hanging head into the Knierutschers' house.

There was a fine big fire burning on the hearth.

"What have you come for, Peterle?" asked Frau Knierutscher, kindly.

"Our fire's gone out," I stammered, "we can't cook a thing and so my
mother sent me to ask for a handful of embers and she will return them
very soon."

"You little silly, you! Who ever heard of returning a few embers?"
cried she, as she took the tongs and raked some into an old pot. "Here,
tell your mother to make up a good fire and cook you a nice stew. But
take care, Peterle, don't you let the wind get at them, or it will blow
the sparks up to the roof. There, go now, in God's name!"

So gentle was she with me, who had so lightly played away her loaf! It
weighs upon my conscience to this day.

When, at last, I got back to the house with my pot of fire, I was
greatly surprised to see blue smoke rising out of the chimney.

"You're one to send to fetch death and not fire!" cried mother, as I
entered.

And she busied herself about the fire crackling in the hearth and did
not so much as look at me.

My coals were now hardly flickering and looked wretched beside that
fire. I put the pot down sadly in a corner of the hearth and slunk
away. I had been gone much too long; then, by good fortune, Cousin Jok
had come home from the meadow, and he had a burning-glass, which he
held over a piece of tinder in the sun until it caught. And so the sun
which I had slandered had stolen a march upon me and provided fire for
the porridge before I did. I was heartily ashamed of myself and, to
this day, am unable to look the benefactor straight in the face.

       *       *       *       *       *

I slunk into the paddock. There I saw Cousin Jok squatting in his long
grey, red-embroidered fur, with his white head. And, when I drew nigh,
I saw why he was squatting here like that. The snow-white kid lay in
front of him, with its head and its feet outstretched and Cousin Jok
was stripping off its hide.

At that I burst into loud weeping. Cousin Jok stood up, took me by the
hand, and said:

"There it lies and looks at you!"

And the kid really was staring into my face with its glassy eyes. And
yet it was dead.

"Peterle!" whispered my cousin, gravely. "Mother sent the Knierutscher
woman a loaf of bread."

"Yes," I sobbed, "and it ran away from me, right down over the edge."

"Since you own up, laddie," said Cousin Jok, "I will arrange things so
that nothing happens to you. I have told mother that a stone or
something came rolling down and killed the kid. (Somehow, I thought in
my own mind that Peterle was at the back of it!) That loaf of bread
came straight out of the air, down over the high edge, passed me and
hit the kid right on the head. The poor little thing staggered and fell
and was dead as a mouse at once. However, don't be afraid, we'll keep
to the stone idea. I'll make things all right with the Knierutscher
woman too; and now be quiet, laddie, and don't pull such dismal faces.
To-night we'll eat the poor beastie, and mother will cook us a
horseradish-soup to go with it."

In such wise died the little white kid. My brother and sisters told me
it had been killed by a naughty, cruel stone.

To please me, mother added my coals to the fire on the hearth, and
before this fire the kid was roasted. It was to have been a gift for
Cousin Jok; and now he was to have roast kid instead. But he invited
all of us to join him and gave us the best bits. I did not relish mine
at all.

The next morning, Jakoberle armed himself with a cudgel, followed
Cousin Jok with it into the lower meadow and wanted to see the stone
that killed the little kid.

"Child," said Cousin Jok, chewing hard at his pipe, "it rolled further
on and the water's running over it now: it's down in the glen."

The dear, good old man! The stone that killed the little kid was lying
on my heart.

FOOTNOTE:

[7] Jacob, Jacobus. The feast of St. James the Apostle is celebrated
on the 25th of July.--_Translator's Note._




VIII

Children of the World in the Forest


Far more intelligent must he be, the peasant of the isolated mountain
farm, far more versatile and capable than the villager, and infinitely
more so than the townsman--_must_, or he could not exist!

The townsman has an easy time of it: if he can write, or keep accounts;
if, for instance, he has the knack of making leather, or keeps a
grocer's shop; or even if he speculates and applies himself to cutting
off his coupons, he has all that he requires; and all that a townsman
requires everyone who is a townsman knows.

The things which, in the towns, are produced by the divided toil of
thousands of heads, hands, and wheels, in other words, the necessaries
of life, the peasant in the far-lying mountains must make for himself,
in his narrow circle, with his small, unaided means. He is a provider
of natural produce, manufacturer, middleman and consumer, all in one.
The bread which he eats comes from the corn which he flung into the
earth last year with his own hand; the bacon which he enjoys on its bed
of cabbage is cut from the pig fattened with the turnips which he has
planted in his own ground. The shoe which he wears is made of the
cow-hide which he himself has stripped from the animal's body and
himself has tanned; the wool that forms his coat he has shorn from his
own sheep, spun, woven and milled. The shirt on his back he saw last
summer shimmering in the sunny fields in the blue flax-blossom; and the
milking-pail into which his cow sends her milk streaming was, but a
year ago, hiding in a fir-trunk in his woods. And I could in like
manner string out a long list of matters in which the farmer must be
his own breeder, gardener, miller, baker, smith, saddler, carpenter,
weaver, wheelwright and so on. And a household in which one and all of
these trades are put in practice need not even be a very large one: it
is the ordinary farmhouse in the mountain valleys to which the world of
exchange and barter has not yet fully made its way.

Isn't it true, then, that such a peasant-farmer needs to have a head on
his shoulders? This head, again, is of home production, and a good
thing too; for the Jew pedlar, who is always prepared to bring any
requisite from town for cash, could hardly be expected to supply that.

But nowadays this, like most things, is changing; and, since gold and
silver have taken to rolling to and fro, in such a momentous fashion,
between the houses of town and country, the peasant no longer has the
same joy in his farm, where he must always be labouring for others.
Besides, he need not work out in the wilderness nowadays; he can do
much better, they tell him, on rented land or in the factories; he
sells or lets his property and goes after money. And there at last you
have the stupid peasant!

I only speak of these things because my father's house, concerning
which I have something to tell, was one of those farms in which we
ourselves produced nearly everything that we wanted. And yet, even at
that time, money played us a trick. My father was particularly clever
at tanning hides, at weaving, at grinding corn and at pressing
linseed-oil. In the last case, I assisted him to brave purpose, as a
boy of ten, by dipping a slice of white bread into the oil that ran
from the gutter of the press and then transferring the bright yellow
slice to my mouth.

One day, while we were thus engaged, Clements, the timber-merchant,
walked into the pressing-room. He had once been forest-ranger at Alpel;
but he had made such a huge amount of money in the timber-trade that he
lost all interest in our mountains and went down into the broad
Mürzthal, where he displayed a restless activity in acquiring more and
yet more money. He had grown quite lean at this unedifying occupation;
but otherwise he continued in fairly good fettle.

Well, when Clements saw the oil bubbling in the wooden pail, he asked,
was the cider sweet?

My father invited him to taste it; but, when Clements lifted the pail
bodily and took a draught from it, he fell back as though someone had
struck him in the face and lost no time in spitting out what he had
swallowed.

"It can't hurt you," said my father, to console him. "It is pure
linseed oil."

"Forest-farmer," said Clements, gradually recovering himself, "here I
am, bringing all sorts of good things to your house; and this is the
way you treat me!"

"You're the first I ever met that did not like flax-wine," replied my
father. "It's just like a wine, so golden and clear. And you couldn't
find anything better for one's precious health. I am in the doctor's
debt to the price of a couple of oxen; and even then I should be under
the sod to-day if Our Father in Heaven had not made linseed-oil to
grow."

"And, as you, forest-farmer, are still, thank God, above the sod,"
drawled Clements, "you'll be needing money, I'm thinking. Look, it's
your guardian angel's brought me here: I'm bringing you some."

"Oh, my gracious!" replied my father, leaning his whole weight upon the
lever, so that the oil-cake in the press had to yield its last drains,
which, however, were received into a separate little pot, for these
dregs are not quite so clear and mild as the first stream. "Oh, my
gracious!" said he. "I could do with the money well enough; but you
can just take it away again: I know what you want for it. You want the
six old fir-trees that stand outside my house. Things are a sight worse
with me than they were a year ago, when you came and asked to buy the
trees, but I have no other answer for you than I gave you then: the six
trees outside the house are a memory of the old days; and, if I had to
sell field and meadow and the cattle in the stable, those trees shall
stay where they are; and, if they have to lay me in the grave without a
coffin, those old trees shall stay where they are until God's lightning
cracks them or the storm fells them."

The last words were spoken with violence; and, with that, the last drop
of oil left the press.

But Clements said:

"Forest-farmer, you shall not sell a field, nor a head of cattle from
your stable; you shall have a coffin of good white ash-wood: God grant
that you may not need it for a long time to come! You shall have good
days yet in this world. You shall not sell the old fir-trees, but you
shall sell the larch in your wood that are fit for felling. Have you
your pocket-book on you? If so, just open it."

I got a fright, when I saw the figure on the bank-note which the
tempter had now drawn from his leather case and which, holding it
between his finger-tips, he sent fluttering to and fro, like a little
flag, before my father's blinking eyes. Misfortune had cleared the way
in our house for the timber-merchant: we were no longer able to get all
we wanted for our ten heads and stomachs out of that eighty yoke of
mountain land; the doctor was sending us letters which I could not read
soft and low enough to make them bearable to my father:

"The forest-farmer is hereby summoned within fourteen days to ...
failing which...."

"As my patience is at last exhausted, I have placed the matter in the
hands of the imperial and royal courts, and if, within eight days ...
execution and distraint...."

Those were more or less the first sentences which I was given to read
in our dear High-German language. And there was a certain book, too,
with its "date of debt" and "date of payment," which gave me an idea of
the force that lies concealed in the language of Schiller and Goethe.

It was a real live "hundred" which the timber-merchant held by the
corner between his two fingers. Did not a chill shudder, at that
moment, go over the tops of the larches that were dotted here and there
in the pine-woods outside, I wonder? Nor any anxious foreboding trouble
the hearts of the little birds that had built their nests there?

My father did not put out his hand for the money, but neither did
he hide it in his pocket; he did not busy it with the lever of
the oil-press; he just kept it, half-open, as nature had bent it,
on his knee, while he sat exhausted with his labour. Clements dropped
the rare bit of paper into it; then the lank fingers closed
softly--instinctively--and held it tight.

The larch were sold.

"I have only one condition to make," said the timber-merchant, when he
saw that the poor small farmer lay duly under the spell of the money.
"I shall have the trees felled late in the autumn, when the snow comes.
You will be astonished, forest-farmer, when I tell you that the emperor
will ride over your larch-trees! Yes, yes, we shall use them for
building the railway. My condition is that my wood-cutters shall be
allowed to cook their meals and sleep in your house as long as they are
working in the woods."

"Why not?" said father. "That'll be all right, if it's good enough for
them under my roof."

What mischief those good-natured words brought down upon our peaceful
forest home!

Clements went away happy and contented, after presenting me with a
bright new groschen for myself. I remember being surprised at this: it
was obviously for us to be contented, seeing that we had the money!
Father took his up to the loft and hid it in the clothes-press: it was
very soon to come out again. Then the days passed, as usual, and the
larch stood in the woods and rocked their long branches in the wind, as
usual, and got ready their twigs for next spring, as usual.

"They don't know how soon they are to die!" my father said to me once,
as we were coming from the meadow through the woods.

But I comforted myself with the hope that Clements the timber-merchant,
who lived out in the merry Mürzthal and never came back to our
neighbourhood at all, would forget all about the larch. My mother, to
whom I confided this view, said sharply:

"Oh, child, that fellow forgets about his soul, but he'll never forget
the larches!"

And, one day, when the earth had frozen hard and the moss cracked and
broke underfoot, we heard the rasping of the saw in the woods. When we
looked across the brown tops of the firs, we saw the yellow spire of a
tall larch-tree soar high above them. The rasping of the saw died away,
the blows of the axe rang out; then slowly the spire bent over, dipped;
and thunder echoed through the forest.

That evening the wood-cutters came to our house. There were only two of
them; and, at first sight, we were all pleased with them. One of them
was already well on in years and had a long red beard, a bald pate and
a sharp, crooked nose. The man's little eyes looked smaller still
because the red eyelashes and eyebrows were hardly visible against the
colour of his skin; but the eyes were full of fun and devilment. The
other was quite twenty years or so younger, had a little brown beard,
but otherwise was rather pale and thin in the face. Anyone, however,
seeing his powerful neck and his broad chest would take him to be much
more of a wood-cutter than the red one, who only looked such a warrior
because of his beard, but, in other respects, was much slighter in
build than the pale one. Both wore stiff leather aprons and smelt of
rosin and shavings.

Our cooking was soon done; so mother left the hearth to them. And, upon
my word, they knew how to make use of it! What they cooked was not the
regular wood-cutter's game, such as stray foxes, sparrows and such-like
dumplings as are prepared with flour and fat, but real meat and bacon
and grill; and it all simmered and frizzled in the pans until our
stomachs, which had to be satisfied with bread-soup and potatoes, were
driven frantic. But the red one tore off a whole piece of bacon for us
to taste. They had a wooden jar with them, wound round with straw, out
of which one and the other took long draughts. The red one invited my
father to try their wine. He did; and his experience was worse than
that of Clements with the linseed-oil: the jar contained that hellish
stuff, brandy.

The wood-cutters now feasted in our house day after day. We children
lost all liking for our daily food, at the sight of luxury and
abundance. We became discontented; and our household, consisting of two
half-grown servant-girls and a half-blind woman, heaved many a deep
sigh. But the red one knew how to amuse us. He talked of towns and
other countries; for the two men had been about a good deal and had
worked in large factories. Then he regaled us with funny stories and
tricks; in the early days also with riddles and droll plays upon words,
at which the maids tittered a good deal, while father and mother sat
silent and I did not rightly know what to make of it all. Then came
songs, in which, to the great delight of our household, country
courtship in all its forms found full expression. When this began, it
was high time for us children to go to bed; but our straw bundles
happened to be in the very room in which these merry things were going
on. True, we closed our eyes, and I really had the firm intention to go
to sleep; but my ears remained open, and the tighter I closed my eyes,
the more I saw in my mind's eye.

The pale wood-cutter was quiet and proper in his behaviour and did not
remain so long in the parlour, but always went betimes to his
sleeping-place, which was outside in the hay-loft. But even the girls
could not follow this decent example: they let the red one go on and
were wholly absorbed in his chattering. My father once observed to the
red fellow that the younger was more serious than the old one,
whereupon the red one asked if the farmer disliked jolly songs: in that
case, he would be pious and pray. And he began to recite comic
sentences in the tone of the Lord's Prayer; got on to the hearth and,
mimicking the preaching of a Capuchin, mocked at the holy apostles,
martyrs, and virgins, until my mother went to my father with uplifted
hands.

"I do beg and beseech you, Lenzel--throw that godless being out of the
door, or I shall have to do it myself!"

"Do it yourself, little woman!" cried the red man and jumped off the
hearthstone and tried to catch hold of mother and fondle her.

This was something unheard of. That this should suddenly happen in our
house, where, year in, year out, no unseemly word was ever spoken! My
father was downright paralysed with astonishment; but my mother seized
the frivolous wood-cutter by the arm and cried:

"Now you get out of this, foul-mouth, and never enter my house again!"

The wood-cutter refused to budge an inch.

"If forest-farmer folk are so pious," he continued, still in his
preaching tone, "as to forget what they have promised our employer, I
shan't leave this roof for all that. Women and wet rags shan't drive me
out."

"Perhaps men and dry logs will!" cried my father. And with a swiftness
and determination which I had never before beheld in this mild-mannered
man, he snatched a log of wood from the stack. The red one made a
furious rush at his arms; and they wrestled. Mother tried to protect
father; my brothers and sisters in their straw set up a cry of murder;
I flew to the door, with nothing on me but my shirt, and called to the
maids, who were already sleeping peacefully in their beds, to come and
help. The blind one was the first to come hobbling safely across the
yard, while one of the two who had the use of their eyes stumbled over
the pigs' trough. And the youngest girl, terrified by my cries and the
uproar in the house, came clattering down the step-ladder that led from
the hay-loft to the yard. Without considering, at the time, the
far-reaching effects of this last incident, I rushed back into the
house, where the two men were engaged in a violent struggle, panting
and groaning and going from one wall of the room to the other. The
wood-cutter's long beard was flung in wild strands around my father's
head; but father seemed to be gaining the upper hand; then came the
younger wood-cutter, clad, it is true, in nothing but his shirt and his
blue drawers, but with the full weight of his body. The women did what
is their office on such occasions: they wrung their hands and wailed.
Only, my mother, when she saw that all was lost, snatched a blazing
fire-brand from the hearth.

"I'll drive you out, you ruffians, that I do know!" she cried and flew,
with the brand, to the wooden inner wall.

"The fury means to set fire to us! And to the house with us!" yelled
the wood-cutters and rushed out at the door, through the curling smoke.

We were rid of the nasty fellows, but the flames were leaping merrily
along the wall. In hot haste, we succeeded--I no longer remember by
what means--in smothering the fire.

That evening--the most terrible in my life--passed into a still and
fearsome night. We had barred and bolted the door of the house; and,
when we put out the rushlight, father took a last look at the window,
to see if they were still outside.

It remained quiet; and not till the next morning did the young
wood-cutter come to fetch his tools and his mate's. Then they built
themselves a hut in the woods out of planks and bark; and here they
lived half through the winter, until they had finished their work on
the larch-trunks.

We felt convinced, however, that they must be plotting some mischief
against us, whereupon the youngest of the maids remarked, with an air
of great wisdom, that it might be best always to keep on good terms
with that kind of people.

"It's easy for you to talk, wench," retorted my father. "What do you
know?"

After that ... she said no more.

I had a fresh fright at that time. Prompted by curiosity to see the
godless fellows once more and to spy out whether the devil, in the
guise of a wood-cutter, was helping them with their work, I peeped one
day from the forest path and through the thicket at their work-place.
Then I saw that they were making coffins.

I announced the fact at home and caused the greatest excitement in
consequence.

"As I said, they have some fresh thing in their minds!" said my mother.

Father suggested:

"Boy, you have been dreaming again, in broad daylight. Still, I will go
and see."

We went into the woods. My father peered through the thicket at the
wood-cutters; and then I saw him turn pale.

"You half-wit!"[8] he said; and then he groaned. "They're burying every
peasant of us at Alpel!"

The coffins were stacked in great piles; and the men were still
chopping and trimming new ones with their axes. We rushed away to
inform the local magistrate, who, at that time, lived on the mountain
on the other side of the Engthal, and tell him what we had seen. On the
road to his house we met Michel the carpenter, to whom my father said
that he had better have all his knives and choppers ready, for it
looked as if we were in for bad times. The strangers who were working
in his wood did nothing but make coffins.

"Yes," said Michel, "I've noticed that too: it's a good thing the
coffins are not hollow!"

And the man of experience told us of the shape of the railway-sleepers,
which were usually cut from the block in pairs, before being sawn
asunder, and which, with their six corners, looked not unlike a coffin.

We turned back then and there, and as we went along the edge of the
field, where the grass was nice and smooth, my father said to me:

"This gives us a good chance of laughing at ourselves, lest others
should. That's the way things go: when we've fallen out with a man, we
put down everything that's bad to him and are as blind as if Satan had
stuck his horns into our eyes. When all is said, even those two
wood-cutters are not so black as they appear to be. Still, I shall be
glad when they have cleared out. And this much I do know: Clements buys
no more larch of me."

"Because you have none left," was my wise comment on that.

Father did not seem to hear.

The wood-cutters went at last and the larch-wood sleepers with them.
The red-brown stumps remained behind; and in their pores stood bright
drops of rosin.

"It shows that they were not Christians," I remember my father saying,
"that they did not cut a cross in a single stump."

For, at that time, it was still the custom, in the forest, for the
wood-cutters to carve a little cross with the axe into each stump as
soon as the tree had fallen. Why, I was never quite able to discover:
it was probably for the same reason that makes the blacksmith give two
taps with his hammer on the anvil, after the red-hot iron is removed.
These things are intended to thwart the devil, who, as everybody knows,
is never idle and interferes in all the works of man.

My father, whose whole life was bound up with the cross, went
afterwards and cut crosses in the larch-stumps. And so things in the
forest were once more in order and peaceful, as they used to be.

And that is the story of the strange wood-cutters, the children of the
world, who had penetrated into our far-away forest-nook like the first
wave of the turbulent sea of the world. How small this wave was and
what an amount of unrest, discontent, and vexation was washed up with
it! Gradually, the strange elements were forgotten: even mother ended
by overcoming her indignation. Only our little serving-maid remained
restless and wistful, even after the wave had flowed back again, and
her eyes were often red with crying.

FOOTNOTE:

[8] _Halbnarr_: half-fool. According to German folk-lore, it is only
the half-idiots who are really dangerous.--_Translator's Note._




IX

How Meisensepp Died


At home we had a book called _The Lives of Jesus Christ, Our Lady, and
of many of God's Saints: a spiritual treasure by Peter Cochem_. It was
an old book, the leaves were grey, and each chapter began with
wonderful big letters in black and red. The wooden cover was worm-eaten
in many places, and a mouse had nibbled away one of the leathern flaps.
Since my grandfather's death there was nobody in our house who could
have read it; no wonder, then, that these creatures had taken
possession of it, and thus gained their bodily sustenance from the
spiritual treasure. Then came I, the little book-worm, chasing the
little beasts out of the book and devouring it myself instead. I read
out of it daily to the members of our household. The younger farm-lads
and girls did not care much for this new custom, for they dared not
joke and yodel during the reading; the older people, however, being
rather more God-fearing, listened devoutly and said, "It's just as if
the parson were preaching; so solemnly done and with such a loud
voice!"

I got quite a reputation as an able reader, and was much sought after.
Whenever anybody in the neighbourhood lay ill or dying, or was even
dead already, and there was watch being kept by the corpse during the
night, my father was asked to let me go and read. On such occasions I
took the weighty book under my arm and set off. It was hard work
carrying it, for at that time I was but a little shrimp of a fellow.

Once, late at night, when I was already asleep in the sweet-scented
hay-loft where I sometimes had my bed in summer-time, I was awakened by
one of our men tugging at my coverlet. "You must get up quickly, Peter,
get up! Meisensepp has sent his daughter, and begs that you'll come and
read to him--he's dying. Get up!"

Of course, I got up, dressed myself hastily, took the book, and went
with the girl from our house up across the heath and through the
forest. Meisensepp's hut stood quite alone in the midst of the forest.

Meisensepp had been gamekeeper and woodward in his younger years;
latterly he occupied himself mostly with sharpening saws for the
wood-cutters. Then suddenly this severe illness overtook him.

While the girl and I were going through the wilderness in the still,
starlit night neither of us spoke a word. Silently we went on together.
Only once she whispered, "Let me have the book, Peter; I'll carry it
for you."

"You couldn't do it," I answered; "you're even smaller than me."

After a two hours' tramp the girl said, "There's the light."

We saw a faint gleam coming from the window of Meisensepp's house.
Going nearer, we met the priest who had administered the Last Sacrament
to the dying man.

"Father, is he going to get well?" asked the girl, fearfully.

"He is not so very old," said the priest. "God's will be done,
children; God's will be done."

And he went on, while we went into the house.

It was small, and, after the manner of forest huts, living-room and
bedroom were all one with the kitchen. On the hearth in an iron holder
a pine-torch was burning which veiled the ceiling in a cloud of smoke.
Near by, on a bundle of straw, two little boys lay sleeping. I knew
them well, for we had often gathered mushrooms and berries together in
the woods and lost our herds while doing it: they were a few years
younger than I. By the wall of the stove sat Sepp's wife, giving the
breast to the baby and looking with wide-open eyes into the flame of
the pine-torch; and behind the stove, on the only bed in the house, lay
the sick man. He was sleeping; his face was wasted, the greyish hair
and the beard round the chin had been cut short, which made the whole
head appear smaller to me than formerly when I had seen Sepp on the way
to church. Through his pale, half-open lips fluttered the broken
breathing.

On our entrance his wife got up gently, made some apology for having
had me disturbed in my sleep, and invited me to sit down and eat what
the priest had left of a dish of eggs which still stood on the table.

And so, seated on the chair that was still warm from the holy man's
sitting, I was soon actually eating with the same fork which he had
carried to his mouth!

"Now he's sleeping fairly well," whispered the woman, indicating the
sick man. "A little while ago he was constantly pulling threads from
the coverlet."

I knew it was looked upon as a bad omen when a sick person pulled at
and dug into the coverlet: "He's digging his grave," they say with us.
I therefore answered, "Yes, that's what my father did, too, when he had
typhoid fever; still, he got well again."

"I think so, too," she said; "and the priest was saying the same thing.
I am so glad my Sepp has always gone to confession so regular, and I
feel quite hopeful about his getting well again. Only," she added very
low, "the light keeps flickering to and fro the whole time."

According to popular belief, when the light flickers, it is an omen
that someone's candle is burning low in the socket. I believed in this
sign myself, but to reassure the poor woman I said, "There's such a
draught coming through the window, I can feel it too." She laid the
sleeping baby upon the straw--the girl who had fetched me had already
gone to rest there--and we stopped the cracks of the window with tow.

Then the woman said, "You'll stay with me overnight, won't you, Peter?
I shouldn't know how to get along otherwise; and when he awakes you
will read to us? I am sure you'll do us this kindness, won't you?"

I opened the book and looked for a suitable piece, but Father Cochem
has not written much that would be of consolation to poor suffering
mankind. Father Cochem's opinion is that God is infinitely just and
that men are unutterably bad, and nine-tenths of them are bound
straight for hell.

Maybe it is so, I used to think to myself; but even if it is one ought
not to say so, because people would only worry, and for the rest would
most likely remain as bad as ever. If they had wanted to mend, they
would have done so long ago.

Terrifying thoughts went like a hissing adder through Cochem's book.
Whenever I had to do with indifferent people, who only listened to me
on account of my fine loud preaching voice, I thundered forth all the
horrors and the eternal damnation of mankind with real pleasure; but
when by a sick-bed I used to exert my imagination to the utmost while
reading out of the book, in order to soften the hard sayings, to
moderate the hideous representations of the Four Last Things, and to
give a friendlier tone to the whole thought of the zealous Father.

And now again I planned how, while apparently reading from the book, I
would speak to Meisensepp words from another Book about poverty,
patience, and love towards our fellows, and how the true imitation of
Christ consisted in the practice of these, and how--when the last hour
should strike--this would lead us by way of a gentle death right into
heaven.

At last Sepp awoke. He turned his head, looked at his wife and
sleeping children, then, seeing me, he said in a loud, clear voice, "So
you've come, Peter? God reward you for it! But we shall hardly have
time for reading to-day. Anne, please wake the children up."

The woman shuddered, her hand went to her heart, but she said quietly,
"Are you worse again, Seppel? You've been sleeping so nicely."

He saw at once that her calmness was not genuine.

"Don't you fret, wife," he said, "it must be so in this world. Wake the
children up now, but gently, so that you don't scare them."

The poor woman went to the bed of straw, and with trembling hand shook
the bundle, and the little ones started up only half awake.

"Anne, I beg you don't pull the children about so," the sick man
reproached her, with a weaker voice, "and let little Martha sleep, she
doesn't understand things yet."

I remained seated by the table, and my heart burned within me. The
little family gathered round the bed, sobbing aloud.

"Quietly now," said Sepp to the children; "mother will let you sleep
all the longer to-morrow morning. Josefa, draw the shirt together over
your breast or you will get cold.--Now then, children, you must always
be brave and good and obedient to your mother, and when you are grown
up you must stand by her and don't leave her. All my days I've toiled
and moiled, but for all that I've nothing else to leave you beyond this
house, with the little garden and the ridge-acre with the stacks. If
you want to divide it up, do so in a brotherly way; but it is better to
keep the little property together, and keep the home going, somehow,
and till the ground. Beyond that I make no will. I love you all alike.
Don't forget me, and now and then say an Our Father for me. And you
four boys, I beg from my very heart, don't start poaching--it leads to
no good. Give me your hand on it. There, that's right! If one of you
would like to learn saw-sharpening--I have earned many a penny with
it and the tools are all there. And then, as you know already, if you
plant potatoes on the ridge-acre, you must do so in May. It's quite
true, what my father always used to say, 'Of potatoes it is said:
"Plant me in April, I come when I will; plant me in May, I'm there in a
day."' Bear that saying in mind! There, now go to bed again, or you
will catch cold; always take care of your health; health is everything.
Go to sleep, children."

The sick man became silent and fell to plucking at his covering again.

Turning to me the woman whispered, "I don't like it, he's talking too
much." When a very sick person becomes suddenly talkative that too is
looked upon as a bad omen with us.

Then he lay quite exhausted. The woman lit a death-taper.

"Not yet, Anne, not yet," he murmured, "a little later; but give me a
drop of water, will you?"

After drinking he said, "Ah, fresh water is a good thing after all!
Take good care of the well. Yes, and don't let me forget, the black
breeches and the blue jacket--you know--and outside behind the door,
where the saws hang, there leans the planing board; lay it across the
grindstone and the bench--it will serve for the three days. To-morrow
early, when Woodman Josel comes, he'll help to lay me out. But mind
that the cat isn't about; cats are attracted and know at once when
there is a corpse anywhere. It's all arranged what they'll do with me
down at the Parish Church.--My brown coat and the big hat, give them to
the poor. And to Peter you must give something because of his coming up
here. Perhaps he will be good enough to read to-morrow. It will be a
fine day to-morrow, but don't go far from home, for fear an accident
might happen, when there's candles left burning in the entrance. Later
on, Anne, look in the bedstraw and you will find an old stocking with a
few gold pieces in it."

"Seppel, don't exert yourself with talking so much," sobbed the wife.

"Well, well, Anne--but I must tell you everything. We'll not be much
longer together now. We have had twenty years, Anne. You have been
everything to me; no one can repay you for what you have been to me. I
shall never forget it, not in death, nor in heaven neither. I am only
glad that in my last hour I am still able to talk to you, and that I am
clear in my head to the last."

"Don't fret yourself, Seppel," murmured the wife, bending over him.

"No," he answered quietly, "with me it's just as it was with my father:
content in life, content in death. You be the same, and don't take it
too much to heart. Even though each of us must go as we came, alone,
still we belong to each other and I shall keep you a place in heaven,
Anne, close by my side. Only, for God's sake, bring the children up
well."

The children lay quiet. It was very still, and it seemed to me as if,
somewhere in the room, I could hear a slight whirring and humming.

Suddenly, Seppel called out, "Now, Anne, light the candle, quick!"

The woman ran about the room looking for matches, and yet the torch was
still burning. "Now he is going to die!" she moaned.

When at last the red wax-taper was alight, and she had given it him and
he held it clasped with both his hands, and she had taken the vessel of
holy water from the shelf, she became apparently quite calm and prayed
aloud: "Jesus, Mary, help him! Oh, Saints of God, stand by him in his
direst need, do not let his soul be lost! Jesus, I pray by Thy holiest
suffering! Mary, I call upon Thy seven Sacred Dolours! And Thou, his
guardian angel, when the soul must quit the body, lead it at last to
heavenly joy!"

And she prayed long. She neither sobbed nor cried now; not a single
tear stood in her eye, she was wholly the devout petitioner and
intercessor.

At length she became silent, bent over her husband's face, watched his
weak breathing and whispered, "God be with you, Seppel; greet my
parents for me and all our kinsfolk there in Eternity. God bless and
keep you, my dearest man! May the holy angels attend you, and the Lord
Jesus in His mercy await you at the heavenly door."

Perhaps he no longer heard her. His pale, half-open lips gave no
answer. His eyes stared at the ceiling. The wax candle, held upright in
the folded hands, was burning; it did not flicker. The flame was still
and bright as a snow-white bud, his breath moved it no more.

"Now it's over--he's dead and gone from me!" cried his wife in a
shrill, heartrending voice; then sank down upon a stool and began to
weep bitterly. The children, now again wakened, wept with her, all
except the baby, who was smiling.

The hour weighed upon us heavy as a stone. At last the poor woman--the
widow--rose, dried her tears and laid two fingers on the eyes of the
dead. The wax candle burned until the morning dawned.

A messenger had passed through the forest. Then came the Woodman Josel.
He sprinkled the dead with holy water, murmuring, "So they go, one
after the other."

Then they dressed Meisensepp out in his best clothes, carried him into
the porch, and laid him on the board.

I left the book on the table for the vigil of the following nights at
which I had promised the poor woman to read. When I was ready to go,
she brought a green hat on which was fastened a spreading
"Gemsbart."[9]

"Will you take the hat with you for your father?" she asked; "my Seppel
has always been so fond of your father. The Gemsbart you may keep
yourself as a remembrance. Say an Our Father for him now and then."

I uttered my thanks and cast one more timid look at the bier. There lay
Sepp stretched at full length, and his hands folded across his breast.
And I went away down through the forest. How bright and fresh with dew,
how full of the song of birds, full of the scent of flowers--how full
of life the forest was! And in the hut, stretched on the bier, lay a
dead man.

I can never forget that night and that morning--that death amidst the
forest's infinite source of life.

To this day I keep the Gemsbart in memory of Meisensepp. And whenever a
desire for the pleasures of this world gets hold of me, or when doubts
of God's grace to man, or fear of my own possibly far-off, possibly
quite near end assail me, I just stick Sepp's Gemsbart in my hat.

FOOTNOTE:

[9] Gemsbart: a little tuft of hair on the chamois' breast.




X

The Corpus Christi Altar


When the triumphant Saviour passes through the village in the shape of
bread, they greet Him with palms. The palm of the alps is the birch.
Even as the little fir-trees are doomed to lose their lives at
Christmas-time, so do the birches at Corpus Christi. They are dragged
to the village by the hundred, on great drays, and planted in rows on
both sides of the streets through which the procession is intended to
go. And, as they stand there in the fresh-turned earth, with their
graceful branches rustling in the soft wind, it is as though they were
still leading the young and happy lives of their brothers and sisters
in the woods. And no one notices that the trunk stands in the earth
without its roots, chopped off by the axe, that the sap no longer
courses through its veins, that, in a few days, the pretty little
notched and heart-shaped leaves will turn yellow; nor does the
caterpillar on a yielding branch, as it dreams of its coming butterfly
existence, suspect that it is rocking upon a corpse.

Life is fulfilled: lo, the Lord cometh.

At the Corpus Christi procession, the gospels are read in the open air
at four different spots. For this purpose, the people set up four
altars, so that "the Lord God may rest on His journey." By ancient
custom, it falls to him upon whose ground the altar is to stand to
erect this altar. Its several parts, all nicely carved and painted,
have rested during the year in a dark corner of the loft and are now
brought forth, cleansed of their dust and cobwebs and put together in
the open. The result is often a noble building of the chapel order,
with altar-table, tabernacle, worshipping angels, candlesticks and all.
Farm-labourers, who but yesterday were digging manure, to-day prove
themselves accomplished architects, building the altar before the
sun-down and surrounding it with a little wood of birch or larch. The
head of the house places all the images of the saints which he
possesses on the altar, or fastens them high up on the pillars. The
farmer's wife brings gaudy pots of crimson peonies to adorn the altar;
and the little girls strew flowers and rose-leaves as a carpet for the
steps.

The bells begin to ring, the mortars boom, music swells far and wide
over the roofs, lights burn in every window; and the time has come for
the farmer to light the candles on his altar too. Soon the first
pennants come in sight, the hum is heard of the men's prayers and the
echo of the women's singing; and the long lines of children approach,
the girls in white, carrying gaily-coloured banners above their heads.
Finally, the band, with shrill trumpets and rumbling drums, and then
the _baldachino_, the red canopy upheld by four men, and, under it,
surrounded by ministrants and acolytes, the priest, carrying the
gleaming monstrance high before his face.

The monstrance, as we all know, is the house in which the Host resides
surrounded by a wreath of golden rays, resting on a crescent-shaped
holder and protected by a crystal glass.

The most important factor in this procession is faith; and that is
present in abundance. They worship not the bread, but the symbolic
mystery in whose lap rests our eternal destiny. It is really incorrect
to speak of the worship of images, or of the idolatry of the heathen:
they all mean one and the same thing, the symbolic divine mystery which
each represents to himself after his own fashion and feels according to
his nature. And the power to transfer the intangible, endless mystery
to a substance which our senses can apprehend and thus to enter into
more intimate relations with it: that power is the gift of faith.

The files of people reach the open-air altar and the foremost have to
pass along until the priest arrives at the spot. When there, he places
the Sacrament in the tabernacle and reads some verses from one of the
four gospels. Then, to the booming of the cannon, he lifts the
monstrance, turns with it to the four points of the compass and blesses
the meadows, the fields and the air, that the summer may be fruitful
and no storm destroy the husbandman's labour. And the procession moves
on.

This is in the larger villages. In the small mountain districts, the
feast is celebrated more simply, but no less solemnly. As, in such
places, all the lanes and streets are formed of live trees and shrubs,
there is no need to set up birches, except at the wayside crucifixes,
where they keep holy guard, one on the right and one on the left. As
the people of small places have not four altars to erect, there is a
small, portable altar, a little four-legged table with a white cloth to
cover it and a tabernacle with angels painted on a blue ground kneeling
before the "Holy Name." Above this is a little canopy with gold
tassels. Behind are straps by means of which a boy can take the altar
on his back and carry it, during the procession, from one gospel-place
to the other.

They have one of these little altars at Kathrein am Hauenstein. Should
you care to see it, it stands, in summer, in the church, in front of
the great picture of the Fourteen Helpers.[10] It has stood there as
long as I can remember; and, in my young days, it was the duty and the
privilege of Kaunigl, him with the hare-lip, to carry it from
gospel-place to gospel-place. As soon as one gospel was read and the
procession starting on its way again, he strapped the altar to his
back, took the candlesticks and the hassock in his hands and hurried
over the hill by the short cut through the woods, so as to obtain a
lead and set up the altar in the next place. He would fix a stone or
two under the feet of the little table to prevent any rocking, put the
hassock in position and light the candles; and, by that time, the first
banner was once more in sight.

Now it happened, one day, that this was the occasion of my being mixed
up in a business that threatened the destruction of my immortal soul. I
had just reached the age when nobody knows how a young scamp is going
to turn out. He may develop into a more or less decent fellow, or else
into a lout of the first water: who can tell? None but God really; and
even He leaves the choice to the lanky, pale-faced lad himself. On the
day in question, I had either overslept myself in my forest home or had
more trouble than usual in getting my lace-boots on; or perhaps
breakfast was not ready in time. Anyhow, by the time I reached Kathrein
church, everything was in full swing, with the red banners waving and
the candles twinkling between the trees. I stole round to the back, for
I was mortally ashamed to do the right thing and simply go straight up
to the procession and mix with the people. Here again God left the
choice to me, to join the worshippers or slink away through the bushes
like a gaol-bird. I slunk like a gaol-bird through the bushes and there
met Kaunigl with the altar. He at once asked me to help him carry it.
This suited me perfectly, for it justified the roundabout road which I
had taken. I relieved Kaunigl of the hassock and candlesticks; and we
hurried through the young trees up to the Föhrenriegel, behind the
church, where the last gospel was to be read. We worked together
loyally; and soon the little altar was fixed against the rock, with the
candles burning upon it. The procession was not yet in sight, for it
had taken a longer road through the green fields; but this Kaunigl boy
was not the fellow to let time slip by and be wasted. He thrust his
hand in his trousers-pocket, produced a pack of cards and flung it on
the altar so that the candles flickered before the fluttering bits of
pasteboard. Silently, as though what he was doing were a matter of
course, he dealt himself and me a hand at _Brandel_. It was not the
first time that he and I had "taken each other on"; so I picked up the
cards and we played a strict game on the Corpus Christi altar, by the
light of the wax candles burning solemnly. There was time for a second
"bout"; and then, while Kaunigl was dealing the cards again, the men at
the head of the procession appeared round the corner, praying aloud
with heads uncovered. No cat could have pounced upon nimble mouse
quicker than Kaunigl gathered up those cards and shoved them in his
pocket. Then we took up our positions on either side, in all innocence,
and pulled off our caps.

Soon the musicians hove in sight: Eggbauer with the bugle-horn, his son
with the first trumpet, Naz the tailor (who afterwards became my
master) with the second, Erhard's boy with the clarionet, Zenz the
smith with the kettle-drum, while long-nosed Franz carried the big drum
on his back, to be pounded with might and main by the Haustein
innkeeper. Ferdl the huntsman handled the "tinklers."

Behind this loud music came the _baldachino_. The old white-haired
parish priest carried the Most Holy high in front of him and held his
head bowed low, partly in veneration and partly because age had already
greatly bent his neck. He walked up to the little altar to place the
monstrance on it. He was on the point of doing so when suddenly he
stopped and stood for a moment with a stare upon his face. He had
caught sight of the ten of clubs peeping from between the folds of the
white altar-cloth! The confounded card had remained there hidden and
unperceived! To decorate the Corpus Christi altar with "green" of this
kind[11] could hardly seem correct in the eyes of his reverence.
Without a word, without a sign of displeasure, he turned to the rock
and placed the monstrance on a projecting stone.

Only a very few people had realised why this was done. The gospel was
read and the benediction given without further incident, but I peeped
through the hazel-bushes and saw that the old priest was white to the
lips. Had he shown anger at his discovery on the altar, had he stormed
and ordered the culprit to be taken by the ears, I should have thought
it no more than just; but his humble silence, his look of sorrow, and
the fact that he had to place the Saviour, rendered homeless by that
sacrilegious game at cards, upon the bare rock: these were things that
cut into me as with a knife. He cannot have known who the accomplice
was, but he could easily have found out by my conscience-stricken face,
however much it might try to hide itself behind the hazel-bushes.

Afterwards, when high mass began in church, Kaunigl pulled me by the
skirt of my jacket and invited me to climb into the tower with him,
where we could toll the bell at the Sanctus and the elevation and play
cards in between. He had recovered possession of the ten of clubs.
True, I did not accept; but I remained lost, for all that. From that
day forward I no longer ventured into the confessional. Kaunigl did
venture in; but it was not quite so simple as he imagined, as he
himself told me afterwards.

"I have played cards," he confessed. "Once."

"Well," said the priest, "card-playing is no sin in itself, as long as
you do not play for money."

"No, I didn't play for money."

"Where did it happen?"

"On a table."

"What sort of a table?"

"A wooden one."

"Was it on the Corpus Christi table, by any chance?" asked the priest.

"Oh, no!" said Kaunigl.

And then he received absolution.

"Then you lied in your confession!" I said to Kaunigl, reproachfully.

"That doesn't matter," Kaunigl replied, promptly. "I can easily mention
the lie next time: I'll get that through the grating right enough. The
thing is to have the card-playing off my chest. Hang it all, though, I
was nearly caught: Old Nick might have grabbed me finely!"

I based my own inferences upon this experience. If card-playing was no
sin in itself--and we did not play for money--then there was no need to
confess the story. Nor is it stated in either the Lesser or the Greater
Catechism that man shall not play cards on altars. However, this subtle
interpretation helped me not at all. When I thought of that Corpus
Christi sacrilege, in which I had so foolishly taken part, I often felt
quite ill. I dreamt of it at nights, in the most uncomfortable way,
and, sitting in church on Sundays, I dared not look at that little
altar-table, which stood there so oddly, as though at any moment it
might burst into speech and betray me. Moreover, about this time, I
read in an old devotional book the story of a blasphemous shoemaker's
assistant who had mimicked the elevation of the Host in a public-house
and how his upraised arms had stiffened in the act, so that he could
not bend them back again and had to go about with his arms sticking up
in the air, until he was released by receiving absolution from a pious
father. It was much as though I were doomed to go about with arm
uplifted, holding the best trump in my hand, while the people laughed
at me: "Now then, Peter, play! Why don't you play?" and as though I
played the card, at last, and, in so doing, played my poor soul to
perdition. That was the sort of thing; and a nice thing too!

I could never manage to settle it by myself: that was quite clear. So,
one evening, after working-hours, I went to see the parish-priest at
St. Catherine's. He was standing just outside the house, beside his
fish-pond, which was covered over with a rusty wire netting, while a
fine spring bubbled away in the middle. The priest no doubt thought
that I was merely passing by accident, for he beckoned to me with his
black straw hat to come to him.

"What do you say, Peter?" he cried to me, in his soft voice. "Nine and
five and seven: doesn't that make twenty-one?"

I was never much good at mental arithmetic; however, this time, I
hazarded, on the off-chance:

"Yes, that should be about right. Twenty-one."

"Now then," he said, "just look here." And he pointed to the fish-pond.
"A fortnight ago, the Blasler boy sold me nine live trout and I put
them in the pond. A week ago, he sold me five more and I put them in
too; and, to-day, he sold me seven and I put them in as well. And how
many are there now, all told? Eight, eight; and not one more! And I
know all about it: they are the same which he brought me a fortnight
ago; and it must be so: the scoundrel, I was almost saying, stole the
fish each time out of the pond and sold them to me over again. It's a
... a ..."

And he shook his fist in the air.

The fact was that the Blasler boy must have stolen the trout to begin
with, before he sold them for the first time, for Blasler had no
fishing licence. This, I dare say, hardly occurred to the good priest's
mind: he was thinking only of his fast-days. The commandments of the
Church allow fish on Fridays and Saturdays,[12] but do not say whether
the fish may be stolen or not.

It was not a favourable opportunity to confess one's sins. So I forbore
for the present, kissed the sleeve of his coat, because the clenched
fist did not look inviting for a kiss of the hand, and passed on. On
the way, I pondered the question at length, which was the greater sin,
the Blasler boy's or mine. His appeared to me in the light of a piece
of roguery, whereas mine might easily be a sin against the Holy Ghost;
and those sins are not remitted.

A few days later, Cap Casimir, of Kressbachgraben, was driving a grey
nanny-goat with two kids along the road. The old goat had a full udder;
and the young ones skipped around her and wanted to have a drink. But
Cap Casimir hissed, in his sloppy brogue:

"Sshh, shtop that now! We musht bring the full udder to hish
reverensh!"

I was at once curious to know what it meant; and Casimir, who was an
immigrant Tyrolese and still wore his pointed "star-pricker,"[13] said:

"It'sh like thish, you shee, my wife'sh dead. 'The goat,' said she,
'and the kidsh,' said she, 'I leave to the parish-priesht of Kathrein.
For prayers and masshes.' That was her will; and then she died. Sho now
I'm driving the animalsh to the reverend gentleman'sh."

"All right," thought I to myself. "And I'll follow in an hour's time.
He'll be in a good humour to-day; and I shall never find a better
opportunity."

So far, the thing was well thought out. I went off that same afternoon.
The old gentleman was quite jolly and invited me to have a cup of
coffee with him, telling me that there was fresh milk in it from
Kressbachgraben.

And it was in the midst of the coffee that I suddenly said:

"I've had something on my mind for ever so long, your reverence!"

"You, something on your mind?" he laughed. "Well, that's a nice state
of affairs, when even little boys have things on their minds!"

I stirred my cup of coffee vigorously with my spoon, so as not to have
to look his reverence in the face, and told him the story of the game
of cards on the altar.

Contrary to all my expectations, the priest remained quite calm. Then
he asked:

"Did you do it wilfully? Did you intend to mock the holy altar?"

"Good God, no, your reverence!" I replied, thoroughly shocked at the
mere thought.

"Very well," said the old man.

Then he was silent for a little while and finished his coffee, after
which he spoke as follows:

"It was not a proper thing to do; let me tell you that at once. And I
will let Kaunigl know also that what people take to church is
prayer-books and not playing-cards! But, if you had no bad intention in
doing this silly trick, we will say no more about it this time. At any
rate, you did quite right to tell me. Would you like a drop more?"

As the Corpus Christi incident was now closed in the best possible way,
the second cup of coffee tasted twice as good as the first. When,
presently, I got up to go, the old man laid his hand on my shoulder and
said, kindly:

"I feel easier now that I know exactly what happened on that Corpus
Christi Day. But you must never do it again, Peterkin. Just think,--our
dear Lord!..."

FOOTNOTES:

[10] _Die vierzehn Nothelfer_, often mentioned in the German
hagiology. "Emergency saints" has been suggested as an equivalent
rendering.--[_Translator's Note._]

[11] The clubs are printed in green, in the cheap packs of cards used
in the Tyrol, and the ten of this suit is called _der Grühnzehner_: the
ten of greens.--[_Translator's Note._]

[12] In some parts of Southern Austria, the practice prevails of
abstaining from flesh-meat on Saturdays, as well as on Fridays, in
honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary.--[_Translator's Note._]

[13] The popular nickname for the pointed Tyrolese, "sugar-loaf"
hat.--[_Translator's Note._]




XI

About Kickel, who went to Prison


You were on for a bit of gipsying, were you, Peterkin? Home,
everlastingly home, isn't very cheerful--always having the green-glazed
mug to drink from, always having your face wiped over by the mother
with a wet rag, always having to sleep in the little box-bed by the
stove--it's no fun! One can't help wanting sometimes to gather a dinner
from the whortleberry plants and drink from the brook, to roll on the
ground sometimes, and even to walk about in mud; and now and again one
wants to sleep in an old hay barn, with water never seen before rushing
along outside, in an unknown gorge, with quite strange trees standing
in the red sunshine when you wake up in the morning, and unknown people
mowing the grass in the meadows.

Suppose you long for this, and then your father forbids it! "Children
belong at home!" And, "After school, you will come home by the shortest
way!" The shortest way! There isn't such a thing in our high lands,
especially if Zutrum Simmerl is in school, and if Zutrum Simmerl says,
"Peterl, come with me; at home, in Zutrumshaus, there are all sorts of
jolly things; a spotted white yard-dog, who's got puppies;
cherry-trees, which are all just red and black; and behind the house is
a charcoal-burner's hut with straw that one can lie on, and in the
stream you can catch trout and crayfish with your hand, which your
mother can bake and cook afterwards."

The Zutrum family were far-away cousins of ours, so that when young
Cousin Simmerl said "Come with me," one naturally went. It was a whole
hour's walk from my parents' house there, and as the school where we,
from Alpel and Trabachgraben, met together, lay just half-way, the
world became stranger and stranger to me with each step of my way to
Zutrum. And when the sun sank down over the black saddle of the wooded
range, and the sycamores threw long shadows across the newly mown
meadows, I felt very strange. The hay smelt, the grasshoppers chirped,
the frogs quacked as they did at home, but all else was different, the
mountains much steeper, the coombs much deeper. I was oppressed. We
looked down at last on the grey shingled roofs of the farm, from whose
whitewashed chimneys thin smoke was going up. It was already dusk, and
the homely smell of charcoal-burning, which I knew so well, came from
among the tall pines. On the road we made many halts by ant-heaps,
foxes' holes, hedge-stiles, little streams and puddles; but now Simmerl
hurried up. I did not want to go on, I wanted to turn back. I should be
going into a strange house for the first time in my life--my courage
gave way. But Simmerl gripped me quickly by the arm and led me into the
farmyard and through the great door into the house.

The air was cool in the entrance and scented with fruit; the kitchen
was plastered and had nearly white walls, like an inn. At the open
hearth women were busy with pots and kettles, and to one of them, who
had a pale, pretty, kind face, went Simmerl, gave her his hand and
said, "God greet you, mother!" It was in this house that I first heard
children reverently greeting their parents at coming in and going out,
just as if they were going to a distant country or were coming back
from one. In our district at home we ran out like a calf from its
stall, and the most that I ever said in the morning when I was off to
school was, "I'm going now," and the mother answered, "Well, go, in
God's name." That was certainly something, but it was not so cordial
and fine as when the Zutrum children said "God greet you!" or "God keep
you!" and clasped their parents' hands. In short, this entrance into
the Zutrums' house appeared very splendid to me.

"And that is my school-friend, Peterl, from the Forest farm," so
Simmerl introduced me to his mother.

"Now, that's nice!" she said; wiped her right hand on her blue apron
and held it out to me. I was not quite sure if my little paw ought to
be stretched out too, hesitated, but finally did it.

"Mother," called Simmerl, "we are running down to the brook."

"Not too far--it will soon be supper-time."

We were in the open air again, and it had all gone off very smoothly.
We did not get to the brook that evening, for there was the white,
spotted yard-dog with puppies! These last were all together in mottled
heap, which constantly surged and twisted, while every now and then a
tiny creature hardly bigger than a rat got loose and rolled clumsily
away. These things were absolutely all head, and the head again was all
muzzle, and the muzzles burrowed to the teats which the old white
dapple placed ready for use. All that, and the anxious growling of the
old dog and the frightened whimpering of the young ones, and the doggy
smell which came out of the kennel, nearly stupefied me with sheer
delight.

"Does she bite?" I asked Simmerl; for I wanted to stroke the puppies.

"Not now, so we have taken the chain off her. My father says, 'She has
no enemies now, she is just a mother now.'" But still, when he wanted
to lift one of the young ones, she snapped at his finger.

"Have you got a church?" I asked, for a little bell rang. Simmerl
laughed, for it was the house-bell, and it was calling people to
supper.

In the room, where it was already nearly dark, stood two great square
tables. When grace had been said out loud by everybody and all
together, and the great big soup-tureens were sending up their warm,
savoury clouds, about twelve young men, older men, young girls and old
women sat themselves down to the one table. At the other table right in
the corner the house-father took his place, a stout, comfortable,
cheerful man with a smooth-shaven face and a double chin; then came his
children, from the merry grown-up Sennerl right down to Simmerl, and
still further down to two quite tiny babies, who had their milk-soup
spooned into their little mouths by the servant-maid. I was allowed to
sit by Simmerl, and, because the common bowl was rather a long way from
us, we received a little special basin, out of which we ladled the
pieces. It was wheaten bread, which was not every day to be had at home
with us! The house-mother went to and fro, looking after the tables,
and now and then she sat down with us for a short time, just to eat a
morsel as she passed by. Ah, yes, that was like my mother at home. "Who
cooks needs nothing to eat," say overwise people.

I was obliged to keep thinking of home, where just then they would be
waiting for me with supper, and wondering why that boy didn't come home
and where he could possibly be. Then, probably, it would occur to one
or other of them, "Oh, he has gone home with his school-friend to
Zutrum."

After the milk-soup came a bowl of salad in vinegar. That again was
something new for me; at my home there was only salad in butter-milk,
which is acid and wet and can therefore well take the place of
expensive vinegar. At home we ate the greenstuff with a spoon, here one
did it with a fork. I several times stabbed my mouth with the strange
tool, but dared make no noise; whereas at home if such a thing
happened there would have been a fine outcry.

After the salad came the largest dish of all, and this contained stewed
cherries in their own juice. Now I might use the spoon again. If only
it had been a bit bigger--for this black cherry stew was delicious! The
company was very ceremonious. They squeezed the stones out of their
mouths and put them back either on to a plate or into their fists. At
home we ate the stones with the cherries.

I do not know what was talked about at table, and I was certainly quite
indifferent to it, because mere talk is nothing to eat. They were
louder and gayer at the servants' table than we were over at the
house-father's table, because there was an old man amongst them who
said the strangest things in the gravest manner at which they all
laughed, until a maid said, "No, no; one must not laugh so at Kickel.
It isn't right that Kickel should be laughed at."

"Who's laughing at _him_?" laughed a boy. "We're only laughing because
we please to."

I must have overheard that, as otherwise I should not have known it. I
know also that suddenly the old Kickel jumped up from his place, and
with his shirt-sleeve fluttering from his wide, strong arm, chucked a
cherry-stone at the door opposite, which fell back again into the
middle of the room. At that he cried "Bang!" and shouted with laughter.
He did this several times, whereupon the others said, "It was quite
right, and he must make a hole in the door so that one could look out
into the kitchen to see whether or no stew was being cooked to-day."
Then Kickel raised his other arm, and "Bang!"--he threw the entire
handful at the door, so that it rattled like a hail-storm. At the same
moment the old man wrinkled up his wizened face and shouted out an
angry curse.

Then the house-father got up from our table, went to the infuriated
old fellow and said soothingly, "Now, now, Kickel, don't be so vexed.
Sowing so many cherry-trees in the rooms! None of them will grow, you
know. Be sensible, Kickel." At my home the father would have talked
very differently if such a person had strewn the room full of
cherry-stones!

Then the old servant stood before the house-father with folded hands,
and in a voice of groaning anxiety he cried, "Zutrum, Zutrum, I don't
know how to help myself, it's coming on again!"

"Michel! Natzel!" said the house-father to the other two men, "take
Kickel to bed. It is time for him to go to sleep."

Then they led Kickel away. Whatever did it mean?

"It's time for the children to go to sleep also," added the
house-father. "The Forest-farm boy must sleep in the top room."

The disappointment was bitter. I had thought that Simmerl and I would
have been able to lie near each other on a pile of hay, and this was
actually the reason that I had come with him into this strange house.
Tears came into my eyes in proportion to the anguish of finding out
that it was all up with the hay, and that I had to sleep by myself in a
dark little room. The house-mother must have noticed something, for she
said, "He can very well sleep in the little room with Simmerl; there's
a bed empty there."

"Well and good, but don't talk long, boys." So the house-father, after
which Simmerl went to his parents, kissed their hands and said "Good
night."

This custom pleased me mightily, and I resolved to introduce it also
into my home. I never got so far as that; I had always been ashamed of
being entirely naughty to my parents, but also of being quite good, and
in particular it had been impossible to me to show certain courtesies,
much as I liked them.

I gathered from the order "not to talk long" that we had permission to
talk, and as we lay, each in his little bed, having put out the light,
so that nothing more was to be seen than the two faintly lighted square
windows, I asked Simmerl, "What was wrong with that fellow Kickel?"

"Cherry-stones," answered the lad.

"Why did he get so wild?"

"Oh, poor old Kickel!" said my comrade. "Don't you know that he was in
prison for ten years? Last year they let him out."

"Why?"

"Because the Kaiser was married."

"What, they locked him up for that?"

"No, that's why they let him out."

"But, good Lord, I want to know why they put him in prison," I cried.

"If you shout like that father will come with the strap. He killed his
son."

This was horrible. I did not know whether Kickel or House-father Zutrum
had killed his son. I dared question no farther, and when I did try it
later Simmerl gave no answer, for he was asleep.

Next morning we were awakened by a clear voice, "Schoolboys, it's
time!" A bough of elder swayed about in front of the heart-shaped
opening in the shutter, and through it the sun shone hot and bright on
to our snow-white beds, and the house-spring splashed outside. I should
have liked to dress at the same time as Simmerl, but was shy about
drawing my legs from under the coverlet. With a long arm I drew my
trousers from the bench into bed, and slipped them on to my limbs with
a suggestive slickness, and so out to the spring. After the washing the
morning prayers. Simmerl, out of consideration for his guest, would
have gone out during these, suggesting that he would then take me to
the grey horse in the stable; but his mother said, "He will see enough
grey horses during his life; you need the Holy Spirit in school. Now
say your morning prayer. Both kneel together."

We knelt on the bench before the table, and each said an Our Father to
himself, while it occurred to me, "We are not so strict at home."
Certainly, our mother said one ought to say one's prayers, but she did
not order one straight away on to the bench.

Now I was to see too what came of the prayers. We had hardly raised our
elbows from the table when it was spread with a white cloth, and set
with white platters and with white bread, and a brown soup was poured
out of the spout of a bright tin pot. At home it was just the other way
round, everything else brown and the soup white. There was no milk-soup
for breakfast here, but coffee! I had already heard about it, that the
grand people ate coffee, but that an old charcoal-burner had said, "My
dear people, I am certainly black. Look at me and see if I'm black or
no! But I'm not so black and bad as the black broth from Morocco. The
devil has invented it, and the peasant will come to an end if he eats
it."

I do not know if the charcoal-burner knew how wisely he had spoken, and
I do not know if they had believed him. I only know that everyone was
crazy for coffee, and that I could not help putting my spoon into the
black soup--Ugh! that isn't good, that is as bitter as gall! The devil
has certainly invented it----

"You haven't put any sugar," laughed Simmerl, and threw some pieces out
of a cup into my bowl. Now it was a little different. Simmerl looked at
me and grinned to himself. I should have liked to know why.

After breakfast it was "God keep you!" to the Zutrum people and off to
school. I had become quite brave and held out my right hand when saying
"Good-bye and thank you," just like a well-mannered, grown-up man, and
it occurred to me, "How easy it is to be good when one is not at
home!"

As we went along the hill-meadow old Kickel was to be seen with a
wooden fork spreading haycocks out so that they should dry better in
the new sunshine. To-day I saw, for the first time, that he was very
decrepit, bent double almost to cracking-point, and swaying and limping
at every step. His knee-breeches had certainly once been leather, but
now they had many, many patches of other stuffs stuck on with large,
ungainly stitches. His feet and very brown ankles were bare. Breast and
arms were covered by a coarse brown shirt; the old felt hat sat like a
battered inverted kettle on the little grey head, but all the same it
was decorated by an eagle's feather, which stood up high into the air.
Knees, elbows and fingers were all so terribly bony that one felt as if
the old man would never be able to do anything properly for the rest of
his life; he was like a deformed and twisted oak tree up on the high
land where the storm-wind cripples everything. When he caught sight of
us he raised his hat politely and then he went on working.

"Oh, I say," I questioned my schoolfellow, "what is the matter with
Kickel?"

"When we are higher up I'll tell you," answered Simmerl, and when we
came into the wood, where the ground became more level, he put his arm
in mine, and said, "He had a son, and he shot him."

"By accident? On purpose?" I asked, horrified.

"On purpose--quite on purpose."

"What had he done then--the son?"

"Nothing; he was a thorough good fellow, my father said."

"Good God! And did he hate his son so dreadfully then?"

"He loved his son ever so much; much too much."

"And therefore shot him down?"

"Well, I don't know myself how it was," acknowledged Simmerl.

"So Kickel is mad?" I put in.

"Not mad, but a bit crazy, certainly; a bit crazy all his life, and
people say one can't imagine how sharp he used to be, and what a fine
keeper he was up there, and how well educated! But the people say that
the many books he read must have sent him silly."

I quickened my steps.

"Why do you hurry so, Peter?"

"Supposing he runs after us!"

"Oh, Kickel won't do anything to us. People say he would not have
killed his son if he hadn't been so fond of him."

"Oh, Simmerl, supposing he is fond of us?"

"Oh, not so fond as he was of his son!"

"But, Simmerl, I don't understand."

"Some time I'll ask father just how it all was."

Nothing more. On that particular day I was not much use in school. Just
think!--My father is very fond of _me_. He certainly has never told me
so, but mother has said it to me. If things are like this, one will
never trust oneself again with people who are fond of one.

"What is the matter with Peter?" asked the schoolmaster, "he is so
absent-minded to-day."

In the afternoon I came back to my parents' house. I stood awhile
rooted to the sandy ground behind the pines. What was going to happen
next? My father came towards me with a clacking wheelbarrow. "Go in and
eat," he called to me, "and afterwards come out into the wood. We must
cut down some wood for firing."

"Did you sleep at Zutrum last night?" asked my mother, as she set
before me the dinner which had been saved for me.

"Mother, Simmerl wouldn't let go of me until I went home with him."

"It's quite right, child. Just lately Mistress Zutrum was complaining
to your father that you did not come to see your cousins and aunt and
uncle. My mother and the mother of Mistress Zutrum were sisters."

The danger was quite over. Out in the forest I asked my father whether
he knew the Zutrums' old servant, Kickel, and what was the matter with
him.

"It isn't the time for gossip now, it's the time for cutting
firewood,"--that was his answer.

A few weeks later I was with my father in the cattle pasture. It was
already dusk, and the oxen, who had been yoked to the plough all day,
thrust their muzzles into the food and grazed busily. We stood by and
waited until they were satisfied. It occurred to me that now was the
time for gossip, and I asked him again about Kickel.

"Child, let Kickel be," answered my father. "He's never harmed you--and
may God Almighty preserve from all craziness! See--they won't eat the
grass--they're not hungry any more."

Soon after, we led the oxen into the farmyard. If I had died at that
time, reader, you would hardly ever have learnt anything about Kickel.
Meanwhile, I grew into a thin, but sadly tall lad, too narrow for a
peasant, but long enough for a town gentleman--well, you know all about
that!

And once on a time, in summer, as I was going to visit far-away Alpel
again, in the forest on the way I overtook a peasant lad--a young,
handsome but earnest fellow, in Sunday clothes although it was a
work-day. He had an upright carriage, and moved his legs lightly and
regularly in walking, so that I thought, "He has been a soldier, or is
one still." His auburn hair, too, was cut short and shaved behind in
such fashion that his round, fresh-coloured neck was bare for a couple
of inches down to his shirt-collar. The long face, with the somewhat
thinly modelled nose, the very fair little moustache and the open,
shrewd eyes, suggested that he was by no means one of the most foolish
and simple of people. In those days I was as glad to have company on
such a road as now I am to go alone. So I tried it on with him. My
question was, where he went? He was going home to his wood-cutting in
Fischbacherwald. "Where had he been?" In Krieglach, in the churchyard.
"What had so lively a young fellow to do with the churchyard?"

"Well, it's just what happens often enough," answered he. "It was on
account of old Kickel."

Old Kickel! I had often heard the name mentioned. Ah, yes! it was the
old servant at Zutrum, who----"We'll go together, so that it will be
more entertaining. I am Peter from the Forest farm." That was my
introduction.

"I've known you before," was his answer. "I have often met you in Graz
when I was with the soldiers, but you have never recognised me."

"And why have you never made yourself known since you were from home?"

"I wanted to speak to you once, but I thought, 'A common soldier! Who
knows if he'd like it?'"

"Naturally--you a common soldier--and I absolutely nothing."

"Ah--not that," he rejoined. "You are already somebody. I know it
well."

"So they have buried Kickel to-day! And where are the others, then?"

"The few people have already gone on. Not many of them followed him. He
was only a poor pauper."

"You have surely been one of the bearers?"

"No," said he; "I have only followed on after. There has been no
praying even, because they said he had been a heathen. I thought to
myself that he wasn't any worse than most other people, and that he had
had bad luck--it was certainly his fate. Now in God's name he has
rest."

"What bad luck did he have, then?" was my question. I believed that I
was at last near to the satisfaction of my old and now re-awakened
curiosity.

"You will have heard of the story before," said my road companion.

"Yes, just rumours; but never knew where they came from. Do you know
anything exactly?"

"I know all about it," said he.

And I had led him on so far that he began to tell me everything. It is
again many years since then, but one never forgets such things, and now
I will tell the story of Kickel.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Isidor Kickel was the only son of a steward at the Schloss of Prince
Schwarzenberg, in Muran. He had to study, and wanted to also, but
suddenly dropped it all in his seventeenth year, just when he should
have repeated his annual course. After that he tried an agricultural
school, learnt forestry and became a forester. But he only got as far
as being a forester's assistant or huntsman, and as this he was placed
in the Imperial forests at Neuberg. He ought, perhaps, to have been a
scholar, for there was something speculative in him, and he read many
books in his spare time. He was much too much in books. He said such
things oftentimes, and kept so away from church, that the people said:
'Huntsman Kickel has fallen away from the Christian faith.' That often
happens to-day," commented my travelling companion. "At that time it
was something novel. No one knew how he felt about it himself inside;
the people said it could not feel quite right. Otherwise he was not a
bad man. Once when he was in the church during a feast, he took money
out of his purse and wanted to give it to the bell-pocket man, but the
man passed by him as if to say, 'You monster, your money is too bad for
me.' Whereupon Kickel gave the coins to a poor little old woman; they
were not too bad for her, and the people laughed no end! Once a swallow
flew into the church and could not get out again, because the windows
have wire-netting and the door was at the far end. And no one could
catch her, either. So Kickel went into the church every day and the
sacristan thought he had been converted. Kickel, however, was only
taking in bird's food so that the swallow should not starve. And as to
conversion, there was nothing of that sort at all. In spite of
everything, people liked him well, and nobody could accuse him of
anything wrong. Then he married a schoolmaster's daughter from the
Veitsch, and had seven children; and of these he lost six by death
while they were quite little, three at one time, and his wife also
through consumption. Only one single child remained to him, a boy
called Oswald. One often sees that people who are unable to believe in
a future life are all the more thirsty for life here, and for love too.
It was just that way with Kickel. His love for this only child became
an overwhelming passion, and all and everything which lay in his power
that could make life lovely for the handsome, merry young Oswald, he
gave him. He had him taught, and when he was twelve years old wanted to
send him to an Institute in Vienna; but, on the other hand, Oswald
wanted to stay among his home mountains, and the huntsman had to force
himself to thrust him out. A few years later he secured him a clerkship
in the State Forestry Office at Neuberg, and a few years after that
there was a wedding.

"Oswald's choice was a pretty daughter of a burgher of Mürzzuschlag.
The love-story apparently was just like other love-stories, and went
much the same road as they. Oswald became master-woodman in the
Hochschlag, behind Mürzsteg, on the high Veitsch. After barely a year,
naturally enough, the 'little lad' was there, and Oswald could say to
his father, 'I can wish nothing better for myself, and only fear lest
things should become worse!' So he must have been a much more contented
man than his father, and no one ever heard how he stood with regard to
religion. His wife," continued my lad, "has often told me since, that
he laid his arm round her neck and said, 'God be praised and thanked
that I have you!' So he must have believed _something_. And his
father, Kickel, just revelled in joy because all went so well for his
Oswald.

"Huntsman Kickel lived in an old dismantled farm-house, in the only
room which was still habitable. At that time he was suffering with a
wound in his foot, which he had got by leaping from a rock, and for
months he had been unable to go into the coverts. As Oswald on Sundays
went up to his mountain-hut from the valley, his way led him past, and
he spoke to his father to ask him how the sick leg was, and to bring
him this thing or the other and to chat with him about his wife and his
dear boy. He often brought the boy with him, too, and then Huntsman
Kickel would throw his boxes and cupboards open and invite son and
grandson to take with them anything that particularly pleased them.

"'Take--just take them all,' he would always say; 'they're mere
nothings. The little bit of pleasure in this world! I've had my share,
and there's nothing beyond. And if things get worse--end it!'

"Then that Sunday came. It was in August, and so hot in the morning
that the young master-woodman Oswald begged a glass of water of his
father on his way to church.

"'When I come back after noon,' he said to his father, 'I will pay you
for the well with St. John's blessing.' He meant by that he would bring
wine with him. The old man answered that he ought to take it up to the
little wife and the laddie. But they were in want of nothing; the
little wife sang from dawn onwards like a lark, and little Anderl had
laughed in his sleep as he, Oswald, before going out, had kissed him.

"'Ah, you poor burdened fellow!' Huntsman Kickel said again, and
clapped his son on the shoulder and then 'Good-bye till this
afternoon.'

"About midday a storm arose over the Hochschwab Mountain. It did not
rain much, but the thunder crashed heavily several times. An hour later
a woodman came down from the hill, who called into the open windows,
'Huntsman Kickel, look up if you want to see the smoke!'

"'What's the matter? What are you shouting for?' asked Kickel, who was
quite alone in the house.

"'The mountain-hut is burning--the lightning struck it.'

"'What do you say, woodman?'

"'When the master-woodman comes home he will find nothing left.
Everything has gone!'

"'The wife? The child?'

"'Everything's gone. If your son goes home, prepare him for it. I must
go to Niederalpel.'

"That was what the woodman said--and then he was off."

I cannot repeat as my fellow-wayfarer told it; it went straight into my
heart like a knife. But the young fellow remained unmoved, and went on
telling:

"No one knows what Huntsman Kickel thought of this message. At first he
wanted to go up to the heights where the black smoke was making the
whole heavens dark. But he was unable, because of the bad foot. 'His
wife and his child! His wife and his child! His wife and his child!'
The whole time just that. 'End it!' Kickel went into the parlour and
stared out of the window. 'Now he's coming--and now he's coming.' He
took the gun from the wall and stood in the middle of the parlour and
looked out through the window to the path outside. At last he came,
Oswald, out from the green wood; he did not look up, and still did not
know anything about it, and came so quickly and gaily to the house
where his father lived. And Huntsman Kickel aimed through the window
and shot him down."

"Jesus Christ!" I cried. "Had he gone mad?"

"One cannot say that," answered the lad. "When his old housekeeper came
home, he sent her at once for a cart, went to the police, and when
examined he said he could not endure that his Oswald should have
trouble and go on living, and he had thought to himself, 'He knows
nothing, and needs to know nothing. That useless grieving for many a
day and year is quite unnecessary. A quick death, and you are after
them, you are set free from everything--and I, your father, can do you
no better service than that.' He said, 'I did not aim badly; and now,
your honours, please make an end of me.' I believe they gave him
fifteen years, but when the Kaiser married in fifty-four they let him
off the rest."

I went thoughtfully along the woodland path, and said:

"It's almost beyond belief."

"It was best," continued my companion, "that they fetched him away at
once and took him to Loeben. He couldn't have lived after knowing the
worst of all."

"What the woodman said--was it not true, then?" I asked it with my
breath stopping.

"Yes, the lightning had certainly struck the hill-hut and it was burnt
down, but nothing had happened to Oswald's family."

       *       *       *       *       *

It's awful to think of the fate of some men!

We went on together for a while; neither said a word.

At last I stood still and asked, "When did he learn it?"

"When after nine years he had been free for half a year, and he came
home and was always laughing in the air, then I told it him myself."

"How did you say it to him?"

"'Father Kickel, your daughter-in-law and your grandson Anderl are
still alive, and all is well with them.'"

"And what did he say to that?"

"'So,' said he, 'they are still alive? And I had always dreamt that
they were all dead, all! God, what tales the young people tell!' And
then he laughed again."

"Ah--mad then!"

"It must have been so," said my companion. "For a while after that he
tried to earn his bread as a farm-servant, but later on, as he couldn't
succeed in that, he came on the parish. As a rule, one saw nothing
amiss with him, but many a time one did--many a time one did."

"You knew him quite well?" I asked the young fellow.

"Well, naturally," was his answer; "he was my grandfather."




XII

How I Came to the Plough


This is one of the very shortest, but also one of the most important
chapters in my story. It takes me out of my first childish youth and my
herding time, and brings me to the days of my young manhood and of work
filled with conscious purpose.

It needed many an artful trick before I managed to get promoted from
cowherd to ploughman. I had to sprain my foot, so that I could not run
after the cattle properly; I had to find birds' nests in the meadow,
which inclined my younger brother to take over my herdsman's duties in
my stead; lastly, I had to coax Markus the farm-hand, who had driven
the plough till then, into declaring that it was an easy-going
implement, as simple to handle as a pocket-knife, and that I--the
callow lad--was fairly strong enough and fit to guide the plough.

And I stood there and drew myself up until I reached at least as high
as long Markus's shoulders, and I shook one of the fence-posts until it
groaned--as a proof of my fitness for the plough. But my father laughed
and said:

"Get out, you're a little swaggerer! What you need is a good
breeches-dusting given you every day. And now he's pretending to be
grown up. Very well, take hold; it won't last long!"

We were in the fields when he spoke. Markus stood back; and I took the
plough by the horns.

The plough in the neighbourhood of my home is different, certainly,
from the bent bough of the savage, but it remains a clumsy, imperfect
implement. The farmer puts it together himself out of birch-wood,
fetching only the iron portions from the smith and the wheels from the
cartwright. The chief parts of the plough are the coulter, or
plough-iron, which cuts the turf vertically, and the share, which
slices it horizontally, thus creating a grassy sod which has four sides
to it, and is about a span wide and half a span thick. Then there is
the mould-board, which lifts the cut sod out of the furrow and turns it
over, so that the grassy side comes to lie at the bottom. Further
portions, by means of which these chief parts are fastened to the body
of the plough, are called the coulter-beam, the sill-beam, the "cat."
All these appliances have to be in duplicate, as required by the
progress up and down the hilly field, turn and turn about. In front is
the beam, lying on the axle-tree, to which a pair of oxen are usually
harnessed. At the back of the plough, three "horns" or tails stick out;
these are the handles by which the plough is driven by a powerful man.
It depends upon the driving of this ploughman whether the sod be made
wide or narrow and the furrow deep or shallow; it is this man's duty to
fix and lift the plough at the edge of the field; he must also be able,
on stony ground, to pull the plough out of the way of any larger stone
than usual, for the oxen cannot be brought suddenly to a standstill;
and the plough, if left to itself, would soon go to wreck and ruin.

Over and above this ploughman, the vehicle also needs a driver, who
leads the oxen in such a way that one of the pair is always stepping in
the furrow and the other on the sod. Then, lastly, there has to be a
"follower." This is usually a girl, who comes after the plough with a
hoe, presses down the sods that have not been well turned, cuts out
faulty furrows, and, in short, acts as the corrector of the plough.

You see that the thing is far from simple. It means a long day's work
to dig an acre and a half of sloping land with one plough. Well, how
did the young ploughman fare?

I had taken the bull firmly by the horns. But it really was a bull. The
apparatus had allowed Markus to handle it like a toy; it looked as
though he only held on to the handles for fun. It was quite a different
business with me. The cattle pulled. I was plunged to right and left by
the handles; the plough tried to jump out of the rut; and my little
bare feet got caught now and then under the clods.

"He's too short in the buttocks!" I heard father and the labourer say,
laughing.

This speech roused me. My honour, my manhood were at stake. I no longer
wanted to be the duffer who had to sit at the bottom corner of the
table, who dared not put a word in edgewise, who, if he knew of
anything that had happened, was free to go and talk it over with the
sheep and calves outside. I had the most ambitious views; I wanted to
be big and strong and independent, like the farm-labourer. And behold,
the higher a man aims, the taller he grows! I drove the plough and cut
a passable furrow. The earth-worms, disturbed by the plough, lifted
their heads in surprise and looked up to see who was ploughing to-day!

My father's fields had tough, yellowish-red earth, interwoven with
grass-roots; and the sods formed an endless gut, and were hardly once
in a way interrupted throughout the tract of land to be ploughed. I was
glad of that, for it made the plough remain always evenly in position,
and the furrow became more regular than any pond-digger's work. But my
father was not so glad; he would rather have had black, soft sods:

"Black earth, white bread!" says the proverb.

When I was driving the plough across the field for the third time, I
took a peep to see how high the sun stood in the sky. Alas, that clock
had stopped! There were clouds in front of it. Suppose God should be
angry and refuse to let it become noon to-day!...

It seemed a long time before mother, when dinner was ready, appeared in
the loft at the top of the house, as my grandmother had done before
her, put two fingers to her mouth, and sent forth the shrill, peculiar
whistle which I knew so well. I let go the handles and confessed that
mother had never whistled so musically before.

Then came dinner. I took good care not to wipe the earth from my hands,
for even this crust gave me a certain air; I was no longer the duffer,
I was the ploughman, I enjoyed equal rights with the labourers. I sat
down beside the head man and did my best to talk in a weighty fashion.
They spoke of my performance; then I was silent, for my performance
spoke for itself.

It is a small incident in one's youth, it is hardly big enough to be
worth mentioning; but, for the farmer, it is a great and momentous day
when he puts his hand to the plough for the first time--it is a sacred
act. The sword, the Cross, are objects of respect; and I look upon the
plough also as a symbol of the redemption of the world. The grey
earth-dust which clung to my hands that time, and with which I went in
to dinner--I have not wiped it off to this day--was to me what the
golden pollen-dust is to the bee.

And so I may be permitted to add that, in that same year, I tilled the
whole of that field; that my father sowed the seed there with a pious
hand; and that, next spring, the corn stood glad and green and
glorious.

"I haven't seen such a field of corn these ten years past," said my
father, when he saw it.




XIII

The Recruit


Never in my life shall I forget that February morning. It was only to
be expected; and yet it took us by surprise.

I was a little over twenty years of age. Though I already felt a
regular young man and did my very best to act as such, still I always
looked upon myself as a child, for I was ever so considered by my
parents and to a certain extent so treated by my teacher. I had to
stoop nowadays, when I entered the house through the door; and, when I
stood by the table-corner in the parlour, my head reached up to the
Holy Trinity on the wall, to espy whose mystery I had so often, as a
boy, scrambled up chair and table. But people still always called me by
my short pet name; and I still answered to it. And so, silently, that
February morning came upon us.

It was a Sunday. I had come back from a long job,[14] and meant to have
a pleasant rest. When I awoke, my father was standing by the bed and
said it was high time for me to get up, he wanted to speak to me.

"Do you owe any money to Bürscher the innkeeper at Krieglach?" he
asked, and waited anxiously for my answer.

I asked him why he put such a question to me: what I had drunk at
Bürscher's I had always paid for.

"So I should have thought. It's only because Bürscher has sent me a
paper to-day, which belongs to you, I'm thinking."

He gave me the paper: it was grey; and I turned red. Father noticed
this and said:

"Seems to me there's some disgrace about it, for all that!"

"Not a disgrace," said I, with my eyes fixed on the lines, which were
part in print and part in writing. "An honour rather. _Present myself_,
that's what I have to do."

The paper ran:

  "MILITARY SUMMONS

    "Take note that you, Peter Rosegger, living at house No. 18 at
    Alpel, born in the year 1843, in the parish of Krieglach, are
    hereby called upon to fulfil your military obligations by
    presenting yourself for inspection, at 8 o'clock in the morning
    on the 14th of March, 1864, at the appointed place at Bruck,
    clean-washed and in clean linen, failing which you will be
    treated as a deserter and undergo the usual consequences
    prescribed by law.

    "KINDBERG, 15 February, 1864.
      "For the Town Council,
        "WESTREICHER,
          "_Chairman_.
  "Lot No. 67.      Age-class I."

By this time, my mother was there too. She could not believe it. Why,
it wasn't so long since I was just a little bit of a chap! And now, all
at once, a soldier!

"He's not that yet," said father.

"Give them time. And look at him. They won't send _him_ home in a
hurry. Jesu, Mary! And the chest is spreading, too, now! That narrow
little chest of yours was always my comfort. And to think that you have
grown so broad all in a year!"

I had jumped out of bed, but did not know how to defend myself against
my disconsolate mother's reproaches.

My father said to her:

"Thank your stars that he's healthy. Do you want a cripple for a son?
Would you rather have had that than a fine, well-set-up soldier?"

"You're right, of course, Lenzel:[15] if only I could keep him with me,
though. Sooner or later, he'll have to go to the front; and I simply
can't bear to think of that."

She wept.

"Get back into bed again," said father to me. "You could have stayed in
bed, if you'd wanted to."

I didn't care about bed now. I was glowing in every limb. True, I had
been secretly awaiting this summons, in fear and trembling; but, now
that it had come, I had an ever so pleasant and cheerful feeling inside
me. I was filled with joy and pride. The Emperor had sent for me! I
rushed to the door; I could have shouted from house to house, from hill
to hill:

"I'm a recruit!"

There were many weeks yet before the 14th of March. Mother wanted me
not to go on any more jobs, but to stay at home so that she could have
me with her for that short time. My master, indulgent as ever, yielded
to her. She gave herself up to thinking and planning how to make this
time, the last that I should spend with her, pleasant to me. She called
to mind all my pet dishes. She asked the market-woman to get beetroot
for her and dried cherries, two things which my palate specially
relished at the time. She scattered more and more oats before the hens
and tried to explain to them that they would be dispensed from duty the
whole of next summer if only they would lay eggs now, at this great
time; otherwise there would be nothing for it but to cut off their
heads; for a soldier, if he got no eggs to eat, was not averse to
roast fowls, however old and tough--they never saw such teeth as a
young fellow had who was just going for a soldier!

Dear mother-heart, once so warm and true, can it be possible that you
are now but a cold bit of clay? How I yearn for you these days! How I
pray that you will let me love you, as you once prayed to me! You are
almost colder to me now than I was then to you. I never thought what
endless loving-kindness and cheerfulness and self-sacrifice lay hidden
in the little gifts and pleasures which you prepared for me! I took
you, O my mother's heart, as a man takes the breath of the morning and
the sunshine, without so much as a "Thank you"!

So, at that time, with the conscription near at hand, I accepted my
mother's tenderness rather casually and, instead of staying at home
with her, went about the neighbourhood and forgathered with the lads
who had received their summons like myself. True, there were some among
them for whom I had but little fellow-feeling--I did not care much for
the lads of my neighbourhood, our tastes lay too far asunder--but the
common lot now united us, we consorted together, we drank together in
the taverns; and, full of esprit de corps as I was, I behaved just as
wildly as the rest.

Everybody smoked; and it was no longer pipes, but cigars, to make
people think that the Emperor already had sent army tobacco on ahead
for his young recruits. Everybody strove to walk grand and straight and
upright, though, as I presently found, this resulted rather in a sort
of strut or swagger. Whether everybody had a sweetheart I can't quite
say; but this much is certain, that everybody sang about his
sweetheart. There are songs about the pretty and the ugly, the
faithless and the deserted, the cold and the warm-hearted; songs for
daily use and songs for special occasions. I joined boldly in every
ditty, as though I owned girls of all sorts and descriptions. And yet,
all the while, I was secretly afraid because of my recruiting-favour.

Here let me explain that every lad who is called upon for conscription
gets a many-coloured bunch of ribbons pinned to his hat by his
sweetheart. The ribbons are mostly red and wave in the breeze--when
their wearers bluster as they should--like flags. The rose or
bud-shaped favours are generally cut out of coloured linen or paper and
have the advantage of always keeping bright and fresh and not drooping,
as real flowers do;--for a drooping air won't do for recruits. Only,
there is just one green sprig of rosemary with it, forming the heart of
the favour; and in this green spray the beloved talks to her lover,
saying I know not what sweet and good things! So long as the beloved
has to do with rosemary, it is the May-time of love.

Now where was _I_ to get my favour from? A sweetheart! I knew of one,
but I had none: I had never reflected how indispensable the sweetheart
is to the recruit.

Must I, while all the others marched away with fluttering top-knots,
trot favourless behind? And what was the good of marching and what the
good of going for a soldier, if I left no sobbing girl behind me?

The day arrived.

My mother made as if she were calm, at times even cheerful, but she had
always red eyes. Once she went to my master and wept and was surprised
that he did not cry too. But he only laughed and said that he did not
see what there was to grieve about: Peter need not be afraid of
soldiering; he would have a good time; he had learnt tailoring; he
might even become a cutter in the army tailors' department; and then he
could laugh at all of them. But my dear mother wouldn't hear about
laughing, for the time being; she remained disconsolate: under the
circumstances she felt better so. She got ready for me the finest linen
she could lay hold of and marked each garment with a little cross; but
nothing further was said about the recruiting, until the last moment,
when I was starting and mother wished to go with me as far as
Krieglach.

"For God's sake, don't!" I cried; for how would it have gone off if I
had marched with mother by my side and the lads in front of us with
their wild songs and chaff! Pretty badly: such young devils are lads
that there are times when the gentlest mother's son of them all blushes
for his parents.

"Nay, nay, mother," said father to her, "you can't go; you're no good
at that; and they would only poke fun at the boy."

My mother did not say another word. She did not even come as far as the
front door with me, for fear of getting me laughed at by the
passers-by. Inside, in the parlour, she dipped her finger in the
holy-water stoup and made a cross with it over my face and then hurried
into the next room, to let her tears flow freely. I felt just a queer
sort of choking at the throat, but did not let it master me. And I
won't warrant that, when, in the dark passage, I made a quick movement
over my eyes, I did not at the same time wipe off the wet mark of the
cross.

We all met at Stocker's inn on the bridle-path. Everyone, as I
expected, had his hat full of finery; my head alone was smooth as that
of a poor little ram that has grown no horns yet and has just to be
content with its long ears. Therefore I was still mortally unhappy at
the first glass; at the second, however, I thought of the shako with
the flaunting imperial eagle on it, which I was as certain of wearing
as any of the rest.

There were pretty fellows among them, but also wretched pigmies who
needed their streaming ribbons to hide their humps, their goitres, and
even--if I may be allowed a little exaggeration--their weedy
spindle-shanks. Now where had _they_ got their sweethearts from, that
they sported such fine favours? They all had their hats on; I alone had
flung mine into a corner, to avoid the scorn with which, for that
matter, they had already overwhelmed me.

When we broke up at last and I was obliged to fish out my hat again, I
could not find it. For in its place was another, with a splendid
rosette and two ribbons, one red and the other white; and I now saw
that it _was_ my hat which had been so gloriously favoured by an
unknown hand. Perhaps I had a sweetheart after all! I reflected, but
could hit upon none whom I thought capable of liking such a
"Marry-me-not" as myself. Stocker, the innkeeper, had nice-looking
daughters, but they were all married. His old wife was reported to have
once been young herself, but the ribbons and that wonderful, dainty
sprig of rosemary could not possibly date back to that period. And the
old woman played no other part in the business than to whisper to me
that someone had been past the house and secretly prigged a rosette for
me.

Anyway, I had it--that was the great thing--and it looked finer and
grander than all the rest. Goodness, how I racked my brains under that
favour! To the others, however, I behaved as if I knew right well from
whom it came, and I even carried this plan to such a pitch that I
myself began to fix on a definite person and believed and was soon
convinced that it was she I loved. It's inconceivable how soon a
certainty of this sort makes a man of one! I was now the liveliest of
them all as we went along; and more than one of them said they never
knew that Lenzel's son was such a devil of a fellow. Which made me feel
not a trifle flattered.

One of our numberless jokes was to "make the railway-train stop." We
posted ourselves outside the station and, as the train came up, yelled
and shouted:

"Hi! Stop!"

Then the train stopped and we laughed.

But things did not always end so harmlessly. We were seated in the
railway-carriage--the Krieglach Town Council had given us our fares,
which, as we believed, were sent direct by the Emperor--when one of us,
Zedel-Zenz, proposed that we should all examine our tufts of rosemary:
he whose spray was beginning to fade had lain oftenest in his
sweetheart's arms. And then it turned out that the green sprig in my
hat was clinging a little wearily and languidly to the red linen
flowers. This, of course, caused me a fresh inward alarm. Could this
sprig of rosemary know more about her and more about me than I myself
did? Had I really been favoured already?

"Yes, that goes without saying!" I laughed, swaggering like anything.

But instead of impressing the others, I only brought down ridicule upon
myself. They spoke of rocking the cradle and drew all sorts of
conclusions from the fading of the rosemary, until at last I protested
angrily. What had it to do with them? I asked. If anybody had anything
to complain of, let him come on! For it at once occurred to me, a real
recruit must put up with nothing, must know how to be rude and raise a
brawl in due season. And so I blustered away until I had blustered
myself into a regular, genuine rage, stamping my feet, waving my arms
and actually managing to shatter a window-pane.

The guard at once appeared. Who had broken the glass?

"Lenzel's son!" crowed one. "The tailor!"

But the others shouted that it wasn't true and that we mustn't tell who
had done it.

"I want no hushing up from any of you!" I broke in. "I smashed the
pane. What's the damage?"

"We'll see to that at Bruck," answered the guard. "I'll speak to the
captain; the army'll soon tame you, my lad!"

"Now you've done it," thought I to myself; "now you're a soldier,
Lenzel's son."

And I became quite quiet, as if the wintry air, rushing in through the
broken window, had cooled me to good purpose.

At the station at Bruck there was no more said about that pane of
glass; and, when we went shouting through the town, I slung my arms
round the necks of my companions on either side of me and felt grateful
to them for their willingness to screen the felon that I was.

From the windows of the houses, the town misses looked down upon our
mad doings; and we were convinced that they must all be in love with us
and that, the more rudely we behaved and the more wildly the ribbons
streamed from our hats, the more ardent their love must grow. We had a
lurking suspicion that even a farmer's lad from the mountains, bawling
with brag and arrogance and marching away as the champion of his
country, may, when all is said, possess some little interest for the
city dame.

Now escorted by corporals, we marched back into the town by the other
side and up to a building standing by itself. Then we went indoors. All
of us were a little flurried; none knew in what condition he would
leave this house again. And here, in the town, the soldier's life no
longer looked so glorious as at home in the still woods. Most of
us--even though we were not the most pious--sighed an "In God's name!"
as we blundered up the steps.

We went into a large hall which was almost like a barn and in which
over a hundred young men were already gathered. There was a tremendous
buzzing and pushing; and it was a very curious sight. Some, filled with
the gaiety of despair, were jumping up and down on their stocking-feet
or barefoot; others tied up their clothes and sat down on the bundles
and were sad as death. Others again leant or stood against the walls,
like carved saints, with the cold sweat on their foreheads. One might
say even of the dwarfs and cripples that their hearts sank into their
trousers, had they still had their trousers on!

I walked round the hall, meaning well by everybody, but caring to talk
to none. They were surprised that I could keep so indifferent; of the
great excitement bubbling inside me I gave no sign.

Suddenly the entrance-door was locked, which made one of us whisper:

"Look, the trap's snapped to!"

On the other hand, a door opposite opened; and a couple of
soldiers--but these were full-blown soldiers--walked about among us and
pushed one after the other into the inner room. I then saw some of the
palest faces I ever beheld in my life. Most of them, however, strode
quite bravely through the fateful gate. But we were numbered. To
prevent unfairness in any given age-class, the order of the muster--for
it is usually to the recruit's advantage to be one of the last--the
order is always arranged, a few weeks beforehand, by lot, which every
man liable to military service can draw in person or allow to be drawn
by such persons as he pleases. My number had been drawn by the
Krieglach Town Council; and it bore the favourable number of 67.

Nearly half of the numbers up to 30 did not come back. A sergeant
fetched their clothes. But those who did come back wore an all the
gladder look, dressed themselves as quickly as they could, or, for fear
lest the gentleman inside should repent of having let them go, bundled
their clothes under their arms and slipped out through some hole or
other.

Numbers 51 to 65 all came back. Number 66 did not reappear. The
sergeant came for his things. Then, at last, Number 67 was called. I
walked with the utmost composure--rather too fast than too slow--into
the lions' den.

What was there so extraordinary? Three or four gentlemen in black
coats, with shiny buttons, silver collars, clattering swords and
warlike moustaches. The blades were smoking cigars. My first thought
was, could they be bribed with a civil "Good morning"? But I had heard
from the men before me that the gentlemen had not said so much as
"Thank you" to this greeting. We were just "things." And who is going
to exchange greetings with a _Number 67_? So I bit my teeth together
and held my tongue and sported my most defiant air.

I was at once put against an upright post. One of the officers, with a
soft pressure of the hand, pushed my chest out and my knees in and
said:

"Sixty-four and a half!"

Another seemed to write it down.

"Chest sound. Muscles might be more developed."

"Give him another year to run about in," said a third.

"Go and dress yourself!"

That was the whole proceeding. I hardly know how I got back to the
front room. As I went out by the steps, the soldiers on duty stuck
their bayonets in my way: that means a request to the lucky ones for a
tip. It did not need the bayonets: everyone gives, for it is the moment
when he is free to leave the fatal building, with its often harsh
consequences, and return to his dear home.

Those who are "kept" are mostly also allowed to go home once more and
there await the muster-call; but they remain in custody on the day
itself, until the gentlemen are finished with the inspection. Then they
are drafted into the regiments and made to take the military oath; and
then they are--soldiers.

We waited for them in the Bruck taverns. They were received with loud
shouts and cheered with wine and song; and, if many a "kept" one felt
like falling in the dumps because his glad young life in the green
mountains was over to-day and because he had to march away, perhaps to
a foreign country, perhaps to the distant battle-field, and because he,
who was as fond of life as another, had to risk his young blood, the
hurrahs of his boon companions soon roused him to fresh tavern joys;
and, at last, all began to feel as though this were but one long day,
without an end to it, sinking into the night and the night into wine.

But hours come and pass away; and so do drinking-bouts. The next day we
separated; and to Krieglach-Alpel went what from Krieglach-Alpel came.
Of our lot, two men had become soldiers: a bloodless, but very
good-looking charcoal-burner's son; and a labourer. The labourer put on
a jovial and almost wild air and tried to pick a quarrel with more than
one stranger who greeted us in the street. The charcoal-burner's son
was steeped in melancholy. We did not know what he was losing through a
military life, nor he either: he just gazed at the great mountains and
the glorious forest trees....

We others and the inns on the road took all the greater care to keep
the mad recruiting-spirit alive. By the custom of our fathers, the
rosette and ribbons are worn on the hat by the recruit who goes home a
soldier and by no other. But we acted differently that day: we all kept
our rosettes, so as to create a greater sensation and compel respect.

"Look, look! Expect we'll be having war soon," said many a little
peasant, "for they're keeping them all now, every man jack of them.
It'll be true what the old folks say, that the women will fight for the
chair on which a he once sat."

Beyond the village of Fressnitz we came up with a beggar-man carrying a
hurdy-gurdy on his back. One of us at once demanded the use of it; and,
while a second led the old man like a bridle-horse, a third ground out
on the beggar-man's back all the tunes which the organ contained; and
we others danced and jumped about on the frozen road. In this array, we
arrived at Krieglach, where we took our musical team to the tavern
with us. The old man was in fine fettle and assured us that we were
angels of recruits compared with those of his day. He had been one
himself; and once they took a peasant who was sitting in a cart,
letting his donkey pull him uphill, and harnessed him between the
shafts and put the donkey in the cart instead; and they had done
saucier things than that. He drank our healths and praised the days of
old.

There was lots of singing as we crossed the mountain by the
bridle-path. I should be sorry to repeat the songs. We sang ourselves
warm, we sang ourselves hoarse. On the upper ridge, a hawker, known as
Egg Mary, met us, carrying to Mürzzuschlag her baskets filled with
those little things of which the songs says:

    It's an oval fortress,
    Has no towers, no portress
      But lordly food inside.

And the words came to my mouth:

"Raw eggs are good for hoarseness!"

"We'll make sure of that at once!" cried the others, took the woman's
basket and sucked out all her eggs--the charcoal-burner's son with the
rest of them--and I too.

All that Egg Mary could get out in her wrath was:

"You're a pack of scoundrels!"

"Never mind," answered Zedel-Zenz. "We'll pay as soon as we have any
money."

Then she went back with an empty basket, grumbling and uttering her
various views of us and our behaviour. We started singing again, and
the eggs did their duty.

At Stocker's inn we once more gave rein to our spirits. I did not fail
to renew my inquiries about my benefactress with the ribbons and was
firmly determined, if ever I came across the girl, to love her with all
my heart and soul. The old hostess blinked significantly with her
little grey eyes, but I got nothing more out of her.

We lads parted outside the inn in the steadfast belief that, after
these days spent in one another's company, we would remain the firmest
of mutual friends. A farewell feast was ordered of the innkeeper for
the day when the two who had been kept were to join the colours.

When the spree was over, I felt a sinking inside, as I wended my way
home. A laughing face looked out at me from every window. My father
walked slowly up to me and knocked the hat off my head with his arm, so
that the ribbons rustled against the frozen snow. For the moment I did
not know what this meant; but my father did not leave me long in
ignorance.

"Is it all the same to you," he said, "that you come home with a
blazing lie on your hat? As to _who_ gave you that besom, we'll talk
about that later. All I ask you now is, how can you do a thing like
that to your mother? I dare say you don't know--you blackguard young
puppy you!--how her heart is torn with anxiety at the thought of losing
a child. But that you could give her such a fright! I wouldn't have
thought it of you! If Egg Mary hadn't happened to come and tell us that
you had a lucky escape this time, you might have had a nice business to
answer for, with that damned rosette of yours. And your mother so
poorly this long while past and all!"

I trembled in every limb. My recruiting giddiness was gone; I suddenly
saw my whole baseness. My heart cried out for my mother. And that same
Egg Mary, whom we--not to mince matters--had robbed on the high-road,
had gone on ahead, in her good nature, to tell my people, to whom she
owed many a little kindness, that they must not be frightened at the
soldier's favour with which I should most likely come home, and that I
had come out of it with luck.

My mother's joyful, loving grip of my hand only deepened my contrition.
But father was wagging the rosette under my nose:

"And now, boy, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me where you got
those fine feathers from! Are you walking out with somebody, young as
you are? That's what I want to know!"

Many and sweet as were the thoughts of pretty girls that filled my
mind, fond as I was of talking of it to fellows like myself, the thing
looked very different in my father's presence. I assured him that I was
walking out with nobody and that I did not know who had given me the
favour. He laughed out loud and then flew at me angrily because of "the
silly impudence of trying to make him believe a fib like that."

My mother interposed and said that they could rejoice that I was home
again, and that they must not begin by scolding me so hard.

"Now you're backing him in his wickedness," he cried, "when he's lying
straight in my face! But did you ever see such a booby as not to know
from whom he got the ribbons in his hat?"

"Now it's my turn to laugh," said my mother. "This time the boy really
can't tell, for _I_ had the favour stuck in his hat on the sly, so that
he might have a bit of colour about him, as good as the rest of them."

She had done it secretly, because she suspected that her son was
longing for a rosette from strange hands, and could easily have
despised his mother's gift. She had prevented his ingratitude
beforehand. And her home-coming son might have smitten her to the heart
with that same rosette!...

The murder was out; father said nothing; and I ... I also did my share
of thinking....

That children must always be striving after strange and far-away joys,
hungering for love and yearning for love, which they will never find so
pure and rich and endless as at home, in that perennial spring of
tenderness, their mother's heart!

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Peter Rosegger was at that time a travelling tailor's apprentice.

[15] Lorenz, Lawrence.




XIV

A Forgotten Land


I always say that the world is becoming too small. There is no room
left for hermits.

I frequently receive enquiries, from correspondents abroad, for cool
summer resorts,--for nature resorts. Would I please--so runs the
request--suggest a corner in the Alps where they will find clean rooms
and good food in a farm-house kept by simple, kindly people. Added
conditions: no railway, no telegraph, no post, no newspapers. A place
where they can feel safe from meeting English people or people from
Berlin and--forgive the imputation--Vienna. They want to have nothing
but woods and fields around them, and, oblivious of all town luxuries
and refinements, at least for a few weeks to bathe body and soul in the
dew of a primitive life. This is the wish which--O curious sign of the
times!--grows ever louder and louder. Is the return to nature, yearned
for by the poets, at last beginning in earnest?

If only the company-promoters do not seize upon this need and found a
colony for hermits! It is not so easy to recover nature once wantonly
deserted. Our alps contain no valley, however secluded, into which
artificial wines and brandy and American meat-extracts and cigars have
not by this time made their way, in which the fences are bare of
railway timetables and mineral-water posters and upon which some _News
of the Day_ or other does not force its huge weekly doses of "culture"
and information.

This is the case by now even in those districts whose "unfavourable"
situation has hitherto for the most part spared them the two well-known
"blessings" of civilisation. The floodgates are opened; and even those
parts cannot be spared the deluge....

My forgotten land! He who would still bathe for a little in "the dew of
a primitive life" may do so! I hasten to draw a fleeting picture of the
land and its people before the floods of the world come and inundate
it.

The region is locally and colloquially known as Sanct-Jakobs-Land, or
"the Jackelland." It lies in Styria, between the Mürzthal and the
Wechsel mountain-chain. Its river is the clear-running Feistritz, rich
in trout, with its countless tributaries. When one crosses the top of
the watershed over the Wechsel, or the Pfaffen, or from the Mürzthal,
everything at once wears a different look. The mountains are lower, the
forests more scattered, because they are broken up on every hand by
cornfields. The farms lie isolated in the fields, on the skirts of the
forests, often very high in the mountains. In the valley are the bright
green pastures, with running brooks and corn-mills. The air is calm and
peaceful, disturbed by the whistle of no locomotive, the chimney of no
factory. The old farm-houses are humbly built; and the kitchen,
living-room, hen-house and so on often form but one general room. This
makes the new sort of houses, which are springing up on every side,
look all the grander, with their sundry apartments and numerous
windows,--from which many a pretty, fair-haired face peeps out at us,
for it is an event when a stranger comes that way.

The farm premises are, for the most part, extensive, built of wood,
straw-thatched and enclosed within a plank fence. Every farm has its
open-air crucifix, often artistically carved, sometimes, I admit,
adorned with a figure of Christ which faith alone can save from
ridicule. On the spreading mountain-heights lie wide forests, such as
Teufelstein, Fischbacherwald, Vorauerwald, Feistritzwald, Rabenwald.
There are no work-houses, except the few on the Wechsel. For the rest,
the region is well-populated and rich in compact villages and beautiful
churches. The mountain-village of St. Jakob im Walde, which gives the
Jakobsland its name, lies on a spur of the Wechsel, some four thousand
feet above the level of the sea.

The inhabitants do not call themselves Jacklers: they are only
so-called by the people in the districts round about; for the name does
not stand for anything very fine, though it has grown old in honour.
They simply call themselves after their parishes: the Rattners, the St.
Jakobers, the Miesenbachers and so on. Almost every village has its own
peculiarity. The Kathreiner goes in for finery, the Rattner for
disputes and litigation; the Wenigzeller is a great man for backbiting
and quarrelling; the Fischbacher is a notorious brawler.

The people are powerfully built and have tall and slender figures; they
are mostly fair-haired. The men wear clothes of dark stuff, in the
summer, and, in winter, the so-called _Wilfling_, a mixture of thread
and sheep's wool; on workdays they tie on long blue aprons, a practice
which prevails even among the schoolboys. The women favour a bunchy
style of dress; and when one of them wants to look particularly smart
(and this applies to many), she puts on three, or five, or more
petticoats, one over the other. Many villages are already infected with
the fashion of dress introduced from the Mürzthal.

A peculiarity of the Jackler is his love for flax, which he cultivates
in great quantities; and the hackling, in autumn, gives rise to regular
popular festivals. _During the winter, both men and women occupy
themselves in spinning, and do so until late at night, passing the
time as they work in telling stories, asking and guessing conundrums,
and singing._ Only there is no spinning after supper on Thursdays: from
flax spun at such a time the weaver weaves shrouds.

Their food is simple and consists mainly of milk, flour, pulse,
potatoes and linseed-oil. The everyday beverage is new cider. In some
places they grind dried pears, and from the flour thus produced, which
is mixed into a pulp with milk, they make the so-called _Dalken_.
Apples are also dried; and so are plums and cherries: these are all
made into soup in the winter. The cattle are reared, fattened and sold;
sheep or pigs are slaughtered for holiday needs. The fare is very rich
on feast-days; and there is a tradition that, on Twelfth Night, nine
different kinds of stews should be consumed in every house: formerly
the Jacklers used to eat no fewer than three meals on that night, so
that "Three Kings' Night"[16] is known as "Three Meal Night" to this
day.

The population, which reminds one, in its habits and customs, of the
inhabitants of the Böhmerwald, is descended from Bajuvar stock and
immigrated in the sixth and seventh centuries. It is German by origin
and German by nature. Settled here for over a thousand years, the
individual members of this race have become so rooted to the soil that
they never leave it, and only with difficulty admit anything foreign to
the land. The cell of the first German monk who began to convert the
heathen is said to have stood in the desert where the little village of
Mönichwald now stands. The mission was afterwards continued by the
monasteries of Vorau and Pöllau. The living is in the possession of the
population to this day; in many places, the parish-priest fills at the
same time the offices of parish-councillor, guardian of the poor and
district school-inspector.

One can easily, therefore, picture the peace that reigns between
church, school and municipality. Generally speaking, the clergy--in the
absence of any defiant antagonism--are more liberal-minded here than in
those outlying districts where they feel called upon to defend their
compromised rule by the exercise of intolerance and severity.

The Jackler is favourably distinguished in one particular from the
agricultural population of some other parts: he is not neutral. In the
surrounding districts the peasant is apt to be indifferent towards
matters of religious practice and equally indifferent towards other
ideals and spiritual things. The Jackler is not like that. Gorgeous
festivals, which he loves to celebrate in his stately village-churches,
festivals which remind one of the Tyrol in their splendour, their often
dramatic form, their mediæval love of God and veneration of the saints,
delight him, stimulate him, give sustenance and substance to his
spiritual life. A priest who is not prepared to celebrate the
anniversaries of the church's patrons with due pomp and ceremony and to
invite half a dozen neighbouring priests to read Mass and preach (and
he must provide them with a good dinner into the bargain) would soon
find himself at loggerheads with his flock.

The district is often visited by fanatical missionaries, who promptly
arouse excitement for miles around. The parish-priest is not always
filled with the friendliest feelings towards these hunters of souls,
but he has to invite them for fear of offending his superiors. The
costs of the mission are more than gladly covered by the parishioners.

The Jackler is notable not only for his pious tendencies, but also for
his business subtlety; and he will swindle his parish-priest over a
deal in oxen, to-day, after being moved to tears by his sermon
yesterday--and this without the least prejudice to his own religious
sentiments.

"If I can't cheat my best friend," says the Wenigzeller, "whom _can_ I
cheat? My enemy doesn't trust me!"

The so-called lesser "holidays," of which there are over thirty in the
year, are also conscientiously kept: in the morning, by a sung Mass in
church; in the afternoon, in the tavern or on the bowling-green. Many
servants work on those days on their own account; and, if their
employer needs their services, he must pay them a special wage.

The Jackler is quick in his work and moderate and discreet in his
pleasures. There are rich and poor in this region as in others, but not
in the ordinary sense. The householder is "rich" who is not in debt in
respect of his real or movable estate; "rich" is applied to the carrier
who has saved a little silver, to a farm-girl who has flax and linen in
her trunk and perhaps hides a savings-bank book beneath it, with the
amount of her reaping pay. "Poor" are the debt-ridden cottager, the
landlord whose property is mortgaged up to the hilt, the incompetent
salter or pickler. No one is ruined by privation: people, it is true,
are often harsh to the poor man, but they help him.

Nearly everything that the peasant needs is produced by his industry;
there is little ready-money in the district; but, for that reason, it
has two or three times the value as compared with the prices ruling in
the railway districts.

"A thousand gulden!"

That expresses their utmost conception of wealth. The occasional
stranger who happens to have strayed into this region is surprised when
he finds himself charged no more than eighty kreuzer for a good night's
lodging and an excellent supper and breakfast. On the other hand, when
a Jackler, for once in a way, travels on the railway, his wonder never
ceases at the high fares which he is called upon to pay; and he
considers that the shorter time the train takes to cover a distance,
the less the charge should be.

The inhabitants of the Feistritz district supply the Mürzthal with
poultry, eggs and fruit at a very cheap rate; and the women who carry
and deliver them earn barely twenty kreuzer a day. Wood and coal also
find their way into that ravenous and industrious valley; and the
Jackler artisans make their bit of money there. They have the making of
good masons, carpenters, shoemakers, tailors, smiths, watchmakers,
gunsmiths and so on. These workmen from the Jackelland are greatly
appreciated in the Mürzthal and round about; they work hard, well and
cheaply, and are not particular in the matter of board and lodging.

Many maid-servants, who enter a farmer's service for a year at
Christmas, do so for a trifling annual wage of fifteen or twenty
gulden. On the other hand, they stipulate with their employers that, in
summer, when there is hardly any pressing work to be done at home, they
shall be allowed to follow their own business for a few weeks. The
lasses then go reaping. In the month of June they wander away, with
bundle and sickle, to the lowlands or the Mürzthal, where the corn is
ripe early; and they find plenty of work and amaze everybody by their
eager and indefatigable diligence. This done, they cheerfully come home
again with their reaping wages and once more apply themselves briskly
to the needs of field and garden. It is very seldom that one of them,
lured by love or other worldly advantages, remains away; they like home
best, where they form part, so to speak, of the family of their
employer, with whom maid and man alike live on fraternal terms.

A fine characteristic of this little land is the cohesion that reigns
among neighbours. If one of them is visited with misfortune, the others
stand by him fairly and squarely; do his urgent work for him, if he be
ill; come to his aid with building materials, carpenters and masons, if
fire or water have destroyed his house; send in food as well; and
generally put the sorely-tried one on his legs once more. Again, in
certain forms of labour, such as copse-cutting, flax-scutching,
corn-mowing, they gladly work for the common cause--on this farm
to-day, on that to-morrow--with the result that everything goes
sociably and cheerfully. One for all and all for one!

The young lads stick together for their particular objects. They form
clubs--each district according to its own requirements--through which
they mutually support one another in their feuds and love-adventures.
They help and protect one another in "window-haunting" and
"street-strolling," as the nocturnal love-walks are called; they humbug
the father, when one of them is after the pretty daughter; they help to
defeat the rivals; and, in addition, they play all sorts of practical
jokes, which their brains are very quick at inventing. The youth of one
parish will often hatch deliberate plots against that of another; and
bloody fights take place on many a Sunday and holiday.

Amorous relations between unengaged couples do not, as yet, occur to
the same extent in the Jackelland as elsewhere; morals are stricter,
opportunities fewer and frivolity less marked. Manners, upon the whole,
are more serious and sober, a fact which is in no way detrimental to
the pleasure of living, but, on the contrary, increases it and keeps it
fresh and clean.

The lover of a healthy and intelligent people must needs feel himself
at home and stimulated in the Jackelland. When, on a Sunday, he sits
among the peasants in the Tafés, or inns run by the church, he will not
be bored; he will rather be soon inclined to join in the conversation.
But the stranger--if he think for a moment that he is ruling the
talk--must be on his guard lest he be made a butt of! They have at
their command an exceedingly witty and subtle form of ridicule, which
often is understood only by the natives themselves. Many a townsman who
has tried to preach wisdom to the Jacklers has been delightfully
hoaxed by them and ultimately laughed out of court.

Place-hunting, party-hatred, pessimism and such-like flowers of our
time have not yet blossomed in the Jackelland. The people there are
people in whom hard bodily labour rouses no complaint, in whom pleasure
is not marred by a subsequent reaction, people whose life, usually a
long one, is spent peacefully, rich in great toils and small sins.
Thanks to their moderation and contentment, they are free lords, who
can easily make fun of others who have fettered themselves in the
chains of worldly advancement.

The only sinister inhabitants are the civil engineers, who for years
have been exploring the length and breadth of the little land, in the
hope of sooner or later turning the iron horse to graze in those green
pastures.

FOOTNOTE:

[16] _Dreikönigsnacht_, the German name for Twelfth
Night.--_Translator's Note._




XV

The Schoolmaster


It was getting dark; the autumn mists were sinking over the wooded
mountains. The herdsman was trudging his way home to the tinkling bells
of his cattle. For some time longer the farm-hand was heard beating the
oat-stalks over a beam that lay on the threshing-floor, until the last
grain was separated. The barn door closed at last; and the little
houseful of people gathered in the parlour to eat their rye soup and
potato mash. Then they betook themselves to their straw beds.

The children were soon asleep.

A rushlight burnt in the room, and the farmer's wife kept putting it
straight on its spike. Peter wound up the smoke-browned clock on the
wall.

Just as husband and wife were about to get into bed, the watch-dog in
the yard began to bark. There came a light tapping at the window-pane.

"Who's that?" cried the farmer.

And his wife added crossly:

"There's no peace for us to-day!"

"It's someone begging for a night's shelter," said a hoarse voice
outside.

"I expect it's a poor man," said the farmer's wife. "That's quite a
different thing. Go and unbolt the door, Peter."

Soon after a man stumbled into the room, weary and bent, grasping a
long stick in his right hand and carrying a little bundle in his left.
A wide-brimmed, discoloured, crushed felt hat was on his head, and
under the brim hung snow-white strands of hair.

Peter took the rush in his hand and threw a light upon the stranger's
face. Then he exclaimed:

"Heavens! It can't be possible----! Why, it's the schoolmaster of
Rattenstein!"

"Aye, aye, my dear Heath--Peter," said the old man, recovering his
breath, "that's so. With your permission, I will sit down at once."

The farmer's wife pulled on her dress again and hurried into the
kitchen to warm some soup; then she called back into the parlour:

"Go and light a candle, Peter. The rush won't burn properly, and the
smoke makes one's eyes fairly smart."

Then, when a tallow candle was burning on the table and the old man had
wiped the sweat from his careworn face, Heath Peter almost shyly
offered him his hand and said:

"Well, how do you come wandering into the Wilderness like this,
Schoolmaster?"

"It had to be," replied the old man. "It's a case, with me, of
'Forsaken and beat, like the stones in the street.' I just turned up a
footpath and went on over hill and dale as the Lord willed. And so, in
the end, I came to you people in the Wilderness."

"And, if I may ask, where do you mean to go, Schoolmaster?"

The old man made no reply. His head sank down upon his chest. His
fingers clutched at his blue handkerchief; but, before he could raise
it with trembling hand to his face, he burst into heavy sobs.

"Lord Jesus! Schoolmaster!" cried Peter, springing to support him, for
the old man threatened to collapse.

"Never would I have thought," he sobbed at last, "that such an hour as
this would come to me in my old days. God above, Thou knowest, that I
have not deserved it!"

"There must have been some great misfortune," the farmer said. "But
Schoolmaster must not take it too much to heart. And if there is
anything I can do he must let me know."

"God bless you, Heath Peter! You are a good soul, and I've known you
this many a long day: why, it must be nigh on five-and-thirty years. It
was I pushed back your little bonnet when the priest christened you. Ah
me, if the same priest were only still alive! He was a good man,
indeed, and would not have discharged me like a day-labourer at the end
of his day's work, no, not though I _did_ ring ten bells for Louis the
herdsman. True, I'm old now, and can't look after the school as I used
to. Also I can't get accustomed to the new church government. You know
how the new provisor called me a prophet of Beelzebub? I knew that I
had done nothing wrong, for all that, and went on holding my extra
classes. Lastly, you also must have heard that poor crazy Louis the
herdsman took his own life lately. The provisor refused to have the
passing-bell tolled for the poor wretch; and then the dead man's mother
came to me--for I am sacristan as well--and begged me, for God's sake,
to toll the bell for her son. Louis had always been an upright man; the
old woman had all her life long thought the world of a Christian
burial-bell; and my soul was filled with pity for her when she cried so
bitterly. Then thought I to myself, 'The provisor has gone to see a
colleague at Grosshöfen, so I will take it upon myself and, as she asks
me to do it for God's sake, I will ring the bells: surely it's the best
consolation we can offer the poor woman in her distress.' Louis was
buried in the ditch where they found him; and, when the bells rang out,
the mother ran to the grave and said an Our Father for his soul. The
provisor did not hear the bells nor the prayer, and he didn't feel the
sorrow nor the joy of that mother's heart either; but folks' tongues
told him all about the bell-ringing. Yesterday, as I was helping him
on with his chasuble, he gave me a smile, and I thought, 'Aye, the
provisor is a good enough gentleman, after all; and I shall get on with
him well enough!' Thereupon I went off to collect my corn dues from the
farmers. (The people are well disposed toward me, and look after me
finely: I did not have to buy a single slice of bread for myself all
last winter!) It's a couple of hard days' work for one like me; but
that's nothing--who wouldn't willingly cart away a heap of stones if he
knew there was a treasure underneath? It had begun to grow dusk when I
reached the village with my last load. Then, as I stood outside my door
and was taking the key from my pocket and looking forward to my rest, I
said to myself, 'Goodness, what's that? Who's been having a game with
me?' The lock was sealed up. I put down my load to have a closer look
at the thing. Yes, Peter, I was quite right, the school-house was
sealed against me with the parish seal. 'Well,' I thought to myself,
'this _is_ a pretty business!' I threw down my carrier and ran to the
presbytery, which is now also the municipal offices. I called out for
the provisor. 'Not at home,' cries the housekeeper, tells me to look
under the stone-heap if I have lost anything, and slams the door in my
face. Then the blood rushed to my heart."

The old man was nearly choking, and the words came half stifled from
his throat.

"But I did not remain standing outside the presbytery door, and I did
not knock either. I ran down to the stone-heap, and there I found my
Sunday washing, my black coat, and my fiddle. And in between the
strings was a little tiny bit of paper. Well, here it is; you can read
it, Heath Peter."

"So I would, and gladly," said Heath Peter civilly, "but there's just
this about it, that I don't know one letter from another."

"Well, well, in that case reading would certainly be a miracle," said
the schoolmaster. "However, sometimes it's better not to know how to
read. Here's what the note says to the old man that I am: 'We sincerely
regret to have to make the following communication to you in the name
of the honourable Consistory and of the local parish. Whereas you,
Michel Bieder, school teacher in the aforesaid parish, have repeatedly,
in the instruction of the youth entrusted to your care, acted contrary
to the regulations, and whereas, but recently, you took it upon
yourself, in an unprecedented manner, on your own responsibility, to
perform an ecclesiastical function, and this, moreover, in favour of a
suicide, so now take note and be it known to you that we have relieved
you of your post. Given at the presbytery at Rattenstein.'"

The old man ceased.

Peter snuffed the candle in great perplexity, and then said:

"Yes, Mr. Schoolmaster, you might have known that it does not do to
toll everyone promiscuous-like into the grave. That much would have
occurred even to me, Heath Peter."

"And so there I sat upon the stone-heap, and I wanted nothing to make
me a complete beggar but a stick and wallet. The stars were out by this
time, and an owl hooting in the forest was hooting at me it seemed.
Then I did not know what to do. There I was cast out, a poor old man,
that had buried a parish and christened one. So I lay down upon the
stone-heap and my white hairs were wet with dew. And the church clock
ticked just like a bird pecking the naked grains in a field in autumn,
that clock ticked away second after second from the little bit left of
my life. 'Tick on, tick on, you honest pendulum,' thought I. 'It's
late.' And then, suddenly, I wondered, 'Who will ring the vesper-bell
to-night?' I darted up and on, over the mound, to the church, and into
the belfry, took hold of the ropes, and rang all the bells at once. And
that was my farewell to my dear church and to the congregation. I
should have liked to wake the dead in their graves and tell them all
about my unfair treatment. But they slept on in peace, while I rang in
my beggarhood. Then I cut myself a stick from the bushes by the
churchyard walls and went on and on. Oh, I can walk right enough still!
It took me barely three hours here to the Wilderness."

The old man bent his head and held his hand before his eyes.

"What nonsense!" said the farmer's wife, who had been standing some
time by the table with the soup-plate in her hand. "And you are going
up to the wilds next, Schoolmaster?"

"Must I go to the wilds?" cried the old schoolmaster. "God! what should
I do in that stony place?"

He hid his face again.

"'It's a proper cross, and no Lord upon it,' says the old proverb. And
the old proverb's right," said the wife. "Only eat your soup now, in
Heaven's name, Schoolmaster, and get some warmth into your poor body.
God will put things straight; don't let that fret you. I say, Peter,
come into the kitchen for a minute; I want you to shut the
chimney-slide; I can't quite manage it."

But it was nothing to do with the chimney-slide, really.

When the pair were in the kitchen the wife said:

"You must see, Peter, that we can't let the schoolmaster go like this.
I went to him for schooling, and he taught me to use my Prayer Book. As
long as I live I should never relish a morsel of bread again if I had
to say to myself, 'Your old teacher's had to go a-begging!'--What would
you say to having the top room fitted up for him? He could cut the
rushes for us in the winter; and he could look after the children in
the summer, when we were out in the fields; and he could teach them a
bit too. You see, it would be just as well if they knew how to read a
little, and the boy would love it so and writing too; and I shan't
rest content till he can write his name."

"There's no need for that, Klara," answered Peter. "Who is there in the
Wilderness that knows how to write his name? Not a soul. Besides,
working men's hands are too rough for that kind of thing; and, if it
comes to a pinch, we can always make our cross."

Whereupon his wife:

"After that, I don't wonder that we have so many crosses to bear in the
Wilderness! But I don't hold with it, and I think that with the
schoolmaster's help we might rise a bit."

"You're looking at only one side of the question. You know quite well
that we only grow enough corn to make a bushel and a half, and that we
have no milk and no bacon in the winter; you know that we have no meat
in the larder, that we have no proper bedding, and that we are poor all
round, in every nook and corner. And now you want to take the
schoolmaster in as well! There can't be any question of it, good wife."

And she:

"Well, if you're beginning to grieve about the bit of bread and the
morsel of bacon which the schoolmaster would eat, I'll save it out of
my own mouth, and lie on the bare straw, in Heaven's name, and think it
an honour if I can have the old teacher under my roof."

And he:

"Yes; and by the time you've done you'll sew a beggar's sack for him
and one for me and one for yourself, and we'll fasten the children on
to each other's backs."

"Because you have no trust in the Lord!" answered the farmer's wife, a
little nettled. "My mother always used to say, 'Every good action done
on earth is engraved by the angels in heaven on God's golden throne.'
But I am beginning to think that you can't want to see _your_ name
there."

"Who _has_ nothing can _give_ nothing," said Peter resignedly. "How
can it help a beggar-man if I offer him an empty hand?"

"Well, he can take hold of it and have a support."

"Go on! One _must_ look to one's own children first and not to
strangers. And, lastly, we should most likely get into trouble with the
priest; and how would that suit you?"

"You're a regular old silly, that's what you are!" cried the wife, and
banged a saucepan on the stove till it rang again. "It wants a special
grace of God to argue with you. How glad you would be if one day your
guardian angel came and said to God, 'Here is Heath Peter, who was good
to the poor; and he also took the unfortunate schoolmaster of
Rattenstein into his house and looked after him and cared for him in
his old age, but he did it for love of Thee, O God our Father, and
therefore do Thou mercifully forgive him, if he had other faults, and
lead him into Thy heaven, and his children with him and his wife as
well!' Wouldn't you be glad, Peter, if that ever happened?"

Peter had been scratching his head a little, and, at last, he answered
in a softer voice:

"You're shouting so loud you'll wake the children, and the schoolmaster
himself will hear.--You can keep him for all that I care; I say no
more."

There was not much to be done with Peter with arguments based on
worldly logic; you could say white or black, but he invariably followed
his own nose. But his wife knew him inside and out, as well as she knew
her own nightcap; she took a higher standpoint, and when, in her clever
way of talking, she held up heaven and God before him, he came
kneeling, as people say, to the cross--to the matrimonial cross.

When the couple returned to the parlour Klara said:

"One would think that chimney-slide wasn't meant to be reached; one has
to stand on tip-toe to get at it. Well, don't you like your soup,
Schoolmaster? I did my best to make it good, and I put plenty of
caraway seeds in it, against the cramp. Ah! and now there's something
else to discuss. I don't know what's come into my Peter's head, but he
wants to keep you in the house, here and now, Schoolmaster, so that you
can teach our children a bit of reading! What I said was, 'Schoolmaster
won't stay with us. A man like that,' said I, 'has something better to
do. Even if we were to fit up the top room for him and wait upon him as
an honoured guest, he wouldn't stay with us.--And then we can't give
him any school fees,' I said, 'and only such poor fare as we have
ourselves.--If that's enough for him, I shall be delighted if he will
stay.'"

The old man rose from his seat and, in a voice of deep emotion, said:

"Oh, you dear, good people! As you yourselves were the first to suggest
it, I now venture to implore you. I have nowhere to go, and I hardly
dare risk myself in the wilds. Only give me a roof over my head and a
spoonful of soup for a few days and I will go back again to Rattenstein
and start my entreaties. The people will take pity on me; and surely
the parish provisor will not be stony-hearted."

"I wouldn't throw myself on his mercy exactly, that I wouldn't," said
the farmer's wife. "And Heath Peter here was thinking that it would be
all right, and that you had better make the house on the heath your
home, Schoolmaster, as long as the Lord does not order things
differently."

Then little Gabriel suddenly called out something in his sleep.

"There, the child's got the nightmare!" said Klara.

And she went to the little bed and, with her thumb, made the sign of
the cross on the boy's forehead.

Peter fixed up a bed in the barn for his guest to sleep in that night;
and soon all was dark and silent in the house on the heath.




XVI

The Stag on the Wall[17]


Heidepeter's[18] house was the very last in the Wilderness. It stood on
the heath where the forests began, lying very high on a piece of almost
level ground. The grey stones showed through the grass in many places
before the house.

Upon the heath lay numberless rocks patched and traceried with moss.
Here and there on the sandy ground between the rocks stood a
silver-birch tree whose leaves were for ever whispering and trembling,
until in late autumn they were blown away and lost over the moor.

This moorland house bore upon the king-post of the big living-room the
date 1744; it was the first house ever built in the Wilderness.

Peter's forefathers must have been well-to-do, for they possessed much
forest and were cattle-breeders as well. The trees had all been cut
down and had grown up again, but now Count Frohn--who possessed a fine
castle, the Frohnburg, on the other side of the hill, and, neighbouring
the heath, a great deal of forest and its hunting, and hitherto a
feudal right to the peasants' service--was gradually possessing himself
of the squatters' forest as well; so that it had now come to this--that
without his permission no tree might be felled nor branch broken. The
poor outlying folk of the Wilderness were neglected by all the
authorities and courts of justice--indeed, almost forgotten. So they
clung to their grain-growing--to the scanty husbandry possible to the
place.

To the moorland house was now left only the steep fields sloping down
to the ravine, and a narrow strip of meadow. Everything else, such as
rights of wood and pasture, was heavily burdened with taxation and
feudal duty.

On the weather-stained wooden wall of the house, facing north, and
beneath the deep, overhanging roof, was the figure of an animal, carved
out of wood. Any stranger, when now and again such a one passed by the
house on his wanderings among the mountains, came to a halt before this
thing and gazed at it. Pedlars with their packs, Carniolas with sieves
and all manner of wooden wares, glass-cutters, old-clothes men, who
were always glad to go about the Wilderness in summer-time, would prop
their back burdens against their sticks and have a good look at the
figure before they entered the house. Even the beggars did the same,
with a benevolent expression on their faces, as if admiring the man who
had carved it.

But as to what the object represented opinions were very various. One
said it was a cow, another a donkey, another a chamois; some, however,
said it must be a stag. This last supposition was well founded. From
the creature's head protruded two little bits of wood, notched saw-like
on top, which just conceivably stood for the antlers. Heidepeter was
very decided about the matter: the animal really was a stag.

All sorts of sayings and proverbs about the stag had become bound up
with the household life inside the walls.

When Peter said to his little son Gabriel, "Laddie, we must hunt the
red stag to-morrow!" he meant nothing else than that the child must get
up at sunrise next morning. The stag was always glowing red at that
hour.

When the wind blew from the north the figure beat its feet upon the
wall, and the people inside would say, "The stag is knocking again;
there'll be a change in the weather."

Through one whole summer Gabriel had been watching how two sparrows
built their nest between the wooden antlers. (At that time a new bird's
nest was the greatest joy on earth to Gabriel.) He could no longer
resist the temptation, leant a ladder against the wall, and was going
to climb up. Then, by chance, his father came along, and he, usually so
mild, gave the boy quite unmistakably to understand that he must, once
and for all, leave the stag in peace.

About this carved figure there clung a curious memory for Heidepeter.

While still in the early days of his married life there came some bad
years, and there in the Wilderness nothing would grow or ripen save
turnips and cabbage. Rye and oats started hopefully enough in the
spring, greening and gathering strength for an output of ears. Then, in
the heart of summer, came rain and cold, and the mists hung about the
hills for weeks. The corn grew pale and stooped, as if it would rather
creep back into the sheltering soil. There followed a few weeks of
sunshine after that, but before even the grain could mature the snow
had fallen. And so it happened several years running.

The people lost heart and hardly cared to sow in the following spring,
or had no seed to sow with.

And Peter's grain-chest became empty, and he was unable to lend his
neighbours seed, as he used to; indeed, he was barely able to provide
for his own household. But he was not discouraged, for he had a young,
careful, industrious wife in the house--a happy state of things which
will always render bad years more bearable.

His wife had proposed that they should grow more turnips than usual,
and a big plot of cabbages, to make up to some extent for the lack of
grain. Peter followed her counsel, and by June new beautiful seedlings
were set out. In July down came the rain and mist on the Wilderness
again, but the garden stuff went on slowly, steadily growing.

During the raw days Clara stayed a good deal within doors, because
Peter, mindful of her condition, would not have her out in the cold.
But one day he came to her room, saying:

"I don't know what it means, Clara; there must have been some animal
about--a whole row of the best cabbages has been eaten."

The farm-hand said he had that morning seen a stag running from the
kitchen-garden towards the forest.

Heidepeter set to work and heightened the wooden paling round the
garden. When, very soon after, he saw Count Frohn crossing the field
with his gun and gilded powder-horn and proudly curving cock's feather,
he called to him, "Your honour, I humbly beg pardon--but there's a stag
that's always coming out of the forest, and he'll eat up all our
cabbages."

"Indeed?" answered the huntsman, laughing, and whistled to his dogs and
went on.

A night or two later the beast came again and ate a whole row of
cabbages. And so the next time Peter met the Count he said, for the
second time, and with his hat under his arm, "I hope your honour won't
be angry with me--but I've no help for it, save this. There's been so
many bad seasons, and we've hardly anything left to eat. Please rid us
of that stag, for he's eating up our food-stuff, leaf and root and
all."

"Aha!" remarked the Count facetiously. "You'd prefer eating the stag
with your cabbages to that, wouldn't you, eh?"

He whistled to his dog and went on.

Quite downhearted, Peter went home, sat down on the bench, and for some
time did not say anything. Suddenly he struck his fist upon the table
and sprang up. Before he went out again, however, he went to his wife
and said quietly:

"Clara, I'm the sort of man that people can twist round their
finger--they call me a milksop; but it may be I'm going to pick a
quarrel for once. Don't you take on about it. I thought it'd never have
to come to this, but now I see quite plain that it must."

Then he went out and made the garden fence higher still, and plaited
thorns in and out, and chained the house-dog at the corner of the
garden.

But the stag still came and ate the cabbages.

Then Heidepeter got up, and took the road under his feet, and climbed
over the steep slope until he came to Castle Frohnburg on the other
side of the mountain. There a great shooting party were assembled,
noblemen and gentlemen, and all drinking out of foaming beakers "Good
luck to the sportsman!"

Peter strode through the midst of them and right up to his master. He
seemed like another man than himself to-day. "I must defend my bread,
sir," he said in a stifled voice; "but so that I mayn't do any wrong,
I've come all this way to tell you I'm going to shoot the stag."

Then the Count roared with laughter and called out:

"You little fool! why do you put yourself to the trouble?" He whistled
for his two bulldogs. Heidepeter said never another word, but went
away. And that night he shot the stag.

Early next morning the huntsmen came to his house and clapped irons on
his hands. He suffered this quietly, and said to his inconsolable wife:

"Don't you take on about it--don't you take on. The Lord will come and
do justice yet!" And so Peter was taken away and thrown into prison as
a poacher.

Week after week he sat there. He was thinking neither about his
cabbages, nor the stag, nor the Count, but only about his wife.
"Perhaps her hour will come to-morrow, perhaps even to-day, and thy
wife is giving thee thy first-born. She is holding him out to thee, but
thou dost not hold out thy arms to take him! Or there may be some
difficulty about the sponsors, and thou art not by her side to help her
in her great need; and when thou returnest to thy house thou wilt find
a mother without her child, or an orphan--or perhaps neither mother nor
child"----

In his anguish he could have dashed his head against the wall, but he
remained quiet, only constantly murmuring to himself as he stared at
the brick floor:

"The life of a man is a wheel. To-day I'm down and you're up; to-morrow
it's the other way about. Yes, Count Frohn, round and rolling--that's
how God has made this world!"

At last, when his time was up, Heidepeter was set free. He hurried to
his home, and found his wife and child both doing well.

The very next day he went into his workshop and planed and carved a
stag out of some boards. And this he nailed to the weather-stained grey
wooden wall of his house in everlasting remembrance.

The dwellers of the Wilderness had by now come to respect the
determined Heidepeter, because he had been brave enough to tackle the
old devil--as they called the Count under their breath; they had never
expected this of the good-natured man. It was, however, the first and
last time it happened: Peter saw there was nothing to be gained that
way, and the burden of years and oppression took the heart out of him.
He came to the conclusion this world is a valley of sorrow, and who
can better it? The reasonablest thing is to endure. He no longer
opposed himself to the Count; indeed, he used to say it was better to
suffer wrong than do wrong. And he went on in his own quiet way, and
the people, because of his gentle, submissive bearing, called him a
milksop.[19]

FOOTNOTES:

[17] This is a chapter out of Rosegger's _Heidepeter's Gabriel_: a book
which is largely autobiographical--Heidepeter being undoubtedly the
author's father--and which gives a picture of the small peasant
community in a poor mountain district called, from its bare and lonely
character, the Wilderness.

[18] Heide-Peter means literally Moor-Peter, or Peter of the Moor.

[19] _Dalkerd_: a South German word, evidently meaning milksop.




XVII

Forest-Lily in the Snow

(A chapter from _The Forest Schoolmaster_)


A load is off our hearts. The storm has fallen. A soft wind came and
gently relieved the trees of their burdens. There were a few mild days;
then the snow settled and we can now go where we will with snow-shoes.

Nevertheless, something has happened lately over in the Karwässer.
Berthold, whose family increases from year to year, and from year to
year has less to eat--Berthold has turned poacher. A wood-cutter is a
better hand at this than any of us, who remain faint-hearted humbugs
all our lives long.--Poor people need not marry, says the wood-cutter.
Well, according to custom and practice, they have not married, but they
have kneeled before me in the forest ... and ... and now they are all
starving together.

So Berthold has turned poacher. Wood-cutting brings in far too little
for a roomful of children. I send them all the food I can, but it is
not enough. He must have good, strong soup for the ailing wife and a
piece of meat for the children; so he shoots the roe that comes his
way. To this, then, has passion brought him, until Berthold, who once,
as a herd, was such a good and jolly fellow, has, through poverty,
pride, and the love of his own, grown into a pretty criminal.

I have once already pleaded with the gamekeeper for God's sake to be a
little, just a little lenient with the poor husband and father: he was
sure to mend his ways, I said, and I would go bail for him. Up to the
present he has not mended his ways; but the events of these wild winter
days have made him weep aloud, for he loves his Lily-of-the-Forest
above everything.

It happened on a murky winter evening. The little windows are walled up
with moss; outside new flakes are falling on the old snow. Berthold is
sitting up with the children and with his sick Aga, only waiting until
the eldest girl, Lily, comes back with the milk which she has gone to
beg of a neighbouring hermit on the Hinterkar. For the goats at home
have been killed and eaten; and, if only Lily would return, Berthold
means to go into the forest with his gun. For the roe cannot be far to
seek in this weather.

But it grows dark and Lily does not return. The snow falls thicker and
heavier, night draws in and Lily does not come. The children by now are
crying for their milk; the father is eager to be after his game; the
mother sits up in bed:

"Lily!" she calls. "Wherever are you, child, trotting about in that
pitch-dark forest? Come home!"

How can the sick woman's weak voice reach the wanderer through the
fierce snowstorm?

As the night grows darker and stormier, Berthold's craving to go
poaching grows deeper, while his fears for his Lily-of-the-Forest rise
higher and higher. She is a frail little twelve-year-old girl. True,
she knows the precipices and the wooded mountain-paths; but the paths
are hidden by the snow and the precipices by the darkness.

At last, the man leaves his house to go in search of his child. For
hours he roams and shouts through the storm-swept wilderness; the wind
fills his eyes and mouth with snow; he has to put forth all his
strength to get back to his hut.

And now two days pass. The snow keeps on falling; Berthold's hut is
almost snowed in. They do their noisy best to console themselves: Lily
is sure to be at the hermit's. This hope is destroyed on the third day,
when Berthold, after struggling for hours over the snow-clad landscape,
succeeds in reaching the hermitage. True, Lily was at the hermit's
three days ago, but left early on her way home with the milk-pot.

"Then my Lily-of-the-Forest lies buried in the snow," says Berthold.

Whereupon he goes to other wood-cutters and begs, as no one has ever
seen this man beg before, that they will come and help him look for his
dead child.

They find Lily-of-the-Forest on the evening of the same day.

Down a lonely forest-glen, in a dark and tangled thicket of young pines
and larches, through which no snowflake can make its way and upon which
the loads of snow lie heaped and arched till the young branches groan
again, in this thicket Forest-Lily is found sitting on the ground, on
the dry pine-needles, amid a family of six roe-deer.

It is a very wonderful story. The child, returning home, lost her way
in the forest-glen; and, as she was no longer able to cope with the
masses of snow, she crept into the dry thicket to rest. She did not
long remain alone. Hardly had her eyes begun to close, when a herd of
deer, old and young together, came up to her and sniffed at the little
girl and looked at her with gentle eyes of pity and understanding, and
were not the least afraid of this human thing, but stayed and lay down
and gnawed the little trees and licked one another and were quite tame:
the thicket was their winter home.

The next day everything was muffled up in snow. Forest-Lily sat in the
dark, which was only tempered by a faint twilight, and refreshed
herself with the milk which she was taking to her people, and nestled
up against the kind animals so as not to become quite numb with cold.

Thus passed the grim hours while she was lost. And, when
Lily-of-the-Forest had already laid her down to die and, with her
simple fancy, asked the animals to stay with her faithfully in her last
dying hour, suddenly the roe-deer began to snuffle very strangely, and
lifted their heads, and pricked up their ears, and broke through the
thicket with wild bounds, and darted away with shrill cries.

And now the men work their way through the snow and underwood and see
the little maiden and hurrah for joy; and old Rüpel, who is among them,
shouts:

"Didn't I tell you to come and look in here with me,--that perhaps she
was with the deer?"

And so it was; and when Berthold heard that the beasts of the forest
had saved his child from being frozen to death, he yelled like a
madman:

"Never again! As long as I live, never again!"

And he took the rifle with which for many years he had killed the
beasts of the forest and smashed it on a stone.

I saw it myself; for I and the parish priest were in the Karwässer to
help look for Lily-of-the-Forest.

This Lily-of-the-Forest is almost as soft and white as snow and has the
eyes of a roe-deer in her little head.




XVIII

The Sacred Cornfield

(_The translation of a chapter from "Jakob der Letzte," in which tragic
story Rosegger tells how a rich man comes to a poor upland community,
and gradually bribes and tricks all the peasants except Jacob--who
after a dignified and then desperate effort to save the place, breaks
his heart and goes mad--to part with their homes and holdings to him
for deer-forest._)


Again and again Jacob sought refuge in his work. It was a good thing
for him that it was pressing, and left little time for his heartache.
The field must be tilled, the garden manured, and the meadows watered.
In the early part of the year the melted snow rushes wildly down, often
tearing up the earth as it goes; then comes the hot sunshine on the
slopes: so that to-day there is too much moisture and to-morrow too
little. Hardly had the first blades sprouted when the cattle were
driven to the higher pastures, for the winter's supply of fodder was
nearly all devoured before the spring gave its new green. Living
through the winter on moss and brushwood, the beasts were in such poor
condition when at last they came out into the open that they could
hardly climb the slopes, and many a one would slip and break a leg.

And yet there was a new motto in Altenmoos: up with cattle-breeding and
down with agriculture! Jacob could not make up his mind to alter his
method of farming: he loved his fields, all his heart was in them, and
their tending was a ritual to him.

When, as sower, he trod the long furrows, casting the seed abroad in
the earth, it was in an earnest, almost solemn manner, as if he were
about some sacred business; and then before his eyes the miracle of the
divine love began to fulfil itself. This man, with all his anxiety, his
hope, his silent grief, knew nothing better than to watch the
resurrection of the buried grain. In the peaceful time, after his
working day was over and he sat alone, utterly alone on his stone-heap,
he would give himself up to blessed contemplation. Before him the brown
fields stretch away, the larks blow trumpets, and in tender, reddish
blades the dead arise and look up to heaven. Then gradually everything
begins to grow green, the tiny leaves curl and bend earthwards again as
if they are listening for any good counsels about life that the Mother
may have to give them. Then they aspire upwards, rolling themselves
into sheaths, out of which, little by little, emerges the stalk and the
inmost being of the corn. By the time Ascension Day is there the corn
is looking skywards even in the mountain districts, as if gazing in
loving gratitude after Him who called it to life, and who will come
again to waken the human seeds that are sown in all the churchyards. In
the young summer breeze the cornfield ripples like a blue-green lake,
with the cloud-shadows gliding graciously over it. And the single blade
is now in its full glory. The four-sided ear, in which the still tender
grains lie scale-like over each other, hangs its blossom out like tiny
flags wherever a grainlet lies in its cradle, which flutter and tremble
without ceasing, while the high stalk rocks thoughtfully to and fro.

God keep us from storms in this blessed season! From rain, too, with
the sun shining through it, for that breeds mildew. Wet seasons cause a
growth upon the ears, for which the local name of Mother-grain is far
too pretty for truth. The sky-climbing youth of the corn soon comes to
an end, the hot summer whitens its hair; then, still conscious of its
strength and its virtue, it yet bows its head in humility before Him
who has given it virtue and strength.

Deeper within this forest of grain, thistles and the parasitical couch
grass, the fair-seeming darnel, and every sort of tangled rubble and
lawless company thrive rankly enough in the shadow of the corn and are
nourished upon its roots. There, also, the wanton corn-cockle is to be
found, whose seed later makes the flour--if not already red with
shame--such a dirty bluish colour; there the will-o'-the-wisp poppy,
and the kindly, patriarchal cornflower, whose crown is made of many
little crowns.

Many a time, while a thunderstorm was raging over Altenmoos, Jacob
would stand under the heavy eaves over his door, looking out quiet and
resigned. Man cannot alter things, God is almighty; what is the good,
then, of trembling or complaining? When it grows light, he sees his
whole cornfield, now nearly ripe, beaten down. Jacob says, "Thanks and
praise be to God that there was no ice in it--all the stalks lie in
order and flat on the ground, not one lifts so much as a knee! The
heavy rain has laid the corn low, the wind will dry it--lift it up
again." But there are years when it does not get up, when the rain
beats it down again and again; then it is that the alien, lawless
rabble get the upper hand--they rise up from between the prone stalks,
and weave a trellis overhead, and begin a godless blooming and bragging
above the poor imprisoned corn.

When, however, God does give rain and sunshine in due season (just as
the folks who go pilgrimages pray to have it), the fields are glorious.
Strong and slender the stalks grow up from joint to joint. The
lance-shaped, dark green leaves that lorded it at first, have nearly
vanished, the stalks droop their heavy heads, which give back the sown
grain thirty or forty-fold, one stalk laying its golden head on the
shoulder of another. In the sun's heat by day, at night in the light of
the moon and the stars and the glimmer of glow-worms, they are ripening
towards harvest.

At last come the reapers. Every grain is armed with a sharp spear for
defence or offence, but the reaper does not flinch before the
fine-toothed saws that allow no hand to glide downwards, but only
upwards from below,--only from lowly to lofty.

When Jacob, always first and last in the heat and burden of the day,
rests in late evening beneath a corn-stook in the harvest-field, his
dreaming begins again. The breath of grass and flowers makes him
drowsy: he watches the antics of a jolly grasshopper, hears the chirp
of a cricket--then it all fades away. He is looking out over a country
where there is no blue forest, no green meadows, no mountain crags, and
no clear streams. So far as ever the eye can reach is one great golden
sea, an immeasurable field of corn. Above it, a cloudless sky presses
hot and heavy on his heart. Then it comes to his mind: "Say thy grace,
Jacob, for this place is the table of a mighty people. Those who live
in the mountains must tend their poultry and their cattle, and fetch
the bread of corn from this table."

Then Jacob awakes, pulls himself up by the stook, and says into the
night, "It'll have to come to that. And yet the cornfield is
beautiful--more beautiful than anyhow else--when it lies between the
forest and meadow! And a home, if it's a real home, should yield its
children everything that they need."

Besides, the soil in Altenmoos is not less rich than elsewhere! When
the last wagon-load of sheaves has gone swaying home to the barn,
there's always something for the poor woman who comes gleaning the
scattered ears among the stubble. Then the cattle are pastured there,
and a fine grass springs up; only the beasts must not mind a
stubble-prick in the nose for every mouthful they get. At last, it may
be, the plough comes again, still unwilling as ever to grant the fields
a rest; but then comes Winter, and says, "Enough!" and covers the tired
earth with its white mantle.

Even under that cover there is no peace. A little grain fell out of the
sheaf at harvest-time; the earth takes it to herself, lets it silently
decay, and gives it back again, all new-made, in the sunshine of the
following spring.

With such dreams, whereby, as on Jacob's ladder, he climbed up and down
between earth and heaven, this lonely man pleased and edified himself;
and when the shadow came over his spirit, he would say to himself, "In
God's name, Jacob, if it must be, thou mayst well entrust thyself
willingly to the faithful and undying earth. Perhaps thou wilt rise up
again, and find better days in Altenmoos."




XIX

About my Mother


I

It was high carnival in Gratz city. In the evenings, a mad thronging in
the streets, a well-nigh deafening rattling of carriages, a yelling and
shouting, a flaring and glaring from the shops and stalls and from the
hundreds of lamps and numberless transparencies in the windows. Gold
and silver, silks and damasks gleamed in the shop-fronts. Masks of
every hue and shape grinned beside them. Ha, what a mad thing life can
be!

I hurried through the crowd. The clock on the castle hill struck six:
six strokes so clear that they outrang all the din and re-echoed from
the tall, light-pierced walls of the houses. The summons of the clock
is a stern admonisher: let man play as childishly as he will with
tinsel pleasures and light dalliance, it counts the hours out to him
and gives him not a minute's grace.

I went home to my quiet room and was soon in bed.

Next morning, the winter sun lay shining on the snow-clad roofs; and I
was jotting down the fairy-tale of the Lost Child, when someone knocked
at my door. A man entered and handed me a telegram:

    "Dear son, yesterday evening, at six o'clock, our dear mother
    passed away. Come home, we are expecting you in the greatest
    affliction. Your father."

Last evening it had happened, in the poor cottage, while I was
striding through the worldly turmoil. And at six o'clock!

Early next morning, I was in the parish village. I entered on the road
alone, over hills glittering with snow and through long woods, far into
the lonely mountain valley. I had walked that road endless times
before, had always delighted in the glistening snow, in the sparkling
icicles, in the snowy mantles of the boughs, or, if it was summer, in
the green leaves and the blossoms and the fragrance, in the song of the
birds, in the drops of light that trickled through the branches, in the
profound peace and loneliness. How often had I gone that way with
mother, when she was still well and in her prime, and, later, when,
crippled through illness, she tottered along on my arm! And, on this
forest road, I thought of my parents' life.

He had come to the forest farm a young man.

People called him Lenz, not because he was young and blooming and
joyful as the _Lenz_, or spring, but because his name was Lorenz.

His father had been severely wounded in a brawl, lain ill for but a
little while and died an early death.

So now Lenz was the owner of the forest farm. To recover in a measure
from his sadness for his father's sake, he did a capital thing: he
looked about him for a wife. He took almost the poorest and the most
disregarded that the forest valley contained: a girl who was
frightfully black all through the week, but had quite a nice little
white face on Sundays. She was the daughter of a charcoal-burning woman
and worked for her aged mother, but had never seen her father.

One year after the wedding, in the summer, the young woodman's wife
presented her Lenz with a first-born. He received the name of Peter and
now runs all over the world with it, an everlasting child.

Her life was so peculiar, her life was so good, her life had a crown of
thorns.

Our farm was no small one and its days were well-ordered; but my mother
did not play the grand farmer's wife: she was housewife and
servant-maid in one.

My mother was an educated woman: she could "read print"; she had learnt
that from a charcoal-burner. She knew the story of the Bible by heart;
and she had no end of legends, fairy-tales and songs from her mother.
Moreover, she was always ready with help in word and deed and never
lost her head in any mishap and always knew the right thing to do.

"That's how my mother used to do, that's what my mother used to say,"
she was constantly remarking; and this continued her rule and precept,
long after her mother was laid to rest in the churchyard.

No doubt, there was at times a little bigotry, what we call
"charcoal-burner's faith," mixed up with it, yet in such a way that it
did no harm, but rather spread a gentle poetry over the poor life in
the houses in the wood.

The poor knew my mother from far and wide: none knocked at her door in
vain; none was sent hungry away. To him whom she considered really poor
and who asked her for a piece of bread she gave half a loaf; and, if he
begged for a gill of flour, she handed him a lump of lard with it. And
"God bless you!" she said, in addition: that she always said.

"What will be the end of us, if you give everything away wholesale?" my
father often said to her, almost angrily.

"Heaven, perhaps," she answered. "My mother often used to say that the
angels register every 'God reward you' of the poor before God's holy
throne. How glad we shall be one day, when we have the poor to
intercede for us with Our Lord!"

My father believed in fasting on Saturdays and often did not take a
morsel of food before the shadows began to lengthen. He did this in
honour of the Blessed Virgin.[20]

"I tell you, Lenz, that sort of fasting serves no useful purpose!" my
mother would sometimes say, in protest. "What you go without to-day,
you simply eat to-morrow. My mother always used to say, 'What you have
through fasting left, give to the poor so sore bereft.' I somehow think
it does no good otherwise."

My father used to pray in the evenings, especially at "rosary-time,"
and on Saturdays prayed long and loud, but often did odd jobs at the
same time, such as nailing his shoes, patching his trousers or even
shaving himself. In so doing, he not seldom lost the thread of his
prayers, until my mother would snatch the things from his hands and
cry:

"Heavens alive, what manner of praying is this! Kneeling beside the
table and saying three Our Fathers with application is better than
three rosaries during which the evil one steals away your good thoughts
while you're playing about!"

At times of hard work, my mother was fond of a good table:

"Who works with a will may eat with a will," she said. "My mother used
always to say, 'Who dares not risk to lose a tittle, dares not either
win a little.'"

My father was content with scanty fare; he was always fearing that the
home would be ruined.

These were the only differences in their married life; and even those
did not go deep. They uttered them only to each other: when father
talked to strangers, he praised mother; when mother talked to
strangers, she praised father.

They were of one mind as regarded the bringing-up of children. Work and
prayer, thrift and honesty, were our main precepts.

I only once received a proper thrashing. In front of the house was a
young copse of larch--and fir-trees, which gradually grew up so high
that it shut out the view of the mountains on that side. Now I loved
this view and I thought that father would be sure to thank me if
I--who was an enterprising lad in those days--cut down the little
trees. And, true enough, one afternoon, when everyone was in the
fields, I stole into the little wood with an axe and began to cut down
young trees. Before long, my father appeared upon the scene; but the
thanks which he gave me had a very queer look.

"Lend me the hatchet, boy!" he said, quietly.

I thought, "Now he'll tackle to himself: so much the better"; and I
passed him the axe.

He used it to chop off a birch-switch and flattened it across my back.

"Wait a bit!" he cried. "Do you want to do for the young wood? It has
more rods for you, where this came from!"

I had a thrashing just once from my mother too. I liked sitting by the
hearth when mother was cooking; and, one day, I knocked over the
stock-pot full of soup, half putting out the fire and nearly burning my
little bare feet. My mother was not there at the moment; and, when she
came running in at the sound of the mighty hissing, I cried out,
crimson in the face:

"The cat, the cat has upset the stock-pot!"

"Yes, that same cat has two legs and tells lies!" mother retorted.

And she took me and thrashed me for a long time with the rod.

"If ever you tell me a lie again," she cried, when she had done, "I'll
cut you to pieces with the flue-rake!"

A serious threat! Thank goodness, it never had to be fulfilled.

On the other hand, when I was good and obedient, I was rewarded. My
reward took the form of songs which she sang to me, tales which she
told me, when we walked through the forest together or when she sat by
my bedside in the evening. All that is best in me I have from her. She
had a worldful of poetry within her.

When my brothers and sisters came one after the other, mother loved us
all alike and favoured none. Afterwards, when two died in their
childhood, I saw mother for the first time crying. We others cried with
her and thenceforth always cried whenever we saw mother shedding tears.

And this was quite often, from that time onwards. Father lay sick for
two years on end. We had ill-luck in the farm and in the fields; hail
and murrain came; our corn-mill was burnt down.

Then mother wept in secret, lest we children should see her. And she
worked without ceasing, fretted, and ended by falling ill. The doctors
of the whole neighbourhood around were called in to advise: they could
do nothing but charge fat fees; only one of them said:

"I won't take payment from such poor people."

Yes, in spite of all our jollity, we had become poor people. The goods
and chattels were all gone; of the once big property nothing remained
to us but the taxes. My father now resolved to sell the encumbered farm
as well as he could. But mother would not have it: she worked on, ill
as she was, with trouble and zeal, and never gave up hope. She could
not bear to think of giving up her home, the house where her children
were born. She denied her illness, said that she had never felt better
in her life and that she would work for three.

My brothers and sisters also considered that they could not leave the
homestead; besides, none of them had one good pair of shoes left to put
on. And mother, when, once in a way, she wished to go to the parish
church, had to borrow a jacket free from patches from some
journeyman-woodman's wife or other. And the greatest pain of all was
people's arrogance and their scorn if ever they did lend any
assistance. They had forgotten the kindnesses which my mother had once
shown to one and all according to her power. At that time, she was the
most honoured farmer's wife in all the houses in the forest.
But--misfortune destroys friendship! As, indeed, her mother, the
charcoal-burner, had often said.

I will relate an experience of that sad time, when my mother was
ailing. It begins with a bright and sunny Whitsuntide.

That bright and sunny Whit Monday was her thirty-ninth birthday. It was
a gladsome day. The crops were green in the fields; and the herds
grazed in the high meadow: true, they did not belong to us, but to our
neighbour; and yet we delighted in them, because they were fat and
jolly. My father had already paid last year's taxes; the financial
position, which had been disturbed during father's long illness, seemed
gradually coming to rights; and consequently we were once more rising
in people's opinions. On this day, we walked through the meadows
together; and the little ones picked flowers and the grown-ups praised
God's works with a cheerful word or a song. Then mother sat down on a
stone and was like to die.

We dragged her home, we put her to bed, where she lay for long: weeks
long, months long. All the neighbours came and brought their well-meant
sympathy; all the doctors from near and far came and brought their
well-meant medicine. The patient, as they admitted behind her back, had
had a stroke; she was languishing. But, when the cool autumn came, she
grew better: she now no longer lay in bed by day, but sat on the bench
by the fire or at the table, where the children played, or by the
hearth, where she instructed clumsy father in the art of cooking. She
was not cheerful, nor was she cast down; she took things as they came
and did not complain: only, between whiles, when she was alone, she
heaved a deep sigh. Thus winter passed. The delightful Whitsuntide came
again and mother was ill.

At this festival, the old woman from the Riegelberg came to see and
brought a few rolls with her. She suggested all sorts of household
remedies and reckoned up a number of hale and hearty people who had
become hale and hearty through taking the aforesaid remedies. And at
last she asked, hadn't we been to Stegthomerl--Tom of the
Footpath--yet?

No, we confessed, we had not been to him as yet.

Then how could we have been so remiss and however could we have
neglected to go to Tom of the Footpath? He was the very first to whom
one ought to send in that sort of illness!

But it was such a distance to get there, father objected. "And, if it
was a three days' journey, it is not too far for health's sake."

"That's very true, I grant you: it would not be too far for health,"
said father. "And think you, Riegelbergerin, that he could cure her?"

"Curing, my dear woodman, is in God's hands," answered the woman from
the Riegelberg, with her wonted superiority. "Even the best doctors
cannot work miracles. But he knows, does Tom of the Footpath, and he'll
tell you whether a cure is still possible or not." The very next day, a
messenger was sent over the mountains to the valley where Tom of the
Footpath lived. He went off early and he came home late and he brought
the answer that Tom of the Footpath had said he could say nothing at
all as long as he did not see the invalid for himself.

The next day, another messenger went off (for the first had gone lame
on the long road) to fetch Tom of the Footpath. He came back late at
night alone and brought the news that Tom of the Footpath didn't visit
patients: Thomas himself was not as young as he had been; also he did
not wish to be locked up again because the qualified doctors suffered
from an infernal professional jealousy and wanted to bury everybody
themselves. If the sick woodman's wife cared to come to him, there
might be something to be done. But he did not go running after sick
people.

This was manfully spoken, after all, and we all of us understood that a
man who knows his own value does not exactly care to make himself
cheap. But now came a great embarrassment. The weather, to be sure, was
fine and warm; the days were long, and mother was quite ready to go.
But how were we to carry her on that many-hours' road to Tom of the
Footpath? It was impossible. Drive? We had no cart; and the last pair
of draught-oxen had been taken from us by the creditors to whom we had
had to apply once more during mother's illness. The neighbours were
using their oxen just now for ploughing the fields. The jobbing farmer
had two horses: he was willing to let them out to us, but his charge
for the day--father struck his hands together at the thought--was five
florins and their oats.

And, as we were all sitting in deep distress around our sick mother,
seeking for a way out of the difficulty and finding none, the door
opened and the lad from the road-side tavern walked in.

"What do you want, my boy?" asked my father.

The boy stood dangling his arms.

"Ay," he said, "it's this way: Samersteffel sends word to say that, if
the woodman likes to have his horse and cart, he can have them."

Samersteffel was what Stephen, the local carrier, was called.

"Where is Carrier Steve?"

"He's with us and he's put up his horse and cart at our place."

My father thought over what he had better say; then he said:

"Steve is sure to want a good price; tell him from me, no, but I'm
obliged to him."

The boy went away; and, in an hour's time, Carrier Steve came round in
person. He was a little fat man, who, in the old days, before the road
was made, used to carry all sorts of things over the mountain-path with
a pack-horse. Now that the road was there, he had set up a little
light cart, in which he conveyed corn, salt, cider and so on, but all
for money, of course, as that was what he lived by; and not only that,
but he wanted to get rich, so as to build a big inn on the new road. To
be an innkeeper was the dream of his life; and he had the making of one
in him, for he was always in a good temper and would certainly know how
to entertain his visitors.

But to-day, when he walked into our parlour, he was in anything but a
good temper.

"You're making a lot of useless trouble for one of us," he said, and
sat down puffing and panting on the bench against the wall. "Have you
ever heard, woodman, that I have pressed myself on anyone for the sake
of gain? You can't have heard such a thing said about me, for, thank
God, I don't need it. Once I myself propose to carry anything, I carry
it gratis. I heard that your wife wanted to go to Tom of the Footpath
and that she had no trap of any kind. My mother, God rest her soul, was
also ill for a long time; I know what it means: it's a misery. If you
like, woodman, I'll drive your wife over to Tom of the Footpath
to-morrow."

Then we all felt really glad. We did not give a further thought to the
question whether the long drive would do good or harm, or whether the
new physic would take effect, or how the illness would turn out
afterwards. To Tom of the Footpath, just to Tom of the Footpath: that
would put everything right.

I was awakened early next day, when the morning star peeped through the
great black ash-trees. Father had to stay behind to look after the
farm; and I, the thirteen-year-old lad, must go with mother to see that
nothing happened to her. Mother was already at her breakfast and did as
if she thoroughly relished the milk-porridge. Carrier Steve and I ate a
bowl of curds and whey and then we drove off. Steve sat on the little
driver's seat and talked out loud to his nag, telling it to be a good
horse and trot over the mountains briskly "so that we can bring
woodman's wife home again before the day is out." My mother sat,
wrapped up in all her clothes, and my father's storm-cloak into the
bargain, on a leather cushion, with straw at her feet and a heavy
blanket over all, allowing only a part of her head to show above it. I
sat beside this sick-bed and was heavy at heart.

It was still chilly night; the sky began to turn a little pale over the
Wechselberg. The road led across the meadows. Now the birds woke; now
the glory of the dawn commenced; now the great sun rose in the heavens.
My mother drew back the blanket a little and gazed up at the sun:

"I feel full of hope," she whispered and felt for my hand, "if only the
summer helps a bit and Tom of the Footpath too. After all, I'm not so
old yet. What do you think, my child? Shall I be able to look at the
world again a hale woman?"

I was as confident as she; I felt quite relieved. The morning sun! The
dear warm morning sun!

Mother became chatty.

"It's silly, when you come to think of it," she said, suddenly, and
laughed almost aloud, "how fond a body is of being in the world. Of
course, I should be sorry to leave my folk. And it would be a pity for
my Lenzel, your father, to be left all alone; the children are so small
yet."

"But I'm getting pretty big now," I protested.

Then mother turned her face right round to me and said:

"It's just you, my Peter, it's just you about whom I'm most anxious.
You see, you appear to me quite different from other boys of your age.
You've no real mind for work, that is to say, you have the mind,
perhaps, but you take no honest pleasure in it. Yes, yes, deny it as
you may, I know you, you don't care about farming, you hang around and
you want something else, you yourself don't know what. You see, that's
really the worst of it. And so I should like to pray to God and ask Him
to leave me with you, so that I can keep a hold on you until I know
what's to become of you."

"Will you be a carrier? How would that suit you, boy?" cried Steve,
over his shoulder, to us in the cart.

"A good carrier, who takes poor people driving: I wouldn't mind that,"
remarked my mother, whereupon Steve gave a little smirk.

The road led straight up and became stony; Steve and I got down and
walked beside the creaking cart. The sun had become hot. It was a
tiring drive and we only got on slowly.

When we were up at the top and driving along through the almost level,
but dark woods of the Fischbacheralpe, we no longer heard the
cart-wheels, for the ground was thickly strewn with pine-needles, save
that, every now and again, the wheels struck against a root. The birds
had become silent, for the hot day lay over the tree-tops. My mother
had fallen asleep. I looked at her pale face and thought:

"Tom of the Footpath is sure to know of something that will do her
good; it's a lucky thing that we were able to drive to Tom of the
Footpath."

"Like a bit of bread, Peter?" asked Steve.

"I should be glad of a bit."

And, when I got my piece of bread, there was a piece of bacon on it;
and now my distress began. I held the thing in my hand for ever so long
and looked at it and looked up at my mother: she was asleep. I did not
want to offend Steve, who meant so well by us. As, however, I could not
leave the thing as it was, lying in my hand, I at last began, first
quite softly, but gradually louder, to call out:

"Steve!"

"What do you want?" he asked, at last.

"I should only like to beg as a favour," I said, quite despondently,
"just as a favour, that I need not eat the bacon. For indeed I don't
like bacon."

"You don't know what's good," said the driver, laughing, and relieved
me of my difficulty.

At last, we began to go downhill; and now the cart jolted over the
burning stones and shook the invalid out of her sleep; and the sun
burnt into her marrow; and she felt chilled all the same.

Steve muttered:

"Tom of the Footpath must be the devil of a good doctor to make a drive
like this worth while. Hold up, Sorrel: we've not much further to go."

It was late in the afternoon when we reached the valley and stopped at
the little house where Tom of the Footpath lived.

We carried mother into the musty, stuffy parlour, in which all the
little windows were tight shut. There we let her down on the bench and
asked for Tom.

A grumpy old woman answered that Tom was not there.

"We can see that," said Steve, "but might we ask where he is?"

"Can't say."

"When's he coming in?"

"Maybe he won't stay out long, maybe he won't be back till night, maybe
he's gone to the ale-house."

The old woman left the room; and there we sat. My mother drew a deep
breath.

Steve went after the old woman and asked her for a spoonful of hot soup
for the invalid.

"Where should I get hot soup from at this time of day? The fire's been
out on the hearth this long since."

That was the answer. Thereupon the driver himself set to and lit the
fire, looked for milk and boiled it.

Mother ate only a little of the soup and pushed the bowl to us, so that
we should have some warm food too.

When that was done, Steve gave the woman a silver ten-kreuzer for the
milk and for the hay which the sorrel ate.

After a time, during which it turned quite dark in the parlour, once or
twice, because clouds were passing in front of the sun outside, Tom of
the Footpath walked into the room. He was a short, spindle-shanked man,
but had a big head, broad shoulders, a very high chest and a great hump
on his back. And his head was sunk into his shoulders, so that the
mannikin had to turn right round, with his whole body, whenever he
wanted to turn his head. I can see him plainly to this day, as he
stepped in through the door and looked at us, first sharply and then
smilingly, with his wandering, vacant face.

My mother at once became fidgety and tried to rise from her seat, in
order to put her request to him in a respectful fashion.

Tom made a sign with his hand that she need not trouble and presently
said, in a rather sing-song voice:

"I know, I know, you're the woodman's wife from the Alpel; you had a
stroke a year ago."

"I had a stroke?" asked the invalid, in dismay.

"You've been doctoring all round the place, far and wide; and now,
because no one else can do you any good, you come to me. They're all
alike: they come to me when they're dying; and if, after that, Tom of
the Footpath's physic doesn't work a miracle and the patient goes the
way of all flesh, then they say that Tom of the Footpath has been the
cause of his death."

These words were terrible to listen to, in themselves, but still they
were bearable because they were spoken with a smiling face and because
Tom went on to add:

"Hope it'll prove an exception in your case, woodman's wife. I'll just
examine you now."

First of all, of course, he felt her pulse:

"It hops," he muttered, "it hops."

Then, with his broad fingers, he pushed her eyebrows apart and looked
into the whites--and said nothing. Next, she had to bare her neck and
he put his ear to it--and said nothing. Furthermore, he attentively
studied the lines of her hand, then asked after the sick woman's actual
state of health and went on to examine the arteries and the
respiration, so that I at once conceived a high opinion of the man's
conscientiousness.

And, when he had finished his examination, he sat down on a chair
opposite my mother, who was slowly wrapping herself up again in her
clothes, spread out his legs, sank his chin into his body and, with his
arms crossed over his chest, said:

"Yes, my dear woodman's wife, you've got to die."

My mother gave a light start, I sprang to my feet. Steve, however,
remained sitting quite calmly in his seat, looked hard at Tom of the
Footpath for a while and then said, suddenly:

"And you haven't, I suppose? No, you old camel, your day's coming too,
God damn it all!"

It was now high time to go. We hurriedly packed up and drove off
homeward.

It was sultry and shady; the sky was covered with clouds; there was not
a living thing in sight; not a tree-top stirred; our cart rattled
heavily along. My mother lay silently in her corner and gazed at the
darkling world with her great, black eyes.

Steve sat fuming on his box, but gradually became quieter; and he now
grunted:

"To think of a man being as drunk as all that!"

"Who?" I asked.

"Such a drunken bout is really worth making a day's journey to go and
have a look at," Steve continued. "True enough, I'd heard tell that the
old camel was seldom sober; and he'd come straight from the ale-house
to-day."

"I dare say it was just as well," my mother said. "If he had been
sober, perhaps he would not have told me the truth."

And so we drove away in great sadness. The thunder rolled over the
mountains, quite hoarse and dull; the Fischbach storm-bell rang in the
distance. Then my mother sat upright and said:

"You must do something to please me, Peter; and I'll ask Steve as well:
it's no use telling father, my husband, what Tom of the Footpath said."

"Indeed, it would never do to repeat such fool's talk," cried the
driver, very loudly, "but I'm going to the magistrate! I shall inform
against him! That's what I shall do!"

"I beg of you, Steve, let it be," my mother asked. "You mustn't think
that I take it so much to heart. I myself have often thought that the
thing will end with me as it ends with all ailing people. What can Tom
of the Footpath do against that! We did not go to him to get him to
tell us lies. I'm only sorry that we never once asked what we owed him
for his straightforwardness."

Now Steve burst out laughing and sent the whip whizzing once or twice
through the air, notwithstanding that the horse was doing its best.

When we drove along over the heights, the threatening storm had
dispersed entirely; the setting sun shone with a faint golden gleam
over the wide landscape, over wood and meadows; and a cool breeze blew
in our faces.

A bright tear lay on my mother's pale cheeks.

As, silent and tired, we drove through our home meadows, the stars
appeared in the sky. On every side, the song of the crickets purled and
chirped in the grass. By the fence, where our hillside began, stood a
black figure that accosted us and asked if it was we.

It was my father, who had come to meet us. My mother called him by
name; her voice was weak and trembling.

Father took us indoors, without asking a question.

Not until we were in the parlour and the rushlight was burning did he
ask how we had fared.

"Not badly," said Steve, "not at all badly: we have been very
cheerful."

"And Tom of the Footpath: what did he say?"

"He said that, like other people, woodman's wife wouldn't live for
ever, but that she has plenty of time before her, oh, plenty of time.
Only you're to take care: give her lots of good air in the summer, not
too much work and no excitement, good food and drink and no physic, no
physic at all, he said. And then she'll get all right again."

A time elapsed after that. My father tried to nurse mother according to
Steve's dictum, which he believed to be Tom of the Footpath's dictum;
and, when winter came, she sat at the spinning-wheel and span. The
mouse had not bitten the thread in two.

That same winter brought the news that Tom of the Footpath had been
found frozen to death in the snow, not far from the ale-house on the
Fischbacheralpe. We said an Our Father for his soul.

Carrier Steve, who came to see us now and then and always remained the
good, cheerful man he was, had also forgiven Thomas: true, it was
wholly and solely because he had proved wrong that time.


II

I failed--to return to our other circumstances--to take any pleasure in
the peasant's life and also I really lacked the strength for it. I then
took up a trade, but was not able to help my parents; I wanted to pay
my father for my Sunday board, which I had at home, but he would take
nothing from me, said that I was just as much his child as before, only
I must not burn so many rushes when I was home on Saturday nights.

"Oh, goodness me, let him have that pleasure: he hasn't so many!" my
mother would say and intercede for me.

Then things altered with me. I went into the world. It was hard parting
with my mother; but, in a short time, she was able to see that my life
had become happier.

And, now that happiness had come, envy soon came hobbling along--or was
it stupidity? A rumour passed through the forest hills:

"So far, it's all right with Peter; but, as always happens in town, he
is sure to fall away from the Christian faith."

And soon the talk grew:

"A nice story that! All of a sudden, he finds honest work too hard for
him and righteous fare not good enough, goes to town and eats
flesh-meat on Our Lady's day and falls away from the faith."

My mother laughed at first, when she heard that, for she knew her
child. But then the thought came to her: suppose it were true after
all! Suppose her dear child were forgetting God and going astray!

She knew no peace. She went and borrowed clothes from blind Julia and
borrowed three florins from a good-natured huckstress and
travelled--sick and infirm as she was, leaning with either hand on a
stick--to the capital. She wanted to see for herself what was true in
people's talk. She found her child a poor student in a black coat,
which he had had given him, and with his hair combed off his forehead.
None of this pleased her greatly, it is true; it succeeded, however, in
appeasing her. But, in the two days of her stay in town, she saw the
mad, frivolous doings on every side, saw the neglect of old customs
which she revered and the mocking of things that were sacred to her,
and she said to me:

"You will never be able to stay among people like those, child; they
would drag you down with them and ruin your soul."

"No, mother," I answered, "a man can think as he wishes; and people
can't take away good thoughts."

She said no more. But, when she returned to the forest hills and heard
the talk again, she was more dejected than ever.

It was all up now with the homestead. House and farm were sold, made
over to the creditors; my brothers and sisters engaged as servants with
strange farmers. The destitute parents were given a cottage that, until
then, had belonged to the property. My youngest brother, who was not
yet able to earn his bread, and one sister remained with them and
nursed poor mother. Father kept on going over the mountains to the
doctors', and all but promised them his own life, if they could save
the life of his wife.

In the cottage, things looked very wretched. The ailing woman suffered
in silence. The light of her eyes threatened to fail her, her mental
faculties appeared to fade. Death knocked at her heart with repeated
strokes. She often seemed to endure severe pain, but said nothing; she
no longer took any interest in the world, asked only after her husband,
after her children. And she lay years a-dying.

I often came to see her during that time. She hardly knew me, when I
stood by her bedside; but then again she would say, as in a dream:

"Is that you, Peterl? Praise and thanks be to God that you are here
again!"

During midsummer, we would carry her, once in a way, with bed and all,
out of the stuffy room into the air, so that she might see the sunshine
once more. I do not know if she saw it: she kept her eyes open and
looked up at the sun; her optic nerves seemed dead.

Then, suddenly, days came when she was different. She was cheerful and
longed to go out into the open.

"Do get quite well again, Maria," said her husband, "and we shall
remain together a long while yet."

"Yes," she answered.

I thought of all this on my way through the forest--and now it was all
over with this poor rich life.

When, at last, after walking for hours through the woods along the
mountain-path, I saw the thatched cottage on the hill-side, then it was
as though a misty shadow covered woods and plains and all; and yet the
sunlight hung over it. A puff of grey smoke rose from the little
chimney. Does she suspect my coming? thought I. Is she cooking my
favourite dish? No, strangers are preparing a funeral feast.

You stood long, Peterl, outside the half-open door; and your hand
trembled when at last it touched the latch. The door opened, you walked
in, it was dark in the narrow passage, with only a dim little oil-lamp
flickering in a glass, and yet you saw it clearly: against the wall,
under the smoky stairs, on a plank lay the bier, covered entirely with
a big white cloth. At the head stood a crucifix and the holy-water
stoup, with a sprig of fir in it....

You fell upon your knees.... And the tears came at last. The tears
which the mother's heart once gave us to take with us into this world
for our relief in sorrow and for our only consolation in the hour when
no other comfort reaches the soul, when strangers cannot understand us
and when the mother's heart has ceased to beat. Hail, O rich and
eternal legacy!

Now the door of the parlour opened softly and Maria, the younger
sister, stepped out. The girl at once began to cry when she saw the
brother of whom they had all spoken so often, for whom mother's last
glance had asked and who was far away when she closed her eyes. Now he
lay there on his knees and cried over the memory of her life.

Even her children here at home had slept through the night of the
death. Not till the glow of early morning lit up the little windows did
father go to the girls in the bedroom and say:

"Open your eyes and look out. The sun is already rising over the
Wechsel; and the Blessed Virgin is sitting on the mountain-top, with
the Child Jesus on her knee; and your mother is sitting on the stool
at her feet, with a spinning-wheel before her, weaving her heavenly
garment."

Then they knew at once that mother was dead.

"Would you like to look at her?" my sister now asked.

And she went to the head of the bier and slowly raised the shroud.

I saw my mother. Heaven's bliss still lay on the stiff, stark visage.
The load was gone from my heart, relieved and comforted; I looked upon
the dear features as though I were contemplating a white flower. It was
no longer the poor, sick, weary woman that lay before me: it was the
face lit up with a ray from the youthful days long past. She lay there
slumbering and was strong and well. She was young again and white and
gentle; she wore a little smile, as she often did when she looked at
the merry little fellow playing about with his toys at her feet. The
dark and glossy hair (she had no grey hairs yet) was carefully braided
and peeped out a little at the temples from under the brown kerchief,
the one which she loved best to wear upon her head when she went to
church on holidays. She held her hands folded over her breast, with the
rosary and the wax candle between them. She lay there just as though
she had fallen asleep in church on Whit Sunday, during the solemn High
Mass; and thus, even in death, she comforted her child. But the rough
hands clearly showed that the slumberer had led a hard and toilful
life.

And so you stood before this sacred image, nearly as still and
motionless as the sleeper.

At last, you whispered to your little sister, who stood softly weeping
by your side:

"Who closed her eyes?"

A sound of hammering came from the parlour. The carpenter was knocking
together the last dwelling-house.

After a while, Maria drew the shroud over the head again, as softly
and carefully as when she used to cover up our little mother, hundreds
and hundreds of times, in the long period of sickness.

Then I went into the small, warm parlour. Father, my elder sister, my
two brothers, of whom the younger was still a boy, came up to me with
mournful looks. They hardly spoke a word, they gave me their hands, all
but the little fellow, who hid himself in the chimney-corner, where we
could hear his sobbing.

Joseph the carpenter was calmly planing away at the coffin, which he
had now finished joining, and smoked his pipe as he did so.

Later, when the afternoon shadows had lengthened outside, far over the
glittering snow-clad meadow-land, when, in the parlour, Joseph was
painting the black cross on the coffin-lid, father sat down beside it
and said, softly:

"Please God, after all, she has a house of her own again."

On the first day after mother's death, no fire had been lit on the
cottage-hearth. One and all had forgotten that a mortal man wants a
basin of hot soup in the morning and at mid-day. On the other hand, a
blazing fire had been kindled on the field behind the little house, to
burn the straw bedding on which she had died, even as, long ago, the
forefathers had fanned their Odin fires, commending the beloved dead to
the Goddess Hella, the great concealer.[21]

I had sat down on the bench and lifted my little brother up to me. The
little man glanced at me quite fearsomely: I had a black coat on and a
white scarf round my neck and I looked very grand in his eyes. I held
his little hand, which already had horny blisters on it, in mine. Then
I asked father to tell us something of mother's life.

"Wait a little," answered father and looked on at the drawing of the
cross, as in a dream.

At last, he heaved a deep sigh and said:

"So it's finished now. Her cross and suffering lasted long, that's
true; but her life was short. Children, I tell you, not everyone has a
mother like yours. For you, Peter, she nearly gave up her life, when
you came into the world. And so they followed one after the other: joys
and sorrows, care and want, poverty and wretchedness! And, when I was
sick unto death and the doctors agreed that I must go the way of all
flesh, that there was no remedy for it, my wife never gave up hope,
never abandoned me. Day and night she stayed by my side, forgetting to
sleep, forgetting to eat a bit of bread. She almost poured life back
into me with her own breath--my dear, good wife."

His voice seemed about to break; he wiped the moisture from his eyes
with his coat-sleeve.

"No one would believe what good nursing can do," he continued. "I
became quite hale again. We lived on, faithfully and fondly; and that
you, Peter, found success and happiness away from home, that was your
mother's greatest joy. You yourselves know how she lay sick and dying
for seven years and more, how they turned us out of house and home, how
spitefully people talked and how, nevertheless, we had the greatest
trust in you children. For fully thirty years, we lived together in
wedlock. I always prayed that God might take _me_ first; now He has
chosen rather to take _her_. You mustn't cry like that, children: you
were always a help and a comfort to your mother."

He said no more.

When the carpentering of the coffin was done, father put shavings
inside it as a pillow. He had always had the habit, when he had done
his work, of going to his wife and saying:

"I've finished now."

And so, when he had put the shavings straight and made the other
preparations, he went out to the bier in the passage and said:

"I've finished now."

Late in the evening, when the crescent moon stood in the dark, clear
sky and shed its twilight over the woods and gleaming, snow-clad
meadows and over the little house in the forest on the hill-side, the
snow creaked continually on the roads and people came up from
farmsteads and distant cottages. Even though they had carried on loud
and cheerful conversations with one another on the paths by which they
had come, they became silent now that they were nearing the cottage and
we heard only the crackling of their footsteps on the snow.

In the small front passage, which was dimly lit by the little lamp,
everyone knelt on the cold clay floor and prayed silently before the
bier and then sprinkled it with holy water. After that, he went into
the parlour to the others, who sat round the table and the fireplace,
singing hymns and uttering pious reflections. They were all there to
accompany the poor woman of the house to her last resting-place.

I would have kept on standing by the bier, if the people had not been
there, so that I might look at my mother. I read my childhood and my
youth in her features. I thought that the bright eyes must open once
more and smile to me, that the word must once more come from those lips
which, in her loving-kindness, had been so soft and tender. But, though
I was her dear son and however long I might stand beside her--she now
slept the eternal sleep.

I went into the low-ceilinged kitchen, where the neighbours' wives were
cooking the funeral meal; I looked round in the smoke for my brothers
and sisters, that I might comfort them.

Inside, in the parlour, all were now as still as mice and in great
tension. Mathias, the old chamois-hunter, who wore a brown shirt and a
white beard, sat at the table and told a story:

"There was once a farmer," he began, "who had a wife, just a poor sick
wife. And, one day, one holy Easter morning, the wife died. The soul
departed from her body and stood there all alone in dark Eternity. No
angel was willing to come and lead her and show her in to the heavenly
Paradise. 'They are celebrating Christ's resurrection in Heaven'--so
the story ran--'and, at such times, no saint or angel has time to show
a poor soul the way.' But the poor soul was in inexpressible fear and
terror, for she reflected that, because of her illness, it was long
since she had been to church. And she already heard the devil whining
and whimpering and whistling and she thought that she was lost. 'O my
holy guardian angel and patron saint!' she cried. 'Come to my help in
this my need, or I must depart into hell-fire!' But they were all in
Heaven together, celebrating Our Lord's resurrection. Thereupon the
poor woman was nigh to fainting away, without comfort or support; but
suddenly Our Lady stood by her side, draped in a snow-white garment
with a wreath of roses as a beautiful ornament in her hand. 'Hail to
thee and comfort, thou poor woman!' she said, gently, to the departed
soul. 'Thou hast been a pious sufferer all thy life long and every
Saturday thou hast fasted, for my sake, and what thou hadst left over
through the fasting thou hast given to the poor, for my sake. This I
will never forget to thee; and, though my dear Son is commemorating His
glorious resurrection this day, yet will I think of thee and carry thee
to His golden throne and to thy joyful place in the rose-garden by the
angels, which I have prepared for thy sake and where thou canst wait
for thy husband and thy children.' And then Our Lady took the poor
woman by the hand and carried her up to Heaven. That is why I say that
fasting and alms-giving in honour of Our Lady are a right good work."

So spake Mathias in his brown shirt.

"Our dear woodman's wife, whom we are burying to-morrow, was also fond
of fasting," said one little woman, "and very fond of giving."

Father sobbed for emotion. The thought that his wife was now in Heaven
lit a very welcome light in his sad heart.

The hands of the old soot-browned clock upon the wall--the same which
had faithfully told the hours, the joyful hours and the sorrowful,
since the woodman's glad wedding-day; which pointed to the hour of one,
early on Sunday morning, when the little boy was born; which, after
many years, showed the hour of six, when the delivering angel passed
through the room and pressed his kiss on the sufferer's forehead--the
hands now met at twelve o'clock.

And, when that departed life was thus measured, like a single day, from
sunrise to sunset, my father said:

"Boy, go outside to the cow-shed and lie down for a while in the straw
and rest a bit. I will wake you when the time comes."

I went outside, took a last look at the bier in the passage and then
stepped out into the free, cold, starry night. The sickle of the moon
had sunk behind the woods; it had sent its last beam gliding through
the crevice of the door on the shroud that covered the bier: to-morrow,
when it rose again, the poor creature would be lying in the dark earth.

So now I lay in the shed on the straw, where my two brothers generally
slept. The three chained oxen stood or lay beside me, grinding their
teeth as they chewed the cud. It was warm and damp in the stable; and
the moisture trickled from the half-rotten ceiling down on my straw
couch.

There was once a time--ay, the drops came quivering down as now--the
dew-drops from the trees, when mother was taking you to make your first
communion. I see you now, Peterl. You have a new jacket on, with a
sprig of rosemary in your hat. Your little snow-white shirt shows round
your neck above the waistcoat; and your cheeks are rosy red with
scrubbing. Mother is wearing a bright-coloured dress, a brown apron and
a black, tight-fitting jacket. Her broad neckerchief is of red silk and
shines like fire and flame. A white-and-green spray of flowers sticks
out of her bosom. On her head, she wears a high and costly golden cap,
as was the fashion thenadays throughout the country; and the curls peep
out on either side of the forehead, gleaming black like the two great
pupils of her eyes and soft and dainty like the lashes on her lids. Her
cheeks are tinged with the pink of the dawn; her chin is white and
daintily curved. Her red lips wear a little smile and, at the same
time, scold you, my little man, because you are skipping so pertly over
the stones and roots and knocking the nails out of your shoes. No child
alive has ever seen his mother in the full flower of her beauty; and
yet how splendid it is, boy, even now! All's aglow in the wood and
alight in the young larches; and the blooms are fragrant and the birds
singing in every tree-top.

Ah, child-time is May-time!

A dull, heavy knocking roused me from my dream; I started up. Now they
are laying my mother in the coffin; now they are nailing down the lid.

I rushed out of the shed and into the house. There, in the passage,
stood the narrow, white, closed coffin; and the dimly-flickering
oil-lamp now lit up only the empty, desolate plank on which the bier
had stood.

I should have liked to see her once more....

The people were preparing the litter. Father knelt behind the door and
prayed; the sisters wept in their pinafores; and my little brother
sobbed terribly. The poor little fellow tried to keep in his tears, for
he had heard that all was for the best with mother and that she was now
enjoying peace in Heaven: he had smiled a little at that; but now,
when the people were making ready to carry mother away for good and
all, there was no comfort left in his sorely-afflicted little heart.

I took little brother by the hand and we went into the furthermost dark
corner of the room, where no one else was and where only our sick
mother had cared to sit. There we sat down on the bench. And there we
sat while everything was being prepared outside, while the people sat
down to table and shared the funeral repast.

They had come to show us sympathy; now they were eating, now they were
laughing and then again they acted as was customary; and they actually
rejoiced that one more person had died and, in so doing, brought
variety into their everyday lives.

Suddenly, loud words were heard outside:

"Where is the _Überthan_? We can't find the _Überthan_."

The _Überthan_ is a thin linen pall which is wrapped round the coffin
like a veil and, in the popular belief, serves him or her who has risen
from the dead as a garment on the Day of Judgment.

Father was roused from his prayers by the shouting; he now staggered
around and looked for the linen sheet in his press, on the shelves and
in every nook and corner. Why, he had brought it home only yesterday;
and now it was nowhere to be found! He had really lost his head: he had
to see that all got something to eat; he had to change into his Sunday
clothes to go to church; he had to comfort his children; he had to
fetch a new candle, because the old one was burnt down to its socket
and the people were like to find themselves in the dark; he had to go
to the shed and give the cattle fodder enough to last them all day, for
there would be no one at home; and now he was expected to say where he
had put the pall yesterday, in his confusion. And, in the next few
minutes, they would be carrying his wife out of the house!

It was one great excitement.

"So the old man has no pall!" they grumbled. "Such a thing has never
been known: carrying out a dead person all naked and bare. But it must
be true with the poor woodman's wife: a pauper she lived and a pauper
she died!"

My two sisters began to hunt in their turn; and Maria exclaimed,
plaintively:

"Dear Jesus, my mother mustn't be buried without a pall; she would do
better than that to stay at home here; and I will give my
christening-money and buy her her last dress. Who was it put away the
linen sheet? O God, they want to deny her the last thing of all, as
well as all the rest!"

I tried to calm the girl and said we should be sure to get a linen
sheet out in the village and, if not, then she must rest in peace under
the bare deal boards.

"How can you speak like that!" she cried. "Didn't mother in her time
buy your clothes for you out of her hard-saved kreuzers? And now you
want her to rise on the Day of Judgment in her shabby clothes, when all
the others are wearing a white garment!"

She burst into loud crying and leant her glowing forehead against the
wall.

But, soon after, the people breathed again: they had found the pall.

And, when they had eaten--we others did not take a bite--and everything
was ready, they opened the door of the front passage and knelt down
before the coffin and prayed aloud, saying Our Lord's Five Wounds.

Then four men placed the coffin on the litter and lifted it up and
carried it out of the poor dwelling into the wood and thence over the
commons and fields and through mountain forests.

And round about was the winter night and over all hung the starry sky.

One more look at the empty bier-plank and then I quickly drew my
little brother out with me; and father and sisters also hurried after;
and the elder brother locked the door; and then the cottage in the wood
lay there in the dark and in the deepest stillness. Life had left
it--and death had left it: there is no greater loneliness possible.

We heard the hum of the praying funeral procession, we saw the flicker
of the two or three lanterns among the trunks of the trees. The bearers
walked at a quick pace; those who followed and prayed could hardly keep
up with them on the rough, snow-covered paths. I was a long way behind
with my little brother: the boy could not walk so fast. Mother would
never have left us behind like that, when living: she would have
waited, laughing a little and chiding a little, and led the child by
the hand. Now, however, she only longed for rest.

Outside the parish village stands a tall cross, with a life-size figure
of the Saviour. Here, after a many-hours' progress up and down hill,
they set the coffin on the ground and waited for the doctor, who came
from the village to view the corpse and give the death-certificate.
But, by the time that we two, who had lagged behind, came up, the
coffin-lid was hammered down again. And so I was never able to see you
again on earth, my mother!

They entered the parish church in the morning twilight.

The clear bells rang out together. A great catafalque was set up in the
middle of the dark church; many candles gleamed; and a solemn funeral
service began. The parish priest, an old, blind man, with snow-white
hair, a venerable figure, intoned the requiem, surrounded by priests in
rich vestments. His voice was clear and solemn; a choir chanted the
responses; and trumpets and sackbuts echoed through the church.

I looked at father and he at me; we knew not who had ordered all this
so. To-day I know that it was my friends at Krieglach who gave us this
beautiful token of their love.

When the funeral service was over, the catafalque was removed, all the
festal candles on the high-altar were lit and three priests, no longer
clad in the hue of mourning, but in red, gold-stitched chasubles,
climbed the steps of the altar and a grand High Mass was celebrated,
with gay bell-ringing and joyous music.

"That is because she is released from her suffering," said I to the
boy.

At last, the coffin, richly decked with flowers, swayed out of the
parish church, where, in the old days, the woodman's wife had been
baptised and married, on its way to the cemetery. The priests and the
choir sang the loud, clear requiem, the bells tolled over the village
far out into the woods and the candles flickered in the sunlight. A
long train of men and women passed through the broad village street. We
walked behind the coffin, carrying lighted candles in our hands and
praying as we went.

The cemetery lies outside the village, on a gentle eminence, between
fields and meadows. It is far from small, for the parish stretches to a
great distance over hill and dale. It is enclosed with a plank fence
and contains many crosses of wood and rusty iron; and in the middle
rises the image of Christ crucified.

Before this image, on the right, was the deep grave, at the exact spot
where, years ago, they had buried our mother's two children who had
died. A mound of freshly-dug earth lay on either side of the grave.

Here the bearers let the coffin down to the ground and stripped it of
all its finery; and it slid down into the pit as poor as it had left
the cottage in the wood.

"Thou to-day, I to-morrow; and so I am content," murmured father.

And the priest said:

"May she rest in the Lord!"

Then they cast clods of earth into the grave and went away, went to the
inn, tasted bread and wine and talked of everyday things. When it was
twelve o'clock and, according to custom, the bells began to toll once
more, as a last farewell to the departed, the men and women of the
forest set out to return to their mountain valley.

We who belonged to one another sat together for a while longer and
spoke sadly of the time that must now come and how to arrange for it.
Then we took leave of one another: my father and brothers and sisters
went home to the cottage in the wood, to live and die where mother had
lived and died.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Fasting or abstaining from flesh-meat on Saturdays, in honour of
Our Lady, is a custom, an act of voluntary discipline, prevailing
almost exclusively in the German and Austrian Highlands.--_Translator's
Note._

[21] Hella, daughter of Laki and goddess of the dead, is the Persephone
of Norse mythology.--_Translator's Note._


THE END




Transcriber's note:

In the text version italics are represented with _underscore_ and small
caps with ALL CAPS.

In the caption to the Frontispiece, the artist is named as Milicent
Norris, elsewhere Melicent is used.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. The following
corrections have been made:

Table of Contents: who went to prison -> period added after prison

p. 16: in the Murztal; -> Murztal changed to Mürztal

p. 18: bellettristic newspapers -> bellettristic changed to belletristic

p. 27: Sünders was printed with a breve mark above the u instead of ü

p. 76: something about him. -> added closing quotation mark after him.

p. 129: diff erently -> differently

p. 154: liked carved -> liked changed to like

p. 171: It can't be possible---- Why -> added exclamation mark after
possible----

p. 172: as Grosshöfen -> as changed to at

p. 174: schoo teacher -> schoo changed to school

p. 195: a telegram -> added colon after telegram

p. 201: came to us see -> came to see us

Everything else has been retained as printed, including archaic,
uncommon and inconsistent spelling and inconsistent hyphenation.