CHAPTER IX.
Sometimes it was our simple hosts who led the conversation, which then, especially as they became at ease with us, always drifted more or less into the supernatural. Nor was this surprising, as the tales, legends, old manners and customs amongst the Tyrolese are thoroughly interwoven with threads of heathen mythology and with the occult belief of the Middle Ages.
VALLEY AND BEEHIVES.
Franz had a wonderful credence in lucky and unlucky days. Tuesday and Thursday were witches' days, and Wednesday was also evil, seeing Judas hanged himself on a Wednesday; therefore never drive cattle to the Olm on that day. Moreover, he believed that when two persons sneezed together a soul was loosed from purgatory. As for witches and ghosts, he knew enough about them too. Did not the witches still dance every night at eight o'clock on their meeting-place by Bad Scharst? His brother Jörgel could have told us about that if he would. The pächter Josef had likewise experiences which he might relate were he not so shy. "Josef was returning through the Reinwald one Thursday night, and had just crossed over the Giessbach when he met a black figure, whom he greeted in God's name; but the figure moved on, making no answer as a Christian would have done. He had not gone much farther up the wood when he met a second black form. Crossing himself, Josef spoke out boldly a 'God greet you!' but again silence. The figure had vanished. Josef crossed himself and prayed. Nevertheless, he met a third, and, waxing bold, not only greeted him, but turning round looked fixedly at the black figure to see whether it were sorcerer, gypsy, ghost or witch. And there, behold! it stood, grown as tall as a tree, grinning at Josef until he thought it best to escape. Next day the black cow went dry: otherwise you might say that Josef's hobgoblins were fir trees."
Whilst Jakob laughed at Josef's phantoms, he could not help telling us in his turn a tale which he considered much more noteworthy: "There was no denying that one winter's night a huntsman, losing himself in the deep snow, took refuge in a forsaken senner-hut. Content to suffer hunger if only thus sheltered for the night, he was shortly surprised by the entrance of a black man, who not only welcomed him to the hut, but proposed cooking him some supper; an offer most thankfully accepted. Upon this, the black man lighted a fire, suddenly produced a frying-pan, which had been invisible before, and began cooking strauben and cream pancakes from equally hidden stores. When supper was ready the huntsman begged the good-natured black cook to sit down and eat with him; and a very hearty meal he seemed to make, although, to the surprise of the huntsman, the food turned as black as a cinder before it entered his mouth. Both men lay down to rest; and after a comfortable sleep the hunter, rising up to go, thanked the black man for his kind hospitality, adding, 'May God reward you!' 'Oh,' replied the other, uttering a great sigh of relief, 'may God in His mercy equally reward you for those words! When I walked on the earth I laughed at religion: I was therefore sent back in the spirit to toil until some mortal should thank me in God's name for what I had done for him. This you have done, and now I am free;' and so saying he vanished."
"Yes," said Moidel, "these tales are as true as the gospel. You know Nanni, the maid who sings so sweetly? Her father some years since went on a pilgrimage with two other peasants to Maria Zell. Arriving late one night at a solitary farm-house, they rapped at the door, requesting a lodging. The bauer, however, excused himself: it was from no evil intention, he said, but he could not take strangers in. The three wanderers pleaded how ill would be their condition if left in the fields all night. Still the bauer made no other reply, until, on their pressing him, he finally declared, half in anger, that they must themselves be responsible for their night's rest. He wished to treat them well, but could offer them no better bed than the top of the oven in the stube. This offer they willingly accepted, but hardly had they lain down when a peasant-woman entered with a pail of water and brushes. In spite of their entreaties, she scrubbed and scrubbed away all night, and hardly had she finished when, the work not pleasing her, she began scrubbing the floor and woodwork over again. Thus the cleaning lasted the livelong night, until in the early morning the maid-servant entered and the woman disappeared; the floor and walls being, to their astonishment, as dry and dusty as the evening before. Whereupon they spoke to the bauer of their troublesome visitor. 'Do not accuse me,' he replied 'of inhospitality: this is a strange matter, from which I would fain have kept you. Intolerable as it has been to you, it is still worse for me, knowing that the woman who thus scrubs, and with so much din, is my poor dead wife. Her brain, when she was alive, was quite turned about cleaning. She could not even go to church with me and the neighbors, but must stay at home and clean. So, being a bad manager, and not washing her soul white, she seems unfit for heaven, and must needs come here every night to continue her work. Even masses don't seem to help her.'"
Such tales were either related by the hut-fire on airy mountain or in the fir woods. Moidel might have told us ghost-stories in the barn at night, but there, in the solitary darkness, they appeared to her too horribly real, especially with sleepy auditors, who might any moment drop into unconsciousness, leaving her in a dismal fright over her own tale.
One afternoon, accompanied by this faithful companion, we determined to attack the summit of the mountain, which in a mantle of fir wood rose immediately behind the huts. We were anxious to see what lay on the other side, but after a hard though exhilarating climb we learned that the mountain was but a huge overhanging shoulder, the rocky head of the giant rising up in the midst of wide sweeping moors some six miles distant. We changed, therefore, the object of our excursion, determining to visit the highest Olm of the district, Ober Kofel. Turning to the left, we pursued the moorland plateau until in half an hour we had reached a solitary white cabin. The door was firmly closed, but a pile of fire-wood and a rake, evidently flung recently down, were sufficient signs of habitation. A more lonely scene could not well be conceived. No trees nor flowers, only some yellow thistles growing by the side of a murmuring brook, which had persistently gone rushing on until it had worn the pebbles in its bed flat and thin. Tawny, dun-colored mountains rose behind, but before the hut the trät or open space, covered with the greenest turf, extended to a platform of rocks, where the glossy shrubs of the mountain rhododendron grew, presenting a scene well worth the climb. The view outward embraced the deep wooded gorge of the Giessbach, revealing far beyond the black, sinuous lines of distant mountains, cutting across the evening horizon. Black-brown crags some eight thousand feet high, peaked with snow, rose to the right; but the great snow spectacle was to the left. There the proud crests of the Hoch Gall, Wild Gall and Schnebige Nock rose out of a vast white glittering amphitheatre, a peculiar, bare, conical rock standing like an Alpine sphinx strangely forth from this desert of snow.
We sat on our verdant patch enjoying the wild, grand scenery, the wind playing around us in concert with a little calf which had just been promoted to a bell. At length the figure of a tall young man flitted in front of a distant cross, and advancing toward us proved to be the solitary senner of Ober Kofel. As he was the lord of the domain, and moreover acquainted with Moidel, it was not many minutes ere he sat on the grass before us. After giving us a welcome, he began talking to Moidel about the military exercises which were to begin again this week.
"The Ausserkofers," he said, "went down for the drilling immediately after their ascent of the Wild Gall: I am glad I was not drawn."
Then Moidel communicated to him that Jakob must leave on the morrow for drill, and that Tilemaker Martin, Carpenter Barthel's son, would arrive in the morning to take his place as herdsman.
The party now dropped into a dignified silence, which might have lasted as long as we had remained had it not appeared pleasanter to keep the senner intent on a story, rather than on each feature of our several faces.
Speaking proper German, also proving to be understood by him, one of the group began: "Of course you have heard of the clever Tyrolese peasant, still living, Hans Jakob Fetz?"
Neither he nor Moidel had ever heard of him, and as they both pricked up their ears, they learned the following: Fetz possesses a little farm called the Pines. It has, however, the disadvantage of lying on both sides of a wild rushing torrent, the Ache, a river given to inundations in the spring, and over which there is no bridge in his neighborhood. Thus, though Hans Jakob could sit at his door, and almost count the ears of corn in his fields across the river, he must make a circuit of five miles to reach them. Such an immense loss of time and labor troubled him no little, and, as he had no desire to sell his property, he determined by hook or by crook to remedy the evil. Day and night he turned the perplexing problem over in his mind. He might, to be sure, swim across, but then there were his tools to be carried. At last it flashed upon him: Why not make an aërial car? He bought for this purpose some very thick iron wire, stretched it in two parallel lines across the river, fastening the four ends very firmly; constructed a bench on iron rollers, which, sustained by the wire, ran across the river in a trice, and his aërial car was a reality. Here, indeed, was a triumph. It worked admirably, and the whole neighborhood became excited and astonished about the air-railway, as they called it. The news spreading, it brought finally some gentlemen from the town of Dornbirn, who were wild to have a ride across the river. Hans Jakob refused it: he doubted the strength being sufficient for more than one passenger; but they persisting in their urgent demand, he at last reluctantly consented. They would not, or else they could not, go without him. So, the party being seated on the bench, he unfastened the hook, when they should have been instantly whirled across. But, alas! his fears proved true: the wire gave way, and down they all went, plump into the wild rushing river. A great fright and wetting—that was all, for the time being, until the gentlemen, although they had promised not to say a word on the subject, having whispered it to this friend and that, leaving no part uncolored, the town of Dornbirn grew scandalized at a mad peasant's audacity. The authorities took it in hand, and a solemn gendarme visited Hans Jakob with strict orders from government to desist from such perilous, hairbreadth inventions for the future. Poor Hans! he now regarded himself not only as the laughing-stock of the whole country, but as a ruined man. He had spent all his savings on his first venture; but neither official reprimand nor loss of his money could keep his busy, active brain from puzzling out an improved plan, which, having perfected it in his mind, he boldly carried out. Instead of two simple iron wires, he employed two double coils, with a single wire in the centre and six feet higher. He stretched across two other strong parallel wires. He then contrived a little car with two seats and a cover against sun and rain. To the benches and the awning he fastened rollers, so that the car was propelled across both above and below. The weight which it would bear he proved to be fifteen hundredweight, and unfastened from the iron hooks which kept it to the bank, the car ran across in a few seconds with an easy, agreeable motion. Practice and a close investigation proved it now a perfect success. All the censures and ridicule were forgotten, and it proves at the present time both convenient and amusing to the gentlemen, ladies and children of the neighborhood. Hans Jakob willingly conveys them across the river in his flying car. He will, however, receive no fixed payment. He constructed it simply for his own use: were he to make a trade of it, he must either take out a patent, or else make some concessions to government, neither of which he has any inclination to do.
The senner and Moidel listened in astonishment. They had understood every word. Although they had never heard of Hans Jakob before, there was a full account of him in the Brixen calendar, an almanac which the senner owned to having had by him for the last eight months—another noticeable instance how tales and good advice in print are lost upon a people who, hitherto quietly slumbering, find for their hearts and minds enough to do in carrying on their slow agriculture and pattering their prayers. I believe that popular lecturers conversant with the dialect would be of infinite service in the rural districts of the Tyrol.
The senner, after this entertainment, offered us the hospitality of his hut. A lordly bowl of intensely rich cream was placed before us in the sleeping-room, with the sole option of lapping like the men of Gideon, seeing we were not sufficiently naturalized for each to carry a horn spoon in her pocket, had not a little tin drinking mug been fortunately remembered.
The next day the young tilemaker Martin, carrying his bundle, arrived at about nine. He had left the Hof at three that morning, making the whole journey of twenty-four miles on foot without a stop. Franz therefore seized hold of the frying-pan, and we dined an hour earlier than the usual time of ten. After coffee, Jakob had to initiate his successor into the various advantages of the several Alpine pastures, to point out the cattle and goat paths, and to introduce Martin to Kohli, Kraunsi, Blasi, Zottel, Nageli and all the other cows, as well as to Tiger, Schweiz and their fellow-oxen. We set out to accompany them, but the cattle were too far away on distant heights for us to continue long in the scramble. We therefore sat on a breezy mountain platform watching the athletic young men grow ever smaller, more indistinct, whilst Jakob's voice was borne to us on the rarefied air as he called lovingly, "Krudeli, Krudeli" to the calves, and "Köss, Köss" to the cows.
"It is a miracle," said Moidel, "how Martin, who was so weak and consumed away by his accident, should thus have recovered."
"What accident?" asked we.
"Why, does not the Herrschaft know how last November, on his very name-day, Martin was nearly killed? Young Niederberg—he who wears the finest carnations on his hat, but who then, it being cold weather, wore three cock's feathers gained in wrestling-matches—strutted down the Edelsheim street, arm in arm with his great friend, the fair-haired Hansel of Heinwiese, a rude young churl, praising each other for their strength of limb and good looks. Martin at the time was leaning against his father's door. 'The devil!' said Niederberg: 'why do you stay at your father's, when there is better wine and company at the Blauen Bock?' Martin, however, replied that he was a hard-working man, who could only spare time to see his old father and sick sister on a festival. 'No,' said Heinwiese in anger, 'thou art nothing but a miserable milk-sop, never at a wrestling-match, never at a dance.' 'But,' put in Niederberg, 'we'll teach thee to dance and sing;' and so saying, he suddenly plunged the blade of his big pocket-knife below Martin's ribs.
"Why he had become their prey none could tell, unless they were lost in drink. Great was the clamor in the usually quiet village. A doctor was sent for, who at first declared Martin's wound to be mortal. Then his young wife and little children were fetched with many tears from the tileyard, and the priest came with the Holy Death Sacrament. But the prayers and viaticum saved Martin. Still, for many months he had a frightful illness, and even in March he was so weak you could have knocked him down with a feather. Niederberg was immediately taken into custody, and was sentenced to sit in Bruneck Castle till St. John the Baptist's Day, fully six months, to pay the doctor's bill, and two hundred gulden to Martin; but the latter sum, being an evil-minded youth, though rich, he has never paid. He will leave that to Heinwiese, he says, who put him up to the deed: besides, why pay a man who had recovered? He would have stood the funeral and settled with the widow. However, father talks of dealing with Niederberg, for he must not thus despoil patient Martin."
Here, indeed, was a stabbing worthy of hot Italy, rather than cooler, quieter Tyrol. It proved, too, that the serpent and old Adam still moved in that garden of Eden, Edelsheim.
Jakob and the hero of the tragedy now returned, bright and brisk, bearing armfuls of edelweiss, long sprays of stag-horn's moss, and showing us with genuine pleasure roots of the edelraute, which they had gathered on the high ledges for us. This is a little insignificant plant, but called by the Tyrolese the noble rue, and prized by them far more than the edelweiss; perhaps one reason being that when dried it is said to emit a delicious scent, for which reason the housewives place it amongst linen. Jakob looked like a mountain dryad, his broad-brimmed beaver being completely covered with purple Michaelmas daisies, glowing amongst sheaves of silvery edelweiss, falling round in a soft gray woolen fringe. Aided by Jakob and Martin, we had the gratification of gathering edelweiss ourselves, always a notable feat. Martin really had most miraculously recovered. After those twenty-four miles of hard walking, followed by a climb of several thousand feet, we left him felling a pine tree as we bade Jakob adieu, for he was to leave very early in the morning.
A comical scene ensued after our return to the barn. Visitors of course we had none: Martin's arrival had been an immense event. Thus, as we sat in the barn partaking of hot wine and cake, great masses of shadow all around, with light breaking in only from the lantern, forming altogether a perfect Rembrandt effect, we heard a cheerful voice wishing us "Good-night and sweet repose" through the door. Immediately, believing it to be the pächter's moidel, a young lady usually engaged in cutting hay, one of the party rashly invited the voice to enter—an invitation instantly accepted in the most perfect good faith by either a mad woman or a tramp in a big, flapping straw hat, who seated herself in the golden light of the lantern, adding perhaps to the breadth and freedom of this Rembrandt picture, but certainly not to its ease. Ravenously consuming some cake, she attacked us with a continuous battery of God bless yous! Moidel, however, was up to the occasion, and it was not long ere she managed to get the unacceptable visitor outside the door, we begging her to bolt and bar it well, for after this call we were afraid of more lurking intruders. Moidel, however, bade us have no fears. The woman was neither cracked nor a Welscher: she was only a very poor Bachernthalerin, whose hut was generally under water. It was accessible now, however, and the poor soul had been round begging milk at the senner-huts.