Bregenz, however, seldom kept me for more than half a day, since I preferred chasing birds to seeing them stuffed. So I scoured these upper regions over field and forest and rock, covering immeasurable distances and never following a path unless obliged to do so, up to the snow-line and down again, sleeping in hay-huts or remote villages; and judge if I saw some ant-hills by the way; ant-hills in every possible situation; the strangest, after all, being those of dry sand, fetched from God knows where and transported God knows how, and reared-up, Amsterdam-wise, in the middle of watery marshes.
And that particular one, which has led me into this digression—where was it?
Where else, but near Tiefis?
For it stands to reason that we went to that village again, after our nocturnal conversation on the Lutz embankment, in order to visit what Mr. R. calls “the innkeepress and his beautiful girl.”
There we sat, all four of us, in that spotlessly clean room, and my companion after consuming his usual horrible mixture—two boiled eggs and a glass of saft (a strong kind of cider, of greenish tinge)—straightway opened a fusillade of glances from his flashing black eyes, to which the “baby,” so far as I could see, was not insensible.
Her mother, meanwhile, told me what she had heard about the cause of that outbreak of fire which destroyed nearly all the place in 1866. It seems that a party were sitting up one night, as is the custom, beside the dead body of some friend who had expired during the day and, as is also the custom under these mournful circumstances, began to think of refreshing themselves with coffee. There was no milk in the house and it was decided to go into the stable and milk the cow; some straw accidentally took fire from the candle they carried; this started the mischief. Several people were burnt to death on that occasion. A second fire took place in 1868. She said there were only two or three of the old houses left; one of them bearing the date 1678——
“What is she talking about?” enquired Mr. R.
“About a fire they had here.”
“Can’t you two argue outside? And before you go just tell me the German for embrassez-moi, will you?”
“How can I tell you, with the mother in the room?”