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."