We spoke out freely, because the unusually intelligent face before us evidently belonged to a thinker. Candor of speech pleased him. Nevertheless, he answered as if musing, "They appear ugly to you: well they may be. Ja, but the most who look upon them are men and women acquainted with many sorrows—sudden deaths by falls from precipices, destruction of house and home by lightning, floods, avalanches, failure of crops, and many another visitation—and it soothes their perhaps selfish natures to see these anguished features, these blood-stained limbs—signs of still greater suffering—whilst they pray that only such crosses may be laid on them as will keep them in obedience to His will. Just before you came up the hill I was thinking of a strange history connected with a crucifix—one that I read only ten days ago in the house of a Hochmair himself."
It merely needed silence for Schuster Alois to repeat the tale, and he soon began: "It is the Tyroler Adolph Pichler who narrates it. He says that once in his rambles he came to a little chapel, over which hung a blasted larch—such a desolate wreck of a tree that he naturally asked the guide he had with him why it was not cut down. Now, the guide was an old man who knew every, tradition and legend, besides all the family histories in that part of the Tyrol. 'That tree,' said he, 'is left there purposely, as the reminder of a great crime, and nobody would think of touching it. If you look into the chapel, you'll see a Christ on the cross which has been shot through the breast. That was once a crucifix under this very tree.' Then the guide made a remark which had often struck myself—that there are some families in which everything that is strange and dreadful happens, whilst there are others that go on for generations and are no more distinguishable than the very weeds themselves. In that valley were the Hochmairs, and they were of this prominent sort, and odd enough, as I said before, it was at a Hochmair's house that I read this account. Well, some generations back there was a Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. He cared no more for the life of a man than that of a chamois. The government kept the game strictly on the mountains, and he was suspected of having put more than one of their keepers out of the way. In short, he had such a bad character that when he went to confession the priest would not give him absolution. This put him in a great rage, and it is remarkable that from that day his luck in hunting forsook him. He could not take aim—a sort of mist was ever before his eyes, his hand trembled. People believed that he was perpetually haunted by the ghost of a young man whom, after he had shot, he had beaten to death with his gunstock, and then flung down a crevasse. Be that as it may, he would be absent for weeks in the mountains. He did no good, and the little he possessed fell into ruin.
"His creditors were about to sell him up, stick and stone, when he put, as one may say, the finishing stroke to everything himself. It was Corpus Christi Day: the bells were ringing and the procession moving through the fields, the holy banners waving, the choir-boys singing the sanctus, when just as the priest lifted the Host in the golden monstrance, a shot was fired from the bushes in front of a crucifix. Lightning flashed from heaven, and the house of the wicked Hochmair, which was at no great distance, burst into flames. An awful cry rang from the bushes: the procession rushed forward, the priest only remaining with the Host and a few attendants. And what did they see? There was the image of the crucified Saviour pierced by a bullet, and out in the road stood the wretched Hochmair, with his hands clasped on the lock of his gun and his eyes rolling in frenzy. Everybody perceived the crime he had committed, and remained motionless, whilst he beckoned wildly to the priest, who came up in gloomy silence. After they had talked together alone for some time, the priest went into the church, where he remained all night in prayer. The wretched man, whom nobody dared to touch, disappeared into the thicket, and all trace was lost of him. In the mean while the injured image of the Saviour was removed into the church. So years went on, and then one Sunday after service the priest announced from the pulpit that the former sinner Hochmair was dead, but that after years of penitence he had received the forgiveness of the Church and of God. 'Therefore,' said the good man, 'let all forgive him, and remember only their own sins, and pray Christ to be merciful to them.' After that it was known that he had become possessed with the crazy notion that if he fired into the breast of the Saviour on Corpus Christi Day, just when the Host was being elevated and the benediction spoken, it would make his gun unerring. He fired therefore, and at the same moment the Saviour on the cross raised His head and, fixing on him His eyes full of tears, gave him a look which pierced him to the very marrow, and that terrified him far more than the lightning which, flashing from his forehead, set fire to his house, whilst the thorn-crowned countenance seemed to float before him, and he knew that this was his punishment. Such was his confession at the time to the priest who laid the penance of the Church upon him. So he went out into the world like another Cain, and God in His own time was merciful to him. Still, the wounded effigy of the Saviour and the blasted larch tree remain as witnesses on earth against him.
"And," continued Schuster Alois, "that is only one tale amongst the hundreds which could be related concerning these crucifixes. Ah, there is many an old, bleached, weather-beaten crucifix on crag or highway-side from which the anguished face of the Saviour has both smitten and healed the sinner. Crucifixes cut deeper into most Tyrolese hearts than shrines, some way."
"Strange," we replied, "for these old shrines are not only quaint, but often beautiful, as, for instance, the one on the roadside turning into town."
"Ah, I am glad you like it," said Alois, "for there are those who would wish it pulled down and a lofty wooden cross, as a landmark, placed there instead. The Capuchins in the adjoining monastery are opposed to it, however, and no wonder. Have you ever remarked," he continued, becoming quite aglow, "that although it is greatly injured and many of the figures lost, still there are others who look at you so calmly and seriously with their marred, dilapidated countenances that you feel a peace steal into your heart? And whoever the painter was, he must have loved his work, for Saint Gregory could never have been more dignified in real life than he looks in the shrine."
"Are you a painter?" we asked, almost without knowing what we were saying, for it was hardly probable.
"Oh, I only touch colors now and then, when there's a purpose in it or I can serve the Church," he returned. He became embarrassed, and explained that it was time to return to his work.
We afterward learnt from Moidel that Alois bore in the neighborhood far and wide the reputation of an artist, although he did not consider himself such, seeing he could not paint saints and angels. It was, however, a great source of pleasure to him to paint mottoes and devices and to arrange floral decorations, especially when they could serve as a surprise for some private name-day or church festival.
One afternoon we were told that the boots were made, that Anton had brought the flour from the mill, that two hundred loaves of rye bread were baked, and, the weather being sufficiently fine and all the preparations being completed, the cattle would now start for the Olm. First, Anton and the Senner Franz set off at four o'clock in the afternoon, with the calves in advance, the young things being unable to keep up with the cattle. Then a leiterwagen which had been drawn into the lower corridor and filled with sacks of flour, meal, salt and the two hundred loaves, was driven by the Hofbauer as far as Taufers, whence the supplies for the Alpine residents would be borne on men's backs up to the huts.