"When the artist was forgotten his works increased greatly in value. This occasioned other makers to endeavor to multiply their number, introducing many spurious Stainer violins, which gradually brought down the market value. Nevertheless, genuine Stainer violins are recognizable, and still retain a fancy price. Mozart possessed one which he greatly prized, using it as his solo quartette instrument. It belongs now to a professor in the Mozarteum at Salzburg, and was played upon at the Mozart festival in 1856.
"But a violin with a still more remarkable history figured during the festivities attending the marriage of the present emperor of Austria. During the visit of the emperor Charles VI., King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia and other princes to the great nobleman Count Wenzel von Trautmannsdorf, the generous and lavish host became sorely perplexed how to provide George Stezitzky, a splendid violinist, with a suitable instrument. At this point he opportunely heard that there was an old fiddler in the court who begged permission to play before the august company. The request being granted, the musician commenced playing, and immediately sent princes and nobles into raptures over the tones of his violin. The count therefore stopped him, and offered to buy it. This quite threw the old man into despair. 'It was a Stainer violin,' he replied, 'and his whole livelihood was bound up in it.' The count, however, was not to be thwarted: he gave him fifty ducats for the piece he had played, and then concluded the bargain on the following conditions: three hundred gulden for the violin, besides a house to live in, food and a quart of wine daily; ten gulden monthly, two barrels of beer and one suit of clothes yearly, fruit and as many hares as he needed for his kitchen. The agreement having been concluded, George Stezitzky played a solo on the violin: then received it as a present from the count. The man who had parted with it lived sixteen years more, thus costing the count in actual money 8733 florins 20 kreuzers, equal to 10,380 florins 24 kreuzers of the present currency. A large sum to give for a violin."
"Yes," replied Jörgel, who appeared to have been much interested by the whole history; "but what puzzles me is, how a poor devil who worked so slow could be a genius. I thought sharp people took more after the Almighty, and hurried up their work in the twinkling of an eye."
"Do the trees which you look after shoot up in the twinkling of an eye?"
"Why, no. Good, stout wood, with strength enough to resist storms and to cleave to the rocks of these mountainsides, takes a lifetime. I often warn the peasants against cutting their trees down. It is easy to destroy, but not to build up, I tell them; and the trees as they stand are the best preventatives against land-slips."
"Have you always been a forester?" we asked.
Not he. It was true that in fine weather he often wandered for thirty miles a day, his district reaching as far, but he had seen more of the world than these fir woods. He had been in the habit, as a young man, of taking horses for sale into Italy, where he had seen Milan cathedral and the town-hall in Bergamo. He, however, gave up his trade in 1831, as his father died in that year of dropsy, and his mother ten days after of sorrow, and he thought it only right to stay with his sister Nanni. Franz had gone off and married a rich widow against his advice, for he knew she would treat a second husband as a day-laborer; and what he had predicted proved true. However, she and her money were gone out of the family now. Her body lay in the graveyard, and he supposed that the priest who said masses for her soul knew where it was by this time. As for Hansel, he was still at liberty, and had well played his part in the world. He had protected the emperor Ferdinand when he fled with his consort to Innspruck in 1848, standing as sentinel at the gate of the faithful city. Later on he had marched with the Tyrolese imperial Jäger corps into Hungary, and fought for the same master there. Again in 1866 he was righting under the archduke Albert, until, on the feast of Johanni, he was disabled at the battle of Custozza by a wound in his foot. The victory over the Italians made him for a time forget the pain, but afterward it grew dreadful, lasting for seventeen months, and not an army surgeon could help him. Then, however, he determined to try a cow-doctor, who in two weeks set him on his pins again.
"And you might not believe it," continued Jörgel, who grew animated in his narration, "but I too have seen service. In the last war between Italy and Austria the students of Innspruck formed a corps, and young Count Arlberg, being an active volunteer, proposed that I should go as cook. The motion was carried, and I marched with one hundred and ninety-three young gentlemen to Bira. Sometimes with help and sometimes with none, I cooked for them all. I fed them on meat dumplings and plenten, until in a few weeks the cook and the soldaten—or the cook and the salaten, which you will—had to pull up stakes and beat an honorable retreat through the Breimer. At Brixen I bade farewell to my regiment, and have since, under Count Arlberg the father, looked after stocks and stones, and not soldiers. Well, well! Austria has lost Italy, but the Tyrol can hold up its head, for it stands now as a great natural rampart between the two countries."
We had been resting during Jörgel's narration: the long rays of the declining sun now warned us to hasten on. Margaret, full of energy and desirous of pushing forward up the almost vertical path, soon began to lag behind. Thus I, looking back and waiting for her, saw a comely peasant-woman who, quickly climbing the hill behind, offered her the assistance of her arm. Although this was gratefully declined, the stranger, apparently troubled at the sight of the tired lady, tarried at her side, trying to be of service. She had a melodious voice and a restful air, which made us, though she was but a poor illiterate woman, feel better for her presence. Thus she was allowed to carry our shawls, and whenever we rested she strayed into wayside glens, returning with offerings of mellow bilberries; and finally she cheered our lagging energies with the assurance that we should soon see blue sky peeping through the trees, and that then there would be no more climbing. At this point, Jörgel, who had been carefully examining each tree as we passed, expressed his fear that no actual hazel-fir tree grew along this path. He, however, pointed out a well grown fir tree, saying that a hazelfichte merely possessed a straighter and a smoother stem.
We had begun truly to descend, and our friendly woman, seeing that "Shank's mare" required no further encouragement, bade us a friendly good-evening, with a cheerful "May you live long and well!" She had almost dipped out of sight when our Jörgel, with praiseworthy forethought, called after her to apprise the bath people, as she passed, of our advent.