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?"