Neither he nor Moidel had ever heard of him, and as they both pricked up their ears, they learned the following: Fetz possesses a little farm called the Pines. It has, however, the disadvantage of lying on both sides of a wild rushing torrent, the Ache, a river given to inundations in the spring, and over which there is no bridge in his neighborhood. Thus, though Hans Jakob could sit at his door, and almost count the ears of corn in his fields across the river, he must make a circuit of five miles to reach them. Such an immense loss of time and labor troubled him no little, and, as he had no desire to sell his property, he determined by hook or by crook to remedy the evil. Day and night he turned the perplexing problem over in his mind. He might, to be sure, swim across, but then there were his tools to be carried. At last it flashed upon him: Why not make an aërial car? He bought for this purpose some very thick iron wire, stretched it in two parallel lines across the river, fastening the four ends very firmly; constructed a bench on iron rollers, which, sustained by the wire, ran across the river in a trice, and his aërial car was a reality. Here, indeed, was a triumph. It worked admirably, and the whole neighborhood became excited and astonished about the air-railway, as they called it. The news spreading, it brought finally some gentlemen from the town of Dornbirn, who were wild to have a ride across the river. Hans Jakob refused it: he doubted the strength being sufficient for more than one passenger; but they persisting in their urgent demand, he at last reluctantly consented. They would not, or else they could not, go without him. So, the party being seated on the bench, he unfastened the hook, when they should have been instantly whirled across. But, alas! his fears proved true: the wire gave way, and down they all went, plump into the wild rushing river. A great fright and wetting—that was all, for the time being, until the gentlemen, although they had promised not to say a word on the subject, having whispered it to this friend and that, leaving no part uncolored, the town of Dornbirn grew scandalized at a mad peasant's audacity. The authorities took it in hand, and a solemn gendarme visited Hans Jakob with strict orders from government to desist from such perilous, hairbreadth inventions for the future. Poor Hans! he now regarded himself not only as the laughing-stock of the whole country, but as a ruined man. He had spent all his savings on his first venture; but neither official reprimand nor loss of his money could keep his busy, active brain from puzzling out an improved plan, which, having perfected it in his mind, he boldly carried out. Instead of two simple iron wires, he employed two double coils, with a single wire in the centre and six feet higher. He stretched across two other strong parallel wires. He then contrived a little car with two seats and a cover against sun and rain. To the benches and the awning he fastened rollers, so that the car was propelled across both above and below. The weight which it would bear he proved to be fifteen hundredweight, and unfastened from the iron hooks which kept it to the bank, the car ran across in a few seconds with an easy, agreeable motion. Practice and a close investigation proved it now a perfect success. All the censures and ridicule were forgotten, and it proves at the present time both convenient and amusing to the gentlemen, ladies and children of the neighborhood. Hans Jakob willingly conveys them across the river in his flying car. He will, however, receive no fixed payment. He constructed it simply for his own use: were he to make a trade of it, he must either take out a patent, or else make some concessions to government, neither of which he has any inclination to do.
The senner and Moidel listened in astonishment. They had understood every word. Although they had never heard of Hans Jakob before, there was a full account of him in the Brixen calendar, an almanac which the senner owned to having had by him for the last eight months—another noticeable instance how tales and good advice in print are lost upon a people who, hitherto quietly slumbering, find for their hearts and minds enough to do in carrying on their slow agriculture and pattering their prayers. I believe that popular lecturers conversant with the dialect would be of infinite service in the rural districts of the Tyrol.
The senner, after this entertainment, offered us the hospitality of his hut. A lordly bowl of intensely rich cream was placed before us in the sleeping-room, with the sole option of lapping like the men of Gideon, seeing we were not sufficiently naturalized for each to carry a horn spoon in her pocket, had not a little tin drinking mug been fortunately remembered.
The next day the young tilemaker Martin, carrying his bundle, arrived at about nine. He had left the Hof at three that morning, making the whole journey of twenty-four miles on foot without a stop. Franz therefore seized hold of the frying-pan, and we dined an hour earlier than the usual time of ten. After coffee, Jakob had to initiate his successor into the various advantages of the several Alpine pastures, to point out the cattle and goat paths, and to introduce Martin to Kohli, Kraunsi, Blasi, Zottel, Nageli and all the other cows, as well as to Tiger, Schweiz and their fellow-oxen. We set out to accompany them, but the cattle were too far away on distant heights for us to continue long in the scramble. We therefore sat on a breezy mountain platform watching the athletic young men grow ever smaller, more indistinct, whilst Jakob's voice was borne to us on the rarefied air as he called lovingly, "Krudeli, Krudeli" to the calves, and "Köss, Köss" to the cows.
"It is a miracle," said Moidel, "how Martin, who was so weak and consumed away by his accident, should thus have recovered."
"What accident?" asked we.
"Why, does not the Herrschaft know how last November, on his very name-day, Martin was nearly killed? Young Niederberg—he who wears the finest carnations on his hat, but who then, it being cold weather, wore three cock's feathers gained in wrestling-matches—strutted down the Edelsheim street, arm in arm with his great friend, the fair-haired Hansel of Heinwiese, a rude young churl, praising each other for their strength of limb and good looks. Martin at the time was leaning against his father's door. 'The devil!' said Niederberg: 'why do you stay at your father's, when there is better wine and company at the Blauen Bock?' Martin, however, replied that he was a hard-working man, who could only spare time to see his old father and sick sister on a festival. 'No,' said Heinwiese in anger, 'thou art nothing but a miserable milk-sop, never at a wrestling-match, never at a dance.' 'But,' put in Niederberg, 'we'll teach thee to dance and sing;' and so saying, he suddenly plunged the blade of his big pocket-knife below Martin's ribs.
"Why he had become their prey none could tell, unless they were lost in drink. Great was the clamor in the usually quiet village. A doctor was sent for, who at first declared Martin's wound to be mortal. Then his young wife and little children were fetched with many tears from the tileyard, and the priest came with the Holy Death Sacrament. But the prayers and viaticum saved Martin. Still, for many months he had a frightful illness, and even in March he was so weak you could have knocked him down with a feather. Niederberg was immediately taken into custody, and was sentenced to sit in Bruneck Castle till St. John the Baptist's Day, fully six months, to pay the doctor's bill, and two hundred gulden to Martin; but the latter sum, being an evil-minded youth, though rich, he has never paid. He will leave that to Heinwiese, he says, who put him up to the deed: besides, why pay a man who had recovered? He would have stood the funeral and settled with the widow. However, father talks of dealing with Niederberg, for he must not thus despoil patient Martin."
Here, indeed, was a stabbing worthy of hot Italy, rather than cooler, quieter Tyrol. It proved, too, that the serpent and old Adam still moved in that garden of Eden, Edelsheim.
Jakob and the hero of the tragedy now returned, bright and brisk, bearing armfuls of edelweiss, long sprays of stag-horn's moss, and showing us with genuine pleasure roots of the edelraute, which they had gathered on the high ledges for us. This is a little insignificant plant, but called by the Tyrolese the noble rue, and prized by them far more than the edelweiss; perhaps one reason being that when dried it is said to emit a delicious scent, for which reason the housewives place it amongst linen. Jakob looked like a mountain dryad, his broad-brimmed beaver being completely covered with purple Michaelmas daisies, glowing amongst sheaves of silvery edelweiss, falling round in a soft gray woolen fringe. Aided by Jakob and Martin, we had the gratification of gathering edelweiss ourselves, always a notable feat. Martin really had most miraculously recovered. After those twenty-four miles of hard walking, followed by a climb of several thousand feet, we left him felling a pine tree as we bade Jakob adieu, for he was to leave very early in the morning.