Chapter III: Part 3

Yonder upon the cliff stands an old comrade, who, hearing the song, unfastens the brass clasp of his jacket, and retorts:

"That thou 'rt always thinking
Of the Turkish women-folk,
O Lota, is well-known!
Go rather and perfume thyself
With spikenard on the Alm,
It might not do thee any harm."

Thus they tease one another, and that is their harmless side. But the wood-devil has his cloven foot. The genuine man of the woods has a double-barrelled shot-gun; one barrel is called _Gemsennoth_ (Danger to the chamois), the other _Jaegertod_ (Death to the hunter). If he could write, he would engrave these names upon the steel with his crooked knife; but he keeps it in his mind, that about _Gemsennoth_ and _Jaegertod_.

He would have given up the digging long ago, to lead solely a poacher's life, but he imagines that sometime he is going to find a buried treasure under the stones. Digging for treasures, gold and diamonds under the ground, that he has heard in fairy-tales and can never forget.

Gold and diamonds under the ground! Treasure-digging! The fairy-tale is right; the root-digger is right; the ploughman is right; the miner is right. But the treasure-digger is not right.

Of one thing I am careful, that is, not to offend the root-digger, the pitch-scraper, or the ant-grubber. These are the people who are said to cause the bad weather, which is all devils' work, and since they live in the forests, thence the many hard storms in the wooded and Alpine regions. But how they manage that the atoms of dew condense into water, that the drops freeze into bits of ice, that the bits of ice become heavy hail-stones, that flaming darts of lightning hiss through the night, and that the mighty thunder rolls, until at last it all bursts upon the trembling men and beasts of the earth--how they manage that, must be a profound secret of these wild fellows which I have not been able to discover.

It is a fearful delusion of these people, when they think themselves able to perform deeds which are beyond human power, while neglecting that by which they might accomplish something great.--However, in the world outside, other mistakes occur, still more harmful because made by men of superior wisdom and with greater resources than here. Glorious, O mankind, is thy progress, but with thy monstrous prejudices art thou still very incomplete!

Up among the hills is a glen called the Wolfsgrube. I recently visited this place, arriving there just in time to witness the burial of a man, who had been neither root-digger, ant-grubber, pitch-scraper, brandy-distiller, nor poacher, but the most extraordinary wood-devil.

He had never worked, but had earned his bread by eating. He was called "the Gormand"; I think he had no other name. He was a human wreck, although physically very strong. His hair had become a hopelessly tangled mat with sweat and resin; so he had no need of a hat. His beard resembled dried pine-needles. His broad and powerful chest was as though spun over with a tenfold spider's web, thus saving a doublet. An entire horny skin had formed itself upon his bulky feet, making shoes superfluous. Almost a terrible sight! I met him a few days ago in the Winkel. Seeing me, he snatched a handful of sand from the ground, offering to swallow it for a small remuneration. He often went to the surrounding villages on church-festival days to exhibit his tricks before the people. He did not consume tow and ribbons and that sort of thing, as jugglers usually do, but cloth, leather, and bits of glass. He has even been known to swallow rusty shoe-nails. His favourite repast was an old boot or felt hat, torn into bits and prepared with oil and vinegar. That paid him well, and his purse, like his stomach, had a good digestion. "For us such food would not be good," said Rhyme-Ruepel, "though a little drink of _Schnapps_ or wine might cut the pebbles very fine." Day in, day out, he performed this feat; but everything has an end, Easter Sunday as well as Good Friday. He was sitting before his glass of toddy in Kranabethannes' hut, saying in his arrogant way, "Eat your black bread yourself, Hannes; I 'll drink the brandy and take a bite of the glass with it." Just then an old root-digger crawled out from a dark corner of the hearth: "Despise the black bread, do you? You!" At which the Gormand retorted: "Get out, root-digger; I 'll eat you and the yoke on your back!" The old man then drew forth a small root, saying, "Here 's something, you rascal, that's a little stronger than you are." "Bring it on!" screamed the Gormand, seizing the root and thrusting it down his throat. "You 're done for!" chuckled the old man, and he disappeared into the forest. Suddenly springing up, the Gormand staggered out of the house and fell upon the grass, stone-dead. The meaning of it all was now plain. No one knew the old root-digger--he was the devil.

Half-fact, half-legend, so the superstitious people interpreted and related it to me. And they would not bury the man in the Holdenschlag churchyard. In the marshy ground of the Wolfsgrube, where only the rushes grow and wave their little woolly flags, they made the grave. Winding the body in thick fir-boughs, they shoved it with a pole, until it rolled into its final resting-place.

At the same time a little troop of worshippers came over the heath through the Wolfsgrube. They had been in a defile in the high mountains where a cross is said to be standing among the rocks. The little company paused before the grave, repeating the Lord's prayer for the dead man. Then suddenly a swarthy woman, a charcoal-burner, cried out: "You miserable wretches, your pious prayers will be as useful to that man as dry clothes to a fish in water. He 's already yonder in torment, for he 's the eater of broken glass!"

"The holy Lord's prayer will serve afterwards for our live-stock at home!" murmured the worshippers as they walked away.

A pale, black-haired man, with a melancholy face though restless bearing, still remained standing beside the grave. Gazing into it, with a trembling hand he threw a clump of earth upon the form wrapped in the green travelling-dress and, looking about him, said: "We will cover him with earth nevertheless. The devil has not taken him because of his good appetite; and his heart may have been no worse than his stomach."

This was the funeral sermon. And then a few men came and shovelled earth into the grave.

Later I again met the sad, pale man, whom they call the _Einspanig_. "Can you tell me something," I asked, "about the eater of broken glass? It is really a strange, weird tale."

"Strange and weird is the whole woodland," he answered; "a better digestion than ours, such a son of the wilderness may have. And superstition is the intellectual life of these people." With these words he turned and quickly stumbled away.

What, old man, art thou not thyself a son of the wilderness? Thou art truly strange and weird enough. The _Einspanig_, "The Lone One," they call him; of his history they know nothing.

I have also made the acquaintance of the pitch-maker. He is a very peculiar fellow. One can scent him from afar and see him glistening through the thicket. The hatchet glistens with which he scrapes the resin from the trees, and the grappling-iron glistens, by means of which he climbs like a wild-cat up the smooth trunks to reap a harvest from their tops, or to make an incision for the resin to flow out later on. And the leather trousers glisten, and the fustian jacket, covered with pitch, and the blade of the long knife at his side--and finally one sees his black, glistening eye. If a blossom or a falling pine-needle grazes him, it sticks to his arm, to his hair, to his beard. If a fly or a butterfly is flitting about, or a spider, swinging from its web, the little insect remains clinging to him; and his dress is gaily decorated with tiny creatures from the plant and animal kingdom when in the darkness of the forest or at evening he returns home to his hermitage. The pitch-maker wounds the trees seriously, at last killing them, and the primeval forest has succumbed to the destruction. He has crippled the old pines and firs, and they now stretch out their long arms after him, as if desiring to strike down their deadly enemy.

By a process of evaporation, the pitch-maker prepares turpentine and other oils such as are used in the forest regions for every conceivable malady. I often visit these distilleries, watching the black mass boil and bubble, until it is put into closed earthen receptacles, from which the valuable contents are drawn through slender tubes into kegs and bottles. Packing these in a large basket, the man peddles them from house to house. The wood-cutter buys pitch-oil for every injury which he may receive in his battle with the forest. The charcoal-burner buys it for burns; the brandy-distiller for his casks. The root-digger buys for sprains and colic, the last of which he contracts from so much uncooked food. The small peasant farther out buys pitch-oil for his whole household and cattle, as a remedy against every ill.

O thou pitch-oil man! A tiny worm has been gnawing long at my heart--might it not be destroyed with thy gall-bitter oil?

In the pitch-maker's hut it is unsafe to sit down, for one would stick fast. And then the little unwashed, tousled children would come and clamber upon one's neck until there would be no escape.

The pitch-maker's dwelling is simple enough. Underneath is the bare earth; above, the bark-shingled roof; while the walls are of rough logs, stopped up with moss. The uneven hearth serves at the same time as a table. Under the bedstead is the storehouse for potatoes, mushrooms, and wild pears. The worm-eaten wardrobe is the revered object in the house; it guards the sacred souvenirs of the forefathers, the baptismal gifts of the children, and the rain-coat of the pitch-maker when not in use. The windows have hardly enough glass to have satisfied the appetite of the Gormand. "Besides," as the pitch-maker says, "rags and straw paper are as good as glass panes, if one cannot show a clean face through them." Behind the wardrobe hangs the gun. If my lord, the hunter, on one of his visits, should happen to discover it, it is all right--a gun is a necessity, for there are wolves in the woods. If he does not see it, so much the better. It is the same with the pitch-maker's housekeeper; seeing her, one is compelled to acknowledge that the spring-time of life will return no more to one in the fortieth year; that, as the proverb says, a wen on the throat is better than a hole; that one-eyed is not blind, and that a little crookedness in the legs is neither to be ashamed nor boasted of. If one does not see her, so much the better.

But as I have often noticed, to many a pitch-maker clings a young wife. Country wenches are sometimes very different from city maids. The latter are usually well pleased when their lovers are white and delicate, slender, docile, and amorous as doves. The country lass on the contrary prefers one who is hard, rough, and bristly, angular and wild. If a girl has a choice between one who cheerfully darns stockings for her and one who thunders at her with every word--then she takes the thunderer. For after all she has him in her power. How does the song go which the pitch-maker likes so well to sing?

"For the pitch I have my axe,
For the hare I 've gun and ball,
For the hunter two stout fists,
For the wench I 've nothing at all.
'That,' she says, 'is far too little.'
So she drives me out the door;
Then I go and flog the hunter
Till he troubles me no more."

It may not be poetical,--however, the man who occasionally sings such a song does not harm the hunter. He who goes about with gloomy thoughts sings no merry song.

Among the wood-devils, the most cordial and, according to my judgment, the most dangerous, is the brandy-distiller. He wears finer cloth than the others and shaves his beard every week. He always carries about with him a little flask, affably treating each person who comes in his way. Whoever drinks is ruined, and follows him to the tavern.

The brandy-distiller reaps a double harvest; first the red berries from the mountain-ash, from the hop, from the sweet-broom, from everything that here produces fruit. He believes in the Spirit of Nature, that lives in all created things, and conjures it out of the fruits of the forest and, like the magician in the fairy-tale, into the bottle and, putting the stopple in quickly, imprisons it there. His distillery is a magic circle under a high, gloomy pine, a circle like that which the spider draws and weaves. Soon a few flies are there, wriggling in the net. The woods-people, as they go about, or to and from their work, are at last enticed into the tavern--these are the flies of the two-legged spider, and from them the brandy-distiller now reaps his second harvest.

Each man is advised by his wife to avoid the road by "the Pine," it is so dark and rough, as well as being longer than any other. The man appears to be convinced, and besides he has nothing to call him there,--but health is such an uncertain thing, and as he walks along he is suddenly attacked by a pressure in the throat, followed by a most distressing colic. Having no pitch-oil with him, he knows but one remedy and--he takes the road by "the Pine." "The first little glass," says Ruepel, "soothes the smart; the second glass makes warm the heart; the third glass makes it still more warm; one's purse by the fourth will receive no harm; at the fifth, the man wishes to stretch his limbs; at the sixth, the pines sway and his poor head swims; at the seventh, his body is all aglow; at the eighth, to his wife he longs to go."

But stumbling homewards, the good man swears at the "bad" wife who is coming to meet him without a light through this ghastly fog; and when finally, his hat awry and jammed low on his forehead, he tumbles into the hut, the woman knows what beatings she has already borne and may receive again, if she does not hasten and escape into the garret or some safe place.

My voyages of discovery have cheered me more than I should have thought possible. A sad fate hangs over this little people, but this fate sometimes makes an unspeakably droll face. Besides I do not consider these foresters so utterly depraved and wretched. They are neglected and uncouth. Perhaps something might be made of them; but first the leaven must be added.

The race will not die out so easily. Right here in the damp, dark forest-land the little ones flourish like mushrooms. The youngsters follow the path of their elders and carry the grappling-iron for roots, or the herdsman's staff, or the hatchet for pitch, or the axe for wood.

But, according to the reports made to the priest in Holdenschlag, the forest children are all girls. The boys are mostly christened with the water of the woods; they are recorded in no parish-register, that they may remain unnoticed outside by the bailiffs and omitted from the military list. The men here say that the government and whatever belongs to it costs them more than it would be worth to them, and they will renounce it. That may be all true, but the government does not renounce the healthy Winkelstegers.

The girls also, when they are somewhat fledged, soon take up ant- and root-digging, gathering herbs, and they know of a market for everything; they pick strawberries and hops and the fruit of the juniper for the brandy-distillers. And the little boys, still too young to look after themselves, already help with the brandy-drinking.

A short time ago I watched a troop of children. They are playing under a larch-tree. The fallen larch-cones are their stags and roes, which they are pretending to feed with green brushwood. Others run about playing "Hide and Seek" behind the bushes, "Holding Salt," "Driving out Hawks," "Going to Heaven and Hell," and whatever all the tricks and games are called. It is pleasant to watch them; to be sure they are all half naked, but they have well-formed and healthy limbs, and their games are more childishly gay than any which I have ever seen other children play. This is the vulnerable spot of the horny Siegfried, who is here called _Waldteufel_.

Smiling at the little ones under the larch-tree, I try after a while to mingle with them in their games, but they draw back shyly, only a few keeping near me; but when I attempt to get the better of them in a race or game of tag, then they all join in. And soon I am a good and welcome friend in the mad, whirling circle of these young people. I prattle many things to them, but more often I let them talk to me. I go to school to the children to learn the schoolmaster's art.

The forest people do not allow themselves to be drawn up by force; he who would win them for higher things must descend quite to them, must lead them up arm in arm and indeed by a long, circuitous route.

*IN THE FELSENTHAL*

Below the slopes of the fore-alps and the cliffs of the Hochzahn with its chain of glaciers, the wooded hills extend on and on toward the west. Seen from above they lie there like a dark-blue sea, concealing in their depths the everlasting shadows and the strange people.

A day's journey from the valley of the Winkel toward the west, far below the last hut, is a place where, according to the legend, the world is fastened in with boards.

It were better said, walled in with stones; deep fissured precipices shut off the forest-land and here begin the Alps, where the rocky boulders no longer lie or lean, but soar straight up into the sky. A sea of snow and ice with crags, about which hover everlasting mists, extends endlessly, it is said, over the giant strongholds above, which in olden times guarded an Eden now turned to stone. Thus the legend. Strange that this wonderful dream of a lost paradise yet to be regained should dawn in the hearts of _all_ people and nations!

These foresters will not believe that on the other side of the Alps there are again regions inhabited by man. Only one old, shy, blinking charcoal-burner repeats the story told him by his grandfather, that over there were human beings, who wore such high pointed hats that they could not walk about on the mountains in the evening without knocking down the stars. So the Lord God was obliged to carefully draw down the clouds every night in order to keep a single star in heaven. The rogue meant the pointed hats of the Tyrolese.

In this mountain glen are a number of places held in ill repute. Here many a dead chamois-hunter has been found, shot through the breast by a ball of lead. There is also a legend that a monster, which keeps watch over an inexhaustible treasure of diamonds in the mountains, sometimes bursts forth from one of the numerous rocky caverns. If the forest-land endures a while longer, then a hero is expected to come and slay the beast and recover the treasure. Up to the present such a one has not appeared. Ah, if I could give this monster its true name!

The region is adapted to the gloomy myths. It is a dead valley in which no little finch will sing, no wild pigeon coo, no woodpecker chatter, in which loneliness itself has fallen asleep. Upon the grey moss-covered ground piles of rock lie about, just as they have been broken from the high cliff. Here and there a bold little fir-tree has climbed up on one of these grey, weather-beaten boulders and proudly looks about, thinking itself now more fortunate than the other half-dead trees on the sandy soil below. It will not be long before it too will perish from hunger and thirst, and will fall from the barren rock. Here the forest cannot flourish, and if a straight and slender fir shoots up anywhere, its days are numbered. A storm-wind suddenly comes rushing down from the rocky defile and almost gently lays the young tree, together with its broken roots, upon the ground.

The Scotch fir alone is still courageous; it climbs the steep sides between the precipices to discover how it looks up there with the _Edelweiss_, with the Alpine roses, with the chamois, and how far it is yet to the snow. But the good Scotch fir is no daughter of the Alps; soon a dizziness seizes it, and, frightened, it crouches down and crawls painfully upon its knees, with its twisted, crippled arms always reaching out and clutching something, the little heads of the cones stretching themselves upward in curiosity, until finally it comes out into the damp veil of mist and aimlessly wanders about among the stones.

Upon one of the fallen rocks of this remotest valley in the forest stands a cross. It is very clumsily made out of two rough pieces of wood; in places the bark is still clinging to it. Silent it stands there in the barren waste; it is like the first message concerning the Redeemer of the world, which in olden times the holy Boniface made from the trees of the forest and set up in the German wilderness.

I have often asked the meaning of this cross. Since time immemorial it has stood upon the rock, and no man can say who placed it there. According to the legend it was never placed there. Every thousand years a little bird flew into the forest, bringing a seed of grain from unknown lands. Previously it was not known what had become of the seeds, whether they had been lost, or whether the poisonous plant with the blue berries, or the thorn-bush with the white rose, or something else, evil or good, had sprung from them. But when the bird last appeared it laid the seed upon the rock in the Felsenthal, and from it sprang the cross. Sometimes one goes there to pray before it; the prayer has often brought a blessing at once, but often a misfortune has followed it. So it is uncertain whether the cross is for weal or woe. The Einspanig is the most frequently seen in the Felsenthal, and here he performs his devotions before the symbol; but it is also uncertain whether the Einspanig is good or evil.

After many days of wandering I returned once more to my house in the Winkel, much puzzled in my mind about the cross in the Felsenthal and the Einspanig. I learned a little concerning the latter on reaching home.

I was surprised to find my housekeeper, usually so good-natured, quite irritable to-day. It appears that seeing the Einspanig passing, the woman, who happened to look out at that moment, thought to herself, "Oh, how I should like to gossip a little with this queer man, and find out something about him." And as he accidentally turned his face toward the door, she cordially invited him to enter and rest a little on the bench. On his accepting her invitation, she hastily brought him bread and milk, and in her own peculiar way asked, "Good man of God, where do you then come from?"

"Down from the Felsenthal," was the answer.

"_Ihr Naerrchen!_" cried the woman, "you don't mean that horrible place! Up there in the Felsenthal the world is fastened in with boards."

The Einspanig then replied quietly: "Nowhere is the world fastened in with boards. The mountains stretch far, far back behind the Hochzahn, then comes the hilly country, then the plains, then the water which extends many thousand miles, then land again with mountains and valleys and little hills, and again water, and again land and water and land and land----"

Interrupting him here, the woman cried, "_Mein Gott_, Einspanig, how much farther then?"

"As far as home, into our country, into our forest, into the Winkel, into the Felsenthal. Worthy woman, if God should give you wings and you should fly away toward the setting sun and on and always on, following your nose and the sun, then one day you would come flying from where the sun rises toward your peaceful house."

"Oh, you humbug!" cried the woman, "go tell your tales to someone else; I am the Winkel-warden's wife. I 'll give you the milk and with it the honest opinion of old people: Somewhere there is a place where the world is fastened in with boards. That is the old faith, and therein will I live and die."

"Woman, all honour to your old faith!" replied the Einspanig, "but I have already travelled the road toward the setting sun and back here from the rising sun."

These words seemed to have thoroughly embittered her. "_O Du Fabelhans!_" she screamed, "the devil has set his mark upon you." And then shaking his head the man walked away.

The good woman must have found it hard waiting for me to give further vent to her feelings. As I approached the house she called to me over the fence: "By my troth! By my troth! What kind of people there are upon God's dear earth, to be sure! Now they do not even believe in the end of the world! But I say: Our Lord God has made it all right, and I 'll stick to my old faith, and the world is fastened in with boards!"

"Of course, of course," I acknowledged, as I climbed over the board fence. "Quite right--fastened in with boards!"

And so we will cling to the old faith.

*WITH THE WOOD-CUTTERS*

Alas, that the forest also should have its enemies--the silent, unending forest, as it stretches over hill and vale--lying there, boundless, green and dark, and farther on, dimly blue in the sunny horizon.

What a beautiful rustling, murmuring, echoing, living wall, protecting all within it from the wild discord without! But--the peace of the woods is dead.

In the forest the wind roars, striking off the joyfully waving arm of many a young pine, breaking the neck of many a daring giant. And in the depths, rushing and foaming in white frothy flakes--like a gathering storm--is the Wildbach, which washes, digs, and gnaws the earth away from the roots, ever deeper and deeper, until at last the mighty tree is almost standing in the air, only supporting itself above by resting its strong arms upon its neighbours, and finally plunging into the grave, which the water has mischievously been digging for it,--that water which the tree has fed with its falling dew, protected with its thick branches from the thirst of the wind and guarded with its shade from the consuming kiss of the sun. And the woodpecker pecks the bark in the airy tree-top, while the sharp-toothed wheel of time revolves constantly, and the chips fly--in the spring as blossoms, in the autumn as withered needles and leaves.

It is eternally ending and in the end are always the germs of beginning.

Then man comes for the first time with his rage for destruction. The blows and strokes resound, the saw buzzes, the axe is heard upon the iron wedge in the dark valley,--if you look from above over the silent sea of trees, you do not dream which one it concerns.

But the axe and the wedge pierce deeper and deeper; then the tree, a century old, shakes its lofty head, not in the least comprehending what the little man below there wants, the droll, tiny creature--it cannot understand and again shakes its head. Then comes the thrust through its heart; it cracks, snaps, and now the giant totters and bends; whizzing and whistling in an immense circle, it falls with a wild crash to the earth. There is an empty space in the air, the forest has a gap. A hundred spring-times have borne it up with their love and gentleness; now it is dead, and the world exists and also remains intact without it--the living tree.

Silent stand the two or three men, supporting themselves upon the handles of their axes, and gaze upon their sacrifice. They do not mourn, they do not exult, a cruel indifference rests upon their rough, sunburnt features; their very faces and hands resemble the fir bark. Filling their pipes, they sharpen the hatchets and return to work. They chop the branches from the fallen trunk, they shave off the bark with a broad knife, cutting it perhaps into cord-lengths, and now the proud tree lies there transformed into bare logs.

These are converted into charcoal, which is forwarded to the foundries in the outlying regions. The beeches and maples and other deciduous trees are usually left standing until they inwardly decay and fall to the ground. Upon the mouldering trunks appear fungous growths, and from these the pitch-maker or the root-digger prepares the tinder, by hammering them flat and steeping them in saltpetre.

The wood-cutter has no thought for the beauty of the wilderness. To him the forest is nothing more than a hostile shelter from which he must wrest bread and existence with the gleaming axe. And what a long day's work it is from early morning until twilight, with but a single hour's rest at noon! While the wood-devil is his own master, the woodcutter is the slave of others. As for his food, the wood-cutter is a being who nourishes himself from plants, unless he be a genuine poacher, who is shrewd enough to avoid being captured. However, he luxuriates in imagination and likes to name his flour-dumplings after the animals of the forest. So for breakfast, dinner, and supper he always eats venison, foxes, sparrows, or whatever he christens his meal-cakes. One Friday a young man invited me to a "Venison." Ah, I think, he does not keep Fast Day,--he is certainly one of the Evangelicals who was left in the Alps after the peasant wars. But the "Venison" proved to be harmless little meal-cakes.

Eighteen groschen wages for a day's work,--that is indeed prosperity; from it many a woodsman has bought himself a little house and goat, and supported a wife and troop of children. So at last he has his own hearth, and in addition to the meal-cakes a rich soup of goat's milk.

However, the expenses of the forest cabin are not very great. Fortunately not much is required of the good fathers of families.

"Man can live as he likes,
If lucky he be,--
For the children some bread,
Tobacco for me"

is the song of the forest householder.

But others, and indeed the most of them, drown their earnings in brandy, thus forfeiting the few comforts which their unambitious natures demand. Such spendthrifts live together by the dozen in a single hut, cooking their dinner at a common hearth which is in the middle of the cabin. Along the walls are spread the straw beds.

In each hut they have a _Goggen_ and a _Thomerl_; the first is a wooden frame on the hearth, which holds the frying-pan over the fire--there are often half a dozen set up around the flames. The second is a man, who, however, may be called _Hansl_ or _Lippl_, or whatever he likes, but who usually has a massive head, high shoulders, and short feet, hands hanging down to his knees, and a vacant smile continually upon his face. He is chambermaid, kitchen-boy, wood- and water-carrier, at the same time goatherd, butt for empty jokes and--the honour of the house.

Furthermore, in each woodman's hut, in some one of the corners, or under some board, rifles are always concealed.

The working-day garb of the wood-cutter has no striking characteristics; it consists of a combination of tattered fustian, dull-coloured knitted wool, and a horny leather hide, everything more or less sticky with resin and almost entirely hiding the form beneath. But the badge is the high, yellowish-green hat with the tuft of feathers. The feather tuft is most important, for that is the mark of some poaching adventure, love affair, or savage broil. Occasionally these people go outside to the more distant places to celebrate the _Kirmess_--and this is a necessity to them, as here there are no Sundays, indeed the very heart of Sunday--the church itself--is missing.

At these feasts the rough woods-people wear dress-coats and tall hats,--one would hardly believe it. But the coat is of coarse fustian edged with green; miniature trees, cut out of the same green material, decorate the sleeves and back above the coat-tails; large brass buttons glisten in the distance, and a high standing collar reaches to the head, which is covered by the tall hat, broad brimmed and with flaring crown. This is made from rough hair, with a wide green band and shining brass buckle.

Even into the wilderness of the Alps the foreign fashions have penetrated!

For the most part they are good-hearted people; but if irritated they can become savage past all belief. Their eyes, although deep-set, are bright and sparkling. Kindness is clearly read there as well as quickness of temper.

But they are pious, suspiciously pious. Each one has his flask of holy water and tells his beads, with the parenthesis, "Bless all poor souls in purgatory, and help us to find the money and goods so uselessly buried in the ground." And each has seen at least one ghost in his life.

According to my observation a bloody fight seems to be quite an ordinary occurrence with these people, and a death-blow no rarity. On the other hand, thefts are never committed.

The wood-cutter is born under the tree; his father places, one might almost say, the axe-handle in his hand before the spoon, and instead of the nursing-bottle the little one grasps after the tobacco-pouch. He who is unable to buy tobacco makes it for himself from beech leaves.

A remarkable amiability is not a native trait of these people. They scarcely know peaceful joy; they strive for noisy pleasure. They are not even sensitive to pain. If one of them drives the sharp axe into his leg he merely says it _tickles_ him a little. But in a few days all is healed again. And if a man loses a finger, it is a misfortune only because of the inconvenience in lighting his pipe.

An old setter of broken bones and an extractor of teeth form the entire medical faculty, while pine-resin and pitch-oil are the only drugs used in this shadowy wood-world.

When these people go away homesickness is their greatest woe. The homeless ones homesick? Their real trouble is a longing for the forest hills where they have once passed a portion of their lives.

*BLACK MATHES*

In the Hinter Winkel stands the haunted hut. A short time ago I was there to see Mathes the fighter, a hard, rough-appearing man, although small and thin. He was lying stretched upon a bed of moss, his arm and head being bound in rags. He was badly hurt.

The windows of the hut were covered with bits of cloth; the sufferer could not bear the light. His wife, young and amiable, but grieving piteously, was kneeling beside him, moistening his forehead with apple vinegar. His eyes stared at her almost lifelessly, but about his mouth played a smile, showing the snow-white teeth. A strong odour of pitch-oil filled the room.

As I entered, a pale, black-haired boy and a bright-eyed little maid were cowering at his feet, playing with bits of moss.

"That is to be a garden," said the girl, "and there I am going to plant roses!"

The boy was carving a cross out of a small piece of wood, and he cried: "Father, now I know what I am making; it 's the Holdenschlag graveyard!"

The mother in alarm reproved the children for their noise; but Mathes said: "Oh, never mind; I 'll soon be in the graveyard myself. But, one thing, wife, don't let Lazarus's temper pass unheeded. For God's sake, don't do that! Thou hast nothing to say? Thou wilt not follow my advice? Dost thou perhaps know better than I? Oh, I tell thee, wife!----"

Tearing the rags from his arm, he endeavoured to rise. The woman, repeating loving words to him, pushed him gently back. Yielding to weakness even more than to her efforts, he sank upon his bed. The children were sent from the room and on the sunny grass-plot I stayed with them awhile, entertaining them with games and fairy-tales.

A few days later I visited the family again. The sick man was feeling much worse. He could no longer sit up, even when in a fit of rage.

"He is so exhausted," the sorrowing wife said to me.

First I was introduced by the children, and now I enjoy in Mathes's house a certain amount of confidence. I go up there often; it is my special desire to become acquainted with the misery of the forest.

Once, while Mathes was lying in a profound, peaceful sleep and I was sitting beside the bed, the woman drew a long, hard breath, as if she were carrying a burden. Then she spoke: "I can truly say that there is no better soul in the world than Mathes. But when a man has once been so tormented and oppressed by the people and painted so black, he would indeed become a savage, if he had a single drop of blood left in his veins."

And a little later she continued, "I ought to know; I have known him from childhood."

"Speak then," I replied; "in me you see a man who never mistakes the sorrow of the heart for something evil."

"He used to be as gay as a bird in the air; it was a joy to him simply to be alive. And at that time he did n't know that he was to inherit two large farms; nor would he have cared, for best of all he loved God's earth, as it lies there in the bright sunshine. But you shall see, it did not always go on in that way."

And after a long pause the woman continued: "It may have been in his twentieth year, when one day he drove into the capital of the province, with a load of corn. The team was brought back by a mounted patrol; Mathes never came home again."

"O ho! I 'm already home!" interrupted the sick man, endeavouring to rise. "There is nothing wrong about thy story, wife, but thou canst not know it exactly; thou wast not there, Adelheid, when they caught me. I 'll tell it myself. When I had finished my business in town, I went into the tavern to moisten my tongue a little. In the corn-market, you must know, one's talking apparatus becomes very dry before the last sack is shouted off from the waggon. As I entered the tavern, I found three or four gentlemen sitting at a table, and they invited me to drink a glass of wine with them. They were friendly and treated me."

The man stopped a moment to catch his breath; his wife begged him to spare himself. He did not heed her and continued: "They were telling stories about the French, who would never give us any rest, about the war times and the gay soldier's life; and immediately afterwards they asked me how the sale of corn had succeeded and what was the price of sheep. I grew very lively, and was pleased to find that one could chat so well on all sorts of subjects with perfect strangers. Then one of them raised his glass, saying, 'Long live our King!' We touched glasses until they almost broke; I cried out three times as loud as the others, 'Long live the King!'" The sick man stopped and his lips trembled. After a while he murmured: "With this cry my misfortune began. As I was about to leave, they sprang up and held me fast. 'O ho, boy, you are ours!' I had fallen among the recruiting officers. They led me away,---me, a mere boy; they concealed me among the soldiers and I was sold."

Mathes rolled up bits of moss with his bony fingers.

"Don't grieve, wife," he muttered, "I 'm better now. I 'll expose the whole crowd yet with my last words. But this I can say, upon the broad, open field I have never been so savage as I was at that time. I longed to go home; heavy, golden chains drew me thither. And once, in the middle of a stormy winter night, I ran away. In Rainhausel I stopped with an old aunt. And now my own people betrayed me. Soon the officers were there to hunt for me. In an instant I was out of the house and, slipping into the woods, I thought, 'If they have played a trick on me, I will do the same by them.' Two huge hunting dogs were scenting around, but I ran for quite a distance through the brook, until the hounds lost track. And the officers rummaged through everything in the hut; they thrust their knives into the straw bedding and hay, turning the whole house quite upside down. But as they did n't find me, one of them, placing the muzzle of his gun against the breast of my old aunt, said: 'Tell me this instant where he is, or I 'll shoot you down like a dog!' 'Yes, yes, he 's been here,' she answered, 'but where he is now I don't know.' They dragged the woman out before the door, three muskets were pointed at her breast, and threateningly they whispered to her: 'Call out quickly, as loud as you can: "Come here, Hiesel; the officers have been gone a long time!" If you don't do it you will be buried to-morrow.' Of course I knew nothing of all this; being concealed in the thicket, and hearing no sound, I thought I was safe. Then I heard my aunt call, 'Come here, Hiesel; the officers have been gone a long time!' I sprang up and, running towards the hut, I saw the woman strike her hands over her head, and I already heard laughing, and I was seized by the officers. _Allmaechtiger Gott_! I tried to pull out my pocket dagger; but one of the men hit my arm with a club, so that to this day I cannot turn my left hand properly. They were much cleverer and stronger than I, the poor, starved devil, Mathes. And a few days later they fell upon me. _Mein Gott!_ if each whip-lash had been a stroke of lightning which did not kill, I should have liked it a thousand times better than to be beaten and treated like a dog by a man. The two hundred lashes knocked the very devil into me. Since then, whenever my blood was up, I have repaid them ten-fold, even to my comrades in the woods. But it was meant for the others, meant for the rascals who gave me the whipping. In those days I should have liked to be the Lord God Himself just for once, by my soul!--I would have crushed the cursed earth into a thousand million pieces! My wounded back was seasoned with vinegar and salt to make it heal. Oh, there was great haste. The foreigner had descended upon the country like the fiend incarnate. Then of course I became excited and fired away like the evil one himself. When the enemy was driven back I had just one charge of powder left; for this I might have found some other victim, in our own regiment mounted on a high horse. But not that, not that! I thought to myself. Face to face, to tear him down from his white steed with my hands,--that might do,--but from ambush, no, never! But I did something cleverer yet, I ran away from the battle-field and gave my cloak to a peasant for taking me in his hay waggon across country. My home I reached in safety."

"And if you loved your home so much, why did you not wish to fight for it?" I interrupted him. "Why did you run away?"

"It may be that it was rascality," said Mathes, "it may be. Or perhaps--maybe it was n't either."

"I know a man," I answered, "who not only did not fight for his country, but against the same."

"I did not stay at home," continued Mathes, "I left everything behind me and hid myself in this farthermost wilderness, so that they might never find me. Hunted, hunted, good Lord! And it was not until I reached here that I became a wild beast. My wife, thou knowest that."

The voice was shrill, but the words were the faltering utterances of the dying. He then became silent and closed his eyes. It was as the last flare of a flame before extinction.

"The people took him for a poor abandoned wretch, when he came back," continued the woman; "they threw groschen and pfennige into a hat and tried to present him with hat and all. For that Mathes would have killed a few of them; he wanted no alms. As the people were following him by the dozen, he climbed up a large tree, and swung himself like a wild-cat from one branch to another, until his pursuers finally saw that they were mistaken. But in mockery they called him Hieselein. Later on--yes, of course--he hunted up a wife for himself--"

"The most beautiful one in the forest!" the sick man interrupted her again, "and there was such an insolent devil in him, that he--the half-cripple--plighted his troth to this same maiden only on condition that he should not find one still more beautiful. By the holy cross, what a struggle there was over it! Others wanted the girl, too. But I led my Adelheid right under the noses of the most aristocratic and the finest of them to my home, and I would not wish to have a better girl than she is."

Again he became silent and dropped into a half-slumber.

"He received terrible blows sometimes," said the woman, "but because he never lost his footing or was thrown upon the ground, they called him _Stehmandel_. We have both of us got on right well together," she continued in a low tone, "but he never would give up his savage ways. Every Saturday evening he used to sharpen his knife for cutting wood; but I often begged him: '_Um Gotteswillen_, let the sharpening of the knife be!' On Sundays he would go to Kranabethannes's and late at night he would come home with a bleeding head. I always knew that some day they would bring him home on a litter. But, when he was calm and sober, there was n't a better, more industrious, or more helpful man in the whole forest than Mathes. Then he could be gay and laugh and weep like a child. Of course, as he was a deserter, he forfeited his farm outside in the country; but he supported the children with his own hands, and some other people as well, who could no longer earn anything. He visited the sick and comforted them, just as a priest would do. On account of his honesty and reliability, he was made master wood-cutter. However, the innkeeper was always in despair on Sundays, when Hieselein arrived, whom they had already begun to call Black Hieselein. No matter how good-naturedly he may have stumbled in at the door, they swore that he would not go away without a terrible fight. He would n't give it up. He tried to drown his sorrow in brandy; but the brandy brought the two hundred whip-lashes to life again. He would start quarrels until the blood ran. They would throw him down, screaming, 'So, Hieselein, now perhaps you won't begin any more disturbance!' He would soon be on his feet. But it is a fact that when he became sober, he would beg pardon of everyone. But at last, thou holy Mother of God, the begging pardon did not work any more. All the wood-cutters came one night to Kranabethannes's, to show the fighter that even though he was their master at work, they were for once masters in the tavern. At first, as they see that he is drinking brandy, one glass after another, they begin to tease and mock him, until he becomes wild and attacks them. They are all over him, throw him down, tearing his hair and beard. And in this same hour his guardian angel deserts him; one hand free, he seizes his knife and plunges it into the breast of Bastian, the charcoal-burner. They then beat Mathes until he is thrown upon the ground. Two root-diggers brought him home. Perhaps to-morrow I 'll be a widow, and the poor children----"

The woman burst into sobs. Then Mathes raised himself once more: "The Lord God has done well by thee. Perhaps I might have beaten thee in a fit of anger. But I say this, I don't want to die so. I will get up and go to court and confess that I have stabbed Bastian. From the deceitful recruiting officers who took me from my peaceful youth and delivered me over to the bloody world, where I was disgraced with whip-lashes and hunted like a dog, and condemned for murder--to the charcoal-burner Bastian, who with scorn and mockery himself enticed the knife from its sheath--all of them I will call before the tribunal; they must all be there when I am condemned to death."

The woman shrieked; the man sank choking, back on the moss.

Just then the children came skipping and shouting in at the door. They were dragging by the ears a white rabbit which they let loose in the room, the boy pursuing it. The little besieged animal hopped upon the bed of moss and over the limbs of the sick man. It remained sitting in the corner, sniffing and looking anxiously about with its great eyes. The boy slipped up to it and seized it by its legs. The poor tormented creature whined piteously and bit the finger of its pursuer.--"Stop! stop! you rascal!" cried the enraged boy, becoming very red in the face, while tears filled his eyes, his lips were drawn, and his fingers convulsively clutched the throat of the animal and--before either his mother or sister could interfere--the rabbit was dead.

Mathes beat his face with his hands, crying out so that my very heart quaked: "Oh, horrible! Now the angry devil lives on in my children! Must I endure that also?"

A few moments later the man fell into a terrible death struggle. He died that same evening.

They buried Black Mathes in the forest, because he had stabbed Bastian. The woman wept bitterly upon the mound, and when at last she was led away from it, the Einspanig came and planted a little pine-tree upon the grave.

THE FEAST OF THE VIRGIN MARY, 1814.

And thus I have wandered about the Winkel forests. I have been in the Hinter Winkel and in the ravines of the Miesenbach, in the forests of the Kar, in Lautergraeben, and in the Wolfsgrube, in the Felsenthal and on the pastures of the Alm, and yonder in the glen where lies the beautiful lake. I have introduced myself to the old and made myself known to the young. It costs trouble and there are misunderstandings. With a few exceptions, the best of these people are not so good or the worst so bad as I formerly believed.