OUR HOME IN THE TYROL

CHAPTER III.

We were soon comfortably settled in the old Hof. The spacious rooms, always deliciously cool, were fragrant with rare and delicate blossoms—Alpine roses from the rocks, white lilies from Moidel's special little garden-plot, grasses and nodding flowers, campanulas, veronicas, melisot, potentillas and lady's bedstraw, which, according to Anton, no cattle would touch, whilst the roots of others were good for man or beast, their various qualities being all known to him. But soon the waving flowers bent beneath the scythe. It was the eve of St. Peter and St. Paul's Day, a festival when all work must cease, and the Hofbauer, whose word was law, had given orders that the hay in the wood-meadow must be carried that evening. Seeing, therefore, that the more hands there were the better, the two Margarets seized each a rake and worked as hard as any woman in the field.

On we labored, the golden evening sun glinting down upon our picturesque row of haymakers, nor did we cease until the angelus sounded from the village spire. Then Anton, Jakob, Moidel, their men and maids, fell devoutly upon their knees and thanked God that Christ Jesus had been born. These humble Tyrolese remember thrice daily to praise the Lord, as David did. With a hushed, subdued look upon their honest faces, they arose, and we joining them the fresh, fragrant hay was carted triumphantly home. The hay is cut long before we should consider it ready, and is housed whilst still green and moist. The newer the hay the richer the cream, they say. The Hofbauer has three crops yearly, but his neighbors, who lie higher, have only two, and sometimes but one.

The good old Kathi stood at the door cooling a gigantic pan of buckwheat polenta, and when she had set down this dish, intended for the haymakers' supper, she brought us each, as our pay, a couple of krapfen, which are oblong dough-cakes fried in butter.

Although the haymakers were worn out and weary with a long day's work of twelve hours, still Rosenkranz sounded in the chapel like the humming of bees in lime trees. This pious custom duly impressed us, until on the very next day, as we walked up our village street on the evening of the festival, our solemn feelings received a great check. We observed that the prayer-leaders, who knelt at the open windows of each separate house, followed our every movement with their eyes, whilst their mouths mechanically repeated sonorous Ave Marias and Paternosters. Nay, there was our own pious Moidel watching us from the kitchen window, her Hail Marys mingling with her friendly greetings; but then Moidel was waiting upon us and our supper whilst her family were on their knees in the chapel. Still, we soon learnt to perceive that Rosenkranz was considered quite as efficacious if merely uttered by the tongue, whilst the mind was far away. This being a festival, and no one tired with work, the household trooped into the old pleasaunce after supper. The elders sat together in a row, whilst the younger members congregated on a second long stone bench and struck up singing, Moidel and her elder brother beginning with a duet:

And the chorus joined in—

winding up with a jodel.

Nanni, the chief maid, next sang in a clear, flexible voice, which trembled no little when she perceived that the Herrschaft now formed part of the audience in the balcony—

A WEEK'S SORROW.

In order to catch the meaning of the words, which were sung in strong dialect, Margaret and I had descended to the garden. The Hofbauer looked sad when he saw us approach, and quietly brushed a tear away with his shirt-sleeve. We consequently asked Moidel when we stood alone with her whether anything were troubling her father.

"It strikes me not," she said. "I fancy that it is but the music. Father and uncle may both seem quiet and dull now, yet they have been celebrated singers; only when my mother died father left off singing, and so did uncle after Uncle Jakob's death."

"Ah yes!" said the aunt, who had also joined us, "they were the three handsomest, best—grown men in the parish, living happily together without an ill word, until four years ago Jakob was trampled upon by a yoke of vicious oxen, and in three days he was dead. Yes, that was a sorrow almost as cutting as the death of the Hofbauerin, so young when she died. Only married five years, and leaving four little children, not one of whom ever knew her! Yes, Moidel is a good girl, and is wearing her linen now, but she can never come up in looks to her mother. Ah ja! and now the trouble is about Jakob."

"About Jakob?" asked we in a low, astonished voice.

"Why yes, that he has been drawn for the Landwehr. Ah, I thought you knew. It was last autumn that he was drawn. The Hofbauer would have sold his best acres to release him, but the recruiting-officer would have no nay: Jakobi was a fine, well-behaved young fellow, and such were needed in the army. He had to serve two months this spring, and with his comrades day by day had to run up the face of mountains some four thousand feet. It quite wore Jakob out, though he is so good-tempered. He declared that he was used, to be sure, at the Olm to climb up to the glaciers of the Hoch Gall after his goats, often bringing the kids in his arms down the precipices, but to have his back broken and his feet blistered in order to know how to shed human blood was what he hated. Yet he bore it so well, doing his best, that when the other recruits could return to their homes, Jakob, being so clever and well-behaved, had to stay a fortnight longer to brush, fold up and put away all the regimentals. However, the under-officer did have him to dine with him every day."

"Yes, and Jakob will in his turn be an officer," we replied, trying to reassure her.

"Oh, na, na, that can never be: eleven more long years must he serve, and always as a private. I thought like you, until the Hofbauer explained to me that all the officers were foreigners—Saxons, Bavarians, Würtembergers, put in by the Austrian ministry, who are tyrants to Tyrol. Ah, if the good emperor would only interfere, for he loves Tyrol! but he leaves everything to the ministry. Austria may itself be overthrown in these unrighteous days before my Jakobi is free." Now it was the good soul's turn to wipe her eye with the corner of her ample blue apron.

We were venturing some fresh attempt at consolation when fortunately an event occurred which drew her thoughts from the deep shadow which we had just discovered hung over the peaceful Hof. Jodokus, the village schoolmaster in the winter, when the children had time to learn, but during the busy summer months one of the men, had challenged Jakobi to a wrestling-match. Hardly had the two antagonists encountered each other on the grass in a stout set-to, when the sound of the goatherd's whip  was heard on the hilly common above, sending forth a succession of reports like those of a pistol, becoming stronger and louder when the game and the assembled company were seen. At last the young "whipper-snapper," as we called him, made one long final succession of cracks and reports, and springing over the wall, and casting his instrument of torture on one side, he boldly challenged Anton.

The young man, whose skill and strength were well known, smiled, half amused, half incredulous, on his antagonist. The younger athlete, a lad of thirteen, firmly built and agile, mistook the look for a sneer, and the blood ran fast and hot into his face. So, Anton accepting the challenge, they immediately began to spar. They first fearlessly regarded each other, then bowing their heads they rushed forward, butting like rams. The lad, with his head fixed firm in Anton's chest, tried to find his adversary's weakest point, and with his arms round his waist endeavored cunningly to make him slip; but it was soon the young champion who was tripped up, and who in playful, half-serious anger dealt blows and tugs right and left, almost managing to bring Anton sprawling to the ground. The lad, however, suddenly stopped: he had lost a little tin ring off his finger and a four-kreuzer piece from his pocket—too great a loss for a shepherd-boy. The combat therefore was speedily closed, both antagonists and their partisans hunting in the unmowed grass until the treasures were again trove.

At the same time an elderly man approached and opened the gate—a peasant evidently, although, instead of the usual long white apron and bib, he wore one of new green linen, shining as satin—a man of a strong although delicate make, the head slightly stooping forward, and a face that beamed with genuine pleasure as half a dozen voices simultaneously burst forth with a "God greet you, Alois!"

This then was Schuster (or Shoe-maker) Alois, in preparation of whose advent the good aunt had scrubbed a bed-room, and Moidel had beautified the window with pots of blooming geraniums. The room was a large chamber, set apart for the different ambulatory work-people who came to the Hof in the course of the year. The weaver, who arrived in the spring to weave the flax which the busy womankind had spun through the winter, had been the last occupant of the room, and had woven no less than two hundred and ninety-three ells of linen, which now in long symmetrical lines were carefully pegged down on the turf of the pleasaunce by Moidel, who walked over them daily with her bare feet, busily watering until the gray threads were turning snowy white.

Later on in the year the sewing-woman would appear, and then the tailor, to make the clothing for this large household, the servants, according to an old custom long since extinct in most countries, being chiefly paid in kind. Schuster Alois had now come to make the boots for Jakob and the Senner Franz preparatory to their going with the cattle to the Alpine pastures.

I greatly doubt whether the tailor or the weaver was so well waited upon as the shoemaker: I fancy they were left more to the maids. Passing the open door of the family house-place, aunt and niece might now be seen sitting hour after hour, the elder lining the soles of Jakob's stockings with pieces of strong woolen to prevent mending on the Alp, or attending to other needs of his homely toilet; the younger at her paste-board or kneading-trough, whilst Schuster Alois sat between them in the sunny oriel window, and while he steadily plied his awl appeared to be either telling them tales or reciting poetry.

The Alp, or Olm (to use the provincial word), lay at the distance of about six hours, and the Hofbauer went up to examine the state of the pasturage before his son and the cattle finally started. In two days he returned. "The going up of the cattle must be postponed at least a week," he said, "for snow had fallen at the huts the depth of a man; and the river had swollen to such a  height that it had carried two houses away in St. Wolfgang, the highest mountain-village; and even life had been lost."

This delay caused a respite from hard work. The next morning Alois's arms did not move like unwearying machinery, and, the ten o'clock-dinner being over, we saw him seated at his ease on the adjoining hillside. Should we go and speak to him? He appeared different from the ordinary run of his class (though cobblers are often clever men enough), and moreover of a decidedly friendly turn of mind. We determined that we would. We joined Alois on the stony, waste hillside, crowned by two trees with a crucifix in the centre, which formed from the house, with its background of mountains, ever a melancholy, soul-touching little poem.

"You have not quite such hard work to-day, Schuster?"

He smiled and said, "Do your work betimes, and then rest; and where better than under the shadow of the cross?"

"Yes, and the crucifix which you have chosen is more pleasing than the generality which are sown broadcast over the fields of the Tyrol. Why are they made so hideous and revolting?"

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.

In the evening Jakob came into the grand old sitting-room to bid us good-bye. He appeared in his shirt-sleeves and the indispensable white apron, and with the utmost self-possession and refinement of manner he presented us with a little bouquet of edelweiss, promising to send us down a larger supply by his brother. We talked with him about the Olm, and found him enthusiastic on the subject, his one regret being that, as he must return for several weeks of drilling on August 22d, his stay there this summer would be greatly curtailed. The Olm was very extensive, lying on a mountain-platform which was only bare of snow for about three months in the year. When, however, the snow was off, the flowers came up by thousands, the grass sprang up by magic, all the mountains were filled with the rushing and roaring sound of waters, which came down in foaming cascades, often of wonderful beauty, amongst the rocks and the pine woods which clothed the steeper mountain-sides. Nor was the life at all solitary, for various farmers were sending up their cattle to other Olms about the same time, so that no one was without neighbors, although they might be at a considerable distance apart.

Jakob spoke on until we became wild to go up to the Olm too. "Could we go thither," we asked, "and pay him a visit?"

"That we could," he replied, "if we did not mind sleeping in the hay. Only we had better wait for settled weather in August."

There was now no talk of our leaving the Hof at St. Jakobi. The Hofbauer had declared that the house was at our disposal until Martinmas—longer if we wanted it. He also fell into the scheme of our visiting his Olm, where he intimated his desire to be host, saying that all the dairy produce would be at our service.

In the night, exactly at one o'clock, Jakob and Jodokus started: we heard them go, the cattle-bells ringing and the "Leben Sie wohl!" "Behüt Euch Gott!" shouted lovingly after them from the open door and the lower windows of the silent old mansion. Six and twenty head of cattle: the goats, pigs and sheep were to follow later. It was a calm and beautiful night, the three-quarters moon just dropping behind the mountains, and the stars shining out brightly from the dark cloudless sky.

CHAPTER IV.

The Alpine caravansary was hardly settled at the Olm when the air became intensely hot and oppressive. Day by day black thunder-clouds gathered on the horizon. They crested the mountains in three directions, at times appearing to repel each other, at others marching fiercely on to conflict, when, the zenith becoming pitch-dark, they flung out long spears of lightning and exploded in overwhelming thunder. Very terrible were these perpetual storms. With the first peal the church-bells along the valley began solemnly to toll. It mattered not whether by night or day, the faithful bellringer was at his post, and  with rain pouring down outside and fiery, vivid lightning playing around him, he still went tolling on, for evil spirits must be driven away, and people reminded to make the sign of the cross and pray God to protect them.

At length, to use an expression of Alois's, "Saint Florian had left off playing at skittles, and Saint Leonhard had driven his hay over the heavenly bridge." The warring elements were still, but the earth seemed smouldering with heat, and we panted and gasped after the lofty mountain-slopes which lay on all sides. At the same time it came most opportunely to our knowledge that the Tyrol was rich in baths—primitive establishments most of them, but dotted over mountain and valley, so that each village had half a dozen to choose from, where every peasant, be he ever so poor, could at least dip and soak for an eight-days' sommerfrisch. Why, then, should not the two Margarets, they being the most desirous of a change, have at least a sommerfrisch?

But which amongst all these baths was the one to choose? Good Kathi recommended her baths at Innichen. She herself evidently did not derive much pleasure from her yearly visits there. Still, we, being ladies, would find more people to talk to, and the bath-house, which was always full to overflowing, stood in a wood, and we liked trees. Schuster Alois—for the conversation took place before he left—said that most gentlefolks went to Maistall. There was not only luxus, but a great deal of life and spirit there. His Majesty Emperor Max as early as 1511 took up his quarters at Maistall during his campaign against the Venetians, and he had heard say that in the last century the visitors formed a society and made it a rule that none but the purest German should be spoken. Every fault of pronunciation cost a kreuzer to the offender: the money went to the chapel, and amounted one season to twenty-one florins six kreuzers.

But one Margaret decidedly objected to going to a place where there was the faintest chance of her loiter wagon for leiterwagen, her pison for speisen, her vulgarborn for wohlgeboren, being fined by a gazel-schaft (gesellschaft). Besides, these places sounded too grand: we did not want a Gastein, but a Wildbad, if one could be found that did not belie its name. So the peasant-baths of St. Vigil, Mühlbach and Scharst were named to us, and the lot fell upon Scharst, we having heard that all the school-children in town had just been taken there for a long day's holiday, and had returned to their proud and happy parents, who waited for them in double ranks below, radiant with pleasure, waving their banners and Alpine roses.

It was accordingly arranged that on the following Sunday Anton should drive us to Reischach, where there was to be a great festival, with candles in the church as big as a man's arm: so said a woman from Reischach. Anton was of a retiring nature, and did not like crowds, but he would gladly drive the ladies over. And at Reischach we should be sure to find some peasant returning that evening by Scharst, who could carry our belongings.

Imagine us, therefore, at Reischach, the church-bell ringing for vespers, which begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets of carnations and rosemary, presented to us by the family at the Hof, as correct decorations for a festival. And Anton!—how to present him to you as he deserves to be presented? His truthful, guileless face is his best ornament: nevertheless, he too wears carnations and rosemary caught in the silver cord and vieing with the silver tassels of his broad-brimmed, low-crowned beaver hat. His rough jacket, made by the tailor last autumn, and therefore too new to be worn on a less special occasion, is short and loose enough to leave ample space for the display of his rauge, or broad leather belt of softest chamois-skin, worked in scrolls surrounding his name, with split peacock quills, no little resembling Indian handicraft. His snow-white knees appear between his short leather breeches and his bright blue knitted stockings. These Nature's garters, when perfectly white, are regarded as a mark of great  distinction amongst the dandies, and those of our Anton may be considered the very knee plus ultra.

A parliament of men—a few still in breeches with Hessian boots, which appeared a characteristic of Reischach, but the majority, having succumbed to modern ideas, wearing trowsers—were seated in the shadow of a comfortable house, discussing the different stages of their rye and flax crops. Their wives and daughters, following their natural impulse, were already kneeling in church, confiding their cares of kitchen and farmyard to the ever-ready ear of Mutter Gottes—one dense mass of simple, believing women, in broad-brimmed beaver hats, with here and there a conical woolen beehive as a contrast.

The church in itself, although it lacked the candles as big as a man's arm, must truly have shone like the gate of heaven to peasant eyes. Many of the more substantial families had lent their private saints for the occasion. They had brought Holy Nothburgs and Saint Leonhards and Virgins, generally preserved in wardrobes at home, but now brought to participate in the festival, besides adding to its great solemnity. It was Scapulary Sunday, we were told, and although the words conveyed no clear idea to us, we were soon to learn their significance. A Tyrolese anthem having been sung by some invisible voices, in which jodels leapt up and smothered Gregorians, a middle-aged Capuchin took his stand in the pulpit, and having greeted the congregation, promised to explain to them the mystery and the advantage of the Holy Scapulary.

"My beloved," he began, "there are some who think too little of the scapulary, and there are others who lay too great a stress on this aid to faith. Let us meditate on both these conditions. But first, how must we ourselves regard the scapulary? Now, we are told not to love the world nor the things of the world. The scapulary, with its sacred image of Mary worn next the heart, is a great shield against this love of the world. It places you under the especial protection of the Queen of Heaven: you are as much her servant as those who serve king or kaiser, and equally wear her livery. Some think too little of the scapulary. Yet what incidents can be told of its efficacy! Let one suffice. In the year 1866, when the war raged between Austria and Prussia, the Catholic soldiers of the latter country immediately before the war entered by hundreds into the Society of the Scapulary. Wearing this sacred charm upon their hearts, they went into the battle-field, and the cannons roared and the bullets whizzed thick and fast around them, and not one of them fell, for they wore the scapulary. Indeed, their miraculous preservation created so much excitement that Lutherans marveled over it, and asked the Catholics how it came that they were no whit hurt. And they answered, 'We wear the scapulary of Mary, and she saves us.' Then many Lutherans said, 'Come, we will have scapularies,' and wrote their names down in the society. And now hark ye, my brethren. There was a Catholic soldier, and there was a Lutheran, and the latter said, 'Lend me thy scapulary for this one day only, and see, here is a thaler for thee.' Then the foolish Catholic drew the scapulary off his neck, handed it to the Lutheran, took the thaler, went into battle: whiz went the bullets round him, and he fell."

We could stand no more. The church, now crowded with men as well as women, reeked with perspiration, the sermon oppressed us, and thus our sense and senses drove us out into the open air. Here the fresh breeze came across from the Ziller snow-fields, health-giving as a breath from heaven. Peasant-women who were too late to squeeze into church were seated amongst the iron crosses of the graves. The more serious-minded had managed to cluster together round a side-door which, being adjacent to the pulpit, proved an advantageous spot for hearing. The less particular sat in the shade, feeling it sufficient to be in holy ground and to pass their beads through their fingers whilst they studied up our novel attire. Approaching the more attentive members, we  found that the Capuchin had reached the second part of his discourse, and was dilating on those who thought too highly of the scapulary. We gathered the following fragment:

"Now, the man was nigh unto death, and it was neither for confession nor for the death-sacrament that he craved. No, it was for a scapulary. 'A scapulary!' he cried, 'a scapulary!' My brethren, you know well he should have asked for the priest and for the blessing of the Church, but it was merely for a scapulary."

Later on we asked permission to see a scapulary. It consisted of two small squares of cloth, herring-boned round the edge, and united by a narrow ribbon of sufficient length to permit one square to rest on the breast, whilst the other hung between the shoulders. That in front bore the image of the Virgin, designed by the nuns in the convent, whilst the simpler work had been given to some poor old woman, or even man, who was past harder employment. The privilege of wearing this charmed badge entailed the payment of a small yearly subscription and the repetition of seven Paternosters daily.

The procession followed the sermon. Mary, Joseph, Saint Nothburg (once a good peasant-girl, now a saint) were paraded round the village by children, and borne back to church. Peasant-men staggered under large silk banners, which swayed and fluttered in the blustery wind, and, but for the steady grasp of the strong men who carried them, threatening at each moment to crush the pious throng. The four chief peasants of the district, wearing their robes of state, the Noah's ark coats in which they were married, bore the baldachin over the head of the Capuchin who elevated the Host: the village priest, in white surplice and Hessian boots, swung the censer at his side. The men were in front, the women, a long, broad file, divided in the procession by the priests from their male relations, followed—a dense black mass, but relieved in color by the whiteness of their short linen sleeves.

Men and women, carefully severed in their prayers and on the very steps of the altar by Holy Church, were soon able to come together again under the spacious, hospitable roof of Herr Kappler, the wirth. Innumerable clean wooden tables, forms, and stiff, high-legged wooden chairs were ranged up stairs and down stairs and in the orchard without, for the accommodation of the scapularists and their friends.

We sat at a side-table in an upper room partaking of grilled fowl and salad, whilst buben and their dirnen, or lads and their lasses, middle-aged couples, old men and women, poured into the house, filling every chair, bench and table. They came thither from all the country-side, and endless were the greetings amongst cousins and cousins' cousins. The Tyrolese, like the Scotch, keep up every link of relationship, claiming the fiftieth cousin. Relationship, in fact, never does die out; and though it may become an abstract during busy seasons of ploughing and sowing, it becomes a strong reality at wakes and festivals. Thus, at Kappler's, on this scapulary afternoon, Barthel's brother-in-law's cousin drank with "Cousin Barthel," and Seppl's sister-in-law's niece was treated by "Onkel Seppl." There was one square-built, good-humored old man who appeared to be the whole world's cousin: he passed from table to table, and had to sip from fifty offered glasses.

With our delicious coffee and boiled cream we ordered the host, as a suitable person, to find us a guide to carry our valise and shawls to Bad Scharst. Probably the perpetual and loud demands for pints of wine left him but little time to make a wise selection, seeing that there soon stood before us a small man with so subtle and malignant a look that his exorbitant demand made us only too gladly dismiss him. Our confidence shaken in the landlord's powers of discrimination, we sent word below that if Anton had returned we should be glad to speak with him. He had been in the village to visit his cousins, but was waiting our orders below. Although his native shyness made it hard for him  to step forward and address ladies under the curious gaze of all the relative Seppls and Barthels, he did it with manliness, and turning round and addressing the popular old man as Hansel, asked him if his brother Jörgel were below; and being answered in the affirmative, he hastened away, and returned with another compact little peasant, whom he introduced to us as Senner Franz's brother, with an aside, that he was "a friendly mortal and Count Arlberg's forester."

The agreement was soon made, the sullen-looking man glowering at us from behind a stack of firewood, whilst Hansel and Anton packed a kraxe or wooden frame and fixed it on Jörgel's back. As we set off, Anton drove away homeward, although the skittle-balls were just beginning to roll, and the sound of "I bin a lustiger bua" and other Tyrolese songs came floating from the windows.

MARGARET HOWITT.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]