Part 12

There was lots of singing as we crossed the mountain by the bridle-path. I should be sorry to repeat the songs. We sang ourselves warm, we sang ourselves hoarse. On the upper ridge, a hawker, known as Egg Mary, met us, carrying to Mürzzuschlag her baskets filled with those little things of which the songs says:

It's an oval fortress, Has no towers, no portress But lordly food inside.

And the words came to my mouth:

"Raw eggs are good for hoarseness!"

"We'll make sure of that at once!" cried the others, took the woman's basket and sucked out all her eggs--the charcoal-burner's son with the rest of them--and I too.

All that Egg Mary could get out in her wrath was:

"You're a pack of scoundrels!"

"Never mind," answered Zedel-Zenz. "We'll pay as soon as we have any money."

Then she went back with an empty basket, grumbling and uttering her various views of us and our behaviour. We started singing again, and the eggs did their duty.

At Stocker's inn we once more gave rein to our spirits. I did not fail to renew my inquiries about my benefactress with the ribbons and was firmly determined, if ever I came across the girl, to love her with all my heart and soul. The old hostess blinked significantly with her little grey eyes, but I got nothing more out of her.

We lads parted outside the inn in the steadfast belief that, after these days spent in one another's company, we would remain the firmest of mutual friends. A farewell feast was ordered of the innkeeper for the day when the two who had been kept were to join the colours.

When the spree was over, I felt a sinking inside, as I wended my way home. A laughing face looked out at me from every window. My father walked slowly up to me and knocked the hat off my head with his arm, so that the ribbons rustled against the frozen snow. For the moment I did not know what this meant; but my father did not leave me long in ignorance.

"Is it all the same to you," he said, "that you come home with a blazing lie on your hat? As to _who_ gave you that besom, we'll talk about that later. All I ask you now is, how can you do a thing like that to your mother? I dare say you don't know--you blackguard young puppy you!--how her heart is torn with anxiety at the thought of losing a child. But that you could give her such a fright! I wouldn't have thought it of you! If Egg Mary hadn't happened to come and tell us that you had a lucky escape this time, you might have had a nice business to answer for, with that damned rosette of yours. And your mother so poorly this long while past and all!"

I trembled in every limb. My recruiting giddiness was gone; I suddenly saw my whole baseness. My heart cried out for my mother. And that same Egg Mary, whom we--not to mince matters--had robbed on the high-road, had gone on ahead, in her good nature, to tell my people, to whom she owed many a little kindness, that they must not be frightened at the soldier's favour with which I should most likely come home, and that I had come out of it with luck.

My mother's joyful, loving grip of my hand only deepened my contrition. But father was wagging the rosette under my nose:

"And now, boy, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me where you got those fine feathers from! Are you walking out with somebody, young as you are? That's what I want to know!"

Many and sweet as were the thoughts of pretty girls that filled my mind, fond as I was of talking of it to fellows like myself, the thing looked very different in my father's presence. I assured him that I was walking out with nobody and that I did not know who had given me the favour. He laughed out loud and then flew at me angrily because of "the silly impudence of trying to make him believe a fib like that."

My mother interposed and said that they could rejoice that I was home again, and that they must not begin by scolding me so hard.

"Now you're backing him in his wickedness," he cried, "when he's lying straight in my face! But did you ever see such a booby as not to know from whom he got the ribbons in his hat?"

"Now it's my turn to laugh," said my mother. "This time the boy really can't tell, for _I_ had the favour stuck in his hat on the sly, so that he might have a bit of colour about him, as good as the rest of them."

She had done it secretly, because she suspected that her son was longing for a rosette from strange hands, and could easily have despised his mother's gift. She had prevented his ingratitude beforehand. And her home-coming son might have smitten her to the heart with that same rosette!...

The murder was out; father said nothing; and I ... I also did my share of thinking....

That children must always be striving after strange and far-away joys, hungering for love and yearning for love, which they will never find so pure and rich and endless as at home, in that perennial spring of tenderness, their mother's heart!

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Peter Rosegger was at that time a travelling tailor's apprentice.

[15] Lorenz, Lawrence.

XIV

A Forgotten Land

I always say that the world is becoming too small. There is no room left for hermits.

I frequently receive enquiries, from correspondents abroad, for cool summer resorts,--for nature resorts. Would I please--so runs the request--suggest a corner in the Alps where they will find clean rooms and good food in a farm-house kept by simple, kindly people. Added conditions: no railway, no telegraph, no post, no newspapers. A place where they can feel safe from meeting English people or people from Berlin and--forgive the imputation--Vienna. They want to have nothing but woods and fields around them, and, oblivious of all town luxuries and refinements, at least for a few weeks to bathe body and soul in the dew of a primitive life. This is the wish which--O curious sign of the times!--grows ever louder and louder. Is the return to nature, yearned for by the poets, at last beginning in earnest?

If only the company-promoters do not seize upon this need and found a colony for hermits! It is not so easy to recover nature once wantonly deserted. Our alps contain no valley, however secluded, into which artificial wines and brandy and American meat-extracts and cigars have not by this time made their way, in which the fences are bare of railway timetables and mineral-water posters and upon which some _News of the Day_ or other does not force its huge weekly doses of "culture" and information.

This is the case by now even in those districts whose "unfavourable" situation has hitherto for the most part spared them the two well-known "blessings" of civilisation. The floodgates are opened; and even those parts cannot be spared the deluge....

My forgotten land! He who would still bathe for a little in "the dew of a primitive life" may do so! I hasten to draw a fleeting picture of the land and its people before the floods of the world come and inundate it.

The region is locally and colloquially known as Sanct-Jakobs-Land, or "the Jackelland." It lies in Styria, between the Mürzthal and the Wechsel mountain-chain. Its river is the clear-running Feistritz, rich in trout, with its countless tributaries. When one crosses the top of the watershed over the Wechsel, or the Pfaffen, or from the Mürzthal, everything at once wears a different look. The mountains are lower, the forests more scattered, because they are broken up on every hand by cornfields. The farms lie isolated in the fields, on the skirts of the forests, often very high in the mountains. In the valley are the bright green pastures, with running brooks and corn-mills. The air is calm and peaceful, disturbed by the whistle of no locomotive, the chimney of no factory. The old farm-houses are humbly built; and the kitchen, living-room, hen-house and so on often form but one general room. This makes the new sort of houses, which are springing up on every side, look all the grander, with their sundry apartments and numerous windows,--from which many a pretty, fair-haired face peeps out at us, for it is an event when a stranger comes that way.

The farm premises are, for the most part, extensive, built of wood, straw-thatched and enclosed within a plank fence. Every farm has its open-air crucifix, often artistically carved, sometimes, I admit, adorned with a figure of Christ which faith alone can save from ridicule. On the spreading mountain-heights lie wide forests, such as Teufelstein, Fischbacherwald, Vorauerwald, Feistritzwald, Rabenwald. There are no work-houses, except the few on the Wechsel. For the rest, the region is well-populated and rich in compact villages and beautiful churches. The mountain-village of St. Jakob im Walde, which gives the Jakobsland its name, lies on a spur of the Wechsel, some four thousand feet above the level of the sea.

The inhabitants do not call themselves Jacklers: they are only so-called by the people in the districts round about; for the name does not stand for anything very fine, though it has grown old in honour. They simply call themselves after their parishes: the Rattners, the St. Jakobers, the Miesenbachers and so on. Almost every village has its own peculiarity. The Kathreiner goes in for finery, the Rattner for disputes and litigation; the Wenigzeller is a great man for backbiting and quarrelling; the Fischbacher is a notorious brawler.

The people are powerfully built and have tall and slender figures; they are mostly fair-haired. The men wear clothes of dark stuff, in the summer, and, in winter, the so-called _Wilfling_, a mixture of thread and sheep's wool; on workdays they tie on long blue aprons, a practice which prevails even among the schoolboys. The women favour a bunchy style of dress; and when one of them wants to look particularly smart (and this applies to many), she puts on three, or five, or more petticoats, one over the other. Many villages are already infected with the fashion of dress introduced from the Mürzthal.

A peculiarity of the Jackler is his love for flax, which he cultivates in great quantities; and the hackling, in autumn, gives rise to regular popular festivals. _During the winter, both men and women occupy themselves in spinning, and do so until late at night, passing the time as they work in telling stories, asking and guessing conundrums, and singing._ Only there is no spinning after supper on Thursdays: from flax spun at such a time the weaver weaves shrouds.

Their food is simple and consists mainly of milk, flour, pulse, potatoes and linseed-oil. The everyday beverage is new cider. In some places they grind dried pears, and from the flour thus produced, which is mixed into a pulp with milk, they make the so-called _Dalken_. Apples are also dried; and so are plums and cherries: these are all made into soup in the winter. The cattle are reared, fattened and sold; sheep or pigs are slaughtered for holiday needs. The fare is very rich on feast-days; and there is a tradition that, on Twelfth Night, nine different kinds of stews should be consumed in every house: formerly the Jacklers used to eat no fewer than three meals on that night, so that "Three Kings' Night"[16] is known as "Three Meal Night" to this day.

The population, which reminds one, in its habits and customs, of the inhabitants of the Böhmerwald, is descended from Bajuvar stock and immigrated in the sixth and seventh centuries. It is German by origin and German by nature. Settled here for over a thousand years, the individual members of this race have become so rooted to the soil that they never leave it, and only with difficulty admit anything foreign to the land. The cell of the first German monk who began to convert the heathen is said to have stood in the desert where the little village of Mönichwald now stands. The mission was afterwards continued by the monasteries of Vorau and Pöllau. The living is in the possession of the population to this day; in many places, the parish-priest fills at the same time the offices of parish-councillor, guardian of the poor and district school-inspector.

One can easily, therefore, picture the peace that reigns between church, school and municipality. Generally speaking, the clergy--in the absence of any defiant antagonism--are more liberal-minded here than in those outlying districts where they feel called upon to defend their compromised rule by the exercise of intolerance and severity.

The Jackler is favourably distinguished in one particular from the agricultural population of some other parts: he is not neutral. In the surrounding districts the peasant is apt to be indifferent towards matters of religious practice and equally indifferent towards other ideals and spiritual things. The Jackler is not like that. Gorgeous festivals, which he loves to celebrate in his stately village-churches, festivals which remind one of the Tyrol in their splendour, their often dramatic form, their mediæval love of God and veneration of the saints, delight him, stimulate him, give sustenance and substance to his spiritual life. A priest who is not prepared to celebrate the anniversaries of the church's patrons with due pomp and ceremony and to invite half a dozen neighbouring priests to read Mass and preach (and he must provide them with a good dinner into the bargain) would soon find himself at loggerheads with his flock.

The district is often visited by fanatical missionaries, who promptly arouse excitement for miles around. The parish-priest is not always filled with the friendliest feelings towards these hunters of souls, but he has to invite them for fear of offending his superiors. The costs of the mission are more than gladly covered by the parishioners.

The Jackler is notable not only for his pious tendencies, but also for his business subtlety; and he will swindle his parish-priest over a deal in oxen, to-day, after being moved to tears by his sermon yesterday--and this without the least prejudice to his own religious sentiments.

"If I can't cheat my best friend," says the Wenigzeller, "whom _can_ I cheat? My enemy doesn't trust me!"

The so-called lesser "holidays," of which there are over thirty in the year, are also conscientiously kept: in the morning, by a sung Mass in church; in the afternoon, in the tavern or on the bowling-green. Many servants work on those days on their own account; and, if their employer needs their services, he must pay them a special wage.

The Jackler is quick in his work and moderate and discreet in his pleasures. There are rich and poor in this region as in others, but not in the ordinary sense. The householder is "rich" who is not in debt in respect of his real or movable estate; "rich" is applied to the carrier who has saved a little silver, to a farm-girl who has flax and linen in her trunk and perhaps hides a savings-bank book beneath it, with the amount of her reaping pay. "Poor" are the debt-ridden cottager, the landlord whose property is mortgaged up to the hilt, the incompetent salter or pickler. No one is ruined by privation: people, it is true, are often harsh to the poor man, but they help him.

Nearly everything that the peasant needs is produced by his industry; there is little ready-money in the district; but, for that reason, it has two or three times the value as compared with the prices ruling in the railway districts.

"A thousand gulden!"

That expresses their utmost conception of wealth. The occasional stranger who happens to have strayed into this region is surprised when he finds himself charged no more than eighty kreuzer for a good night's lodging and an excellent supper and breakfast. On the other hand, when a Jackler, for once in a way, travels on the railway, his wonder never ceases at the high fares which he is called upon to pay; and he considers that the shorter time the train takes to cover a distance, the less the charge should be.

The inhabitants of the Feistritz district supply the Mürzthal with poultry, eggs and fruit at a very cheap rate; and the women who carry and deliver them earn barely twenty kreuzer a day. Wood and coal also find their way into that ravenous and industrious valley; and the Jackler artisans make their bit of money there. They have the making of good masons, carpenters, shoemakers, tailors, smiths, watchmakers, gunsmiths and so on. These workmen from the Jackelland are greatly appreciated in the Mürzthal and round about; they work hard, well and cheaply, and are not particular in the matter of board and lodging.

Many maid-servants, who enter a farmer's service for a year at Christmas, do so for a trifling annual wage of fifteen or twenty gulden. On the other hand, they stipulate with their employers that, in summer, when there is hardly any pressing work to be done at home, they shall be allowed to follow their own business for a few weeks. The lasses then go reaping. In the month of June they wander away, with bundle and sickle, to the lowlands or the Mürzthal, where the corn is ripe early; and they find plenty of work and amaze everybody by their eager and indefatigable diligence. This done, they cheerfully come home again with their reaping wages and once more apply themselves briskly to the needs of field and garden. It is very seldom that one of them, lured by love or other worldly advantages, remains away; they like home best, where they form part, so to speak, of the family of their employer, with whom maid and man alike live on fraternal terms.

A fine characteristic of this little land is the cohesion that reigns among neighbours. If one of them is visited with misfortune, the others stand by him fairly and squarely; do his urgent work for him, if he be ill; come to his aid with building materials, carpenters and masons, if fire or water have destroyed his house; send in food as well; and generally put the sorely-tried one on his legs once more. Again, in certain forms of labour, such as copse-cutting, flax-scutching, corn-mowing, they gladly work for the common cause--on this farm to-day, on that to-morrow--with the result that everything goes sociably and cheerfully. One for all and all for one!

The young lads stick together for their particular objects. They form clubs--each district according to its own requirements--through which they mutually support one another in their feuds and love-adventures. They help and protect one another in "window-haunting" and "street-strolling," as the nocturnal love-walks are called; they humbug the father, when one of them is after the pretty daughter; they help to defeat the rivals; and, in addition, they play all sorts of practical jokes, which their brains are very quick at inventing. The youth of one parish will often hatch deliberate plots against that of another; and bloody fights take place on many a Sunday and holiday.

Amorous relations between unengaged couples do not, as yet, occur to the same extent in the Jackelland as elsewhere; morals are stricter, opportunities fewer and frivolity less marked. Manners, upon the whole, are more serious and sober, a fact which is in no way detrimental to the pleasure of living, but, on the contrary, increases it and keeps it fresh and clean.

The lover of a healthy and intelligent people must needs feel himself at home and stimulated in the Jackelland. When, on a Sunday, he sits among the peasants in the Tafés, or inns run by the church, he will not be bored; he will rather be soon inclined to join in the conversation. But the stranger--if he think for a moment that he is ruling the talk--must be on his guard lest he be made a butt of! They have at their command an exceedingly witty and subtle form of ridicule, which often is understood only by the natives themselves. Many a townsman who has tried to preach wisdom to the Jacklers has been delightfully hoaxed by them and ultimately laughed out of court.

Place-hunting, party-hatred, pessimism and such-like flowers of our time have not yet blossomed in the Jackelland. The people there are people in whom hard bodily labour rouses no complaint, in whom pleasure is not marred by a subsequent reaction, people whose life, usually a long one, is spent peacefully, rich in great toils and small sins. Thanks to their moderation and contentment, they are free lords, who can easily make fun of others who have fettered themselves in the chains of worldly advancement.

The only sinister inhabitants are the civil engineers, who for years have been exploring the length and breadth of the little land, in the hope of sooner or later turning the iron horse to graze in those green pastures.

FOOTNOTE:

[16] _Dreikönigsnacht_, the German name for Twelfth Night.--_Translator's Note._

XV

The Schoolmaster

It was getting dark; the autumn mists were sinking over the wooded mountains. The herdsman was trudging his way home to the tinkling bells of his cattle. For some time longer the farm-hand was heard beating the oat-stalks over a beam that lay on the threshing-floor, until the last grain was separated. The barn door closed at last; and the little houseful of people gathered in the parlour to eat their rye soup and potato mash. Then they betook themselves to their straw beds.

The children were soon asleep.

A rushlight burnt in the room, and the farmer's wife kept putting it straight on its spike. Peter wound up the smoke-browned clock on the wall.

Just as husband and wife were about to get into bed, the watch-dog in the yard began to bark. There came a light tapping at the window-pane.

"Who's that?" cried the farmer.

And his wife added crossly:

"There's no peace for us to-day!"

"It's someone begging for a night's shelter," said a hoarse voice outside.

"I expect it's a poor man," said the farmer's wife. "That's quite a different thing. Go and unbolt the door, Peter."

Soon after a man stumbled into the room, weary and bent, grasping a long stick in his right hand and carrying a little bundle in his left. A wide-brimmed, discoloured, crushed felt hat was on his head, and under the brim hung snow-white strands of hair.

Peter took the rush in his hand and threw a light upon the stranger's face. Then he exclaimed:

"Heavens! It can't be possible----! Why, it's the schoolmaster of Rattenstein!"

"Aye, aye, my dear Heath--Peter," said the old man, recovering his breath, "that's so. With your permission, I will sit down at once."

The farmer's wife pulled on her dress again and hurried into the kitchen to warm some soup; then she called back into the parlour:

"Go and light a candle, Peter. The rush won't burn properly, and the smoke makes one's eyes fairly smart."

Then, when a tallow candle was burning on the table and the old man had wiped the sweat from his careworn face, Heath Peter almost shyly offered him his hand and said:

"Well, how do you come wandering into the Wilderness like this, Schoolmaster?"

"It had to be," replied the old man. "It's a case, with me, of 'Forsaken and beat, like the stones in the street.' I just turned up a footpath and went on over hill and dale as the Lord willed. And so, in the end, I came to you people in the Wilderness."

"And, if I may ask, where do you mean to go, Schoolmaster?"

The old man made no reply. His head sank down upon his chest. His fingers clutched at his blue handkerchief; but, before he could raise it with trembling hand to his face, he burst into heavy sobs.

"Lord Jesus! Schoolmaster!" cried Peter, springing to support him, for the old man threatened to collapse.

"Never would I have thought," he sobbed at last, "that such an hour as this would come to me in my old days. God above, Thou knowest, that I have not deserved it!"

"There must have been some great misfortune," the farmer said. "But Schoolmaster must not take it too much to heart. And if there is anything I can do he must let me know."