Andreas Hofer Part 14

"Villain!" he shouted, in a threatening voice, "do you not see the tax-collector?"

The young fellow drew the hat with an air of embarra.s.sment from his forehead, and crimsoning with rage, but in silence, stepped back into the circle of the murmuring men.

"That is just what you deserve, Joe," said Anthony Wallner. "Why did a smart Tyrolese boy like you come near us Southern Bavarians when we were talking about public parlour?"

At this moment a lad elbowed himself hastily through the crowd. His dress was dusty, his face was flushed and heated and it seemed as though he had travelled many miles on foot. To those who stood in his way he said in a breathless, panting voice: "Please stand aside.

I have to deliver something to Anthony Wallner-Aichberger; I must speak with him."

The men willingly stood aside. Now be was close behind Wallner, and, interrupting him in his speech, he whispered to him: "I come from Andreas Hofer; he sends you his greetings and this paper. I have run all night to bring it to you."

He handed a folded paper to Wallner, who opened it with hands trembling with impatience.

It was Andreas Hofer's "open order."

Wallner's face brightened up, he cast a fiery glance around the place filled with his friends, and fixed his flashing eyes then on the hat of the bailiff who had rebuked the young Tyrolese in so overbearing a manner. At a bound he was by his side, drove the bailiff's round official hat with one blow of his fist over his head, so that his whole face disappeared in the crown, and exclaimed in a loud, ringing voice:

"Villain! do you not see the Tyrolese?"

A loud outburst of exultation greeted Wallner's bold deed, and all the men crowded around him, ready to protect Anthony Wallner, and looking at the tax-collector with flashing, threatening eyes.

The latter seemed as if stunned by the sudden change in Wallner's demeanor, and he looked in dismay at the audacious innkeeper who was standing close in front of him and staring at him with a laughing face.

"What does this mean?" he asked at length, in a tremulous voice.

"It means that we want to be Tyrolese again," shouted Anthony Wallner, exultingly. "It means that we will no longer submit to brutal treatment at the hands of your Bavarian bailiffs, and that we will treat you now as you Boafoks have treated us for five years past." [Footnote: Boafok, the nickname which the Tyrolese gave to the Bavarians at that time. It signifies "Bavarian pigs."]

"For G.o.d's sake, how have we treated you, then?" asked the tax- collector, drawing back from the threatening face of Anthony Wallner toward his bailiffs.

"Listen to me, Tyrolese," shouted Anthony Wallner, scornfully, "he asks me how the Bavarians have treated us! Shall I tell it to him once more!"

"Yes, yes, Tony, do so," replied the Tyrolese on all sides.

"Tell it to him, and if he refuses to listen, we will tie him hand and foot, and compel him to hear what you say."

"Well, Mr. Tax-collector," said Wallner, with mock politeness, "I will tell you, then, how you Bavarians have treated us for four years past, and only when you know all our grievances will we settle our accounts. Listen, then, to what you have done to us, and what we complain of. You have behaved toward us as perjured liars and scoundrels, and I will prove it to you. In the first place, then, in 1805, when, to our intense grief and regret, our emperor was obliged to cede the Tyrol to Bavaria, the King of Bavaria, in a letter which he wrote to us, solemnly guaranteed our const.i.tution and our ancient privileges and liberties. That is what your king promised in 1805.

To be sure, we did not put much confidence in what he said, for we well knew that when the big cat wants to devour the little mouse, it treats the victim at first with great kindness and throws a small bit of bacon to it; but no sooner does the mouse take it than the cat pounces upon its unsuspecting victim and devours it. And such was our fate too; the cat Bavaria wanted to swallow the little mouse Tyrol; not even our name was to be left to us, and we were to be called Southern Bavarians instead of Tyrolese. Besides, our ancient Castle of Tyrol, the sacred symbol of our country, was dismantled and destroyed. You thought probably we would forget the past and the history of the Tyrol, and all that we are, if we no longer saw the Castle of Tyrol, where the dear Margaret Maultasch solemnly guaranteed to her Tyrolese their liberties, great privileges, and independence, for all time to come. But all was written in our hearts, and your infamous conduct engraved it only the more lastingly thereon. You took from us not only our name, but also our const.i.tution, which all Tyrolese love as their most precious treasure. The representative estates were suppressed, and the provincial funds seized. No less than eight new and oppressive taxes were imposed, and levied with the utmost rigor; the very name of the country, as I said before, was abolished; and, after the model of revolutionary France, the Tyrol was divided into the departments of the Inn, the Adige, and the Eisach; the pa.s.sion plays, which formed so large a part of the amus.e.m.e.nts of our people, were prohibited; all pilgrimages to chapels or places of extraordinary sanct.i.ty were forbidden. The convents and monasteries were confiscated, and their estates sold; the church plate and holy vessels were melted down and disposed of; the royal property was all brought into the market. New imposts were daily exacted without any consultation with the estates of our people; specie became scarce from the quant.i.ty of it which was drawn off to the royal treasury; the Austrian notes were reduced to half their value, and the feelings of our people irritated almost to madness by the compulsory levy of our young men to serve in the ranks of your army. In this manner you tried to crush us to earth.

But I tell you, we shall rise again, the whole Tyrol will rise and no longer allow itself to be trampled under foot. You say the king does not want any Tyrolese as subjects. He shall not have any, for the Tyrolese want to become again subjects of their dear Emperor Francis of Austria. Men of the Tyrol, from Pusterthal, Teffereck, and Virgenthal, you wish to become again subjects of the Emperor Francis, do you not?"

"We do, we do!" shouted the men, uttering deafening cheers. "Our dear Francis is to become again our lord and emperor! Long live the Emperor Francis!"

"Silence!" cried the tax-collector, pale with rage and dismay; "silence, or I shall send for the soldiers and have every one of you arrested, and--"

"Be silent yourself!" said Anthony Wallner, seizing him violently by the arm. "Sir, you are our prisoner, and so are the two bailiffs yonder. Seize them, my friends, and if they shout or resist, shoot them down. And if you utter a cry or a word, Mr. Tax-collector, so help me G.o.d if I do not kill you for a Boafok, as you are! Keep quiet, therefore, be a sensible man, and deliver your funds to us.

Come, men, we will accompany this gentleman to the tax-collector's office; and now let us sing a good Tyrolese song:"

"D'Sch.o.e.rgen and d'Schreiber and d'Richter allsammt, Sind'n Teufel auskomma, druck'n ueberall auf's Land, Und schinden Bauern, es is kam zum sog'n, Es waer ja koan Wunder, wir thaeten's allsammt erschlog'n."

[Footnote: Song of the Tyrolese in 1809.--See Mayr, "Joseph Spechbacher," p. 22.

"The pushing--the writers, and magistrates all, Possessed by the devil, our country enthrall, And grind the poor peasants; alas, 'tis a shame!

No wonder if we too share ruin the same."]

He concluded with a long and joyous Jodler, and shouted triumphantly: "Dear brethren, Andreas Hofer sends you his greetings, and informs you that the Austrians have invaded the Tyrol. Hurrah, 'tis time!"

"Yes, 'tis time," murmured Anna Maria, Anthony Wallner's wife, to herself; "'tis time for me to give Lizzie the signal, for the insurrection has broken out." She hastened into the house, took her husband's old rifle from the chamber, ran with it out of the back- door of the house, and fired the signal for her daughter.

"There," she said, returning quietly into the house, "she will have heard the report, and there is time yet to save him. I will do now what Tony asked me to do. When he sings the song, I shall take the paper-b.a.l.l.s from the table-drawer in the back-room, give a package to each of the two boys and two servant-girls, and tell them to go with it into the mountains and circulate the paper-b.a.l.l.s everywhere, that the inhabitants of the whole Pusterthal, from one end to the other, from the Gross-Glockner to the Venediger and Krimler Tauern, may learn this very day that it is time, and that the Boafoks are to be expelled from the country. Halloo, boys, come here! Halloo, girls, your mistress wants to speak to you!"

CHAPTER XI.

THE DECLARATION OF LOVE.

Eliza Wallner, after leaving her mother, had sped with the utmost rapidity through the back-door, across the yard, through the garden, out of the small gate leading to the meadow, down the foot-path, up the mountain-road, jumping from stone to stone, courageous and intrepid as a true daughter of the Tyrol. Now she stood at the portal of the castle, in front of which some of the Bavarian soldiers were lying in idle repose on a bench, while others in the side-wing of the castle allotted to them were looking out of the windows, and dreamily humming a Bavarian song, frequently interrupted by loud yawns.

Eliza walked past them with a slight greeting and entered the house.

The old footman sitting in the hall received her kindly, and told her, in reply to her inquiry, that the castellan, old Baron von Hohenberg, had set out early in the morning for Salzburg to attend court, but that his daughter and her cousin, Captain Ulrich von Hohenberg, were lunching in the small dining-room up-stairs.

This was all the information Eliza needed; she nodded to the footman, and ascended the staircase quickly. The old footman did not follow her; he knew that it was unnecessary for him to announce beautiful Lizzie to his mistress, but that she always was welcome to her. He therefore sat down again quietly, and took up the wood-work with which he had been occupied before.

Eliza reached the dining-room and threw open the door with a hasty hand; a blissful smile then overspread her flushed face, for on the balcony yonder, behind the open gla.s.s door, she beheld the tall slender form of Captain Ulrich von Hohenberg. She heard him chatting and laughing gayly; and through the door she also saw her friend Elza von Hohenberg, who was listening to her cousin's words in smiling repose. Scarcely touching the floor with her feet, she hastened through the room.

"I a.s.sure you, cousin," said Elza at this moment, in her clear, distinct voice, "I believe at times that she is the resuscitated Maid of Orleans, and that she will perform heroic deeds one day. Oh, I know my dear beautiful Eliza Wallner, and--"

"Don not speak of me, for I am listening to you," exclaimed Eliza, entering the balcony.

"Ah, my Lizzie," exclaimed Elza, rising and tenderly embracing her friend. "Have you come at length, my merry, beautiful lark?"

"Yes, I have, and I am glad that I am here," said Eliza and her large hazel eyes turned for a moment smilingly to the young officer, who, like his cousin, had risen on beholding Eliza Wallner. He did not utter a word of salutation; nevertheless, Eliza blushed on meeting his glance, and averted her eyes timidly from him, turning them toward the distant summits of the glaciers which were glittering around the horizon yonder in wonderful majesty.

"You are glad that you are here, my sweet child? Why did you not come at an earlier hour?" asked Elza. "You are always expected. My dear silent cousin, she is always expected, is she not? "

"Most a.s.suredly she is," said the young captain, with a smile; "and she is as welcome as the first rose of May."

"How impudent you are!" exclaimed Miss Elza, laughing; "you bid my Lizzie welcome as the first rose of May, and yet I was here before her!"

"He means only the wild hedge-rose, Elza," said Eliza, smiling archly, "for you know very well that the beautiful and aristocratic roses do not yet bloom in May."

"Well, tell me, cousin, did you really intend to compare my darling here with a wild hedge-rose?" asked Elza.

"Do not answer, sir," exclaimed Eliza, eagerly. "You have blundered in trying to flatter me, and that is good. You will see at length that fine phrases amount to nothing, and that they are colors that fade in the sunshine. You had better speak frankly and honestly to me, for I have often told you I am a stupid daughter of the Tyrol, and do not know what to reply to such fine city phrases."

"But for all that you are not stupid, my beautiful Eliza," said Ulrich von Hohenberg. "In truth, I who compare you with a rose am not a liar, but he would be who should charge you with stupidity."

"But if I should, nevertheless, a.s.sert that I am stupid, whom would it concern?" asked Eliza, defiantly.