Household stories from the Land of Hofer. Busk Rachel Harriette

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and no longer a servant; and having plenty of money, and plenty of fine clothes, she thought this made her a lady, and had no idea but that every one acknowledged the fact. I don’t think she exactly wished that all the village should be envious of her, but at all events she wished that she should enjoy all the prerogatives of ladyhood, and this, she imagined, was one. Then she had no parents to teach her better, and Jössl, who might have been her teacher, had forsaken her.

      But it was all too new and too exciting for her to feel any misgivings yet. She amused herself with turning over all her fine things, and fancied herself very happy.

      In another day or two the Hof of good neighbour Bartl was put up for sale, and another visit to the Bergmännlein enabled her to become the purchaser. She thus became the most important proprietor in Reith; but she was so little used to importance that she did not at all perceive that the people treated her very differently from the former proprietor of the Hof.

      Before him every hat was doffed with alacritous esteem due to his age and worth. But poor Aennerl hardly received so much as the old greeting, which in the days of companionship in poverty had always been the token of good fellowship with her, as with every one.

      It was long before any suspicion that she was mistrusted reached the mind of Aennerl. In the meantime she enjoyed her new condition to the full. Weekly visits to the Röhrerbüchel enabled her to purchase every thing she desired; and when the villagers held back from her, she ascribed their diffidence to the awe they felt for her wealth.

      In time, however, the novelty began to wear off. She grew tired at last of giving orders to her farm-servants, and watching her sleek cattle, and counting her stores of grain. That Jössl had not been to see her, she never ascribed to any thing but his respect for her altered condition; and she felt that she could not demean herself by being united to a lad who worked for day-wages.

      Still grandeur began to tire, and her isolation made her proud, and angry, and cross; and then people shunned her still more, and upon that she grew more vexed and angry. But, worse than this, she got even so used to her riches that she quite forgot all about the Nickel to whom she owed them. Her farm was so well stocked that it produced more than her wildest fancies required; she had no need to go back to the Röhrerbüchel to ask for more gold, and she had grown too selfish to visit it out of compassion to the dwarf.

      The Bergmännlein upon this grew disappointed; but his disappointment was of a different kind from Jössl’s. He was not content to sit apart and sulk; he was determined to have his revenge.

      One bleak October night, when the wind was rolling fiercely down from the mountains, there was a sudden and fearful cry of “Fire!” in the village of Reith. The alarm-bells repeated the cry aloud and afar. The good people rose in haste, and ran into the lane with that ready proffer of mutual help which distinguishes the mountain-folk.

      The whole sky was illumined, the fierce wind rolled the flames and the smoke hither and thither. It was Aennerl’s Hof which was the scene of the devastation. The fire licked up the trees, and the farm, and the rooftree before their eyes. So swift and unnatural was the conflagration that the people were paralyzed in their endeavour to help. One ran for ladders, another for buckets; but before any help could be obtained the whole homestead was but one vast bonfire. Then, madly rushing to the top of the high pointed roof, might be seen the figure of Aennerl clothed only in her white night-dress, and shrieking fearfully, “Save me! save me!” Every moment the roof threatened to fall in, and the agonized beholders watched her and sent up loud prayers, but were powerless to save.

      Suddenly, on the road from Goign a figure was seen hasting along. It was the Goigner Jössl. Would he be in time? The crowd was silent now, even their prayers were said in silence, for every one gasped for breath, and the voice failed. A trunk of an old branchless tree yet bent over the burning ruins. Jössl had climbed that trunk and was making a ladder of his body by which to rescue Aennerl all frantic from the roof. Will he reach her? Will his arm be long enough? Will he fall into the flame? Will he be overpowered by the smoke? See! he holds on bravely. The smoke rolls above his head, the flames dart out their fierce fangs beneath him! He holds on bravely still. He calls to Aennerl. She is fascinated with terror, and hears him not. “Aennerl! Aennerl!” once more, and his voice reached her, and with it a sting of reproach for her scornful conduct drives her to hide her face from his in shame.

      “Aennerl! Aennerl!” yet once again; and he wakes her, as from a dream, to a life like that of the past the frenzy had obliterated. She forgets where she is; but the voice of Jössl sounded to her as it sounded in the years gone by, and she obeys it mechanically. She comes within reach – and he seizes her! But the flames are higher now, and the smoke denser and more blinding. “Jesus Maria! where are they? They have fallen into the flames at last! Jesus, erbarme Dich ihrer60!”

      “Hoch! Hoch! Hoch61!” shouts the crowd, a minute later. “They are saved, Gott sei dank, they are saved!” and a jubilant cry rings through the valley which the hills take up and echo far and wide.

      On the edge of the crowd, apart, stands a little misshapen old man with grey, matted hair and beard, whom no one knows, but who has watched every phase of the catastrophe with thrilling emotion.

      It was he who first raised the cry that they had fallen into the flames; and the people sickened as they heard it, for he spoke it in joy, and not in anguish. In the gladness of the deliverance they have forgotten the old man, but now he shouted once more, as he dashed his hood over his head in a tone of disappointed fury, “I did it! and I will have my revenge yet!”

      “No; let there be peace,” said Jössl, who had deposited Aennerl in safe hands, and now came forth to deal one more stroke for her; “let there be peace, old man, and let bygones be bygones.”

      “Never!” said the Cobbold; “I have said I will have my revenge, and I will have it!”

      “But,” argued Jössl, “have you not had your revenge? All you gave her you have had taken away – she is as she was before: can you not leave her so?”

      “No!” thundered the dwarf; “I will have the life of her before I’ve done.”

      “Never!” in his turn shouted Jössl; and he placed himself in front of the elf.

      “Oh, don’t be afraid,” replied the dwarf, with a cold sneer, “I’m not going after her. I’ve only to wait a bit, and she’ll come after me.”

      Jössl was inclined to let him go, but remembering the instability of woman, he thought it better to make an end of the tempter there and then.

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<p>60</p>

“Have mercy on them!”

<p>61</p>

The cry which in South Germany is equivalent to our “hurrah!”