Page - 29 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

the heath was Our Lord Himself.—There, laddie, and now we must be getting on.” Then we stood up and climbed into the woods on the mountain-side. On the way home, we met two beggar-men; I peered very closely into their faces; for I thought: “Our Lord may be concealed behind one of them.” On the evening of the same day, I was told to take off my Sunday suit—for father was a thrifty man—and was playing and skipping about in my shabby workaday breeches, with only the brand-new grey jacket, which I did not want to take off and had begged to be allowed to wear for the rest of the day. Mother was attending to her household duties and I ran out to the sheep-walk, for it was my business to bring the sheep home to the fold, including a little white lamb that was my own property. As I hopped along, throwing stones into the air and trying to hit the golden evening clouds, suddenly I saw an old, white-headed and very poorly dressed man squatting on a rock a little way off. I stopped, greatly startled; dared not take another step; and thought to myself: “Now this is most certainly Our Lord.” I trembled with fear and joy and simply had no notion what to do. “If it is Our Lord,” I said to myself, “then surely I must give Him something. If I go home now, so that mother comes and looks out and sees me and tells me how the matter stands, He might be gone in the meantime; and that would be disgraceful and ridiculous. I think it is He beyond a doubt: the one whom the horseman met looked just like that.” I went a few steps back and began to tear at my grey jacket. It was no easy work: the coat fitted so tightly over my coarse linen shirt; and I did not want to be puffing and panting, lest the beggar-man should notice me too soon. I had a yellow-handled pocket-knife, brand-new and just lately sharpened. I took it out of my pocket, put the little coat under my knee and began to divide it down the middle. It was soon done and I stole up to the beggar-man, who seemed to be half asleep, and put his part of my coat on his head: “Take this, my needy brother!” I said, silently, in my thoughts. Then I put my half of the coat under my arm, gazed at Our Lord a little longer and then drove the sheep from the walk. “He is sure to come in the night,” I thought, “and then father and mother