Page - 48 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

back ride!” “Well, after that I’ll manage all right, and when Sunday comes I’ll bring him back home again.” “I’m not afraid of your not bringing him back safe and sound,” said my father; “and if Frau Drachenbinder really wants to have something written down, and seeing that you’re her man, and if the lad will go with you—there’s no objection so far as I’m concerned.” He uttered these words with a smooth, ordinary countenance. A little later I was rigged out in my Sunday clothes. Elated with my so suddenly acquired importance I strutted up and down the room. “You wandering Jew, you!” exclaimed my father. “Haven’t you got anything to sit upon?” But there was no more peace for me. Better than anything I should have liked to settle myself there and then on the big man’s broad back, and ride straight away. But just then my mother came in bringing a steaming savoury dish, saying, “Eat that, you two, before you start off!” Not in vain did she say it. I had never yet seen our biggest wooden spoon piled up so high as then when the strange big man plied it between the meat- platter and his bearded mouth. But I walked up and down all the while and thought about how I was going to become Frau Drachenbinder’s scrivener. Presently, when matters had gone so far that my mother could turn the dish upside-down on the hearth without a crumb falling out, I hopped up on to the man’s back, held on hard by his beard, and rode away in the name of God. The sun was already setting; the valleys were full of blue shadow; the far snow-heights of the Alps were a dull rose-colour. So long as my nag was trotting uphill over the bare pastures the snow bore his weight well, but when he came in among the young larch and pine-woods the surface became treacherous and broke under him. He was prepared for that, however. When he came up to an old hollow larch with wild arms stretching out into the air, he pulled up, thrust his right hand into the dark cavity, and fished out a pair of snow-shoes of woven willow which he bound under his shoe-soles. Upon these wide things he began the pilgrimage anew. Progress was slow, for in order to manage the shoes he must keep them far apart; but with such duck’s feet there was no more breaking through. Suddenly—it was already dark and the stars shining clear—my mount began to undo my shoes, pulled them clean off my feet and put them away in his turned-up apron. Then he said, “Now, laddie, stick your little hoofs in my