Page - 110 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

XIII The Recruit NEVER in my life shall I forget that February morning. It was only to be expected; and yet it took us by surprise. I was a little over twenty years of age. Though I already felt a regular young man and did my very best to act as such, still I always looked upon myself as a child, for I was ever so considered by my parents and to a certain extent so treated by my teacher. I had to stoop nowadays, when I entered the house through the door; and, when I stood by the table-corner in the parlour, my head reached up to the Holy Trinity on the wall, to espy whose mystery I had so often, as a boy, scrambled up chair and table. But people still always called me by my short pet name; and I still answered to it. And so, silently, that February morning came upon us. It was a Sunday. I had come back from a long job,[14] and meant to have a pleasant rest. When I awoke, my father was standing by the bed and said it was high time for me to get up, he wanted to speak to me. “Do you owe any money to Bürscher the innkeeper at Krieglach?” he asked, and waited anxiously for my answer. I asked him why he put such a question to me: what I had drunk at Bürscher’s I had always paid for. “So I should have thought. It’s only because Bürscher has sent me a paper to-day, which belongs to you, I’m thinking.” He gave me the paper: it was grey; and I turned red. Father noticed this and said: “Seems to me there’s some disgrace about it, for all that!” “Not a disgrace,” said I, with my eyes fixed on the lines, which were part in print and part in writing. “An honour rather. Present myself, that’s what I have to do.” The paper ran: