Page - 118 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

our lot, two men had become soldiers: a bloodless, but very good-looking charcoal-burner’s son; and a labourer. The labourer put on a jovial and almost wild air and tried to pick a quarrel with more than one stranger who greeted us in the street. The charcoal-burner’s son was steeped in melancholy. We did not know what he was losing through a military life, nor he either: he just gazed at the great mountains and the glorious forest trees…. We others and the inns on the road took all the greater care to keep the mad recruiting-spirit alive. By the custom of our fathers, the rosette and ribbons are worn on the hat by the recruit who goes home a soldier and by no other. But we acted differently that day: we all kept our rosettes, so as to create a greater sensation and compel respect. “Look, look! Expect we’ll be having war soon,” said many a little peasant, “for they’re keeping them all now, every man jack of them. It’ll be true what the old folks say, that the women will fight for the chair on which a he once sat.” Beyond the village of Fressnitz we came up with a beggar-man carrying a hurdy-gurdy on his back. One of us at once demanded the use of it; and, while a second led the old man like a bridle-horse, a third ground out on the beggar- man’s back all the tunes which the organ contained; and we others danced and jumped about on the frozen road. In this array, we arrived at Krieglach, where we took our musical team to the tavern with us. The old man was in fine fettle and assured us that we were angels of recruits compared with those of his day. He had been one himself; and once they took a peasant who was sitting in a cart, letting his donkey pull him uphill, and harnessed him between the shafts and put the donkey in the cart instead; and they had done saucier things than that. He drank our healths and praised the days of old. There was lots of singing as we crossed the mountain by the bridle-path. I should be sorry to repeat the songs. We sang ourselves warm, we sang ourselves hoarse. On the upper ridge, a hawker, known as Egg Mary, met us, carrying to Mürzzuschlag her baskets filled with those little things of which the songs says: It’s an oval fortress, Has no towers, no portress But lordly food inside. And the words came to my mouth: “Raw eggs are good for hoarseness!” “We’ll make sure of that at once!” cried the others, took the woman’s basket and sucked out all her eggs—the charcoal-burner’s son with the rest of them—and I too.