Page - 128 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

“Aye, aye, my dear Heath—Peter,” said the old man, recovering his breath, “that’s so. With your permission, I will sit down at once.” The farmer’s wife pulled on her dress again and hurried into the kitchen to warm some soup; then she called back into the parlour: “Go and light a candle, Peter. The rush won’t burn properly, and the smoke makes one’s eyes fairly smart.” Then, when a tallow candle was burning on the table and the old man had wiped the sweat from his careworn face, Heath Peter almost shyly offered him his hand and said: “Well, how do you come wandering into the Wilderness like this, Schoolmaster?” “It had to be,” replied the old man. “It’s a case, with me, of ‘Forsaken and beat, like the stones in the street.’ I just turned up a footpath and went on over hill and dale as the Lord willed. And so, in the end, I came to you people in the Wilderness.” “And, if I may ask, where do you mean to go, Schoolmaster?” The old man made no reply. His head sank down upon his chest. His fingers clutched at his blue handkerchief; but, before he could raise it with trembling hand to his face, he burst into heavy sobs. “Lord Jesus! Schoolmaster!” cried Peter, springing to support him, for the old man threatened to collapse. “Never would I have thought,” he sobbed at last, “that such an hour as this would come to me in my old days. God above, Thou knowest, that I have not deserved it!” “There must have been some great misfortune,” the farmer said. “But Schoolmaster must not take it too much to heart. And if there is anything I can do he must let me know.” “God bless you, Heath Peter! You are a good soul, and I’ve known you this many a long day: why, it must be nigh on five-and-thirty years. It was I pushed back your little bonnet when the priest christened you. Ah me, if the same priest were only still alive! He was a good man, indeed, and would not have discharged me like a day-labourer at the end of his day’s work, no, not though I did ring ten bells for Louis the herdsman. True, I’m old now, and can’t look after the school as I used to. Also I can’t get accustomed to the new church government. You know how the new provisor called me a prophet of Beelzebub? I knew that I had done nothing wrong, for all that, and went on holding my extra classes. Lastly, you also must have heard that poor crazy