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nothing. I did not know where I was. If only a deer would come I would ask
my way of it; quite probably it would be able to direct me, for everyone
knows that on Christmas Eve the beasts can talk like men.
I got up to climb back again, but only loosened the rocks and made no
progress. Hands and feet were aching. I stood still and called for Sepp as loud
as ever I could. Lingering and faint, my voice fell back from the forests and
cliffs. Then again I heard nothing but the soughing of the wind.
The frost was cutting right into my limbs. “Sepp! Sepp!” I shouted once
more with all my might. Again nothing but the long-drawn-out echo. Then a
fearful anguish took possession of me. I called quickly, one after another, my
parents, my grandmother, all the farm-hands and maids of our household by
name. It was all in vain.
I began to cry miserably.
There I stood trembling, my body throwing a long shadow aslant down the
naked rock. I went to and fro along the ledge to warm myself a little, and I
prayed aloud to the holy Christchild to save me.
The moon stood high in the dark heavens.
I could no longer cry or pray, I could scarcely move any more. I crouched
down shivering on a stone and said to myself, “I shall go to sleep now; it’s all
only a dream, and when I wake up I shall either be at home or in heaven.”
Then on a sudden I heard a rustling in the juniper bushes above me, and
soon after I felt that something was touching me and lifting me up. I wanted
to scream, but I couldn’t—my voice was frozen within me. Fear and anguish
kept my eyes fast shut. Hands and feet, too, were as if lamed, I could not
move them. Then I felt warm, and it seemed to me as if all the mountain
rocked with me.
When I came to myself and awoke it was still night; but I was standing at
the door of my home and the house-dog was barking furiously. Somebody had
let me slip down on the hard-trodden snow, and had then knocked loudly on
the door and hurried away. I had recognised this somebody; it was the Moss-
wife.
The door opened, and grandmother threw herself upon me with the words,
“Jesus Christ, here he is!”
She carried me into the warm living-room, but from thence quickly back
again into the entrance. There she set me on the bread-trough, and hastened
outside and blew her most piercing whistle.
She was quite alone. When Sepp had come back from church and not found
The Forest Farm
Tales of the Austrian Tyrol
- Titel
- The Forest Farm
- Untertitel
- Tales of the Austrian Tyrol
- Autor
- Peter Rosegger
- Verlag
- The Vineyard Press
- Ort
- London
- Datum
- 1912
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 169
- Kategorien
- Geographie, Land und Leute
- International