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V
How Little Maxel’s House was Burned
Down
HOW well I remember that night!
A dull report, as if the trap-door of the hay-loft had slammed to, woke me
up. And then someone rapped on the window and called into the living-room:
whoever wanted to see little Maxel’s house burning must get up and go and
look.
My father sprang out of bed; I began to cry, and immediately thought about
rescuing my rabbit. When other people lost their heads in moments of
emergency it was always blind Julia, our old servant, who calmed us down
again. So now, too, she remarked it wasn’t our house that was burning, but
little Maxel’s, and that was half an hour away; that it was not even certain that
little Maxel’s house was burning; that a wag, passing by, had thrown the lie in
through the window; and that quite possibly no one had done so at all, but it
had only happened to us in a dream.
Meanwhile she pulled on my breeches and shoes, and we hurried out of the
house to look.
“Oh dear! oh dear!” cried my father. “It’s all gone already!”
Over the WaldrĂĽcken, which stretches like a wide-bowed saddle across our
part of the country, dividing it into Highlands and Lowlands, the flame
streamed steady and clear toward us. No hissing nor crackling was to be
heard; the beautiful new house, only finished a few weeks before, was
burning like oil. The air was damp, the stars were hidden; now and again
there was a growl of thunder, but the storm was drawing gently away in the
direction of Berkfeld and Weitz.
The lightning—so the man who had wakened us now said—had been
darting hither and thither, had described a great cross in the sky, and then
descended. The fiery point at its lower end had never died out, but had grown
rapidly larger, and then he—the man—had thought to himself, “There now,
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