Seite - 105 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol
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ââWhat do you say, woodman?â
ââWhen the master-woodman comes home he will find nothing left.
Everything has gone!â
ââThe wife? The child?â
ââEverythingâs gone. If your son goes home, prepare him for it. I must go to
Niederalpel.â
âThat was what the woodman saidâand then he was off.â
I cannot repeat as my fellow-wayfarer told it; it went straight into my heart
like a knife. But the young fellow remained unmoved, and went on telling:
âNo one knows what Huntsman Kickel thought of this message. At first he
wanted to go up to the heights where the black smoke was making the whole
heavens dark. But he was unable, because of the bad foot. âHis wife and his
child! His wife and his child! His wife and his child!â The whole time just
that. âEnd it!â Kickel went into the parlour and stared out of the window.
âNow heâs comingâand now heâs coming.â He took the gun from the wall
and stood in the middle of the parlour and looked out through the window to
the path outside. At last he came, Oswald, out from the green wood; he did
not look up, and still did not know anything about it, and came so quickly and
gaily to the house where his father lived. And Huntsman Kickel aimed
through the window and shot him down.â
âJesus Christ!â I cried. âHad he gone mad?â
âOne cannot say that,â answered the lad. âWhen his old housekeeper came
home, he sent her at once for a cart, went to the police, and when examined he
said he could not endure that his Oswald should have trouble and go on
living, and he had thought to himself, âHe knows nothing, and needs to know
nothing. That useless grieving for many a day and year is quite unnecessary.
A quick death, and you are after them, you are set free from everythingâand
I, your father, can do you no better service than that.â He said, âI did not aim
badly; and now, your honours, please make an end of me.â I believe they gave
him fifteen years, but when the Kaiser married in fifty-four they let him off
the rest.â
I went thoughtfully along the woodland path, and said:
âItâs almost beyond belief.â
âIt was best,â continued my companion, âthat they fetched him away at
once and took him to Loeben. He couldnât have lived after knowing the worst
of all.â
âWhat the woodman saidâwas it not true, then?â I asked it with my breath
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