Andreas Hofer Part 66

"I cannot promise any thing to a rebel," replied the officer, contemptuously.

"But you have come to seize me, and none but me," continued Andreas, in a gentle voice. "Well, then, here I am; do with me as you please.

But I ask you to have mercy upon my wife and my son, and this young man, for they are entirely innocent." [Footnote: Andreas Hofer's own words. See "Gallery of Heroes."]

The officer made no reply. He signed to his soldiers, and ordered them to bind Andreas Hofer and the others in such a manner as to render it utterly impossible for them to escape.

The soldiers rushed furiously upon the defenseless captives, tied their hands on their backs, and wound the ropes round their necks, so that they could drag them forward like oxen. And after binding Andreas Hofer, so that they were no longer afraid of his strong arms, they surrounded him with scornful laughter, tore handfuls of hair from his beard, and said they would keep them "as souvenirs of General Barbone." Blood streamed from his lacerated face, but the cold froze it and transformed the gory beard into a blood red icicle, which p.r.i.c.ked the numerous wounds in his chin every moment, and inflicted intense pain.

Andreas did not complain; he looked only at his wife, his son, and his friend, who, bound like himself, scantily dressed and barefooted like himself, were dragged down the mountain, which was covered with snow and ice, into the plain below. His hands, into which the rope was cutting all the while, were very sore; his bare feet swelled from walking on the snow and were torn by the icicles. Still Andreas did not complain; but on hearing the low wails of his son, on seeing that every footstep of his wife, who was dragged along before him, left a b.l.o.o.d.y spot in the snow, he burst into loud sobs, and two tears rolled slowly down his cheeks into his beard, where they froze in the blood.

The dreadful march was continued to Meran. French generals, staff- officers, and soldiers awaited the tottering prisoners at the gate.

The soldiers greeted the captured "bandit chief Barbone" with loud cheers and scornful laughter; and Andreas Hofer and the others entered the city, preceded by a band which played a ringing march.

The French were overjoyed, but the citizens stood in front of their houses, and, regardless of the presence of their cruel enemies, greeted Andreas Hofer with tears and loud lamentations.

The journey was continued on the following day to Botzen; only the prisoners, whose bleeding and lacerated feet refused to carry them any longer, had been laid on a common farm-wagon, and some clothing had been thrown over them.

At Botzen Andreas Hofer received cheering news. A n.o.ble German lady, the wife of Baron de Giovanelli, had dared to implore the French General Baraguay d'Hilliers to have mercy on Hofer's unfortunate and innocent family; to save them, she had knelt down before the general and besought him with heart-rending lamentations. Baraguay d'Hilliers had been unable to withstand her supplications, and consented to release those for whom she pleaded.

"The viceroy's orders," he said, "are only to the effect that the Sandwirth Hofer be conveyed to Mantua. I yield to your prayers, therefore, madame; his companions shall be released, and shall not be molested again. His wife may return with her son to her home, and carry on the inn as heretofore; but she must be cautious and not expose herself to new dangers by imprudent words. The young man may go wherever he pleases."

This was the cheering intelligence which Andreas Hofer received on the third day of his captivity in the jail where he and his dear ones lay on wet straw.

"See, Cajetan," he exclaimed, joyfully, "it turns out just as I said. My seizure releases my wife and my child, and relieves them from all dangers."

"But I will not leave you," cried Anna Gertrude, embracing him tenderly; "I will stay and die with you."

"And is our son yonder to die too?" asked Andreas, pointing to his boy. "And our three little girls, are they to become entirely helpless, and have neither father nor mother to protect them? Anna Gertrude, you must be father and mother to them; you must not leave them and our boy. You must preserve their small inheritance to them, bring them up in the fear of the Lord, and teach them, also, to love their poor father and honor his memory."

"Husband, dear husband, I cannot leave you, I cannot!" sobbed the poor woman. "Do not thrust me from your heart, do not leave me behind, all alone and without consolation."

Andreas lifted his arm and pointed up to heaven. "There is our Consoler," he said; "He will help you. Confide in Him, Anna Gertrude. Go to your children, be father and mother to them, and love them in my and your name."

At this moment the door of the prison opened, and the jailer, followed by soldiers, came in.

"Andreas Hofer," said the jailer, imperatively, "come! The wagon which is to convey you to Mantua is in readiness. As for you others, begone; you have no longer any business here. Come, Andreas Hofer, come!"

"Let me first bless my wife and my son, my friend," said Hofer, and, laying his hands on the heads of his wife and child, he blessed them in a loud voice, and commended them to the protection of the Lord.

Doeninger knelt behind him, and Andreas Hofer laid his hand on his head also, blessed him, and thanked him for his love and fidelity.

"Come now, come!" cried the soldiers; and they seized him with rude violence and dragged him forward.

Anna Gertrude burst into loud lamentations in her grief and despair, and clung to Hofer in the anguish of her love.

"Do not lament any longer," said Andreas, mildly; "bring your grief as an offering to the crucified Redeemer, and show now that you are Hofer's wife. Farewell, love! Kiss our children! Forward now!"

And he led the way with a rapid step. Anna Gertrude, pale as a corpse, trembling and tottering, seized her son's hand and rushed after her husband. Cajetan Doeninger followed them resolutely and with a defiant expression of countenance.

At the street-door stood the farm-wagon, covered with straw, which was to convey Andreas Hofer to Mantua. Ten soldiers with loaded muskets stood upon it, and a crowd of soldiers surrounded it.

Andreas Hofer walked calmly and with head erect through their ranks to the wagon. His wife had knelt down; she wept and sobbed bitterly, and embraced convulsively her son, who gazed in dismay at his father.

Andreas Hofer had now ascended the wagon. The soldiers stepped back, and the driver whipped up the horses.

Suddenly, Cajetan Doeninger elbowed his way to the wagon, and signed to the driver to stop.

"I shall accompany Hofer," he said, grasping the side-railing of the wagon in order to mount it.

"No, no," cried the jailer, hastening to him. "You are mistaken, you are free."

Doeninger, still clinging to the railing of the wagon, turned to him. "What said the general's order?" he asked.

"It said, 'the young man is free, and can go wherever he pleases.'"

"Well, then," said Doeninger, mounting the wagon, quickly, "the young man will accompany Andreas Hofer to Mantua. Forward, driver, forward!"

The driver whipped up the horses, and the wagon started for Mantua.

[Footnote: Donay, the priest who betrayed Andreas Hofer, according to the general belief of the Tyrolese, was soon afterwards appointed imperial chaplain at the chapel of Loretto, by a special decree of the Emperor Napoleon, and received, besides, large donations in lands and money.--See Hormayr's "Andreas Hofer," vol. ii., p. 507.-- The peasant Francis Joseph Raffel, who had betrayed Hofer's place of concealment to Donay, was afterward called Judas Iscariot throughout the Tyrol. Every one turned his back upon him with the utmost horror, and the men of the Pa.s.seyr valley told him they would shoot him if he did not hang himself within a week. Raffel fled in great dismay to Bavaria, where the government gave him a small office in the revenue department--See "Gallery of Heroes; Andreas Hofer," p.

191.]

CHAPTER XLII.

THE WARNING.

The French hunted throughout the Tyrol for the unfortunate men who had hitherto been the heroes of the fatherland, but who, since their cause had succ.u.mbed, were called rebels and traitors. The soldiers who were in search of this n.o.ble game, for which large rewards were offered to them, had already succeeded in arresting one of the heroes of the Tyrol: Peter Mayer had fallen into their hands, and, having been tried by a military commission at Botzen, was shot. But they had been unable as yet to discover the hiding-places of the other insurgent leaders, despite the large prices which the government had set upon their heads. Joseph Speckbacher, for whom the soldiers were hunting most eagerly, had disappeared. The French and Bavarians ransacked every house where they suspected he might be concealed; they inflicted the heaviest fines and most cruel tortures on the friends of the fugitive chief, because they would not betray the place where their beloved commander was concealed; but all was in vain. Joseph Speckbacher had disappeared, and so had Father Haspinger and Anthony Wallner. [Footnote: Speckbacher had fled to the higher mountains, where, on one of the summits of the Eisgletscher, in a cavern discovered by him in former times when pursuing the chamois, he lay for several weeks in the depth of winter, supported by salt provisions, eaten raw, lest the smoke of a fire should betray his place of concealment to his pursuers.

Happening one day, in the beginning of March, to walk to the entrance for a few minutes to enjoy the ascending sun, an avalanche, descending from the summit of the mountain above, swept him along with it, down to the distance of half a mile on the slope beneath, and dislocated his hip-bone in the fall. Unable now to stand, surrounded only by ice and snow, tracked on every side by ruthless pursuers, his situation was, to all appearance, desperate; but even then the unconquerable energy of his mind and the incorruptible fidelity of his friends saved him from destruction. Summoning up all his courage, he contrived to drag himself along the snow for several leagues, during the night, to the village of Volderberg, where, to avoid discovery, he crept into the stable. His faithful friend gave him a kind reception, and carried him on his back to Rinn, where his wife and children were, and where Zoppel, his devoted domestic, concealed him in a hole in the cowhouse, beneath where the cattle stood, though beyond the reach of their feet, where he was covered up with cow-dung and fodder, and remained for two months, till his leg was set and he was able to walk. The town was full of Bavarian troops; but this extraordinary place of concealment was never discovered, even when the Bavarian dragoons, as was frequently the case, were in the stable looking after their horses. Zoppel did not even inform Speckbacher's wife of her Husband's return, lest her emotions or visits to the place might betray his place of concealment. At length, in the beginning of May, the Bavarian soldiers having left the house, Speckbacher was lifted from his living grave and restored to his wife and children. As soon as he was able to walk, he set out, and, journeying chiefly in the night, through the wildest and most secluded Alps, by Dux and the sources of the Salza, he pa.s.sed the Styrian Alps, where he crossed the frontier and reached Vienna in safety. There he was soon after joined by his family and liberally provided for.

Haspinger succeeded in escaping into Switzerland, whence he travelled by cross-paths through Friuli and Carinthia to Vienna, where he received protection from the emperor.]

General Broussier was especially exasperated at the last named, the valiant commander of Windisch-Matrey, and he had promised a reward of one thousand ducats to him who would arrest "that dangerous demagogue and bandit-chief, Anthony Aichberger-Wallner," and deliver him to the French authorities. But Wallner and his two sons, who, although hardly above the age of boyhood, had seemed to the French authorities so dangerous that they had set prices upon their heads, were not to be found anywhere. Schroepfel, Wallner's faithful servant, had taken the boys into the mountains, where he stayed with them; after nightfall he went down to Matrey to fetch provisions for the lonely fugitives.

Anthony Wallner's fine house was silent and deserted now. Only his wife and his daughter Eliza lived in it, and they pa.s.sed their days in dreary loneliness and incessant fear and anguish. Eliza Wallner was alone, all alone and joyless. She had not seen her beloved Elza since the day when she was married. She herself had started the same night with Haspinger for her father's headquarters. Elza had remained with her young husband in Innspruck, where her father died on the following day; and after the old Baron had been buried, Elza had accompanied her husband to Munich. From thence she wrote from time to time letters overflowing with fervent tenderness to her beloved friend, and these letters were the only sunbeams which illuminated Eliza's cheerless life; these letters told her of her friend's happiness, of her attachment to her young husband, who treated her with the utmost kindness and tenderness.

Eliza had received this afternoon another letter from her friend; with a melancholy smile she read Elza's description of her domestic happiness, and her eyes had unconsciously filled with tears which rolled slowly down her pale cheeks. She dried them quickly, but her mother, who sat opposite her near the lamp and seemed to be busily sewing, had already seen them.

"Why do you weep, Lizzie?" she asked. "Have you got bad news from Elza?"

Eliza shook her head with a mournful smile. "No, dear mother," she said; "thank G.o.d, my Elza is happy and well, and that is my only joy."

"And yet you weep, Eliza?"

"Did I weep, then?" she asked. "It was probably a tear of joy at my Elza's happiness."

"No, Lizzie, it was no tear of joy," cried her mother, mournfully.

"I see you often in tears, when you think that I do not notice it.

You are grieving, Lizzie, do not deny it; you are grieving. You sacrificed your love and happiness to Elza, and she does not even know it; she does not thank you, and you will pine away. I see very well how sad you are; and you become paler and more emaciated from day to day. Yes, yes, you will die of grief, for you still love Ulrich von Hohenberg."