Part 8 (1/2)
”Look, look!” exclaimed Andreas Hofer, turning with a radiant smile to his two friends; ”he is indeed the same man who bade us farewell at that time in Brunecken, and was not ashamed of embracing Andreas Hofer and shedding tears on his shoulder for the poor sacrificed Tyrol.”
”And who is glad to-day to be able to embrace Andreas Hofer again,”
said the archduke, encircling the Herculean form of the Tyrolese innkeeper with his arms. ”But I will shed no tears to-day, Andreas, for I hope the time of tears is over, and you have come to tell me so, to bring me love-greetings from the Tyrolese, and the hope of better times. Say, you three brave men from the Tyrol, Andreas Hofer, Joseph Speckbacher, Anthony Wallner, is it not so? Have you not come to tell me that the Tyrol is longing for her emperor and desirous of getting rid of the Bavarians?”
”Yes, we have come to say this to our dear John,” exclaimed Andreas Hofer.
”We have come to ask if Austria does not intend to call upon her Tyrol to rise and fight under her banners,” said Joseph Speckbacher.
”We have come to ask our Archduke John if he will help us with his troops and cannon in case we Tyrolese should rise now to expel the Bavarians from the country,” said Anthony Wallner, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.
”We have come to ask our John, Is it time?” exclaimed Andreas Hofer.
The archduke held out his hand to him with a firm and resolute glance. ”Yes,” he said, ”yes, Andreas Hofer, it is time! Yes, Anthony Wallner, Austria will a.s.sist the Tyrolese with her troops and cannon in expelling the Bavarians and French from their country.
Yes, Joseph Speckbacher, Austria intends to call upon her faithful Tyrol to rise and fight under her banners; she will engage in a mortal contest for you and with you!”
”G.o.d grant success to our united efforts!” said Andreas Hofer, folding his hands over the crucifix on his breast. ”During all these years I have prayed every day to the Holy Virgin to let me live and see the day when the Austrian eagle shall once more adorn our boundary-posts, and when we may again fondly and faithfully love our Emperor Francis as our legitimate sovereign. The good G.o.d in heaven, I hope, will forgive me for having been a very bad and obstinate subject of the King of Bavaria. I would never submit to the new laws, and could not discover in my old Austrian heart a bit of loyalty or love for the ruler who was forced upon us.”
”No, you were a stubborn disloyalist, Andy.” said Hormayr, ”and, as spokesman of your whole district, you raised your voice against every new law which the Bavarian government promulgated in your country. But, it is true the Tyrolese love their Andy for this, and say that he is the most honest, faithful, and reliable man in the whole valley of the Adige.”
”To be courageous is not so difficult if the cause which you fight for is a good one,” said Andreas Hofer, calmly. ”G.o.d Himself engraved on my heart the commandment to be loyal to my emperor, my country, and its laws; and if you call me reliable, dear friend, you merely say that I do my duty as a Christian, for the Bible says, 'Let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of sin.' Therefore, do not praise me for that which is only my duty, and which Speckbacher and Wallner, and all our dear friends in the valley of the Adige, do just as well as I.
For the rest, I must tell you, gentlemen, it is not so strange that we should be attached to the emperor; for the Bavarians are governing our country in such a manner as if they were intent only on making us love our emperor every day more and more, and long for him more intensely.”
”It is true, Andy is right,” exclaimed Anthony Wallner; ”the Bavarians oppress us fearfully, and we will not stand it any longer; we will become Austrians again, as our fathers were, and will fight for our liberty and our old privileges which Bavaria solemnly guaranteed, and which her authorities basely intend to overthrow.”
”Which they have already overthrown,” cried Joseph Speckbacher, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng with anger. ”The court of Munich seems intent only on making the utmost of their new acquisition. Our old const.i.tution has been overthrown by a royal edict; the representative estates have been suppressed, and the provincial funds seized. No less than eight new and oppressive taxes have been imposed and are being levied with the utmost rigor; the very name of our country has been abolished; the royal property has all been brought into the market; new imports are daily exacted without any consultation with the estates of the people; specie has become scarce, from the quant.i.ty of it which is being drawn off to the Bavarian treasury; the Austrian notes have been reduced to half their value; and, to crown all these wrongs, compulsory levies are held among our young men, who are to serve in the ranks of our oppressors! No, we must break the yoke weighing us down--we will become freemen again--as freemen we will live and die- -as freemen we will belong again to our beloved Emperor Francis, whose ancestors have ruled over us for so many centuries past.”
”If all the Tyrolese think and feel as you three do,” said the Archduke John, with sparkling eyes, ”you will recover your liberty and your emperor, despite the Bavarians and French.”
”All feel and think as we do,” said Hofer, thoughtfully; ”we have all vowed to G.o.d and the Holy Virgin that we will deliver the Tyrol from the enemy; and every man, every lad in our mountains and valleys, is ready to take up his rifle and fight for his dear Emperor Francis.”
”We are here as delegates of the whole Tyrol,” said Anthony Wallner, ”to ascertain the wishes and intentions of the emperor and his government, prefer our bitter complaints, and declare the firm resolution of the Tyrolese to shrink from no sacrifice in order to be reunited with Austria and to reconquer our ancient rights and liberties.”
”But we need a.s.sistance for this purpose,” added Joseph Speckbacher, ”speedy and vigorous a.s.sistance; above all, we need troops, money, ammunition, and supplies. Will Austria give them to us?”
”She will,” said the archduke. ”She will send you a corps d'armee, money, ammunition, and supplies. Only you must be ready and prepared to rise as one man when we give you the signal of insurrection.”
”We are ready!” exclaimed Andreas Hofer, nodding joyously. ”But you must not delay the signal very long, for delays are highly-- dangerous under the present circ.u.mstances. We and our friends have prepared the insurrection, and it is as if a large torrent of fire were flowing secretly under the surface of the Tyrol; if some shrewd Bavarian should scratch away some of the earth, he would discover the fire, fetch water, and extinguish the flames, before the Austrians reach the country and prevent him from so doing. A secret known to a great many is seldom well kept; it is, as it were, a ripe fruit which must fall from the tree, even though it should hit and crush the head of the owner of the tree.”
”Yes, what is to be done must be done soon,” said Anthony Wallner.
”The men of Pa.s.seyr, Meran, Mays, and Algund, are ready, and have entered into a secret league with the whole valley of the Inn. The district of the Adige, too, has joined us, and the German and Italian Tyrolese, who formerly never liked each other, have now agreed to stand shoulder to shoulder and rise on one day and as one man, in order to drive the Bavarians and French from their mountains.”
”We are waiting only for Austria to give the signal; pray do not keep us waiting too long, for we men of the Lower Innthal, too, are all ready and armed. An enormous worm of insurrection, as it were, is creeping through the Lower Inn valley, and the worm has four heads, which look toward all quarters of the world. One head is Rupert Wintersteller, of Kirchdorf; the second is Jacob Sieberer, of Thiersen; the third is Antony Aschbacher, of Achenthal; and the fourth is I, Joseph Speckbacher, of Kufstein.”
”In the Puster valley, too, a storm is brewing, and all are ready and impatient to rise in insurrection,” said Hofer. ”Therefore, dear brother of our emperor, give us good news, that we may take it home to the men of the Tyrol, for their hearts are longing and crying for their sovereign the emperor.”
”And the emperor, on his part, is longing for his Tyrolese,” said the archduke. ”The time has come when that which belongs together is to be reunited. Let us consult and deliberate, then, my friends, what we should do in order to attain our great object, and reunite the Tyrolese with their emperor.”
”Yes, let us, consult,” said Hofer, solemnly; ”and let us pray G.o.d and the Holy Virgin to enlighten our minds.”
He raised the crucifix from his breast to his face and bent over it, muttering a prayer.
”Now I am ready,” he said, slowly dropping the crucifix; ”let us deliberate. But I tell you beforehand, I am no military hero, nor a wise man in council. I am resolved to do all that is necessary to deliver my dear Tyrol from the enemy, and to strike and fire at the Bavarians and French until they run away terror-stricken, and restore us to our dear Emperor Francis. But I am unversed in negotiations and devising shrewd tricks and stratagems. I am only a plain peasant, who has a great deal of love and fidelity in his heart, but only few thoughts in his head. Baron von Hormayr and the archduke may do the thinking for me. They shall be the head, and I the arm and heart. Speckbacher and Wallner yonder have good heads too, though I do not wish to say that their hearts are not also in the right place; on the contrary, I know that they are. Let us consult, then, and bear in mind that G.o.d hears us, and that the Tyrolese are waiting for us.”