Part 8 (2/2)
”You are an excellent man, Andy,” exclaimed John, holding out his hand to Hofer with a tender glance--” a childlike soul, full of love, fidelity, and tenderness; and, in gazing at you, it seems as if the whole dear Tyrol, with its mountains and valleys, its Alpine huts and chapels, its merry singers and pious prayers, were present before me. Come, then, Andy, and you other dear friends, come, let us be seated and hold a council of war.”
They seated themselves around the table standing in the middle of the room.
Day was already dawning, the candles had burned down very low, the streets began to become lively, and still the Tyrolese remained in the archduke's cabinet, their faces glowing with defiance and resolution, and their eyes flas.h.i.+ng with boldness and enthusiasm.
For every thing was settled and decided now; each of them had received his instructions and been informed of the part which he was to play in the struggle. War with the Bavarians and French, and liberty for the Tyrol, was the battle-cry and goal.
”The plan is settled, then,” said the Archduke John, nodding kindly to the Tyrolese. ”Eleven points, especially, have been agreed upon, after mature deliberation; and it would be good for us to repeat them briefly.”
”Let us do so,” said Andreas Hofer. ”First, then: The Tyrolese will rise against the Bavarians, in order to be reunited with Austria. We shall enlist as many soldiers for the insurgent army as possible, and try to make all Tyrolese our fellow-conspirators. They will meet on Sundays at the taverns, and the innkeepers in the valleys and mountains are the leaders of the conspiracy; they will call the meetings and facilitate the intercourse of the conspirators with each other. If it please G.o.d, the insurrection will break out on the 9th of April, when the Austrian troops will cross the frontier of the Tyrol and hasten to our a.s.sistance. This is the best point, and G.o.d grant that it may be well executed!”
”The second point,” said Joseph Speckbacher, ”is as follows: No written communication whatever shall be permitted among the conspirators, and those who violate this order shall be severely punished. The secret messages will be carried by reliable and well- tried messengers from court-house to court-house and village to village. To this the third point adds the following: The oldest men in the villages will establish secret tribunals to try and punish those whom fear, self-interest, or bribes may induce to turn traitors. The families of suspicious persons, and those who betray our secrets from weakness or in a state of intoxication, must be closely watched, and they themselves will be sent to distant Alpine huts and into the mountain fastnesses, where they will be kept in close confinement.” ”Fourth,” said Anthony Wallner: ”Every innkeeper must strive to ama.s.s provisions, forage, wine, and ammunition; for the inns in the mountains are, as it were, small fortresses for the Tyrolese, and the enemy can reach them only slowly and after surmounting a great many difficulties. Besides, the innkeepers must arrange target-shootings every Sunday, that the men from the neighborhood may a.s.semble at their houses and join the great league of the defenders of the country. The innkeepers at very important places will receive for these purposes bills of exchange on Salzburg, Klagenfurth, and Trieste; and each of us three, Hofer, Speckbacher, and I, will take home with us one hundred and twenty ducats to be distributed among the innkeepers. Fifth: The intercourse between the mountain districts, on one side, and the plains and towns, on the other, must henceforth become rarer and rarer till the hour of the outbreak. But the mountaineers must send out, at intervals of four days, spies to ascertain the state of affairs in other parts of the country.”
”Sixth,” exclaimed the Archduke John, with beaming eyes: ”On the day when the insurrection is to break out, Field-Marshal Jellachich will arrive in front of Innspruck, and the vanguard of Field-Marshal Chasteler will march through the Puster valley to the heights of Schwabs and Elbach toward Brixen, and advance the head of his column beyond the Brenner as far as Botzen. Seventh: All the forces of the enemy moving toward Germany must be chased between these two columns of the Austrians and pursued and fired at incessantly by the mountaineers; they must be prevented night and day from obtaining rest and food; the best marksmen must pick off their officers and blow up their ammunition-wagons. The Tyrolese should chase the Bavarians and the French in this manner from Botzen to Brixen, up the Brenner, and thence down to Trent. Now, friend Hormayr, repeat the remaining four points.”
”The eighth point is: The removal of the Bavarian treasure must be prevented by all means. Ninth: The Tyrolese living on the rivers must prevent the enemy by all means from destroying the bridges and roads, so that the Austrians may be able to succor them more rapidly; but they must also hold men and tools in readiness, that, after the Austrians have arrived, they may destroy the bridges in the rear of the enemy, and render the roads impa.s.sable, by obstructing them with piles of wood and rocks. Tenth: The Tyrolese will try cautiously to bring about an understanding with Switzerland, and establish connections with the Lower and Upper Engadine, Chur, Appenzell, and St. Gall; for thence will come the English agents who will convey arms and money to the Tyrolese.
Eleventh--”
”Ah, let me state the eleventh point,” exclaimed Joseph Speckbacher, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes. ”I intend to take part in carrying out this point of the programme. It is, to take the fortress of Kufstein on the frontier by a nocturnal coup de main. Field-Marshal Jellachich will move several companies of riflemen as close up to the fortress as possible, and Jacob Sieberer and Joseph Speckbacher, who will beforehand enlist a.s.sistants in the town and spy out every thing, will join them. The capture of Kufstein is to commence the glorious struggle; it is to be the first hymn of liberty which the Tyrolese will send up to heaven like a lark in spring, and by which they will bless and praise the good G.o.d. The eleventh and last point is Kufstein. G.o.d protect us in carrying out these eleven points!”
[Footnote: These eleven points were settled in this manner at Vienna by the delegates of the Tyrolese, the Archduke John, and Baron von Hormayr, and noted down by the latter.--See Hormayr, ”Geschichte Andreas Hofer's,” vol. i, p. 193 et seq.]
”Amen!” exclaimed Andreas Hofer, raising his crucifix and pressing it to his lips. ”We have, then, resolved here in council with our Archduke John, and I hope also in council with the good G.o.d above, that the Tyrol is to be restored to its beloved imperial house. The work is to begin on the 9th of April, and we must be ready to rise on that day. On the 9th of April the Austrians are to cross the frontier, and on the previous evening they will inform us by firing off three rockets that they are at hand. At the same time bale-fires will be lighted on a hundred hills, and on the following morning we shall throw large quant.i.ties of blood, flour, or charcoal, into our mountain-torrents, that their blood-red, flour-white, or coal-black waters, flowing into and out of the country, may proclaim to the people that the time has come when all must rise, rifle in hand, to conquer or die for the dear Tyrol and the good Emperor Francis.”
”And I, too, am ready to conquer or die for the Tyrol and the emperor, and so is the corps whose commander I am,” exclaimed the archduke enthusiastically. ”The emperor, my gracious master, intends to intrust me with the command of the army which is to fight with and for the Tyrol, which will check the advance of the enemy approaching the Tyrol from the Italian frontier, and will second and strengthen the insurrection of the Tyrolese. Now, then, my friends and comrades let us prepare the great work bravely, prudently, and carefully. Collect your forces, as I shall collect mine; make all your dispositions, and exhort all to behave as true sons of the Tyrol. Above all things, be cautious. Keep in check not only your tongues but your faces, especially here in Vienna. For if the Bavarian spies here ferret out that Andreas Hofer, Speckbacher, and Wallner are in Vienna, and that I have had an interview with them, their keen noses will scent at once what is going on, and they will send, even before we reach the Tyrol, so many Bavarian and French soldiers into your country, that you will be tied hand and foot, and cannot raise your arms on the 9th of April to seize your rifles.
Therefore, I repeat it, keep your faces in check, and do not allow yourselves to be seen in the streets of Vienna in the daytime. Your beard, Andy, especially is a treacherous thing, and it would really be best for the Barbone to shave off his long mourning-flag.”
Andreas Hofer seized his beard with both his hands, almost in terror, and drew it caressingly through his fingers.
”No,” he said, ”my friends and countrymen know me by my beard, and the Barbone is a welcome guest in the Italian Tyrol. They would not recognize me if I should appear among them with a smooth chin; and they would doubt if it was Andreas Hofer who talked with them about the great conspiracy and insurrection in case they did not see his black beard.”
”No, archduke,” said Speckbacher, smiling and winking, ”you must not object to our Andy's beard, for it is the flag round which the Tyrolese will rally, and with which the Tyrol will adorn itself on the day of insurrection, as they put on their best clothes on the day of a.s.sumption. Moreover, Andreas Hofer must not be ungrateful; and he would be ungrateful if he should cut off his beard and throw it away, for his beard gained him one day a couple of fat oxen.”
”Is that true, Andy?” asked John, laughing.
”It is,” said Andreas Hofer, gravely. ”My beard did gain me two oxen. It happened as follows; archduke: I was quite a young man yet, and had married my wife, Anna Gertrude Ladurner, only a year before.
I was very fond of my little wife, and did not like to sit for hours in the tavern, as I had done heretofore. I stayed at home often enough instead of attending to my business, and going down to Italy or Germany to carry on my traffic in corn, wine, horses, and oxen, by which I had made a great deal of money. My friends sneered at my staying so much at home, and said: 'Andy Hofer, the Sandwirth, is a henpecked husband, and his wife is master of the house.' This was very disagreeable to me, for, although I love my Anna Gertrude from the bottom of my heart, I have always been the master; and she has been obedient to me, as the Bible says it should be between husband and wife. Well, one day I sat at home with a few friends; we were drinking wine in the bar-room. Suddenly there entered the room an old beggar with a tremendous beard reaching down to his girdle. I laugh at the beard and rejoice over its enormous length. One of my friends, Anthony Waidlinger, the rich Amselwirth, asks me: 'Well, Andy, would you like to wear as long a beard as that?' 'Why not?' I reply merrily. ' Ah,' exclaims Anthony, laughing, 'you must not talk so saucily. You must not wear so long a beard. Your wife will not permit it, Andy!' This makes me very angry; I start up, and hardly know what I am doing. 'What!' I cry, ' my wife? She must obey me whether she likes it or not. What will you bet I will not shave my beard for a whole year?' 'I will bet you two oxen,' says Anthony; 'but let me warn you, Andy, you will lose the oxen; for I stick to it, your wife will never permit you to become the laughing-stock of the children by appearing in the streets with such a lion's mane.
Therefore consider the matter well, Andy, for there is time yet.
Admit that you will not win the bet, for two oxen are at stake!' 'I have already considered everything,' I say: 'and as for the two oxen, they will be just what I want. A year hence you will bring them to me, Anthony Waidlinger.' And this prediction was fulfilled.
I did not shave my beard, and Anna Gertrude, my wife, rejoiced at her Andy's beard instead of being angry at it, and thought it made her husband look a great deal better. When the year was up, Anthony Waidlinger drove his two oxen with a sullen air into my stable, and said: 'Now you may cut off your fur and have a pillow made from it for your wife.' 'I need not cut off my beard for that purpose,' I replied; 'it may be my wife's pillow even while it hangs down on my breast. For she is a good and dutiful wife, and I am fondly attached to her.' That, archduke, is the story of my beard, which I have worn ever since, and which has often been a pillow when my little boy and three girls fell asleep on my lap, and under which they have often concealed their little heads when their mother was looking for them.
You will ask me no more to cut off my beard--the pillow and plaything of my children.”
”No, Andreas,” said the archduke, kindly, ”I will not. Wear your fine beard as you have done hitherto; may it be, notwithstanding its black color, the victorious flag round which the royal Tyrolese shall rally on rising for their lord and emperor! And now, farewell, my friends; it is dawning, and it is time for us to repose a little.
Go home, therefore, and what remains to be settled you may talk over to-morrow with Baron von Hormayr, who will give you money for travelling expenses, and for distribution among the innkeepers. Day after to-morrow you will set out for home, and bring to all loyal Tyrolese the joyful news that war will break out.”
”Yes, yes, war will break out!” exclaimed the three Tyrolese, exultingly.
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