Andreas Hofer Part 64

But neither the joyous welcome, with which his wife, faithful Anna Gertrude, received him, nor the jubilant shouts of his children, could arouse Andreas Hofer from his mournful brooding, or bring a smile to his lips. He did not rejoice at his return to his dear ones; he paid no attention to his business, he did not go to the stables and barns as he used to do; but he sat hanging his head, his hands folded on his knees, staring at the floor, and sighing from time to time, "My poor country! How could the emperor abandon us?"

Only when Cajetan Doeninger was not with him, Andreas Hofer became uneasy; he glanced around anxiously and called for his secretary; when the latter hastened to him, he held out his hand and said in a low, tremulous voice, "Cajetan, do not leave me. I always think I may have something to write yet, and it seems to me as though what I dictated to you at Steinach, declaring my readiness to submit, were not the last of my official papers. Something else must come yet,-- yes, something else. I know it, for this state of affairs cannot last. Therefore, Cajetan, stay with me that you may be ready and able to write when the hour has come."

Cajetan stayed with him; both sat together in silence, and absorbed in their gloomy reflections, and the days pa.s.sed slowly and mournfully.

It was on the afternoon of the fifth day, and Andreas Hofer sat in silence, as usual, in the gloomy room. Every thing was still without. All at once this profound silence was broken by a hum of many voices and loud noise.

Hofer looked up and listened. "That sounds as if we were still at war, and as if my sharpshooters were marching up," he said.

"Andreas Hofer, commander-in-chief of the Tyrol!" shouted loud voices under the windows.

Hofer jumped up. "Who calls me?" he shouted, in a powerful voice.

At this moment the door was thrown open violently, and four mountaineers, armed with their rifles, came in. Hofer saw through the open door that the yard in front of the house was thronged with peasants, and all looked with flas.h.i.+ng eyes through the door at Hofer; and they shouted now, "Andreas Hofer, commander-in-chief of the Tyrol, come with us, come!"

Andreas Hofer seemed all at once animated by new life; his eyes shot fire, his form was drawn up to its full height, and his head rose again proudly between his powerful shoulders.

"What do you want of me, my dear countrymen?" he asked, going to meet them.

One of the four sharpshooters who had entered the room now came forward, and placed himself with a defiant face in front of Hofer.

"We want you," he said. "Three thousand French soldiers are marching across the Janfen. There is great excitement in the Puster valley, and some fighting has taken place. Anthony Wallner has driven the Bavarians long since across the frontier, and Speckbacher and the Capuchin have marched to the Muhlbach Pa.s.s in order to attack Rusca.

And why are we to keep quiet, then? Why are we to allow the French to enter the Pa.s.seyr valley?"

"We will not allow them to do it!" shouted the peasants outside.

"No, we will not allow the French to enter the Pa.s.seyr valley."

"You hear it, commander-in-chief," said the first speaker. "We are all ready and determined. Now say what we are to do with the French.

Will you do any thing or not?"

"Yes, will you do any thing or not?" repeated the peasants, penetrating with furious gestures into the room.

"If you do not want to do any thing," cried the peasant, raising his rifle menacingly, "my rifle is loaded for you as well as for any Frenchman. You commenced the insurrection, now put it through."

[Footnote: Loritza, "Bilder and Erinnerungen aus Tyrol's Freiheitskampfen von 1809," p. 14.]

"But you know, countrymen, that I cannot!" cried Hofer. "The emperor has made peace with Bonaparte and abandoned us. What course have we left but that of submission? We must yield, or the Tyrol will be ruined entirely."

"But we do not want to submit," shouted the peasants, furiously.

"And the whole country is of our opinion; no one is willing to submit. We will die rather than submit."

"Issue another proclamation calling out the able-bodied men!" said the first speaker.

"Yes, issue another proclamation, commander-in-chief," shouted the crowd. "We will fight, we must fight!"

"And you shall and must be our leader!" exclaimed the peasant, laying his heavy hand on Hofer's shoulder. "We will compel you to go with us or kill you as a traitor. Issue another proclamation. We men are still the same as before, and so is our cause; now you must likewise be the same Andreas Hofer, commander-in-chief of the Tyrol!"

"Yes," exclaimed Andreas, with a radiant face, drawing a deep breath, as if relieved from an oppressive burden, "yes, I will be the same as before. This state of affairs cannot continue. We must fight; we had better die than lead such a life. Go, Doeninger, go; write a proclamation!"

"Hurrah! Long live our commander-in-chief," shouted the peasants, triumphantly; "long live our dear faithful Andreas Hofer!"

"I thank you, my dear countrymen," said Andreas; "I am your leader now, and we will fight again. But do not hold me responsible for the events of the future. You must never forget that you compelled me to resume war. I intended to submit humbly and patiently, but you would not allow me to do so, and dragged me forcibly from my retirement.

The b.l.o.o.d.y struggle will commence again--G.o.d grant us protection, and further victories! We are not going to fight from motives of pride and arrogance, but only for the sake of our country--because we want to remain Germans, and do not want to become French subjects, and because we want to keep our G.o.d, our liberty, and our const.i.tution. Amen!"

CHAPTER XLI.

BETRAYAL AND SEIZURE OF HOFER.

War was now resumed at all points; but the forces brought from all sides against the Tyrol were so immense that no hope remained to the inhabitants but by deeds of glory to throw a last radiance around their fall. The Tyrolese fought with desperate valor, but their heroism was unavailing. The superior forces of the enemy were everywhere victorious. The artillery of the Bavarians and French thinned the ranks of the mountaineers from day to day; whole ranks of the Tyrolese being mowed down by the b.a.l.l.s of the enemy. They fled panic-struck into the mountains. The victorious invaders penetrated farther and farther into the interior of the country; burning towns and villages marked the route which they followed, and wails and lamentations rent the air wherever they made their appearance.

Before the middle of December all resistance had been overpowered.

The enemy stalked in a merciless manner over the gory, reeking, groaning Tyrol, and pursued relentlessly all who had dared to rise against him. He had promised oblivion and forgiveness in return for peaceful submission; but as the Tyrolese had not submitted, but continued the struggle, the enemy now threatened to revenge himself and punish the vanquished.

A furious chase now commenced. Every one who had been seized with arms in hand was shot; every one who concealed one of the pursued patriots in his house was executed, and his house was burned down.

The leaders of the Tyrolese had fled into the mountains, but the French generals promised large rewards for the heads of the most influential patriots; and the soldiers traversed the country, impelled by thirst for revenge and gain, spying everywhere for the outlawed mountaineers, and ascending even to the snow-clad summits of the mountains in order to obtain the large rewards. As yet, however, they had not succeeded in seizing one of the pursued chiefs. The French generals had vainly promised a reward of ten thousand florins for the apprehension of Andreas Hofer, and rewards of five thousand florins for the seizure of Joseph Spechbacher, Anthony Wallner, and Joachim Haspinger. They had disappeared, and the patrols and soldiers, who were hunting for them, had not yet been able to discover the hiding-place of any of the four great chiefs of the insurrection. The mountains, those natural fortresses of the Tyrol, protected the outlawed commanders; and in the Alpine huts, amidst the chamois and vultures, which alone saw and knew their hiding-places, there were no traitors.

Retiring to his native valley, Andreas Hofer long eluded the search of the victors. His place of concealment was a solitary Alpine hut, four leagues distant from his home, in general inaccessible from the snow which surrounded it. Love had accompanied Andreas to this inhospitable spot. His wife and his son John were with him, and so was Cajetan Doeninger, his faithful secretary. Love had accompanied him to the Alpine hut of his friend Pfandler; love watched over him in the valley below. Many peasants there were well aware of Hofer's place of concealment, but no one betrayed him, no one was tempted by the reward of ten thousand florins which Baraguay d'Hilliers, the French general, offered for Hofer's apprehension. They often saw Pfandler's servants, loaded with all sorts of provisions, wending their way slowly and painfully up the snow-clad Alp; but they averted their heads, as though they did not want to see anything, and prayed G.o.d in a low tone to protect the messengers who conveyed food to Hofer and his dear ones. The peasants in the valley forbore carefully to speak among each other of what they knew; only they treated Pfandler with reverential tenderness, shook hands with him quietly, and whispered, "G.o.d bless you and him!" At times, on a clear winter day, when thin smoke curled up suddenly from the Alp, the peasants in the valley looked up sighingly and whispered compa.s.sionately, "They have built a fire in their hut. The cold is so severe. G.o.d bless them!" But whenever one whom they did not trust stepped up to them, wondering at the smoke, and saying that somebody was concealed up there, and had built a fire in order not to freeze to death, the others laughed at him, and said there was no smoke at all, but only snow blown up by the storm.

One day, however, a stranger arrived in the valley, and asked whisperingly for Andreas Hofer, to whom, he said, he would bring a.s.sistance and safety. At first no one replied to him; but he showed them a paper, bearing the name and seal of the Archduke John, and containing the following words, written by the prince himself: "Help my messenger to find Andreas Hofer, and bring him a.s.sistance and safety."

On reading this, the peasants distrusted him no longer. They glanced furtively up to the Schneeberg, pointed to the two wanderers, loaded with baskets, who were toiling up the mountain through the snow, and whispered almost inaudibly, "Follow them!"

The messenger did so. He climbed after the two servants, and ascended with them the inhospitable, dreary, and deserted heights.

At length he arrived in front of the Alpine hut; he knocked at the door, and asked admittance in the name of G.o.d and the Archduke John.

The door opened immediately, and on the threshold appeared Hofer's tall, bearded form, as erect and vigorous as it had been in the days of his splendor, and his mild, honest eye greeted the new-comer.

"He who comes in the name of G.o.d and the Archduke John will not deceive me," said Andreas, kindly. "Come in, therefore; for you must have good intentions toward me, inasmuch as the severe cold did not deter you from coming up to me."

"Indeed I have good intentions toward you," said the messenger. "Do you not know me, then, Andy? I am Anthony Steeger, the Archduke John's gunsmith."

"Oh, yes, now I know you!" exclaimed Andreas, joyfully. "I saw you in Vienna at the time we were there to devise plans for the deliverance of the Tyrol. Well, come in, Anthony Steeger; come in to my wife, my son, and my secretary."

He conducted Anthony Steeger into the room, where the three greeted him, and made room for him in front of the hearth, on which large billets of wood were burning. Anthony Steeger looked around in this wretched room, which contained nothing but a few rickety wooden chairs, and a rough-hewn pine table, and the walls and windows of which were protected from the cold by thick linings of hay and straw.

"Yes, you may well look around in my palace," said Andreas, smilingly; "it is not very gorgeous here, but the good G.o.d is with us, and He will help us to get along."

"And the Archduke John will help you also," said Anthony Steeger.

"Listen to me, Andreas. The archduke sends me to you. He sends you his greetings, and entreats you to come with your family to him and stay with him all your life long, or, if you should not like to do that, at least until you can live again safely in the Tyrol. The archduke has already fitted up a house for you in a village which belongs to him; you shall live there with your whole family as the beloved and honored guests of the archduke. He implores you to accept his invitation. I have with me every thing that is necessary for your flight, Andy. The archduke has given me money, a pa.s.sport for you and your family, and safeguards issued by the French generals. I am familiar with the roads and by-paths in this vicinity, and will convey you safely through the mountains. The archduke has thought of every thing and provided for every thing."

"It is very kind in the dear Archduke John not to have forgotten me," said Andreas, deeply moved; "it is honest and faithful that he should like to take care of me and reward my love. And it is very kind in you, too, Anthony Steeger, to have acted in this spirit of self-denial. You have come from a great distance to save us, and are not afraid of venturing with us upon this most dangerous flight."

"And you accept my offer, Andy, and consent to accompany me, do you not?"

"And what of them?" asked Andreas, casting a tender glance on his wife and his son. "The route across the glaciers is impa.s.sable for a woman and a child."