It is time now to return to speak of Schwatz, of which we caught a glimpse across the river as we left Viecht;1 and it is one of the most interesting towns, and centres of excursions, in Tirol. It was a morning of bright promise which first brought us there by the early hour of 8.15. To achieve this we had had to rise betimes; it was near the end of August, when the mid-day sun is overpowering; yet the early mornings were very cool, and the brisk breezes came charged with a memory of snow from the beautiful chains of mountains whose base we were hugging. The railway station, as if it dared not with its modern innovation invade the rural retreat of primitive institutions, was at a considerable distance from the village, and we had a walk of some fifteen or twenty minutes before we came within reach of even a chance of breakfast.

My own strong desire to be brought quite within the influence of Tirolean traditions perhaps deadened my sensations of hunger and weariness, but it was not so with all of our party; and it was with some dismay we began to apprehend that the research of the primitive is not to be made without some serious sacrifice of ‘le comfortable.’

Our walk across the fields at last brought us to the rapid smiling river; and crowning the bridge, stood as usual S. John Nepomuk, his patient martyr’s face gazing on the effigy of the crucified Saviour he is always portrayed as bearing so lovingly, seeming so sweetly all-enduring, that no light feeling of discontent could pass him unrestrained. Still the call for breakfast is an urgent one with the early traveller, and there seemed small chance of appeasing it. Near the station indeed had stood a deserted building, with the word ‘Restauration’ just traceable on its mouldy walls, but we had felt no inclination to try our luck within them; and though we had now reached the village, we seemed no nearer a more appetising supply. No one had got out of the train besides ourselves; not a soul appeared by the way. A large house stood prominently on our right, which for a moment raised our hopes, but its too close proximity to a little church forbad us to expect it to be a hostelry, and a scout of our party brought the intelligence that it was a hospital; another building further on, on the left, gave promise again, because painted all over with frescoes, which might be the mode in Schwatz of displaying a hotel-sign; but no, it proved to be a forge, and like the lintels marked by Morgiana’s chalk, all the houses of Schwatz—as indeed most of the houses of Tirol—were found to be covered with sacred frescoes. At last a veritable inn appeared, and right glad we were to enter its lowly portal and find rest, even though the air was scented by the mouldering furniture and neighbouring cattle-shed; though the stiff upright worm-eaten chairs made a discordant grating on the tiled floor, and a mildewed canvas, intended to keep out flies, completed the gloom which the smallness of the single window began.

A repeated knocking at last brought a buxom maid out of the cow-shed, who seemed not a little amazed at our apparition. ‘Had she any coffee! coffee, at that time of day—of course not!’ True, the unpunctuality of the train, the delivery of superfluous luggage to the care of the station-master, and our lingering by the way, had brought us to past nine o’clock—an unprecedented hour for breakfast in Schwatz. ‘Couldn’t we be content with wine? in a couple of hours meat would be ready, as the carters came in to dine then.’ Meat and coffee at the same repast, and either at that hour, were ideas she could not at first take in. Nevertheless, when we detailed our needs, astonishment gave way to compassion, and she consented to drop her incongruous propositions, and to make us happy in our own way. Accordingly, she was soon busied in lighting a fire, running to fetch coffee and rolls—though she did not, as happened to me in Spain, ask us to advance the money for the commission—and very soon appeared with a tray full of tumblers and queer old crockery. The black beverage she at last provided consisted of a decoction of nothing nearer coffee than roasted corn, figs,2 or acorns; and the rolls had the strangest resemblance to leather; but the milk and eggs were fine samples of dairy produce, for which Schwatz is famous, and these and the luscious fruit made up for the rest.

I remember that the poet-author of one of the most charming books of travel, in one of the most charming countries of Europe,3 deprecates the habit travel-writers have of speaking too much about their fare; and in one sense his remarks are very just. Where this is done without purpose or art, it becomes a bore; but ‘love itself can’t live on flowers;’ and as, however humiliating the fact, it is decreed that the only absolutely necessary business of man’s life is the catering for his daily bread, it becomes interesting to the observant to study the various means by which this decree is complied with by different races, in different localities. It is especially noteworthy that it is just in countries made supercilious by their culture that these matters of a lower order engross the most attention, and just those who consider themselves the most civilized who are the most dependent on what have been termed mere ‘creature comforts.’ These poor country folks, whom the educated traveller often passes by as unworthy of notice in their benighted ignorance and superstition—while they would not forego their salutation of the sacred symbol by the way-side, which marks their intimate appreciation of truths of the highest order—put us to shame, by their indifference to sublunary indulgences. We had come to Tirol to study their ways, and I hope we took our lesson on this occasion, well. We were not feasted with a sumptuous repast, such as might be found in any of the monster hotels, now so contrived, that you may pass through all the larger towns of Europe with such similarity to home-life everywhere, that you might as well never have left your fireside; but we were presented with an experience of the struggle with want; of that hardy face-to-face meeting with the great original law of labour, which our modern artificial life puts so completely out of sight, that it grows to regard it as an antiquated fable, and which can only be met amid such scenes.

The matutinal peasants were packing up their wares—which when spread out had made a picturesque market of the main street—by the time we again sallied forth, and we were nearly losing what is always one of the prettiest sights in a foreign town. At the end rose the parish church, with a stateliness for which the smallness of the village had not prepared us; but Schwatz has a sad and eventful history to account for the disparity.

Schwatz was once a flourishing Roman station, and even now remains are dug out which attest its ancient prosperity; but it had fallen away to the condition of a neglected HÄusergruppe by the fourteenth century, when suddenly came the discovery of silver veins in the surrounding heights. A lively bull,4 one day tearing up the soil with his horns in a frolic, laid bare a shining vein of ore. The name of Gertraud Kandlerin, the farm-servant who had charge of the herd to which he belonged, and brought the joyful tidings home to Schwatz, has been jealously preserved. From that moment Schwatz grew in importance and prosperity; and at one time there was a population of thirty thousand miners employed in the immediate neighbourhood. The Fuggers and Hochstetters of Augsburg were induced to come and employ their vast resources in working the riches of the mountains; and native families of note, laying aside the pursuit of arms, joined in the productive industry. Among these were the Fiegers, one of whom was the counsellor and intimate friend of the Emperor Maximilian, who followed his remains to their last resting-place, at Schwatz, when he died in ripe old age, leaving fifty-seven children and grandchildren, and money enough to enrich them all. His son Hanns married a daughter of the Bavarian house of Pienzenau; and when he brought her home, tradition says it was in a carriage drawn by four thousand horses. Many names, famous in the subsequent history of the country, such as the TÄnzls, JÖchls, Tannenbergs, and Sternbachs, were thus first raised to importance. This outpouring of riches stimulated the people throughout the country to search for mineral treasures, and everywhere the miners of Schwatz were in request as the most expert, both at excavating and engineering. Nor this only within the limits of Tirol; they had acquired such a reputation by the middle of the sixteenth century, that many distant undertakings were committed to them too. They were continually applied to, to direct mining operations in the wars against the Turks in Hungary. Their countermines performed an effective part in driving them from before Vienna in 1529; and again, in 1739, they assisted in destroying the fortifications of Belgrade. Clement VII. called them to search the mountains of the Papal State in 1542; and the Dukes of Florence and Piedmont also had recourse to their assistance about the same time. In the same way, many knotty disputes about mining rights were sent from all parts to be decided by the experience of Schwatz; and its abundance attracted to it every kind of merchandise, and every new invention. One of the earliest printing-presses was in this way set up here.

But a similarity of pursuit had established a community of interest between the miners of Schwatz and their brethren of Saxony; and when the Reformation broke out, its doctrines spread by this means among the miners of Schwatz, and led at one time to a complete revolution among them. Twice they banded together, and marched to attack the capital, with somewhat communistic demands. Ferdinand I., and Sebastian, Bishop of Brixen, went out to meet them on each occasion at Hall, and on each occasion succeeded in allaying the strife by their moderate discourse. Within the town of Schwatz, however, the innovators carried matters with a high hand, and at one time obtained possession of half the parish church, where they set up a Lutheran pulpit. Driven out of this by the rest of the population, they met in a neighbouring wood, where Joham Strauss and Christof SÖll, both unfrocked monks, used to hold forth to them.

A Franciscan, Christof von MÜnchen, now came to Schwatz, to strengthen the faith of the Catholics, and the controversy waged high between the partisans of both sides; so high, that one day two excited disputants carried their quarrels so far before a crowd of admiring supporters, that at last the Lutheran exclaimed, ‘If Preacher SÖll does not teach the true doctrine, may Satan take me up into the Steinjoch at Stans!’ and as he spoke, so, says the story, it befell: the astonished people saw him carried through the air and disappear from sight! The credit of the Lutherans fell very sensibly on the instant, and still more some days after, when the adventurous victim came back lame and bruised, and himself but too well convinced of his error.

Nevertheless the strife was not cured. Somewhat later, there was an inroad of Anabaptists, under whose auspices another insurrection arose, and for the time the flourishing mining works were brought to a stand-still. At last the Government was obliged to interfere. The most noisy and perverse were made to leave the country, and the Jesuits from Hall were sent over to hold a mission, and rekindle the Catholic teaching. Peace and order were restored: four thousand persons were brought back to the frequentation of the sacraments; but the Bergsegen,5 add the traditions, which had been the occasion of so much disunion, was never recovered. From that time forth the mining treasures of Schwatz began to fail; and after a long and steadily continued diminution of produce, silver ceased altogether to be found. Copper, and the best iron of Tirol, are still got out, and their working constitutes one of the chief industries of the place; the copper produced is particularly fit for wire-drawing, for which there is an establishment here. Another industry of Schwatz is a government cigar manufactory,6 which employs between four and five hundred hands, chiefly women and children, who get very poorly paid—ten or twelve francs a-week, working from five in the morning till six in the evening, with two hours’ interval in the middle of the day. There are pottery works, which also employ many hands; and many of the women occupy themselves in knitting woollen clothing for the miners. The pastures of the neighbourhood are likewise a source of rich in-comings to the town; but with all these industries together, Schwatz is far below the level of its early prosperity. Instead of its former crowded buildings, it now consists almost entirely of one street; and instead of being the cynosure of foreigners from all parts, is so little visited, that the people came to the windows to look at the unusual sight of a party of strangers as we passed by. In place of its early printing-press, its literary requirements are supplied by one little humble shop, where twine, toys, and traps, form the staple, and stationery and a small number of books are sold over and above; and where, because we spent a couple of francs, the master thereof seemed to think he had driven for that one day a roaring trade.

Other misfortunes, besides the declension of its ‘Bergsegen,’ have broken over Schwatz. In 1611 it was visited by the plague, in 1670 by an earthquake; but its worst disaster was in the campaign of 1809, when the Bavarians, under the Duke of Dantzic, and the French, under Deroi, determined to strike terror into the hearts of the country-people by burning down the town. The most incredible cruelties are reported to have been perpetrated on this occasion, many being such as one cannot bear to repeat; so determined was their fury, that when the still air refused to fan the flames, they again and again set fire to the place at different points; and the people were shot down when they attempted to put out the conflagration. General Wiede was quartered in the palace of Count Tannenberg, a blind old man, with four blind children; his misfortunes, and the laws of hospitality, might have protected him at least from participation in the general calamity; but no, not even the hall where the hospitable board was spread in confidence for the unscrupulous guest, was spared. Once and again, as the inimical hordes poured into, or were driven out of, Tirol, Schwatz had to bear the brunt of their devastations, so that there is little left to show what Schwatz was. The stately parish church, however, suffered less than might have been expected: in the height of the conflagration, when all was noise and excitement, a young Bavarian officer, over whom sweet home lessons of piety exercised a stronger charm than the wild instincts of the military career which were effecting such havoc around, collected a handful of trusty followers, and, unobserved by the general herd, succeeded in rescuing it before great damage had been done.

The building was commenced about 1470,7 and consecrated in 1502. What remains of the original work is in the best style of the period; the west front is particularly noteworthy. The plan of the building is very remarkable, consisting of a double nave, each having its aisles, choir, and high-altar; this peculiar construction originated in the importance of the Knappen, or miners, at the time it was designed, and their contribution to the building fund entitling them to this distinct division of the church between them and the towns-people; one of the high-altars still goes by the name of the Knappenhochaltar. The roof, like those of most churches of Tirol and Bavaria, is of copper, and is said to consist of fifteen thousand tiles of that metal—an offering from the neighbouring mines. The emblem of two crossed pick-axes frequently introduced, further denotes the connexion of the mining trade with the building. Whitewash and stucco have done a good deal to hide its original beauties, but some fine monuments remain. One in brass, to Hanns Dreyling the metal-founder, date 1578, near the side (‘south’) door, should not be overlooked: the design embodies a Renaissance use of Ionic columns and entablature in connexion with mediÆval symbols. Below, are seen Hanns Dreyling himself in the dress of his craft, his three wives, and his three sons habited as knights (showing the rise of his fortunes), all under the protection of S. John the Baptist. Above, is portrayed the vision of the Apocalypse, God the Father seated on His Throne, surrounded by a rainbow, with the Book of Seven Seals, and the Lamb; at His Feet the four Evangelists; around, the four-and-twenty elders, with their harps, some wearing their crowns, and some stretching them out as a humble offering before the Throne; in front kneels the Apostolic Seer himself, gazing, and with his right hand pointing, upwards, yet smiting his breast with the left hand, and weeping that no one was found worthy to open the seals of the book. Below the epitaph, the monument bears the following lines:

Alexander Colin, of Malines, and Hans LÖffler, were, like Hans Dreyling, Schmelzherrn of eminence, and connected with him by marriage, thus they naturally devoted their best talent to honour their friend and master. We learnt to appreciate it better when we came to see their works at Innsbruck. The nine altar-pieces are mostly by Tirolean painters. The Assumption, on one high-altar, is by SchÖpf; the Last Supper on the other—the Knappenhochaltar—by Bauer of Augsburg.

The ‘north’ side door opens on to a narrow strip of grass, across which is a Michaels-kapelle, as the chapel we so often find in German churchyards—and where the people love to gather, and pray for their loved and lost—is here called. It is a most beautiful little specimen of middle-pointed, with high-pitched roof and traceried window. A picturesque stone-arched covered exterior staircase, the banister cornice of which represents a narrow water-trough, with efts chasing each other in and out of it, leads to the upper chapel, which was in some little confusion at the time of our visit, as it was under restoration; two or three artists were in the lower chapel, painting the images of the saints in the fresh colours the people love. After some searching, I found out a figure of a dead Christ, which I was curious to see; because, before coming to Schwatz, I had been told there was one which had been dearly prized for centuries by the people; that once on a time there had come night by night a large toad, and had stood before the image, resting on its hinder feet, the two front ones joined as if in token of prayer; and no one durst disturb it, because they said it must be a suffering soul which they saw under its form. I spoke to one of the artists about it, to see if this was the right image, and if the legend was still acknowledged. He answered as one who had little sympathy with the mysteries he was employed to delineate; he evidently cared nothing for legends, though willing to paint them for money. It was the first time I had met with this sort of spirit in the neighbourhood, and was not surprised to learn he was not of Tirol, but from Munich.

A door opposite the last named opens into the churchyard, filled with the usual black and gold cast-iron crosses, and the usual sprinkling of some of a brighter colour; each with its stoup of holy water and weihwedel,8 and its simple epitaph, ‘Hier ruhet in Frieden....’ Besides the large crucifix, which always stands in the centre promising redemption to the faithful departed, is a stout round pillar of large rough stones, surmounted by a lantern cap with five sharp points, each face glazed, and a lamp within before some relic, always kept alight, for the people think9 that the holy souls come and anoint their burning wounds with the oil which piously feeds a churchyard lamp. Twinkling fitfully amid the evening shadows, over the graves, and over the human skulls and bones, of which there happened fortuitously to be a heap waiting re-sepulture after some late arrangement of the burying-ground, it disposed one to listen to the strange tales which are told of it. There was once a Robler of Schwatz, well-limbed, deep-chested, full of confidence and energy, who had won the right to wear the champion feather10 against the whole neighbourhood. But not content to be the darling of his home, and the pride of his valley, he must needs prove himself the best against all comers. In fear of the shame of a reverse after all his boasts, he resolved to ensure himself against one, by having recourse to an act, originally designed probably as a test of possessing, but commonly believed by the people to be a means of winning, invincible strength of nerve, and which is described in the following narrative. Opportunity was not lacking. Death is ever busy, and one day laid low an old gossip, who was duly buried with all honour by her children and children’s children to the third generation. Now was the time for our brave Robler. That first night that she rested in the ‘field of peace,’ he rose in the dead of the night—a dark starless night, just as it was when we stood there—and the lamp of the shrine resting its calm pale rays upon the graves. The great clock struck out twelve, with a rattling of its cumbersome machinery, which sounded like skeletons walking by in procession; our Robler quailed not, however, but approached the new grave, scattered the earth from over it with his spade, raised up the coffin, opened it, took out the corpse, dressed himself in its shroud, and lifted the ghastly burden on to his strong shoulders. Never had burden felt so heavy; it seemed to him as though he bore the Freundsberg on his back; though sinking and quailing, he bore it three times round the whole circuit of the enclosure, laid it back in the coffin, and lowered the coffin into the grave; triumphantly he showered the earth over it, and took quite a pleasure in shaping the hillock smoothly and well. Then suddenly, to his horror, with a click like the gripe of a skeleton, he heard the clapper of the old clock raised to mark the completion of the hour within which his task, to be effectual, must be accomplished. Meantime, it had come on to rain violently, and the big drops pattered on the stones, like dead men tramping all around him; it happened to fall heavily round us, and the simile was so striking, I could not forbear a grim smile. It seemed to him as if he never could dash through their midst in time; still he made the attempt boldly, and actually succeeded in swinging himself over the churchyard wall before the hammer had fallen, and, what was most important, still bearing round his shoulders the shroud of the dead. Nevertheless his heart was full of anxiety with the thought that he had disturbed the peace of the departed; it seemed to him as if the old gossip had run after him to claim her own, and with her burning hand had seized the fluttering garment, and torn a piece out of it, just as he cleared the wall. For days after, the sexton saw the piece, torn and burnt, fluttering over her grave, but never could make out how it got there. The Robler, however, was now proof against every attack; no one could wear a feather in his presence, for he was sure to overcome him, and make him renounce the prize. What did he gain, however, by his uncannily-earned prowess? A little temporary renown and honour, and the fear of his kind; but all through the rest of his life, at the Wandlung11 of the Holy Mass, the pure white wafer, as the priest raised it aloft, seemed black to his eyes, and when he came to die, there was no father-confessor near to whisper absolution and peace.

A most singular legend, also attached to this spot, dates from the time when the Jesuit Fathers held their missions after the expulsion of the Lutherans. With the fervour of new conversion, the people ascribed to their word the most wonderful powers; and their simple unwavering faith seems to have been a loan of that which removes mountains. Among those whom a spirit of penance moved to come and make a general confession of their past lives was a lady no longer young, of blameless character, but unmarried. The fathers, as I have already implied, enjoyed the most unbounded confidence of the people; and the most unusual penance was accepted in the simplest way. To this person the penance enjoined was, that she should for three nights watch through the hour of midnight in the church, and then come and give an account of what she had seen. Being apparently a person of a strong mind, she was satisfied with the assurance of the father that no harm would happen to her, and she fulfilled her task bravely. “When she came to narrate what had passed, she said that each night the church had been traversed by a countless train of men, women, and children, of every age and degree, dressed in a manner unlike anything she had seen or read of in the past; the features of all quite unknown to her, and yet exhibiting a certain likeness, which might lead her to believe they might be of her own family, and all wearing an expression indescribably sad; she was all anxiety to know what she could do for their relief, for she felt sure it was to move her to this that they had been revealed to her. The father told her, however, this was not at all the object of the vision: that the train of people she had seen was an appearance of the generations of unborn souls, who might have lived to the eternal honour and praise of God if she had not preferred her ease and freedom and independence to the trammels of the married state; ‘for,’ said he, ‘your choice of condition was based on this, not on the higher love of God, and the desire of greater perfection. Now, therefore, reflect what profit your past life has borne to the glory of God, and strive to make it glorify Him in some way in the future.’

The Franciscan church was built about the same time as the other, and has some remains of the beautiful architecture of its date. Over the credence table is a remarkable and very early painting on panel, of the genealogy of our Lord. Within the precincts of the monastery are some early frescoes, which I did not see; but they ought not to be overlooked. One subject, said to be very boldly and strikingly handled, is the commission to the Apostles to go out and preach the Gospel to the nations.

The day was wearing on, and we had our night’s lodging to provide; the inn where we had breakfasted did not invite our confidence, despite of the pretty Kranach’s Madonna which smiled over the parlour, and the good-natured maid who deemed it her business to wait behind our chairs while we sipped our coffee; so we walked down the long street, and tried our luck at one and another. There were plenty of them: and they were easily recognized now we knew their token, for each has a forbidden-fruit-tree painted on the wall with some subject out of the New Testament surmounting it, to show the triumph of the Gospel over the Fall; while the good gifts of Providence, which mine host within is so ready to dispense, are typified by festoons of grape-vines, surrounding the picture. Those which let out horses have also a team cut out in a thin plate of copper, and painted proper, as heralds say, fixed at right angles to the doorpost. Nevertheless, the interiors were not inviting, and at more than one the bedding was all on the roof, airing; and the solitary maid, left in charge of the house while all the rest of the household were in the fields harvesting, declared the impossibility of getting so many beds as we wanted ready by the evening. Dinner at the Post having somehow indisposed us for it, we at last put up at the Krone, which was very much like a counterpart of our first experience. Nothing could exceed the pleasant willingness of the people of the house; but both their accommodation and their cleanliness was limited; and besides a repulsive look, there was an unaccountable odour, about the beds, which made sleeping in them impossible. My astonishment may be imagined, when on proceeding to examine whether there were any articles of bedding that would do to roll oneself up in on the floor, I found that the smell proceeded from layers of apples between the mattresses, which it seems to be the habit thus to preserve for winter use!

The rooms were large and rambling, and filled with cumbersome furniture, some of which must, I think, have been made before the great fire of 1809. As in all the other houses, a guitar hung on the wall of the sitting-room; and after many coy refusals, the daughter of the house consented to sing to it one or two melodies very modestly and well.

You do not sleep very soundly on the floor, and by six next morning the tingling of the Blessed Sacrament bell sufficed to rouse me in time to see how the Schwatzers honour ‘das hochwÜrdigste Gut,’12 as it passed them on its way to the sick. Two little boys in red cassocks went first, bearing red banners and holy-water; two followed in red and yellow, bearing a canopy over the priest, and four men carried lanterns on long poles. The rain of the previous night had filled the road with puddles, but along the whole way the peasants were on their knees. To all who are afflicted with long illnesses, it is thus carried at least every month.

The morning was bright and hot, but the ruined castle on the neighbouring Freundsberg looked temptingly near; and we easily found a rough but not difficult path, past a number of crazy cottages, the inhabitants of which, however poor and hard worked, yet gave us the cheerful Christian greeting, ‘Gelobt sei Jesus Christus!’ as we passed. Near the summit the cottages cease; and after a short stretch in the burning sun, you appreciate the shade afforded by a tiny chapel, at the side of a crystal spring, welling up out of the ground, its waters cleverly guided into a conduit, formed of a hollowed tree, which supplies all the houses of the hill-side, and perhaps accounts for their being so thickly clustered there. The last wind of the ascent is the steepest and most slippery. The sun beat down relentlessly, but seemed to give unfailing delight to myriads of lizards, adders, and grasshoppers, who were darting and whirring over the crumbling stones in the maddest way. Historians, poets, or painters, have made some ruins so familiarly a part of the world’s life, and their grand memories of departed glories have been so often recounted, that they seem stereotyped upon them. Time has shattered and dismantled them, but has robbed them of nothing, for their glories of all ages are concrete around them still. But poor Freundsberg! who thinks of it? or of the thousand and one ruined castles which mark the ‘sky-line’ of Tirol with melancholy beauty? Each has, however, had its throb of hope and daring, and its day of triumph and mastery, often noble, sometimes—not so often as elsewhere—base. Freundsberg is no exception. For two hundred years before the Christian era it was a fortress, we know: for how long before that we know not; and then again, we know little of what befell it, till many hundred years after, in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, its lords were known as mighty men of war. It reached its highest glory under Captain Georg, son of Ulrich and a Swabian heiress whose vast dowry tended to raise the lustre of the house.

Georg von Freundsberg entered the career of arms in early youth, and rose to be a general at an age when other men are making their premiÈres armes. At four-and-twenty he was reckoned by Charles Quint his most efficient leader. Over the Swiss, over the Venetians, wherever he led, he was victorious. The victory at Pavia was in great measure due to his prowess. His personal strength is recorded in fabulous terms; his foresight in providing for his men, and his art of governing and attaching them, were so remarkable, that they called him their father, and he could do with them whatever he would. They recorded his deeds in the terms in which men speak of a hero: they said that the strongest man might stand up against him with all his energy, and yet with the little finger of his left hand he could throw him down; that no matter at what fiery pace a horse might be running away, if he but stretched his hand across the path he brought it to a stand; that in all the Emperor’s stores there was no field-piece so heavy but he could move it with ease with one hand. They sang of him:

The last line would show that to a certain extent he was not untrue to the traditions of his country; nevertheless, his success in war, and his love for the Emperor, carried him so far away from them, that when the siege of Rome was propounded, he not only accepted a command in the attack on the ‘Eternal City,’ but raised twelve thousand men in his Swabian and Tirolean possessions to support the charge. None who have pondered the havoc and the horrors of that wanton and sacrilegious siege will care to extenuate the guilt of any participator in it. It is the blot on Georg von Freundsberg’s character, and it was likewise his last feat. He died suddenly within the twelvemonth, aged only fifty-two, leaving his affairs in inextricable confusion, and his estate encumbered with debts incurred in raising the troops who were to assist in the desolation of the ‘Holy City.’

His brothers—Ulrich, Bishop of Trent, and Thomas, who like himself followed the military calling—earned a certain share of respect also; but no subsequent member of the family was distinguished, and the race came to an end in 1580. The castle fell into ruin; and as if a curse rested on it, when it was used again, it was to afford cover to the Bavarians in firing upon the people in 1809! I do not know by what local tradition, but some motive of affection still renders the chapel a place of pious resort; and a copy of Kranach’s ‘MariÄhilf’ adorns the altar. The remaining tower affords a pleasing outline.

I returned to the chapel by the brook, and sat down to sketch it, though rather too closely placed under it to view it properly; there is always an indefinable satisfaction in making use of these places of pious rest, which brotherly charity has provided for the unknown wayfarer. When, after a time, I looked up from my paper, I saw sitting outside in the sun a strange old woman, the stealthy approach of whose shoeless feet I had not noticed. I advised her to come in and rest; and then I asked her how she came to walk unshod over the stones of the path, which were sharp and loose, as well as burning hot, while she carried a pair of stout shoes in her hand. ‘That doesn’t hurt,’ she replied indignantly; ‘it’s the shoes that hurt. When you put your foot down you know where you put it, and you take hold of the ground; but when you have those things on, you don’t know where your foot goes, and down you go yourself. That’s what happened to me on this very path, and see what came of it.’ And she bared her right arm, and showed that it had been broken, and badly set, and now was withered and useless—she could do no more work to support herself. I asked her how she lived, and she did not like the question, for begging, it seems, is forbidden. But I said it was a very hard law, and then she grew more confidential; and after a little more talk, her wild weird style, and her strong desire to tell my fortune, showed me she was one of those dangerous devotees who may be considered the camp-followers of the Christian army, whose chance of ingratiating themselves seems greatest where the faith is brightest, and who there work all manner of mischief, overlaying simple belief with pagan superstition; but at the same time, such an one is generally a very mine for the comparative mythologist, and in this individual instance not without some excuse in her misfortunes. For, besides the unlucky disablement already named, she had lost not only her house, home, and belongings, but all her relations also, in a fire. It is not surprising if so much misery had unhinged her mind. Her best means of occupation seemed to be, when good people gave her alms, to go to a favourite shrine, and pray for them; and I fully believe, from her manner, that she conscientiously fulfilled such commissions, for I did not discover anything of the hypocrite about her. Only once, when I had been explaining what a long way I had come on purpose to see the shrines of her country, she amused me by answering, in the most inflated style, that however far it might be, it could not be so far as she had come—she came from beyond mountains and seas, far, far, ever so far—till I looked at her again, and wondered if she were a gipsy, and was appropriating to her personal experience some of the traditional wanderings of her race. Presently she acknowledged that her birth-place was Seefeld, which I knew to be at no great distance from Innsbruck, perhaps ten miles from where we stood. Yet this tone of exaggeration may have arisen from an incapacity to take in the idea of a greater distance than she knew of previously, rather than from any intention to deceive; and her ‘seas’ were of course lakes, which when spoken of in the German plural have not even the gender to distinguish them.

When she had once mentioned Seefeld, she grew quite excited, and told me no place I had come from could boast of such a marvellous favour as God had manifested to her Seefeld. I asked her to tell me about it. ‘What! don’t you know about Oswald Milser?’ and I saw my want of recognition consigned me to the regions of her profoundest contempt. ‘Don’t you know about Oswald Milser, who by his pride quenched all the benefit of his piety and his liberality to the Church? who, when he went to make his Easter Communion one grÜne Donnerstag,14 insisted that it should be given him in one of the large Hosts, which the priest uses, and so distinguish him from the people. And when the priest, afraid to offend the great man, complied, how the weight bore him down, down into the earth;’ and she described a circle with her finger on the ground, and bowed herself together to represent the action; ‘and he clung to the altar steps, but they gave way like wax; and he sank lower and lower,15 till he called to the priest to take the fearful Host back from him.’ ‘And what became of him?’ I asked. ‘He went into the monastery of Stamms, and lived a life of penance. But his lady was worse than he: when they told her what had taken place, she swore she would not believe it; “As well might you tell me,” she said, and stamped her foot, “that that withered stalk could produce a rose;” and even as she spoke, three sweet roses burst forth from the dry branch, which had been dead all the winter. Then the proud lady, refusing to yield to the prodigy, rushed out of the house raving mad, and was never seen there again; but by night you may yet hear her wailing over the mountains, for there is no rest for her.’ Her declamation and action accompanying every detail was consummate.

I asked her if she knew no such stories of the neighbourhood of Schwatz. She thought for a moment, and then assuming her excited manner once more, she pointed to a neighbouring eminence. ‘There was a bird-catcher,’ she said, ‘who used to go out on the Goaslahn there, following his birds; but he was quite mad about his sport, and could not let it alone, feast day or working day. One Sunday came, and he could not wait to hear the holy Mass. “I’ll go out for an hour or two,” he said; “there’ll be time for that yet.” So he went wandering through the woods, following his sport, and the hours flew away as fast as the birds; hour by hour the church bell rang, but he always said to himself he should be in time to catch the Mass of the next hour. The nine o’clock Mass was past, and the clock had warned him that it was a quarter to ten, and he had little more than time to reach the last Mass of the day. Just as he was hesitating to pack up his tackle, a beautiful bird, such as he had never seen before, with a gay red head, came hopping close to his decoy birds. It was not to be resisted. The bird-catcher could not take his eye off the bird. “Dong!” went the bell; hop! went the bird. Which should he follow? The bird was so very near the lime now; there must be time to secure him, and yet reach the church, at least before the Gospel. At last, the final stroke of the bell sounded; and at the same instant the beautiful bird hopped on to the snare. Who could throw away so fair a chance? Then the glorious plumage must be carefully cleansed of the bird-lime, which had assisted the capture, and the prize secured, and carefully stowed away at home. It would be too late for Mass then; and the bird-catcher felt the full reproach of the course he was tempted to pursue, nevertheless he could not resist it. On he went, homewards; now full of buoyant joy over his luck, now cast down with shame and sorrow over his neglected duty. He had thus proceeded a good part of his way, before he perceived that his burden was getting heavier and heavier; at last he could hardly get along under it. So he set it down, and began to examine into the cause. He found that the strange bird had swelled out so big, that it was near bursting the bars of its cage, while from its wings issued furious sulphurous fumes. Then he saw how he had been deceived; that the delusive form had been sent by the Evil One, to induce him to disobey the command of the Church. Without hesitation he flung the cursed thing from him, and watched it, by its trail of lurid flame, rolling down the side of the Goaslahn. But never, from that day forward, did he again venture to ply his trade on a holy day.

‘Such things had happened to others also,’ she said. ‘Hunters had been similarly led astray after strange chamois; for the power of evil had many a snare for the weak. Birds too, though we deemed them so pretty and innocent, were, more often than we thought, the instruments of malice.’ And it struck me as she spoke, that there were more crabbed stories of evil boding in her repertory than gentle and holy ones. ‘There is the swallow,’ she instanced: ‘why do swallows always hover over nasty dirty marshy places? Don’t you know that when the Saviour was hanging on the Cross, and the earth trembled, and the sun grew dark with horror, and all the beasts of the field went and hid themselves for shame, only the frivolous16 swallows flitted about under the very shadow of the holy rood, and twittered their love songs as on any ordinary day. Then the Saviour turned His head and reproached the thoughtless birds; and mark my words, never will you see a swallow perched upon anything green and fresh.’

I was sorry to part from her and her legendary store; but I was already due at the station, to meet friends by the train. She took my alms with glee, and then pursued her upward way barefooted, to make some promised orisons at the Freundsberg shrine.

It was a glowing afternoon; and after crossing the unshaded bridge and meadows, to and from the railway, I was glad to stop and rest in a little church which stood open, near the river. It was a plain whitewashed edifice, ornamented with more devotion than taste. When I turned to come away, I found that the west wall was perforated with a screen of open iron-work, on the other side of which was an airy hospital ward. The patients could by this means beguile their weary hours with thoughts congenial to them suggested by the Tabernacle and the Crucifix. A curtain hung by the side, which could be drawn across the screen at pleasure. There were not more than four or five patients in the ward at the time, and in most instances decay of nature was the cause of disease. There is not much illness at Schwatz; but admittance to the simple accommodation of the hospital is easily conceded. Schwatz formerly had two, but the larger was burnt down in 1809. The remaining one seems amply sufficient for the needs of the place.

There was ‘Benediction’ in the church in the evening, for it was, I forget what, saint’s day. The church was very full, and the people said the Rosary in common before the Office began. A great number of the girls from the tobacco factory came in as they left work, and the singing was unusually sweet, which surprised me, as the Schwatzers are noted for their nasal twang and drawling accent in speaking. I learnt that there are several Italians from WÄlsch-Tirol settled here, and they lead the choir. It is edifying to see the work-people, after their day’s toil, coming into the church as if it was more familiar to them even than home; but one does not get used to seeing the uncovered heads of the women, though indeed with the rich and luxuriant braids of hair with which Nature endows them, they might be deemed ‘covered’ enough.

A more familiar sight to an English eye is the seat-filled area of the German churches. Confessedly it is one of the home associations which one least cares to see reproduced, but the pews of the German churches are less objectionable than our own; they are lower, and not so crowded, and ample space is always left for processions, so they interfere far less with the architectural design.