In the heart of the Tyrol, where the Rothwalderbach and Schwarzenbach unite to form the waters of the Tausenser Aar, lies the village of Tausens; it is the centre of the most retired portion of the Tyrolean highlands.

In former years, before there was any railway near, scarcely a single stranger ever visited Tausens, although the village is only about four leagues distant from the nearest town, which is reached by a very good high-road. Since this town, however, has been provided with a railway station the village is somewhat more frequented, although even now its visitors are still confined to a few stout Alpine explorers, who pass through Tausens to wander up the Schwarzenbach valley and find a path over the lofty Schiechjoch to the Zillerthal, or who seek the Tauern mountain group by the way of the Rothwald valley.

The inhabitants of the valleys look after such pedestrians with a smile,--they cannot imagine what these fellows, with their long mountain-staffs and ice-picks, their knapsacks on their backs, and their hob-nailed shoes, according so ill with their city costume, can want among the mountains. That these people from the city should undertake such difficult and wearisome expeditions for pleasure, that they should at peril of their lives ascend the most inaccessible mountain-peaks to find a passage to a place which they could otherwise reach much more quickly and easily, seems to these honest countryfolk so silly that they have but one explanation for it, doubtless a harmless insanity; and they call these restless, indefatigable climbers of glaciers and snow-peaks, Bergfaxes (mountain fools). They are very fond of the Bergfaxes nevertheless, for they always need guides and carriers for their mountain expeditions, and are willing enough to pay their guilders for service rendered, thus bringing some cash at least into the retired valleys.

With the exception of the Bergfaxes, who sometimes take up their abode in Tausens for a few days to make the ascent of the Drei Maidelspitz or the Weisshorn from the Schwarzbachthal, or of the Spitzhorn from the Rothwalden, and who finally depart for the Zillerthal over the Schiechjoch, scarcely a traveller ever visits Tausens, although its magnificent situation makes it well worthy of a sojourn.

The view from the platform in front of the inn, which is also the post-office, is magnificent, and enchantingly lovely. Towards the south the eye revels for leagues in the broad green fertile valley of the Tausenser Aar, lying between two fir-clad mountain-ranges, and closed in in the far distance by the jagged and rocky peaks of the Dolomites. To the northeast lie the beautiful forests of the Rothwald, with the snowy pile of the Spitzhorn for a background, and to the northwest the two glorious glaciers of the Maidelspitz and the Weisshorn.

In this wondrously lovely country the ancient castle of Reifenstein is a most striking object, commanding as it does the entire panorama of mountain, river, and valley. The glorious old pile is still in tolerable repair,--a careful hand has stayed the ravages of time, which have buried in ruins so many of its contemporaries. Some of the old walls are crumbling, it is true, but the main structure is in thorough repair, and two huge round towers are propped from decay by a modern substructure. Although in the interior these towers are so ruinous that their summits are inaccessible, their massive masonry defies the tempests that rage against them from the south and northeast, and will still for coming centuries bear witness to the despotic sway once exercised over the three valleys by the lords of Reifenstein.

The reason why, in spite of the great beauty of the view from Tausens, to which Castle Reifenstein adds its charm, so few travellers in comparison visit the village, is partly that such comfort can hardly be expected here as is to be found in the more frequented parts of the Tyrol, and partly that the passage of the Tausenser Aar valley is rather tedious, and tourists prefer to reach the chief points of interest among the mountains by railway. All the more welcome are the few who visit Tausens, all the more cordially are they received by mine host the postmaster.

It was always a holiday for Hansel, as he was called by his friends in spite or his dignified position as postmaster, when a traveller came to Tausens; not because he reckoned upon the gain it would bring him,--he cared little for that, for the couple or so of guilders were of but small account to him. His inn was frequented sufficiently without the tourists; its comfortable room was never empty of guests, for the peasants from all the three valleys came by choice to the Post at Tausens, where the best wine was to be had for miles around. Their marriages and their burials were celebrated at the Post. To the Post came every evening, in winter as in summer, the gentlemen of the place,--the district judge, his associate, the collector, and the forester. These constant guests were far more profitable to the postmaster than any traveller could be, and besides he possessed many an acre of meadow and pasture-land, a good strip of forest, and some beautiful alms.^[1] He was accounted a wealthy man in all the country round, but his pride was hurt that so few strangers came to Tausens, while in the Zillerthal and in the Pusterthal the inns were filled to overflowing with tourists during the months of July and August. This vexed the worthy Hansel; he had so often heard the judge and the other gentlemen in his best parlour say that the natural beauty of Tausens made it well worthy to attract strangers, and hence the small number of tourists that came his way seemed to him like an unmerited neglect of his native place. The idea that he could conduce to render the village more attractive never occurred to him. He would have indignantly rejected any suggestion that he should modify or change the ancient customs of his inn for any stranger in the world.

He was standing at his inn-door on a certain beautiful day in July very much out of sorts. The day before he had been in Niederdorf, where he had found the inns so crowded that not another traveller could be received there, and a very grand gentleman had been forced to sleep in a hayloft, because there was no bed to be had. And he had heard that the inns at Sandro, Schleuderbach, and Cortina were just as full, not to mention Brunneck, where for a week every little farm-house had been filled with tourists.

The whole valley of the Puster was filled with visitors, and not a single one, not even a Bergfax, had come to Tausens! Thoroughly vexed. Hansel blew the smoke from his pipe in short angry puffs; he swept the landscape far and wide with his glance, but it was deserted everywhere, not a traveller was to be seen.

He turned away in disgust, and was about to enter the house, when suddenly the frown cleared away from his brow. He had accidentally overlooked the Schwarzenbach valley, thence, where he had least expected them, were coming the desired guests; his sharp eye recognized them in the distance. From his point of view he could see but a short stretch of the valley-road which followed the many windings of the rushing, gurgling Schwarzenbach, but walking along this very stretch he discovered three city-clad gentlemen, followed by two peasants. The gentlemen carried long alpenstocks, and were walking briskly down the valley towards the village,--the peasants were loaded with portmanteaus and plaids.

From the point which the travellers had reached they had a glorious view of the valley of the Tausenser Aar and of the village. They paused, and one produced a glass and looked through it. For a while they stood drinking in the beauty around them, and then they strode onwards, vanishing in the Lerchenwald, through which the road ran.

But Hansel had seen enough; he rubbed his hands gleefully, and called loudly into the house, "Nannerl! Nannerl!"

The inn-maid, a fresh, buxom lass, came running at his call. From the tone of his voice she judged that strangers were to be received, and she gave her smooth hair a stroke and twitched down her blue apron as she ran. When however she found no one but Hansel himself, she said, peevishly, "Here I am. What are you shouting for? There's no one here!"

"But they're coming,--three Bergfaxes on the way from Schwarzenbach,--they'll be here in a quarter of an hour!"

And true enough, they did come in a quarter of an hour, the three Bergfaxes,--three broad-shouldered young men, whose city clothes, terribly dusty although it was, showed that they were gentlemen of good position.

Hansel called out a lusty "God greet ye!" as they appeared, and offered his hand heartily to each in turn in sign of welcome. The one with a black beard shook it with great cordiality, and regarded the postmaster with a friendly smile. "Hail, beloved son of the Alps!" he said, with mock pathos. "Receive us weary wanderers beneath your hospitable roof; strengthen our famished and thirsty frames with food and drink. By Jove the eternal, I am so rejoiced to get out of that dark wood and to see your good, stupid face, that I could kiss it but for the stifling tobacco-smoke."

"Do hush your nonsense, Paul!" one of his companions entreated him.

But the one addressed as Paul exclaimed, "Who dares talk of nonsense when I give vent to my pent-up emotion in a poetic greeting? Be not annoyed, oh worthy son of the Alps, by the words of this prosaic person,--he cannot help it,--there is no poetry in his soul. And would you earn from me a gratitude that shall endure till time is no more, bring us wine,--a great deal of wine,--good wine,--the best in your cellar!"

Hansel understood very little of this address, the northern German dialect was unfamiliar to his ears; but he comprehended distinctly that the black-bearded stranger was a little crazy, and very thirsty, as was to be expected of Bergfaxes.

"A bottle of the best red," he called out to Nannerl, while he relieved the three strangers of their alpenstocks and conducted them into the spacious best room.

Here the black-bearded stranger looked about him with a sharp scrutinizing glance. "Bravo!" he cried. "I like this. Here let us pitch our tents! Everything clean and shining! Not a speck of dust on the window-panes, nor a spot upon the table. If the meat and drink are good one might stay here for a while very contentedly. What think you, Herwarth?"

"I think," replied the man addressed, "that I shall surely stay some time here, even although the meat and drink are not all that could be desired."

"You see, Leo, of what sacrifices a true friend to whom egotism is unknown is capable. Noble Knight von Herwarth, I bow myself in the dust before you; it is truly great thus to remain at hand at the service of your friend, resigning yourself to devour daily the toughest beef that the Tyrolean cow can afford. You are sublime in your self-renunciation. You have plunged with genuine heroism into all the perils that await the respectable northern German from Tyrolean cooking, and you even eat Leo's portion in addition to your own, lest the poor fellow should overload his stomach, which, sunk in melancholy as he is at present, might be injurious for him. Your efforts are Titanic. I daily bless the lucky star (I mean the golden one at Innspruck) which brought us together. I bless it in spite of the gnats there which kept me awake all night."

"Considering that he did not sleep, poor Delmar snored very loudly. What do you think, Leo?"

"I thought he did very well----"

"Very well; that is not the right word," Herwarth cried. "Delmar snored wonderfully. There is no discord, from the thunderous groan of a heavy wagon to the shrill creaking of a rusty lock, that he did not produce. He is a master of the art. I snore pretty well after a commonplace fashion, but I bow before you, Delmar."

"'Tis a base calumny. I never snore; you heard yourself in your dreams. I could not sleep for the gnats, and for admiration of the heroism with which you have followed your friend into exile. I admire you, and I long to resemble you, but unfortunately I am made of too coarse a material. I cannot waft myself aloft to the empyreal heights of your magnanimity. Now you are determined to remain in this inn even if the cooking is bad!"

"Are you not going to stay here too?"

"I shall probably stay, not for Leo's sake, but because I like it. I am determined, in the lack of all other suitable occupation, to devote myself in future to novel-writing. I can certainly emulate in that line the many crazy women and hungry literati who fill our magazines with their intellectual abortions. Leo is to be the hero of my first romance."

"How flattering! Much obliged, I am sure."

"Not at all, not at all! A hero of romance must always be very high-toned, very exaggerated, and a little unsound in mind. You see how well it all fits. An unhappy love is desirable, but not indispensable. Also we must have a faithful friend. Here are two. Also a romantic situation. We have it. Leo ought to marry the daughter of a wealthy old uncle, but he hates the lovely Hilda, and is consumed by a secret passion for a little milliner's apprentice. Here we have the unhappy love. He is in deep despair, when his redeeming angel appears in the person of his faithful friend Kuno von Herwarth. Whilst Leo is suffering all the pangs of his unhappy love, and working away in the castle upon the mountains, Kuno, in a noble spirit of self-sacrifice, has been eating veal three times a day at the 'Post' in Tausens and drinking sour Tyrolean wine. He rushes to the castle to rescue his friend. He sees Hilda. He loves her; she loves him. He threatens to murder the wealthy old uncle if he does not release his friend. A terrible scene ensues. But he does not murder him: he overcomes him by his amiable conduct. Final tableau: the old uncle blessing Hilda and Kuno, while friend No. 2 joins the hands of Leo and his little milliner. Universal emotion and general content. End.

"There you have a romance as poetic as it is thrilling, especially if a few episodes are sprinkled about here and there, such as, for example, a small murder in the torture-chamber of Castle Reifenstein, and a combat with foils between Hilda and the little milliner, who has secretly followed her Leo and has gone mad with jealousy. Of course Kuno separates the combatants. What a scene that will make! I tell you the romance will produce a sensation. Now I am going to stay here to study up for this novel; not upon Leo's account. I yield the privilege of self-sacrifice to you, oh noble Knight von Herwarth, and cleave to my long-tried selfishness."

Leo and Kuno laughed, but were spared the necessity of a reply to Paul's long exordium by the entrance of the pretty maid-servant with the wine. "Will the gentlemen have anything to eat?" she asked.

"Indeed they will, Maidele" (Tyrolean for Marie); "they are as hungry as wolves," Delmar replied.

"Maidele?" the girl asked, in surprise. "And suppose I am not Maidele?"

"Why, then, you must be Nannerl?"

"Yes, I am Nannerl; but how could the gentleman know my name?"

"A little bird whispered it to me on the Schiechpass, of course; how else should I have known it? But never trouble your head about that, my pretty Nannerl, but tell us what you can give us to eat."

"Veal steaks, veal cutlets, veal chops, roast veal, and stewed veal."

"For heaven's sake stop! For one whole week I have heard, morning, noon, and night, nothing but that fearful word veal, nothing but veal. I cannot understand how there can be an ox or a cow in the Tyrol. Ah, my poor Herwarth, my prophecy is about to be fulfilled: 'veal three times a day.' If there is a feeling heart in your bosom, pretty Nannerl, try to save me from veal for to-day at least."

Nannerl would have been very glad to do so, for she was much pleased with the stranger gentleman, but she could not, for, as she now explained, there was no beef to-day, and the chickens were all too young to kill. By night she could get a pair of larger ones from the castle, and the next day they could have plenty of beef; but for dinner to-day they must have veal, since the fisherman had happened to bring no trout; but Nannerl promised to give the gentlemen an excellent soup and capital fritters, and thus Paul's comical despair was allayed, the very good wine having already produced a soothing effect.

"You confuse these people with your nonsense, Paul," Leo said, when Nannerl had left the room.

"Not a bit of it; I shall get on with these worthy souls excellently well; they think me harmlessly insane, and they like it. Our noble Knight von Herwarth thinks the same of me, but I shall convince him that I can be very serious, and that immediately. We must now plan our campaign, for after the soup is on the table I refuse to open my mouth except to eat."

"What have you in your head now?"

"I am composing the introduction to my romance. After a week of wandering, after climbing the terrible Schiechpass, over rocks and glaciers, we are at last arrived in Tausens. We find ourselves at the foot of the rock that bears upon its summit the enchanted castle Reifenstein. High above us sits enthroned the old monster Uncle Heydeck and the wicked fairy Hilda, who intends to ensnare our Leo in her golden enchanted net; but we two, the Knight von Herwarth and the simple squire Delmar, must rescue our friend, our first duty being to learn how the land lies, so to speak. At present we know nothing of the old monster and the wicked fairy Hilda, for the little told us in the famous letter from Uncle Heydeck has, since it comes from himself, no claim to be believed. Before we can do anything we must know more of Uncle Heydeck: what he is thought of here, how he lives, what he does. We must know further what kind of a person is the blue-eyed Hilda who is to ensnare our Leo. A blue-eyed Hilda may be either pretty or confoundedly ugly, a good-natured fool or a dragon. The honest postmaster, mine host of this hospitable house, will doubtless tell us all we wish to know upon these points. And here I am ready to sacrifice myself to friendship. I will inhale the highly unfragrant smoke of the postmaster's pipe, I will treat the worthy man with the loftiest courtesy, and in spite of his shooting-jacket, short stockings, and bare knees, always entitle him Herr Postmaster, that I may learn what he has to tell. I will drink with him, lead him on to be confidential, and he shall reveal all that he knows of Uncle Heydeck and the blue-eyed Hilda. Thus we shall become familiar with the people. We will investigate the country when, being strengthened by our dinner, we conduct our friend Leo to the gate of the enchanted castle, where of course we must separate. He will take up his abode within its walls, while we, the Knight Kuno and myself, will remain here in Tausens ready to hasten to his aid so soon as he needs us. He will daily visit us here, and if possible present us to the old monster and the blue-eyed Hilda, that we may in turn visit him at the castle. This is a brief sketch of my plan of our campaign, the details must be left to the future. If any one has anything to say in objection let him speak now, or for ever after hold his peace. You first, Kuno, my noble knight; what do you think of my plan?"

"I do not see what else we can do."

"And you, Leo?"

"I agree in everything but the last part. I hope my uncle will not suffer my friends to remain down here in the inn. He will certainly invite you to stay at the castle."

"Don't reckon upon that too surely; I doubt very much whether he possesses the virtue of hospitality or indeed any virtue at all. Even should he do so, I shall not accept his invitation. I wish to be entirely free and unfettered, and am determined to live on veal sooner than stay at the castle. What do you think about it, Herwarth?"

"I agree with you. We will stay here at the Post and engage rooms, that Leo may be free to stay with us when we make excursions together among the mountains."

"Agreed; the rooms are a decided improvement upon my plan. Then it is all settled, and 'tis fortunate, for here comes the soup."

While the three strangers had been talking together in the inn parlour the postmaster had been having a gossip with the two peasants from the Zillerthal who had been their guides across the Schiechjoch. It was just such a gossip as he enjoyed.

The men, who were in the habit of seeing many strangers and of continually acting as guides across the glaciers and in difficult ascents, maintained that of all the Bergfaxes they had ever seen the gentleman with the black beard and the sallow face was the biggest fool. They had been with him and his companions four days, and he had some fresh nonsense for every hour in the day. But he had nous enough for all that, and he was always first in all the steepest paths. He didn't care where they walked: ice or rocks were all the same to him; he was never dizzy, and never tired either. Day before yesterday, when they went up the Drei Maidelspitz, they had had such a snow-storm that the guides themselves had been almost frozen, but neither of the three gentlemen had uttered a word of complaint, and the black-bearded one had laughed and sung and thought it all right, and the whole expedition a capital joke.

He was teasing the others all the time, especially the youngest, whom he called 'Knight;' but he didn't mind it, he only laughed, and all three were the best possible friends. The youngest was a merry gentleman and joked a good deal, but he was not such a fool as the black-beard. The third gentleman, whom they called Leo, was the most sensible. When he was walking alone he often looked very grave, and even sad, but then Delmar would join him and talk such crazy nonsense that he had to laugh.

All three were first-rate people, but they liked Delmar best; he saw to all the money matters, and was generous as a prince. He was always deceiving the others, and in a very odd way, very different from the usual one; when for example he paid three guilders he would pretend that he had only paid one, and would go on declaring that never in his life had he known travelling so cheap as it was in the Tyrol.

Jackel, the eldest of the guides, had settled with Delmar what he should pay them. He told how he had asked for himself and for Seppel four guilders a day; how Herr Delmar had fallen into a rage and declared that two guilders a day was extortion. The two other gentlemen had reasoned with him, but he had insisted that he was a poor millionaire who could not afford to throw his money away, and that nothing should induce him to pay more than two guilders a day. Jackel had then consulted with Seppel to see whether they should go for two guilders a day, and Herr Delmar had interfered and shouted and stormed and insisted that they should go for two guilders a day whether they wanted to or no, and then he thrust a twenty-guilder note into Jackel's hand and whispered to him to divide it with Seppel, but to say nothing about it to the two other gentlemen but consent to go for two guilders a day, and he would give them something besides. And then he went on screaming and raging as if he were crazy. And when Jackel said he would go for the two guilders, then Herr Delmar boasted to the others that he knew how to manage people so as to travel cheaply, and how would the others get along without him?

And so he had gone on all the four days. He must have as mach money as the king. He was a great fool; but he had nous enough, and was so kind no one could help liking him.

The postmaster listened to all this with the greatest interest. Especially delighted was he when he heard that the three gentlemen had talked together of staying a long time in Tausens. He instantly called to Nannerl, and told her to prepare the best room in the house,--the large corner room, with the view of the castle and the Weisshorn,--and to make up three beds in it. Such guests were rare in Tausens, and Hansel determined that they should be made as comfortable as possible.

The Zillerthalers' account had made him very curious to see more of his odd guests, and especially of Herr Delmar. He was a little afraid of him, but he determined nevertheless to go to the inn parlour and have a gossip with the strangers.

He went at the right time. Delmar had just eaten his last mouthful and was about to light a cigar. The others had also finished their dinner, and that they had enjoyed it the empty dishes bore witness. The wine too, as Hansel saw with satisfaction, had been duly appreciated: the bottle was empty.

Herr Delmar--Hansel knew him at once by his black beard and sallow face--nodded kindly, and pushing another chair up to the table, said, "Sit down, Herr Postmaster. We want to spend some time with you here in Tausens, and would like to hear something about the place. But it's ill talking with dry lips. Let us have another bottle of wine; and I hope you will take a glass with us."

Hansel opened his eyes. Here was Herr Delmar talking very sensibly, and indeed courteously. "Herr Postmaster!" The title was all the dearer to the worthy man since he heard it so seldom. Friends and acquaintances always called him Hansel; the men and maids, as well as the peasants, called him 'Landlord;' but he never, or almost never, was addressed as 'Postmaster,' although he had as good a right to the title as the postmaster at Bozen. Whoever called him thus won his heart immediately, and Herr Delmar had taken it by storm.

It was not often that Hansel served the guests himself. He left that to Nannerl: it was her duty. But to-day he made an exception. He took the bottle from the table, and himself descended to the cellar, where he filled it with his very best. His round face beamed as he brought it to his guests; and when Paul again invited him to sit down and take a glass, he took his place at the table very proud of the honour.

Hansel was in the best of humours; he was ready to do anything in the world for these guests,--a mood of which Delmar was not slow to take advantage. He understood how, by skilful questioning and a remark thrown out now and then, to draw out the postmaster who was fond of talking, in the most thorough manner.

He began by asking about the various points of interest in the surrounding country; about the way to the famous Tausenser waterfalls; about the names and the height of the mountain-peaks that could be seen from the windows; thence he led the conversation to Castle Reifenstein, and of course to its possessor, Herr von Heydeck, and his daughter Hilda; and when it had arrived at this point all went swimmingly, for this was a theme upon which the worthy Hansel, who had no idea that he was being systematically pumped, could talk by the hour together.

With ready garrulity and in the broadest Tyrolean patois, which had frequently to be explained by him to his North-German questioner, he answered all questions put to him. The Herr who lived in the castle had been for many years an object of curiosity, of admiration, and of superstitious fear to all the country-people about, and to Hansel himself no less than to the rest. They whispered many a queer thing about him and his castle among the peasants in the common room of the inn; and there were terrible ghost-stories told of the old castle. Everything--the whispers and the stories--was faithfully detailed by Hansel. He was in his element, and Delmar's skilful questions and repeated glasses of wine combined to keep him there.

The worthy postmaster's story was no connected narrative, and he often diverged to expatiate upon other themes; but Delmar always managed to bring him back to Castle Reifenstein and Herr von Heydeck, so that the breaks in his account were gradually filled up and the strangers had at last a distinct picture of the life and character of Herr von Heydeck. Only the picture, it is true, which existed in the fantastic brains of Hansel and the Tausens peasantry, and which perhaps resembled but little the original. Truth and fiction, fact, and fable begotten of superstition, were mingled in the postmaster's account in a wonderful mosaic, as was plain to be seen; but nevertheless it possessed the greatest interest for Leo and his friends.

Many many years before, as Hansel related, the old castle had belonged to a Count Menotti, who had leased it to a peasant, for the Count never came to Tausens himself. He lived at Riva on the Lake of Garda, and cared nothing for his Tyrolean estate except to see that the rent was paid punctually; of course his tenant had no interest in preserving the huge pile in good order. Large portions of the gigantic walls fell down from the rocks into the valley below, and one of the three towers which Hansel could remember, as a boy, still standing, crumbled to ruins; but the main building where the tenant lived, and in which he had his barns granaries and cattle-stalls, was still standing. Its massive masonry had defied decay.

Although there were valuable forests meadows and pasturelands belonging to the castle, besides some fertile cultivated fields, the tenant paid only a small rent; and very naturally, for the Count could hardly have found another tenant.

In fine all was not right at the castle; strange things happened there and stranger sights were seen. It was haunted! There were very few old peasants in Tausens who had not, at some time, had a scare 'up there.' From the ruined part could often be heard, far down in the valley, shrieks and groans and wild laughter.

Even by day few of those who lived in the valley willingly went near the dreadful old pile, and by night no one could be induced to go there. Old Stoffel, the tenant, could not persuade either man or maid to sleep there, although he offered them the highest wages and assured them that the ghost would do no good Christian any harm. No one would believe him; and so he and his three sons and his two daughters had to live by themselves in the haunted castle. He had to pay high for day-labourers. In the brightest sunshine no one liked to enter the castle, and the bravest fellow would not have taken any money to go inside either of the great round towers.

Old Stoffel was afraid of these towers himself. Not of the ghosts, he said with a laugh, but of the stones that might fall from their crumbling walls. Still the people in Tausens knew better; they did not believe him; they were sure he had been frightened by the ghost there, and would not confess it for fear of getting no men to work for him.

Old Stoffel was a wild daring fellow who feared neither God nor the devil. Indeed, many people thought he had made a bargain with the Evil One. He never went to church, but frequented the tavern, where he drank up all his gains. He made his children work for him: he never did anything himself, and although he was a very old man, he spent his time in going from tavern to tavern until he died. One morning he was found dead on the road from Tausens to the castle,--his corpse was perfectly blue.

The postmaster remembered well that Dr. Putzer said that the old man had had a stroke, but no one in Tausens believed it, for the doctor was as great a blasphemer and tippler and as bad a Christian then as he is at present. Stoffel's time was up, and the devil had wrung his neck, which was why his corpse was blue,--every Christian knew that.

After the old man's death the Count could find no tenant for the castle, for no one could be found to pay rent for it. Stoffel's sons, although they could work, had not sense enough to know how to manage, and the daughters were not much better. They stayed all together at the castle, however, although Count Menotti never got much rent out of them. He tried to sell the estate, and offered it for almost a nominal price, but who wanted to buy a haunted old nest on a misty mountain in the Tyrol?

A couple of years had passed, when one day, how long since the postmaster could not exactly say, but nearly thirty years he should think, a grand gentleman with his beautiful wife had driven to Tausens. They stopped at the old Oberwieser's, the postmaster's father's,--the inn had not then been named the Post. The stranger was Herr von Heydeck, who had bought the castle of Count Menotti and had come to inspect it.

Hansel was then a young fellow about eighteen years old, and he had been bidden by his father to show the strangers up to the castle. He did not like to do it, but there was no joking with the old Oberwieser, and so he obeyed.

On the way he told Herr von Heydeck and the handsome lady-wife about the ghosts in the castle, and how the devil had wrung old Stoffel's neck when his time was up, and they both laughed,--the lady laughed most. She often paused on the way up and looked around. She thought the country lovely, and when they had reached the summit of the rocks and saw the view from the balcony of the main building of the castle, she was enchanted. The whole castle must be repaired and newly furnished, she said, and then it would be a delightful place to invite one's friends to in summer-time.

In a few days the old place was turned inside out; an architect arrived with numbers of workmen, and they all went to work. They began rebuilding in the middle of May, and by the middle of July everything was finished, and the whole castle splendidly furnished ready for the master and mistress, who were not slow in making their appearance, with quantities of servants and numerous guests, mostly officers. There were but a couple of ladies among them.

And now began such a life in the castle as no one in Tausens had ever seen before; no emperor and empress could have lived more splendidly. Every evening almost all the windows in the old pile blazed with light, and down from the rocks came floating the sounds of revelry and wild dance-music. In the old baronial hall there was singing and playing and dancing and feasting and carousing until deep into the night.

In the mean time nothing was heard of the ghost,--the devil was probably highly content with the goings on, for they were surely far from correct. Why the mistress and the couple of ladies went about in the evenings with their shoulders all bare and never minded the men, but danced and jested with them.

The mistress outdid them all: she was the gayest, and was always friendly and kind to her guests, and to the servants, and even to the country-people, to every one except to her husband; he must have felt very uncomfortable in the splendid castle, and he went alone among the mountains as often as he could.

Madame, too, often made excursions with her guests, to the waterfalls in the Rothwald valley, to the lake on the Frauenalm, and to other beautiful places, but she never went with her husband. She was a capital mountain-climber, but she was always accompanied by one of the other gentlemen, most often of all by Count Menotti, a younger brother of the former possessor of the castle. The Count and madame were always together, so that even the villagers talked about it. Whether they were right in declaring that there was sinful intercourse between the Count and the lady the postmaster did not know: he had never seen anything wrong, but there was plenty of malicious gossip about them, when one day there came to Tausens a travelling merchant, who said he had known madame before her marriage to Herr von Heydeck.

In a gossip over a can of wine he told of how the Count, although a married man, had been madame's lover for a long time, and that she had married Herr von Heydeck because it was the only way in which to avoid public scandal. And certainly all was not right between madame and the Count and Herr von Heydeck, for the latter's face would grow gloomier than ever when he chanced on his walks to meet his wife with Count Menotti. He avoided them as far as he could; accompanied by a guide only, he explored the loneliest parts of the country, and while madame was making merry with her guests he was collecting all kinds of herbs butterflies ugly worms, and even venomous snakes and vipers, which he would bring home to a room he had had arranged for himself in the castle.

This wild life lasted for four weeks, and then every one departed,--leaving however a theme for gossip in Tausens during the whole ensuing winter. Nothing else was talked of in the inn parlour among the gentlemen, or in the common room among the peasants. The postmaster, a young fellow at the time, had to serve the gentlemen who came in the evening to drink their wine at the inn, and he heard all they had to say among themselves. Of all the gentlemen there was only one. Dr. Putzer, who had ever been to the castle while its possessors were there, and he had gone only because one of the ladies had been slightly ill and there was no other physician to be had. Herr von Heydeck had received him very politely, but madame had hardly looked at him, and so he hated her, and had all sorts of bad stories to tell of her.

About a year had passed since the gay doings at the castle, when one day Dr. Putzer brought a piece of news to the gentlemen in the inn parlour that excited them greatly. He had just had a letter from his brother, an advocate in Vienna, and he read it aloud. The Vienna man wrote that madame had died in her confinement, and had left an immense fortune, not to her husband, but to her new-born child. Castle Reifenstein belonged to him now, and Herr von Heydeck was only his son's guardian. After the letter had been read, the gentlemen made many malicious remarks,--the worst came from Dr. Putzer, who in his tipsy mood boasted that if he were Herr von Heydeck he would tie a stone about the little bastard's neck and drown him like a kitten, but Herr von Heydeck had no nous. As he had shut his eyes for fear of his wife and Count Menotti, and taken no notice of what all the world knew, so now he would patiently acknowledge the Count's son, and live on as the brat's steward.

About four days after this conversation Herr von Heydeck arrived at Tausens, this time accompanied by no brilliant company or numerous retinue. Only one servant sat beside the coachman on the box of the carriage inside of which was Herr von Heydeck and opposite him a woman with a child carefully wrapped in shawls and blankets; it was the nurse with his dead wife's child.

The Herr only stopped in Tausens long enough to leave word at the inn for Dr. Putzer to come to the castle as soon as possible, and then drove on to Reifenstein. Here he took up his abode in his old room, while the nurse and child lived in another wing of the building. He sent to the farm in the valley for old Stoffel's two daughters. Trine and Lene, and the youngest son, Melcher, the stupidest of all, a perfect blockhead, and they were hired to do all the work of the household.

Henceforth Herr von Heydeck led the life of a hermit in the castle; the only man with whom he had any intercourse in all the country round was tipsy Dr. Putzer, whom he often sent for to visit the child and report to him the state of its health, for the Herr himself never saw it. The nurse was strictly forbidden ever to take it out of the apartments appropriated to her; if she was obliged to leave them herself, she was ordered to leave the child in the cradle and lock the door after her. Except the doctor, nobody in Tausens ever saw the baby; even the servants were not allowed to go into the room where it was.

The nurse was a very proud person; she never condescended to speak a word to any one except the doctor; she was always polite enough to him. They two understood one another extremely well; they would sometimes sit together for hours, while the master was in his room buried in his books. Once Trine saw him kiss her.

One evening--it was in the beginning of the winter--the doctor came to the inn parlour and told the gentlemen who were sitting there over their wine that he had just come from the castle, where matters looked badly; the child was seriously ill. He could not yet say what was the matter with it, but he thought it had the smallpox.

The gentlemen were greatly surprised at this intelligence. There had been one or two cases of smallpox in the neighbouring valleys, but none in Tausens or its immediate vicinity. It seemed impossible that the child should have taken it, living as he did in one part of the castle and seeing no one but his nurse and the doctor. But nevertheless it was the case, for a few days afterwards he proved to have the smallpox in its most malignant form, and within a week he was dead.

He was buried the day he died. The doctor ordered this for fear of contagion. Herr von Heydeck spared no expense. The child had a splendid funeral, and the master paid a lot of money for masses for his soul, besides giving the priest a large sum to distribute among the poor. But for all that he could not stop people's mouths. There were strange tales told in the village. No one spoke out loud; they only whispered among themselves. But one and all, gentlemen as well as peasants, thought that all had not been right at the castle. They did not believe in the smallpox. The child had died some other way, of which the master, who was his heir, would know nothing. That was why no one had been allowed to see the little corpse. This which was whispered at first was soon talked of loudly, and the doctor confirmed the tale, for he married the nurse. The wedding was celebrated scarcely two months after the child's death. The doctor bought the house in Tausens where he still lives with his wife. Where he got the money no one knew, for until the boy died he had more debts than hairs on his head; and when Herr von Heydeck furnished and fitted up the house for the newly-married pair as if a count and countess were going to live there, every one in the village said plainly that the master had good reasons for doing so. He had to show his gratitude to the doctor and his wife, who had made him a wealthy man.

In the inn parlour the matter was thoroughly discussed in the doctor's absence. The forester boldly declared his belief that the doctor had poisoned the poor little boy; but the district judge took him sharply to account for his words. He had no right to accuse the doctor of what would warrant the interference of the law; the gossip of the villagers was unworthy of repetition, and the doctor would be justified in dealing hardly with whoever did repeat it.

After this warning from the judge, which was soon known throughout the village, no one dared to utter a suspicion aloud, but the peasants thought that if a poor labouring man, and not a rich gentleman and a Herr Doctor, had been suspected of such a crime, the district judge would have spoken differently.

Herr von Heydeck was a very wealthy man after the death of the boy, but he altered nothing in his manner of life. He lived just as solitary as before in the old castle, only leaving it for a few weeks in the year to visit the baths, for the sake of his health, the doctor said. Then occurred what surprised every one. Many years had passed since the boy's death, when, just nineteen years ago, Herr von Heydeck returned from one of his summer excursions that had lasted longer than usual; and this time he was not alone. In the carriage beside him sat a lovely young wife, looking like an angel with her blue eyes and golden curls. "The gentlemen can see now how she looked," the postmaster remarked, "for our FrÄulein Hilda is very like her."

And the young mistress of Reifenstein was an angel. The village priest acknowledged that, although she was a heretic. No one in the village believed it when the doctor told them so until the Herr Pastor had confirmed it.

At first the people shook their heads and declared that such a thing had never been heard of in the Tyrol,--that a heretic should be mistress of Reifenstein. But the Herr Pastor himself comforted them, and he had good reasons for doing so, for a golden time had come for the poor in Tausens with the new mistress's arrival. Before long the people had forgotten that madame was a heretic. Although she never went to mass or to confession, she used often to go to church to listen to the sermon, and no one there could be more devout than she.

She never was haughty to any one, but had a kind word for the poorest. The only people she could not endure were the doctor and his wife. She made the first visit herself to the wife of the district judge, and begged her to come often to the castle, but although the doctor's wife went up to the castle the day after the bride arrived there, Madame von Heydeck could not have liked the former nurse from the first, for she never asked her to repeat her visit; and never as long as she lived did she set foot beneath the doctor's roof. She could not endure the doctor himself either. She told the judge's wife that she was afraid of his cunning gray eyes, but since there was no other physician in the country for miles round, she had to send for him whenever there was sickness at the castle. He never went there at other times, although they said he was still good friends with Herr von Heydeck, else how could he live as he did? He could hardly buy the wine that he drank with the couple of hundred guilders that he got from the peasants yearly; and certainly they would not have paid for the silk dresses and ornaments that his wife wore even on weekdays, not to speak of the show she made when she went to church on Sundays, or took a journey to Vienna, which she did two or three times every year.

All the villagers loved the mistress, and the master perfectly idolized her; he had become another man. There never were again such doings at the castle as there had been during the first mistress's reign. Herr and Madame von Heydeck lived for the most part a very quiet retired life, but they were not entirely without society. The judge and the collector, with their wives, were often invited to the castle, and sometimes there were grand visitors from Germany, relatives of madame, who was a countess.

But this happy life in the castle lasted only a few years. The second wife began to sicken: she lost her fresh colour; the doctor said the keen mountain-air did not agree with her, but she would not leave the beautiful country where she was so happy. At last, one autumn, she had to follow the doctor's advice. It is just twelve years ago now; her cough grew so bad that she herself saw that she could not spend another winter in the castle, around which the cold northern blasts swept continually. She went away with her husband and her little daughter, then six years old.

When the carriage drove through Tausens, all the villagers crowded about it to have a last word from the lovely lady, and she spoke to every one as kindly as she did to the judge himself.

She never came back. The doctor said she followed his advice too late. In Italy, at Nizza, they buried her. She died there hardly a year after she took leave of Tausens.

In a short time the master and his little girl returned. He brought a governess with him for his daughter, but she found it too lonely at the old castle. She soon went away again, and the master lived on alone, and the poor child would have had no woman to speak to if the judge's wife had not taken pity on it. She talked seriously to the Herr about his duty to his child, and told him how wrong it was to pay no attention to her education. And so the Herr took the little girl to Vienna to school. After that he led a more solitary life than ever at Castle Reifenstein, never leaving it except to go to Vienna three or four times a year to see his child; the rest of the time he spent without one human being to speak to: even the doctor was not allowed to go often to the castle.

And thus it has gone on until the present day, for even when a year ago FrÄulein Hilda came home from Vienna, her father never altered his way of life. He sits up there in his gloomy old room with his books and plants and worms; he has grown old and feeble, so that he cannot take long walks among the mountains, but only in the castle garden, and he studies all day long,--his daughter is with him only at dinner and in the evenings.

But if he is not changed, the FrÄulein's return has brought back the golden time for the poor people in Tausens; the same time that there was while her mother was alive. FrÄulein Hilda is the image of her mother; just as lovely, but fresher healthier and stronger; just as kind, but merrier and a wee hit wild,--no rock is too steep and no mountain too high for her. Not a boy in the village can outstrip her in a mountain walk, and she clambers about everywhere by herself, looking for the plants which she thinks will give her father pleasure. If any one is ill, she is upon the spot to aid wherever help is necessary. She is a heretic to be sure like her mother, but every one loves her, and the poorest most of all.

During his narrative the postmaster had emptied many a glass, and when he described the fair Hilda, her golden curls, her frank blue eyes that looked for all the world like those of the Holy Mother in the picture over the altar in church, he grew very earnest, and would have gone on expatiating upon a theme so dear to him had he not been called away.

His wife had several times timidly opened the door of the parlour a little way and peeped through the crack, but had quickly withdrawn when she saw Paul turn and look at her. She did not dare to call her husband while he was talking so earnestly with the stranger gentlemen, but at last she lost patience, and sent the maid into the room for him.

"What do you want, Loisel?" the postmaster asked his wife, impatiently; he would have liked to talk longer with the gentlemen who listened so attentively to what he had to say; he had quite forgotten that the post-bag was not yet locked, and that the wagon was waiting that carried the mail to town once a day.

Quite vexed Hansel set about this duty,--almost the only one which his office of postmaster imposed upon him,--and in a quarter of an hour it was concluded. His wife stood quietly by his side while he clumsily made the necessary entries in the books, then counted over the letters and locked them up in the old leather bag, which he handed over to the driver of the wagon. She waited patiently until the crack of the whip was heard and the wagon rolled off, and then she said to her husband, "Did you take a good look at the stranger gentlemen, Hansel?"

"I did."

"At the one with the black beard and the yellow face? My mind misgives me I've seen his face before!"

This remark of his wife's made Hansel very thoughtful. He too when Delmar first spoke to him had thought his face and figure familiar, and yet he could not remember ever having seen the stranger before. And when in the course of conversation it appeared that neither of the three gentlemen had ever been in the Tyrol, it was plain that he never could have seen Delmar, since he himself had never been farther from home than Linz, Bozen, and Innspruck.

During the long conversation Paul had been the principal speaker; the others had listened in silence. It was Paul who by a timely remark now and then had recalled mine host, when he was disposed to be discursive, to the interesting story which was thus related quite connectedly. Therefore to Delmar Hansel had always addressed himself, and again and again he found himself wondering why this peculiarly keen face seemed so strangely familiar to him. Now that his wife had remarked the same thing, he once more puzzled his brains to remember where he could have seen the stranger before; but in vain, and Loisel could not help him.

Meanwhile the three friends had taken counsel together in the postmaster's absence; his recital had given them food for reflection.

"My poor Leo!" said Paul, as soon as the door had closed upon Hansel's sturdy figure. "Fine stories these! Your uncle appears possessed of even less honour and courage than your father gave him credit for; but then on the other hand the fairy Hilda seems worthy of a trial,--she spurs us on to conquest. What shall we do?"

"Yes, what is to be done?" said Leo. "I am more irresolute than ever. After what we have just heard of my uncle I am very unwilling to present myself at the castle."

"But you promised your father."

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Your visit to the castle is settled, and you will soon see what next ought to be done. Be sure matters are not so bad as they seem from the gossip of the bare-kneed postmaster. The noble Herr von Heydeck, it is true, does not appear to suffer from an excess of amiability, but the devil is never so black as he is painted."

"Do you forget the suspicion that rests upon him with regard to the death of his child?" said Herwarth.

"Nonsense, my noble knight! mad inane nonsense, such as is only conceived in the superstitious stupid heads of Tyrolean peasants. That suspicion of murder is of a piece with the ghost-stories which every old ass in Tausens--our worthy postmaster among them--believes firmly, and with the highly probable explanation of the death of the old tenant when 'his time was up.' The judge and the doctor seem to be the only sensible men in the village. We must try, and I suppose it will not be very difficult, to make their acquaintance."

"You take the suspicion of murder confoundedly coolly," Kuno rejoined.

"I take it as such nonsense must be taken,--not coolly. I attach a certain significance to it as showing the low estimation in which uncle monster is held. It is certainly significant that he should be suspected of murder; but this may be only a consequence of his misanthropy and his tastes for herbs, worms, and poisonous reptiles. Nothing is essentially changed by the postmaster's narrative; therefore I think we had best adhere to our plans. I, as quartermaster of the party, will inspect the accommodations of the house and select our rooms. We will then remove as far as is possible the traces of our glacier tour, so that Leo at least may present a respectable appearance to his uncle and the golden-haired Hilda. The Knight Kuno and I will accompany him as far as the castle, and then leave him to his fate for a while and return here to rest upon the laurels which we have won upon our wanderings. Are you agreed?"

Leo and Herwarth had no objection to make, and Paul proceeded to carry out his plan. He went to the postmaster, whom he found in conversation with his wife. Both greeted him with a gaze of keen scrutiny, to which he paid no heed, informing Hansel that he with his friends was minded to spend some time at the inn if they liked their quarters.

The postmaster highly delighted displayed the accommodations that his house afforded, and Delmar found the rooms far more numerous and spacious than he could have anticipated. He engaged the largest and finest with a glorious view from the windows, of the castle and the snowy peaks in the background, for a sitting-room, and also a huge room adjoining with three beds in it, and then, after a short conversation with Hansel, returned with him to the inn parlour and informed his friends that they might inspect and approve his choice.

"So everything is arranged," said Paul, rubbing his hands, "except the price we have to pay. What do you want for the two rooms, Herr Postmaster? Don't ask too much; be reasonable, and we shall stay here all the longer."

The postmaster regarded him with a sly smile. "Would two guilders a day be too much for the two rooms?"

"Two guilders a day! Man, do you think we are made of money? One guilder is enough, and I will not give more."

"But, Delmar, pray----" Herwarth interposed, but Paul would not let him speak.

"I am quartermaster, and allow no interference in my affairs. Are you satisfied, postmaster, with one guilder?"

"'Tis not much, but it will do," Hansel replied, apparently not greatly disappointed at this reduction in the rent of his rooms. In fact he laughed when Paul explained that he would have no money transactions with an underling, but would settle with the postmaster himself daily. He assured the gentlemen that they should be well provided for and not overcharged, and then he went off grinning to the kitchen, and told Loisel that he had rented his two best rooms, and that the gentleman with the black beard had offered him four guilders a day for them, but the others were not to know it, to suppose he was only paid one guilder.

The gentlemen's portmanteaus were carried up to their rooms, and half an hour later the three friends, having changed their dress, appeared, and inquired the way to the castle. Hansel advised them to go by the road, which--although it ran circuitously around the base of the mountain--would take them to the castle in an hour, and upon which there was no danger of their losing their way, rather than by the much shorter foot-path which led from the last house in the village, and upon which they might easily go astray. He described the foot-path to them, but counselled them, if they should decide to go by it, to hire some lad in the village to act as guide.

"Thanks, we will," Paul rejoined; and then the three walked briskly off up the valley in the direction of the castle.

Hansel gazed thoughtfully after them. "I have seen the black-bearded one somewhere!" he exclaimed to Loisel, "but I cannot for the life of me remember where."