The Forest Farm: Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

by Peter Rosegger

  XVI

  The Stag on the Wall[17]

  Heidepeter's[18] house was the very last in the Wilderness. It stood onthe heath where the forests began, lying very high on a piece of almostlevel ground. The grey stones showed through the grass in many placesbefore the house.

  Upon the heath lay numberless rocks patched and traceried with moss.Here and there on the sandy ground between the rocks stood asilver-birch tree whose leaves were for ever whispering and trembling,until in late autumn they were blown away and lost over the moor.

  This moorland house bore upon the king-post of the big living-room thedate 1744; it was the first house ever built in the Wilderness.

  Peter's forefathers must have been well-to-do, for they possessed muchforest and were cattle-breeders as well. The trees had all been cutdown and had grown up again, but now Count Frohn--who possessed a finecastle, the Frohnburg, on the other side of the hill, and, neighbouringthe heath, a great deal of forest and its hunting, and hitherto afeudal right to the peasants' service--was gradually possessing himselfof the squatters' forest as well; so that it had now come to this--thatwithout his permission no tree might be felled nor branch broken. Thepoor outlying folk of the Wilderness were neglected by all theauthorities and courts of justice--indeed, almost forgotten. So theyclung to their grain-growing--to the scanty husbandry possible to theplace.

  To the moorland house was now left only the steep fields sloping downto the ravine, and a narrow strip of meadow. Everything else, such asrights of wood and pasture, was heavily burdened with taxation andfeudal duty.

  On the weather-stained wooden wall of the house, facing north, andbeneath the deep, overhanging roof, was the figure of an animal, carvedout of wood. Any stranger, when now and again such a one passed by thehouse on his wanderings among the mountains, came to a halt before thisthing and gazed at it. Pedlars with their packs, Carniolas with sievesand all manner of wooden wares, glass-cutters, old-clothes men, whowere always glad to go about the Wilderness in summer-time, would proptheir back burdens against their sticks and have a good look at thefigure before they entered the house. Even the beggars did the same,with a benevolent expression on their faces, as if admiring the man whohad carved it.

  But as to what the object represented opinions were very various. Onesaid it was a cow, another a donkey, another a chamois; some, however,said it must be a stag. This last supposition was well founded. Fromthe creature's head protruded two little bits of wood, notched saw-likeon top, which just conceivably stood for the antlers. Heidepeter wasvery decided about the matter: the animal really was a stag.

  All sorts of sayings and proverbs about the stag had become bound upwith the household life inside the walls.

  When Peter said to his little son Gabriel, "Laddie, we must hunt thered stag to-morrow!" he meant nothing else than that the child must getup at sunrise next morning. The stag was always glowing red at thathour.

  When the wind blew from the north the figure beat its feet upon thewall, and the people inside would say, "The stag is knocking again;there'll be a change in the weather."

  Through one whole summer Gabriel had been watching how two sparrowsbuilt their nest between the wooden antlers. (At that time a new bird'snest was the greatest joy on earth to Gabriel.) He could no longerresist the temptation, leant a ladder against the wall, and was goingto climb up. Then, by chance, his father came along, and he, usually somild, gave the boy quite unmistakably to understand that he must, onceand for all, leave the stag in peace.

  About this carved figure there clung a curious memory for Heidepeter.

  While still in the early days of his married life there came some badyears, and there in the Wilderness nothing would grow or ripen saveturnips and cabbage. Rye and oats started hopefully enough in thespring, greening and gathering strength for an output of ears. Then, inthe heart of summer, came rain and cold, and the mists hung about thehills for weeks. The corn grew pale and stooped, as if it would rathercreep back into the sheltering soil. There followed a few weeks ofsunshine after that, but before even the grain could mature the snowhad fallen. And so it happened several years running.

  The people lost heart and hardly cared to sow in the following spring,or had no seed to sow with.

  And Peter's grain-chest became empty, and he was unable to lend hisneighbours seed, as he used to; indeed, he was barely able to providefor his own household. But he was not discouraged, for he had a young,careful, industrious wife in the house--a happy state of things whichwill always render bad years more bearable.

  His wife had proposed that they should grow more turnips than usual,and a big plot of cabbages, to make up to some extent for the lack ofgrain. Peter followed her counsel, and by June new beautiful seedlingswere set out. In July down came the rain and mist on the Wildernessagain, but the garden stuff went on slowly, steadily growing.

  During the raw days Clara stayed a good deal within doors, becausePeter, mindful of her condition, would not have her out in the cold.But one day he came to her room, saying:

  "I don't know what it means, Clara; there must have been some animalabout--a whole row of the best cabbages has been eaten."

  The farm-hand said he had that morning seen a stag running from thekitchen-garden towards the forest.

  Heidepeter set to work and heightened the wooden paling round thegarden. When, very soon after, he saw Count Frohn crossing the fieldwith his gun and gilded powder-horn and proudly curving cock's feather,he called to him, "Your honour, I humbly beg pardon--but there's a stagthat's always coming out of the forest, and he'll eat up all ourcabbages."

  "Indeed?" answered the huntsman, laughing, and whistled to his dogs andwent on.

  A night or two later the beast came again and ate a whole row ofcabbages. And so the next time Peter met the Count he said, for thesecond time, and with his hat under his arm, "I hope your honour won'tbe angry with me--but I've no help for it, save this. There's been somany bad seasons, and we've hardly anything left to eat. Please rid usof that stag, for he's eating up our food-stuff, leaf and root andall."

  "Aha!" remarked the Count facetiously. "You'd prefer eating the stagwith your cabbages to that, wouldn't you, eh?"

  He whistled to his dog and went on.

  Quite downhearted, Peter went home, sat down on the bench, and for sometime did not say anything. Suddenly he struck his fist upon the tableand sprang up. Before he went out again, however, he went to his wifeand said quietly:

  "Clara, I'm the sort of man that people can twist round theirfinger--they call me a milksop; but it may be I'm going to pick aquarrel for once. Don't you take on about it. I thought it'd never haveto come to this, but now I see quite plain that it must."

  Then he went out and made the garden fence higher still, and plaitedthorns in and out, and chained the house-dog at the corner of thegarden.

  But the stag still came and ate the cabbages.

  Then Heidepeter got up, and took the road under his feet, and climbedover the steep slope until he came to Castle Frohnburg on the otherside of the mountain. There a great shooting party were assembled,noblemen and gentlemen, and all drinking out of foaming beakers "Goodluck to the sportsman!"

  Peter strode through the midst of them and right up to his master. Heseemed like another man than himself to-day. "I must defend my bread,sir," he said in a stifled voice; "but so that I mayn't do any wrong,I've come all this way to tell you I'm going to shoot the stag."

  Then the Count roared with laughter and called out:

  "You little fool! why do you put yourself to the trouble?" He whistledfor his two bulldogs. Heidepeter said never another word, but wentaway. And that night he shot the stag.

  Early next morning the huntsmen came to his house and clapped irons onhis hands. He suffered this quietly, and said to his inconsolable wife:

  "Don't you take on about it--don't you take on. The Lord will come anddo justice yet!" And so Peter was taken away and thrown into prison asa poacher.

  Week after week he sat there. H
e was thinking neither about hiscabbages, nor the stag, nor the Count, but only about his wife."Perhaps her hour will come to-morrow, perhaps even to-day, and thywife is giving thee thy first-born. She is holding him out to thee, butthou dost not hold out thy arms to take him! Or there may be somedifficulty about the sponsors, and thou art not by her side to help herin her great need; and when thou returnest to thy house thou wilt finda mother without her child, or an orphan--or perhaps neither mother norchild"----

  In his anguish he could have dashed his head against the wall, but heremained quiet, only constantly murmuring to himself as he stared atthe brick floor:

  "The life of a man is a wheel. To-day I'm down and you're up; to-morrowit's the other way about. Yes, Count Frohn, round and rolling--that'show God has made this world!"

  At last, when his time was up, Heidepeter was set free. He hurried tohis home, and found his wife and child both doing well.

  The very next day he went into his workshop and planed and carved astag out of some boards. And this he nailed to the weather-stained greywooden wall of his house in everlasting remembrance.

  The dwellers of the Wilderness had by now come to respect thedetermined Heidepeter, because he had been brave enough to tackle theold devil--as they called the Count under their breath; they had neverexpected this of the good-natured man. It was, however, the first andlast time it happened: Peter saw there was nothing to be gained thatway, and the burden of years and oppression took the heart out of him.He came to the conclusion this world is a valley of sorrow, and whocan better it? The reasonablest thing is to endure. He no longeropposed himself to the Count; indeed, he used to say it was better tosuffer wrong than do wrong. And he went on in his own quiet way, andthe people, because of his gentle, submissive bearing, called him amilksop.[19]

  FOOTNOTES:

  [17] This is a chapter out of Rosegger's _Heidepeter's Gabriel_: a bookwhich is largely autobiographical--Heidepeter being undoubtedly theauthor's father--and which gives a picture of the small peasantcommunity in a poor mountain district called, from its bare and lonelycharacter, the Wilderness.

  [18] Heide-Peter means literally Moor-Peter, or Peter of the Moor.

  [19] _Dalkerd_: a South German word, evidently meaning milksop.