by Johann Hebel
Andreas Hofer kept the Sand Inn at Passeier and dealt in cattle, and up to his fortieth year when the uprising broke out he poured out many a glass of wine, used up many a piece of chalk listing bad debts, and he could judge a head of cattle as well as anyone. But in the revolt he rose to be commander, not just of a town or valley but of the whole principality of the Tyrol; and he set up his quarters, not just in a parsonage or a magistrate’s house but in the great palace, the residence of princes in Innsbruck. Before long he had some 50,000 reservists under his command. Those who had no guns presented arms with a pitchfork. Anything that was decreed and drawn up over the name of Andreas Hofer had the force of law. His privy minister of war was a gentleman of the church, Father Joachim by name; his adjutant, mine host from the Crown at Bludenz; his secretary, a runaway student. Under his rule 30,000 guilders’ worth of Tyrolean thirty-kreuzer coins were minted, Your Family Friend is one of those who has a hatful of them. He even
set up his own cannon foundry – and how do you suppose that was done? The cannon were bored from logs and bound around with strong iron hoops. And yes, their effect was great and not just on the enemy! In Innsbruck he did himself proud. You get fat on your own cooking, and he said, ‘I’ve played host long enough. Now I’ll let others wait on me for a change!’ For all that he never changed his manner of dress. He went around clothed like any ordinary Tyrolean and his beard was as long as it would grow. He just wore a pair of pistols in his red belt and a long heron’s feather in his green hat, and alongside his onerous duties as ruler he went on dealing in cattle as before. One minute he sent his adjutant with orders to the army, the next in came the butcher: ‘What are you asking for the four bullocks you have up at your brother-in-law’s?’ He wasn’t simply a brute. He prevented much suffering, where he could. He told an officer
who had been taken prisoner, ‘You’ll be shot tomorrow!’ The next day he said, ‘I’m told you are a good fellow, I’ll give you a pass so that you can go back home.’ But greater was the suffering he brought about by his stubbornness in refusing all offers of peace, and by his perfidy. At one time he wrote to the Bavarian High Command, ‘We surrender and beg for mercy. Andere Hofer, Supream Comarnder in Tiroll as was.’ At the same time he wrote to his adjutant, mine host of the Crown, ‘Hold out as long as you can. While there’s life there’s hope!’ But when in the end the misguided people gave in and accepted the mercy offered them by their magnanimous king, and all those who after that were then found carrying the weapons of rebellion were hanged and many a tree bore such a fruit, Andreas Hofer was not to be found at home nor on a tree; and it was said that he had taken a little walk over the border. He may
well have been planning to do that, in his wretched wooden herdsman’s hut high on a mountain in the furthest Passeier valley where he and his secretary were in hiding surrounded by six-foot walls of snow. His house and belongings had been plundered by the furious peasants. Now and then meagre rations were got to him by his wife who, with her five children, now lived on the charity of others. Now things were not as they had been in the palace at Innsbruck. But worse awaited him. One of his good friends betrayed his whereabouts for money. A French detachment surrounded his hut and took him prisoner. He was found with four loaded muskets, a deal of money, but little food. He was thin from want, worry and fear. And so he was taken by a strong military escort, to the beat of a drum, across the country into Italy and to the prison at Mantua, and there he was shot. That’s what you get from fishing in troubled waters.
Those who don’t look before they leap often find it’s grief they reap.
Patience Rewarded
One day a Frenchman rode up on to a bridge over a stream, and it was so narrow there was scarcely room for two horses at once. An Englishman was riding up from the other side, and when they met in the middle neither of them would give way. ‘An Englishman does not make way for a Frenchman!’ said the Englishman. ‘Pardieu,’ said the Frenchman, ‘My horse has an English pedigree too! It’s a pity I can’t turn him round and let you have a good look at his backside in retreat! But you could at least let that English fellow you’re riding step aside for this English mount of mine. In any case yours seems to be the junior; mine served under Louis XIV in the battle of Kieferholz, 1702!’* But the Englishman was not greatly impresse. ‘I have all the time in the world’ he said, ‘This gives me a chance to read today’s paper until you are pleased to make way.’ So with the coolness the English are famed for he took a newspaper from his pocket and opened it up and sat on his horse on the bridge and read for an hour, and the sun didn’t look as if it would shine on this pair of fools for ever, it was going down quickly towards the mountains. An hour later when he had finished reading and was about to fold up the newspaper again he looked at the Frenchman and said, ‘Eh bien?’ But the Frenchman had kept his head too and replied, ‘Englishman, kindly lend me your paper a while, so that I can read it too until you are pleased to make way.’ Now, when the Englishman saw that his adversary was a patient man, he said, ‘Do you know what, Frenchman? Come on, I’ll make way for you!’ So the Englishman made way for the Frenchman.
The Miser
A miserly man had a profitable business in a small town. But everything was a little more expensive there, so he lived in a village half an hour away and walked in every morning and walked back in the evening. When a neighbour asked him for a favour, ‘Would you be so kind and do this or that for me in town, it will save me the walk,’ then he replied, ‘It’s bad enough having to wear out my shoe leather on my own business, do you expect me to do it on yours as well?’ Then, if the neighbour said, ‘You have to go anyway, whether you do me this little favour or not,’ he replied, ‘And if I don’t, you’ll have to use your own shoes, to go to town, whether I go as well or not!’ If then the neighbour said, ‘Do you know what? I’ll lend you my shoes!’ he did him the favour. But if he didn’t lend him his shoes he refused.
The Thief’s Reply
A thief who gave himself airs was asked, ‘Who do you think you are? You can’t go back where you come from and should be glad that we put up with you here!’ ‘That’s what you think!’ said the thief, ‘My masters back home are so fond of me that I know for certain if I went home they would never let me leave again.’
The Apprentice Boy
One day in Rheinfelden a young fellow caught thieving was put in the stocks, and all the time he was there, the iron collar round his neck, a well-dressed stranger stood among the lookers-on and never took his eyes off him. After an hour, when the thief was taken down from his place of honour to be given another twenty strokes to help him remember the occasion, this stranger went over to the constable, pressed a little thaler into his hand and said, ‘Put a bit of effort into it, Lord help us! Let him have it for all you’re worth!’ And however hard the constable struck the thief the stranger yelled, ‘Go to it! Harder still!’ and in between he asked the young fellow on the whipping post with a malicious smile, ‘How does that feel, my lad? How do you like that?’
But when the thief was run out of town the stranger followed him at a distance, caught up with him on the road to Degersfelden and said to him, ‘Do you remember me, Gutschick?’ The young fellow said, ‘I won’t forget you in a hurry! But tell me, why did you get so much enjoyment from my disgrace and the ticket of leave the constable wrote in big letters on my back? I didn’t steal anything of yours or ever do anything to upset you!’ The stranger said, ‘It was a warning to you, because you did the job so stupidly you were bound to be caught! Those in our line of business – I’m Freddy Tinder,’ he said, and so he was – ‘Those in our line of business must start with cunning and finish with caution! But if you like you can come into apprenticeship with me, you’re not short of intelligence it seems, and now you’ve had your warning, so I’ll take you on and make something of you!’ So he took the young fellow as his apprentice, and when it soon became unsafe by the Rhine he took him with him to the Spanish Netherlands.
The Snui
ibox
There was quite a crowd at the inn in a village in the Netherlands, some knew each other, some didn’t. It was market day, you see. No one knew Freddy Tinder. ‘Another one for me too!’ said a fat man in burgher’s clothes to the landlord and took a pinch of snuff from a heavy silver snuffbox. Then Freddy Tinder saw how a skinny fellow in checks moved over to the fat man, started talking to him, and once or twice as if by chance glanced at his coat pocket where he had put the snuffbox. ‘What’s the betting,’ thought Freddy, ‘he’s up to something?’ At first the fellow stood, but then he had wine brought him and sat down on the bench too and started telling all sorts of funny stories that greatly amused the fat man. A little later a third fellow came up. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘could you make a bit of room?’ So the skinny fellow wriggled up close to the fat man and went on telling his stories.
‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘I was really surprised when I came to this country and saw how the windmills turn so merrily in the wind all the time. Back home where I come from we never have a breath of wind all year round. So our windmills have to be built where the quails fly over. Then when in spring the quails come across the sea from Africa in their millions and fly over the windmills the sails start turning, and those who don’t get their corn ground then have no flour for the rest of the year.’ The fat man laughed so much he almost choked, and meanwhile the cunning fellow had taken the snuffbox. ‘Give me a rest now!’ said the fat man, ‘my back’s hurting,’ and filled his glass for him. The rascal emptied the glass and said it was a good wine. ‘It has a kick to it. Excuse me,’ he said to the third fellow, who was nearer the door, ‘I have to go outside a moment.’ He had his hat on ready. But when he
was outside the door and was making off, Freddy Tinder went into the yard after him, took him to one side and said, ‘Hand over that silver snuffbox of my brother-in law’s, will you? Do you think I didn’t see you? Or shall I raise a hue and cry? I didn’t want to say anything in front of the crowd inside.’ As soon as the thief saw that he was caught he handed the box to Freddy, and he was trembling as he pleaded with him in God’s name to keep quiet. ‘Now you know,’ said Freddy, ‘what trouble you can land in if you leave the straight and narrow! Let it be a warning to last a lifetime. Ill-gotten wealth never prospers. Honesty is the best policy!’ Freddy also had his hat on ready. So he gave the fellow another pinch of snuff from the box, and later took it to a goldsmith.
How Freddy Tinder Got Himself a Horse to Ride
At one time Freddy Tinder had performed nearly all the tricks a cunning thief can get up to and had almost tired of the business, for Freddy Tinder doesn’t steal because he has to, nor for the sake of profit or from sheer wickedness, but for love of his craft and to sharpen his wits – don’t you remember how he left the grey tied up at the miller of Brassenheim’s door? What more could you, good reader, or Your Family Friend’s companion on the road to Lenzkirch ask of him? One evening when, as said, he had run almost the whole gamut of tricks, he thought, ‘Now for once I’ll see how far you can get with honesty!’ So that night he stole a goat three yards away from the constable on his beat and got himself caught. The next day at the hearing he confessed everything. But he quickly saw that the magistrate was going to give him five and twenty or something like that to remember him by, so he thought, ‘I haven’t been honest enough!’ So he made one or two unwise remarks, and on further interrogation he confessed after initial resistance that he was born half albino, that meant that his eyes worked almost better in the dark than in daylight, and when the magistrate thought he could get the better of him and asked whether he couldn’t recall a couple of other recent thefts, he said of course he remembered, he did them. The next morning when he was told the verdict, it was jail, and a soldier from the town guard was waiting by the door to escort him there, for the prison was twenty hours away, he said very contritely, ‘Justice will be done. I deserve what’s coming to me.’
On the road he told his escort he had been a soldier too. ‘Six years I served with the Klebeck infantry. I could show you the seven wounds I got in the war on the Scheldt that the Emperor Joseph was out to wage with the Dutch, don’t you know?’ His simple-minded escort said, ‘I never advanced beyond the town guard. I should have been a nail-maker but times are bad.’ ‘You’Ve got it wrong,’ said Freddy, ‘a town soldier deserves more respect than a soldier in the field! For town comes before country, so that a soldier in the field can still advance to become a town soldier when he gets older. Besides, the town guard watches over his fellow citizens’ lives and property and his own wife and children. The soldier who goes off to war doesn’t know what or who he is fighting for. And besides,’ he said, ‘the town guard can, if he behaves himself, die with honour just as it suits him. For that the likes of us have to let themselves be cut to pieces. Take my word for it,’ he went on, ‘it does me and my enemies’ (he meant the sheriff’s men) ‘no honour that I’m still alive.’ The nail-maker was so touched by this flattering comparison that he thought to himself he couldn’t recall ever having conveyed such a kind-hearted and understanding prisoner. Meanwhile Freddy was striding ahead so as to make the nail-maker tired and thirsty in the heat of the sun. ‘That’s the difference between us in the field and you town guards,’ he said, ‘we are used to stretching our legs on the march.’
That afternoon at four o’clock they came to a village with an inn. ‘How about a drink, comrade?’ said Freddy. ‘If you say so, comrade,’ replied the nail-maker, ‘I’ll join you!’ So they drank a glass of wine together, half a pint, then a pint, a quart, then two, and pledged to be bosom friends and brothers, and Freddy went on telling of his efforts in the war until the nail-maker fell asleep from wine and exhaustion. When he woke a few hours later and Freddy wasn’t there, his first thought was, ‘My new friend must have gone on slowly ahead!’ But no, he was standing just outside the door, for Freddy doesn’t leave empty handed. He came back in and said, ‘Brother, the moon will soon be up. Don’t you think we’d do better to stay here the night? ’ The sleepy nail-maker said wearily, ‘If you say so!’ That night the nail-maker slept soundly and snored all up the scale from bass to descant and down again, but Freddy couldn’t sleep. He got up and whiled away the time searching through his new brother’s pockets, and among other things he found the note about him that his escort was to give the governor of the jail. Then he whiled away the time trying on his brother’s new regimental boots. They fitted him fine. Then, just to while away the time, he slipped through the window into the street and kept on straight down the road for as long as the moon lit his way.
When the nail-maker woke in the morning, and Freddy wasn’t there, he thought, ‘He’ll be outside again.’ Of course he had gone outside, and he walked on until the sun was up and then woke the mayor in the first village he came to. ‘Mr Mayor, something awfulls happened to me! I’m under arrest and I’ve lost the town guard who was supposed to escort me. I’ve got no money and don’t know my way around these parts, so let me have something to eat on the parish and get someone to show me the way to the town and the jail.’ The mayor wrote him a chitty for a bowl of soup and a glass of wine at the inn and sent for a girl. ‘Go to the inn,’ he told her, ‘and when he’s finished show the man having his breakfast there the way to town. He wants to go to the jail.’
When Freddy and the girl came out of the forest and over the last hills and he could see the towers of the town far away on the plain he said to her, ‘You can go home now, my child, I can’t go wrong now.’ At the first houses in town he asked a small boy in the street, ‘Boy, where’s the jail? And when he had found it and was admitted to the governor he gave him the note he had found in the nail-maker’s pocket. The governor read it once, then
again, and looked at Freddy in surprise. ‘That’s in order, my friend,’ he said. ‘But where’s your prisoner? You are supposed to hand over a prisoner!’ Freddy was taken aback and answered, ‘Why, I’m the prisoner!’ The governor said, ‘It seems, my good friend, t
hat you are having me on! We don’t play jokes here. Own up, you let your prisoner escape! The signs are clear enough!’ Freddy said, ‘If you say the signs are clear then its’ not for me to contradict. But if, Your Excellency,’ he said to the governor, ‘you let me have a man on horseback, I’m certain I can still catch the vagabond. It’s hardly a quarter of an hour since he disappeared from my sight.’ ‘You idiot!’ said the governor. ‘What use is a fast horse if its rider has to take someone on foot with him? Can you ride?’ Freddy said, ‘I was with the Württemberg Dragoons for six years, you know!’ ‘Good,’ replied the governor,