“To say the truth, it was like looking for a bird in a forest, considering the number of strangers who had attended the fair; besides, the police, you know, at that time, were too busy dogging and hunting down Liberals to care for tracking only thieves.  That, however, is no business of mine or yours; and perhaps it would have done no good to poor Hans, even if the criminals had been discovered.  He had got a great shock; he could not recover his spirits.  Every one felt for him, because he was a kind, sociable man, as well as industrious; the only fault he had was being a Protestant.  What that was no one exactly knew; but it was a great sin and a great pity, it seems.  Sure it is that Hans never went to confession, or to the communion.  However, as time passed and brought no tidings of the robbers, the poor man grew more thin and careworn every day.  He would talk for hours about Switzerland, about his own village, his father’s house, his parents and relations.  He had left them so thoughtlessly, he said, he had scarcely felt a regret; yet now a yearning grew within him to look once more upon those dear faces, and the verdant mountains of his country,—­upon its cool, rushing streams, wide, green pastures, and the cows that grazed on them.  He used to tell us, that, when he was alone, he heard their bells in the distance, and they seemed to call him home.  My husband did not like all this, and said Hans ought to go at once, or it would be too late.  But Hans delayed and delayed, in the hope of recovering some of his stolen property, till one day he was taken very ill and had to be carried to the hospital.  The Doctor attended him two or three times every day, and on the third was summoned in a great hurry.  Morani went and had a long conversation with the poor dying fellow, and then Padre Michele of the Capuchin Convent was sent for.  It was some time before the good monk could be found, and then it took still longer, he being old and very infirm, before he could get to the hospital.  When he did, it was too late; poor Hans was dead.

“This was a sad business; for, if the Padre had come in time, at all events Hans’s soul would have been safe, and his body buried in consecrated ground.  My husband went to the Rector and told his Reverence that Hans had renounced his errors, and had made a full profession of the Catholic faith to him; but his Reverence shook his head, and said that was not the same thing as if Padre Michele had received Hans into the true fold.  Then my husband said it was a pity Hans should suffer because the Padre had been out of the way; but his Reverence always answered, ‘No,’ and so ‘No’ it was.  The clergy were not to attend, and the body was to be put into the ground just as you might bury a dog.  What could my husband do more?  So he went his way to his patients.  It happened that he had to see several, far in the country, and so did not come home till late at night.