it.  If you look into the chapel, you’ll see a Christ on the cross which has been shot through the breast.  That was once a crucifix under this very tree.’  Then the guide made a remark which had often struck myself—­that there are some families in which everything that is strange and dreadful happens, whilst there are others that go on for generations and are no more distinguishable than the very weeds themselves.  In that valley were the Hochmairs, and they were of this prominent sort, and odd enough, as I said before, it was at a Hochmair’s house that I read this account.  Well, some generations back there was a Hochmair who was a regular ruffian.  He cared no more for the life of a man than that of a chamois.  The government kept the game strictly on the mountains, and he was suspected of having put more than one of their keepers out of the way.  In short, he had such a bad character that when he went to confession the priest would not give him absolution.  This put him in a great rage, and it is remarkable that from that day his luck in hunting forsook him.  He could not take aim—­a sort of mist was ever before his eyes, his hand trembled.  People believed that he was perpetually haunted by the ghost of a young man whom, after he had shot, he had beaten to death with his gunstock, and then flung down a crevasse.  Be that as it may, he would be absent for weeks in the mountains.  He did no good, and the little he possessed fell into ruin.

“His creditors were about to sell him up, stick and stone, when he put, as one may say, the finishing stroke to everything himself.  It was Corpus Christi Day:  the bells were ringing and the procession moving through the fields, the holy banners waving, the choir-boys singing the sanctus, when just as the priest lifted the Host in the golden monstrance, a shot was fired from the bushes in front of a crucifix.  Lightning flashed from heaven, and the house of the wicked Hochmair, which was at no great distance, burst into flames.  An awful cry rang from the bushes:  the procession rushed forward, the priest only remaining with the Host and a few attendants.  And what did they see?  There was the image of the crucified Saviour pierced by a bullet, and out in the road stood the wretched Hochmair, with his hands clasped on the lock of his gun and his eyes rolling in frenzy.  Everybody perceived the crime he had committed, and remained motionless, whilst he beckoned wildly to the priest, who came up in gloomy silence.  After they had talked together alone for some time, the priest went into the church, where he remained all night in prayer.  The wretched man, whom nobody dared to touch, disappeared into the thicket, and all trace was lost of him.  In the mean while the injured image of the Saviour was removed into the church.  So years went on, and then one Sunday after service the priest announced from the pulpit that the former sinner Hochmair was dead, but that after years of penitence he had received the forgiveness