“It is a miracle,” said Moidel, “how Martin, who was so weak and consumed away by his accident, should thus have recovered.”

“What accident?” asked we.

“Why, does not the Herrschaft know how last November, on his very name-day, Martin was nearly killed?  Young Niederberg—­he who wears the finest carnations on his hat, but who then, it being cold weather, wore three cock’s feathers gained in wrestling-matches—­strutted down the Edelsheim street, arm in arm with his great friend, the fair-haired Hansel of Heinwiese, a rude young churl, praising each other for their strength of limb and good looks.  Martin at the time was leaning against his father’s door.  ‘The devil!’ said Niederberg:  ’why do you stay at your father’s, when there is better wine and company at the Blauen Bock?’ Martin, however, replied that he was a hard-working man, who could only spare time to see his old father and sick sister on a festival.  ‘No,’ said Heinwiese in anger, ’thou art nothing but a miserable milk-sop, never at a wrestling-match, never at a dance.’  ‘But,’ put in Niederberg, ’we’ll teach thee to dance and sing;’ and so saying, he suddenly plunged the blade of his big pocket-knife below Martin’s ribs.

“Why he had become their prey none could tell, unless they were lost in drink.  Great was the clamor in the usually quiet village.  A doctor was sent for, who at first declared Martin’s wound to be mortal.  Then his young wife and little children were fetched with many tears from the tileyard, and the priest came with the Holy Death Sacrament.  But the prayers and viaticum saved Martin.  Still, for many months he had a frightful illness, and even in March he was so weak you could have knocked him down with a feather.  Niederberg was immediately taken into custody, and was sentenced to sit in Bruneck Castle till St. John the Baptist’s Day, fully six months, to pay the doctor’s bill, and two hundred gulden to Martin; but the latter sum, being an evil-minded youth, though rich, he has never paid.  He will leave that to Heinwiese, he says, who put him up to the deed:  besides, why pay a man who had recovered?  He would have stood the funeral and settled with the widow.  However, father talks of dealing with Niederberg, for he must not thus despoil patient Martin.”

Here, indeed, was a stabbing worthy of hot Italy, rather than cooler, quieter Tyrol.  It proved, too, that the serpent and old Adam still moved in that garden of Eden, Edelsheim.

Jakob and the hero of the tragedy now returned, bright and brisk, bearing armfuls of edelweiss, long sprays of stag-horn’s moss, and showing us with genuine pleasure roots of the edelraute, which they had gathered on the high ledges for us.  This is a little insignificant plant, but called by the Tyrolese the noble rue, and prized by them far more than the edelweiss; perhaps one reason being that when dried it is said to emit a delicious scent, for which reason the housewives