He lifted his empty kraxe upon his shoulders, and went out.  We waited to see his square figure appear in the path below, like those who were parting not only from a friend, but a protector.  It was some minutes before he was visible.  We discovered shortly afterward that not wishing to leave us in our desolation, and perceiving that some “Herrschaft” must be in the house, as the best room had not been given us, he had boldly introduced himself to them, and thus we found ourselves committed by Joergel to a fresh Good Samaritan in the shape of a well-to-do draper’s wife, Frau T——.  We knew her by name, but did not deal at her shop.  Still, she was ruled by no selfish thoughts, and out of the genuine kindliness of her heart she joyfully fulfilled Joergel’s commission.  It was she who insisted on preparing our supper; it was her cloth that was spread on the table in the gallery as the quietest, most suitable spot in the riotous house, she smoothing our scruples by declaring it her pleasure, only regretting that we should have arrived on such a noisy night, for the house was usually very still.  It was her servant who showed the deaf old woman, the one help of the establishment, how to make our beds.

The aged crone, Nanni—­half the female population of the Tyrol are called either after the Virgin Mary or her traditionary mother, Saint Ann—­gazed in intense astonishment when we screamed to her our simple requirements.  We asked for a light, and she brought us a tallow candle stuck in a bottle.  We asked for a pitcher of water, and she muttered something about the spout.

Worn-out, weary, very grateful to the good Frau T——­, we went to bed, but not to sleep.  That would have been a vain endeavor, for shrill laughter, loud words and boisterous songs, in which the high tones of wild female voices rose painfully above the gruff singing of half-besotted men, penetrated the room, whilst the old rafters groaned and creaked from the heavy tramp of dancers below.  All our belief in the sobriety and goodness of the Tyrolese seemed swept away, and a sense of their coarseness and dissipation to have taken its place.  We were in a very pandemonium, which never ceased until the sun was rising.

Nor was the evil mitigated when we learned from the landlord’s sister a few hours later that the guests were only returning from Scapulary Sunday in Reischach.  Most of them belonged to the next village, and had rested here on their way.  After prayers it was right to sing and dance:  why should they not?  And, look you, when wine got into people’s head, what could she do?  She could not turn them out.

“Yes, but the master, her brother, might.”

She shook her head ominously, and hurried into the kitchen—­a smoky old kitchen, but quaint from the little windows with the old ox-eyed panes of thick glass.

It impressed itself forcibly on our minds that Seppl had compromised himself on the preceding night.  He was to be seen nowhere; only the bustling sister Moidel, who had already swept out and cleaned the scene of the late dissipation, and was now busy over our coffee, and the old Nanni, who with bare feet and wet petticoats intimated that she had scrubbed the female bath-room and placed two freshly scoured tubs there at our disposition.