The senner, after this entertainment, offered us the hospitality of his hut. A lordly bowl of intensely rich cream was placed before us in the sleeping-room, with the sole option of lapping like the men of Gideon, seeing we were not sufficiently naturalized for each to carry a horn spoon in her pocket, had not a little tin drinking mug been fortunately remembered. The next day the young tilemaker Martin, carrying his bundle, arrived at about nine. He had left the Hof at three that morning, making the whole journey of twenty-four miles on foot without a stop. Franz therefore seized hold of the frying-pan, and we dined an hour earlier than the usual time of ten. After coffee, Jakob had to initiate his successor into the various advantages of the several Alpine pastures, to point out the cattle and goat paths, and to introduce Martin to Kohli, Kraunsi, Blasi, Zottel, Nageli and all the other cows, as well as to Tiger, Schweiz and their fellow-oxen. We set out to accompany them, but the cattle were too far away on distant heights for us to continue long in the scramble. We therefore sat on a breezy mountain platform watching the athletic young men grow ever smaller, more indistinct, whilst Jakob's voice was borne to us on the rarefied air as he called lovingly, "Krudeli, Krudeli" to the calves, and "Köss, Köss" to the cows. "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.