"Child, let Kickel be," answered my father. "He's never harmed you--and may God Almighty preserve from all craziness! See--they won't eat the grass--they're not hungry any more." Soon after, we led the oxen into the farmyard. If I had died at that time, reader, you would hardly ever have learnt anything about Kickel. Meanwhile, I grew into a thin, but sadly tall lad, too narrow for a peasant, but long enough for a town gentleman--well, you know all about that! And once on a time, in summer, as I was going to visit far-away Alpel again, in the forest on the way I overtook a peasant lad--a young, handsome but earnest fellow, in Sunday clothes although it was a work-day. He had an upright carriage, and moved his legs lightly and regularly in walking, so that I thought, "He has been a soldier, or is one still." His auburn hair, too, was cut short and shaved behind in such fashion that his round, fresh-coloured neck was bare for a couple of inches down to his shirt-collar. The long face, with the somewhat thinly modelled nose, the very fair little moustache and the open, shrewd eyes, suggested that he was by no means one of the most foolish and simple of people. In those days I was as glad to have company on such a road as now I am to go alone. So I tried it on with him. My question was, where he went? He was going home to his wood-cutting in Fischbacherwald. "Where had he been?" In Krieglach, in the churchyard. "What had so lively a young fellow to do with the churchyard?" "Well, it's just what happens often enough," answered he. "It was on account of old Kickel." Old Kickel! I had often heard the name mentioned. Ah, yes! it was the old servant at Zutrum, who----"We'll go together, so that it will be more entertaining. I am Peter from the Forest farm." That was my introduction. "I've known you before," was his answer. "I have often met you in Graz when I was with the soldiers, but you have never recognised me." "And why have you never made yourself known since you were from home?" "I wanted to speak to you once, but I thought, 'A common soldier! Who knows if he'd like it?'" "Naturally--you a common soldier--and I absolutely nothing." "Ah--not that," he rejoined. "You are already somebody. I know it well." "So they have buried Kickel to-day! And where are the others, then?" "The few people have already gone on. Not many of them followed him. He was only a poor pauper." "You have surely been one of the bearers?" "No," said he; "I have only followed on after. There has been no praying even, because they said he had been a heathen. I thought to myself that he wasn't any worse than most other people, and that he had had bad luck--it was certainly his fate. Now in God's name he has rest." "What bad luck did he have, then?" was my question. I believed that I was at last near to the satisfaction of my old and now re-awakened curiosity. "You will have heard of the story before," said my road companion.