At length, the Tyrolese made a desperate charge, armed with spears, pitchforks, scythes, axes, and any implements they could muster; while others on the verge of the heights, hurled down masses of rock on their opponents. After some hours, the Bavarians gave way; and having lost several of their best officers and above two hundred and forty men killed and wounded, threw down their arms and surrendered. The old castle of Wolfsthrun had been prepared, as well as circumstances permitted, for the reception of wounded men and prisoners, by Hildegarde Von Sternach; and she was not a little glad that Adolph's mother had already joined her, when a messenger from him informed her that five hundred and eighty prisoners were being brought up to the castle. Hofer and his companions, like hungry men as they were, were meantime devouring their remnant of rye-cakes with abundance of Spartan sauce, and slaking their thirst at the springs. At this moment, Rudolf came panting up to Hofer, whom he had found with no small difficulty. "Sandwirth!" exclaimed he, "what a night you must have had! So have we, but we kept possession of the bridges; and General Chastelar opportunely came up to us just as the French received reinforcements from Mantua. You bade me let you know how things were going, or I would not have left, for the men of Innthal were about to attack them in front, while the men of Whippthal fell on them from the rear." Another Tyrolese here came up, and said, "I've been looking out along the Sterzing road, Sandwirth, and met a man who told me that a strong force of Bavarians is trying to reach Innsbruck, under General Wrede; but the peasants swarm the rocks and impede their march, having broken the bridges, and blocked up the roads with felled trees. I am sorry to add, that the Bavarians, being much exasperated, are committing every sort of excess." "No doubt of their being exasperated, brother," said Hofer. "May be, we should feel so in their place; but since we see how ugly it is in them, do not let us, who have not the same excuse, be tempted to the smallest pillage, cruelty, or violence; otherwise God will cease to bless us." How fared it, meanwhile, with Speckbacher? He was sharpening a coulter outside the stable of his little cottage at Rinn, which stands amidst a clump of larch and beech-trees; when Maria his wife smilingly came up to him to show him that his youngest infant had just cut its first tooth, and to ask him if it did not remind him of a pearl upon a rose-leaf. Just then, his rustic servant Zoppel put a little slip of wood into his hand, bearing the inscription roughly endorsed, "'Tis time!" Down went the coulter; he kissed wife and infant, and hurried into the house, followed, wherever he went, by his little son Anderl, who wistfully eyed him as he took up his rifle.