Tyrol (Austria) -- History -- Uprising of 1809 -- Fiction
Meanwhile, our friends in the green jackets, who were perambulating
the streets of Innsbruck, assembled themselves together in front of
the Palace, and amused themselves by shooting down the Bavarian lion
from over the entrance; after which their patriotic souls were vexed by
seeing the hated blue and white stripes of Bavaria decorating sundry
buildings; whence a great cry for paint-pots arose, and they ransacked
the oilmen's shops for all their stores of black and yellow paint, and
with hog's hair brushes and ladders, set themselves diligently to work
to efface the enemy's emblems and substitute the Imperial colours.
Some others of these merry hearts thought nothing wanting but a little
good music; and, as all the instruments they were able to muster
among themselves, proved to be two fifes, two fiddles, two rusty iron
pot-lids, and a few Jews'-harps, they did not scruple to impress the
Bavarian band into their service, and make them patrol the city playing
triumphal tunes in honour of their own defeat.
There were likewise certain native ballad-singers of the itinerant
order, who turned a good many pence, that is to say kreutzers, this
day, by vocalizing on their own account, at tavern-doors and in public
places, to the great delight of the Tyrolese, who sat on benches and on
door-steps, listening to them while they quaffed hot coffee in thick
ale-glasses, or tasted for the first, and perhaps last time in their
lives, iced rum and water.
Others of them were not too tired to get up a game of bowls in the
market-place, which excited immense merriment among themselves,
and crowds of townspeople at the windows, with whom they talked as
comfortably as if they had known them a hundred years. Just as they had
had enough of it, Punch very opportunely made his appearance, and kept
them amused till it was dark. Then they lay down on the ground, in and
about the town, and slept soundly all night.
Hofer thought he should like to see a play. So, to the theatre he went,
where, on asking what there was to pay, the money-taker with a bow
replied, "Nothing." So he walked into the boxes, and picked out the
very best place; where his remarkable dress and person drew on him the
attention of every one in the house.
But if they thought a good deal of him, he was very little aware of
it; for there were a great many things to employ his attention. In
the first place, there seemed to him a great waste of wax lights;
half the number would have been quite sufficient. In the second
place, the ladies' dresses appeared to him a great deal too low, too
short, and too scanty: he hardly liked to look at them, and was very
glad to see no other Tyrolese in the house. In the third place, the
orchestral music, when it struck up, quite took him by surprise: he had
a sensitive though untutored ear, and a tender heart; its dying falls
and gradual swells, its minors, its concords, its plaintive and its
impassioned strains, nearly overpowered him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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