"But, father! if I find him, and point out to you the place where he is, you may find him yourselves. I wash my hands of taking him." "Wash your hands by all means. We'll take him." "Very well--that's to be all, then?" "All, and enough." "Just so. Good bye then, father--here we are at St. Martin--" "_Benedicite_, my son." The place of Hofer's concealment, a picturesque little cow-house--nothing better--was about twelve miles from his home, among the glaciers of the Oetzthal, near the Timbler Joch, and in a position that, for many months of every year, the snow made quite inaccessible. The winter of the Year Nine, however, was comparatively mild; and the châlet might be reached with considerable fatigue, difficulty, and danger. At the door of this cow-house, then, stood the man who--we will not say had strutted his little hour on life's stage, for Hofer had never endeavoured to ape a grandeur that he had not; he was a plain, simple, upright man from first to last. He had attained a great, though brief power, and had not abused it: he had fallen from it, but not into despair. In the profound loneliness and inaction of his present life, after so stirring a campaign, there might have been a chance of his mind preying on itself, had it not been for the constant sense of danger. His heart did not indeed prey on itself, but feed on itself it did. He mused much on his late career, and on the anxious question, had he been wasteful of human life or not? At this moment, he was reading, for the twentieth time, a letter which had found its way to him even in this secluded spot--it was from the emperor himself--the beloved Franzel! strenuously urging him to leave his desolate retreat and take refuge in Vienna, and pledging his imperial word for his safety. Yes, this plain, homely man had thus been sued by his sovereign, and had refused. He would not forsake his family or his country. His faithful wife had accompanied him, as in love and duty bound, feeling her home to be under whatever roof sheltered the head of her husband. She had her distaff and knitting; and as they sat among the trusses of hay chattering of this and that, many a simple wile did the good woman successfully use to lure her Anderl's thoughts from anxious themes. Now, it was to explain some family genealogy, some intermarriage she professed nearly to have forgotten--then, when he had wondered how she could be so forgetful, she would branch off into correlative domestic histories, harmless jests, recollections of wedding-feasts, baptisms, and burials; then, broach some knotty point, or ask him to recall some old legend or fairy-tale, or local superstition. Hofer had brought Johann with him partly out of fondness, and to amuse Anna, partly lest he should be seized as hostage; and partly because he knew the little fellow to be without reticence, and as likely to betray him from heedlessness as an enemy might be from mischief. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX.