"You laugh," exclaimed the tax-collector, endeavoring to stifle his rage; "I am glad you are so merry. To-morrow, perhaps, you will laugh no longer; for I tell you, if you do not pay to-day the fine imposed on you, I shall have it forcibly collected by the soldiers at daybreak to-morrow morning.""We must really pay the fine, then?" asked Anthony Wallner, with feigned timidity. "You will not relent, then, Mr. Tax-collector? We really must pay the heavy fine, because we had a little fun the other day? For you must say yourself, sir, we really did no wrong.""You did no wrong? You were in open insurrection. On the birthday of your gracious master the king, instead of hanging out Bavarian flags, as you had been ordered, you hung out Austrian flags everywhere.""No, Mr. Tax-collector, you did not see right; we hung out none but Bavarian flags.""That is false! I myself walked through the whole place, and saw every thing with my own eyes. Your flags did not contain the Bavarian colors, blue and white, but black and yellow, the Austrian colors.""Possibly they may have looked so," exclaimed Anthony Wallner, "but that was not our fault. The flags were our old Bavarian flags: but they were already somewhat old, the blue was faded and looked like yellow, and the white had become quite dirty and looked like black.""Thunder and lightning! Wallner is right," exclaimed the Tyrolese, bursting into loud laughter. "The flags were our old Bavarian flags, but they were faded and dirty."The young lads, who had hitherto stood in groups around the outer edge of the market-place, now mingled with the crowd to listen to the speakers; and a young Tyrolese, with his rifle on his arm, and his pointed hat over his dark curly hair, approached with such impetuous curiosity that he suddenly stood close to the tax-collector. However, he took no notice of the officer, but looked with eager attention at Wallner, and listened to his words.
But the grim eyes of one of the two bailiffs noticed with dismay that this impudent fellow dared to place himself close by the side of the tax-collector without taking off his hat.
Striking with his fist on the young fellow's hat, he drove it deep over his forehead.
"Villain!" he shouted, in a threatening voice, "do you not see the tax-collector?"The young fellow drew the hat with an air of embarrassment from his forehead, and crimsoning with rage, but in silence, stepped back into the circle of the murmuring men.
"That is just what you deserve, Joe," said Anthony Wallner. "Why did a smart Tyrolese boy like you come near us Southern Bavarians when we were talking about public parlour?"At this moment a lad elbowed himself hastily through the crowd. His dress was dusty, his face was flushed and heated and it seemed as though he had travelled many miles on foot. To those who stood in his way he said in a breathless, panting voice: "Please stand aside.
I have to deliver something to Anthony Wallner-Aichberger; I must speak with him."The men willingly stood aside. Now be was close behind Wallner, and, interrupting him in his speech, he whispered to him: "I come from Andreas Hofer; he sends you his greetings and this paper. I have run all night to bring it to you."He handed a folded paper to Wallner, who opened it with hands trembling with impatience.
It was Andreas Hofer's "open order."
Wallner's face brightened up, he cast a fiery glance around the place filled with his friends, and fixed his flashing eyes then on the hat of the bailiff who had rebuked the young Tyrolese in so overbearing a manner. At a bound he was by his side, drove the bailiff's round official hat with one blow of his fist over his head, so that his whole face disappeared in the crown, and exclaimed in a loud, ringing voice:
"Villain! do you not see the Tyrolese?"
A loud outburst of exultation greeted Wallner's bold deed, and all the men crowded around him, ready to protect Anthony Wallner, and looking at the tax-collector with flashing, threatening eyes.
The latter seemed as if stunned by the sudden change in Wallner's demeanor, and he looked in dismay at the audacious innkeeper who was standing close in front of him and staring at him with a laughing face.
"What does this mean?" he asked at length, in a tremulous voice.
"It means that we want to be Tyrolese again," shouted Anthony Wallner, exultingly. "It means that we will no longer submit to brutal treatment at the hands of your Bavarian bailiffs, and that we will treat you now as you Boafoks have treated us for five years past." [Footnote: Boafok, the nickname which the Tyrolese gave to the Bavarians at that time. It signifies "Bavarian pigs."]
"For God's sake, how have we treated you, then?" asked the tax-collector, drawing back from the threatening face of Anthony Wallner toward his bailiffs.
"Listen to me, Tyrolese," shouted Anthony Wallner, scornfully, "he asks me how the Bavarians have treated us! Shall I tell it to him once more!""Yes, yes, Tony, do so," replied the Tyrolese on all sides.
