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When, all in a moment, I felt in my stomach a most awful blow, a butt which would have sent me into the Holderloch had I not kept hold of that blessed root of holly. The fact was that that miserable goat, seeing himself driven into a corner, had himself commenced the attack. Oh, what was my astonishment!
What did the Romans do to get rid of their criminals, polluted with every crime? Why they flung them off the Tarpeian rock, to be sure. Well, having laid your imprecations upon that goat, fling him down the Holderloch, and there will be an end of it all." "But" replied Elias. "I know your objections beforehand," I replied.
I even thought I detected a smile upon his countenance, which irritated me. "How!" said I; "here am I pointing out to you an infallible method to get rid of the just punishment of your crime, and you doubt you hesitate you even smile!" "No," said he, "but I am not accustomed to walk on the edges of precipices, and I am afraid I should fall into the Holderloch along with the goat."
Finally, if you had the happiness to belong to our holy religion, I would order you to have masses said, and to give up your goods to the Church. But in your state as to locality, time, and belief, I know of only one way to relieve you." "What is it?" cried Hirsch, already kindling with hope. We had now reached the Rothalp, and were standing in a lonely place called the Holderloch.
But it was the shepherd Yeri, of the Holderloch, who from the next platform above had caught me by the coat-collar with his crook. Thanks to his assistance, instead of falling down into the chasm I lay full length along the ledge, and that awful goat walked over my body to get away about his business. "Come, take firm hold of my crook," cried the shepherd to Elias; "now I will go down for him.
Let it be remembered that the rocks of the Holderloch rise in the form of successive terraces, each terrace ten feet high perhaps, but not more than a foot wide, and upon these little narrow ledges grow a thousand sweet-smelling plants thyme and honeysuckle, ivy and convolvulus, and the wild vine, perpetually bedewed with the spray from the falling torrent, and falling over in the loveliest clusters of bloom and foliage.
When I tell you that all the mayors and their assistants, the councillors from the Baraques-d'en-Haut and the Baraques-du-bois-de-Chênes, from Holderloch and Hirschland, received the fleur-de-lis because they headed their village deputations with a white flag, and that Pinacle received the cross of honor, for having arrived first with the band of the Bohemian, Waldteufel, who played "Vive Henri IV.," and had five or six white flags larger than the others; when I tell you that, you will understand what reasonable people thought.
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