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Updated: May 12, 2025
"Sold Hirschvogel!" If their father had dashed the holy crucifix on the floor at their feet and spat on it, they could not have shuddered under the horror of a greater blasphemy. "I have sold Hirschvogel!" said Karl Strehla in the same husky, dogged voice. "I have sold it to a traveling trader in such things for two hundred florins. What would you? I owe double that.
To-night Karl Strehla responded very wearily to the young ones' welcome, and came to the wooden chair with a tired step and sat down heavily, not noticing either pipe or beer. "Are you not well, dear father?" his daughter asked him. "I am well enough," he answered dully, and sat there with his head bent, letting the lighted pipe grow cold.
There was a long silence; the cuckoo called the quarter twice; August dropped asleep, his curls falling over his face; Dorothea's wheel hummed like a cat. Suddenly Karl Strehla struck his hand on the table, sending the pipe to the ground. "I have sold Hirschvogel," he said; and his voice was husky and ashamed in his throat. The spinning-wheel stopped. August sprang erect out of his sleep.
Nothing was known of the stove at this latter day in Hall. The grandfather Strehla, who had been a master-mason, had dug it up out of some ruins where he was building, and, finding it without a flaw, had taken it home, and only thought it worth finding because it was such a good one to burn.
The old pious heroic life of an age at once more restful and more brave than ours still leaves its spirit there, and then there is the girdle of the mountains all around, and that alone means strength, peace, majesty. In this little town a few years ago August Strehla lived with his people in the stone-paved irregular square where the grand church stands.
And then his breath failed him, and, as he lifted his little, eager, pale face to the young king's, great tears were falling down his cheeks. Now, the king likes all poetic and uncommon things, and there was that in the child's face which pleased and touched him. He motioned to his gentlemen to leave the little boy alone. "What is your name?" he asked him. "I am August Strehla.
My father is Hans Strehla. We live in Hall, in the Innthal; and Hirschvogel has been ours so long so long!" His lips quivered with a broken sob. "And have you truly traveled inside this stove all the way from Tyrol?" "Yes," said August; "no one thought to look inside till you did." The king laughed; then another view of the matter occurred to him.
Dorothea was a girl of seventeen, dark-haired and serious, and with a sweet sad face, for she had had many cares laid on her shoulders, even whilst still a mere baby. She was the eldest of the Strehla family; and there were ten of them in all.
To-night Karl Strehla responded very wearily to the young ones' welcome, and came to the wooden chair with a tired step and sat down heavily, not noticing either pipe or beer. "Are you not well, dear father?" his daughter asked him. "I am well enough," he answered, dully and sat there with his head bent, letting the lighted pipe grow cold.
Oh, father, dear father! do hear me, for pity's sake!" Strehla was moved by the boy's anguish. He loved his children, though he was often weary of them, and their pain was pain to him.
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