Woe's me! never be happy again; woe's me! never again.

In order to catch the meaning of the words, which were sung in strong
dialect, Margaret and I had descended to the garden. The Hofbauer
looked sad when he saw us approach, and quietly brushed a tear away
with his shirt-sleeve. We consequently asked Moidel when we stood
alone with her whether anything were troubling her father.

"It strikes me not," she said. "I fancy that it is but the music.
Father and uncle may both seem quiet and dull now, yet they have been
celebrated singers; only when my mother died father left off singing,
and so did uncle after Uncle Jakob's death."

"Ah yes!" said the aunt, who had also joined us, "they were the three
handsomest, best--grown men in the parish, living happily together
without an ill word, until four years ago Jakob was trampled upon by
a yoke of vicious oxen, and in three days he was dead. Yes, that was a
sorrow almost as cutting as the death of the Hofbauerin, so young when
she died. Only married five years, and leaving four little children,
not one of whom ever knew her! Yes, Moidel is a good girl, and is
wearing her linen now, but she can never come up in looks to her
mother. Ah ja! and now the trouble is about Jakob."

"About Jakob?" asked we in a low, astonished voice.

"Why yes, that he has been drawn for the Landwehr. Ah, I thought you
knew. It was last autumn that he was drawn. The Hofbauer would have
sold his best acres to release him, but the recruiting-officer would
have no nay: Jakobi was a fine, well-behaved young fellow, and such
were needed in the army. He had to serve two months this spring, and
with his comrades day by day had to run up the face of mountains
some four thousand feet. It quite wore Jakob out, though he is so
good-tempered. He declared that he was used, to be sure, at the Olm
to climb up to the glaciers of the Hoch Gall after his goats, often
bringing the kids in his arms down the precipices, but to have his
back broken and his feet blistered in order to know how to shed human
blood was what he hated. Yet he bore it so well, doing his best, that
when the other recruits could return to their homes, Jakob, being so
clever and well-behaved, had to stay a fortnight longer to brush, fold
up and put away all the regimentals. However, the under-officer did
have him to dine with him every day."

"Yes, and Jakob will in his turn be an officer," we replied, trying to
reassure her.

"Oh, na,