as that to poor Hans!

A small detachment of Bavarian infantry, now stationed at the Pontlatzer
Bruecke, made it unsafe to venture often, as before, into the valley.
Such frequent coming and going would have excited suspicion; and the
interval between suspicion and a drum-head tribunal was a short one, and
generally had a bloody ending. Hans could do little more, then, than
sit the livelong day on the brow of the cliff, watching the valley,
straining his eyes along the narrow glen towards Landeck, or gazing
over the wide expanse to the Kaunser-Thal. How often did his imagination
people the space beneath with an armed host! and how did he build
up before his mind's eye the glitter of steel, the tramp and dust of
mounted squadrons, the long train of ammunition waggons, the gorgeous
staff--all the "circumstance of glorious war!" And how strangely did it
seem, as he rubbed his eyes and looked again, to see that silent valley
and that untrodden road, the monotonous tramp of the Bavarian sentry the
only sound to be heard! On the chapel door the previous Sunday some one
had written in chalk, "_Ist zeit?_--Is it time?" to which another had
written for answer, "_Bald zeit_--It will soon be!" "Oh," thought Hans,
"that it were come at last!" And a feverish eagerness had so gained
possession of him, that he scarcely could eat or sleep, starting from
his bed at night to peep out of the window and see if the signal fire
was not blazing.

The devotional feeling is, as I have remarked, the most active and
powerful in a Tyroler's heart; and deeply intent as each was now on the
eventful time that drew nigh, the festival of Easter, which intervened,
at once expelled all thoughts save those pertaining to the solemn
season. Not a word, not a syllable, fell from any lip evincing an
interest in their more worldly anxieties. The village chapel was crowded
from before daybreak to late in the evening; the hum of prayer sounded
from every cottage; and scarcely was there time for the salutations of
friends, as they met, in the eagerness to continue the works of some
pious ritual.

I know not if Hans Joergle was as deeply impressed as his neighbours by
these devout feelings; I only can tell that he refrained as rigidly
as the others from any allusion to the coming struggle, and never by a
chance word shewed that his thoughts were wandering from the holy theme.
A very prying observer, had there been such in the Dorf, might perhaps
have detected t