children. He had only a young wife, who afterward married a bauer at
Antholz, where their son is the priest."

"Yes," said the wirth. "If there had been children, they would have
succeeded, not my mother. It was before either of us was born, but she
often told us of it--how cold it was, in the depth of winter, on the
Name of Jesus Day. Onkel Peter marched with a cross placed in his
hands, which were bound behind him, from Bruneck, being led to a house
near the inn at Nieder Olang, since burnt down, where he confessed.
At the wayside chapel he next received the sacrament, and then the
soldiers shot him."

Were there any mementoes of him in the house? we asked.

"Oh, not now. His belt used to lie about the house, but had been
either carried off or lost." And then one of the good souls intimated
that it was sad to have a relation publicly executed: he must pass as
a criminal. It did their hearts good to find that strangers from other
parts did not look upon him as such. It was natural that they and the
villagers should think well of him, but they were poor ignorant people
at the best. However, criminal or not, all the school-children in
Tyrol read about him now. He was stuck in their primers and called
a hero and a patriot; only, even in the lesson-book, the mistake had
again been made of giving him children. The wirth thought it must be
for effect--to make the tale more thrilling.

"We often puzzle ourselves about the rights and wrongs of Onkel
Peter's death," concluded the simple man; "but this will always be
clear to us, that three foreign ladies visiting the house out of
respect to his memory speaks well for him."