silence reigned in the inn Zum Sand. The servants and children of
the Sandwirth had gone to bed; only he himself and his faithful
wife, Anna Gertrude, were yet up. Both had retired into the small
sitting-room adjoining the barroom. Andreas Hofer was walking up and
down there silently and thoughtfully, his hands folded on his back;
Gertrude sat in the leather-covered arm-chair at the stove, and
looked at her husband. Every thing was still around them; only the
slow, regular ticking of the clock broke the profound silence, and
outside was to be heard the wild roaring of the Passeyr, which
hurled its furious foaming waters not far from the inn over pebbles
and fragments of rocks.

Finally, after a long pause, Andreas stood still in front of his
wife, and gazed at her with a long, searching, and tender look.
Gertrude, as if lifted up by this glance, rose, encircled his neck
quickly with her arms, and looked with an expression of terror and
anxiety into his face.

"Andy," she exclaimed, mournfully, "my own, dearest Andy, I am
afraid harm will befall you!"

"That is what I expect," he said, sighing, "and I am sorry for you,
my dearest wife. I was just speaking with God and my conscience, and
asking them so fervently if it was not wrong in me not to think
above all things of my dear wife and my beloved children, and if I
ought not to live and die only for them. For I tell you, and I know,
what I am going to do is dangerous, and may easily cost my life. I
do not blind my eyes to it; I may lose my life in either of two
ways. A bullet may strike me in battle; or, if my life should be
spared in the struggle, and if we should be defeated, the Bavarians