Note 16 — Chapter VI · NORTH TIROL—UNTERINNTHAL (RIGHT INN-BANK). SCHWATZ.

‘Such things had happened to others also,’ she said. ‘Hunters had been similarly led astray after strange chamois; for the power of evil had many a snare for the weak. Birds too, though we deemed them so pretty and innocent, were, more often than we thought, the instruments of malice.’ And it struck me as she spoke, that there were more crabbed stories of evil boding in her repertory than gentle and holy ones. ‘There is the swallow,’ she instanced: ‘why do swallows always hover over nasty dirty marshy places? Don’t you know that when the Saviour was hanging on the Cross, and the earth trembled, and the sun grew dark with horror, and all the beasts of the field went and hid themselves for shame, only the frivolous16 swallows flitted about under the very shadow of the holy rood, and twittered their love songs as on any ordinary day. Then the Saviour turned His head and reproached the thoughtless birds; and mark my words, never will you see a swallow perched upon anything green and fresh.’