A broad black leather girdle clasped his muscular form,
while over all was worn a short green coat. On his head he wore a
low-crowned, broad-brimmed Tyrolean hat, black in color, and ornamented
with green ribbons and with the feathers of the capercailzie.
This striking-looking patriot, at the head of a strong party of
peasantry, made an assault, early on the 11th, upon a Bavarian infantry
battalion under the command of Colonel Baeraklau, who retreated to a
table-land named Sterzinger Moos, where, drawn up in a square, he
resisted every effort of the Tyrolese to dislodge him. Finally Hofer
broke his lines by a stratagem. A wagon loaded with hay, and driven by a
girl, was pushed towards the square, the brave girl shouting, as the
balls flew around her, "On with ye! Who cares for Bavarian dumplings!"
Under its shelter the Tyrolese advanced, broke the square, and killed or
made prisoners the whole of the battalion.
Speckbacher, the other patriot named, was no less active. No sooner had
the signal of revolt appeared in the Inn than he set the alarm-bells
ringing in every church-tower through the lower valley of that stream,
and quickly was at the head of a band of stalwart Tyrolese.
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