"If I take the path to the Wirthhaus, I shall still try and hope to make myself agreeable to you. If I take the path to the left, I shall renounce you for ever!"
"You had better, then, take the path to the left."
"Fish and all?" holding the basket a little towards her, but as if his elbow were tied to his side.
"Fish and all," said Theresa, without intermitting her knitting.
"Then farewell, Theresa, for ever!" cried Franz, in a tone intended to be fiercely tragic. "You have had your last chance of me!" And shouldering his smelts, he strode off.
He was in a very tempestuous state of mind; and many things Theresa had said had cut him more deeply than she thought; but to no good purpose. When a stone came tumbling upon him from the mountain-top, he shook his fist savagely, and muttered, "Even the little people" (i. e. fairies) "are against me!"—and then, considering that if he provoked them, they might lead him a weary dance after the hidden treasure, he muttered a spell supposed to have a propitiating effect.
As the pass widened, he beheld from the height on which he stood, Innsbruck, white and nest-like, basking in the valley afar off, and turned in his mind whether it were worth his while to carry thither the fish we have called smelts for want of an English name for them.
"But no," thought he, "the Sandwirth is again in the town, and I don't care to see him just now, Theresa thinks his luck uppermost, I fancy, and believes he will be made a great general or governor, and that he will marry her to Rudolf, and make him a great man too. She has her own dreams, though she laughs at mine. No, I'll not go; some of my speaking-acquaintance might put the saucy question she spitefully suggested; and even if I got a zwanziger or more for my smelts, it would be very great trouble for very little money. My time will be much better and more pleasantly employed in digging for the pot of gold; for when I've got that, I may pay zwanzigers for smelts myself, if I like; and meantime, I'll sup on those I've caught myself, and eat them with plenty of brown bread and butter—thin brown bread and thick yellow butter—as yellow as a cowslip! aye, that's it!"
Rejoicing that Theresa had not accepted the smelts, since she had not accepted himself, this worthy son of Tyrol wended his way home. How he would have licked his lips if he had been told the story related by Bridel, of that golden age when cows were so large and yielded such abundance of milk, that they were milked into reservoirs or ponds, from which the cream was afterwards skimmed by a man in a boat, (a butter-boat, of course!) which boat, once upsetting, the man could not be found for a long time afterwards, till, at length, his body was discovered sticking in the immense mass of cream, like a smothered fly!
Before Franz reached home, he encountered Lenora in the cow-pastures. She was knitting with all her might, which did not hinder her eyes from roving over hill and valley, and noting the smallest movement within their range. Consequently, she soon espied her brother, whom she saluted with a shrill jödel that let him know he was recognised; otherwise he would gladly have gone a little out of his way to escape the interview, as she was one of those who not only do their own duties vigorously, but insist on other people doing theirs.