"You pitiful priest! You mean, sneaking man! You may measure that foot-print as long as you will, for it was not made by father! You base, wicked Frenchman!—"
"My pretty girl—"
"Call me so again if you dare! Oh, you wretch! it isn't the first time you've tried the power of your sweet words with me! Caitiff priest! Some of these days your frock will be pulled off; aye, and your mask first! Oh, you wicked, wicked man!"
Donay was actually petrified by her objurgations. He slunk away; but still, with an eye to his original purpose, in the track of the footsteps he had been measuring. Theresa, white with rage, was standing like a statue, watching his retreating form, when she found a strong arm thrown around her, and drawing her into the cow-house. Rudolf was shaking with suppressed laughter.
"Theresa! let the old hound follow the false scent," said he. "What do you think I did? I found this fellow lurking about, overnight; so I got a pair of the Sandwirth's old laced boots, put them over my own, and trudged right away with them to the edge of a steep bank, where the snow has drifted to the depth of seven or eight feet! Then I crawled along to the top of the hedge, without minding scratches, shovelling the snow about, here and there, so as to leave no track by which I could be traced, and returned in my own boots. Into that pitfall he'll go! Ha, ha, ha!—And serve him right!"
"Quite right," said Theresa, between laughing and crying; "but, you see, he has got the measure of father's foot."
"But that won't hinder his being led astray. And I shall deceive them all, rogues as they are, over and over again, as you'll see, with this precious pair of old boots. Two parties of spies have been buried under avalanches already. And though they go peering and prowling about every dwelling and outhouse in the valley, asking their sly questions, 'Where's Sandvird? when was he last seen?' they always get the same stupid, indifferent-like answer, 'I don't know.'"
Rudolf drawled this out in such ludicrous caricature, that Theresa could not help laughing heartily. "But it is too shocking to laugh about," said she, checking herself with a deep sigh. "Poor father!"
"I am convinced he will escape them, Theresa. He is not a sanguine man; but when we parted, he said with such steadiness, 'I trust in God, in my faithful brothers, and in a certain nook in Passeyr,' that I believed him."
"How did mother bear up?"