"Why, Theresa, how bitter you are! You've never had a civil word to say to me since I beat Rudolf at bowls."
"You? Ha, ha, ha!"
"I did, though!"
"Very likely you might; but I have forgotten all about it. People that attend to nothing but hammering stones for smelts, and playing bowls and ninepins, are likely to excel in such things."
"I do attend to a precious lot of things besides—"
"What? Oh, looking after the cows, and smuggling brandy, and selling bad horses for good ones—well, you do all that, I allow."
Franz did not answer her for a few minutes, but leapt actively from rock to rock along the stream; darting here and there on a smelt, and coming back with his hands full.
"There!" said he, throwing them into the basket; "perhaps your mother will accept them of me, if you won't; so I'll carry them to her, and we can walk along together. I've a word or two to say to you."
"What is it?" said Theresa, pursuing her knitting, and stepping out at a good pace.
"All that you said just now," rejoined he, after a short silence, "about my getting brandy, and selling horses, and looking after cows,—to which you might have added doctoring them when ill,—is true enough, Theresa; and what is more, it has put a goodish bit of money into my pocket."