And now the woodcutters cautioned Hansei, and told him that there were others who thought just as they did, that the old inn had been of little account for a great while, and that he would do well to apply for a license. He couldn't fail to get one, and then he could run the host of the Chamois so dry that the hoops would fall from his casks.
Hansei nodded his cheerful approval. "Just wait, we'll show you, yet," he muttered to himself, clenching his fists, stretching out his arms, and raising his shoulders as if he would fell the innkeeper to the earth with a blow that would make him forget to rise again. But Walpurga said: "We'll harm no one, and we'll let no one harm us."
"Haven't you something to drink?" inquired the woodcutters. They wanted a reward for the news they had brought.
"No, I've nothing," replied Hansei. "I must be off to the meadow to turn the hay."
The men left, and had gone a great ways before they ceased abusing Hansei. "That's the way with a beggar on horseback. He won't even give you a drink when you bring him news."
Wastl the weaver had not the courage to contradict them, although he knew that Hansei would gladly have given him something to drink if the rest of the company had not been present.
Hansei gazed at his forlorn tankard for some time. At last he said:
"I don't care. I wanted to be all alone with you, Walpurga, and now we are alone, I ask nothing of the world."
"The innkeeper's not the whole world," said Walpurga, consolingly.
Hansei shook his head, as if to say that a woman can't understand what it is to be shut out of the inn, just like a drunkard whom the law prevents from going there.