He walked lamely, rubbing his shoulders against the wall. He moaned pitiably. But Anne knew all the while that he was shamming.
CHAPTER II
The old man and the little girl walked slowly down to the banks of the river. The little squares of the windows and the two figures under the porch gazed for a long time after them. A cold snowy wind was blowing from the white hills. Water mills floated on the Danube. Horses, harnessed one in front of the other, dragged a barge at the foot of the castle hill, and small dark skiffs moved to and fro in the stream, as if Pest and Buda were taking leave of each other before the advent of winter.
On the shore shipwrights were at work. When they perceived Christopher Ulwing, they stopped and greeted him respectfully. A gentleman came in the opposite direction; he too doffed his hat. Near the market place ladies and gentlemen were walking. Everybody saluted Ulwing the builder.
Anne was proud. Her face flushed.
“Everybody salutes us, don’t they? Are there many people living here?”
“Many,” said her grandfather, and thought of something else.
“How many?”
“We can’t know that; the gentry won’t submit to a census.”
“And are there many children here?”