The rope which had kept the bundle together had cut deep into her shoulders and bosom, now she undid it and threw off the burden with a powerful jerk; and then, seizing hold of the axe lying near the chopping-block, she began to chop up a couple of big branches with powerful strokes.
"Hallo, Lisa," said the vestryman, "when you have chopped sufficient wood to cook the cranberries, just wait a bit."
She looked up at him for a moment. The strange lady and gentleman had gone a little aside--without previous arrangement. Let the vestryman tell her first. It was not so simple a matter as they had imagined. She was not very approachable.
Not a feature changed in the woman's reserved face; she went on with her work in silence, her lips compressed. The wood was split up by means of her powerful blows, and the pieces flew around her. Was she listening at all to what the man was saying to her?
Yes--the spectators exchanged a hasty glance--and now she was answering too in a more lively manner than they would have supposed, judging from her sullen appearance.
Lisa Solheid raised her arm and pointed to the cottage in which the little one was still screaming. Her speech--an almost barbaric dialect--sounded rough, they understood nothing of it except a French word here and there. The vestryman spoke Walloon too. Both of them became excited, raised their voices and spoke to each other in a loud voice; it sounded almost like quarrelling.
They did not seem to agree. Käte listened in suppressed terror. Would she give it? Would he get it from her?
She pulled her husband's sleeve when nobody was looking. "Offer more, give her some more, a hundred thalers is much too little." And he must also promise the peasant something for his trouble. A hundred, two hundred, three hundred, a hundred times a hundred would not be too much. Oh, how the poor child was screaming. She could hardly bear to stand outside the door doing nothing any longer.
Little Jean-Pierre's sister and brothers--a beautiful girl with untidy hair and three younger brothers--stood with their fingers in their mouths, their dirty noses unwiped, and did not move from the spot.
Their mother spoke to them angrily, "Off with you!" And they darted off, one almost tumbling over another. They scraped the key out of the little hole under the door, and the biggest of them thrust it into the rusty lock, and, standing on her toes, turned it with all the strength of her small hands.