‘They are good fish,’ she said, looking them over once more.
Wastei drew a bright red handkerchief from his pocket, and carefully wiped his sinewy brown hands. Then without further ceremony he sat down upon the stone curb at the corner of the steps, as though he had done his business and meant to rest himself without paying any more attention to Berbel. She liked him for his independence and taciturnity. Moreover, in the old days of starving poverty, Wastei had done her many a good service she had never been able to reward, and had brought many a plump hare and many a brace of quails to the empty larder, swearing that he had come by them honestly, and offering to exchange them for a little mending to his tattered clothes. Berbel used to suspect that Wastei knew more of the nakedness of the land than he admitted, and that he risked more than one dangerous bit of poaching out of secret pity for the poor ladies who were known to buy so little food in the village. They were better off now, both she and Wastei, but as she looked at the broad expanse of black velvet that covered his square, flat back, she remembered the days when he had come ragged to the back door to throw down a good meal of game upon the kitchen table, going off the next minute with nothing but a bit of black bread in prospect for his supper.
‘I will take them to the baron myself,’ said Berbel.
Wastei looked up as though he had supposed she was already gone in.
‘Thank you, Frau Berbel,’ he answered.
Five minutes later she returned, carrying a black bottle, a glass and something small shut in the palm of her hand.
‘The baron thanks you and sends you this,’ she said, holding out a gold piece. ‘And I have brought you this,’ she added, filling the glass, ‘because I know you like it.’
‘Luck!’ ejaculated Wastei, slipping the twenty-mark piece into the pocket of his waistcoat, and watching the white liquor as it rose nearer to the brim.
He took the glass, twisted it in his fingers, held it to the sun, and then looked again at Berbel.
‘God greet,’ he said, and tossed off the liquor in a trice. ‘Luck!’ he exclaimed again, as he smacked his lips.