“I believe you,” replied the girl, and her eager glance measured the youth’s broad breast and muscular arms with an expression of pride. “I believe you, but why do you not dare? Are you the slave of that man up there?”
“He is my father and besides—”
“What besides?” she cried, waving her hand as if to wave away a bat. “If no bird ever flew away from the nest there would be a pretty swarm in it. Look at my kids there—as long as they need their mother they run about after her, but as soon as they can find their food alone they seek it wherever they can find it, and I can tell you the yearlings there have quite forgotten whether they sucked the yellow dam or the brown one. And what great things does your father do for you?”
“Silence!” interrupted the youth with excited indignation. “The evil one speaks through thee. Get thee from me, for I dare not hear that which I dare not utter.”
“Dare, dare, dare!” she sneered. “What do you dare then? not even to listen!”
“At any rate not to what you have to say, you goblin!” he exclaimed vehemently. “Your voice is hateful to me, and if I meet you again by the well I will drive you away with stones.”
While he spoke thus she stared speechless at him, the blood had left her lips, and she clenched her small hands. He was about to pass her to fetch some water, but she stepped into his path, and held him spell-bound with the fixed gaze of her eyes. A cold chill ran through him when she asked him with trembling lips and a smothered voice, “What harm have I done you?”
“Leave me!” said he, and he raised his hand to push her away from the water.
“You shall not touch me,” she cried beside herself. “What harm have I done you?”
“You know nothing of God,” he answered, “and he who is not of God is of the Devil.”