“Here!” he cried, in atrociously bad German, bolstered up and patched with English: “where’s the herr, and where’s Melchior?”
Pierre, whose hair was full of scraps of hay, took off his cap and scratched his head.
“Where is the herr and where is the guide?” said Saxe, a little louder and with a worse pronunciation.
Pierre opened his mouth, let his head hang forward, and stared at the lad in a heavy, stupid way.
“I say, William Tell,” cried Saxe—in plain English now—“can’t you understand your own language?”
The man stared more heavily than before.
“Regardez donc: parlez-vous Français?”
The stare continued.
“Well, you are a lively one,” muttered Saxe. “Here, I’ll have another try at you. ‘Wollen Sie mir.’ Let’s see: ‘wollen Sie mir’—what’s ‘have the goodness to tell me which way the guide and Mr Dale went?’—You don’t understand? No more do I how you can stand there like an ugly bit of rustic carving. I say, stupid! Can you understand that? Oh, I’m as stupid as he is. Get out of the way, old wooden wisdom, and let’s find your master.”
Just at that moment voices fell upon the lad’s ear, evidently coming from a rough building formed of pine logs built up log-hut fashion.