"Why do you sigh?" Noémi asked.
"You know well enough."
And Timar too knew to whom the sigh was due.
Noémi tried to give a cheerful turn to the conversation. "I took my aversion to frogs from the time when a naughty boy played me a trick, and threw a great big toad, as brown as a crust, at me. He said it was a bull-frog, and that if he struck it with a nettle it would roar like a bull. He did strike the poor thing, and then it began to moan piteously, so that I can never forget it, as if it would call for vengeance against our whole race; and its body was covered with white froth. The bad boy laughed when he heard the uncanny voice of the poor beast."
"Who was that wicked boy?" asked Michael.
Noémi was silent, and only made an expressively contemptuous movement of the hand. Timar guessed the name; he looked at Frau Therese, and she nodded assent—already they can guess each other's thoughts.
"Has he never been here since?"
"Oh, yes; he comes every year, and never ceases tormenting us. He has found a new way of laying us under contribution. He brings a large boat with him, and as I can not give him any money, he loads it with honey, wax, and wool, which he sells. I give him what he wants, that he may leave us in peace."
"He has not been here lately," said Noémi.
"Oh, nothing has happened to him, I expect his arrival any day."