i, but feared to incur the displeasure of the innkeeper--"the
doctor. He's a real friend of yours. He said: 'Walpurga was perfectly
right; it's the most sensible thing she's ever done'--and he also said
that he and his wife would soon come on purpose to welcome you."

And now the woodcutters cautioned Hansei, and told him that there were
others who thought just as they did, that the old inn had been of
little account for a great while, and that he would do well to apply
for a license. He couldn't fail to get one, and then he could run the
host of the Chamois so dry that the hoops would fall from his casks.

Hansei nodded his cheerful approval. "Just wait, we'll show you, yet,"
he muttered to himself, clenching his fists, stretching out his arms,
and raising his shoulders as if he would fell the innkeeper to the
earth with a blow that would make him forget to rise again. But
Walpurga said: "We'll harm no one, and we'll let no one harm us."

"Haven't you something to drink?" inquired the woodcutters. They wanted
a reward for the news they had brought.

"No, I've nothing," replied Hansei. "I must be off to the meadow to
turn the hay."

The men left, and had gone a great ways before they ceased abusing
Hansei. "That's the way with a beggar on horseback. He won't even give
you a drink when you bring him news."

Wastl the weaver had not the courage to contradict them, although he
knew that Hansei would gladly have given him something to drink if the
rest of the company had not been present.

Hansei gazed at his forlorn tankard for some time. At last he said:

"I don't care. I wanted to be all alone with you, Walpurga, and now we
are alone, I ask nothing of the world."

"The innkeeper's not the whole world," said Walpurga, consolingly.

Hansei shook his head, as if to say that a woman can't understand what
it is to be shut out of the inn, just like a drunkard whom the law
prevents from going there.

"He's got no right to keep me out," said he, angrily. "I know my
rights. The landlord must give drink to every guest who enters his
house. But I shan't do him the honor to go there."

Walpurga, whose thoughts followed the woodcutters, conjectured they
were speaking ill of them.

"We ought to have given the woodcutters something to drink. They're
surely abusing us now."

"We can't stop every one's mouth," replied Hansei. "Let them talk; and
don't begin to repent now. We must be firm. What's done is done." With
a cha