They had in themselves endless gardens of delight to ramble through, and it was, “--Do you remember that day at ----, Ray?” and “--I tell you, old girl, you gave me some rotten quarters-of-an-hour while that stuck-up little ramrod of a lieutenant was buzzing about you!”--and so on and so on,--every recollection rosy now with the joy of complete understanding, though at the time one and another had been anything but joyful. The old road-mender came trudging up from his work while they still sat there. He nodded benevolently with something of a twinkle in his eye, as though he could still recall similar times of his own, and gave them a cordial “Grüss Gott!” “We’re doing our best to hold your house up for you,” said Ray. “So I see, Herr and Fräulein, and it is quite at your service. Everybody puts their backs against it after climbing from below. You are from Süss this morning?” “From Süss this morning, and yesterday from Martinsbruck, and the day before that from Ried, and the day before that from Innsbruck,” said Ray. “It is a long walk. But when one is young---- I also have been to Innsbruck. It is a great city. But there are too many people. They fall over one another in the streets. I like my mountains better and just one or two people a day. Thanks, Herr!”--at Ray’s offer of a cigar--“With permission I will smoke it later. I am going to eat now,” and he put it carefully away into his waistcoat pocket and got out bread and cheese from his little house, and sat and ate and talked. “I had a Herr and a Fräulein here, yesterday,” he said reminiscently. “No, it was the day before----” “We met them at Martinsbruck.” “They were hastening home in fear of some war. But I did not clearly make out what it was all about. Is there going to be war, Herr?” “I’m afraid it looks rather like it. That is why we are hastening home also.” “But what is it all about, Herr? And why, in the name of God, do men want to fight in these times?” “Ah! Now that is a big question, my friend, and it would take a lot of answering. But, so far as we know at present, it is only Austria that wants to fight. You heard of the Archduke and his wife being shot, down in Bosnia?” “I heard of that. I was sorry. I have had them here. They sat with their backs against the house just as you are doing. They seemed nice enough people. He gave me five kroner for sitting against my house----” “Ah!--he was an archduke and rolling in money.” “I did not mean it that way, Herr. I do not want anything for people sitting against my house. It is a pleasure to me to have a word with them. There are not too many, you see.” “It is not like Innsbruck where they fall over one another in the streets,” smiled Lois. “No, it is not like Innsbruck, Fräulein, and I am glad of that. But why should their being shot make the rest want to fight?”