“A Robbler,” Linnet repeated, looking up at him pleadingly. “You know not what that is? Then will I tell you quickly. The feather in his hat, it is turned the wrong way. When a Tyrolese does so, he wills thereby to say he will make himself a Robbler. Therefore, if any one speaks angry to him, it is known he will strike back. It is—I cannot say what it means in English, but it invites to fight; it is the sign of a challenge.” “Well, Robbler or no Robbler, I’m not afraid of him,” Will answered, with quiet determination; “and if he _will_ fight, why, of course, he must take what he gets for it.” “Perhaps,” Linnet said, simply, gazing back at him, much surprised, “in your own country you are also a Robbler.” The _naïveté_ of her remark made Will laugh in spite of himself. That laugh saved bloodshed. The Tyrolese, on his part, seeing the absurdity of the situation all at once, broke into a smile himself; and, with that unlucky smile, his sole claim to Robblerhood vanished incontinently. Linnet saw her advantage. In a moment, she had poured into the young man’s ear a perfect flood of explanatory eloquence in their native dialect. Gradually the Robbler’s defiant attitude relaxed; his face grew calmer; he accepted her account. Then he turned to Will with a more mollified manner: “You may go on,” he said, graciously, with a regal nod of his head; “I allow the _sennerin_ to continue her way with you.” As for Will, he felt half inclined, at first, to resent the lordly air of the Robbler’s concession. On second thoughts, however, for Linnet’s sake, in his ignorance of who the young man might be, and the nature of his claim upon her, he judged it better to avoid any quarrel of any sort with a native of the valley. So he raised his hat courteously, and let the stranger depart, with a very bad grace, along the road to the village. “What did you tell him?” he asked of Linnet, as the Robbler went his way, singing defiantly to himself, down the grassy zig-zag. “Oh, I told him,” Linnet answered, with a little flush of excitement, “Andreas Hausberger had sent me that you might teach me English.” “Is he your brother?” Will asked, not that he thought that likely, but because it was less pointed than if he had asked her outright, “Is this young man your lover?”