Linnet shook her head. “Ah, no,” she answered, with a very decided air; “he’s nothing at all to me—not even my friend. I do not so much as care for him. He’s only Franz Lindner. But then, he was jealous because he see that I walk with you. He has no right of that; I am not anything to him; yet still he must be jealous if somebody speak to me. It is because he is a Robbler, and must do like that. A Robbler shall always fight if any man shall walk or talk with his maiden. Though I am _not_ his maiden, but he would have me to be it. So will he fight with anyone who shall walk or talk with me. But when I tell him Andreas Hausberger send me that I may learn English, then he go away quietly. For Franz Lindner, or any other Robbler, will not fight with a stranger so well as with a Tyroler.” CHAPTER VII WAGER OF BATTLE That evening at the _Wirthshaus_, as things turned out, Will and Florian had an excellent opportunity afforded them of observing for themselves the manners and customs of the Tyrolese Robbler. There was a dance at the inn—a prodigious dance, of truly national severity. It was the eve of a wedding, and, as is usual on such occasions, the peasants of the neighbourhood had assembled in full force to drink good luck to the forthcoming union. The _Gaststube_ or bar-room was crowded with a gay throng of bright and merry faces. The young men were there, jaunty, bold, and defiant; the old men, austere and stern of feature from the hardships of long life among the grim-faced mountains. Groups of black-eyed lasses stood about the room and bandied repartee with their gaily-dressed admirers; matrons, unspoilt by conventional restraint, instead of checking their mirth, looked on smiling and abetting them. Through the midst, the Herr Vicar strolled, stout and complaisant, an easy-going man; not his to stem the tide of their innocent merriment; so long as they confessed twelve times a year, and subscribed to release their parents’ souls from purgatory, he sanctified by his presence the beer and the dances. Andreas Hausberger, too, flitted here and there through the crowd with an anxious eye; ’twas his task to provide for and protect the bodies of his guests, as ’twas the Herr Vicar’s to save their priceless souls from undue temptation.