they should find that a soldier on his
way to the manoeuvres is not to be betrothed and married offhand.

So he told them bluntly that he had come hither for his drumsticks, and
not to woo maidens, and he would thank them to let him have his
property.

"But have a look about you a bit first, young man," said the old fellow,
and he pointed with his stick.

And all at once the drummer saw large dun cows grazing all along the
mountain pastures, and the cow-bells rang out their merry peals. Buckets
and vats of the brightest copper shone all about, and never had he seen
such shapely and nicely dressed milkmaids. There must needs be great
wealth here.

"Perchance thou dost think 'tis but a beggarly inheritance I have here
in the Blue Mountains," said she, and sitting down on a haycock, she
began chatting with him. "But we've four such _saetar[2]_ as this, and
what I inherit from my mother is twelve times as large."

But the drummer had seen what he had seen. They were rather too anxious
to settle the property upon him, thought he. So he declared that in so
serious a matter he must crave a little time for consideration.

Then the lass began to cry and take on, and asked him if he meant to
befool a poor innocent, ignorant, young thing, and pursue her and drive
her out of her very wits. She had put all her hope and trust in him, she
said, and with that she fell a-howling.

She sat there quite inconsolable, and rocked herself to and fro with all
her hair over her eyes, till at last the drummer began to feel quite
sorry for her and almost angry with himself. She was certainly most
simple-minded and confiding.

All at once she twisted round and threw herself petulantly down from the
haycock. Her eyes spied all about, and seemed quite tiny and piercing as
she looked up at him, and laughed and jested.

He started back. It was exactly as if he again saw the snake beneath the
birch tree down there when it trundled away.

And now he wanted to be off as quickly as possible; he cared no longer
about being civil.

Then she reared up with a hissing sound. She quite forgot herself, and a
long tail hung down and whisked about from behind her kirtle.

He shouldn't escape her in that way, she shrieked. He should first of
all have a taste of public penance and public opinion from parish to
parish. And then she called her father.

Then the drummer felt a grip on his jacket, and he was lifted right off
his legs.

He was chucked