"We did," said Speckbacher in a melancholy tone.
"So you must not mind," pursued Maria cheerily, "if I do give you a grumpy word or a pouting look now and then, because it is over in a moment; for I assure you, I remember all you said to me too well to think seriously of minding it at any time."
"But, Maria! Don't you know there has been an armistice proclaimed?"
"To be sure I do," said she with curling lip; "but what have _we_ to do with that?"
"Oh, what a question!" groaned Speckbacher.
"It hardly amounts to one, I think," said Maria. "Why, have not all the Austrian soldiery deserted to us, and is not the Sandwirth Commander-in-Chief?"
"My dearest Maria, Baron Hormayr has been using all his influence with us both to forbear from shedding blood in a hopeless case. And he has promised to take me with him in his own carriage to Vienna to be out of the way a little, till the affair has blown over.
"What, and give up the cause?" cried Maria in blank dismay.
"Then you don't approve of it?" said he, inquiringly.
"Well, I don't know--Eisenstecken has given it up for one--"
Maria dropped the baby into the little wooden cradle on the dresser, and began to furbish a brass skillet very vigorously.
--"But, if you don't," faltered he, "neither shall I; for, if my life is worth nothing to _you_, to me it is not of the value of a kreutzer."
"O Speckbacher!" cried she, suddenly flinging her arms about his neck.
"Well, what now?" said he; his eyes beginning to grow misty.
"How _can_ you say such things?" sobbed Maria. "Not worth a kreutzer, indeed! You, the best Tyrolese that lives!--the father of a family--a married man--a responsible person--known and beloved by all--to talk of not being worth a kreutzer!--"
Here Anderl increased the effect by beginning to weep aloud, and with perseverance.
"Well," said Speckbacher, in a stifled voice, and drawing her very close to him, "you seemed to think I was deserting the cause--"
"Yes, only--no--that is--If Baron Hormayr says right,--and he ought to know,--why, the cause is deserting _you_, not you it--at least--Ah, it is not so! O Speckbacher, I am pulled two ways! why have you made me think the cause so important all along, if you are going to forsake it now?"