One of the troop was not long in
discerning the young beauty. He pointed her boldly out to a comrade, who
approved his appetite, and referred her to a third. The rest followed
lead, and Margarita was as one spell-struck when she became aware that
all those hungry eyes were preying on hers. Old Gottlieb was too full of
his own fears to think for her, and when he drew in his head rather
suddenly, it was with a dismal foreboding that Werner's destination in
Cologne was direct to the house of Gottlieb Groschen, for purposes only
too well to be divined.
'Devil's breeches!' muttered Gottlieb; 'look again, Grete, and see if
that hell-troop stop the way outside.'
Margarita's cheeks were overflowing with the offended rose.
'I will not look at them again, father.'
Gottlieb stared, and then patted her.
'I would I were a man, father!'
Gottlieb smiled, and stroked his beard.
'Oh! how I burn!'
And the girl shivered visibly.
'Grete! mind to be as much of a woman as you can, and soon such raff as
this you may sweep away, like cobwebs, and no harm done.'
He was startled by a violent thumping at the streetdoor, and as brazen a
blast as if the dead were being summoned. Aunt Lisbeth entered, and
flitted duskily round the room, crying:
'We are lost: they are upon us! better death with a bodkin! Never shall
it be said of me; never! the monsters!'
Then admonishing them to lock, bar, bolt, and block up every room in the
house, Aunt Lisbeth perched herself on the edge of a chair, and reversed
the habits of the screech-owl, by being silent when stationary.
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