’Well, now, it ‘s queer you don’t want to fight this lad,’ said Jacopo; ‘he’s come to square it with you that way, if you think best.’

Johann spared a remark between his vehement imprecations against the sex to say that he was ready to fight; but his idea of vengeance was directed upon the abstract conception of a faithless womankind.  Angelo, by reason of his detestation of Germans, temporarily threw himself into the part he was playing to the extent of despising him.  Johann admitted to Jacopo that intervals of six months’ duration in a courtship were wide jumps for Love to take.

‘Yes; amor! amor!’ he exclaimed with extreme dejection; ’I could wait.  Well! since you’ve brought the young man, we’ll have it out.’

He stepped before Angelo with bare fists.  Jacopo had to interpose.  The soldiers backed Johann, who now said to Angelo, ’Since you’ve come for it, we’ll have it out.’

Jacopo had great difficulty in bringing him to see that it was a matter to talk over.  Johann swore he would not talk about it, and was ready to fight a dozen Italians, man up man down.

‘Bare-fisted?’ screamed Jacopo.

‘Hey! the old way!  Give him knuckles, and break his back, my boy!’ cried the soldiers; ‘none of their steel this side of the mountain.’

Johann waited for Angelo to lift his hands; and to instigate his reluctant adversary, thumped his chest; but Angelo did not move.  The soldiers roared.

‘If she has you, she shall have a dolly,’ said Johann, now heated with the prospect of presenting that sort of husband to his little Rosetta.  At this juncture Jacopo threw himself between them.

‘It shall be a real fight,’ he said; ’my daughter can’t make up her mind, and she shall have the best man.  Leave me to arrange it all fairly; and you come here in a couple of hours, my children,’ he addressed the soldiers, who unwillingly quitted the scene where there was a certainty of fun, on the assurance of there being a livelier scene to come.

When they had turned their heels on the shop, Jacopo made a face at Johann; Johann swung round upon Angelo, and met a smile.  Then followed explanations.

‘What’s that you say?  She’s true—­she’s true?’ exclaimed the astounded lover.

‘True enough, but a girl at an inn wants hotter courting,’ said Jacopo.  ‘His Excellency here is after his own sweetheart.’

Johann huzzaed, hugged at Angelo’s hands, and gave a lusty filial tap to Jacopo on the shoulder.  Bread and grapes and Tyrolese wine were placed for them, and Johann’s mother soon produced a salad, eggs, and fowl; and then and there declared her willingness to receive Rosetta into the household, ’if she would swear at the outset never to have ‘heimweh’ (home-longing); as people—­men and women, both—­always did when they took a new home across a mountain.’

‘She won’t—­will she?’ Johann inquired with a dubious sparkle.