Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/196

 seen nor heard. The only thing that remained for the bankrupt pedler to do—for he was determined not to carry the empty basket home—was to collect the broken fragments, and take them to the glass-house, where he thought they would perhaps give him in exchange a few beer glasses with which to recommence business. With feelings resembling those of a merchant whose one vessel, with all its crew and all its cargo, the greedy ocean has engulfed, Stephen slowly descended the mountain, bending, not as before, under profitable glass, but under heavy thoughts, mingled with a hundred speculations as to whether there were not yet some means, and what, of making a tolerable start once more with something better than half a dozen beer glasses. By-and-bye he bethought him of the goats; but Lisa loved them almost as much as her children, and would not consent to part with them; it was only by stratagem he could get them quietly from her. Stephen laid his plan accordingly. So far from letting her know what a loss he had sustained, he would not go home at all this time, but waiting till midnight, would steal into the stable, carry off the goats, take them to Schmiedeberg, and selling them at the fair, purchase a new stock of wares with the money; then, on his return home, he proposed getting up a furious quarrel with his wife for having, as he would insist, lost the goats,