[_He opens his hand at once._

LOTH

What? Is it really true--you shoot the larks. You good for nothing! Do
you know that you deserve to be beaten for such mischief?

KAHL

[_Stares at LOTH for some seconds in stupid amazement. Then, clenching
his fist furtively he says:_] You son of a...!

[_And swinging around, disappears toward the right._

[_For some moments the yard remains empty._]

_HELEN steps from the house door. She wears a light-coloured summer
dress and a large garden hat. She looks all around her, walks a few
paces toward the gate-way, stands still and gazes out. Hereupon she
saunters across the yard toward the right and turns into the path
that leads to the inn. Great bundles of various tea-herbs are slung
across the fence to dry. She stops to inhale their odours. She also
bends downward the lower boughs of fruit trees and admires the low
hanging, red-cheeked apples. When she observes LOTH coming toward her
from the inn, a yet greater restlessness comes over her, so that she
finally turns around and reaches the farm yard before LOTH. Here she
notices that the dove-cote is still closed and goes thither through
the little gate that leads into the orchard. While she is still busy
pulling down the cord which, blown about by the wind, has become
entangled somewhere, she is addressed by LOTH, who has come up in the