“A wonderful story, friend! I heard something similar from my late—”
Then the headman suddenly stopped. Outside there were noises, and the stamping of dancers’ feet. The strings of a guitar were being struck gently, to the accompaniment of a voice. Then the guitar was played more loudly, many voices joined in, and the whole chorus struck up a song in ridicule of the headman.
When it was over, the distiller said, with his head bent a little on one side, to the headman who was almost petrified by the audacity of the serenaders, “A fine song, my friend!”
“Very fine! Only it is a pity that they insult the headman.”
He folded his arms with a certain measure of composure on the table, and prepared to listen further, for the singing and noise outside continued. A sharp observer, however, would have seen that it was not mere torpidity which made the headman sit so quietly. In the same way a crafty cat often allows an inexperienced mouse to play about her tail, while she is quickly devising a plan to cut it off from the mouse-hole. The headman’s one eye was still fastened on the window, and his hand, after he had given the village councillor a sign, was reaching for the door-handle, when suddenly a loud noise and shouts were heard from the street. The distiller, who beside many other characteristics possessed a keen curiosity, laid down his pipe quickly and ran into the street; but the ne’er-do-wells had all dispersed.
“No, you don’t escape me!” cried the headman, dragging someone muffled up in a sheepskin coat with the hair turned outwards, by the arm.
The distiller rapidly seized a favourable moment to look at the face of this disturber of the peace; but he started back when he saw a long beard and a grim, painted face.
“No, you don’t escape me!” exclaimed the headman again as he dragged his prisoner into the vestibule.
The latter offered no resistance, and followed him as quietly as though it had been his own house.
“Karpo, open the storeroom!” the headman called to the village councillor. “We will throw him in there! Then we will awake the clerk, call the village council together, catch this impudent rabble, and pass our sentence on them at once.”
The village councillor unlocked the storeroom; then in the darkness of the vestibule, the prisoner made a desperate effort to break loose from the headman’s arms.
“Ah! you would, would you?” exclaimed the headman, holding him more firmly by the collar.
“Let me go! It is I!” a half-stifled voice was heard saying.
“It is no good, brother! You may squeal if you choose, like the devil, instead of imitating a woman, but you won’t get round me.” So saying, he thrust the prisoner with such violence into the dark room that he fell on the ground and groaned aloud.
The victorious headman, accompanied by the village councillor, now betook himself to the clerk’s; they were followed by the distiller, who was veiled in clouds of tobacco-smoke, and resembled a steamer.
They were all three walking reflectively with bent heads, when suddenly, turning into a dark side-alley, they uttered a cry and started back in consequence of coming into collision with three other men, who on their side shouted with equal loudness. The headman saw with his one eye, to his no small astonishment, the clerk with two village councillors.
“I was just coming to you, Mr. Notary.”
“And I was on my way to your honour.”
“These are strange goings-on, Mr. Notary.”
“Indeed they are, your honour.”
“Have you seen them then?” asked the headman, surprised.
“The young fellows are roaming about the streets using vile language. They are abusing your honour in a way—in a word, it is a scandal. A drunken Russian would be ashamed to use such words.”
The lean notary, in his gaily striped breeches and yeast-coloured waistcoat, kept on stretching forward and drawing back his neck while he talked.
“Hardly had I gone to sleep,” he continued, “than the cursed loafers woke me up with their shameful songs and their noise. I meant to give them a sound rating, but while I was putting on my breeches and vest, they all ran away. But the ringleader has not escaped; for the present he is shut up in the hut which we use as a prison. I was very curious to know who the scapegrace is, but his face is as sooty as the devil’s when he forges nails for sinners.”
“What clothes does he wear, Mr. Notary?”
“The son of a dog wears a black sheepskin coat turned inside out, your honour.”
“Aren’t you telling me a lie, Mr. Notary? The same good-for-nothing is now shut up in my storeroom under lock and key.”
“No, your honour! You have drawn the long bow a little yourself, and should not be vexed at what I say.”
“Bring a light! We will take a look at him at once!”
They returned to the headman’s house; the storeroom door was opened, and the headman groaned for sheer amazement as he saw his sister-in-law standing before him.
“Tell me then,” she said, stepping forward, “have you quite lost your senses? Had you a single particle of brains in your one-eyed fish-head when you locked me up in the dark room? It is a mercy I did not break my head against the iron door hinge. Didn’t I shout out that it was I? Then he seized me, the cursed bear, with his iron claws, and pushed me in. May Satan hereafter so push you into hell!” The last words she spoke from the street, having wisely gone out of his reach.
“Yes, now I see that it is you!” said the headman, who had slowly recovered his composure.
“Is he not a scamp and a scoundrel, Mr. Clerk?” he continued.
“Yes, certainly, your honour.”
“Isn’t it high
