THE SHERIFF. Did you ever see such a lot of people at the summer sessions before?
THE CONSTABLE. Not in fifteen years, or since we had the big murder at Alder Lake.
SHERIFF. Well, this story here is almost as good as a double parricide. That the Baron and the Baroness are going to separate is scandal enough, but when on top of it the families take to wrangling about properties and estates, then it's easy to see that there's going to be a hot time. The only thing wanting now is that they get to fighting over the child, too, and then King Solomon himself can't tell what's right.
CONSTABLE. What is there behind this case anyhow? Some say this and some say that, but the blame ought to rest on somebody?
SHERIFF. I don't know about that. Sometimes it is nobody's fault when two quarrel, and then again one alone is to blame for the quarrel of two. Now take my old shrew, for instance, she's running around at home scolding for dear life all by herself when I am away, they tell me. Besides, this is not just a quarrel, but a full-fledged criminal case, and in most such one party is complainant, or the one that has been wronged, and the other is defendant, or the one that has committed the crime. But in this case it is not easy to tell who is guilty, for both parties are at once complainants and defendants.
CONSTABLE. Well, well, queer things do happen these days. It's as if the women had gone crazy. My old one has spells when she says that I should bear children also, if there was any justice in things—just as if the Lord didn't know how he made his own creatures. And then I get long rigmaroles about her being human also, just as if I didn't know that before, or had said anything to the contrary; and of her being tired of acting as my servant girl, when, for a fact, I am not much better than her hired man.
SHERIFF. So-o. So you have got that kind of plague in your house too. Mine reads a paper she gets at the manor, and then she tells me as something wonderful, one day, that some farmer's lass has turned mason, and the next that an old woman has set upon and beaten her sick husband. I cannot quite get at what's the meaning of it all, but it looks most as if she was mad at me for being a man.
CONSTABLE. Mighty queer, that's what it is. [Offers snuff] Fine weather we're having. The rye is standing as thick as the hairs in a fox fell, and we got over the black frosts without a hitch.
SHERIFF. There is nothing of mine growing, and good years are bad for me: no executions and no auctions. Do you know anything about the new judge who is going to hold court to-day?
CONSTABLE. Not much, but I understand he's a youngster who has just got his appointment and is going to sit for the first time now——