"The guests."
"What guests?"
"The magistrate and the lawyer."
Thereupon the bolts were slipped back with difficulty, and the questioner appeared. She was, as far as age was concerned, a little "beyond the vintage." She wore a dirty white kitchen apron, and below that a second blue kitchen apron, and below that again a third dappled apron. It was this woman's custom to put on as many dirty aprons as possible.
"Good day, Mistress Boris," was the lawyer's greeting. "Why, you hardly wished to let us in."
"I crave your pardon. I heard the bell ring, but could not come at once. I had to wait until the fish was ready. Besides, so many bad men are hereabouts, wandering beggars, 'Arme Reisenden,'[36] that one must always keep the door closed, and ask 'who is there?'"
[36] Poor travellers.
"It is well, my dear Boris. Now go and look after that fish, that it may not burn; we shall soon find the master somewhere. Has he finished his devotions?"
"Yes; but he has surely commenced anew. The bells are ringing the death-toll, and at such times he is accustomed to say one extra prayer for the departed soul. Don't disturb him, I beg, or he will grumble the whole day."
Mistress Boris conducted the gentlemen into a large room, which, to judge from the table ready laid, served as dining room, though the intruder might have taken it for an oratory, so full was it of pictures of those hallowed ones, whom we like to drag down to ourselves, it being too fatiguing to rise up to them.