Ah! elsewhere that same year was not content with embroidering its mourning robe with mere tears, it used blood also, and taught the land a twofold lesson at a heavy cost.
The circular letters issued by the county authorities flew from village to village, informing the local sages of the approaching peril of which even the well-formed knew no more than they had known ten years before, no more than they actually know now.
The local sages, that is to say the justices and the schoolmasters, were directed to explain to the ignorant people the contents of these circular letters.
Explain indeed! Men whose own knowledge was of the most elementary description, men who looked for supernatural causes in the most natural phenomena, were to explain what was still a profound mystery to the collective wisdom of the world!
Mr. Kordé, whom we remember as one of the two schoolmasters of Hétfalu, accordingly, by dint of bellowing, gathered all his subjects around him. It was the day before breaking up for the holidays, and drawing from his pocket the folded and corded vellum document, he gave them to understand that he was going to explain it to them. They, in their turn, were to explain it when they got home to their dear parents.
"Blockheads!" this was his usual mode of addressing his jeunesse dorée—"blockheads! you see here before you the letter patent of His Honour, the magistrate, signifying that all the schools are to be shut up, and the whole village is to be on the alert, inasmuch as a terrible disease, called the 'morbus,' is about to enter the kingdom. When the morbus lays hold of anybody the individual in question has not even time to look over his shoulder, but falls down dead on the spot. Down he drops, and there he stays.
"The morbus begins in this way. The gall overflows into the vital essences, and becomes gall-fever or cholera, consequently take care you don't aggravate me.
"Moreover, the morbus in question is to be found inside this year's melons, apricots, and all sorts of fruit; so every man jack of you who doesn't want to be a dead 'un mustn't go guzzling berries and such like."
Here a couple of Scythians from the northern counties began squabbling loudly on the back benches.