The village justice regarded him angrily.
"They are in a very good place where they will do no mischief—the stocks."
"Really? Well, they will certainly be well looked after there. All the same it is a great shame they are not here just now." Then, lowering his voice mysteriously, he added: "Well, my honoured comrade, I myself can now say that it is all up with us."
"How is it all up with us?" inquired Martin Csicseri, leaning both elbows heavily on the table.
"Oh, it's all up with us in every way, all up, all up!" wailed the Leather-bell, rapidly pacing up and down the room, and pressing his head betwixt his hands. "It is all up with the whole village."
"Will you tell me how it is all up with us, you old woman, you. Are you aware that this stick has an end to it, and I am very much inclined to give it some work to do on your back this instant?"
The fellow made as if he would simply answer the justice's question, yet all the while he kept glancing about him timidly, till five or six inquisitive rustics had also gathered around him, only then did he exclaim in a strident whisper: "The poison has already arrived!"
"You're a fool!" cried the justice, starting back as he spoke.
"I am not. I have seen and tasted it, and I have brought some of it with me. The doctor himself admitted that the county authorities had sent a large trunk of poison hither, and were going to make us drink it. The box was in my hand. I lifted it down from the carriage. Divine Providence so ordered that it fell from my hands, and a whitish powder poured out of it. The whole box was full of that powder. The doctor was horribly frightened, and swore at me like anything for my clumsiness. I saw him, I tell you, he grew quite yellow. I merely asked whether this medicine might not be for the cattle, but he savagely snatched it from my hand, and said he would make our heads ache with it."
"Is that true?" asked a terrified boor on the other side of the table.