"I? Nobody at all. Not for all the world would I injure anyone. Oh, dear no! I only opened my mouth in order that every poor mother's son of us might look out for himself and guard himself, that's all."
"Guard himself!—from what?"
"From danger."
"And who told you there was any danger here? Don't you know that the doctor has a long way to go, and many people to cure, and must therefore carry a great many drugs along with him? And you, you senseless ass! dropped one of his medicine boxes, spilt the contents, and instantly jumped at the conclusion that it was poison! Poison! your grandmother! It is true, no doubt, that if a man in health takes medicine he will have stomach-ache for his pains, but if he be sick the same medicine will cure him. Every fool knows that. Drugs are not good to eat."
A couple of the more sensible peasants murmured approvingly behind him. The Leather-bell stood confounded before the magistrate, and made a sort of downward movement with his hat as if he would have liked to scatter to the winds the little bit of powder still lying on the table.
"And now tell me, you seditious idiot, what might not have happened if these honest men here had not had their wits about them? What if they had believed the horrible accusation spread by you and a few more vagabond busybodies of the same kidney? What if in their mad terror they had fallen foul of your young landlord, who has done you so much good, and shot him dead before your eyes? What if they had dragged his father, the old squire, out of bed in his nightshirt, and burnt him to death? What would you have done then, you good-for-nothing? I suppose you would have sharpened the knife that cut their throats?"
The knees of the Leather-bell smote together; he stammered piteously that he had had no idea that such horrible things would follow from what he said, that he had, in fact, not been thinking at all of what he was saying.
"Well, you will have plenty of time to think it over when you are sitting in the county jail."
The Leather-bell begged and prayed that he might not be sent there, rather shove him in the stocks alongside Hamza. He admitted that he deserved it; but if they liked to give him twenty or thirty blows with a stick instead, he would take it kindly of them. He had meant no harm, and he would never spread any more such rumours.
Meanwhile, no one had remarked that the tap-room had gradually been filling with silent, savage-looking forms, one of whom, while listening attentively to the conversation, began sweeping the suspicious-looking powder into the palm of his hand.