“Oi, oi, he’s a misery to us all, the horrid miller!” screamed one of the band, and in place of their songs, a chorus of wails and women’s lamentations rang out across the river.
Philip rather scratched his head to hear the way the young women were interceding for him. But the devil’s mind now seemed to be quite made up. He glanced at the girls out of one corner of his eye and rubbed his hands together.
“And that isn’t all!” shouted the widow Buchilikha louder than the loudest. “Have you heard what he wanted to do to the widow’s Galya?”
“Faugh!” spat the miller. “What a damned lot of magpies they are! What need to tell what they’re not asked about? And how in the world did they find it out? Though it only happened in the village to-night, they have heard the whole story in the hay-fields! Why on earth does God allow women to live in this world?”
“And what did my friend try to do to the widow’s daughter?” asked the devil, looking about him as if he weren’t particularly interested in the story.
So the magpies went on to tell him everything, talking all at once, and laid the whole affair before him from beginning to end.
The devil shook his head.
“Oi, oi, oi! That’s bad, very bad. I don’t suppose any one ever heard of your former inn-keeper Yankel doing anything like that?”
“Oh, what Jew ever thought of doing such a thing?”
“Oh, no, never!”