"May the devil take her and her flax, if she did not trot out of that instantly."
So she pushed the poor woman out, and then panting and blowing with rage, asked Anna Apenborg to tell her what this boor of a sheriff was like?
Illa.—"He was a strange man. Ate fish every day, and always cooked the one way, namely, in beer. How this was possible she could not understand. To-day she heard he was to have pike for his dinner."
Hæc.—"Was she asking the fool what he ate? What did she care about his dinners? But what sort of man was he, and did all the nuns, in truth, spin for him?"
Illa.—"Ay, truly, except Barbara Schetzkow; she was dead now. But once when he went storming to her cell, she just turned him out, and so she had peace ever after. For he roared like a bear, but, in truth, was a cowardly rabbit, this same sheriff. And she heard, that one time, when he was challenged by a noble, he shrank away, and never stood up to his quarrel."
But just then in walked the sheriff himself, with a horse-whip in his hand. He was a thick-set, grey-headed fellow, and roared at Sidonia—
"What! thou old, lean hag—so thou wilt spin no flax? May the devil take thee, but thou shalt obey my commands!"
While he thus scolded, Sidonia quietly caught hold of the broom, and grasping it with both hands, gave such a blow with the handle on the grey pate of the sheriff, that he tumbled against the door, while she screamed out—
"Ha! thou peasant boor, take that for calling me a hag—the lady of castle and lands!"
Then she struck him again and again, till the sheriff at last got the door open and bolted out, running down the stairs as hard as he could, and into the courtyard, where, when he was safely landed, he shook the horsewhip up at Sidonia's windows, crying out—