"Yes, there used to be an old witch here, worshipful sir," said the village elder obsequiously. "We called her Dainitsa.[34] She had long molested mankind, for her eyes were red. She could, when she chose, bring down such storms upon the village that the wind would take off the roofs of the houses. Once she brought a hailstorm upon us, and God's thunderbolt smote the village in three places. Thereupon the women here grew furious, seized her, and threw her into the pond. But even there the witch railed upon them and said--'Take heed! You will live to beg of me the water which you now give me to drink!' Then the women fished up her dead body from the bottom of the pond, thrust a dart through her heart, buried her in the valley, and rolled a large stone over her grave. But the very next year the witch's curse came upon us. Throughout the summer not a drop of rain fell in our district. Everything was withered up, and our cattle carried off by the murrain. Dainitsa had drunk up all the rain and dew. So we went to her grave, bored a large hole therein, and filled the grave with water till it ran over, shouting at the same time--'Drink thy fill, accursed hag! but lap not up all our rain and dew!' And so at last the great drought came to an end." [Footnote 34: _Dainitsa._ She who sings in a low voice, _i. e._ she who mutters spells. From Roumanian _daina_, which is derived from the Hungarian _danolni_, to sing.] The priest gravely vouched for the accuracy of this narrative, and Clement made a note of it in his parchment roll. Now came the third question. "Are there any among you who dare to smoke tobacco, either by cutting up the leaves into small fragments and putting them in his pipe, or by roasting them on the fire and inhaling the ascending steam?" "There are none, sir!" returned the elder. "We do not know that dish." "And do not try to, for whoever is caught in the act will, in accordance with the law of the land, have the stem of his pipe thrust through his nose, and be led in that guise all round the market-place." The fourth question was this-- "Do any of the peasants wear cloth coats, marten-skin kalpags, or morocco shoes?" "Pshaw!" cried the village elder. "Why, our poverty is such that we never look beyond sheep-skin jackets and leather sandals. What do we want with coloured cloth and morocco shoes?" "Nor must you, for the Estates of the Realm have forbidden the peasantry to wear the clothes of the gentry." Now came the fifth question. "Which of you not only acted contrary to the decree of the Diet, that the peasants should extirpate the sparrows, but even mocked the officers charged to collect sparrows' heads?" The magistrate humbly approached the Patrol-officer. "Believe me, worshipful sir; by reason of the great drought and the bad season, the sparrows have all departed from our district. Tell his Highness that we have been unable to lay our hands upon a single one all through the summer."