In the church the priest also had read aloud the letter from the county authorities, adding a short discourse of his own to the effect that a calm confidence in the providence of God and a clear Christian conscience were worth far more than all the medicaments, cordons, and bismuth powder in the world. "We are all, however, in the hands of God," he said, "and if we live well we shall die well. A righteous man need never fear Death." The old hag, "the death-bird," was crouching there on the church steps with a bundle of healing herbs in her lap, and her crutch under her armpits, and with her chin resting on her knee. She kept counting all who came out of the church: "One! two! three!" Every time she came to three she began all over again--every third person was superfluous. And now all had gone, only she remained behind, she and shaggy Hanák, the bellringer. After the departure of the people a little white dog came running along, and, as often happens, peeped into the church. "Clear out of that!" cried the sexton, flinging the large church door key after him. The aged sybil lifted a skinny finger and shook it menacingly at the sexton. "Hanák! shaggy Hanák! Why dost thou drive away the dog? I tell thee, and I tell thee the truth, that it were better for thee, aye! and for others also, if they could be as such dogs instead of the two-legged beasts they really are, for ere long we shall be in a world where not the voice of thy bell, but the howling of dogs will accompany the dead to their last resting-place. Therefore trouble not thyself about the dogs, Hanák, shaggy Hanák." The bellringer durst not reply. He closed the church door softly, got out of the woman's way, and while he hastened off, it seemed to him as if his head was dizzy from some cause or other, and his feet were tottering beneath him. When he handed the church door key over to the priest, his reverence gave him to understand that by order of the authorities the church bells were not to be tolled for the dead during the outbreak of the plague to avoid alarming the people. As he went home that evening shaggy Hanák's head waggled from side to side, as if every hair upon it was a heavy debt. As he went along he heard all the dogs howling. Well, henceforth _they_ would have to follow the dead to their graves. After that Hanák had not the heart to go home, but sought comfort in the pot-house, where the village sages were already sitting in council together and discussing the problems of the Future. CHAPTER X. A LEADER OF THE PEOPLE. The other rector, Mr. Thomas Bodza, had read a lot of things in the course of his life.