The multitude, however, were restless, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, coughing and clearing their throats.—They were terribly afraid of opposing the head official and his satellites. One man looked at another, secretly troubled what to do; and everyone noted carefully what the richest among them seemed to think. As to the miller and the foremost men in the other villages, they appeared to put themselves forward on purpose to be favorably noticed by the gendarmes and the scrivener. Antek went to speak with them; but the miller said rudely: “Any man but a fool can tell how he should vote!” and turned to the blacksmith, who was of everybody’s opinion, and always gliding about from group to group, guessing shrewdly how matters would turn out. He talked to the scrivener, chatted with the miller, offered Gregory a pinch of snuff—and kept his own counsel meanwhile so well that to the very end no one knew on which side he was. The majority were meanwhile gradually inclining not to vote for the school. They now dispersed about the square, indifferent to the noonday heat, and were setting to canvass their views still louder and more boldly than before, when the scrivener called from the open window: “Here, some one of you!” No one stirred. “Let someone run over to the Manor for the fish. ’Twas to be brought here in the morning, and we are waiting still.—Come!” he shouted masterfully; “make haste!” Here a voice uttered the bold words: “We are not here as your servants!” “Let him run thither himself! It irks him to drag his paunch about!” At this they laughed, for his belly was indeed as big as a drum. The scrivener swore. But in a minute, out came the Voyt at the back of the house, who, passing behind the tavern, slipped away to the Manor by the outside of the village. “He must have been changing the clothes of the babies at Madam Scrivener’s, and cleaning them likewise: so he has gone out for a little fresh air.” “Ah, yes; Madam likes not her rooms to be noisome.” “She will soon find other services for him to render her.” “Strange that the Squire is not yet to be seen,” they said in some surprise; but the smith returned, with a cunning smile: “He has too much sense to come.” They looked at him inquiringly. “For why,” the smith explained, “should he have to vote for the school ... or go to loggerheads with the District Official? And he will never vote: fancy what he would have to pay! No, he is wise.” “But you—are you with us, Michael, say?” Matthew pressed him, eager to know. The smith wriggled like a worm trodden upon, but, being in a quandary, grumbled a word or two, and went over to speak to the miller, who had come round to the peasants, and was now talking to old Ploshka very loud, for the rest to hear.