The words were taken up at once and made great fun of, till they shook with laughter; but, all at once, the Voyt cried solemnly: “Make way there! Way for the head of the District!” A coach appeared on the road, jolting over the ruts and hollows, and pulling up in front of the office. The head official raised his hand to his cap, the peasants took their hats off, and silence followed, while the Voyt and the scrivener darted forward to assist him from the coach, and the gendarmes stood erect at attention beside the doorway. He alighted, divested himself of his white dust-coat, turned round to gaze at the assembled crowd, stroked his blond beard, assumed a severe look, and nodded his head. Then he entered the scrivener’s dwelling, into which the latter, bent like a hoop, ushered him. The coach drove away, and the peasants thronged round the table that had been set up. They thought the meeting was now about to begin. But it was a very long while indeed before the head official showed himself: while from the scrivener’s apartments there came the noise of jingling glasses, and laughter, and certain fragrant scents that made the mouth water. They were weary both of waiting and of the broiling heat, and many a one tried to slip away to the tavern. But this the Voyt would not have. “Do not go away!—Whosoever is absent shall be put down for a fine.” This kept them back, but they uttered many an invective, as they looked impatiently towards the scrivener’s curtained windows. “They are ashamed to be seen drinking!” “Quite right of them: it would only make us more thirsty that we have but our spittle to swallow!” From the lock-up, in the same building as the Office, now came the constable, dragging by a halter a large calf that resisted with might and main and, making a sudden rush at him, upset the man and set off at a run, tail in air in a cloud of dust. “Stop thief! Stop thief!” they cried, laughing. “Oh, the bold rascal, to break prison so, even lifting up his tail against my Lord the Voyt!” They also aimed a good many jibes at the constable, who was not able to get the calf into the yard without the assistance of all the Soltyses present. They were not yet fully breathed after their hunt, when the Voyt ordered them all to cleanse the lock-up thoroughly; he himself saw that the work was well done, and helped them a good deal, fearing lest the District Official should make a tour of inspection. “But, Voyt dear! ye’ll have to burn incense there, or his nose will tell him who the prisoner was!” “Have no fear: after a few drams he will scent naught in the world.” And other gibes were thrown at the Voyt, which he only received with clenched teeth and glaring eyes.—At last, however, they had enough of sun, and hunger, and waiting—and could not even jest any longer. So, in spite of the Voyt’s objurgations, they all made tracks for the tavern and the trees, Gregory flinging these words at him: