"If the gracious master does not mind listening to me in the cowhouse. It was like this. When I was setting the yeast to rise the day before yesterday, for baking, in the kitchen, in came two police-officers, saying I must go with them to the police-court. I told them I had not stolen anything. Thereupon, one said, I was not to make a noise, and he threatened to lay his cane about my shoulders, and if I didn't go of my own free will, he'd make me. I told him my master was away. He said that would be all right, and that we could shut the door and leave the key under a beam outside, where I could find it again. So what could I do? I had to leave the yeast in the trough where it got all sour and mouldy, and go off to the police-station. When I got there, I saw lots of men sitting round a table, and they all looked at me and asked me questions, and told me I'd got to be sworn. I thought they meant being married, so said I didn't mind if there was anyone there I liked well enough to marry. Then one of them said it wasn't a question of marrying, but that I must swear to what I knew about the master." "A regular inquisition," muttered Ráby. "'I'll swear fast enough,' said I, 'that I know nought of him but what is good.' "'Then,' says the notary, 'what about the peasants that he sets on to rebel against their landlords?' "'Nothing of the kind,' says I; 'the man who says that ought to be hanged.' "With that, he asks if my master did not throw Dacsó Marczi and the surveyor into the river. So I told them it was a wicked lie." "That was quite true, Böske!" "Then they asked me if you were not a sorcerer, and did not call up evil spirits at night-time." "And, pray, what did you say to that?" "Why I just laughed outright, and told them I had never even heard my master say 'the devil take them,' much less call up evil spirits. But they said the Devil himself would carry me off if I didn't tell the truth. And when they asked me to swear that the gracious master was a sorcerer, I just swore by the Crucifix it was not true. But they were so angry that they just packed me off to prison, then and there, and there I was left without food or drink till the gracious master himself came and fetched me out." Poor Böske finished her story with a burst of weeping, for up till now she had not had the time for crying. But now she had got her tale over, and the milking done, she cried her heart out into the corners of her apron. "That was quite enough for once," muttered Ráby to himself. But he deceived himself if he fancied it was enough, for there was yet more to come. When they had recovered the key from its hiding-place under the beam, Böske went first to open the house, but she started back in horror, and dropped the pail of milk she was carrying, as she exclaimed, "Gracious master, just look, thieves have been in! We have been robbed!"