ive you a bit of my mind. I
know it won't do any particular good just now; but, once for all, it
must be said: it has been tickling my throat too long, and I'm going to
get it out of me. The commune is to be put on the shelf altogether, and
all things to be done in the rooms of you office-holders. Then why
don't you sow and reap in the rooms too? Such a little whippersnapper
of a clerk twists a whole town-housefull of farmers on his fingers, and
before you know it you find clerk after clerk saddled upon us for a
squire: then it is all fixed to the liking of you pen-and-ink fellows.
What is true is true, and there must be law and order in the land; but
the first thing is to see whether we can't get along better without
tape-fellows than with them; and then we don't carry our heads under
our elbows, either, and we can mind our own business, if we can't talk
law-Latin. There must be studied men and scholars to overlook matters;
but, first, the citizens must arrange their own affairs themselves."

"Come to the point," said the judge, impatiently.

"It's all to the point. You've ordered and commanded so much that
there's nothing left to be ordered or commanded, and now you begin to
prevent and precaution: you'll end by putting a policeman under every
tree to keep it from quarrelling with the wind and drinking too much
when it rains. If you go on this way a body might as well ride away on
the cow's back. You want to take every thing from us: now, there
happens to be one thing our minds are made up to hold on to." Raising
his axe and gnashing his teeth, he continued:--"And if I must split
every door between me and the king with this very axe, I will not give
it out of my hand. From time immemorial it is our right to carry axes;
and if they are to be taken from us the assembly of the hundred must do
it, or the estates of the realm; and before them we shall have a
hearing also. But why do you want to take them from us? To protect the
forests? You have woodrangers, and laws and penalties, for that, and
they fall alike on the noble and the beggar. How many teeth must a poor
farmer have to eat potatoes with? Pluck out the rest, so that he may
not be tempted to steal meat. How do you come to let the dogs run about
with their fangs? When a boy is eight or nine years old he has his
knife in his pocket, and if he cuts his finger it's his own fault, and
there's an end; if he hurts anybody else he gets his fingers chowsed.
Who told you