nt folks to beat the landlords to death,
burn their castles to the ground, and rob them of everything? Coward and
rebel as you are, the gallows-tree is far too good for you. I tell you
what it is. I'll put you in irons and send you to the county jail, and
there you may sit till your turn comes to stand before the judges. You
incendiary, you!"

The Leather-bell was thoroughly scared, he began to hedge.

"Alas! my dear sweet Mr. Justice, and my good friend, don't be angry!
God bless me! Why should I wish our landlord beaten to death? God
preserve us from anything so dreadful."

"Who are you aiming at then?"

"I? Nobody at all. Not for all the world would I injure anyone. Oh, dear
no! I only opened my mouth in order that every poor mother's son of us
might look out for himself and guard himself, that's all."

"Guard himself!--from what?"

"From danger."

"And who told you there was any danger here? Don't you know that the
doctor has a long way to go, and many people to cure, and must therefore
carry a great many drugs along with him? And you, you senseless ass!
dropped one of his medicine boxes, spilt the contents, and instantly
jumped at the conclusion that it was poison! Poison! your grandmother!
It is true, no doubt, that if a man in health takes medicine he will
have stomach-ache for his pains, but if he be sick the same medicine
will cure him. Every fool knows that. Drugs are not good to eat."

A couple of the more sensible peasants murmured approvingly behind him.
The Leather-bell stood confounded before the magistrate, and made a sort
of downward movement with his hat as if he would have liked to scatter
to the winds the little bit of powder still lying on the table.

"And now tell me, you seditious idiot, what might not have happened if
these honest men here had not had their wits about them? What if they
had believed the horrible accusation spread by you and a few more
vagabond busybodies of the same kidney? What if in their mad terror they
had fallen foul of your young landlord, who has done you so much good,
and shot him dead before your eyes? What if they had dragged his father,
the old squire, out of bed in his nightshirt, and burnt him to death?
What would you have done then, you good-for-nothing? I suppose you would
have sharpened the knife that cut their throats?"

The knees of the Leather-bell smote together; he stammered piteously
that he had had no idea that such horrible things would follow f