ng him!"

"Ow, they're going to hang him," howled the chorus and scattered on all
sides.

The woman stood speechless; with her threatening hand still raised she
remained by the window. "Incendiary--incendiary--they are going
to hang him"--resounded in her ears. Hang him? She shuddered at
the thought. They surely would not do anything to hurt William?
Incendiary--he was no incendiary! It was ridiculous--children's
nonsense! But suddenly mortal terror seized her: had not the constable,
when he arrested William, also said something about "fires?" She had
thought no more about it, but now it occurred to her--"He has been
setting fires, the scalawag"--really, it was ridiculous!

"Hahahahaha!" She laughed--an insane laughter, while she leaned far
out of the window and held her aching sides.

Then she shut the window; it was time to go to bed. But she was afraid
in the boundless solitude of her room--afraid of what?--She did not
know, herself. What if she should call upon her neighbor to the left?
She had the most confidence in Heid--he was a solid man, he had also
been out in the world, he had got as far as Manderscheid and Daun. She
would ask him what his Peter had meant by the words "incendiary" and
"hang."

With heavy steps the old woman dragged herself from her back door into
her little garden. She stamped her way through the potato patch which
lay along the fence, heedless whether or not she snapped asunder any of
the blossoming sprays.

"Hi, Joseph, pst!"

"Well, what's the matter?" Heid had just been feeding his cows.
In his shirt-sleeves he came from the stable, still wearing the
gay-colored cravat and the starched collar that he had put on to go to
the tavern. "Well, what do you want?" The tone of his question did not
sound very inviting.

But she paid no attention to this. Leaning both arms on the fence, she
bent over, so as to come quite close to him. And in confidence she
spoke, in a low tone, as though she feared the potato vines at her feet
and the beans in her neighbor's garden might hear the words, "Say,
Joseph,--incendiary--what does that mean? And hang--are people still
hanged now-a-days?"

"Why do you ask?" He looked at her in surprise.

"Well, your Peterkin says that William--William--" once more the vague
apprehension of something incomprehensibly horrible came over her, so
that she could hardly utter the words--"he says that William, my
William is going to be hanged! Oh, tell me,"--despairi