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There was a general silence; the spectators looked on each other with twitching eyes, which seemed to say, “There! he’s got his pipe stuffed: now let him smoke it.”

Bat whispered to Beck, “He knows how to ask for a piece of bread and butter when he wants it.” “Yes,” said Beck; “he doesn’t carry his tongue in his pocket.”

The judge did not suffer the impression made by this speech to remain long undisturbed. Twirling a bit of paper in his fingers, he began calmly to dilate on the enormity of the offence which had been committed. Many a side-thrust was levelled at Buchmaier, who only shook his head slightly, as if he were driving flies away. At length the judge came to speak of barrators and unquiet spirits, of conceited gentlemen-farmers who had once drunk a stoup of wine with a lawyer, who heard a bell ring without knowing where it was. Returning from this digression, he entered once more on the case in hand; he spoke of some of those present by name, and praised them as good, orderly citizens, utterly incapable of such an action. He expressed his firm conviction that they had been misled by Buchmaier’s bad example: he conjured them, by their conscience, by their loyalty to their king and country, by the love of their wives and children, not to load this heavy guilt upon themselves, but frankly to confess the seduction, and their punishment would be lenient.

Again there was silence: some looked at each other and then cast their eyes on the ground. Buchmaier’s mien was bold and confident: he looked them all in the face, his breast heaved, and his breath remained suspended with expectation. Mat had already opened his mouth to speak, but John, the blacksmith, stopped his mouth; for at this moment the old squire, who alone of all present had occupied a chair, was seen to rise. With heavy steps, hardly lifting his feet, he came up to the green table and spoke. At first he panted a little, and often stopped for breath, but soon his speech became quite fluent:–“Many thanks to your honor,” said he, “for the good opinion your honor has of me and of some others; but what Buchmaier has said I say, to the last I dot. If there was any more proof wanted that the gentlemenfolks look at us as if we were under age, or little children, your honor has given it just now. No, your honor: I am seventy-six years old, and have been squire for twenty years; we are not children, and we don’t do things because we have been misled into doing them by naughty boys. My axe sha’n’t go out of my hand until I am laid between six boards myself. If there are any children here, let them say so. I am a man, and know what I am about; and, if there’s punishing to be done, I am ready to be punished as well as another.”

“So are we!” said all the farmers with one voice. Mat could be heard above the rest.

Buchmaier’s face was as if bathed in light: he pressed his axe closer to his bosom.

The necessary formalities were soon concluded and the minutes signed. After Buchmaier had requested a copy of the latter, the farmers quietly left the court-house.

Several other communes also remonstrated against the ordinance, and the matter was carried up to the Provincial Government. Those communes who had protested so violently with the axes themselves were mulcted in a heavy fine. Judge Rellings, however, was removed after a time, and the ordinance became obsolete. The men carried their axes on their left arms, as they had done before.

I may have something more to tell of Buchmaier at some other time.