"Gypsies?" exclaimed one man scornfully. "It doesn't have to be
gypsies, we've got enough tramps and vagabonds of our own. Didn't
they kill the pedlar for the sake of a bag of tobacco, and old
Katiza for a couple of hens?"

"Why do you rake up things that happened twenty years ago?" cried
another over the table. "You'd better tell us rather who killed Red
Betty, and pulled Janos, the smith's farm hand, down into the swamp?"

"Yes, or who cut the bridge supports, when the brook was in flood,
so that two good cows broke through and drowned?"

"Yes, indeed, if we only knew what band of robbers and villains it
is that is ravaging our village."

"And they haven't stopped yet, evidently."

"This is the worst misfortune of all! What will our poor do now
that they have murdered our good pastor, who cared for us all like
a father?"

"He gave all he had to the poor, he kept nothing for himself."

"Yes, indeed, that's how it was. And now we can't even give this
good man Christian burial."

"Shepherd Janci knew this morning early that we were going to have
a new pastor," whispered the landlord in the notary's ear. The
latter looked up astonished. "Who said so?" he asked.