صفحة 372 من 788

Protazy, though a bold fellow, felt some terror, for the very

smell of the leaves called to his mind various of his former

adventures as apparitor-one after another-of which the hemp had

been a witness: how once a gentleman of Telsze, Dzindolet, whom

he had summoned to court, had put a pistol against his breast,

and bidden him crawl under the table and from there bark out a

recantation of that summons with a dog's voice,111 so that the

Apparitor had to run full speed for the hemp; how later

Wolodkowicz,112 a haughty and insolent grandee, who used to break

up district diets and violate courts of justice, receiving his

official summons, had torn it into bits, and stationing footmen

with clubs at the doors, had with his own hand held a bare sword

over the Apparitor's head, crying: "Either I will cut you down or

you will eat your paper." The Apparitor, like a cautious man, had

pretended to begin to eat it, until, stealing up to the window,

he had plunged into the hemp garden.