Pagina 396 van 896

"Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak of

nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At

length, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, come

soldiers, winding down from the prison, and their guns ring on

the stones of the little street. Workmen dig, workmen hammer,

soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by the fountain, there

is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the water."

The mender of roads looked through rather than at the low

ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the

sky.