“To give them something to think about,” said the Justice.  “When they come together here again tonight, each one of them will tell me what he or she has been thinking relative to the motto.  Most of the work in the country is of such a kind that, in doing it, the people are liable to think all sorts of things, and they get a lot of bad notions in their heads, which afterwards break out in the form of wantonness, lies, and deception.  But when a man has such a motto to ponder over, he will not rest until he has extracted the moral from it, and meanwhile the time has elapsed without any evil thoughts having entered his mind.”

“You are a true philosopher and priest,” cried the Hunter, whose amazement was increasing with every minute.

“One can accomplish a great deal with a person when one brings morality home to him,” said the Justice thoughtfully.  “But morality sticks in short sayings better than in long speeches and sermons.  My people keep straight much longer since I hit upon the morality idea.  To be sure it does not work all the year round; during planting and harvest-time all thinking ceases.  But it isn’t necessary then anyway, because they have no time for wickedness.”

“You have, then, regular sections in your teaching?” asked the Hunter.

“In winter,” replied the Justice, “the mottoes usually begin after threshing and last until sowing.  In summer, on the other hand, they are assigned from Walpurgis Night until dog days.  Those are the times when peasants have the least to do.”

With that he left the young man, who got up and looked around in the house, the yard, the orchard, and the meadow.  He spent several hours in this inspection, since everything he saw attracted him.  The rural stillness, the green of the meadows, the prosperity which beamed upon him from the whole estate, all made a most pleasant impression, and aroused in him a desire to spend the one or two weeks that might elapse before he received news from old Jochem there in the open country rather than in the narrow alleys of a small city.  Inasmuch as he wore his heart on his tongue, he went forthwith to the Justice, who was in the oak grove marking a pair of trees for felling, and expressed his wish.  In return he offered to assist in anything that might be of use to his host.

Beauty is an excellent dowry.  It is a key which, like that little one of gold, opens by magic seven locks, each one different from the rest.  The old man gazed for a moment at the youth’s slim yet robust figure and at his honest and at the same time splendidly aristocratic face, and at first shook his head persistently; then, however, he nodded approvingly, and, finally growing friendly, granted him his request.  He assigned to the Hunter a corner room on the upper floor of the house, from one side of which one could see across the oak grove toward the hills and mountains, and from the other out over the meadows and corn fields.  The guest had, to be sure, in place of paying for his room and board, to promise to fulfil a very peculiar condition.  For the Justice did not like to have even beauty favored without an equivalent return.