interrupted the general silence in which all the busily occupied people were attending to their work.  But when, finally, the pride of the stable, a large white-spotted cow, with which he had been struggling in vain for more than a quarter of an hour, became positively malicious and tried to give the red-haired fellow a dangerous thrust, he lost all patience.  Springing aside, he seized that fence-pole with which he had once restrained himself from striking Peter of the Bandkotten, and which happened by chance to be handy, and gave the obstinate beast such a mighty blow on the groins with the heavy end of it that the cow bellowed with pain, her sides began to quiver, and her nostrils to snort.

The slow, fat fellow dropped the twigs which he had in his hand, the first maid looked up from the kettle, and both cried out simultaneously: 

“Heaven help us!  What are you doing?” “When a worthless brute like this refuses to listen to reason and will not be decent and let itself be gilded, it ought to have its confounded bones smashed!”

He then wrenched the cow’s head around and decorated her even more beautifully than her mates.  For the animal, having in her pain become more tractable, now stood perfectly still and permitted the rough artist to do anything he wanted to with her.

While the preparations for the wedding were being carried on below in this energetic manner, the Justice was upstairs in the room where he kept the sword of Charles the Great, putting on his best finery.  The chief factor in the festive attire which the peasants of that region wear is the number of vests that they put on under their coats.  The richer a peasant is, the more vests he wears on extraordinary occasions.  The Justice had nine, and all of them were destined by him to be assembled around his body on this day.  He kept them hung up in a row on wooden pegs behind a seed-cloth, which partitioned off one part of the room from the other like a curtain.  First the under ones of silver-gray or red woolen damask, adorned with flowers, and then the outside ones of brown, yellow and green cloth.  These were all adorned with heavy silver buttons.

Behind this seed-cloth the Justice was dressing.  He had neatly combed his white hair, and his yellow, freshly-washed face shone forth under it like a rape-field over which the snow has fallen in May.  The expression of natural dignity, which was peculiar to these features, was today greatly intensified; he was the father of the bride, and felt it.  His movements were even slower and more measured than on the day when he bargained with the horse-dealer.  He examined each vest carefully before he removed it from its peg, and then deliberately put them on, one after the other, without over-hurrying himself in the process of buttoning them up.