fined three
rix-dollars: and, upon a further repetition, with imprisonment for not
less than one and not more than four weeks.

"RELLINGS,
_President-Judge_."

A crowd of farmers flocked around the town-house at the close of the
afternoon service. Mat, who was now one of the "men" also, read the
ordinance aloud. All shook their heads and muttered curses: the old
squire said, audibly, "Such a thing wouldn't have been done in old
times: these are our privileges."

Buchmaier was now seen coming down from the upper village with the axe
in his hands. Every eye was turned toward him as he walked along. He
was a stout, strong man, in the prime of life,--not large, but
broad-shouldered and thick-set. The short leathern breeches had allowed
his shirt to bag a little round his waist; the open red vest showed the
broad band which connected his suspenders, and which was woven in
various colors and resembled a pistol-belt in the distance; the
three-cornered hat was fixed upon a head disproportionately small; the
features were mild and almost feminine, particularly about the mouth
and chin, but the large, bright blue eyes and the dark, protruding
brows spoke clearness of apprehension and manly boldness.

Mat ran to meet the new-comer, told him of the ordinance, and said,
"Cousin, you are not good councilmen, any of you, if you knuckle under
to this."

[Illustration: He struck the axe into the middle of the ordinance.]

Buchmaier continued his regular pace without hastening his steps in the
least: he walked straight up to the board, everybody stepping aside to
let him pass. He raised his hat a little, and there was an expectant
silence. He read the ordinance from beginning to end, struck the flat
of his hand upon the crown of his head,--a sign that something decisive
was coming,--took the axe into his right hand, and with a "Whew!" he
struck it into the board in the middle of the ordinance. Then, turning
to the by-standers, he said, "We are citizens and councilmen: without a
meeting, without the consent of the councils, such ordinances cannot be
passed. If the clerks and receivers are our lords and masters, and we
are nobody, we may as well know it; and, if we must go before the king
himself, we can't put up with this. Whoever agrees with me, let him
take my axe out and strike it into the board again."

Mat was the first who steppe