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at these words. Guszti Klimpa fired off his improvised pistol underneath the bench, and the pellet hit Mr. Korde full on the nose, whereupon he well trounced Joska Slipik, though he knew very well that he was not the culprit. Whilst the wrongfully flogged urchin was still howling, the others began singing the hymn. So long as the low notes predominated Mr. Korde's voice was alone audible, but at the crescendoes the youthful believers had it all their own way, and shrieked till the windows rattled, the rector beating time the while by lightly tapping the heads of the Faithful with his ruler whenever they departed from the impracticable melody. After that, Guszti Klimpa grappled with a prayer, and recited the morning devotions instead of the evening devotions by mistake, a lapse of which the rector, however, took no notice. The Amen was no sooner uttered than the youngsters, with a wild yell, made a solid rush for the door, bearing in mind Mr. Korde's laudable habit on such occasions of lambing it into the hindermost by way of protesting against the general uproar. When the whole class was fairly out in the street again, its delight at being released from school for some time to come was too much for it, and in the exuberance of its high spirits it fell tooth and nail upon the Lutheran lads who were playing at ball in front of their own church, broke a couple of their heads, scribbled: "Vivat vacatio" on the walls of every house they came to, slammed to every gate they passed, and roused every dog in the village to fury pitch--thus giving the whole world to understand that the rector, Mr. Michael Korde, had given his promising pupils an extraordinary holiday, because the morbus was coming, and it was not good for people to congregate together at such times. * * * * * And now the village ancients and the women were trooping home from church. Every face was dominated by an expression of dumb terror. In the church the priest also had read aloud the letter from the county authorities, adding a short discourse of his own to the effect that a calm confidence in the providence of God and a clear Christian conscience were worth far more than all the medicaments, cordons, and bismuth powder in the world. "We are all, however, in the hands of God," he said, "and if we live well we shall die well. A righteous man need never fear Death." The old hag, "the death-bird," was crouching the
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