“Your mother at home?”
“Surely; where else, in such villainous weather? She was at the Koziols, this morning. Magda is in a bad way, though, and like to go to the churchyard, ‘the priest’s cow-byre.’ ” So answered Yagna, shaking the snow from her clothes.
“Any gossip abroad?” he inquired, chaffing her.
“Go out and ask, and ye will know. I did not run thither to gossip.”
“Do you know that the Squire is here?”
“Here? In such a storm it were hard to keep a dog out of doors; and he has freely chosen to come?”
“ ‘Who must, will go, even through storms of snow.’ ”
“Yes, who must.” She smiled sceptically.
“He himself promised; no one asked him,” Boryna answered sternly. Then he set aside a barrel hoop he was working at, and got up to look out at the window; but such a hurricane of snow filled the air, whirling and swirling outside, that neither trees nor fences were visible.
“I think the snow is not coming down any more,” he added, more gently.
“No, it is only blown and swept about so, that one cannot see one’s way,” Yagna replied, warming her hands, and setting to wind the thread from a spindle on to a reel. Her husband, after again peeping out of the window, and listening with still greater impatience, took up his work.
“Yuzka—where is she?” he asked presently.
“Gone to Nastka’s, no doubt; she is always there.”
“The girl’s a gadabout—never at home for the space of a ‘pater.’ ”
“She says staying at home is wearisome.”
“Wants to divert herself, the little chit!”
“No; to shirk her duties, rather.”
“Can ye not forbid her?”
“I? Once I did; and was abused and railed at for my pains. Ye must give her orders yourself: mine are of no account.”
To this complaint Boryna paid little attention; he was listening with extreme impatience. But no human voice was audible outside, only the gale blowing, roaring here and there, and smiting the walls till they vibrated and groaned again.
“Going out?” she asked.
He made no answer, hearing the front door open; and immediately Vitek ran in, out of breath, and crying out, as he entered:
“The Squire has come!”
“Only now? Shut the door, quick!”
“I can hear the jingling of his harness-bells still.”
“Did he come alone?”
“I could only distinguish the horses, the air was so thick.”
“Run this instant and find out where he has stopped.”
“Shall ye go to him?” she asked, with bated breath.
“Not until he has asked to see me; I shall not invite myself. But without me he can do nothing.”
There was a pause: Yagna winding up threads, counting them and making them into skeins, while her goodman, so impatient that he could not work any longer, laid the things down and was preparing to go out … when in bolted Vitek!
“The Squire is at the miller’s, in his front room—and his horses stand in the yard.”
“How have you dirtied yourself so?”
“The wind blew me into a snowdrift.”
“Say rather you were fighting with other young rascals in the snow!”
“No, it was the wind!”
“Aye, aye: tear your clothes, do: you’ll get such a beating from me as you’ll remember!”
“But it’s true what I say. It blows and blusters so, one can scarcely keep one’s feet.”
“Get away from the fireplace; you will warm yourself enough later.—Go to Pete, tell him to do some threshing; and you are to help him—not run about the village like a dog with its tongue lolling out.”
“I go,” he answered sulkily; “but I must first bring firewood, as mistress ordered me.” He sorely wished to tell what he had seen in the village. Going out, he whistled to Lapa, but the dog, curled up by the fireside, paid no heed to him. Boryna, dressed to go, went about the cabin, poked the logs, peeped into the stable, looked out of the window, and waited with growing restlessness to be sent for; but no one came.
“He may have forgotten,” Yagna hazarded.
“Forgotten?—Forgotten me?”
“Perhaps. Ye trust the blacksmith so, and he is such a liar.”
“You are a fool. Speak not of what ye do not understand.”
Offended, she became mute. He tried in vain to bring her round with kind words, and at last he too lost his temper, snatched up his cap and strode out, slamming the door.
Yagna, having supplied her distaff with flax, sat down by the window, and began to spin, with a glance from time to time at the tempest of snow that raged outside.
The wind howled deafeningly. Great clouds of powdery snow, as large as houses, torn and tattered and formless, were whisked about in every direction, and again and again broke upon the cabin walls, making every beam and rafter tremble, rattling the contents of the sideboard, and swinging to and fro Yuzka’s “globes” and “stars” that dangled overhead.
A draught, piercingly cold, came in through the doors and windows, making Yagna throw her apron over her shoulders, and Lapa more than once shift his place for a warmer nook.
Vitek entered noiselessly, and said, not without hesitation:
“Mistress!”
“Well?”
“Do you know, the Squire has driven over with stallions! Carriage-horses they are, black as night, with red netting and plumes on their heads, and tinkling bells about their flanks; and they shine like the gildings in the church. And how they did fly past! Oh, faster far than the wind!”
“Of course.—They are not peasants’ horses: they belong to the manor.”
“O Lord! I never saw such wonderful beasts!”
“Could they be otherwise, with no fieldwork to do, and feeding on naught but oats?”
“Ye are right, mistress.—But should we feed our filly so, and dock her tail, and harness her together with the Voyt’s mare, would they go as well as these?”
The dog started up in alarm, and barked.
“Someone is in the passage: see who it is.”
But ere Vitek could do so, a man, crusted over with snow, appeared on the threshold, “praised God,” beat his cap on the leg of his boot, and looked round the room.
“Pray let me breathe a
