“Why, good dame,” he once exclaimed to Yagustynka, “she was even as a lamb before—the gentlest of ewe-lambs; and behold, she butts now like a ram!”
“She has waxed fat, and is too full of fodder!” Yagustynka replied with indignation; she always took the part of anyone that asked her advice. “But let me tell you, ye should drive out these humours of hers with a stick betimes, lest ye may not prevail later, even with a club!”
“Such was never the custom of the Borynas!” he returned, in a lofty way.
“Yet methinks,” she spitefully remarked, “that even the Borynas will have to come to that!”
A few days later, just after Candlemas, Ambrose came in the afternoon to tell them the priest would come the next day for the kolendy visit.
All the morning they were busily engaged in a general cleaning. The old man, to avoid hearing Yagna continually abuse and upbraid Yuzka for all she did, had gone out to sweep the snow about the premises. The rooms were given fresh air, the walls cleared of cobwebs; Yuzka strewed the porch and passage with yellow sand, and they all arrayed themselves in their very best attire; for the priest was now not far off, officiating at neighbour Balcerek’s.
Presently his sledge stood outside the porch; and he, with his surplice over his fur, and accompanied by two of the organist’s sons in choirboys’ robes, entered the cabin. Before him, Boryna carried a deep plate, full of holy water. He said some Latin prayers, sprinkled the rooms, and then went out to bless the farm-buildings and all the man’s possessions, passing round and saying the sacred words aloud, the organist’s boys walking on either side of him, singing Christmas carols, and untiringly ringing and swinging their little jingling bells. Boryna carried the holy water before; the others walked behind, in procession.
All being over, he returned to the cabin to rest; and while Boryna, aided by Pete, was putting fifty litres of oats, and half as many of peas, in the priest’s sledge, he was listening to Yuzka’s and Vitek’s prayers, which they repeated to him in the cabin.
They knew them perfectly. Who had taught them? he wondered.
“Kuba taught me my prayers; Roch, my catechism and my primer!” the lad answered boldly. The priest patted him on the head, and gave each of them a couple of pictures. Then he told them to obey their elders, never neglect prayer, and beware of sin. “For Satan, whithersoever we go, is on the watch, ready to drag us down to hell.” Then, raising his voice, he concluded with a solemn warning:
“And this I say unto you, that nothing, no, nothing is hidden from the eye of the just God. Beware therefore of the day of judgment and of doom: repent ye, and mend your ways whilst it is yet time!”
The two children burst into tears, feeling as at church during a sermon. And Yagna’s heart throbbed with dread, and a deep blush overspread her face; she knew those words were meant for her, and as soon as Matthias returned she left the room, without daring to raise her eyes to the priest.
“I should like to have a talk with you, Matthias,” he said, when they were alone together. Motioning him to a seat by his side, he cleared his throat, offered him snuff, used a beautifully scented pocket-handkerchief, and, making his finger-joints crack one after another, began quietly:
“I have heard—yes, Matthias, I have heard of what took place in the tavern not long ago.”
“Aye, indeed,” the old farmer returned, with a pained look; “it was public enough, to be sure.”
“Do not go to the tavern, and do not take your womenfolk thither: how often have I forbidden it! I wear my lungs out in beseeching you. … No use!—Well, ye have received what you deserved.—Nevertheless, I thank God most heartily that in all this there has been no very grievous sin. I repeat: no grievous sin.”
“None?” Boryna’s face brightened: he did not distrust the priest.
“But I have also been told that you are punishing your wife very severely for what has happened. This is not just, and injustice is a sin. A sin.”
“How’s that? I am only holding her in with a tighter hand. I am only. …”
Here the priest interrupted him, saying excitedly: “Antek, not she, was at fault! It was to spite you that he forced her to dance with him; evidently he wanted a scene. A scene.” Of this he felt quite sure: Dominikova, in whom he reposed much confidence, had given him her account of things.—“What else had I to say to you?—Ah, yes! Your filly wanders loose about the stable. You must tie her up, else one of the horses may injure her with a kick. Last year I had my mare lamed that way. … Whose is her sire?”
“The miller’s.”
“I was sure of it—knew it by her colour and the white spot on her forehead.—A fine filly!—But, as to Antek now: you and he should be reconciled: your disagreement is driving that young fellow to evil ways.”
“I did not begin the quarrel,” Boryna replied with decision, “and I am not going to beg him to end it.”
“The advice I give you it is my duty as a priest to give. As to taking it, follow what your own conscience says. Only mark this well: he is going to his destruction, and you let him go. He drinks continually in the tavern, is a firebrand among the young men, incites them to revolt against their elders, and—as I hear—is plotting harm to the manor folk.”
“Of that I knew nothing.”
“One tainted sheep infects the flock. And these plots against the manor may result in great evil to the village people.” But on this point
