“With such a gale as this, I fear there will soon be more rain.”
“As it is, the carts afield already sink axle-deep in mire!”
“But with a few days of warm sun, the ground will soon be dry again: ’tis spring.”
“Ah, if we could but begin to plant potatoes ere Eastertide!”
So they went on talking, busy with their work, and the potatoes drummed upon the floor continuously: those too small thrown on to one heap, and the damaged ones on to another.
“These will fatten your sow, and the kine will drink the boiled water.”
But Hanka was scarcely listening, pondering how to get at her father-in-law’s money. At times she looked out through the open door at the trees, waving and wrestling with the blasts, that were cold and damp, and pungent with the smell of the dunghill close by. The farmyard was empty, save for a few fowls running about with ruffled feathers. The geese all sat in a corner close to the hedge, and gathered their chuckling little ones under their wings. Now and again Pete came in, driving his empty wagon, and slapping his arms against his sides; then, giving the horses a bundle of hay, and (Vitek aiding) filling the cart with dung, he pushed it on over the ruts and holes, and drove away into the fields once more.
Many a time, too, did Yuzka hurry in, loud-voiced, blowzed, breathless, on her way to somebody’s cabin with presents, and chattering all the way as she came and went.
Unquestioned, she talked and talked, and was presently seen starting again, bearing a dish carefully wrapped up in a napkin.
“A chatterbox that girl is, but no fool,” Yagustynka observed.
“No fool, indeed; only she has naught in her head but mischief and games.”
“What would you have? Such a tiny thing!”
“Vitek!” Hanka cried on a sudden. “Someone has entered the cabin. See who it is.”
“ ’Tis the blacksmith, just come in.”
A misgiving took hold of her, and she went straightway to her father’s side, where he was lying—on his back, as usual—while Yagna sewed at the window. No one else was there.
“What has become of Michael?”
“Somewhere about, seeking a key he lent to Matthias not long ago,” she explained, without looking Hanka in the face.
The latter went into the passage, into her own room, where Bylitsa was sitting with the children by the fire, and making them little toy windmills—even into the farmyard buildings: he was nowhere in sight. Then back she darted straight to the larder on her father’s side, though the door was shut.
And there she saw the blacksmith, standing beside a corn-barrel, with his arms buried in the corn up to the elbows, and seeking something there with might and main!
“What!” she cried with a gasp; “your key is hidden in the corn, is it?” And she placed herself in front of him with a threatening air.
“No. … I am seeing … whether it is not mildewed … and whether it will do for seed-corn,” he said, stuttering, taken quite by surprise.
“What business of yours is that? Say, what brings you in here?” she cried.
Unwillingly, he drew his arms out, and muttered with ill-concealed anger:
“Ye spy upon me as if I were a thief!”
“How should I know what business brings you in here? Here’s a fellow who enters other people’s premises: why? I find him groping in the corn-barrels: why should he not also wrench the padlocks off, or break open the chests?” Her voice was rising to a scream.
“Did I not tell you yesterday what we have to look for?” he answered, striving to be calm.
“What ye said was all a blind. You sought to throw dust in my eyes, while you were after something else. But I saw through your plotting, you traitor, you!”
“Hanka!” he shrieked, to terrify her; “stop that talk, or I will stop your mouth!”
“Would ye? Lay but a finger on me, and I’ll raise such an outcry that half the village will be here in a trice, to learn what sort of a jailbird you are!”
As she uttered the threat, he cast one more glance around; then, with a blasphemous oath, he left the room; exchanging with her, as he did so, looks that—had it been possible—would have stabbed to the very heart.
Hanka’s outbreak had completely upset her, but a cup of water presently brought her round again.
“It must be found!—And also concealed in a safe place: for what money soever that man finds, he will make off with,” was her mental comment, going back to the granary. But, halfway there, she stopped and went back to the cottage. Opening the door, she apostrophized Yagna thus:
“You who sit here in the cabin to watch over it, how do you let a stranger enter the inmost room?”
Yagna answered scornfully: “Michael is not a stranger: he has as much right in there as you have.”
“A dog barks, and you lie! Ye two are in league together; but mark well what I say.—If aught disappear from the cottage, then, as sure as there’s a God in heaven, I’ll bring action and denounce you as his accomplice. Remember that!” she screamed, infuriated.
Yagna, snatching the first weapon at hand, leaped from her seat.
“Would you fight me? Do but try: I’ll tear the beauty off your dainty face, and paint it such a scarlet that your own mother shall not know you!”
And she went on upbraiding and vilifying her to the fullest powers of her voice and of her enmity.
How this might have ended cannot be guessed. They were about to close with each other, when Roch happened to come in. This brought Hanka to her senses in so far that she spoke no more. But she rushed from the room, and the door slammed like thunder behind her.
Yagna remained still for some time, her bosom palpitating, her lips
