“Ere your sowing be ended, those first sown will be out. But, Mary! ye cast the seed too thick; when they come up, they will lie in a tangle on the ground.”
And he taught her how to sow as the wind blew; the silly girl had never thought of making the peas drop equally everywhere.
“Vavrek Soha had told me you were a handy lass,” he remarked casually, as it were, while retracing his steps along the miry furrow.
“Have ye spoken with him?” she asked, stopping in her work, and suddenly out of breath.
She had flushed a dark crimson, but was ashamed to repeat her question.
Roch’s only answer was a smile; but, as he left her, he said: “At Eastertide I shall tell him with what a will you work.”
Again, on the lands of the Ploshka, a couple of little boys were at work on a potato-field hard by the road. One drove, the other meant to plough. But as each of them hardly reached to the mare’s tail, and had next to no strength at all, the plough zigzagged like a tipsy man, and the mare was ever and anon for going back to the stable. At which they both used the whip on her, and also bad language.
“We can manage, Roch, we can manage; ’tis only these nasty stones twist the plough awry, and the mare would fain go to the manger,” the elder one blubbered, to excuse himself, when Roch took the handles and traced a straight furrow, teaching him meanwhile how to deal with the mare.
“But now,” the boy cried boldly, “we shall have ploughed the whole field ere nightfall!” He peered round suspiciously, to see whether anyone had been witness to Roch’s assistance; and when the old man had gone, he seated himself on the plough, turned away from the wind (as he had seen his father do), and lit a cigarette.
Roch went on, looking about him to help where help was required.
Silencing brawls, settling disputes, giving good advice, he also came in aid, however hard the work, whenever aid was wanted. Klemba’s wife could not chop up a hard knotty stump—he did it for her; Dominikova required water from the pond—he brought it; and, farther on, children were wayward, and he awed them into obedience.
A wise and pious man, and one who knew people as few did, he knew at one glance what to say and how to say it; how to drive away sadness with a merry tale; how to laugh with one, pray with another, and reprove a third with words of grave wisdom or stern warning.
So kindhearted was he, so full of sympathy for all, that he would often and unasked spend many a night by a sickbed: and to the sick he did so much good that they set him even above his Reverence.
In time, folk had begun to look upon him as one of God’s saints, who always brought mercy and consolation to their lowly huts.
Alas! could he ward off all misery? Could he prevent all misfortune, feed all the hungry, heal all the sick, and alone supply the many hands they stood in need of?
For, indeed, the village was a large one. Of dwelling-houses alone there were hard on threescore, and a great expanse of cornland stretched round them; there was also much cattle, plenty of other live stock, and many a mouth to feed besides.
All this, since the men had been taken away, now lived mostly by God’s providence alone; and so, as a matter of course, their troubles and needs, their complaints and murmurs, multiplied very much indeed.
This Roch had long known and realized; but it was only that day, when going from door to door through the village, that he saw how fearfully all had gone to rack and ruin.
That the fields now lay fallow, no one ploughing or sowing (for the little that they did was mere child’s play), was but a lesser evil. Wherever you went, you could see the spread of gradual decay: fences knocked down, beams and rafters peeping through the torn thatches, gates wrenched from their hinges, hanging like broken wings, and flapping against the walls; and many a cabin, too, leaning much out of the perpendicular, and sorely in need of beams to buttress it.
All about the huts were pools of stagnant water, or mud and filth up to the knees around the walls: which made walking no easy matter. At every step the desolation and downfall of the village was so evident that it made the heart bleed. In many a homestead, too, the kine would often low in vain for their fodder, and the horses, with no one to curry them, were caked and plastered with dung.
So it was everywhere. The very calves, with mud all over them, would wander alone about the roads; household utensils rotted in the rain, ploughs rusted away, sows farrowed in the wagon-baskets. When anything was warped or torn or broken, it remained as it was: who was there to set things to rights?
The women?—Why, they, poor things! had scarce time and strength to do what was most urgent. Ah! but if the men came back, then things would change in the twinkle of an eye!
And they therefore awaited their return as a great mercy of God, and, trusting in Him from day to day, possessed their souls—as well as they could—in patience.
Yet neither did the men return, nor was it possible to know when they would be set free.
Twilight was scattering greyness over the land, when Roch left the last hut beyond the church (that of the Golabs) and plodded over to meet the Voyt.
The gale had by no means abated, and fought with the trees so fiercely that walking was perilous: every now and then the broken limb of a tree would be hurled to the ground.
Stooping forward, the
