As they passed Boryna’s, Yuzka rushed in with a shrill cry:
“O Hanka, do buy some red tape! … And we want logwood to colour the Easter eggs! … And we need thread also!”
Her voice had sunk to tones of whining entreaty.
“But you shall go to town tomorrow, and buy whatsoever is needed.”
“Yes, yes, in town it will be cheaper, for they cheat less!” she exclaimed, delighted at the thought of the morrow’s drive; and ran at once, without prompting, to inform the pedlars that they needed none of their wares, and had nothing for sale.
Hanka, peeping outside the door, shouted after her: “Keep the fowls together, lest one should stray into that wagon of theirs!”
Tereska, the soldier’s wife, now came running into the premises, away (it seemed) from the Jewess, who was shouting something to her.
She rushed into the cabin, stammering, exceedingly red, and very indignant. A tear or two glistened in her long lashes.
“O Tereska! what is the matter?” Hanka inquired with curiosity.
“Why, that swindling woman will give me no more than fifteen zloty for this woollen skirt. Quite new! And I am in such terrible want of money just now!”
“Let me see it. … Is—is it dear?” She would have liked to buy the skirt herself.
“Worth at least thirty zloty! Quite new; seven cubits and half a span of stuff! I put more than four pounds of pure wool into it, and paid, moreover, for the dyeing.”
She spread it out on the table, where its vivid rainbow tints blazed in the light.
“ ’Tis more beautiful than any skirt I ever saw! Oh, what a pity I cannot buy it now! … I too am short of money for Easter. If ye could but wait till Low Sunday?”
“But, alas! I want the money instantly!”
She rolled the skirt up swiftly, averting her head with a sense of shame.
“The Voyt’s wife may purchase it: she generally has money in her purse.”
Hanka took it once more, measured its length, and unwillingly returned it.
“You want to send something to your goodman in the army, no doubt?”
“Yes! … he wrote … complaining … in great want.—Farewell!”
She left the hut in a great hurry. Yagustynka, who was busy mashing potatoes in a tub, burst into a roar of laughter.
“You made her run so fast, ’tis a wonder she did not lose her petticoat as she fled!—It is for Matthew she wants the money, not for her husband!”
“What, are they intimate, then?” Hanka asked, much surprised.
“Where do you live? In the forest?”
“But how was I to know about such a thing?”
“Well, ’tis a fact; Tereska runs over to Matthew every week, and wanders about outside the jail all day like a dog, and sends him all she can get.”
“My God! what, has she not a goodman of her own?”
“True, but he is far away in the army, and none knows when he will return … and the woman felt lonely all by herself … and there was Matthew at hand—a strapping young buck. Wherefore, then, should she deny herself?”
Hanka thought of Antek and Yagna, and fell into a brown study.
“So, when they took Matthew, she made friends with Nastka, his sister; they fadge together very well, and each goes to the town along with the other: Nastka on the pretext of going to her brother, but in reality for Simon, son of Dominikova.”
“Upon my word! ye know of all that happens!”
“ ’Tis not hard to guess; those fools cannot conceal aught. Think of it!” she added sarcastically; “this creature selling her last skirt that Matthew may get something good to eat!”
“In faith, folk will do strange things.—I shall visit Antek.”
“The way is far … and in your present state? … It might do you harm.—Could not Yuzka go? Or … or someone else?” Yagna’s name was on the tip of her tongue, but she did not utter it.
“God helping, I shall take no harm. Roch said they permit visitors at Easter, and I shall go.—Ah! but we ought to have brought those flitches of bacon over to our own side ere now!”
“Aye, they have lain in brine these three days: that will do.—I’ll go at once.”
Yagustynka went, but was back directly, much agitated, and with the news that half the meat had been taken away!
Hanka ran to the storeroom, and Yuzka after her. Both stood presently before the tub, dismayed, and wondering how the meat had disappeared.
“No dog has done this!” Hanka exclaimed; “I can see the cuts of a knife quite plainly.—And a stranger, had he stolen aught, would have taken all.—It’s Yagna’s work!” she said at last, rushing like a whirlwind into her room. But she found it empty, save for old Boryna, staring as ever into vacancy.
Thereupon Yuzka remembered that, on leaving the hut that morning, Yagna was carrying something under her apron, which she had then thought to be the dress she was, in company with Balcerek’s daughter, making up for Eastertide.
“She has taken the meat to her mother’s. He that is greedy for a thing cares little whose it is,” said Yagustynka. The words put Hanka in a passion.
“Yuzka! call Pete. What remains must be taken over to my storeroom now!”
This was done directly. She would have wished to take the corn-barrels too at the same time, in order to overhaul them at her ease; but she decided that there were too many of them, and the smith might come to hear of the matter.
But she looked out doggedly for Yagna all the afternoon, and, when she came in at dusk, swooped down upon her and accused her on the spot.
“Aye, I have eaten it!” she coolly replied; “I have as much right to it as you have!” Almost all the evening, Hanka continued to upbraid her; but, as if
