“Of that I have heard. But the Germans are wealthy, and know much: they do business with the Jews, and profit by the sufferings of others. Were that same land to be taken up by empty-handed peasants like us, they would not sow it thrice! For us, there is scant room in Lipka. While that man—why, he has no end of broad acres that lie fallow close by!” And with a sweep of his arm he pointed to the Manor lands beyond the mill, shelving up towards the forest, and black with heaps of lupines.
“All that land,” he went on to say, “is close to our own, and might be parcelled out into thirty small holdings.—But the Squire would never sell it: such a rich man cares naught for money.”
“Rich? He?” the smith’s wife broke in. “He needs money as a mudfish needs mud. Why, he is driven to borrow from the very peasants. The Jews are dunning him now for what they advanced him upon the forest he cannot sell them. He is in arrears with the taxes, does not pay his own people—they have not yet received what is due them in kind for the New Year. He is in debt to everyone; and now that the government has forbidden him to cut down any timber till the peasants’ consent is obtained, how is he to get money to pay? He will not be master of Vola very long, not he!—They say he is seeking a purchaser.” Here she broke short as unexpectedly as she had begun, and all Roch’s efforts to draw her out a little more were useless; she put him off with a few commonplace remarks, and presently withdrew with her little ones.
“Her goodman,” old Bylitsa thought, “must have told her many things, but she fears to speak of them. … True, the lands close to Lipka are fertile, and the meadows give an aftermath. Even so. …” And he went on pondering, with his eyes fixed upon the fields adjoining the forest, and on the Manor farm-buildings—Roch had meanwhile perceived Kozlova near the pond with other women, and gone over to her in haste.
Meanwhile Bylitsa thought: “We now have beaten the Squire. Now is the time for us peasants to make the most of our advantage.—Surely.—We might found another village: there would be lands enough, and hands enough willing to till it. …” But the babies had got out into the road, and this put an end to his musings.
The bells had sounded for Evensong.
The sun was rolling down towards the forest; and over the roadway and millpond the shadows were growing longer. All was so quiet that, far away in the distance, a cart was heard to clatter, or a bird to cry out in the copses.
Some women had come back from town, and everyone was running to hear the news they had brought.
His Reverence had driven over to Volka, directly after Vespers: to a party at the Manor, Ambrose said. The organist had gone with all his people to visit the miller, and his son Yanek, in splendid attire, had accompanied his mother, saluting on his way the lasses behind their garden-palings, who peered out at him.
As the evening drew on slowly, the afterglow filled half the sky with sheets of bloodred fire, scattered about like brightly burning embers; and the waters turned crimson, and the windowpanes gleamed ruddily, as more wagons came back from town, and in front of the cabins the noise grew louder.
Though Hanka was not yet home, there was plenty of life and din in front of her hut too. A number of little girls of Yuzka’s age had come to see her, and were all warbling and twittering around her like a bevy of finches, and laughing at Yasyek Topsy-turvy: while Yuzka was treating them to such dainties as the cabin afforded on that day.
Nastka, much older than any of the others, was their leader. She was making fun of Yasyek, because, blockhead though he was, he tried to give himself rollicking airs. He stood just then before them all, wearing a brand-new spencer and a hat cocked at a considerable angle, and saying with a smiling look and arms akimbo:
“All of you must respect me—me, the only man in the village!”
“Not so: others as good as you are tending the kine!” said one.
“Or wiping babies’ noses!” cried another.
Yasyek, in no wise taken aback, answered them loftily:
“Such chits as ye are—mere goose-girls as yet—are not to my taste!”
“Why, the fellow kept kine last year, and he would play the man now!”
“Yet he runs away from a bull so fast that his breeches come down!”
“Go, marry Magda, the servant of the Jew: she’s the girl for you.”
“Nurse to the Jew’s brats, she’ll wipe your nose likewise!”
“Or,” someone said still more sarcastically, “take old Agata to wife, and go on pilgrimages with her.”
“Oh,” he retorted, “if I would but send my proposers to any one of you, she’d fast on dry bread every Friday of her life to thank God for her luck!”
“But,” Nastka cried, “whom would your mother let you marry? You’re needed to wash the platters at home.”
“Provoke me not, you! else I go and marry Mary Balcerek!”
“Aye, do: go to her; she’ll receive you with a broomstick—or worse!”
“Go—but take heed not to lose aught on the way!” Nastka said, with a laugh and a slight pull at his breeches, that were indeed, like the rest of his clothing, much too large for him.
“They were his grandsire’s once!”
Jests and gibes fell round him, thick as hail: he laughed as heartily as anyone, and slipped his arm round Nastka’s waist. But a girl put her foot out: down he sprawled upon the floor, and could not get up, for they pushed him down again.
“Girls, let him be! How can you?” said Yuzka, coming to the rescue, and helping him up. Though a zany, he was a farmer’s son,
