Many minutes elapsed before Yagna could move from the spot.
“What! has the boy cast a spell on me? What is this that I feel now?” she wondered, as she dragged along slowly, with her brain in a whirl, and strange tremors running all through her.
Passing the tavern, she caught the muffled sounds of the music and conversations. She looked in at the window. Mr. Yacek, standing in the middle of the room, was sawing away at his violin. Ambrose, reeling close to the bar, was talking loud to the komorniki and from time to time reaching out his hand for a glass.
Someone caught her by the waist unexpectedly: she screamed and tried to wrench herself loose.
“I have you now, nor will I let you go.—Come for a drink with me!” It was the voice of the Voyt, who held her firm in his grasp; and they both went by a side-door into the tavern parlour.
No one had seen them, for few were out in the road, and it was very dark.
Now the village was quiet: all the outside sounds were hushed and the crofts were empty and silent. Everybody was at home. Eastertide, that dear time of rest, was nearly over; and the toilsome morrow was lurking outside on the threshold, already baring its sharp fangs for them.
Lipka therefore was rather melancholy and subdued that evening: only at Ploshka’s was there a numerous party. Her neighbours had come together and were conversing with dignified mien. The Voyt’s wife sat in the place of honour: by her side Balcerek’s wife, stout and loud-mouthed, was maintaining her opinion: close to her sat Sikora’s dame, rawboned as heretofore; Boryna’s cousin, much given to babbling; and the blacksmith’s wife, her babe at her breast; and the Soltysova, talking in low devout tones: and, in short, all the foremost women in the village.
As they sat there solemnly, stiff and formal of mien, one was somehow reminded of a lot of brooding hens with ruffled plumage. They wore their best holiday attire: kerchiefs let halfway down the back (Lipka-fashion), and great frills standing higher than their ears, with all their possessions in the way of coral beads hung over them. They enjoyed themselves, however, after their slow fashion, and their good humour increased little by little, as their cheeks grew flushed. And presently, tucking up their petticoats carefully, lest they should crumple them, they edged nearer and nearer to one another, and soon were engaged in more than one wordy tussle.
But after the smith, who said he was but just back from town, had joined them, they waxed merrier still. The fellow was a rare talker; and being rather tipsy, he began to humbug them with such comical mystification that he made them hold their sides with laughter. The whole room was in a roar, and he himself laughed so loud that they could hear him at Boryna’s.
The party lasted a long while, and Ploshka had to send three times to the tavern for vodka.
At Boryna’s they sat in the courtyard. Hanka had risen and joined them, with a sheepskin coat over her shoulders to protect her from the chill night air.
So long as there was light enough, Roch read to them; but when darkness had fallen over the land, he went on to tell them many a thing of wonder that they were most curious to hear. The dusk soon became so deep that the party were barely outlined on the white cabin-walls. It was cool outside, and no stars shone; a dull stillness, broken only by the bubbling waters and barking dogs, pervaded the place.
They all were together in one group—Nastka and Yuzka, Veronka and her babes, Klembova and Pete, seated almost at Roch’s feet: Hanka was sitting on a stone, a little apart.
He told them much about the history of Poland, and also many a holy legend, and tales of the wonderful things in the world, of which he related so many a marvel that no one could remember all he said.
They listened motionless and hushed, drinking in those honey-sweet words of his, as the parched earth drinks in the warm raindrops.
And he, barely seen in the gloom, spoke in a low solemn voice words such as these:
“To all who await spring in prayer and toil and readiness, it surely cometh at the end of winter. …
“In the end, the oppressed ever triumph: therefore have ye trust. …
“Man’s happiness is a field to be sown with blood and sacrifice and labour: whoso has sown it thus shall see the crop grow and shall reap the harvest. …
“But he that careth only for daily bread shall not sit at the table of our Lord. …
“Who only complaineth of evil, and doth no good, he maketh the evil worse.”
He spoke long, but in words of wisdom hard to bear in mind; in a voice ever lower and more loving he spoke, until the darkness quite swallowed him up. Then it seemed as though some holy being were speaking from beneath the ground: as though the dead ancestors of the Borynas, graciously permitted to revisit the earth at this sacred Eastertide, were now uttering words of solemn warning to their descendants, out of those crumbling walls, those bent gnarled trees, that thick dense gloom around.
Over all these utterances their minds pondered deeply; like a bell in the depth of their hearts they resounded, arousing within them dim emotions—strange, eerie, unaccountable desires.
They did not so much as remark that all the dogs in the village had set to barking, nor that the feet of many people were running fast.
“Fire! Podlesie is burning!” a voice cried to them from beyond the orchard.
It was true. The farm buildings of the Manor domain of Podlesie were on fire, and crimson-red bushes of flame were growing in the night.
“Heaven save the mark!” Yagustynka ejaculated, as the memory of Kozlova’s threats flashed through her brain.
“A judgment of God upon him!”
“For the wrong he has done us!” many voices cried in the
