The whole time till noon was lost in floundering about most villainous roads, and at times getting dirtied up to the waist with mire; for the fields were still very muddy here and there.
Their exasperation was therefore at its height when the scrivener arrived at Boryna’s hut to draw up a statement of facts concerning the pit dug there. He was swearing like a trooper; and, chancing to meet Bylitsa in the porch, he rushed at him, shaking his fists and shrieking:
“You hound’s face, you! Wherefore do you not watch, when robbers dig under your hut, eh?” And he proceeded to mention Bylitsa’s mother, with the foulest outrage.
“Mind the business you have to do: I am no servant of yours! D’ye hear!” the old man, grievously offended, broke in.
At this the scrivener roared: “Hold your tongue when you speak to an official, or I’ll jail you for contempt!” But the old man’s blood was boiling. He drew himself up, and cried in a hoarse voice, and with blazing eyes:
“And who are you? A servant of the public, paid by the public! Then do what the Voyt commands you, and let us free peasants alone!—Look at him! That scribbling fellow there! He has grown fat on our bread, and now would fain ride roughshod over folk!—But you have your superiors to account to, and they can punish you!”
Here the Voyt and Soltys came forward to pacify him, for he had worked himself up so, that his fingers were twitching for some weapon at hand.
“You! set down a fine for me: I’ll pay it, and toss you a coin for vodka besides, if I am so minded,” he called out.
But the clerk paid no more heed to him, and was taking notes of everything, and inquiring into every detail of the occurrence: while the old man rambled about the place, muttering, peeping into corners, and quite unable to come to himself. He even gave a kick to the dog!
When all was over, they would willingly have taken a morsel; but Hanka sent them word that she was just then short of bread and milk: only a few potatoes remained from breakfast.
They accordingly repaired to the tavern, loading Lipka with all imaginable maledictions.
“Ye did well, Hanka,” the old man said; “and they can do nothing to you.—Why, the old Squire, though I was his serf then, and he had the right, would never, never have insulted me so!”
In the early afternoon, news came that they were still in the tavern, and the Soltys had given orders to bring Kozlova to him.
“He may as well run after the wind in the plain!” Yagustynka said, scornfully.
“No doubt she is in the forest, seeking dry firewood.”
“No; she has been in Warsaw since yesterday. She went to get children from the hospital, and is to bring over a couple. Foundlings, I suppose.”
“Yes, and let them die of starvation, as she did those she had two years ago,” said Hanka.
“Poor things! Perhaps it is better so; they will not have to drag out a long life of misery.”
“Aye, but even a bastard is of human blood, and ’tis no light thing to answer for their lives to God, as she must.”
“But,” Yagustynka pleaded, “she does not starve them of set purpose: oft she has not enough for herself; whence can she get food for them?”
“She has not taken them out of charity; she has been paid for their keep!” replied Hanka, sternly.
“Fifty zloty a head per year is no great sum.”
“It is nothing. She drinks it all at once, and the little ones starve!”
“Not all of them.—Your Vitek, for instance, and another lad now in a hut in Modlitsa.”
“Oh, but Father took Vitek from her when he could hardly toddle; and the other was in like case.”
“Am I defending Kozlova? Nay, but only telling you things as I see them. Something the poor creature must earn, since she has naught to eat.”
“Surely: her goodman is away, and so can steal naught for her.”
“And then she made but a sorry business with Agata. That old thing, instead of dropping off—what does she do but get quite well again and leave her? And now she grumbles all over the village that every day Kozlova upbraided her for living on, to her loss!”
“She will no doubt return to the Klembas: where else should she take shelter?”
“She is offended with them. Klembova would have kept her because of her bedding and ready money. But she would not stay, had her locker taken over to the Soltys’, and is now looking for a hut to die in peacefully.”
“She’ll not die yet. There’s work for her everywhere, if only geese to tend.—Now, where in the world has Yagna gone?”
“She’s at the organist’s, belike, embroidering a frill for the daughter.”
“As if there was too little to do here!”
“Ever since Easter,” said Yuzka in a tone of complaint, “she has been there continually.”
“I’ll give her a lesson she will remember.—Let me look at baby.”
She took it to bed with her, and as soon as dinner was done, sent everyone off to work. Soon she was alone in the room, listening to the children playing outside under Bylitsa’s eye, and thinking how old Boryna lay gazing at the sunbeams that streaked the counterpane, trying to catch at them with his fingers, and babbling vague incoherent words, like an infant.
The village was deserted, for—the weather being first-rate—all who could had gone out to work.
Since Easter, it had been warmer and brighter every day.
And the days were lengthening out: misty at dawn, hot though cloudy at noon, and gorgeous with burning sunsets: true spring days.
Some, cool, bright, clear, passed by in quiet beauty, with a sprinkling of yellow dandelions, white daisies, and green buds coming out all over the willows.
And some were downright hot—burning hot; moist, soaked in sunlight, smelling of all fresh
