“What you give to the needy you give to Jesus Himself. Aye, and though ye are not liberal in your offerings for Masses, and forget the wants of the church, and though I have for a whole year pointed out to you that your pastor’s roof lets in the rain—still I shall always remember you in prayers for your generosity towards Lipka.” So he spoke, moved even to tears, and kissing each man’s head as it bent before him.
They were then close to the blacksmith’s, and on their way to the farther end of the village, when they were stopped by a crowd of weeping komorniki, headed by Kozlova.
“Excuse us, your Reverence; we have come to ask whether these people are not going to help us too,” she said boldly, in a loud tone of voice.
“We were waiting for our turn to come.”
The others chimed in here: “Are we poor wretches to remain without any help?”
The priest, much embarrassed, grew exceedingly red in the face.
“What am I to do?” he said; “there were not enough workers for all. … As it is, they have kindly given us their toil for two whole days … and … and. …” he stammered, looking from one to another.
“Yes,” sobbed Filipka, “they have helped—but whom? Why, the landowners … the wealthy men only!”
“For us, pestilent creatures, no one has cared or thought at all!”
“No, not even for a furrow or two, driven through our potato-plots!” they muttered gloomily.
“But, good women, they are leaving now … and … yes, something will be done for you. Truly, I know it is hard … your husbands are in jail with the others. … Yes, I assure you, something shall be done!”
“And for that something,” cried Gulbasova, “how long are we to wait? If we cannot plant our potato-patches, we may as well seek a rope at once!”
“But something shall be done, I tell you! Ye shall have my horses—aye, even for one whole day … but pray do not tire the poor beasts. … And I will be the miller too: and the Borynas may also give help perhaps. …”
“Perhaps!” roared Kozlova. “While the grass grows, the steed starves!—Come away, women!—Everything is for the farm-owners, and we, miserable starvelings, may eat stones and drink our tears!—This shepherd only cares for the sheep he can shear: we have no wool for him!”—But here the priest stopped his ears and took to flight.
They stood huddled together, sore and angry. Roch did all he could to pacify them, promising sincerely he would procure assistance, and succeeded in getting them away from the road, along which the friendly helpers were now going home in their noisy carts, with cries of gratitude from every threshold.
“May our Lord be your reward!”
“Health and happiness!”
“We’ll be quits some day!”
“Remember and see us every Sunday: we’re kinsfolk now!”
“Greet your parents! Bring your wives when you come!”
“Should you ever need aught, count on us!”
“God prosper you, dear ones!”
So they cried, caps and hands waving.
The lasses and all the children escorted them out of the village.
It was evening now, and the afterglow was still red upon the waters here and there; silence came down with the mists of night, but the frogs fell a-croaking in concert.
They went with them as far as the crossways, and parted from them with shouts and laughter, one of the girls striking up a song as they drove off.
“Yasio, will you wed me now?
Father’s wagon comes, I trow,
Rattling on the way—
Da dana!
Rattling on the way!”
To which the lads answered, turning round in the carts:
“Now, ’tis cold and we should freeze;
Whom can frosty kisses please?
Let us wed in May!
Da dana!
Let us wed in May!”
And the fresh young voices echoed over the dewy grass and rolled on and afar.
VII
“Our boys are returning!”
The news came like a flash of lightning, and spread through Lipka like wildfire.
Were they, truly? And if so, when?
No one knew.
Only one thing was sure: the constable of the commune had been at the Voyt’s with a certain paper, and told it to Klembova, who was just driving her geese to the millpond. She had instantly rushed round to her neighbours; the Balcerek girls had cried the news out to the nearest huts: and in the space of an “Ave Maria,” the whole place was quivering with glad emotion, and all the cabins were in tumult.
It was an early May morning, rather dull and rainy, drizzling and dripping over the blossoming fruit-trees.
“The men are coming back!”—All the cabins rang with a merry peal of joy; a flame was in every heart, and a cry in every throat.
The excitement grew more and more: doors banging, children rushing about, women dressing in front of their huts, and looking wistfully out into the rain through the blossoming trees which concealed the distant roads.
“All are coming back—farmers, servants, young men: every one of them!—They are here!—Out of the woods!—Upon the poplar road!” they cried, one voice after another; and those more ardent sallied forth, almost beside themselves.
Clogs clattered and splashed through the mud, and they hurried on, past the church to the poplar road. But on all the length of that long wet highway, there was nothing to be seen but deep ruts and pools of dirty water: not a single living being along the whole interminable arcade of rain-beaten poplars.
Bitterly disappointed, they hastened away to the opposite end of the village, for the men might also be coming in that direction.
That other road was empty too. Across its width, full of hollows, the rain beat, forming a mobile veil; its ditches brimmed with clayey water that overflowed the adjacent furrows and swept down quantities of drifting foam; and on the blossomy brambles which bordered the green fields, the flowers seemed shrinking in the chilly air.
They went on a little, till someone, coming out of the charred ruins of Podlesie, appeared on the road and drew nigh them.
He was a blind old dziad, known
