So they stood up stubbornly and unanimously against all persuasions, deaf both to arguments and to prayers, and would not hear reason. They clamoured against the men furiously, and often added tears to their clamours.
“I’ll not let my goodman go! I will hang to the skirts of his capote, and hold fast, aye, should they break my arms! We have had woes enough!”
Matthew cursed with rage. “May a brimstone thunderbolt blast you all!—Like magpies before rain: always shrieking, shrieking!—You’ll sooner teach human speech to a calf than words of wisdom to a woman,” he declared, bitterly disappointed.
“Let them alone, Gregory; you’ll never get at their understanding,” he complained. “Were the woman your wife, perchance she might listen then. Otherwise, the only argument for her is—a stick!”
“Nay, force is useless here,” Gregory said; “we must employ some other means with them. We must not contradict them at first, we even must approve … so as to bring them round little by little.”
He was unwilling to give all up for lost. Though he had at first opposed the plan, he had, when convinced it was the only thing to do, gone in for it afterwards with heart and soul. A bold stubborn fellow, determined to succeed in whatever he undertook, he allowed nothing to discourage him. They shut the door in his face; he talked to them through the window. They used threats; he, without loss of temper, flattered them freely, speaking to them of their children, praising their tidy ways, and little by little coming to the point; and if unsuccessful with one, he would go on to another. For two whole days, the village was full of him: in the cabins, in the gardens, even about the fields, talking of one thing, then of another, and at last coming to his subject. For such as found it hard to follow, he would draw a map in the dust of the domain of Podlesie and its divisions, so as to show forth the advantages of the plan of campaign to everyone. Yet in spite of these artifices his trouble would have been lost had it not been for Roch’s assistance. On Saturday afternoon, seeing they could not carry the village with them, they asked Roch to come behind Boryna’s granary; and there they opened their hearts to him, though much fearing lest he would oppose their scheme.
But after thinking a short time, he replied:
“A lawless proceeding it is; but we have no time to proceed otherwise.—I’ll help you willingly.”
At once he went to the parish priest, who was sitting in his garden, while his servant mowed the clover hard by. The servant told them later that his Reverence was at first angry with Roch, would not listen, and stopped his ears, but that they afterwards sat together talking for a long time. Roch had no doubt convinced him; for when the people came back at dusk from the fields, the priest went out as if to take the air, and, passing from cabin to cabin, he (talking first of indifferent matters) came at last to confer with the women chiefly, and dropped words to the following effect in the ears of each:
“The lads mean well. While there’s yet time, haste must be made. Take your determination: I shall go to the Squire and advise him to agree.” So, when he had overcome the women’s opposition, the husbandmen began to perceive that a plan approved by the priest was worth following.
They still spent the evening in debate, but early on Sunday morning they had decided to go after Vespers with Roch at their head, who would talk matters over with the German settlers.
This he had promised them to do; and when they had gone home, shouting loud cuckoo-calls of delight, he remained seated in Boryna’s porch, telling his beads and pondering deeply.
It was as yet early; they had but just cleared away after breakfast, Pete having lingered over his: a warm though yet not too hot day, with the swallows cutting the air swift as bullets. The sun had risen over the cabin, the grass glittered with dew in the shade; a fresh corn-scented breeze blew from the fields.
The hut, as usual on Sundays, was silent: the women busied with tidying the place, and the children out of doors, eating together at their porringer, and keeping Lapa off with spoons and cries. The sow grunted at the wall in the sunshine, the little ones nuzzling against her belly for milk; the stork was driving the hens off and running about after the colt that frisked in the courtyard. The orchard trees whispered, their branches waved; from the fields outside, the humming of bees on the wing resounded, and the lark’s song rang through the air.
This Sunday quiet was so deep that only the quacking of ducks about the pond was heard, or the laughter of the lads as they washed themselves there.
The roads lay deserted and bright in the sun, with very few wayfarers. Girls combed their locks on the doorstep; and the notes of a shepherd’s pipe bubbled forth.
Roch, as he said his rosary, heard all these sounds, but was mostly thinking of Yagna, whom he could hear bustling about within, sometimes coming close behind him, sometimes going out into the yard, and, as she returned, dropping her eyes before his, and flushing a deep red. He felt sorry for her.
“Yagna!” he whispered kindly, raising his eyes.
She stopped short with an intake of the breath, expecting he would say more. But he, as though doubtful of what he ought to say, only murmured a few inarticulate words and was silent.
She went her way again and sat down at the open window, where, leaning on the sill, she looked out mournfully upon the sunny scene and on the white clouds, wandering like wild geese through the bright fields of heaven. A heavy sigh burst from her bosom, and tears dropped more than
