They extricated her at once from among the fallen brickwork. She was fearfully scalded: yet, recking nothing of the pain nor of her burning petticoats, she wanted to fly at him still!
“Unnatural child! Accursed one! Away, away with you!” she bellowed with insane frenzy; and they had to use force to hold her back and quench the flames. They put wet compresses on to her scalds, and she yet was ready to rush at him again.
“Quit my sight! let me behold you nevermore!”
As for Simon, breathless, beaten all over, unable to utter a word, and streaming with blood, he stood staring at his mother in the utmost bewilderment and dismay.
The uproar had scarce begun to subside, when she tore herself free from the women round her, darted to the pole behind the fireplace on which Simon’s things were hanging, pulled them all down and threw them out of the window.
“Go! may mine eyes not see you any more! Naught is yours here, all is mine! … You shall not have one strip of land, not one spoonful of food, were you dying of hunger!” she vociferated with the rest of her failing strength; and, overcome at last by the intensity of her pains, she then fell to groaning and screaming most horribly.
So she was carried to her bed.
So many people had pressed in that the cabin was chock-full, and the passage as well; even the open windows were blocked up with heads.
Yagna, at a loss what to do, was completely disconcerted. The old woman was now howling in frightful agony. No wonder: all her face and neck were scalded fearfully, her arms were burnt, her hair was singed off, and her eyes were all but sightless.
Simon had gone out and was sitting in their little orchard close to the cabin-wall, his chin resting on his fists, stiff as a corpse, bruised all over, with clots of blood upon his face: he was listening to his mother’s groans.
After a while, Matthew came up to him, saying, as he took him by the hand:
“Come over to our hut. You have naught to do here now.”
“Go I will not! … The land is mine, the land of my forefathers, my own: here will I remain!” he growled with sombre obstinacy.
Neither arguments nor entreaties could prevail against him; he sat still, and spoke no more.
Uncertain what to do, Matthew seated himself near him; but Andrew made a bundle of the clothing just thrown out and, placing it before his brother, said timidly:
“With you, Simon! I’ll go away with you!”
“O mothers of dogs!” cried the other, beating on the wall so hard that Andrew winced to hear him; “once for all I have said that I will not budge; and budge I will not!”
Now they were again silent; dreadful shrieks were heard within. Ambrose had come to bandage the old woman. He put fresh unsalted butter on the scalds and burns, covering them with the leaves of certain herbs, over which again he put a layer of curdled milk, and bound up the whole with moist bandages. Having directed Yagna to pour some cold water on the clouts every now and then, he hurried away to Church, hearing that the Mass-bell was already beginning to tinkle.
It was Mass-time indeed; the roads were swarming with people, carts were rattling by, and so many acquaintances sought to call on the patient that Yagna was at length compelled to close her door on her prying neighbours, and only Sikora’s wife remained with her.
And now there was again quiet in the hut. Dominikova was mute. The still murmurous drone of the organ was just audible; and the voices of the singers, with their plaintive, soothing, quavering melody, were wafted along through the orchards.
Both the young men were still sitting outside the hut. Matthew was talking on in a low voice; Simon nodding in reply; while Andrew, lying on the grass, gazed on the smoke of his brother’s cigarette, rising in tangled threads above the thatch, like bluish gossamer.
Matthew rose at last, promising to come again in the afternoon. He intended to go to church, but at the sight of Yagna sitting at the water’s brink, he drew near her.
Her pail stood full by her side; she was bathing her feet in the millpond.
“Yagna!” he whispered very low, approaching beneath the alders.
Instantly she let her skirt down over her knees, and bent a look on him—a look so tearful, so full of pain and sorrow, that he felt cut to the heart.
“What is it, Yagna? are you ailing?”
The trees waved very silently, pouring down their rain of lights and shadows upon her bright head, like a shower of green and gold.
“No, but things go not well with me. Not well.” And she looked away from him.
“If I could but aid … or advise you …” he went on kindly.
“What? did you not lately turn away from me in my garden … and never come near me since?”
“For you had spurned me! … How could I dare? O Yagna!” His tone was gentle and full of sympathy.
“Aye, but I called after you, and you—you would not hearken!”
“Did you call me back, Yagna? Truly?”
“Truly.—I might have died and no one have come near me. I am a poor forlorn creature, that everyone is free to humble and ill-use!”
Her face was burning; she turned it away in confusion, splashing the water with her feet.—Matthew was reflecting.
All through the silence which ensued, the symphony of the organ went on trickling in a soothing gentle stream—a streak of mellow sound. The millpond shimmered, rolling sinuous ripples from Yagna’s feet, like iridescent serpents: while between her and him there passed warm glances, wreathed and twined together.
Matthew was growing more and more fascinated; he longed to take her in his arms and fondle her like a
