Hanka grudged neither food nor drink, and generously pressed them all to partake. When, at noon, many of them expected to depart, a dish of kluski boiled in milk was served, followed by broiled meat with cabbage and peas.
“Other folk,” Boleslaus’ wife whispered, “have not such dainties even at their weddings.”
“True; but what a goodly inheritance he leaves them!”
“And no doubt a large hoard of ready money.”
“The blacksmith talked of its having been in the cabin—and vanished somewhere.”
“Aye, he complains, but knows full well where he has hidden it.”
The organist, who by this time was somewhat flustered, now stood up, and, glass in hand, set to extolling the late Boryna in such high-flown terms and such a wealth of Latin quotations that, little as they understood, they wept copiously, as they did at a sermon hard to make out.
The noise increased, the faces grew flushed, the glasses clinked in fine style: some were groping for these with one hand and, with the other arm round their neighbour’s neck, babbled and stammered pitiably. Some still attempted to keep up the sad tone due to such an occasion; but no one paid any heed to them. Each turned to the companions he preferred, talking with them most affectionately, and drinking to them again and again.
Ambrose alone was that day unlike his usual self. He had indeed drunk as much as any, nay, perhaps more, having taken all that he possibly could get; but he sat moping in a corner now, wiping his eyes and sighing heavily.
Some of them endeavoured to put him in a gay humour.
“Draw me not out, I am in no mood,” he growled. “I am soon going to die. To die! Over me there will be only the dogs to whine; or perhaps an old woman may clink a broken pot for me,” he mumbled, whimpering.
“Yea, I was at Matthias’ christening, and made merry at his first wedding, and buried his father. Oh, well I remember that day! O Lord! And how many others I have laid in their graves, and sounded their funeral knell. Now ’tis time for me to go!”
And getting up suddenly, he went out into the orchard. Vitek afterwards said that the old man had sat down behind the cabin and wept for ever so long.
But he was not one to trouble much about. Besides, just as twilight was at hand, the priest, accompanied by the Squire, came in unexpectedly.
His Reverence consoled the orphans, patted the childrens’ heads, and drank some tea, made for him by Yuzka; while the Squire, after some words exchanged with various people, took a glass which the smith offered him, drank to them all, and said to Hanka:
“If anyone has cause to regret Matthias, it is surely I. Were he living now, I might come to an agreement with Lipka. And perchance,” he added in a louder tone, glancing round, “I might even agree to all your demands. But with whom am I to make terms? With the Commissioner36 I can have naught to do, and there is no man amongst you now who can represent Lipka.”
They listened with deep attention, weighing every one of his words.
He talked on for some time, and put a few questions; but he might have spoken to a wall with as much effort. No one thought of letting his tongue run freely, or so much as opening his mouth.
They only nodded and scratched their heads, and looked at one another. … At length, seeing that he could not break down that barrier of suspicious caution, he went out along with the priest, and all the visitors saw him to the gate.
It was only afterwards that their surprise and bewilderment found tongue.
“Well, well! The Squire himself coming to a peasant’s burial!”
“He fawns on us; therefore he has need of us,” Ploshka said.
Klemba took his part. “Wherefore should he not have come as a friend?”
“Years have brought you no wisdom. When did ever a Squire come to the peasants as a friend? Say when!”
“Since he seeks an agreement, there must be something kept back.”
“Only this: that he needs it more than we do.”
“And that we are able to hold off!” cried Sikora, who was tipsy.
“Ye may be able: not all of us are!” angrily exclaimed Gregory, the Voyt’s brother.
They began to quarrel, each man airing his own view.
“Let him give up both timber and forest-land, and then we’ll come to terms.”
“We need not do so at all. There will be a sentence, and all will be ours by law.”
“Mother of dogs! let him go a-begging; ’twill serve him right!”
“Because the Jews have got hold of him, lo, he comes whining to us peasants for help!”
“And once his only cry was: ‘You peasant! get out of my way, or ’ware my horsewhip!’ ”
Here someone quite drunk cried out: “Never trust him, I tell you; he and his likes only plot the ruin of us peasants.”
Then the blacksmith shouted: “Farmers, hear my words—words of wisdom! If the Squire wants to make an agreement, make one by all means, taking what ye can get, and not seeking pears of willow-trees, as the saying is.”
Gregory seconded him strongly.
“ ’Tis God’s truth!—Come with me to the tavern, all of you, and let us talk the matter over.”
And presently they all left the premises together, accompanied (as it was late) by the gaggling of geese and lowing of herds coming back from the fields, and many a shepherd, playing on the flute.
They went along noisily, more than one screaming at the top of his voice, merely to give vent to his satisfaction after the feast and (so to speak) blow off the steam.
Meantime, at the Borynas’, when the hut had been tidied up, all was silent and dreary and eerie.
Yagna was bustling about in her own room, like a bird beating its wings in the cage: but marking how stupefied with grief all the others
