He went farther, and perceived Yagna, sitting close to the wall near her mother, and deep in prayer; unable to invent any topic or pretext of conversation, he only smiled at her, and returned to his own people.
Her eyes followed them, she being very much interested in the young ladies, who were clad in such sort that she could not but wonder, marvelling also at the whiteness of their faces and the slimness of their waists. Lord! and they breathed forth such sweet fragrance, sweet as the perfumed whorls from a censer!
And the thing they flirted to cool their cheeks! why, it was just like a turkey’s tail!—And how those young Squires came and ogled them! And they laughed so loud that the people around were shocked!
Then, from the end of the village, perhaps from the bridge near the mill, there came a sudden clattering and rumbling, while volumes of dust rose above the trees.
“Come too late for Mass!” Pete whispered to Hanka.
“Just in time to put out the candles!” someone said with a laugh.
Others peeped over the wall to look out on the road that skirted the pond.
Very soon, in a tempest of noisy barking, a long line of great white-tilted vans came in sight.
“The Germans! The Germans from Podlesie!” was the cry.
It was true. There were fifteen of these vans, more or less, drawn by stout draught-horses. Women and children, sitting within, and a complete assortment of domestic furniture, were visible under the canvas coverings. Beside these vans marched a lot of burly redheaded Germans, puffing at their pipes. Great dogs ran by their sides, often showing their teeth and barking back at the Lipka dogs, which attacked them furiously.
The people drew near to look at them, several even leaving the churchyard to see them closer.
They drove by slowly, making their way with difficulty through the jumble of wagons and horses; but, on passing in front of the church, not one of them so much as doffed his cap. Their eyes were glaring, their beards bristling—with hatred, no doubt. And they eyed the people with murderous looks.
“Ha! ha! Long-Trousers! … Carrion!”
“Ye horse-begotten ones!”
“Droppings of swine!”
And other epithets fell, thick as hail.
“Well?” Matthew called out to them. “Who has won the day, O Fatherlanders?”
“Who is forced to leave, you or we?”
“Our fists are too heavy; is it not so?”
“Come, stay awhile; ’tis our local feast.—We’ll make merry with you in the tavern.”
They replied nothing, but lashed their horses to urge them on.
“Not so fast, or your breeches will come tumbling down!”
Here a boy threw a stone at them, and several seized bricks to follow up the blow, but were stopped in time.
“Let them alone, lads, and allow this plague to go from us.”
“A sudden death carry you off, ye ungodly hounds!”
And a Lipka woman stretched out her fist, screaming after them:
“May all of you perish like mad dogs!”
So they passed by, and vanished on the poplar road, as the clattering of their carts faded away with the column of dust they had raised.
The people of Lipka were overjoyed, and could pray no more, but came clustering around the Squire in increasing numbers. This pleased him vastly, and he talked gaily with them and offered them snuff.
“Ah!” he said at length; “so you have smoked them out and the swarm has flown, hey?”
Gregory replied, in tone of mock pity: “Our sheepskins do not delight their nostrils. And then they are too delicate folk to dwell nigh us: if we come to loggerheads with any of them, why, down he goes straightway.”
The Squire asked with curiosity: “What, have you fought together at any time?”
“Why, no … not a fight exactly … but Matthew here just gave one of them a tap for not returning his greeting, ‘Praised be Jesus Christ!’ And behold, the fellow was at once covered with blood, and well-nigh gave up the ghost!”
“They are a soft-limbed people,” Matthew explained blandly. “To the eyes they look strong as oak-trees; but put forth your fist, ’twill feel as though it had struck a featherbed!”
“And in Podlesie they had no chance. Lost their kine, it is said.”
“True, they have not brought even one away with them now!”
“Kobus might tell us something …” one of them was beginning, when Klemba cut in sharply:
“They died—as all know—of rinderpest.”
The men shook with suppressed laughter, but kept it down well, while the smith pressed forward, and said: “If the Germans have gone, we owe it to his Honour the Squire.”
“Because I prefer to sell my land to my own countrymen, no matter on what terms,” the latter asserted with great energy; and went on to assert that his grandfather and great-grandfather had always held with the peasants.
Sikora grinned to hear this, and said in a lower tone: “Aye, ’tis a fact, and the Squire his father scored it on my back with a horsewhip to remember! I bear the marks yet!”
But the other had apparently not heard him, and was telling what trouble he had had to get rid of the Germans. The peasants listened with civil assent; but, as to his kind feelings, they kept their own opinion.
“Surely butter would not melt in our benefactor’s mouth,” Sikora sneered; and Klemba bade him hold his tongue.
Whilst they were thus complimenting one another, a clergyman in surplice, with a plate in his hand, pushed his way into the group.
“If ’tis not Yanek, the organist’s son!”
It was he, but now wearing the priest’s cassock, and making the collection. He greeted everyone, and collected with great success; for they knew him, and it was impossible to let him pass without offering something. So each man undid the bundle his money was knotted in, and often a silver zloty jingled amongst the coppers on the plate. The Squire flung down a rouble, the young ladies of Vola small silver coins in plenty. Yanek, streaming with perspiration, red as fire, but happy and radiant, went on collecting indefatigably all through the churchyard, passing no one by, and saying a good word
