Then, after the men had returned once more to their work, she took Yuzka with her to weed the flax, which was in places quite yellow with wild flowers. She worked with great diligence to shake off old Dominikova’s menaces from her mind; but unsuccessfully; and she was especially uneasy about what Antek would say on his return.
“How he will knit his brows when I show him the deed!—Oh, the fool!—Six whole acres! ’tis all but a farm by itself.”
“Ah! Hanka,” Yuzka cried, “we have forgotten the letter about Gregory!”
“Aye, so we have.—Yuzka, leave off your work: I shall go to the priest and ask him to read it.”
The priest, however, was not within doors, and when she saw him at a distance among the fieldworkers, with his cassock taken off, she felt afraid he might rebuke her publicly for her act. “For no doubt,” she thought, “he must know about it by this time.” So she went to the miller, who was just then trying how the sawmill worked, along with Matthew.
“My wife told me just how ye have smoked out your stepmother. Ha, ha! Ye look like a wagtail, but have the claws of a hawk!” Laughing, he set to read the letter, but at the first glance at it, he cried out: “Oh, what awful news!—Your Gregory has been drowned.—’Twas as far back as Eastertide. … They write that ye can get his things by applying at the District Office.”
“Gregory dead!—So strong a man!—And so young!—He was not over twenty-six.—And was to have come back this harvest-time.—Drowned! O merciful Jesus!” she moaned, wringing her hands at the mournful news.
“Well,” Matthew remarked, with bitter animosity, “heritages seem to be coming your way. Ye have but now to turn Yuzka out upon the world, and the whole estate will be yours and the blacksmith’s!”
“Are ye already off with the old love of Teresa, and on with Yagna’s new love?” she interrupted him; and thereupon he was suddenly absorbed in the machinery, while the miller burst into a loud guffaw.
“Oh, what a good tit for tat!—And what a brave little woman!”
On her way home, she dropped in to tell Magda, who wept copiously, and uttered many an ejaculation of grief:
“ ’Tis the will of the Lord. … Ah! a man like an oak-tree. … Few his equals in all Lipka! … Oh, lot of man, oh, unhappy lot!—Here today, gone tomorrow! … Then his belongings go to his family: Michael will go to the office tomorrow and fetch them. … Poor fellow! And he so eager to be home again!”
“All is in God’s hands. … He was always unlucky with water. Remember how once he was near drowning in the pond, and was saved by Klemba. … Surely it was written that he should die no other death!”
They mourned together, and wept—and parted; for they both, and Hanka especially, had plenty of work to do.
The news spread about very fast. The men who came back from the fields were already talking about Gregory and Yagna: all heartily sorry for the one, but not all for the other: concerning her, opinions were divided. The women (the older ones in particular) were very decidedly on Hanka’s side, and violently hostile to Yagna; while the men, though hesitatingly, inclined to take the other’s part. This even gave rise to some disputes.
Matthew, on his way home from the sawmill, heard them talk. At first he merely spat in token of contempt, or let out a curse under his breath; but, hearing what they said outside Ploshka’s hut, he could not help crying out indignantly:
“Hanka had no right to expel her: she has property there of her own.”
Here Ploshka’s wife, red-faced and stout of figure, turned upon him.
“Nay,” she cried, “ ’tis well known that Hanka does not deny her right to the land. But she has other fears, for Antek may come home any day. Who can watch a thief living in the house? Was she to sit still and take no heed of their doings? Was she?”
“Fiddlesticks! all that has naught to do with the case. Your unbridled tongues are wagging, not for the sake of Justice, but from envy and spite!”
When you thrust a stick into a wasps’ nest, they all fly out at you: so did the women at him.
“Oh, indeed! what is there in her to envy, say? That she’s a light-o’-love and a wanton? That ye all run after her like dogs? That you long for her, every one of you? That she is a cause of sin and a shame to all the village? Shall we envy her those things?”
“Perchance ye do: ye are beyond man’s understanding. Worn-out old besoms ye are, who would hate the very light of the sun! Had she but been like that Magda, the tavern wench, and done the worst of things, you would have forgiven her; but simply because she is the fairest of all, you’d all like to drown her—aye, and in a spoonful of water too!”
This caused such a storm that he was glad to make his escape, crying as he went:
“Ye foul jades, may your tongues rot in your heads!”
Passing by Dominikova’s house, he looked in at the open window. The room was lit, but Yagna could not be seen, and he was unwilling to go in; so he regretfully passed on to his own hut, on his way to which he was met by Veronka.
“Ah, I was at your home just now.—Staho has dug the new foundations and made the trunks ready, so that you might cut them into shape now: when are ye coming?”
“On Tib’s eve perhaps. I am disgusted with this village, and
