“That is too hard work for you; let the lads carry them,” he said. “And I shall get you a wench besides; Yagustynka is of no more use to you than the whining of a dog!—Where is she now?”
“Gone to her children, to make it up with them!—A wench? Well, one would be handy; but the expense!—I could manage things by myself. But let it be as you will have it.” It was surprising (so grateful she felt) that she did not kiss her husband’s hand. In great glee, she added: “And then I should be able to breed yet more geese, and fatten yet another swine for sale.”
After revolving the matter in his mind, he came to this conclusion:
“Now we have a farm of our own, we must behave as becomes our condition, and as our fathers have always done!”
After supper, he went outside the hut, to receive his friends and acquaintances, who had come to welcome him back with great joy.
“We were looking out for you,” Gregory said, “even as the kite looks out for rain.”
“Ah, well, they kept me there, they kept me, that pack of wolves! and there was no getting away from them!”
All sat down in the shadow of the hut. There were lights on every side, and bright stars overhead; the millpond murmured, moaning now and then; and all around it the people were enjoying the cool of the evening.
Roch interrupted some commonplace talk with: “Know ye that the head official has decided there is to be an assembly here in a fortnight, to vote for a school?”
“Is that our business?” young Ploshka cried. “Let our fathers see to it.”
Gregory took him up sharply. “ ’Tis easy enough to lay all on our fathers’ backs, and lie lazily on our own! The reason things go so ill in the village is that none of us younger men will trouble about them.”
“Let them make over their lands to us, and we will!”
This was an opening for a dispute, when Antek suddenly interposed.
“We certainly do need a school here; but we ought not to vote half a kopek for such a one as the head official would give us.”
Roch seconded him strongly, urging them all to resist.
“Ye will each vote a zloty, and have to pay a rouble. … What about the vote for the Law-Court Building, eh? They have fattened finely on your money; their bellies protrude with a vengeance!”
“I am decidedly against the vote,” said Gregory, and, taking up some books, he went to study quietly by Roch’s side.
There was little further talk after that; even Matthew spoke but few words, only keeping his eye upon Antek; and they were about to go home, when the blacksmith appeared. He had but just come back from the Manor, he said, and fell a-cursing both village and villagers.
“And what ails you now?” asked Hanka, peeping out of the window.
“What, indeed?—I shame to tell it: our peasants here are all louts and boobies! They don’t know their own mind.—The Squire behaved to them as to men and landholders; and they, they acted like mere gooseherds. The agreement had been made: naught was required but to sign it. Then one of them scratches me his head and grunts: ‘Shall I … or shall I not?’ Another would fain still consult his goodwife anew; a third sets to whining for a bit of meadow adjacent to his land, that he wants given him.—What can be done with such fellows?—The Squire is raging—will not hear of the agreement any more, nor let any of the cattle from Lipka graze on his lands, and will make anyone smart that sends them there.”
This unforeseen calamity dismayed them all, and they had no words too strong for the guilty. Matthew said with sorrow:
“All this comes from the people’s having no leader. We are like stray sheep!”
“Has not Michael pointed this out to them clearly enough?”
“Oh, Michael! He goes where gain is to be had, and holds with the Manor: none therefore will trust him. They listen; but as to following what he says … !”
Here the smith swore he cared only for the public good, even to giving time and trouble gratis, that the agreement might be made!
“And if ye should swear that in church,” Matthew growled, “they still would not believe you.”
“Let someone else, then, try,” he retorted; “we shall see how he succeeds.”
“Yes, someone else ought certainly to try.”
“And who? The priest? Or the miller perhaps?” several men asked ironically.
“Who?—Why, Antek Boryna! If he cannot bring folk to their senses, we must give them up as a bad job.”
“I?—I?” Antek faltered, in confusion. “Will anyone hearken to me?”
“All will! You are an able man, and the foremost amongst us.”
“True it is!—Aye, aye!—You and none other!—We’ll follow you!” were the cries that arose—not much to the smith’s taste, seemingly. He twisted about, scratched his moustache, and grinned maliciously when Antek said:
“Well, well, they say: ‘Pot-making is for others than saints.’—I can but try; and we’ll talk the matter over another time.”
Several, as they went away, took him aside, urging him to accept, and promising their support. Klemba said:
“We must have someone to lead us, who has wits and a strong hand, and honesty into the bargain.”
“And,” Matthew added, laughing, “who can command, and use a cudgel if needful.”
Antek now remained alone with the smith; Roch had gone aside to pray earnestly in the porch.
They talked matters over very quietly and very long. Hanka meantime went about the hut, shaking up the bedding, providing the pillows with clean slips, and making her ablutions as for some great solemnity; combing her hair by the window, and peeping out at the two men with growing impatience. She listened attentively, too, to the smith, who dissuaded Antek from taking up such a burden, since he never could manage the peasants, and the Squire was against him.
“That’s false!” she called out to him through the window. “He offered to stand bail for you in court.”
“If ye know so much more about
