At last her mother said to him!
“Stay with us, spending the night in the barn: whereunto should you trudge about by night?”
“I’ll make him a shakedown in the shed,” said Nastka.
“Do not be so hard on him, Nastka!” Yagustynka said with a leer.
“What … what are ye thinking of? What next, I wonder!” she rapped out, greatly troubled.
“Heyday! Is he not your swain? To forestall the wedding a day or two is no harm. … And then, the poor man, who works for you like an ox, ought surely to have some reward!”
“Oh, how true! Nastka! Nastka!” he cried, as she fled, and leapt after her and caught her, with many a kiss and entreaty, and held her fast.
“Would you drive me from you, Nastka darling? drive me away on such a night?”
Her mother had suddenly something to do in the passage; and Yagustynka withdrew, saying:
“Forbid him not, Nastka! There’s so little happiness on earth: what comes—rare as the grain of corn a blind hen finds—pass it not by!”
In the enclosure she crossed Matthew, who, making a shrewd guess, called out to Simon within:
“I should never have had your patience!”
But next daybreak saw Simon hard at work again, and indefatigable. Only, when Nastka brought him his breakfast, he was even more greedy for a kiss from her cherry lips than for the porringer.
“If you do betray me, you’ll be scalded soundly!” But while she threatened so, she was nestling to his bosom.
“Nastka, mine you are, and never will I let you go!” he bleated earnestly; and, looking into her eyes, added in a low voice: “The first must be a boy!”
“A simpleton you are! But who put all these naughty thoughts into your head?”—And, pushing him away, she ran off, her face all scarlet. Not far off, Mr. Yacek had appeared, pipe in mouth and violin tucked under his arm. He came up, “praised God,” and asked him a few questions. Simon, much elated, bragged about what he had achieved, but stopped all at once, rolling the eyes of bewilderment. Mr. Yacek had laid down his violin, taken off his coat, and set to work, stirring and softening a mass of clay! Simon’s shovel fell and his jaw dropped.
“What is’t ye wonder at?”
“What, shall Mr. Yacek work with me?”
“I shall, and will help you to build your hut. Think you I cannot?—You will see.”
Henceforth they worked together. The old man had indeed not much strength, and was little wont to labour; but he had such ingenious ways that the work went on far better and more swiftly. And Simon obediently followed all his directions, now and then muttering:
“Heavens! this is unlike anything ever seen! A Squire!”
Mr. Yacek only smiled, and then, entering into talk with him, told him such wonderful things about this world of ours that Simon, had he only dared, would have fallen at his feet in wonder and gratitude. And in the evening, he ran to tell Nastka all about it, concluding:
“Folk call him silly: yet he is as full of wisdom as any priest!”
“There be some that talk wisely, yet act foolishly. What, would he come peradventure to aid ye if he had all his wits? And would he tend Veronka’s kine?”
“That, indeed, I cannot make out.”
“Save by saying he has lost his senses.”
“At any rate, he is the best man in the world.”
Simon was immeasurably grateful to him for his kindness. Yet, for all their working together, and eating from the same vessel, and sleeping beneath the same covering, there was nothing of familiarity in their fellowship.
“He always belongs to the race of the Squires,” Simon said to himself, with profound respect and thankfulness. With his help the hut rose up, even as a loaf rises which has been leavened; and when Matthew had likewise come to assist them, and Adam, son of Klemba, brought all they required from the forest, the building was soon to be seen distinctly from Lipka, so splendidly did it get on. Matthew worked hard for nearly the whole week, directing the others’ toil; and when (on Saturday afternoon) it was quite finished, he put up a cluster of green boughs on the chimney-top, and went off to some other work of his own.
Then Simon whitewashed the cottage, and swept the shavings and rubbish away. And Mr. Yacek came with his violin under his arm, saying with a smile:
“The nest is ready: bring the mother-bird!”
Simon answered: “Our wedding is tomorrow after evensong,” and fell at his feet to thank him.
“Oh, but I have not worked for nothing! When they send me away from the village, I come to lodge with you!” And, lighting his pipe, he strolled away to the forest.
Simon, though all was finished, still pottered about the hut, stretching his weary limbs, and gazing upon it with an unexpected intensity of joy.
“Mine! Aye, mine!” he repeated; and, apparently not believing his own eyes, he would touch the walls, walk round, peep in at the window, and sniff the raw pungency of the whitewash and the clay. It was late in the evening when he returned to Lipka to get ready for the next day.
Everybody knew about his wedding, and Dominikova had been informed by a neighbour, though she made out not to have caught what was said.
Early on Sunday morning, Yagna several times slipped away from her mother’s hut, carrying various articles in bundles quietly out through the garden, and taking them over to Nastka. The old dame, though quite conscious of what was going on, did nothing at all to prevent it, but went to and fro in silence, with so sombre an air that Andrew only ventured to approach her after High Mass.
