“But, Voyt dear! ye’ll have to burn incense there, or his nose will tell him who the prisoner was!”
“Have no fear: after a few drams he will scent naught in the world.”
And other gibes were thrown at the Voyt, which he only received with clenched teeth and glaring eyes.—At last, however, they had enough of sun, and hunger, and waiting—and could not even jest any longer. So, in spite of the Voyt’s objurgations, they all made tracks for the tavern and the trees, Gregory flinging these words at him:
“Ye may cry till nightfall: we are no dogs to follow you to heel!”
Saying this, and glad to be no longer under the gendarmes’ inspection, he again went about amongst the people, reminding each man apart in what sense he should give his vote.
“And,” he would wind up, “fear ye not: right is on our side. As we vote, so things shall be; and what we will not have, no man can force upon us.”
They had, however, not yet begun to stretch themselves in the shade, or to eat a morsel, when each village was called by its Soltys, and the Voyt came roaring:
“Here’s the head!—Come quick!—We are to begin now!”
“The smell of good things has wrought upon him,” they muttered in a bad temper, walking slowly towards the Office. “We are in no hurry; let him wait!”
Each Soltys stood at the head of his own village; but the Voyt was seated at the table, beside the scrivener’s assistant, who whistled to frighten the pigeons, that circled round above the roof in a white fluttering cloud.
One of the gendarmes suddenly stood at attention, and cried: “Silence!” in Russian.
To their disappointment, however, no one came out but the scrivener, holding some papers in his hand, and edging himself to a seat behind the table. The Voyt then rang the bell, and said, majestically:
“Good people! we open the meeting.—Be still there, ye men of Modlitsa!—Our secretary will read you things concerning this school: only hearken ye diligently, that ye may know all about it.”
Putting on his spectacles, the scrivener began to read, very slowly and distinctly.
After a short interval of breathless silence, someone exclaimed:
“Why, we understand naught!”
“Read it in our tongue! We cannot make it out!” repeated many voices.
The gendarmes here began to fix a steady glare upon the people.
The scrivener looked very black, but went on with the document, translating it into Polish.
All now were still, listening to each word with the most concentrated attention. The scrivener continued deliberately:
“Whereas it hath been decided to found a school in Lipka, the same being also for the use of Modlitsa, Przylek, Rzepki, and the neighbouring hamlets. …”
The rescript then pointed out how great a benefit education was; how the Government was night and day only thinking of means to aid the progress and enlightenment of the people, and to defend it from all evil influences … and then passed on to reckon how much would be required for the ground, for the building itself, and (yearly) for the teacher: concluding with the estimate that they ought to vote a supplementary rate of twenty kopeks per acre.—He paused, wiped his spectacles, and added as an observation of his own:
“The head of the District has assured me that, if ye vote the rate now, he will allow the building to commence this year, so that next year in autumn your children will go to school.”
When he ended thus, no one made any remark. Everyone reflected with heads bent as under the weight of this fresh burden. At last the Voyt said:
“Have ye heard all that our secretary has read to you?”
“We have indeed! We are not deaf!” several voices replied.
“Then whoso is against this plan, let him step forward and say so.”
No one, however, was so bold as to put himself forward first, or go beyond glances and nudges.
“Then,” the Voyt proposed, “let us vote the rate directly, and go home.”
“Very well,” the scrivener asked, with solemn formality. “Ye do all unanimously agree to this plan?”
“No! No!” vociferated Gregory, and about a score of others with him.
“We need no such schools! We will not have them! The taxes are heavy enough as it is!—No!” and cries of opposition now resounded on every side, and ever more boldly.
At the sound, the head official came forth and stood in the doorway. At the sight, the tumult died away. Stroking his beard, he said, with much affability:
“Well, good husbandmen, how goes it with you?”
“The better that your Honour asks us!” answered the foremost men, swaying to and fro under the pressure of those behind, pushing forward to hear the District Official. Now he, leaning against the doorpost, uttered some sentences in Russian; but their effect was impaired by constant hiccups.
The gendarmes started forward, crying to the people:
“Hats off! Hats off!”
A voice was thereupon heard abusing them roundly: “Get out, ye vermin, and meddle not with our business.”
But the head official, though he had spoken very affably, concluded in Polish, and in a tone of command:
“Vote the rate, and at once, for I have no time to spare.”
And he looked on them with an ominous scowl. Fear seized upon them; they wavered, and low timorous whispers ran through their ranks.
“Ah, shall we vote?—Say, Ploshka, what are we to do?—Where’s Gregory?—The head commands us to vote!—Come, then, brethren, let us do so!”
But the tumult swelled to a storm, when Grzela came forward, and declared fearlessly: “For such a school we’ll not vote half a kopek!”
“We will not! No, we will not!” a hundred voices repeated.
At this, the head official knitted his brows.
The Voyt was terror-struck, and the scrivener’s spectacles fell from his nose. But Gregory met the great man’s glance without fear, and was about to speak further, when Ploshka, pushing forward, and louting very low, said humbly:
“May it please your Honour the District Official if I speak in our tongue, and think with our own thoughts.—As
