They made haste, for it was continually raining, and the ways were all fast becoming sloughs of mire, and impassable.
That day, they were cutting Dominikova’s plantation.
Yagna, along with Simon, had been there since morning, for Andrew had stayed at home to mend the roof.
Evening was at hand, and the old housewife again and again came out, looking towards the mill, and listening for the sound of their coming.
But the work was still going on busily in the low-lying plantation beyond the mill. Over the meadows stretched a dense fog; only in places, wide ditches gleamed, full of grey turbid water; and long bands on the higher ground where the cabbages grew, here of a pallid green, there of a rusty red. About these flitted dimly the crimson petticoats of women, piling up heaps of newly cut cabbages.
In the misty distance, close to the river that ran frothing among thickets of brushwood, there rose many a heap of dull brown peat. Here the carts were stationed; they could come no nearer, because of the quaggy nature of the soil, and every sheetful of cabbages had to be taken to them as a bundle carried on the back.
In some fields cutting was over already, and the people were going home; from patch to patch, ever louder and louder, their voices sounded through the fog.
Yagna had only just got through with the work. She was tired out, very sharp-set, and completely drenched to boot. Even her clogs were streaming with wet, for they sank more than ankle-deep into the dun-coloured peaty soil, and she often had to take them off and pour the water out.
“Simon! be quick now! I can feel my limbs no more!” she called out wearily; but, seeing that the young man was unable to lift his burden, she impatiently seized the great bundle, raised it on to her back, and carried it off to the wagon.
“A big fellow like you—yet with the loins of a woman after childbed!” She spoke scornfully, as she poured the cabbages out into the straw at the bottom of the cart.
Simon, much abashed, muttered, growled, scratched his head, and put the horse to.
“Hurry now, Simon!” she cried, swiftly bearing one huge bundle after another to the cart.
But night fell, the shades grew blacker, the rain fell heavier, pouring upon the pulpy ground and into the ditches with a sound as of dropping corn.
“Yuzka! have you done for today?” she cried to Boryna’s daughter, who had been cutting along with Hanka and Kuba.
“Yes, we have. Time to go home: the weather is frightful, and I am wet through. Are you going too?”
“Aye. It would soon be so dark that we could not find our way. The rest must stand over till tomorrow.—Oh, your cabbages are splendid!” she exclaimed, leaning over towards them, and getting a glimpse of the heaps that loomed through the mist.
“Yours are very good too, and your turnips far larger than ours.”
“Ah, they were planted from a new kind of seed, brought from Warsaw by his Reverence.”
“Yagna!”—it was Yuzka’s voice, calling again to her out of the fog—“do you know, Valek, Joseph’s son, is sending people tomorrow to propose to Mary Pociotek?”
“What, that little girl? Is she not too young? Only last year she was herding kine, I think.”
“Yes, she is old enough. Besides, she has so many acres that the lads are in haste to marry her.”
“You, too, Yuzka, they will be in haste to marry by and by.”
“Unless your father takes another wife,” shouted Yagustynka from the third field.
“What do you mean?” said Hanka, in a tone of alarm. “He buried her mother only last spring.”
“What does that matter to a man? Every one is even as a swine; however full, always ready to thrust his snout into a fresh trough. Ho, ho! one is not quite cold, nay, not yet dead, and the goodman is after another.—They are dogs, all of them. What about Sikora? He took a second wife only three weeks after burying his first.”
“True: but then he was left with five little ones.”
“As you say. But only a fool can believe he married for their sake. For his own!—He was fain to share his blanket with someone.”
“But,” put in Yuzka, with great energy, “that we would not let Father do. Never!”
“Silly baby that you are! The land is your father’s own; and so is his will.”
“Yet his children too ought to be considered; they have their rights,” Hanka rejoined.
“Better to leap into the deep than cumber another man’s wagon,” Yagustynka muttered.
Yagna, who had taken no part in this talk, smiled to herself as she carried the cabbages. She was reminded of what had happened at the fair.
As soon as the wagon was full, Simon made for the road.
“May God be with you!” Yagna then cried to her neighbours.
“And with you! We are coming directly. … Yagna, you’ll come to us to pluck off the leaves, won’t you?”
“Tell me when, and I’ll be there.”
“The boys have arranged for music at the Klembas’ next Sunday: do you know?”
“I know, Yuzka, I know.”
“If you meet Antek,” Hanka asked, “pray tell him to hurry. We are waiting.”
“All right.”
She ran fast to catch the cart, for Simon had started, and could be heard swearing at the horse. The cart had stuck in the mire of the soft peaty ground, and was over the axles in mud; so they both had to work and help the horse past the worst sloughs.
Neither spoke to the other. Simon led the horse, taking care not to let the cart upset, for the way was everywhere full of deep holes. Yagna put her shoulder to the cart behind, considering all the while how she should dress when she went for the leaf-plucking to the Borynas.
It was so dark that the horse was all but invisible.
