“Whence? From far away; where, no man can tell.” She stooped to take up another cabbage, and as she cut off the old leaves, said in a louder tone, so that all might hear her: “Every third winter he comes to Lipka, and takes up his quarters with Boryna. Roch is the name he chooses to go by; but it certainly is not his. He is a dziad, and yet no dziad: what he really is, who knows? But a good and religious man, that he is no doubt; he only needs a halo round his head to be just like a saint in a picture. Round his neck he wears a rosary that has touched the sepulchre of our Lord. He gives the children holy images, and also—to some of them—pictures of the kings who once ruled our country. He has prayer-books besides, and other books that tell about everything in the world. … He was reading some of them to our Valek. We listened too, my husband and I: but the things were hard to make out, and I have forgotten them. … And so pious! Half the day, he is on his knees; and then again before the crucifix, or out in the fields; he never goes to church but for mass. His Reverence asked Roch to stay with him, but his answer was:
“ ‘My place is with the common people, and not in chambers.’
“Everybody knows he is not a peasant, though he speaks as we do. And how learned he is! He can jabber in German with a Jew; and at the manor of Djazgova, where dwells a young lady who was in a warm country for her health, he spoke with her in an outlandish tongue!—Nor will he take aught from any man, save a drop of milk or a morsel of bread: and he teaches our children besides. They say. …”—Here she was interrupted by a great burst of laughter that made the company hold their sides.
The cause was Kuba, who had been bringing cabbages in a sheet and, receiving a push, had fallen sprawling on the floor, all the cabbages rolling about the room. He tried to rise, but as soon as he began to scramble up, another push sent him down again.
Yuzka took his part, and came to help him up at last; but he was exasperated, and uttered fearful language.
But the interest turned to other matters presently. All spoke at once, and this—though no one spoke loudly—made a hubbub as in a hive before swarming-time; and there were peals of merriment, and banter; and eyes flashed, and tongues waxed bold, and the work went on swifter and swifter. The knives rattled upon the stalks, the cabbages fell into the sheet like a running fire of cannonballs: every moment the heap rose higher. Antek was using the cabbage-cutter over a big barrel rolled close to the fire—undressed, save for his shirt and the striped drawers that he wore, flushed, dishevelled, streaming with perspiration, and yet so handsome that Yagna feasted her eyes on his picturesque form. From time to time he paused to take breath; and then he would look at her, and she would cast her eyes down and blush. This, however, was noticed by none save Yagustynka, who pretended to have seen nothing, whilst taking thought how best to spread the news about the village.
“They say Martianna is confined,” Klembova said.
“That’s no news, but a yearly thing.”
“The woman’s an aurochs! But for the babies she has, she would certainly get a stroke!” Yagustynka grumbled, and would have gone on, had not the others rebuked her for talking of such things in the presence of girls.
“Fear not for them,” she replied. “They know a good deal more than that already. In these days, you cannot speak to a goose-boy about the stork, but he will laugh in your face. No, no, it was otherwise of old times.”
“Well, you at any rate knew everything when you were a cowherd,” said Vavrek’s old wife, very gravely. “Have I forgotten all you did when tending cattle?”
“If you have not, then keep it to yourself!” cried Yagustynka, with wrathful asperity.
“I was then already married. Let me see: with Matthew? No, with Michael; Vavrek was my third,” she muttered, not quite clear as to the date of the old hag’s youthful frailties.
Here Nastusia, Matthew’s sister, burst breathless into the room, crying out: “What, are you all sitting here, and know ye not what has befallen?”
Questioned on every side, and with every eye fixed on her: “Why,” she said, “the miller’s horses have been stolen!”
“When?”
“But two minutes ago. Our Matthew has just heard of it from Yankel.”
“Yankel always knows of this sort of things from the first—and perhaps a little before, too.”
“They were taken out of the stables. The farm-servant went to the mill to get provender; and when he came back, the stable was bare, both of horses and harness! And the dog was found poisoned in its kennel.”
“Winter is coming on, and strange things happen in winter.”
“Because there is really no punishment at all for thieves. Why, what do they get? A warm prison cell, food in plenty, and so much to learn from their fellow-thieves that, when they get out, they know twice as much, and are twice as bad.”
“Oh, but if anyone should steal my horses, and I got hold of him, I would kill him on the spot like a mad dog!” cried one of the farmhands.
“Only fools look for justice in this world. Anyone who can, may right his own wrongs.”
“Should such a one be caught by a great number of men and killed, these surely could not be punished: impossible to punish all of them!”
“I remember,” said Vavrek’s wife, “something in that way, done here amongst us. … I had then my second husband—no, let me see; Matthew was yet living then. …”
Her reminiscences were cut short by the entrance of Boryna.
“Oh,” he cried in a merry
