“She will be mightily puffed up, and strut about like a peacock, will she not?”
“Great offence of God there must be: be sure that neither the smith nor Boryna’s children will suffer her as a stepmother.”
“Alas, what can they do? The land is as much his own as his will is.”
“By law, yes; but in justice, it belongs to them as well.”
“My dear friend, justice is always for him who has the power to get it on his side.”
They continued thus, complaining and inveighing against the world and all its deeds, and went their way. And with them the news spread throughout the hamlet.
The little work there was to do was not urgent; so the people were all at home, the roads being as quaggy as so many sloughs; and the possible marriage was discussed in every cabin. All were eagerly expectant of what would take place. They well knew how headstrong Boryna was, and that he would not be turned away from a course he had chosen for himself, even were his Reverence to dissuade him. They knew, too, the unyielding pride of Antek’s nature.
Even those men who had been drafted to mend the mill-side road where the dam had burst, stopped in their work to talk of so momentous an occurrence.
Various opinions were set forth; and at last, old Klemba, an intelligent and respected farmer, gave the stern judgment:
“The whole village will be the worse for this!”
“Antek will not suffer it,” someone said. “What, another mouth to feed?”
“That would make no difference. But the inheritance! There’s the rub.”
“There will surely have to be a marriage settlement.”
“Yes; Dominikova is shrewd, and will manage that.”
“She is a mother,” Klemba put in, “and even a bitch will defend her own puppies.”
Thus, all the afternoon, the people in the village were talking the matter over. Which was no wonder, the Boryna family being of the very best stock of husbandmen, and Matthias holding land which had from time immemorial belonged to his people, being also endowed with hereditary keenness of wit, as well as riches; so that everybody, willingly or not, had to take him into account.
To none of his children, however, not even to the smith, durst anyone tell the news: the rage it would cause might be so great as to result in a sound thrashing for the teller.
All then was quiet at Boryna’s hut; more so, indeed, than usual. The rain had ceased since morning, and the sky was clear. Antek, along with Kuba and the womenfolk, had been sent to the forest at once after breakfast, in order to get some dry fuel, and see whether they could not rake together some supply of pine-needles.
Boryna himself had stayed at home. Since early morning, he had been curiously ill-humoured and strangely irritable, always on the lookout for someone who should bear the brunt of the impatience and nervousness which had seized upon him. He had beaten Vitek for omitting to spread straw beneath the cows, which consequently had spent the night with their sides deep in dung; had quarrelled with Antek, and scolded Hanka, because her little boy had dirtied himself while playing outside the house; and had even spoken harshly to Yuzka.
When he was at last alone with Yagustynka, engaged overnight to see to the cattle the next day, he no longer knew what to do with himself. Again and again did he call to mind what Ambrose had related of his reception by Dominikova. Nevertheless he felt uneasy, and doubtful of the old fellow, who was able to tell any lie to get a glass of vodka. So he prowled about the hut, looking, now from the window, now from the porch, in the direction of Yagna’s dwelling; and as a beggar waits for alms, so he awaited the coming of the night.
Many and many a time did he long to be off to the Voyt’s and urge the man to start sooner: notwithstanding, he remained at home, restrained by the look in Yagustynka’s eyes, half closed and expressive of sarcastic amusement, which were continually fixed upon him.
“That hag!” he said to himself; “her eyes are gimlets.”
She meanwhile went about the house and passage with her distaff under her armpit, seeing to things here and there. She span till her spindle whirred in the air as it turned; then she wound up the thread, and went out to the geese, the swine, the byre, while Lapa, drowsily and heavily, followed her steps. She spoke not a word to the old man, though she well knew what it was that tormented him so, and even drove him to put up stakes round the walls for the winter sheathing that was to keep the house warm.
Now and then, however, she made halt in front of him; and at last she said: “You seem not to be getting on with your work today.”
“Devil take it! no, I’m not.”
“Oh!” she thought, as she went away; “the place will be a hell … a hell!—But the old man is right to marry—quite right. If he did not, his children would be sure to give him board and lodging—as mine have done for me! … Yes, I made over a good ten acres of the very best land to them. And here I am!” She spat angrily. “I must go out now to work, and lodge in another’s dwelling!”
At last the old man, unable to stand it any longer, tossed his ax away and shouted: “Curse this work!”
“There’s something that troubles your mind.”
“There is, there is!”
“And yet you have no reason in the world to be troubled.”
“Much you know of it!”
Yagustynka came and sat down close by the wall, pulled out a long thread, wound it on the spindle, and said, slowly and not without trepidation:
“Fear nothing. Dominikova has a good head, and Yagna is no fool.”
“What have you said!” he cried out delighted, and sat down by her side.
“I have eyes to see.”
There was a
