“What of that? Think you he’s made of sugar, and would melt if he came near horse-dung? It’s a priest’s business to go wherever they call him to a sick man.”
“O Lord! how could I dare?”
“You are a silly sheep!” She shrugged her shoulders and left him.
“The woman knows not what she says,” he muttered, greatly scandalized.
And now he was quite alone, all the others seeming to have forgotten him.
From time to time, Vitek looked in to give the horses provender and water. He gave him water, too; but presently went back to the wedding. At Dominikova’s they were preparing to bring the bride home.
Often Yuzka would rush in noisily, bring him a bit of cake, prattle of many things, fill the stable with racket, and run out in a hurry.
Yes, and she had something to run for. Hard by, they were amusing themselves fairly well: the band, the shouting, the singing were to be heard through the walls.
Kuba lay motionless. A strange feeling of desolation had come over him. He merely listened, and noted how well they enjoyed themselves, and talked to Lapa, his never absent companion. They two ate Yuzka’s cake together. Then the sick man called to the horses and talked to them also. They neighed with pleasure, turning their heads round from their mangers: the filly even managed to slip her halter and come to his pallet, where she caressed him, putting her warm moist nose close to his face.
“Poor dear, you have lost flesh, you have!” He patted her tenderly, and kissed her dilated nostrils. “As soon as I am well, you will fill out, even if I have to give you nothing but oats!”
Then he lapsed once more into silence, and stared at the blackened knots in the timber walls, oozing with dark drops of resin—as it were, tears of congealed blood.
Dumb, and with feeble sunbeams, the day peeped in through the chinks, and a flood of shimmering motes appeared at the open doorway.
Hour after hour dragged by at a snail’s pace, like lame, blind, and dumb beggars, crawling painfully through toilsome beds of deep sand.
Only, now and again, a few chirruping sparrows, swooping down on the stable in a noisy band, would boldly make for the mangers.
“Ah, the clever little ones!” Kuba said. “And God gives those tiny birds understanding, to find out where they can get food.—Be still, you, Lapa! let the poor things feed and keep up their strength: winter will presently be with them too.”
The pigs now began to squeal and poke their muddied noses in at the door.
“Drive them off, Lapa! The beggars, they never have enough!”
After these, a lot of fowls came cackling to the threshold, and one large red cock was so bold as to pass over it to the baskets of provender. The others followed, but had no time to eat their fill, when a flock of gaggling geese drew near, hissing on the threshold, flashing their red bills, stretching and swaying to and fro their straight white necks.
“Out with them, Lapa—out with them! All those fowls—as bad as women for quarrelling!”
Suddenly there was an uproar—screaming, flapping, feathers flying as out of a torn bed. Lapa had entered well into the spirit of the chase, and came back breathless and its tongue lolling out, but uttering cries of delight.
“Be quiet now!”
From the house there came a torrent of angry words, a sound of running, and the dragging of furniture from one room to another.
“Ah, they are making ready for the bride’s coming!”
Someone, though rarely, passed along the road: this time it was a lumbering creaking cart, and Kuba, listening, tried to guess whose it was.
“That’s Klemba’s wagon. One horse—ladder framework; going to the woods for litter, I dare say. Yes, the axle rubs against the nave, so it creaks.”
Along the road there was a continual sound of footsteps, talk, and noises scarcely to be heard at all; but he caught them, and made them out on the spot.
“That’s old Pietras, going to the tavern.—Here comes Valentova, scolding: someone’s geese have gone on to her field, belike.—Oh, she’s a vixen, not a woman! … This, I think, is Kozlova, shouting as she runs—yes, it is! … Here is Peter, son of Raphael … when he talks, his mouth always seems full.—This is the priest’s mare, going for water. … Now she stops … cartwheels blocked by stones.—One of these days she will break a leg.”
And so he went on, guessing at every sound he heard, going about all the village with quick thoughts and lively mental vision, and entering so into the whole life and troubles and worries of the place, he scarce noted that the day was declining, the wall darker in hue, the doorway dimmer, and the stable quite obscure.
Ambrose arrived only when evening had set in. He was as yet only partly sober; he staggered a little, and spoke so quickly it was hard to follow him.
“Hurt your leg, eh?”
“Look and see what it is.”
Silently he undid the bloodstained rags; they had dried and stuck so fast to the leg that Kuba could not help shrieking as he pulled them off.
“A girl in childbed would not cry as you do!” Ambrose muttered scornfully.
“But it hurts so! How you tear me! O God!”
And Kuba all but howled.
“Oho! you have caught it finely! Was it a dog that tore your leg like that?” Ambrose cried, wondering. The leg was horribly mangled, and swollen with matter to the size of a water-can.
“It was—but pray tell no one—the forest-keeper that shot me. …”
“Yes I see.—And hit you from afar, eh? Well, well! your leg will never again be of any use. I feel the splinters of bone rattling about. … Ah, why did you not call me in at once?”
“I feared … lest they should know I had been after a hare. … But I was out of the forest, when the keeper shot at me.”
“Once, in the tavern, he complained; someone was doing mischief, he said.”
“The foul carrion! Is
