The sergeant wiped his moustache. 'All the same Sukiennik and Rogacz have been after the horses.'

Josel made a wry face. 'How could they, when they were in my house that night.'

'In your house?'

'To be sure,' Josel answered carelessly. 'Gryb and Orzchewski both saw them...dead drunk they were. What are they to do? they can't get regular work, and what a man perchance earns in a day he likes to drink away at night.'

'They might have got out.'

'They might, but the stable was locked and the key with the foreman.' The conversation passed on to other topics.

'Look after Sukiennik and Rogacz,' the sergeant said, on his departure, when he and his mare had been sufficiently rested.

'Am I their father, or are they in my service?'

'They might rob you.'

'Oh! I'll see to that all right!'

The sergeant returned home, half asleep, half awake. Sukiennik and Rogacz kept passing before his vision; they had their hands full of locks and were surrounded by horses. Josel's smiling face was hovering over them and now and then old Gryb and his son Jasiek jeered from behind a cloud. He sat up...startled. But there was nothing near him except the white hen under the box and the trees by the wayside. He spat.

'Bah...dreams!' he muttered.

The peasants were relieved when day after day passed and there was no sign of building in the camp. They jumped to the conclusion that either the Germans had not been able to come to terms with Hirschgold, or had quarrelled with the Hamers, or that they had lost heart because of the horse-thieves.

'Why, they haven't so much as measured out the ground!' cried Orzchewski, and washed down the remark with a huge glass of beer.

He had, however, not yet wiped his mouth when a cart pulled up at the inn and the surveyor alighted. They knew him directly by his moustaches, which were trimmed to the resemblance of eels, and by his sloeberry-coloured nose.

While Gryb and Orzchewski sorrowfully conducted each other home, they comforted themselves with the thought that the surveyor might only be spending the night in the village on his way elsewhere.

'God grant it, I want to see that young scamp of a Jasiek settled and married, and if I let him out of my sight he goes to the dogs directly.'

'My Paulinka is a match for him; she'll look after him!'

'You don't know what you're talking of, neighbour; it will take the three of us to look after him. Lately he hasn't spent a single night at home, and sometimes I don't see him for a week.'

The surveyor started work in the manor-fields the next morning, and for several days was seen walking about with a crowd of Germans in attendance on all his orders, carrying his poles, putting up a portable table, providing him with an umbrella or a place in the shade where he could take long pulls out of his wicker flask. The peasants stood silently watching them.

'I could measure as well as that if I drank as much as he does,' said one of them.

'Ah, but that is why he is a surveyor,' said another, 'because he has a strong head.'

No sooner had he departed than the Germans drove off and returned with heavy cartloads of building materials. One fine day a small troop of masons and carpenters appeared with their implements. A party of colonists went out to meet them, followed by a large crowd of women and children. They met at an appointed place, where refreshments and a barrel of beer had been provided.

Old Hamer, in a faded drill-jacket, Fritz in a black coat, and Wilhelm, adorned with a scarlet waistcoat with red flowers, were busy welcoming the guests; Wilhelm had charge of the barrel of beer.

Maciek had noticed these preparations and gave the alarm, and all the inhabitants of the gospodarstwo watched the proceedings with the keenest interest. They saw old Hamer taking up a stake and driving it into the ground with a wooden hammer.

'Hoch!...Hoch!' shouted the workmen. Hamer bowed, took a second stake and carried it northwards, accompanied by the crowd. The women and children were headed by the schoolmaster in his little cart. He now lifted his cap high into the air, and at this sign the whole crowd started to sing Luther's hymn:

'A stronghold sure our God remains, A shield and hope unfailing, In need His help our freedom gains, O'er all our fear prevailing; Our old malignant foe Would fain work us woe; With craft and great might He doth against us fight, On earth is no one like him.'

At the first note Slimak had taken off his cap, his wife crossed herself, and Maciek stepped aside and knelt down. Stasiek, with wide-open eyes, began to tremble, and Jendrek started running down the hill, waded through the river, and headed at full speed for the camp.

While Hamer was driving the stake into the ground the procession, slowly coming up to him, continued:

'Our utmost might is all in vain, We straight had been rejected, But for us fights the perfect Man By God Himself elected; Ye ask: Who may He be? The Lord Christ is He! The God, by hosts ador'd, Our great Incarnate Lord, Who all His foes will vanquish.'

Never had the peasants heard a hymn like this, so solemn, yet so triumphant, they who only knew their plainsongs, which rose to heaven like a great groan: 'Lord, we lay our guilt before Thine eyes.'

A cry from Stasiek roused the parents from their reverie.

'Mother...mother...they are singing!' stammered the child; his lips became blue, and he fell to the ground.

The frightened parents lifted him up and carried him into the cottage, where he recovered when the singing ceased. They had always known that the singing at church affected him very deeply, but they had never seen him like this.

Jendrek, meanwhile, although wet through and cold, stood riveted by the spectacle he was watching. Why were these people walking and singing like this? Surely, they wanted to drive away some evil power from their future dwellings, and, not having incense or blessed chalk, they were using stakes. Well, after all, a club of oakwood was better against the devil than chalk! Or were they themselves bewitching the place?

He was struck with the difference in the behaviour of the Germans. The old men, women, and children were walking along solemnly, singing, but the young fellows and the workmen stood in groups, smoking and laughing. Once they made a noisy interruption when Wilhelm Hamer, who presided at the beer-barrel, lifted up his glass. The young men shouted 'Hoch! hurrah!' Old Hamer looked round disapprovingly, and the schoolmaster shook his fist.

As the procession drew near, Jendrek heard a woman's voice above the children's shrill trebles, Hamer's guttural bass and the old people's nasal tones; it was clear, full, and inexpressively moving. It made his heart tremble within him. The sounds shaped themselves in his imagination to the picture of a beautiful weeping-willow.

He knew that it must be the voice of the schoolmaster's daughter, whom he had seen before. At that time the dog had engaged his attention more than the girl, but now her voice took entire possession of the boy's soul, to the exclusion of everything else he heard or saw. He, too, wanted to sing, and began under his breath:

'The Lord is ris'n to-day. The Lord Jesus Christ...'

It seemed to fit in with the melody which the Germans were just singing.

He was roused from this state by the young men's voices; he caught sight of the schoolmaster's daughter and unconsciously moved towards her. But the young man soon brought him to his senses. They pulled his hat over his ears, pushed him into the middle of the crowd, and, wet, smeared with sand, looking more like a scarecrow than a boy, he was passed from hand to hand like a ball. Suddenly his eyes met those of the girl, and a wild spirit awoke in him. He kicked one young man over with his bare legs, tore the shirt off another one's back, butted old Hamer in the stomach, and then stood with clenched fists in the space he had cleared, looking where he might break through. Most of the men laughed at him, but some were for handling him roughly. Fortunately old Hamer recognized him.

'Why, youngster, what are you up to?'

'They're bullying me,' he said, while the tears were rising in his throat.

'Don't you come from that cottage? What are you doing here?'

'I wanted to listen to your singing, but those scoundrels...'

He stopped suddenly when he saw the grey eyes of the schoolmaster's daughter fixed on him. She offered him the glass of beer she had been drinking from.

'You are wet through,' she said. 'Take a good pull.'

'I don't want it,' said the boy, and felt ashamed directly; it did not seem well-mannered to speak rudely to one so beautiful.

'I might get tipsy...' he cried, but drained the glass, looked at her again and blushed so deeply that the girl smiled sadly as she looked at him.

At that moment violins and cellos struck up; Wilhelm Hamer came heavily bounding along and took the girl away to dance. Her yearning eyes once more rested on Jendrek's face.

He felt that something strange was happening to him. A terrible anger and sorrow gripped him by the throat; he wanted to throw himself on Wilhelm and tear his flowered waistcoat off his back; at the same time he wanted to cry aloud. Suddenly he turned to go.

'Are you going?' asked the schoolmaster. 'Give my compliments to your father.'

'And you can tell him from me that I have rented the field by the river from Midsummer Day,' Hamer called after him.

'But dad rented it from the squire!' Hamer laughed...'The squire! We are the squires now, and the field is mine.'

As Jendrek neared the road he came upon a peasant, hidden behind a bush, who had been watching. It was Gryb.

'Be praised,' said Jendrek.

'Who's praised at your place?' growled the old man; 'it must be the devil and not the Lord, since you are taking up with the Germans.'

'Who's taking up with them?'

The peasant's eyes flashed and his dry skin quivered.

'You're taking up with them!' he cried, shaking his fist, 'or perhaps I didn't see you running off to them like a dog through the water to cadge for a glass of beer, nor your father and mother on the hill praying with the Swabians...praying to the devil! God has punished them already, for something has fallen on Stasiek. There will be more to come...you wait!'

Jendrek slowly walked home, puzzled and sad. When he returned to the cottage, he found Stasiek lying ill. He told his father what Gryb had said.

'He's an old fool,' replied Slimak. 'What! should a man stand like a beast when others are praying, even if they are Swabians?'

'But their praying has bewitched Stasiek.' Slimak looked gloomy.

'Why should it have been their prayers? Stasiek is easily upset. Let a woman but sing in the fields and he'll begin to shake all over.'

The matter ended there. Jendrek tried to busy himself about the cottage, but he felt stifled indoors. He roamed about in the ravines, stood on the hill and watched the Germans, or forced his way through brambles. Wherever he went, the image of the schoolmaster's daughter went with him; he saw her tanned face, grey eyes, and graceful movements. Sometimes her powerful, entrancing voice seemed to come to him as from a depth.

'Has she cast a spell over me?' he whispered, frightened, and continued to think of her.



CHAPTER VIII

Slimak had never been so well off as he was that spring; money was flowing into his chest while he took his leisure and looked around him at all the new things.

Formerly, after a heavy day, he had thrown himself on his bed and had scarcely fallen asleep like a stone when his wife would pull the cover off him, crying: 'Get up, Josef; it is morning.'

'How can it be morning?' he thought; 'I've only just lain down.' All the same he had to gather his bones together, when each one individually held to the bed; willy-nilly he had to get up. So hard was the resolution sometimes, that he even thought with pleasure of the eternal sleep, when his wife would no longer stand over him and urge: 'Get up, wash...you'll be late; they'll take it off your wages.'

Then he would dress, and drag the equally tired horses out of the stable, so overcome with sleep that he would pause on the threshold and mutter, 'I shall stay at home!' But he was afraid of his wife, and he also knew very well that he could not make both ends meet at the gospodarstwo without his wages.

Now all that was different. He slept as long as he liked. Sometimes his wife pulled him by the leg from habit and said: 'Get up, Josef.' But, opening only one eye, lest sleep should run away from him, he would growl: 'Leave me alone!' and sleep, maybe, till the church bell rang for Mass at seven o'clock.

There was really nothing to get up for now. Maciek had long ago finished the spring-work in the fields; the Jews had left the village, carrying their business farther afield, following the new railway line now under construction, and no one sent for him from the manor—for there was no manor. He smoked, strolled about for days together in the yard, or looked at the abundantly sprouting corn. His favourite pastime, however, was to watch the Germans, whose habitations were shooting up like mushrooms.

By the end of May Hamer and two or three others had finished building, and their gospodarstwos were pleasant to look at. They resembled each other like drops of water; each one stood in the middle of its fields, the garden was by the roadside, shut off by a wooden fence; the house, roughcast, consisted of four large rooms, and behind it was a good- sized square of farm-buildings.

All the buildings were larger and loftier than those of the Polish peasants, and were clean and comfortable, although they looked stiff and severe; for while the roofs of the Polish gospodarstwos overhung on the four sides, those of the Germans did so only at the front and back.

But they had large windows, divided into six squares, and the doors were made by the carpenter. Jendrek, who daily ran over to the settlement reported that there were wooden floors, and that the kitchen was a separate room with an iron-plated stove.

Slimak sometimes dreamt that he would build a place like that, only with a different roof. Then he would jump up, because he felt he ought to go somewhere and do work, for he was bored and ashamed of idling; at times he would long for the manor-fields over which he had guided the plough, where the settlement now stood. Then a great fear would seize him that he would be powerless when the Germans, who had felled forests, shattered rocks and driven away the squire, should start on him in earnest.

But he always reassured himself. He had been neighbours with them now for two months and they had done him no harm. They worked quietly, minded their cattle so that they should not stray, and even their children were not troublesome, but went to school at Hamer's house, where the infirm schoolmaster kept them in order.

'They are respectable people,' he satisfied himself. 'I'm better off with them than with the squire.'

He was, for they bought from him and paid well. In less than a month he had taken a hundred roubles from them; at the manor this had meant a whole year's toil.

'Do you think, Josef, that the Germans will always go on buying from you?' his wife asked from time to time. 'They have their own gospodarstwos now, and better ones than yours; you will see, it will last through the summer at the best, and after that they won't buy a stick from us.'

'We shall see,' said the peasant.

He was secretly counting on the advantages which he would reap from the building of the new line; had not the engineer promised him this? He even laid in provisions with this object, having to go farther afield, for the peasants in the village would no longer sell him anything.

But he soon realized that prices had risen; the Germans had long ago scoured the neighbourhood and bought without bargaining.

Once he met Josel who, instead of smiling maliciously at him as usual, asked him to enter into a business transaction with him.

'What sort of business?' asked Slimak.

'Build a cottage on your land for my brother-in-law.'

'What for?'

'He wants to set up a shop and deal with the railway people, else the Germans will take away all the business from under our noses.'

Slimak reflected.

'No, I don't want a Jew on my land,' he said. 'I shouldn't be the first to be eaten up by you longcurls.'

'You don't want to live with a Jew, but you are not afraid to pray with the Germans,' said the Jew, pale with anger.

Slimak was made to feel the profound unpopularity he had incurred in the village. At church on Sundays hardly anyone answered him 'In Eternity', and when he passed a group he would hear loud talk of heresy, and God's judgment which would follow.

He therefore ordered a Mass one Sunday, on the advice of his wife, and went to confession with her and Jendrek; but this did not improve matters, for the villagers discussed over their beer in the evening what deadly sin he might have been guilty of to go to confession and pray so fervently.

Even old Sobieska rarely appeared and came furtively to ask for her vodka. Once, when her tongue was loosened, she said: 'They say you have turned into a Lutheran...It's true,' she added, 'there is only one merciful God, still, the Germans are a filthy thing!'



The Germans now began mysteriously to disappear with their carts at dawn of day, carrying large quantities of provisions with them. Slimak investigated this matter, getting up early himself. Soon he saw a tiny yellow speck in the direction which they had taken. It grew larger towards evening, and he became convinced that it was the approaching railway line.

'The scoundrels!' he said to his wife, 'they've been keeping this secret so as to steal a march on me, but I shall drive over.'

'Well, look sharp!' cried his wife; 'those railway people were to have been our best customers.'

He promised to go next day, but overslept himself, and Slimakowa barely succeeded in driving him off the day after.

He gathered some information on the way from the peasants. Many of them had volunteered for work, but only a few had been taken on, and those had soon returned, tired out.

'It's dogs' work, not men's,' they told him; 'yet it might be worth your while taking the horses, for carters earn four roubles a day.'

'Four roubles a day!' thought Slimak, laying on to the horses.

He drove on smartly and soon came alongside the great mounds of clay on which strangers were at work, huge, strong, bearded men, wheeling large barrows. Slimak could not wonder enough at their strength and industry.

'Certainly, none of our men would do this,' he thought.

No one paid any attention to him or spoke to him. At last two Jews caught sight of him and one asked: 'What do you want, gospodarz?' The embarrassed peasant twisted his cap in his hands.

'I came to ask whether the gentlemen wanted any barley or lard?'

'My dear man,' said the Jew, 'we have our regular contractors; a nice mess we should be in, if we had to buy every sack of barley from the peasants!'

'They must be great people,' thought Slimak, 'they won't buy from the peasants, they must be buying from the gentry.'

So he bowed to the ground before the Jew, who was on the point of walking away.

'I entreat the favour of being allowed to cart for the gentlemen.'

This humility pleased the Jew.

'Go over there, my dear fellow,' he said, 'perhaps they will take you on.'

Slimak bowed again and made his way through the crowd with difficulty. Among other carts he saw those of the settlers.

Fritz Hamer came forward to meet him; he seemed to be in a position of some authority there.

'What do you want?' he asked.

'I want a job too.' The settler frowned.

'You won't get one here!'

Seeing that Slimak was looking round, he went to the inspector and spoke to him.

'No work for carters,' the latter at once shouted, 'no work! As it is we have too many, you are only getting in people's way. Be off!' The brutal way in which this order was given so bewildered the peasant that, in turning, he almost upset his cart; he drove off at full speed, feeling as if he had offended some great power which had worked enough destruction already and was now turning hills into valleys and valleys into hills.

But gradually he reflected more calmly. People from the village had been taken on, and he remembered seeing peasants' carts at the embankment. Why had he been driven away?

It was quite clear that some one wished to shut him out.

'Curse the Judases, they're outdoing the Jews,' he muttered and felt a horror of the Germans for the first time.

He told his wife briefly that there was no work, and betook himself to the settlement. Old Hamer seemed to be in the middle of a heated argument with Hirschgold and two other men. When he caught sight of the peasant he took them into the barn.

'Sly dog,' murmured Slimak; 'he knows what I've come for. I'll tell him straight to his face when he comes out.'

But at every step his courage failed him more and more. He hesitated between his desire to turn back and his unwillingness to lose a job; he hung about the fences, and looked at the women digging in their gardens. A murmur like the hum of a beehive caught his ears: one of the windows in Hamer's house was open and he looked into a schoolroom.

One of the children was reciting something in a clamorous voice, the others were talking under their breath. The schoolmaster was standing in the middle of the room, calling out 'Silence!' from time to time.

When he saw Slimak, he beckoned to his daughter to take his place, and the hubbub of voices increased. Slimak watched her trying to cope with the children.

The schoolmaster came up behind him, walking heavily.

'Did you come to see how we teach our children?' he asked, smilingly.

'Nothing of the kind,' said Slimak; 'I've come to tell Hamer that he is a scoundrel.' He related his experience.

'What have I done?' he asked. 'Soon I may not be able to earn anything; is one to starve because it pleases them?'

'The truth is,' said the schoolmaster, 'that you are a thorn in their flesh.'

'Why?'

'Your land is right in the middle of Hamer's fields and that spoils his farm, but that is not the reason as much as your hill; he wants it for a windmill. They have nothing but level ground; it's the best land in the settlement, but no good for a windmill; if they don't put it up, one of the other settlers will.'

'And why are they so crazy after a windmill?'

'Well, it matters a great deal to them; if Wilhelm had a windmill he could marry Miller Knap's daughter from Wolka and get a thousand and twenty roubles with her; the Hamers may go bankrupt without that money. That's why you stick in their throats. If you sold them your land they would pay you well.'

'And I won't sell! I will neither help them to stay here nor do myself harm for their benefit; when a man leaves the land of his fathers...'

'There will be trouble,' the schoolmaster said earnestly.

'Then let there be; I won't die because it pleases them.'

Slimak returned home without any further wish to see Hamer; he knew there could be no understanding between them.



Maciek had discovered at dawn one morning that a crowd had reached the river-bank by the ravines, and Slimak, hurrying thither, found some gospodarze from the village among the men.

'What is happening?'

'They are going to throw up a dam and build a bridge across the Bialka,' Wisniewski replied.

'And what are you doing here?'

'We have been taken on to cart sand.'

Slimak discovered the Hamers in the crowd.

'Nice neighbours you are!' he said bitterly, going up to them. 'Here you are sending all the way to the village for carts, and you won't let me have a job.'

'We will send for you when you are living in the village,' Fritz answered, and turned his back.

An elderly gentleman was standing near them, and Slimak turned to him and took off his cap.

'Is this justice, sir?' he said. 'The Germans are getting rich on the railway, and I don't earn a kopek. Last year two gentlemen came and promised that I should make a lot of money. Well, your honours are building the railway now, but I've never yet taken my horses out of the stable. A German with thirty acres of ground is having a good job, and I have only ten acres and a wife and children to keep, as well as the farmhand and the girl. We shall have to starve, and it's all because the Germans have a grudge against me.'

He had spoken rapidly and breathlessly, and after a moment of surprise the old man turned to Fritz Hamer.

'Why did you not take him on?'

Fritz looked insolently at him.

'Is it you who has to answer for the cartage or I? Will you pay my fines when the men fail me? I take on those whom I can trust.'

The old man bit his lip, but did not reply.

'I can't help you, my brother,' he said; 'you shall drive me as often as I come to this neighbourhood. It isn't much, but every little helps. Where do you live?'

Slimak pointed to his cottage; he was longing to speak further, but the old man turned to give some orders, and the peasant could only embrace his knees.

Old Hamer waylaid him on the way back.

'Do you see now how badly you have done for yourself? You will do even worse, for Fritz is furious.'

'God is greater than Fritz.'

'Will you take seventy-five roubles an acre and settle on the other side of the Bug? You will have twice as much land.'

'I would not go to the other side of the Bug for double the money; you go, if you like!'

When the angry men were looking back at each other, the one was standing with a stubborn face, his pipe between his clenched teeth, the other with folded arms, smiling sadly. Each was afraid of the other.

The embankment was growing slowly from west to east. Before long thousands of carriages would roll along its line with the speed of birds, to enrich the powerful, shatter the poor, spread new customs and manners, multiply crime...all this is called 'the advancement of civilization'. But Slimak knew nothing of civilization and its boons, and therefore looked upon this outcome of it as ominous. The encroaching line seemed to him like the tongue of some vast reptile, and the mounds of earth to forebode four graves, his own and those of his wife and children.

Maciek also had been watching its progress, which he considered an entire revolution of the laws of nature.

'It's a monstrous thing', he said, 'to heap up so much sand on the fields near the river, and narrow the bed; when the Bialka swells, it will overflow.'

Slimak saw that the ends of the embankment were touching the river, but as they had been strengthened by brick walls he took no alarm. Nevertheless, it struck him that the Hamers were hurriedly throwing up dams on their fields in the lower places.

'Quick folk!' he thought, and contemplated doing the same, and strengthening the dams with hurdles, as soon as he had cut the hay. It occurred to him that he might do it now when he had plenty of time, but, as usual, it remained a good intention.

It was the beginning of July, when the hay had been cut and people were gradually preparing for the harvest. Slimak had stacked his hay in the backyard, but the Germans were still driving in stakes and throwing up dams.

The summer of that year was remarkable for great heat; the bees swarmed, the corn was ripening fast, the Bialka was shallower than usual, and three of the workmen died of sunstroke. Experienced farmers feared either prolonged rain during the harvest or hail before long. One day the storm came.

The morning had been hot and sultry, the birds did not sing, the pigs refused to eat and hid in the shade behind the farmbuildings; the wind rose and fell, it blew now hot and dry, now cool and damp. By about ten o'clock a large part of the sky was lined with heavy clouds, shading from ashen-grey into iron-colour and perfect black; at times this sooty mass, seeking an outlet upon the earth, burst asunder, revealing a sinister light through the crevices. Then again the clouds lowered themselves and drowned the tops of the forest trees in mists. But a hot wind soon drove them upwards again and tore strips off them, so that they hung ragged over the fields.

Suddenly a fiery cloud appeared behind the village church; it seemed to be flying at full speed along the railway embankment, driven by the west wind; at the same time the north wind sprang up and buffeted it from the side; dust flew up from the highroads and sandhills, and the clouds began to growl.

When they heard the sound, the workmen left their tools and barrows, and filed away in two long detachments, one to the manor-house, the other to their huts. The peasants and settlers turned the sand out of their carts with all speed and galloped home. The cattle were driven in from the fields, the women left their gardens; every place became deserted.

Thunderclap after thunderclap announced ever-fresh legions pressing into the sky and obscuring the sun. It seemed as if the earth were cowering in their presence, as a partridge cowers before the hovering hawk. The blackthorn and juniper bushes called to caution with a low, swishing noise; the troubled dust hid in the corn, where the young ears whispered to each other; the distant forests murmured.

High above, in the overcharged clouds, an evil force, with strong desire to emulate the Creator, was labouring. It took the limp element and formed an island, but before it had time to say, 'It is good', the wind had blown the island away. It raised a gigantic mountain, but before the summit had crowned it, the base had been blown from underneath. Now it created a lion, now a huge bird, but soon only torn wings and a shapeless torso dissolved into darkness. Then, seeing that the works fashioned by the eternal hands endured, and that its own phantom creations could not resist even the feeblest wind, the evil spirit was seized with a great anger and determined to destroy the earth.

It sent a flash into the river, then thundered, 'Strike those fields with hail! drench the hill!' And the obedient clouds flung themselves down. The wind whistled the reveille, the rain beat the drum; like hounds released from the leash the clouds bounded forward...downward, following the direction to which the flashes of lightning pointed. The evil spirit had put out the sun.

After an hour's downpour the exhausted storm calmed down, and now the roar of the Bialka could be distinctly heard. It had broken down the banks, flooded the highroad and fields with dirty water and formed a lake beyond the sandhills of the railway embankment.

Soon, however, the storm had gathered fresh strength, the darkness increased, lightning seemed to flash from all parts of the horizon; perpendicular torrents of rain drowned the earth in sheets of mist. The inmates of Slimak's cottage had gathered in the front room; Maciek sat yawning on a corner of the bench, Magda, beside him, nursed the baby, singing to it in a low voice; Slimakowa was vexed that the storm was putting the fire out; Slimak was looking out of the window, thinking of his crops. Jendrek was the only cheerful one; he ran out from time to time, wetting himself to the skin, and tried to induce his brother or Magda to join him in these excursions.

'Come, Stasiek,' he cried, pulling him by the hand, 'it's such a warm rain, it will wash you and cheer you up.'

'Leave him alone,' said his father; 'he is peevish.'

'And don't run out yourself,' added his mother, 'you are flooding the whole room.... The Word was made Flesh,' she added under her breath, as a terrific clap of thunder shook the house. Magda crossed herself; Jendrek laughed and cried, 'What a din! there's another.... The Lord Jesus is enjoying Himself, firing off....'

'Be quiet, you silly,' called his mother; 'it may strike you!'

'Let it strike!' laughed the boy boldly. 'They'll take me into the army and shoot at me, but I don't mind!' He ran out again.

'The rascal! he isn't afraid of anything,' Slimakowa said to her husband with pride in her voice. Slimak shrugged his shoulders.

'He's a true peasant.'

Yet among that group of people with iron nerves there was one who felt all the terror of this upheaval of the elements. How was it that Stasiek, a peasant child, was so sensitive?

Like the birds he had felt the coming storm, had roamed about restlessly and watched the clouds, fancying that they were taking council together, and he guessed that their intentions were evil. He felt the pain of the beaten-down grass and shivered at the thought of the earth being chilled under sheets of water. The electricity in the air made his flesh tingle, the lightning dazzled him, and each clap of thunder was like a blow on his head. It was not that he was afraid of the storm, but he suffered under it, and his suffering spirit pondered, 'Why and whence do such terrible things come?'

He wandered from the room to the alcove, from the alcove to the room, as if he had lost his way, gazed absently out of the window and lay down on the bench, feeling all the more miserable because no one took any notice of him.

He wanted to talk to Maciek, but he was asleep; he tried Magda and found her absorbed in the baby; he was afraid of Jendrek's dragging him out of doors if he spoke to him. At last he clung to his mother, but she was cross because of the fire and pushed him away.

'A likely thing I should amuse you, when the dinner is being spoilt!' He roamed about again, then leant against his father's knee.

'Daddy,' he said in a low voice, 'why is the storm so bad?'

'Who knows?'

'Is God doing it?'

'It must be God.'

Stasiek began to feel a little more cheerful, but his father happened to shift his position, and the child thought he had been pushed away again. He crept under the bench where Burek lay, and although the dog was soaking wet, he pressed close to him and laid his head on the faithful creature.

Unluckily his mother caught sight of him.

'Whatever's the matter with the boy?' she cried. 'Just you come away from there, or the lightning will strike you! Out into the passage, Burek!'

She looked for a piece of wood, and the dog crept out with his tail between his legs. Stasiek was left again to his restlessness, alone in a roomful of people. Even his mother was now struck by his miserable face and gave him a piece of bread to comfort him. He bit off a mouthful, but could not swallow it and burst into tears.

'Good gracious, Stasiek, what's the matter? Are you frightened?'

'No.'

'Then why are you so queer?'

'It hurts me here,' he said, pointing to his chest.

Slimak, who was depressed himself, thinking of his harvest, drew him to his knee, saying: 'Don't worry! God may destroy our crop, but we won't starve all the same. He is the smallest, and yet he has more sense than the others,' he said, turning to his wife; 'he's worrying about the gospodarstwo.'

Gradually, as the storm abated, the roar of the river struck them afresh. Slimak quickly drew on his boots.

'Where are you going?' asked his wife.

'Something's wrong outside.'

He went and returned breathlessly.

'I say! It's just as I thought.'

'Is it the corn?'

'No, that hasn't suffered much, but the dam is broken.'

'Jesus! Jesus!'

'The water is up to our yard. Those scoundrel Swabians have dammed up their fields, and that has taken some more off the hill.'

'Curse them!'

'Have you looked into the stable?' asked Maciek.

'Is it likely I shouldn't? There's water in the stable, water in the cowshed, look! even the passage is flooded; but the rain is stopping, we must bale out.'

'And the hay?'

'That will dry again if God gives fine weather.'

Soon the entire household were baling in the house and farm-buildings; the fire was burning brightly, and the sun peeped out from behind the clouds.

On the other bank of the river the Germans were at work. Barelegged, and armed with long poles, they waded carefully through the flooded fields towards the river to catch the drifting logs.

Stasiek was calming down; he was not tingling all over now. From time to time he still fancied he heard the thunder, and strained his ears, but it was only the noise of the others baling with wooden grain measures. There was much commotion in the passage where Jendrek pushed Magda about instead of baling.

'Steady there,' cried his mother, 'when I get hold of something hard I'll beat you black and blue!'

But Jendrek laughed, for he could tell by a shade in her voice that she was no longer cross.

Courage returned to Stasiek's heart. Supposing he were to peep out into the yard... would there still be a terrible black cloud? Why not try? He put his head out of the back door and saw the blue sky flecked with little white clouds hurrying eastwards. The cock was flapping his wings and crowing, heavy drops were sparkling on the bushes, golden streaks of sunlight penetrated into the passage, and bright reflections from the surface of the waters beckoned to him.

He flew out joyfully through the pools of water, delighting in the rainbow-coloured sheaves that were spurting from under his feet; he stood on a plank and punted himself along with a stick, pretending that he was sailing in deep water.

'Come, Jendrek!' he called.

'Stop here and go on baling,' called out Slimakowa.

The Germans were still busy landing wood; whenever they got hold of a specially large piece they shouted 'Hurrah!' Suddenly some big logs came floating down, and this raised their enthusiasm to such a pitch that they started singing the 'Wacht am Rhein'. For the first time in his life Stasiek, who was so sensitive to music, heard a men's chorus sung in parts. It seemed to melt into one with the bright sun; both intoxicated him; he forgot where he was and what he was doing, he stood petrified. Waves seemed to be floating towards him from the river, embracing and caressing him with invisible arms, drawing him irresistibly. He wanted to turn towards the house or call Jendrek, but he could only move forward, slowly, as in a dream, then faster...faster; he ran, and disappeared down the hill.

The men were singing the third verse of the 'Wacht am Rhein', when they suddenly stopped and shouted:

'Help...help!'

Slimak and Maciek had stopped in their work to listen to the singing; the sudden cries surprised them, but it was the labourer who was seized with apprehension.

'Run, gospodarz,' he said; 'something's up.'

'Eh! something they have taken into their heads!'

'Help!' the cry rose again.

'Never mind, run, gospodarz,' the man urged; 'I can't keep up with you, and something....'

Slimak ran towards the river, and Maciek painfully dragged himself after him. Jendrek overtook him.

'What's up? Where is Stasiek?'

Maciek stopped and heard a powerful voice calling out:

'That's the way you look after your children, Polish beasts!'

Then Slimak appeared on the hill, holding Stasiek in his arms. The boy's head was resting on his shoulder, his right arm hung limply. Dirty water was flowing from them both. Slimak's lips were livid, his eyes wide open. Jendrek ran towards him, slipped on the boggy hillside, scrambled up and shouted in terror: 'Daddy...Stasiek...what....'

'He's drowned!'

'You are mad,' cried the boy; 'he's sitting on your arm!'

He pulled Stasiek by the shirt, and the boy's head fell over his father's shoulder.

'You see!' whispered Slimak.

'But he was in the backyard a minute ago.'

Slimak did not answer, he supported Stasiek's head and stumbled forward.

Slimakowa was standing in the passage, shading her eyes and waiting.

'Well, what has he been up to now?... What's this? Has it fallen on Stasiek again? Curse those Swabians and their singing!'

She went up to the boy and, taking his hand, said in a trembling voice:

'Never mind, Stasiek, don't roll your eyes like that, never mind! Come to your senses, I won't scold you. Magda, fetch some water.'

'He has had more than enough water,' murmured Slimak.

The woman started back.

'What's the matter with him? Why is he so wet?'

'I have taken him out of the pool by the river.'

'That little pool?'

'The water was only up to my waist, but it did for him.'

'Then why don't you turn him upside down? Maciek, take him by the feet...oh, you clumsy fellows!'

The labourer did not stir. She seized the boy herself by the legs.

Stasiek struck the ground heavily with his hands; a little blood ran from his nose.

Maciek took the child from her and carried him into the cottage, where he laid him down on the bench. They all followed him except Magda, who ran aimlessly round the yard and then, with outstretched arms, on to the highroad, crying: 'Help...help, if you believe in God!' She returned to the cottage, but dared not go in, crouched on the threshold with her head on her knees, groaning: 'Help...if you believe in God.'

Slimak dashed into the alcove, put on his sukmana and ran out, he did not know whither; he felt he must run somewhere.

A voice seemed to cry to him: 'Father...father...if you had put up a fence, your child would not have been drowned!'

And the man answered: 'It is not my fault; the Germans bewitched him with their singing.'

A cart was heard rattling on the highroad and stopped in front of the cottage. The schoolmaster got out, bareheaded and with his rod in his hand. 'How is the boy?' he called out, but did not wait for an answer and limped into the cottage.

Stasiek was lying on the bench, his mother was supporting his head on her knees and whispering to herself: 'He's coming to, he's a little warmer.'

The schoolmaster nudged Maciek: 'How is he?'

'What do I know? She says he's better, but the boy doesn't move, no, he doesn't move.'

The schoolmaster went up to the boy and told his mother to make room. She got up obediently and watched the old man breathlessly, with open mouth, sobbing now and then. Slimak peeped through the open window from time to time, but he was unable to bear the sight of his child's pale face. The schoolmaster stripped the wet clothes off the little body and slowly raised and lowered his arms. There was silence while the others watched him, until Slimakowa, unable to contain herself any longer, pulled her hair down and then struck her head against the wall.

'Oh, why were you ever born?' she moaned, 'a child of gold! He recovered from all his illnesses and now he is drowned.... Merciful God! why dost Thou punish me so? Drowned like a puppy in a muddy pool, and no one to help!'

She sank down on her knees, while the schoolmaster persevered for half an hour, listening for the beating of the child's heart from time to time, but no sign of life appeared and, seeing that he could do no more, he covered the child's body with a cloth, silently said a prayer and went out. Maciek followed him.

In the yard he came upon Slimak; he looked like a drunken man.

'What have you come here for, schoolmaster?' he choked. 'Haven't you done us enough harm? You've killed my child with your singing...do you want to destroy his soul too as it is leaving him, or do you mean to bring a curse on the rest of us?'

'What is that you are saying?' said the schoolmaster in amazement.

The peasant stretched his arms and gasped for breath.

'Forgive me, sir,' he said, 'I know you are a good man.... God reward you,' he kissed his hand; 'but my Stasiek died through your fault all the same: you bewitched him.'

'Man!' cried the schoolmaster, 'are we not Christians like you? Do we not put away Satan and his deeds as you do?'

'But how was it he got drowned?'

'How do I know? He may have slipped.'

'But the water was so shallow he might have scrambled out, only your singing...that was the second time it bewitched him so that something fell on him...isn't it true, Maciek?'

The labourer nodded.

'Did the boy have fits?' asked the schoolmaster.

'Never.'

'And has he never been ill?'

'Never.'

Maciek shook his head. 'He's been ill since the winter.'

'Eh?' asked Slimak.

'I'm speaking the truth; Stasiek has been ill ever since he took a cold; he couldn't run without getting out of breath; once I saw it fall upon him while I was ploughing. I had to go and bring him round.'

'Why did you never say anything about it?'

'I did tell the gospodyni, but she told me to mind my own business and not to talk like a barber.'

'Well, you see,' said the schoolmaster, the boy was suffering from a weak heart and that killed him; he would have died young in any case.'

Slimak listened eagerly, and his consciousness seemed to return.

'Could it be that?' he murmured. 'Did the boy die a natural death?'

He tapped at the window and the woman came out, rubbing her swollen eyes.

'Why didn't you tell me that Stasiek had been ill since the winter, and couldn't run without feeling queer?'

'Of course he wasn't well,' she said; 'but what good could you have done?'

'I couldn't have done anything, for if he was to die, he was to die.'

The mother cried quietly.

'No, he couldn't escape; if he was to die he was to die; he must have felt it coming to-day during the storm, when he went about clinging to everyone...if only it had entered my head not to let him out of my sight...if I had only locked him up....'

'If his hour had come, he would have died in the cottage,' said the schoolmaster, departing.

Already resignation was entering into the hearts of those who mourned for Stasiek. They comforted each other, saying that no hair falls from our heads without God's will.

'Not even the wild beasts die unless it is God's will,' said Slimak: 'a hare may be shot at and escape, and then die in the open field, so that you can catch it with your hands.'

'Take my case,' said Maciek: 'the cart crushed me and they took me to the hospital, and here I am alive; but when my hour has struck I shall die, even if I were to hide under the altar. So it was with Stasiek.'

'My little one, my comfort!' sobbed the mother.

'Well, he wouldn't have been much comfort,' said Slimak; 'he couldn't have done heavy farm work.' 'Oh, no!' put in Maciek.

'Or handled the beasts.'

'Oh, no!'

'He would never have made a peasant; he was such a peculiar child, he didn't care for farm work; all he cared for was roaming about and gazing into the river.'

'Yes, and he would talk to the grass and the birds, I have heard it myself,' said Maciek, 'and many times have I thought: "Poor thing! what will you do when you grow up? You'd be a queer fish even among gentlefolk, but what will it be like for you among the peasants?"'

In the evening Slimak carried Stasiek on to the bed in the alcove; his mother laid two copper coins on his eyes and lit the candle in front of the Madonna.

They put down straw in the room, but neither of them could sleep; Burek howled all night, Magda was feverish; Jendrek continually raised himself from the straw, for he fancied his brother had moved. But Stasiek did not move.

In the morning Slimak made a little coffin; carpentering came so easily to him that he could not help smiling contentedly at his own work now and then. But when he remembered what he was doing, he was seized with such passionate grief that he threw down his tools and ran out, he knew not whither.

On the third day Maciek harnessed the horses to the cart, and they drove to the village church, Jendrek keeping close to the coffin and steadying it, so that it should not rock. He even tapped, and listened if his brother were not calling.

But Stasiek was silent. He was silent when they drove to the church, silent when the priest sprinkled holy water on him, silent when they took him to his grave and his father helped the gravedigger to lower him, and when they threw clods of earth upon him and left him alone for the first time.

Even Maciek burst into tears. Slimak hid his face in his sukmana like a Roman senator and would not let his grief be looked upon.

And a voice in his heart whispered: 'Father! father! if you had made a fence, your child would not have been drowned!'

But he answered: 'I am not guilty; he died because his hour had come.'



CHAPTER IX

Autumn came with drab, melancholy stubble fields; the bushes in the ravines turned red; the storks hastily left the barns and flew south; in the few woods that remained, the birds were silent, human beings had deserted the fields; only here and there some old German women in blue petticoats were digging up the last potatoes. Even the navvies had left, the embankment was finished, and they had dispersed all over the world. Their place was taken by a light railway bringing rails and sleepers. At first you were only aware of smoke in the distant west; in a few days' time you discovered a chimney, and presently found that that chimney was fixed to a large cauldron which rolled along without horses, dragging after it a dozen wagons full of wood and iron. Whenever it stopped men jumped out and laid down the wood, fastened the iron to it and drove off again. These were the proceedings which Maciek was watching daily.

'Look, how clever that is,' he said to Slimak; 'they can get their load uphill without horses. Why should we worry the beasts?'

But when the cauldron came to a dead stop where the embankment ended by the ravines and the men had taken out and disposed of the load, 'Now, what will they do?' he thought.

To the farm labourer's utter astonishment the cauldron gave a shrill whistle and moved backwards with its wagons.

Yes, there it was! Had not the Galician harvesters told him of an engine that went by itself? Had they not drunk through his money with which he was to buy boots?

'To be sure, they told me true, it goes by itself; but it creeps like old Sobieska,' he added, to comfort himself. Yet, deep down in his heart he was afraid of this new contrivance and felt that it boded no good to the neighbourhood. And though he reasoned inconsequently he was right, for with the appearance of the railway engines there also came much thieving. From pots and pans, drying on the fences, to horses in the stables, nothing was safe. The Germans had their bacon stolen from the larder; the gospodarz Marcinezak, who returned rather tipsy from absolution, was attacked by men with blackened faces and thrown out of his cart, with which the robbers drove off at breakneck speed. Even the poor tailor Niedoperz, when crossing a wood, was relieved of the three roubles he had earned with so much labour.

The railway brought Slimak no luck either. It became increasingly difficult to buy fodder for the animals, and no one now asked him to sell his produce. The salted butter, and other produce of which he had laid in a stock, went bad, and they had to eat the fowls themselves. The Germans did all the trading with the railway men, and even in the little town no one looked at the peasant's produce.

So Slimak sat in his room and did no work. Where should he find work? He sat by the stove and pondered. Would things continue like this? would there always be too little hay? would no one buy from him? would there be no end to the thieving? What was not under lock and key in the farm-buildings was no longer safe.

Meanwhile the Germans drove about for miles in all directions and sold all that they produced.

'Things are going badly,' said Slimakowa.

'Eh...they'll get straight again somehow,' he answered.

Gradually poor Stasiek was forgotten. Sometimes his mother laid one spoon too many, and then wiped her eyes with her kerchief, sometimes Magda thoughtlessly called Jendrek by his brother's name or the dog would run round the buildings looking for some one, and then lay down barking, with his head on the ground. But all this happened more and more rarely.

Jendrek had been restless since his brother's death; he did not like to sit indoors when there was nothing to do, and roamed about. His rambles frequently ended in a visit to the schoolmaster; out of curiosity he examined the books, and as he knew some of the letters, the schoolmaster's daughter amused herself by teaching him to spell. The boy would purposely stumble over his words so that she should correct him and touch his shoulder to point out the mistake.

One day he took home a book to show what he had learnt, and his overjoyed mother sent the schoolmaster's daughter a couple of fowls and four dozen eggs. Slimak promised the schoolmaster five roubles when Jendrek would be able to pray from a book and ten more when he should have learnt to write. Jendrek was therefore more and more often at the settlement, either busy with his lessons or else watching the girl through the window and listening to her voice. But this happened to annoy one of the young Germans, who was a relation of the Hamers.

Under ordinary circumstances Jendrek's behaviour would have attracted his parents' attention, but they were entirely engrossed in another subject. Every day convinced them more firmly of the fact that they had too little fodder and a cow too many. They did not say so to each other, but no one in the house thought of anything else. The gospodyni thought of it when she saw the milk get less in the pails, Magda had forebodings and caressed the cows in turns, Maciek, when unobserved, even deprived the horses of a handful of hay, and Slimak would stand in front of the cowshed and sigh.

It was he himself who one night broke this tacit understanding of silence on the sad question which was becoming a crisis; he suddenly awoke, sprang up and sat down on the edge of the bed.

'What's the matter, Josef?' asked his wife.

'Oh...I was dreaming that we had no fodder left and all the cows had died.'

'In the name of the Father and the Son...may you not have spoken that in an evil hour!'

'There is not enough fodder for five tails...it's no good pretending.'

'Well, then, what will you do?'

'How do I know?'

'Perhaps one could...'

'Maybe sell one of them...' finished the husband.

The word had fallen.

Next time Slimak went to the inn he gave Josel a hint, who passed it on at once to two butchers in the little town.

When they came to the cottage, Slimakowa refused to speak to them and Magda began to cry. Slimak took them to the yard.

'Well, how is it, gospodarz, you want to sell a cow?'

'How can I tell?'

'Which one is it? Let's see her.'

Slimak said nothing, and Maciek had to take up the conversation.

'If one is to be sold, it may as well be Lysa.'

'Lead her out,' urged the butchers.

Maciek led the unfortunate cow into the yard; she seemed astonished at being taken out at such an unusual hour.

The butchers looked her over, chattered in Yiddish and asked the price.

'How do I know?' Slimak said, still irresolute.

'What's the good of talking like that, you know as well as we do that she's an old beast. We will give you fifteen roubles.'

Slimak relapsed into silence, and Maciek had to do the bargaining; after much shouting and pulling about of the cow, they agreed on eighteen roubles. A rope was laid on her horns and the stick about her shoulders, and they started.

The cow, scenting mischief, would not go; first she turned back to the cowshed and was dragged towards the highroad, then she lowed so miserably that Maciek went pale and Magda was heard to sob loudly: the gospodyni would not look out of the window.

The cow finally planted herself firmly on the ground with her four feet rigidly fixed, and looked at Slimak with rolling eyes as if to say: 'Look, gospodarz, what they are doing to me...for six years I have been with you and have honestly done my duty, stand by me now.'

Slimak did not move, and the cow at last allowed herself to be led away, but when she had been plodding along for a little distance, he slowly followed. He pressed the Jews' money in his hand and thought:

'Ought I to have sold you? I should never have done it if the merciful God had not been angry with us; but we might all starve.'

He stood still, leant against the railings and turned all his misfortunes over in his mind; now and then the thought that he might still run and buy her back stole into his mind.

He suddenly noticed that old Hamer had come close up to him.

'Are you coming to see me, gospodarz?' he asked.

'I'll come, if you will sell me fodder.'

'Fodder won't help you. A peasant among settlers will always be at a disadvantage,' said the old man, with his pipe between his teeth. 'Sell me your land; I'll give you a hundred roubles an acre.'

Slimak shook his head. 'You are mad, Pan Hamer, I don't know what you mean. Isn't it enough that I am obliged to sell the beast? Now you want me to sell everything. If you want me to leave, carry me out into the churchyard. It is nothing to you Germans to move from place to place, you are a roving people and have no country, but a peasant is like a stone by the wayside. I know everything here by heart. I have moved every clod of earth with my own hands; now you say: sell and go elsewhere. Wherever I went I should be dazed and lost; when I looked at a bush I should say: that did not grow at home; the soil would be different and even the sun would not set in the same place. And what should I tell my father if he were to come looking for me when it gets too hot for him in Purgatory? He would ask me how I was to find his grave again, and Stasiek's, poor Stasiek who has laid down his head, thanks to you!'

Hamer was trembling with rage.

'What rubbish the man is talking!' he cried, 'have not numbers of peasants settled afresh in Volhynia? His father will come looking for him! ...You had better look out that you don't go to Purgatory soon yourself for your obstinacy, and ruin me into the bargain. You are ruining my son now, because I can't build him a windmill. Here I am offering you a hundred roubles an acre, confound it all!'

'Say what you like, but I won't sell you my land.'

'You'll sell it all right,' said Hamer, shaking his fist, 'but I shan't buy it; you won't last out a year among us.'

He turned away abruptly.

'And I don't want that lad to stroll in and out of the settlement,' he called back, 'I don't keep a schoolmaster here for you!'

'That's nothing to me; he needn't go if you grudge him the room.'

'Yes, I grudge him the room,' the old man retorted viciously, 'the father is a dolt, let the son be a dolt too.'

Slimak's regret for the cow was drowned in his anger. 'All right, let them cut her throat,' he thought, but remembering that the poor beast could not help his quarrel with Hamer, he sighed.

There were fresh lamentations at home; Magda was blubbering because she had been given notice. Slimak sat down on the bench and listened to his wife comforting the girl.

'It's true, we are not short of food,' she said, 'but how am I to get the money for your wages? You are a big girl and ought to have a rise after the New Year. We haven't enough work for you; go to your uncle at once, tell him how things are going from bad to worse here, and fall at his feet and ask him to find you another place. Please God, you will come back to us.' 'Ho,' murmured Maciek from his corner, 'there's no returning; when you're gone, you're gone; first the cow, then Magda, now my turn will come.'

'Oh, you, Maciek, you will stay,' said Slimakowa, 'there must be some one to look after the horses, and if we don't give you your wages one year, you'll get them the next, but we can't do that to Magda, she is young.'

'That's true,' said Maciek on reflection, 'and it's kind of you to think of the girl first.'

Slimak was silently admiring his wife's good sense, but at the same time he felt acute regret and apprehension at all these changes; everything had been going on harmoniously for years, and now one day sufficed to send both the cow and Magda away.

'What shall I do?' he ruminated, 'shall I try to set up as a carpenter, or shall I apply to his Reverence for advice? I might ask him at the same time to say a Mass, but maybe he would say the Mass and not give the advice. It will all come right; God strikes until His hand is tired; then He looks down in favour again on those who suffer patiently.' So he waited.

Magda had found another situation by November; her place in the gospodarstwo soon grew cold, no one thought or talked of her, and only the gospodyni asked herself sometimes: 'Were there really a Stasiek in this room once and a Magda pottering about, and three cows in the shed?'

Meanwhile the thieving increased. Slimak daily thought of putting bolts and padlocks on the farm-buildings, or at least long poles in front of the stable door. But whenever he reached for the hatchet, it always lay too far off, or his arm was too short; anyhow he left it, and the thought of buying padlocks when times were hard, made him feel quite faint. He hid the money at the bottom of the chest so that it should not tempt him. 'I must wait till the spring,' he thought; 'after all, there are Maciek and Burek, they are sharp enough.'

Burek confirmed this opinion by much howling.

One very dark night, when sleet was falling, Maciek heard him barking more furiously than usual, and attacking some one in the direction of the ravines. He jumped up and waked Slimak; armed with hatchets they waited in the yard. A heavy tread approached behind the barn as of some one carrying a load. 'At them!' they urged Burek, who, feeling himself backed up, attacked furiously.

'Shall we go for them?' asked Maciek.

Slimak hesitated. 'I don't know how many there are.'

At that moment a light flashed up from the settlement, horses clattered. Seeing that help was approaching, Slimak dashed behind the barn and called out: 'Hey there! who are you?'

Something heavy fell to the ground.

'You wait! policeman for the Swabians, you shall soon know who we are!' answered a voice in the darkness.

'Catch him!' cried Slimak and Maciek simultaneously, but the thief had escaped to the ravines. When the Germans on horseback came up, Slimak lit a torch and ran behind the barn. A pig's carcass lay in a puddle.

'That's our hog,' cried Fritz, 'they stole it from under our noses and while there was a light in the house.'

'Daredevils!' muttered Maciek.

'To tell you the truth,' laughed Earner's farmhand, 'we thought it was you who had done it.'

'Go to the devil!'

'Let's go after them,' Fritz interrupted quickly.

'Go on! I... steal your hog! indeed!'

'Let me go, father,' begged Jendrek.

'Go indoors! We've saved them a hog and the thieves will revenge themselves on us; and here they come and accuse me of being a thief myself.' Fritz Hamer swore at the farm-hand for his clumsiness and tried to pacify the peasant, but he turned his back on him. Fritz had lost his zeal for pursuing the thieves, took up his hog and disappeared into the darkness.

After a few days the police-sergeant drove up, cross-examined every one, explored the ravines, perspired, made himself muddy, and found no one. He came to the very just conclusion that the thieves must have escaped long ago. So he told Slimakowa to put some butter and a speckled hen into his cart and returned home.

The thieving stopped for a while, and winter came on. The ground was warmly covered as with a sheepskin; ice as hard as flint froze on the Bialka, the Lord wrapped the branches of the trees securely in shirts of snow. But Slimak was still meditating on hasps and bolts.

One evening, as he sat filling the room with smoke from his pipe, shifting his feet and arriving at the second part of his meditations, namely that 'What is done too soon is the devil's,' Jendrek excitedly burst into the room. His mother was busy with the fire and paid no attention to him, but his father noticed, although they were sparing of light in the cottage, that his sukmana was torn and he looked bruised and dishevelled. Looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, Slimak emptied his pipe and said: 'Someone has been oxing your ears three times over.'

'I gave him one better,' said the boy scowling.

As the mother had gone out and did not hear the conversation, the father did not hurry himself; he cleaned his choked pipe, blew through it and indifferently inquired, 'Who's been treating you this?'

'That scoundrel, Hermann.' The boy was hitching up his shoulders as if he had been stung.

'And what were you doing at Earner's when you had been told not to go there?'

'I was looking at the schoolmaster through the window,' said Jendrek blushing, and added quickly, 'That German dog ran out from the kitchen and shouted: "You are spying about here, you thief!" "What have I stolen?" I say, and he: "Nothing yet, but you will steal some day; be off, or I'll box your ears." "Try!" I say. "I've tried before," says he; "take this!"'

'That was smart of the Swabian,' said Slimak, 'and did you do nothing to him?'

'Why should I do nothing to him? I snatched up a log and hit him over the head two or three times, but the coward started bleeding and gave in; I should have liked to have given him more, but they came running out of their houses and I made off.'

'So they didn't catch you?'

'Bah, how can they catch me, when I run like a hare?' 'Confound the boy,' said his mother, who had come in, 'the Swabians will beat him small.'

'He can always give them the slip,' said Slimak, lit his pipe, and resumed his meditations on hasps and bolts.

But these were interrupted the next afternoon by a visit from the Hamers; their cousin, Hermann, had his head so tightly bandaged that hardly anything was visible of his face. They stood outside the gate and shouted to Maciek to call his master. Slimak hastily fastened his belt and stepped out. 'What do you want?' he said.

'We are going to the police-station to take out a summons against that Jendrek of yours; look what he has done to Hermann; we have a certificate from the surgeon that his injuries are serious.'

'He came ogling the schoolmaster's daughter, now he shall ogle his prison bars,' Hermann added thickly behind his bandages.

Slimak was getting worried.

'You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,' he said, 'to take out a summons for a bit of boy's nonsense; didn't Hermann box his ears too? But we don't take out summonses for that sort of thing.'

'Oh, rather! I gave it him,' mumbled Hermann, 'but where's the blood? where's the doctor's certificate?'

'You're a nice one,' said Slimak bitterly, 'there was no policeman to certify that it was we who saved you the hog, but when a boy plays a prank on you, you go to law.'

'Perhaps with you a hog means as much as a man,' sneered Fritz; 'with us it is different.'

Slimak's meditations now turned from bolts and padlocks to prisons. He talked the matter over with Maciek.

'When they put our small Jendrek in Court by the side of that big Hermann, I reckon they won't do much to him.'

'They'll do nothing to him,' agreed the labourer.

'All the same, I should like to know what the punishment is for thrashing a man.'

'They don't trouble their heads much about it. When Potocka beat her neighbour over the head with a saucepan, they just fined her.'

'That's true, but I am afraid they think more of the Germans than of our people.'

'How could they think more of unbelievers?'

'Look at the police-sergeant, he talks to Hamer as he wouldn't even talk to Gryb.'

'That is so, but when he has looked round to see that no one is listening, he tells you that a German is a mangy dog. You see, the Germans have their Kaiser, but he's nothing like as great as our Czar; I have it from a soldier who was in the hospital, and he used to say: "Bah, he's nothing compared to ours!"'

This greatly reassured Slimak, and he went to church with his wife and son the next Sunday to find out what others, familiar with the ways of the law, thought of the matter. Maciek remained at home to look after the dinner and the baby.

It was past noon when Burek began to bark furiously. Maciek looked out and saw a man dressed like the townspeople standing at the gate; he had pulled his cap well over his face. The farm-labourer went outside.

'What's up?'

'Take pity on us, gospodarz,' said the stranger, 'our sledge has broken down close by, and I can't mend it, because they have stolen the hatchet out of my basket last night.'

Maciek looked doubtful. 'Have you come far?'

'Twenty-five miles; my wife and I are driving twelve miles further. I will give you good vodka and sausages if you will help us.'

Maciek's suspicions lessened when vodka was mentioned. He shook his head and crossed himself, but ultimately decided that one must help one's neighbour, fetched the hatchet and went out with the stranger.

He found a one-horse sledge standing near the farm. A woman, even more smartly dressed than the man, sat huddled up in a corner; she blessed Maciek in a tearful voice, but her husband did more, he poured out a large tumblerful of vodka and offered it to the labourer, drinking to his health first. Maciek apologized, as the ceremony demanded, then took a long pull, till the tears came into his eyes. He set about mending the sledge, and although it was a small job and did not take him more than half an hour, the strangers thanked him extravagantly, the woman gave him half a sausage and some roast pork, and the man exclaimed: 'I have travelled far and wide, but I have never found a more obliging peasant than you are, brother. I should like to leave you a remembrance. Have you got a bottle?'

'I think I could find one,' said Maciek, in a voice trembling with delight. The man unceremoniously pushed his wife on one side and drew a large bottle from underneath the seat.

'We are off now,' he said, 'we will go to the gospodarstwo and you shall give me some nails in case of another breakdown, and I will leave you some of this cordial in return. Mind, if your head or your stomach aches or you are worried and can't sleep, take a glassful of this: all your worries will at once disappear. Take good care of it and don't on any account give a drop away, it's a speciality; my grandfather got it from the monks at Radecznica, it's as good as holy water.'

Maciek went into the house, the stranger remained in the yard, looking carelessly round the buildings, while Burek barked madly at him. At any other time the dog's anger would have roused Maciek's suspicion, but how could one think anything but well of a guest who had already given vodka and sausages and who was offering more drink? He smilingly offered a big-bellied bottle to the traveller, who poured half a pint of the cordial into it, and when he took leave he repeated the warning that it should be used only in case of need.

Maciek stuffed a piece of rag into the neck of the bottle and hid it in the stable. He felt a strong desire to taste the drink, if only a drop, but he resisted.

'Supposing I were to get ill... better keep it.'

He rocked the baby to sleep and then woke her up again to tell her about the hospital and his broken leg, about the travellers who had left him such a magnificent present, but nothing could take his thoughts away from the monks' cordial. The big-bellied bottle seemed to hover over the pots and pans on the stove, it blossomed out of the wall, it almost tapped at the window, but Maciek blinked his eyes and thought: 'Leave me alone, you will come in useful some day!'

Shortly before sunset he heard cheerful singing in the road, and. quickly stepping outside, he saw the gospodarz and his family returning from church. They were silhouetted against the red sky in the white landscape. Jendrek, his head in the air and his arms crossed behind his back, was walking on the left side of the road, the gospodyni in her blue Sunday skirt, and her jacket unbuttoned, so that her white chemise and bare chest were showing, on the right. The gospodarz, his cap awry, and holding up nis sukmana as for a dance, lurched from right to left and from left to right, singing. The labourer laughed, not because they were drunk, but because it pleased him to see them enjoying themselves.

'Do you know, Maciek,' cried Slimak from afar, 'do you know the Swabians can't hurt us!'

He ran up full tilt and supported himself on Maciek's neck.

'Do you know,' cried the gospodyni, coming up,'we have seen Jasiek Gryb who knows all about the law; we told him about Jendrek's giving it to Hermann, and he swore by a happy death that the Court would let Jendrek off; Jasiek has been tried for these tricks himself, he knows.'

'Let them try and put me in prison!' shouted Jendrek.

It was in this frame of mind that they sat down, but somehow the dinner was not a success. Slimakowa poured most of the sauerkraut over the table, the gospodarz had no appetite, and Jendrek had forgotten how to hold a spoon, scalded his father's foot with soup and finally fell asleep. His parents followed his example, so Maciek was left to himself again. The big-bellied bottle started pursuing him immediately. It availed nothing that he busied himself with the fire and the wick of the flickering lamp. The snoring around him disposed him to sleep and the smell of vodka that had been introduced into the room filled him with longing. In vain he tried to keep off the thoughts that circled like moths round the light. When he forgot his misery at the hospital, he thought of the forlornness of the abandoned baby, and when he put that aside his own needs overwhelmed him again. 'It's no use,' he muttered, 'I must go to bed.'

He wrapped the child in the sheepskin and went into the stable. He lay down on the straw, the warmth of the horses tempered the cold, and Maciek closed his eyes, but sleep would not come; it was too early yet.

As he turned from side to side, his hand came in contact with the bottle; he pushed it away; but, violating the law of inertia, it thrust itself irresistibly into his hand; the rag remained between his fingers, and when he mechanically lifted it to his eyes in the half- light, the strange vessel leapt to his lips of its own accord. Before he was conscious of what he was doing, Maciek had pulled a long draft of the health-giving speciality. He gulped it down and pulled a wry face. The drink was not only strong, it was nauseous; it simply tasted like ordinary medicine. 'Well, that wasn't worth longing for!' he thought, as he stuffed up the neck of the bottle again. He resolved to be more temperate in future with a liquor which was not distinguished for a good taste.

Maciek said a prayer and felt warm and calm. He remembered the home-coming of the gospodarz's family: they all stood before his eyes as if they were alive. Suddenly Slimak and Jendrek vanished and only Slimakowa remained near him in her unbuttoned jacket which exposed rows of corals and her bare white chest. He closed his eyelids and pressed them with his fingers, so as not to look, but still he saw her, smiling at him in a strange way. He hid his head in the sheepskin—it was in vain; the woman stood there and smiled in a way that sent the fever through his veins. His heart beat violently; he turned his head to the wall and, terror-stricken, heard her voice whispering close to him: 'Move up!'

'Where am I to move to?' groaned Maciek.

A warm hand seemed to embrace his neck.

Then his mattress began to ascend with him, he flew... flew. God I was he falling or being lifted into the air? he felt as light as a feather, as smoke. He opened his eyes for a moment and saw stars glittering in a dark sky over a snowy landscape. How could he be seeing the sky? No... he must have made a mistake; darkness was surrounding him again. He wanted to move, but could not; besides, why should he move, when he felt so extraordinarily comfortable? there was not a thing in the world that it would be worth while moving a finger for, nothing but sleep mattered, sleep without awakening. He sighed heavily and slept and slept.

A sensation of pain woke Maciek from a dreamless sleep which must have lasted about ten hours. He felt himself violently shaken, kicked in the ribs and on the head, tugged by his arms and legs.

'Get up, you thief... get up!' a voice was shouting at him.

He tried to get up, but turned over on the other side instead. The blows and tugs recommenced, and the voice, choked with rage, continued:

'Get up! I wish the holy earth had never carried you!'

At last Maciek roused himself and sat up; the light hurt his eyes, his head felt heavy like a rock; so he closed his eyes again, supported his head and tried to think; immediately he received a blow in the face from a fist. When at last he opened his eyes, he saw that it was Slimak who was standing over him, mad with rage.

'What are you hitting me for?' he asked in amazement.

'Where are the horses, you thief?' shouted Slimak.

'Horses? what horses?'

He was suddenly seized with sickness. Coming to himself a little, he looked round. Yes, something seemed to be missing from the stable; he wiped his forehead, looked again... the stable was empty.

'But where are the horses?' he asked.

'Where?' cried Slimak, 'where your brothers have taken them, you thief.' The labourer held out his hands.

'I never took them out. I haven't stirred from here all night, something must have happened... I am ill.'

He staggered up and had to support himself.

'What is that? You are trying to make out that you have lost your wits. You know quite well that the horses have been stolen. Whoever stole them must have opened the door and led them over you.'

'God help me! no one opened the door, no one led them over me,' cried Maciek, bursting into sobs.

'Dad! Burek is lying dead behind the fence,' cried Jendrek, who came running up with his mother.

'They have poisoned him,' said the woman, 'the foam has frozen on his mouth.'

Maciek sank down in the open door, unable to stand any longer.

'The devil has got him too, he isn't like himself, something has fallen on him,' said Slimak.

'And may he keep it till he dies,'cried the woman, 'here he is sleeping in the stable and lets the horses be stolen. May the ground spit him out!'

Jendrek was looking for a stone, but his parents, taking notice of the man's deathly pallor and his sunken eyes for the first time, restrained him.

'Maybe they have poisoned him too,' whispered Slimakowa.

Slimak shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to make of it.

He began to question Maciek: Had anything happened in his absence?

Slowly and with difficulty, but concealing nothing, Maciek told his story.

'Of course they gave me some filthy stuff, and then they made off with the horses,' he added, sobbing.

But instead of taking pity on him, Slimak burst out afresh:

'What? you took drink from strangers and never told me anything about it?'

'Why should I have bothered you, gospodarz, when you were a little bit screwed yourself?'

'What's that to do with you?' bawled Slimak, 'dogs have no right to notice whether one is drunk or not, they have to be all the more watchful when one is! You are a thief like the others, only you are worse. I took you in when you were starving, and you've robbed me in return.'

'Don't talk like that,' groaned Maciek, crawling to Slimak's feet, 'I have saved a few roubles from my wages, and there is my little chest and a bit of sheepskin and my sukmana; take it all, but don't say I robbed you. Your dog has not been more faithful, and they have poisoned him too.'

'Don't bother me,' cried Slimak, thrusting him aside, 'the fellow offers me his wages and his box when the horses were worth twenty-eight roubles.

I haven't taken twenty-eight roubles the whole year. If you were my own son I wouldn't let you off; neither of the boys have ever cost me as much.'

His anger overcame him, he beat himself with his clenched fists.

'Find the horses,' he cried, 'or I will give you in charge, go where you like, look where you like, but don't show your face here without them or one of us will die! I loathe you. Take that bastard or we will let it starve, and be off!'

'I will find the horses,' said Maciek, and drew his old sheepskin round him with trembling hands; 'perhaps God will help me.'

'The devil will help you, you low scoundrel,' said Slimak, and turned away.

'And leave your box,' added Jendrek.

'He has paid us out for our kindness,' whimpered Slimakowa, wiping her eyes. They went into the house.

Not one of them had a kind glance to spare for Maciek, although he was leaving them forever.

Slowly and painfully he wrapped the child up in an old bit of a shirt and a shawl, fastened his belt round himself and looked for a stick.

His head was aching as if he were going through a severe illness; he was unable to reason out the situation. He felt no resentment towards Slimak for having beaten him and driven him away; the gospodarz was in the right, of course; neither was he afraid of having no roof over his head; people like him never had any roof of their own; he was not thinking of the future. Another thought was torturing him...the horses. For Slimak the horses were part of his working machinery, for Maciek they were friends and brothers. Who but they in the whole world had longed for him, had greeted him heartily when he returned, or looked after him when he went out? No one but Wojtek and Kasztan. For years they had shared hardships together. Now they were gone, perhaps led away into misery, through his, Maciek's, fault.

He fancied he heard them neighing. They were becoming sensible of what was happening to them and were calling to him for help!

'I am coming, I am coming,' he muttered, took the child on his arm, seized the stick and limped forth. He did not look round, he would see the gospodarstwo again when he came back with the horses.

He saw Burek lying stark behind the barn, but he had no thought to spare for him; he peered for the traces of the horses' feet. There they were, stamped into the snow as into wax; Kasztan's large feet and the broken hoof of Wojtek; here the thieves had mounted and ridden off at a slow trot. How bold, how sure of themselves they had been! But Maciek will find you! The peasant rancour in him had been awakened. If you escape to the end of the world he will pursue you; if you dig yourselves into the ground he will dig you out with his hands; if you escape to Heaven he will stand at the gate and importune the saints until they fly all over the universe and give him back the horses!

On the highroad the tracks became less distinct, but they were still recognizable. Maciek could read the whole history of the peregrination in them. Here Kasztan had been startled and had shied; here the thief had dismounted and altered Wojtek's bridle. What gentlemen they were, these thieves, they came stealing in new boots, such as no gentleman need have been ashamed of!

Near the church the tracks became confused and, what was worse, divided. Kasztan had been ridden to the right and Wojtek to the left. After reflecting for a moment, Maciek followed the latter track, possibly because it was clearer, but most likely because he loved that little horse the best. About noon he found himself near the village where Magda's uncle, the Soltys Grochowski, lived. He turned in there, hoping for a bite of food; he was hungry and the little girl was crying.

Grochowski was at home and in the middle of receiving a sound rating from his wife for no particular reason but just for the pleasure of it. The huge man was sitting on the bench by the wall, with one arm on the table and the other on the window-sill, listening with an expression of fixed attention to his wife's homilies; this attention was, however, assumed, for whenever she buried her head among the pots and pans on the stove he yawned and stretched himself, pulling a face as if the conversation had long been distasteful to him.

As his wife was in the habit of relenting before strangers, so as not to prejudice his office, Grochowski hailed Maciek's arrival gladly, and ordered food for him and milk for the little girl, adding cold meat and vodka to the repast when he heard the news that Slimak's horses had been stolen and that Maciek was applying to him for advice. He even talked of drawing up a statement, but the necessary implements were not at hand. So he drew Maciek into the alcove for a long, whispered conversation, the upshot of which was that they must proceed with caution upon the track of the thieves, as certain strong influences tied Grochowski's hands until he had clearer evidence. Maciek was also given to understand why Jasiek Gryb had entertained the gospodarz and his family so liberally, and Grochowski even seemed to know the man who had presented Maciek with the monks' cordial and said that the woman in the sledge was not a woman at all.