At this moment Kruchek came to her aid. He raised the hair on his back, and with furious barking sprang at the secretary; and, since the secretary was dressed in a short coat, Kruchek seized his nankeen trousers, went through the nankeen, caught the skin, went through the skin, and when he felt fulness in his mouth, he began to shake his head madly and tug. "Jesus! Mary!" cried the lord secretary, forgetting that he belonged to the _esprits forts_. But Kruchek did not let go his hold till the secretary seized a billet of wood and pounded him uncounted times on the back with it; when Kruchek got a blow on his spine, he sprang away whining piteously. But after a while he jumped at the man again. "Take off this dog! take off this devil!" cried the secretary, brandishing the stick with desperation. The woman cried to the dog, and sent him outside the gate. Then she and the secretary gazed at each other in silence. "Oh, my misfortune! Why did you look at me?" asked Marysia, at length, frightened by the bloody turn of the affair. "Vengeance on you!" shouted the secretary. "Vengeance on you! Wait! Repa will be a soldier. I wanted to save him. But now--you will come yourself to me! Vengeance on you!" The poor woman grew as pale as if some one had struck her on the head with a hatchet; she spread out her hands, opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say something; but meanwhile the secretary raised his cap with green binding from the ground, and went away quickly, brandishing the stick in one hand, and holding his badly torn trousers with the other. CHAPTER II. SOME OTHER PERSONS AND DISAGREEABLE VISIONS. An hour later, perhaps, Repa came home from the woods with the carpenter Lukash, on the landlord's wagon. Repa was a burly fellow, as tall as a poplar, strong, just hewn out with an axe. He went to the woods every day, for the landlord had sold to Jews all the forest which was free of peasant privileges. Repa received good wages, for he was a good man to work. When he spat on his palm, seized the axe, gave a blow with a grunt and struck, the pine-tree groaned, and chips flew from it half an ell long. In loading timber onto wagons he was also the first man. The Jews, who went through the woods with measures in their hands and looked at the tops of the pines, as if hunting for crows' nests, were amazed at his strength. Droysla, a rich merchant from Oslovitsi, said to him,-- "Well, Repa! devil take thee! Here are six groshes for vodka. No! here, wait; here are five groshes for vodka!" But Repa did not care,--he just wielded his axe till the woods thundered; sometimes for amusement he let his voice out through the forest,-- "Hop! Hop!" His voice flew among the trees, and came back as an echo. And again, nothing was heard but the thunder of Repa's axe; and sometimes the pines too began to talk among their branches with a sound as is usual in a forest.