[11] "Get thee behind me, Satan!" In Yakut the accent falls on the last syllable.--_Author's note._ [12] "Pępki"--from Russian "pupki," the salted roes of a large fish caught in the Lena. [13] The Polish custom is to spread hay under the tablecloth at the Christmas Eve dinner--an allusion to the hay in the manger. [14] "Oładi"--a favourite Yakut dish. It is a kind of pancake, made with reindeer fat, and eaten with reindeer milk which is frozen into lumps. [15] Country dances interspersed with songs. [16] A well-known Cracowiak. [17] "God, great God, have mercy!" THE TRIAL BY WŁADYSŁAW REYMONT The door opened suddenly with a bang, letting the wind into the room, and a silent, sinister crowd of peasants began to pour in from the dark hall. They did not even say, "The Lord be praised!"[18] The miller dropped his spoon on the table, and looked round in astonishment from one to the other. Then he turned down the lamp which was flaring from the draught. "There are rather a lot of you," he muttered. "There are more waiting outside," Jędrzej, one of the peasants, said, coming forward quickly. "Have you any business to settle with me?" "We didn't come here just for a talk," someone said, shutting the door. "Then sit down; I shall have finished supper in a minute." "To your good health! We will wait a while...." The miller began to sip up his porridge hastily. The peasants meanwhile settled themselves on the benches round the stove, warming their backs and carefully watching Jędrzej, who had sat down by the table and was leaning his elbows on it in deep reflection. "Beastly weather this!" the miller accosted them. "Real March weather." "It's always like this before the spring." Here the conversation broke off again, and the only thing to be heard in the silence of the room was the miller's spoon scraping along the earthenware bowl. But outside someone was stamping the mud off his boots, while at times the howling gusts of wind struck the walls till they creaked, and the rain beat against the steamed window-panes. "Jadwiś!" called the miller, wiping his short moustache with his hand. A strong and very good-looking girl, not wearing a peasant's dress, appeared from a side room. She threw a keen glance at the peasants, and, taking the bowl in her arm, went out again with a rolling gait. "What is this business?" began the miller, taking snuff. Not a hand was stretched out towards the snuff; the peasants' faces had suddenly clouded. Someone cleared his throat, others scratched their heads in indecision, and they all looked at Jędrzej, who, straightening himself and fixing his light, searching eyes on the miller, said slowly: "We have come to make you tell us who the thieves were." The miller started back, stared, spread out his arms, and stuttered: "In the Name of the Father and the Son! How should I know that?..."