She had listened patiently for two or three years; now at last she took things into her own hands and told him to buy the cow and rent the field at once. Merciful Jesu! what a hard woman! What would she drive him to next? He would really have to put up sheds and make farm carts! Intelligent and even ingenious as Slimak was, he never dared to do anything fresh unless driven to it. He understood his farm work thoroughly, he could even mend the thrashing-machine at the manor-house, and he kept everything in his head, beginning with the rotation of crops on his land. Yet his mind lacked that fine thread which joins the project to the accomplishment. Instead of this the sense of obedience was very strongly developed in him. The squire, the priest, the Wojt, his wife were all sent from God. He used to say: 'A peasant is in the world to carry out orders.' The sun was sinking behind the hill crest when he drove his horses on to the highroad, and he was pondering on how he would begin his bargaining with Grochowski when he heard a guttural voice behind him, 'Heh! heh!' Two men were standing on the highroad, one was grey-headed and clean-shaven, and wore a German peaked cap, the other young and tall, with a beard and a Polish cap. A two-horse vehicle was drawn up a little farther back. 'Is that your field?' the bearded man asked in an unpleasant voice. 'Stop, Fritz,' the elder interrupted him. 'What am I to stop for?' the other said angrily. 'Stop! Is this your land, gospodarz?' the grey-haired man asked very politely. 'Of course it's mine, who else should it belong to?' Stasiek came running up from the field at that moment and looked at the strangers with a mixture of distrust and admiration. 'And is that your field?' the bearded one repeated. 'Stop, Fritz! Is it your field, gospodarz?' the old man corrected him. 'It's not mine; it belongs to the manor.' 'And whose is the hill with the pine?' 'Stop, Fritz...' 'Oh well, if you are going to interrupt all the time, father....' 'Stop... is the hill yours, gospodarz?' 'It's mine; no one else's.' 'There you are, Fritz,' the old man said in German; 'that's the very place for Wilhelm's windmill.' 'The reason why Wilhelm has not yet put up a windmill is not that there are no hills, but that he is a lazy fellow.' 'Don't be disagreeable, Fritz! Then those fields beyond the highroad and the ravines are not yours, gospodarz?' 'How should they be, when they belong to the manor?' 'Oh yes,' the bearded one interrupted impatiently; 'everyone knows that he sits here in the manor-fields like a hole in a bridge. The devil take the whole business.' 'Wait, Fritz! Do the manor-fields surround you on all sides, gospodarz?' 'Of course.' 'Well, that will do,' said the younger man, drawing his father towards the carriage. 'God bless you, gospodarz,' said the elder, touching his cap. 'What a gossip you are, father! Wilhelm will never do anything; you may find him ever so many hills.'