'Your love is no courtier, my own heart's desire, He's riding a pony on his way to the squire.' Then in a more melancholy strain: 'Oh dearie, dearie me This is great misery, What shall I do?...' He sighed, and felt that no song could adequately express his anxiety. Would the squire let him have the field? They were just passing it; he was almost afraid to look at it, so beautiful and unattainable did it seem. All the fines he had had to pay for his cattle, all the squire's threats and admonitions came into his mind. It struck him that if the field lay farther off and produced sand instead of good grass, he would have a better chance. 'Eh, I don't care!' he cried, throwing up his head with an air of indifference; 'they've often asked me to take it.' That was so, but it had been at times when he had not wanted it; now that he did, they would bargain hard, or not let him have it at all. Who could tell why that should be so? It was a law of nature that landlords and peasants were always at cross purposes. He remembered how often he had charged too much for work done, or how often the gospodarze had refused to come to terms with the squire about rights of grazing or wood-gathering in the forests, and he felt contrite. Good Lord! how beautifully the squire had spoken to them: 'Let us help each other and live peaceably like good neighbours.' And they had answered: 'What's the good of being neighbours? A nobleman is a nobleman and a peasant is a peasant. We should prefer peasants for neighbours and you would prefer noblemen.' Then the squire had cited: 'Remember, the runaway goat came back to the cart and said, "Put me in." But I shall say you nay.' And Gryb, in the name of them all, had answered: 'The goat will come, your honour, when you throw your forests open.' The squire had said nothing, but his trembling moustaches had warned them that he would not forget that answer. 'I always told Gryb not to talk with a long tongue,' Slimak sighed. 'Now it is I who will have to suffer for his impudence.' A new idea came into his head. Why should he not pay for the field in work instead of cash? The Squire might accept it, for he wasn't half a bad gentleman. It was true, the other gospodarze looked down upon him, because he was the only one who hired himself out for work; but whatever happened, the squire would always be the squire, and they the gospodarze. He hummed again, but under his breath, so that the boys should not hear him: 'The cuckoo cuckooed in the forest, Say the neighbours, I am the dullest.' Suddenly he turned upon Stasiek, and wanted to know why he was dragging along as if he were being taken to jail, and didn't talk. 'I...I am wondering why we are going to the manor?' 'Don't you want to go?' 'No; I am afraid.' 'What is there to be afraid of?' snapped Slimak, but he himself was shivering.