'What can we do? we have no horses and my father cannot walk on his own feet.' 'Is your father lame?' 'Yes.' The peasant reflected for a moment. 'Then he is hanging on to the others, as it were?' 'Oh no,' replied the girl with much spirit, 'father teaches the children and I take in sewing, and when there is no sewing to do I work in the fields.' Slimak looked at her with surprise and said, after a pause: 'You can't be German, you talk our language very well.' 'We are from Germany.' 'Yes, we are Germans,' said the man in the cart, speaking for the first time. Slimakowa and Jendrek now came out of the cottage and joined the group at the gate. 'What a strong dog!' cried Jendrek. 'Look here,' said Slimak, 'this lady has dragged her lame father a long way in the cart; would you do that, you scamp?' 'Why should I? Haven't they any horses, dad?' 'We have had horses,' murmured the man in the cart, 'but we haven't any now.' He was pale and thin, with red hair and beard. 'Wouldn't you like to rest and have something to eat after your long journey?' inquired Slimak. 'I don't want anything to eat, but my father would like some milk.' 'Run and get some milk, Jendrek,' cried Slimak. 'Meaning no offence,' said Slimakowa, 'but you Germans can't have a country of your own, or else you wouldn't come here.' 'This is our home,' the girl replied. 'I was born in this country, the other side of the Vistula.' Her father made an impatient movement and said in a broken voice: 'We Germans have a country of our own, larger than yours, but it's not pleasant to live in: too many people, too little land; it's difficult to make a living, and we have to pay heavy taxes and do hard military service, and there are penalties for everything.' He coughed and continued after a pause: 'Everybody wants to be comfortable and live as he pleases, and not as others tell him. It's not pleasant to live in our country, so we've come here.' Jendrek brought the milk and offered it to the girl, who gave it to her father. 'God repay you!' sighed the invalid; 'the people in this country are kind.' 'I wish you would not do us harm,' said Slimakowa in a half-whisper. 'Why should we do you harm?' said the man. 'Do we take your land? do we steal? do we murder you? We are quiet people, we get in nobody's way so long as nobody gets...' 'You have bought the land here,' Slimak interrupted. 'But why did your squire sell it to us? If thirty peasants had been settled here instead of one man, who did nothing but squander his money, our people would not have come. Why did not you yourselves form a community and buy the village? Your money would have been as good as ours. You have been settled here for ages, but the colonists had to come in before you troubled about the land, and then no sooner have they bought it than they become a stumbling-block to you! Why wasn't the squire a stumbling-block to you?'