He was roused from this state by the young men's voices; he caught sight of the schoolmaster's daughter and unconsciously moved towards her. But the young man soon brought him to his senses. They pulled his hat over his ears, pushed him into the middle of the crowd, and, wet, smeared with sand, looking more like a scarecrow than a boy, he was passed from hand to hand like a ball. Suddenly his eyes met those of the girl, and a wild spirit awoke in him. He kicked one young man over with his bare legs, tore the shirt off another one's back, butted old Hamer in the stomach, and then stood with clenched fists in the space he had cleared, looking where he might break through. Most of the men laughed at him, but some were for handling him roughly. Fortunately old Hamer recognized him. 'Why, youngster, what are you up to?' 'They're bullying me,' he said, while the tears were rising in his throat. 'Don't you come from that cottage? What are you doing here?' 'I wanted to listen to your singing, but those scoundrels...' He stopped suddenly when he saw the grey eyes of the schoolmaster's daughter fixed on him. She offered him the glass of beer she had been drinking from. 'You are wet through,' she said. 'Take a good pull.' 'I don't want it,' said the boy, and felt ashamed directly; it did not seem well-mannered to speak rudely to one so beautiful. 'I might get tipsy...' he cried, but drained the glass, looked at her again and blushed so deeply that the girl smiled sadly as she looked at him. At that moment violins and cellos struck up; Wilhelm Hamer came heavily bounding along and took the girl away to dance. Her yearning eyes once more rested on Jendrek's face. He felt that something strange was happening to him. A terrible anger and sorrow gripped him by the throat; he wanted to throw himself on Wilhelm and tear his flowered waistcoat off his back; at the same time he wanted to cry aloud. Suddenly he turned to go. 'Are you going?' asked the schoolmaster. 'Give my compliments to your father.' 'And you can tell him from me that I have rented the field by the river from Midsummer Day,' Hamer called after him. 'But dad rented it from the squire!' Hamer laughed...'The squire! We are the squires now, and the field is mine.' As Jendrek neared the road he came upon a peasant, hidden behind a bush, who had been watching. It was Gryb. 'Be praised,' said Jendrek. 'Who's praised at your place?' growled the old man; 'it must be the devil and not the Lord, since you are taking up with the Germans.' 'Who's taking up with them?' The peasant's eyes flashed and his dry skin quivered. 'You're taking up with them!' he cried, shaking his fist, 'or perhaps I didn't see you running off to them like a dog through the water to cadge for a glass of beer, nor your father and mother on the hill praying with the Swabians...praying to the devil! God has punished them already, for something has fallen on Stasiek. There will be more to come...you wait!'