“May their eyes drop out of the sockets!” But he said this curse very low; for just then the Voyt entered the room. Probably he too was aware of the reason why they quarrelled, for he at once set to justifying and defending the old man’s behaviour. “That you stand up for him is no wonder: he has given you drink and sausages in plenty!” “No careless talk, pray; I, the Voyt, am speaking to you.” “For your Voytship I care as I care for this broken stick!” “What!—what has the man said?” “You have heard; and if not, you shall hear other things which will go yet farther.” “Say them, then, if you dare!” “I will.—Behold, you are a drunkard, a Judas, a dissembler; one that squanders in revels the money the village has entrusted to him, and takes abundant pay from the manor, to let the Squire sell our forest land.... Will ye I say more?” he added furiously, snatching at a stick. “So I will, but with this cudgel, not with my tongue.” “Take care you rue not what you are doing, Antek; I am a man in office!” “And do not fly at anyone under my roof! This is no tavern!” the smith shouted, placing himself in front of the Voyt. But Antek, now wrought up to exasperation, poured a volley of abuse on them both, slammed the door, and left them. “Now,” he was saying to himself, while breakfasting the next day, “now they will all be against me!” when, to his stupefaction, he saw the blacksmith come in. They met on their usual terms. When Antek went to the barn afterwards to chop straw, the smith followed him, and said in confidential tones: “I’ll be hanged if I know why we quarrelled ... some silly word dropped, belike. So I am first to come to you and shake hands.” Antek shook hands indeed, but grunted, with a look of mistrust: “Yes, some hasty words passed between us; but I felt no grudge against you. That Voyt made me frantic.... Let him mind his own business, and keep himself to himself, or....” “So I told him, when he wanted to follow you out....” “To fight me?—I would have given him such a dressing as I gave his cousin, who has been smashed up ever since harvest-time!” “Of that, too, did I remind him,” the smith observed, with a demure look and a sly leer. “But I will settle with him yet ... with that great man, that Jack in office! He will remember me!” “He is not worth your notice: let him be.—I have had an idea, and have come now to tell you about it. This is what we have to do.... This afternoon my wife will come here. You will go with her to old Boryna, and talk the matter over thoroughly.... Of what use is complaining in holes and corners? Speak your mind out to him face to face. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps not; but at all events we shall have threshed the matter out.” “But what is to be done, now the settlement has been made?”