Here is a dish of Turkish wheat, Cooked with plenty of lard, for lean folk to eat! “Yagna, just bend over to me, I’ll tell you a thing,” the Voyt said, plucking at her dress behind her bridegroom, whose next neighbour he was. “I would be your child’s godfather,” he cried, laughing, and gloating over her with greedy eyes. At this, she grew very red; and the women, seeing this, fell a-laughing and jesting yet more facetiously, some setting to explain to her how she ought to behave to her husband. “You’ll have to warm a feather-bed for him every evening before the fire, or he’ll be cold as ice.” “And especially see he has much fat to eat: it will keep him in good condition.” “And pet him well, with your arms round his neck.” “And drive him with a gentle hand, that he may not know he is driven at all!” So they babbled on, each sentence freer than the last, as happens when women have taken too much, and let their tongues run away with them. All in the room were shaking with merriment, and things at last went so far that the miller’s wife set to lecturing them on their duties towards the girls and little ones present; and the organist pointed out how grievous a sin it was to cause others to offend by evil example. “What? is this bellows-blower forbidding people every pleasure in life?” “Being close to the priest, he thinks himself a saint!” “Let him stop his ears, an it like him not.” And more unpleasant cries began to be heard, for he was disliked in the village. “We have a wedding to-day, and therefore, my good people, I, your Voyt, assure you it is no sin to enjoy yourselves, laugh at things laughable, and make merry.” “And our Lord Himself used to go to weddings and drink wine,” Ambrose added seriously; but no one made out what he said, as he was now tipsy, and sitting by the door besides. Then all fell to talking, joking, clinking glasses, and eating more and more slowly, in order to get more compactly filled up; some even, to make room for the most food possible, undid their girdles, and sat straight and stiff. Again the cooks entered, with the following couplet: It grunting, squealing, rooting once about the garden ran: But now, for all the harm it did, ’twill pay the husbandman! “Well, they have done the thing grandly!” the people declared. “Truly, this wedding must come at least to a thousand _zloty_!” “Oh, she can well afford it: has she not got six acres of land thereby?” “Just look at Yagna! Is she not gloomy as night?” “As a set-off, Boryna’s eyes are shining like a wildcat’s.” “Say, like tinder, my friend—rotten tinder!” “Aye, the man will weep over this day yet.” “No. He is not of the weeping sort. Of the cudgelling, rather.” “Just what I said to the Voyt’s wife, when she told me the marriage had been settled.” “Ah, I wonder why she is not here to-night.” “Out of the question. Her child may be due any day.”