Under the windows outside, Jews were vociferating; within, women clamorously expounded their wrongs, and still more clamorously wept over them; but what those wrongs were, no one could make out. Everybody was cheek by jowl, like a field of red poppies or of rye, waving to and fro in the wind, and rustling and whispering; all clustered together. It was then that Eva caught sight of Boryna, upright against the grating, and heaped insults upon him, till she cut him to the quick and he answered hotly: “Silence, you bitch, or I’ll give you such a drubbing that your own mother won’t know you!” Eva, in a fury, clawed at him, and tried to reach him through the press; but her kerchief fell off, and her child fell a-screaming. What might have happened, none can say: for just then Yacek started up, opened an inner door, and shouted: “Hold your peace, yokels! The court is entering.” It was indeed: the stalwart squire of Raciborowice, followed by two assistant magistrates, and the secretary. The latter, sitting down at a side-table, set some papers in order, and eyed the magistrates, as they put their gold chains round their necks, and took their places at a great table, covered with crimson cloth. At once there fell such a silence that the men chattering outside the windows could be plainly heard; and the session began. The first complaint was brought by a constable against a petty trader, on account of some nuisance in his yard.—Condemned in default. Then the case of a boy flogged for having put horses to graze in clover.—A compromise: five roubles for the mother; a new jacket and trousers for the boy. A complaint of encroachment in ploughing.—No evidence: set aside. A case of theft of timber in a forest, the judge’s property: complainant, the administrator; defendants, the peasants of Rokiciny.—Fined, with alternative of a fortnight’s imprisonment. They gave notice of appeal, and made such a noise about the injustice of the sentence, they having the common right to cut firewood in the forest, that the head magistrate made a sign to Yacek, who thundered: “Silence! silence in the court! This is not a tavern!” And thus case after case, like furrow following furrow, was dispatched, evenly and quietly enough in general, with a few lamentations and sobs, or even curses at times; but these were promptly suppressed by Yacek. Some of the people had withdrawn; but so many more came instead, that they all stood like cornstalks in a sheaf. No one could move, and it grew stiflingly hot, until the magistrate ordered the windows to be opened. And now came the case of Bartek Koziol, of Lipka, accused of stealing a sow from Martianna Paches, daughter of Anthony. Witnesses, the aforesaid Martianna, her son Simon, Barbara Pyesek, etc. “Are the witnesses present?” asked one of the assistant magistrates. “We are here,” came the reply in chorus.