“Thank you! A great honour it is, surely, to have to bow to the constables, and lout low to every clerk and every underling at court.... And if taxes are unpaid, or a bridge is out of order, or if a dog hit by a cart-shaft goes mad, who is to blame? Why, the Soltys always! And the profit! How many a fowl and goose and score of eggs have I not had to send to the clerks and the district officials!” “You say true; but then Peter the Voyt here has no grounds of complaint. He has purchased some land, and built a barn too.” “Yes; but when he is Voyt no longer, what will he do?” “Then you think that....” “Oh, I have my eyes open, and can see a thing or two.” “He is most conceited, and at sixes and sevens with the priest.” “And if he gets on at all, it is his wife’s doing: she is the real Voyt, and holds all the cards in her hands.” There was silence again for the space of a long pater noster. “Tell me,” she said at last, very deliberately, “are you not going to send anyone messengers with vodka?” “Ah, the desire of women is no longer with me: I am an old man.” “Do not speak vain words. A man is old when he can go about no more, nor lift a spoon to his mouth by himself, nor sit elsewhere but by the stove. Why, I have seen you shouldering a sackful of rye!” “Granted that I am yet hale: but who would care to have me?” “That you cannot know until you have tried.” “Besides, my children are grown up, and I cannot take the first lass that comes.” “Make a deed of gift, and the very best of them will not hold back.” “A deed of gift! To get an acre of land, a girl would take a beggar from the church porch.” “What of men? They wouldn’t take a girl with a dowry, would they?” He made no reply, but whipped the filly to a gallop. Another silence ensued, broken only when they were out of the forest and upon the poplar-lined road; when Boryna suddenly exclaimed: “To the devil with the world as it goes on now! For everything, nay, even for a good word, you must pay! It is so bad that worse cannot be. Even children rise up against their parents; there is nowhere any obedience, and everyone would devour everyone else! The dogs!” “They are fools, not remembering that we shall all lie one day together in consecrated ground.” “One has scarce begun to be a man, when he flies in his father’s face, loudly demanding a portion of his land; and the young only scoff at the old. Scoundrels, for whom their own village is a hole, who despise all ancient rules, and who—some of them—are even ashamed of their peasant’s dress!” “All because they have not the fear of God.” “Because or not because of that, things are wrong.” “And will surely not mend.” “They must! But who can compel men to do right?” “God’s judgments! For behold, That Day will come, and He will punish them!” “Yes, but before That Day, how many shall be lost!” “Times are so bad, that a plague were better.”