“Times are bad, but men are so, too. What of the blacksmith? And of the Voyt? They quarrel with our priest, they make people rebel; they seduce them and are believed by the purblind. That blacksmith, though my son-in-law, is yet as poison to me.” They continued to complain in chorus of the world’s wickedness, as they looked through the poplars towards the village they were nearing. In the distance, there could be seen, outside the churchyard, a row of women bending down, indistinctly visible through a thin haze round them, and the dull monotonous thudding sound of cluttering swingles came to them, borne on the breeze from the low-lying meadows. “Just the weather for scutching flax. I shall get down to speak to them, for Yagna is there too.” “I’ll drive you to her; it will make no difference to me.” “How very kind you are to-day, Matthias!” she said with a sly smile. They turned off from the poplar road to the by-way that led over the fields to the churchyard. There, outside the low wall of grey stone which surrounded it, in the shadow of some birches and maples, and of a few crosses, too, which leaned over the wall, hard on twenty women were very busily scutching and beating the dry flax: a mist of threads hung over them in the air, and a few filaments had caught on to the yellow birch-leaves, or hung suspended from the dark-hued arms of the crosses. Further down, fires had been kindled in pits, over and across which poles were laid, and upon them damp flax was drying. The swingles were hard at work, and all the womenfolk bent and rose with quick short jerks up and down: now and then one or another stood up, beat a wisp of flax free from remnants of woody matter, and, rolling it up, tossed it on to a piece of linen spread out in front of her. The sun, being at present over the forest, shone directly in their faces, but they did not mind: work and laughter and merry talk never ceased for an instant. “God bless your work!” cried Boryna to Yagna, who was swingling the flax with all her might. She had nothing on but her white smock, a red petticoat, and an apron tied over her head against the dust. “Bless you for the wish!” she returned blithely, raising her dark-blue eyes to his, while a smile lit up her handsome sunburnt face. “Is it quite dry, dear?” her mother asked, fingering the scutched flax. “Dry as a peppercorn; quite brittle.” And again she eyed the old man with a smile that made him tingle all over. He smacked his whip and drove away, looking back at her again and again, though she was not to be seen any more; for his mind’s eye saw her still. “A girl as graceful as a hind!” he muttered. “Aye, even so!” CHAPTER IV Sunday had come round: a bright September Sunday, with plenty of gossamers and sunshine in the air.