Presently there came along the sandy road, trudging heavily, a Jewish ragpicker, who trundled a barrow so loaded down that he had to stop for breath every now and then. “What news, Moshek?” cried the priest. “What news? Good news to those it may concern. Potatoes, God be praised! are plentiful; there’s a good crop of rye, and cabbages will be abundant. It’s all very well for such as have potatoes and rye and cabbages.” He kissed the priest’s sleeve, adjusted the barrow-strap, and went on more lightly, his way now leading down a gentle slope. In his wake, along the middle of the road and in the haze of dust raised by his dragging feet, came a blind beggar, led by a well-fed dog at the end of a string. Then a lad carrying a bottle approached from the side of the wood. The latter, catching sight of the holy man on the road, gave him a wide berth and made for the village tavern by a short cut through the fields. A peasant from the next hamlet, on his way to the mill, and a Jewess driving a flock of geese, then also passed by. Each praised God; the priest exchanged some kind words and friendly looks with them, and they went on their way. By this time the sun was low. The priest got up and called to Valek: “You will plough as far as the birches, then home. The poor beasts are quite tired out.” Going along the path between the fields, he said his Office under his breath, looking round from time to time at the scene with fond, glistening eyes. Working-women gleamed in red rows at the potato-diggings, and the contents of their baskets rumbled into the carts. Here and there, the ground was still being ploughed for sowing. On the fallows a herd of brindled cows was feeding. The ashen-grey hue of certain lands was beginning to take on a ruddy tint from the blades of corn already sprouting there. On the close-cropped, tawny grass of the meadows, the geese showed up like white snowflakes. A cow was heard lowing afar. Fires had been lit, and long blue clouds of smoke trailed over the cornfields. Elsewhere harrows were at work, a dim cloud of dust rising in the wake of each and settling down at the foot of the hills. From beneath it, coming as it were out of a cloud, a bareheaded, barefooted peasant, with a cloth full of corn tied round his waist, was pacing leisurely, taking handfuls of grain and scattering them all over the earth with a solemn gesture, as one bestowing a blessing. On reaching the end of the ploughed fields, he would turn and slowly ascend the slope, his shock of tousled hair first appearing above the sky-line, then his shoulders, and finally his whole body, still with the same solemn gesture, the sower’s benediction, that shed forth upon the soil, a holy thing as it were—the golden seed which fell in a semicircle round him.