Less than a score of workers were there, most of them old women and farm-labourers. At some distance were fixed two couples of crossed poles from which, swathed in cloths, a couple of babies were swinging as in hammocks, and wailing now and then. “Well, and so the old woman has gone off a-wandering,” Yagustynka said after some time. “The old woman? Who?” asked Anna, straightening herself. “Why, old Agatha.” “What, a-begging?” “Of course a-begging! No, not for the pleasure of the thing. She has been working hard for her kinsfolk, serving them all summer long; and now they let her go—to get some fresh air! Next spring she will return, with baskets full of sugar and tea, and some money, besides. Oh, they will be fond enough of her then, and cover her up snugly in bed, and tell her that she must not work, but just rest up. Oh, yes! and they will call her ‘Aunt,’ till they have got the last bit of money out of her. But when autumn comes round again, there will again be no room for her—not even in the passageway, not even in the pigsty. Oh, those blood-sucking kinsfolk! Those inhuman beasts!” Yagustynka put such passion into her outburst that her face turned livid as she spoke. An old farm-labourer—a wry-faced worn-out man—remarked: “Here you see how true is the saying: ‘The wind is always blowing in the face of the poor.’” “Now, good people, please dig away,” interrupted Hanka hastily; she did not like the turn the conversation was taking. But Yagustynka, who could not hold her tongue, soon looked up and said: “Those Pacheses,—they are getting on in years; the hair is thin upon their heads.” “And yet,” another woman put in, “they still remain unmarried men.” “And there are so many girls growing old here, too, or forced to take service elsewhere!” “Yet, they have a score of acres and more, besides a meadow beyond the mill.” “Aye, but will their mothers let them marry, do you think, or let them have anything if they do?” “Yes, who would then milk the cows, or do the washing, or tend to the farm and the pigs?” “They have to keep house for their mother and for Yagna. Else how could Yagna be the grand lady that she is? Quite a gentlewoman, always dressing up, and washing herself, and peering into her glass, and for ever braiding her hair!” “And looking for someone to share her bed—any able-bodied young man will do,” added Yagustynka with a malicious sneer. “Joseph Bandech sent ‘proposers’[4] to her with a gift of vodka, but she would not have him.” ----- Footnote 4: Two men go to the girl’s family, offering vodka in the young man’s name; if the girl drinks to him, she is regarded as affianced.—_Translator’s Note._ “A plague on her, the pampered minx!” “And the old dame, too: always in church, and praying out of her prayer-book, and going wherever there’s an indulgence!”[5] ----- Footnote 5: An annual local festival held in every parish, where those who come to church may gain an indulgence.—_Translator’s Note._