“Good Lord, how weary I am!” she said, impatiently awaiting the close of day and the start for Boryna’s cabin. The hours crawled by, like an old man trudging in the mud—so sluggishly, so wearily, so drearily, that it became intolerable. She grew very restless, and was continually scolding her brothers, and flinging about such articles as she happened to find at hand. Withal, her head began to ache, and she had to put a warm oatmeal poultice, sprinkled with vinegar, on the top of her head, before it passed off. But, though now better, she felt completely out of gear; her work fell from her hands, and she many a time cast her eyes upon that surging pond which, like some huge bird, spread out ponderous wings, and flapped them, and struggled up, foaming, till the water rose and splashed all over the road—and all but soared into the air. Dominikova had been out since the morning, called away to attend a woman in childbed at the farther end of the village; for she knew a good deal about medicine, and how to heal various ailments. So then Yagna was feeling very ill at ease. She longed to go out of doors and see someone; but whenever she tied her apron over her head and peered out beyond the threshold at the mire and the downpour, her desire vanished away. At last, knowing not what to do with herself, she opened her chest and took out all her holiday apparel, which she spread upon the beds, till the room glowed crimson with striped skirts and jackets and aprons. But that day she cared nothing for any of them. At all those her possessions she gazed with tired indifferent eyes; nevertheless, she drew Boryna’s gifts—the kerchief and the ribbon—from the bottom of the chest, and adorning herself with them, took a look at the glass. “They will do. I shall put them on this evening,” she decided; but took them off again hurriedly, for someone was coming to the hut, creeping along by the fence. This was no other than Matthew. Yagna cried out in astonishment as he came in: the very man on whose account the village folk had talked most against her as having met him by night in the orchard and elsewhere many a time. He was a man rather beyond the prime of life, being well over thirty; still a bachelor, for he did not care to marry, having sisters at home (or rather, according to Yagustynka’s malicious tongue, because lasses and neighbours’ wives were very much to his liking); a tall fellow, strong as an oak, very sure of himself, and consequently so proud and headstrong that he was feared by almost everyone. And he could—what could he not do?—play the flute, construct a wagon, build a hut, arrange a stove; and whatever he did, he did so well that his hands were always full of work. Never of money, though: however much he earned, he would get rid of it directly, drinking, standing drinks, and lending to his friends. He was called “Dove,” though in his eyes and his fiery nature he had much more of the hawk. “Matthew!” “Yes, ’tis I, Yagna!”