The Voyt had a private talk with old Boryna, but no one could catch what they said. He withdrew, after a few words of banter with the lasses, having still half the village to summon for the morrow. They too departed soon after, it being late. Boryna said farewell to each one in particular, and even saw the elder women to the gate. Yagustynka, on leaving, raised her voice, and said: “God bless you for your good cheer; but all was not as it might have been.” “Indeed?” “You need someone to keep house for you, Matthias: without such a one, how can things go right?” “What’s to be done, friend? What’s to be done?... She died, it was God’s will....” “Have we no girls here? Why, every Thursday they all wait for you to propose to one of them,” she said, cunningly trying to draw him out. But Boryna only scratched his head and smiled, looking instinctively towards Yagna, who was going out. Antek expected her exit; so he dressed quickly and slipped out first. Yagna had to return alone: her companions all lived in the direction of the mill. “Yagna!” he whispered, coming suddenly out of a hedge-side. She stopped, knew his voice, and was at once seized with emotion. “I’ll see you home, Yagna!”—He looked round; the night was black, starless. Above them, the wind roared, sweeping over the tree-tops. His arm enclosed her waist in a tight grasp; and, one close to the other, they both vanished in the gloom. CHAPTER VIII It was on the following day that the news of the marriage arranged between Boryna and Yagna burst upon the village of Lipka. The Voyt had gone over to her with the proposal. His wife, whom he had severely forbidden to breathe a single word about the matter until he had come back with the answer, waited till evening to visit an acquaintance, on the pretext of borrowing some salt; and as she went away, she took her good friend apart, and whispered: “Do you know what? Boryna has just sent a proposal to Yagna, daughter of Dominikova. But beware and tell no one, for my husband has forbidden me to speak of it at all.” “Can this be?” she gasped in amazement. “Should my tongue wag of such a thing about the village?... So old a man, taking a third wife!... And his children, what will they say?... Oh, what a world it is!” No sooner had the Voyt’s wife withdrawn than, tying her apron over her head, she hurried through the orchard to the Klembas’, “just to borrow a bit of tow to scrub with.” “Have you heard? Boryna is to marry Yagna, daughter of Dominikova! He has but now sent messengers with his proposal.” “Impossible! What do you say? Nay; he has full-grown children, and is himself stricken in years.” “True, he is not young. But they will not refuse him for that.... A farmer so reputable, a man so rich!”