“She has waxed fat, and is too full of fodder!” Yagustynka replied with indignation; she always took the part of anyone that asked her advice. “But let me tell you, ye should drive out these humours of hers with a stick betimes, lest ye may not prevail later, even with a club!” “Such was never the custom of the Borynas!” he returned, in a lofty way. “Yet methinks,” she spitefully remarked, “that even the Borynas will have to come to that!” A few days later, just after Candlemas, Ambrose came in the afternoon to tell them the priest would come the next day for the _Kolendy_[11] visit. ----- Footnote 11: _Kolendy._ An annual ceremony of blessing the house and farm and the live stock.—_Translator’s Note._ All the morning they were busily engaged in a general cleaning. The old man, to avoid hearing Yagna continually abuse and upbraid Yuzka for all she did, had gone out to sweep the snow about the premises. The rooms were given fresh air, the walls cleared of cobwebs; Yuzka strewed the porch and passage with yellow sand, and they all arrayed themselves in their very best attire; for the priest was now not far off, officiating at neighbour Balcerek’s. Presently his sledge stood outside the porch; and he, with his surplice over his fur, and accompanied by two of the organist’s sons in choir-boys’ robes, entered the cabin. Before him, Boryna carried a deep plate, full of holy water. He said some Latin prayers, sprinkled the rooms, and then went out to bless the farm-buildings and all the man’s possessions, passing round and saying the sacred words aloud, the organist’s boys walking on either side of him, singing Christmas carols, and untiringly ringing and swinging their little jingling bells. Boryna carried the holy water before; the others walked behind, in procession. All being over, he returned to the cabin to rest; and while Boryna, aided by Pete, was putting fifty litres of oats, and half as many of pease, in the priest’s sledge, he was listening to Yuzka’s and Vitek’s prayers, which they repeated to him in the cabin. They knew them perfectly. Who had taught them? he wondered. “Kuba taught me my prayers; Roch, my catechism and my primer!” the lad answered boldly. The priest patted him on the head, and gave each of them a couple of pictures. Then he told them to obey their elders, never neglect prayer, and beware of sin. “For Satan, whithersoever we go, is on the watch, ready to drag us down to hell.” Then, raising his voice, he concluded with a solemn warning: “And this I say unto you, that nothing, no, nothing is hidden from the eye of the just God. Beware therefore of the day of judgment and of doom: repent ye, and mend your ways whilst it is yet time!”