“Union, my dear friend, is the only thing. Union.” He took snuff, put his fur cap on, and added: “Union and brotherly love make the whole world go round. And that is why the manor would willingly come to an agreement with you. The Squire told me as much: he is a good man, and would fain arrive at a neighbourly understanding with everyone....” “When a wolf is your neighbour, you can only come to an understanding with a club or an ax!” The priest started, shocked at the words, and looked him steadily in the face; but, seeing the cold relentless expression of his eyes and his set lips, turned away hastily, and rubbed his hands, much upset. “I must away. Allow me to repeat that you ought not to set your wife against you by severe treatment. She is young—flighty, too, as women are—and you should deal with her wisely, and justly as well: be blind to one thing, deaf to another, and overlook a third. Thus ye may avoid unpleasant scenes, which might have most evil consequences. Yes: our Lord has a special blessing for peacemakers. For peacemakers.—Oh! what on earth is this?” he suddenly exclaimed, much startled; for the stork, hitherto standing motionless by the chest, had unexpectedly pecked with all its might at the priest’s well-polished boot. “It’s only a stork, that remained here in autumn, with a broken wing, and Vitek took care of it, and nursed it till it got well again. Now it stays in the hut with us, and catches mice as well as any cat could do.” “Really? I never yet saw a tame stork. Curious, most curious!” He bent down to give Bociek a caress; but this it would have none of, and with curved neck meditated another sly attack on the priest’s boot. “Upon my word, I like it so much that, if you would sell it, I would gladly buy it of you.” “Sell it? Not I. But the lad shall take it at once to your Reverence’s house.” “I will send Valentine for it.” “Ah, but no one save Vitek may touch it, and it obeys him alone.” They called the boy in; the priest gave him a _zloty_ and told him to bring it in the evening, after the round of the parish had been finished. Vitek cried much and, after the priest’s departure, took Bociek with him to the byre, where he blubbered aloud till dusk; then Boryna came to silence him and remind him that the bird had to be taken; Vitek unwillingly obeyed, but his heart melted in his breast, and he went about, his eyes swollen with tears and like one half-witted, now and then running to the stork, gathering it in his arms and kissing it, weeping sorely all the while. So, when the priest was home at nightfall, he wrapped Bociek up in his own little capote, to protect it from the cold, and (together with Yuzka, for the bird was too heavy for him alone to carry) took it over to the priest’s: Lapa accompanying them, and barking moodily all the way.