Thenceforward he had no peace. Every evening he watched in secret, hiding behind corners, making the round of the house and messuages, looking under the thatches; and often, waking up at night, he would listen for hours together or, jumping out of bed, go round the premises with his dog. And once he saw certain faint traces about the haystack, where the ground had been trampled. Later, he found marks of footsteps near the stile, and became more and more convinced that Antek had been there at night, and was only seeking an opportunity to set the rick on fire. For as yet he had no thought of any other possible outrage. He purchased a very savage dog from the miller, chained it up in a kennel under the shed, and made it more savage still by starving and baiting it. At night he would set it free, and then it would bark furiously and set upon anyone it met. It bit several people so seriously that complaints were lodged against Boryna. But this vigilance and these precautions made the old man weaker and weaker, though his eyes glowed with feverish excitement. He had determined to speak and complain to no one any more; this very greatly increased the intensity of his sufferings. It also prevented anyone from guessing the cause of his restless behaviour. That he watched so carefully over the premises, and had bought that dog, and made those nightly rounds, found an easy explanation. That winter, wolves had multiplied to an extraordinary degree; almost every night, they would approach the village in packs, and the inhabitants often heard them howl; not infrequently, too, they scratched holes under the byres, and carried off something here and there. Moreover, as was common enough just before the spring, cases of theft became more rife. A peasant in Debitsa had been robbed of a couple of mares; in Rudka, a hog had been stolen; elsewhere, a cow was missing. Therefore did many a man in Lipka scratch his head, and get better locks, and keep good watch over his stables; for the horses there were the very best in the district. So the days went on, slowly, regularly, like the hands of a clock—only neither to be pushed forward nor set back. Not only was the winter uncommonly severe, but the weather was also unusually changeable. There were such frosts as the oldest inhabitants had never known; sometimes the snow would fall in immense quantities; then it would thaw for whole weeks together, so that the ditches were filled with water, and the fields stretched out, black and desolate: after which there would be whirlwinds and snow-drifts such as the land had never seen as yet—and then a spell of serene calm weather, when the lanes swarmed with children, and the folk were glad, and the old people basked against the warm sunny walls.