The snow had been, since early morning, threatening to fall. The day rose, cloudy and very boisterous; grains of snow came down, minute, like unsifted groats; and the gale, gaining in strength as the morning advanced, and constantly changing its direction, howled loud and dismally. The weather notwithstanding, Hanka had set out with her father and several _Komorniki_ immediately after noontide, to get dry wood for fuel in the forest. The gusts raged over the fields, shaking the trees, blowing clouds of fallen snow into the air again, whistling and shrieking, and casting them down once more, as when a linen cloth, full of white hemp peel, is shaken out. Everything was lost to sight in the raging turmoil. Once clear of the village, they went forward in single file along the pathways between the sown crops, towards the pine-forest, now scarce visible through the falling snow. The wind, increasing in intensity, smote upon them from every quarter, dancing wildly round them, and buffeted and struck them so violently that they could hardly stand. They crawled along, bending down towards the ground; while it rushed on, gathered up dry snow mingled with sand, and returned to dash it in their faces. Slowly they plodded onward, making half-audible sounds, and rubbing their hands with snow; for the piercing frost went through and through their thin garments; and the numerous snow-drifts around the piles of stones or the trees were continually blocking the way, and had to be turned, thus lengthening their journey a good deal. Hanka walked foremost, often looking back at her father, bowed down, and with his head in a shawl. He was dressed in a cast-off sheepskin of Antek’s, and girt with a band of straw; and he dragged along at the tail, panting, forced every now and then to stop, rest, and wipe his eyes, which were watering with the blast. Then he would hasten on, crying: “I am coming, Hanka, I am coming; fear not, I shall not lag behind.” Certainly he would have much preferred staying in the chimney corner. But when she, poor thing! went out in such weather, how could he remain at home? Besides, it was unbearably cold in the hut; the children shivered and shuddered all the time; they could not cook anything, and ate only dry bread. Hanka, with set teeth, walked on in front of the _Komorniki_.—Yes, it had come to that: Filipka, Krakalina, old Kobusova, Magda, Kozlova, the very poorest in the whole place, were now her companions. She sighed to think of it: yet it was by no means the first time she had been out thus with them. “Let it be so! Let it be so!” she said in a hard whisper, striving for strength and patience. Since it had to be, well, she was willing; she would go and seek for firewood along with those paupers, and never weep, nor complain, nor beg anyone to help her.