He answered, somewhat sadly, but with wisdom, pointing out to them so many a deep truth and holy maxim that they all sighed, and fell to reflecting on the ways of God’s providence in this world. “Yes,” said Klemba, “to-day is ours; to-morrow belongs to the Lord!” But Roch was tired, and needed some rest. As all were highly interested in the wonderful tales told, each began, at first in whispers, and then aloud, to tell of such things as they too had heard. One told one tale, another a second, and this reminded a third of something else, each bringing in a fresh point of interest. So the tales glided on like spun threads, and softly as the moonbeams that light up the dead dark waters in the secret woodlands.—They told how a drowned woman came back to suckle her hungry babe, whose cries had drawn her; and how an aspen stake must be thrust through the heart of a vampire in its coffin, that it may not come out to suck human blood any more; how there are noonday phantoms that lurk in lanes between fields, to strangle children. They spoke of talking trees, of horrible midnight spectres, of hanged men, of witches, of bound souls, doing penance upon earth—and of many another weird and awful thing that made the hair to stand on end, the heart to faint with horror, and all that heard to shudder, frozen with dread. Then they sat mute, looking apprehensively one at the other, and lending an ear: they fancied someone was walking about the loft over the ceiling, or lurked hid outside the windows; that glaring eyes glowed upon them through the panes, or dim shadowy forms skulked in nooks and corners; and more than one made the sign of the cross, and said prayers with chattering teeth. But this mood was swift to pass away, like a cloud, when it has glided over the sun and one has forgotten that it ever was there. And they then set once more to chatter and spin long, long yarns, which Roch heard attentively, till at last he joined their talk, and related a certain fable about a horse. “Once upon a time, a poor five-acre husbandman possessed a horse, whose nature was slothful and evil beyond words. He was good to it, but that was of no use; he fed it well, but it never was pleased. And it would do no work at all, but pulled its harness to pieces, and lashed out so viciously that no one could go near it.... At last its master, seeing that kindness was of no avail, grew mightily angry and, harnessing the horse to a plough, set it to till a field that had long lain fallow, thinking to wear it out thereby, and weary it into obedience. It refused to draw; then he gave it so sound a flogging as made it submit and work. But it thought it had been grievously ill-used, and the memory rankled, with craving to be revenged at a convenient season. And when the husbandman one day had stooped down to set its hind legs free, crash! the horse’s hoofs struck out and killed him on the spot; and it set off to roam the world at liberty.