“Silence, babblers!” the Soltys shouted indignantly. “Come ye to make merry here, and grin over your neighbour’s misfortune?—Off, women! get you home; what do ye, standing here?” “Meddle not with our business, but do your own; for that only are ye in office!” Kozlova retorted in such shrill tones of anger that the Soltys looked her in the face, spat with disgust, and withdrew to the farm-yard. No one moved an inch; and the women set to pushing the singed apron about with their clogs, and confer together in fierce tones. “Such a one,” Kozlova said aloud, “should be treated as witches were dealt with of old—driven out from amongst us with a lighted candle and an oven-poker!” “Surely! Has not all this befallen through her fault?” chimed in Sikora’s wife. “It is,” put in Sohova gently, “a mercy of the Lord that the whole village has not been burnt down!” “True: a miracle, a miracle indeed.” “Yes; there was no wind, and they gave the alarm at once.” “Besides, the alarm-bell was rung, and we were only in our first sleep.” “It is likely the bear-leaders, who were coming from the tavern, were the first to see it.” “Ah, no, my dear! Boryna caught them inside the haystack, and had only just separated them, when the fire broke out. Last night, when I saw them at the Klembas’, going out together, I was sure something of the sort would happen.” “The old man had long been on the watch to catch them.” “My son tells me he had been walking about outside Klemba’s ever so long, waiting for them,” Kobusova remarked. “Antek must have set the rick on fire out of spite.” “Did he not threaten he would do so?” “It could not but have ended in some such way; it could not,” Kozlova put in. Meanwhile, another group of housewives were also whispering, but lower and to more purpose. “Do you know? Boryna has swinged Yagna so, that she is now lying sick in her mother’s house!” “Certainly; he turned her out at dawn, and sent her chest with all her things after her,” Balcerek’s wife, who had hitherto said nothing, told them now. Ploshka’s wife contradicted her: “Pray do not talk at random; I was in the hut just now, and her chest is standing there. “But,” she added in a higher key, “on her wedding-day I foretold it would come to this.” “O my God!” Sohova groaned, raising her open hands, “what an awful, awful thing!” “Ah, well, he will be locked up for it, and that’s all!” “It is but just: we might all have been burnt out.” “I,” said Ploshka’s wife, “was beginning to enjoy my first sleep, when Luke, who had been running about with the bear-leaders, came tapping at my window-pane and crying: ‘Fire!’—Jesu Maria! the window was as red as hot embers.... And I felt so faint, I could not budge one inch.... And the bell tolled, and the people shrieked....” Here someone broke in: “No sooner had I heard there was a fire at Boryna’s than I knew it was Antek’s doing.” “Tush, ye talk as though ye had seen him do it.” “Seen him I have not; but all say it is he.”