A town close to which stands a monastery on a high hill, with the stations of the Way of the Cross, made in imitation of those in Jerusalem. After Chenstohova, this is the greatest place of pilgrimage in Poland.—_Translator’s Note._ “Is it far to Kalvarya?” “’Tis beyond Cracow.—But I did not get so far. In a village where we stopped to dine, there was a peasant building a hut, and he knew as much about building as a goat knows about pepper! He made me angry; I swore at the man, for he was wasting good timber—and in the end I stayed on with him. In a couple of months I had built him a house like a villa; and for that he would perforce have me wed his sister, a widow that had five acres of land hard by.” “Old, I dare say.” “Not young, ’tis true; but still comely enough. Rather bald, to be sure; lame, too, with a cast in her eye; and smooth of face to look upon, as a loaf nibbled by mice for a fortnight. But a pleasant woman, and a kind one; gave me lots of good things to eat—now scrambled eggs with bits of sausage, now vodka and lard, now other dainties. And she took to me so that I might have shared her cot any day, had I cared.” “Why did you not? Five acres are always worth having.” “Oh, I had no mind for any woman. Of petticoats I have long had more than enough. They are always crying out and screaming, like magpies in a hedge: you say one word, and they bang a score at your head, like a handful of peas. You have your reason to go by; they have only their tongues. You talk to them, thinking to be understood: and they neither understand nor heed you, but jabber foolishness only.—They say our Lord created woman with only half a soul. It must be so—and the devil has supplied them with the other half.” “Perhaps,” Antek put in sadly, “some women may be intelligent.” “Some crows may be white, but none has ever seen any.” “Tell me: were you ever married?” “I was! Oh, yes, I was!” He stopped short, straightened himself, and his grey eyes looked far, far away. He was an old man, dry as a wood-shaving, but sinewy: and straight too, save when at times he drooped, and the pipe wobbled about in his mouth, and his eyes, as now, blinked with quick flutterings. “Time for the next log!” cried the man at the saws. “Hurry now, Bartek! Don’t dawdle there! The saws are stopping!” shouted Matthew. “He’s a fool—wants things done quicker than possible. “‘There comes a rook to church; “A priest am I!” he screeches, And croaks from pulpit-perch, And fondly thinks he preaches,’” Bartek grumbled, as in anger; but some other emotion had taken hold of him, and his rests were more frequent, and he sighed at times, looking southward for noon.