For round Lipka the lands lay untilled, unsown, unmanured, like lusty young swains basking lazy in the sunshine: and on their rich fruitful surface, instead of corn, wild marjorams began to peep forth, thistles grew apace, rusty sorrel plants rose up; the charlock spread amongst the autumn-ploughed fields, and mulleins and burdocks swarmed in the stubble. All those parasites of the farmers’ crops, taking courage, were now creeping on far and wide, and where they had hitherto skulked about in fear and trembling, they came up boldly and grew fast, invading and conquering the ground, furrow by furrow. It was depressing to look upon, that waste and lonely land! It seemed as though the forests, bending down from the hills they crowned; and the brooklets that wound timidly through those deserted plots and patches; and the blackthorn thickets already swelling with their white flower-buds; and the wild pear-trees, scattered along the field-paths; and the birds of passage; and the solitary wanderer from foreign parts; and even the crosses and statues of saints that watched by the roadsides—as though they were all looking on astounded, and inquiring of the sunny days and the plots running to waste: “Whither have the peasants gone? Those songs, those bursts of merriment, where are they? What has come over Lipka?” The women’s wailing alone told them all. So things went on, with no change for the better, rather for the worse; because the women, unable to get even with the home-work, came more rarely to the fields. At Boryna’s, indeed, things went on as usual, though more slowly than before and not so well, since Pete had never been accustomed to that sort of work; but they went on somehow, and there were hands enough to labour. From her bed, Hanka directed all, and with such shrewdness and energy that even Yagna was obliged to bear a hand along with the others. And Hanka took thought for everything—for the live stock—for the sick man—for the time to plough, for the seeds and where to sow them—and for the little ones, whom Bylitsa, having fallen ill, had not been able to care for since the christening. She lay alone all day long, seeing no one but her people at dinner-time and in the evening, and Dominikova who looked in once a day. None of the neighbours, not even Magda, gave sign of life, and Roch was no longer heard of: since his departure with the priest, he had not come back. She was utterly weary of lying in bed; and, in order to recover more quickly, she no longer grudged herself fat victuals, eggs, and meat. She even had a fowl killed to make broth! True, it was far too old to lay eggs: but would have brought a couple of _zloty_ in the market, all the same. In consequence, she got well so speedily that she was on her legs by Low Sunday, and resolved (in spite of all dissuasions) to have her “churching.” So she went to church with Ploshkova at once after High Mass.