Only one thing was sure: the constable of the commune had been at the Voyt’s with a certain paper, and told it to Klembova, who was just driving her geese to the mill-pond. She had instantly rushed round to her neighbours; the Balcerek girls had cried the news out to the nearest huts: and in the space of an “Ave Maria,” the whole place was quivering with glad emotion, and all the cabins were in tumult. It was an early May morning, rather dull and rainy, drizzling and dripping over the blossoming fruit-trees. “The men are coming back!”—All the cabins rang with a merry peal of joy; a flame was in every heart, and a cry in every throat. The excitement grew more and more: doors banging, children rushing about, women dressing in front of their huts, and looking wistfully out into the rain through the blossoming trees which concealed the distant roads. “All are coming back—farmers, servants, young men: every one of them!—They are here!—Out of the woods!—Upon the poplar road!” they cried, one voice after another; and those more ardent sallied forth, almost beside themselves. Clogs clattered and splashed through the mud, and they hurried on, past the church to the poplar road. But on all the length of that long wet highway, there was nothing to be seen but deep ruts and pools of dirty water: not a single living being along the whole interminable arcade of rain-beaten poplars. Bitterly disappointed, they hastened away to the opposite end of the village, for the men might also be coming in that direction. That other road was empty too. Across its width, full of hollows, the rain beat, forming a mobile veil; its ditches brimmed with clayey water that overflowed the adjacent furrows and swept down quantities of drifting foam; and on the blossomy brambles which bordered the green fields, the flowers seemed shrinking in the chilly air. They went on a little, till someone, coming out of the charred ruins of Podlesie, appeared on the road and drew nigh them. He was a blind old _Dziad_, known to all of them. The dog he held back by a string barked furiously, straining to break loose and attack them. The man listened awhile, his staff in readiness; but soon, hearing their voices, he hushed the dog, greeted them in God’s name, and said gaily: “Ye are Lipka folk, are ye not? And a good many of you, I think.” The girls came thronging round him, talking all at once. “A flock of screeching magpies has beset me, i’ faith!” he grumbled, but listened the more attentively as they pressed closer. So they all returned together to the village, the _Dziad_ in their midst, swinging along on his crutches, his distorted legs dangling below, and his large sightless face stretched forward above: a somewhat tubby man, with red puffed cheeks, eyes sheathed with a white film, grey bushy brows, and a huge red nose. He listened patiently till he had learned what they were out for, and then said: