“Well, has Lipka cause for rejoicing at last? I hear that _some_ are returning.” “Some? nay, but all!” Yagustynka corrected him. “Did not the Voyt read it so?” “All? but he never meant felons. No: crimes must be punished.” Hanka’s brain whirled at those cruel words. She crawled on, struck to the heart, but said as she passed: “May your wicked tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth!” His laugh tore her like the fangs of a wolf, and she hurried forward to escape from the sound. She only felt quite recovered at the door of her cabin. “’Tis wet to-day,” said Yagustynka; “we shall find the ground difficult to plough.” She made light of it. “‘Wet morning weather, and an old dame’s dance, last not long’!” “Meanwhile we must be planting our seed-potatoes with the hoe.” “I am expecting the women.—These tidings have delayed them, but they will come. I sent round to them last night, and they all promised they would not forget.” In the cabin the hearth blazed; it was warmer and brighter than out of doors. Yuzka was peeling potatoes, and the baby screaming for food: Hanka, kneeling down by the cradle, gave it suck. “Now, Yuzka, Pete has to cart the dung from Florka’s shed to the field we have, by Paches’ rye-plots. He can get several cartloads there before the rain is over.” “Ye are no friend of the slothful here!” “Nor am I a sluggard myself!” she returned, as she covered her breast. “Oh, I had quite forgotten. It is a half-holiday: St. Mark’s Procession, that was postponed till the octave!” “Why, the processions are to be only on Rogation Days!” “He announced one for to-day: we shall go as far as the roadside ‘figures,’ and bless the village boundaries without any Rogation procession.” “Ha!” cried Yuzka to Vitek, who entered just then; “and you boys will be thrashed at the boundaries to make you remember them.”[5] ----- Footnote 5: In England and Scotland there was once a similar custom, now become a mere “perambulation.” See “Chambers’ Encyclopædia,” art. “Beating the Bounds.”—_Translator’s Note._ “Here are the women; run ye, and see to them. I stay inside, to make order and get breakfast ready, while Yuzka and Vitek take the potatoes to the fields.” So Hanka gave her orders, looking out at the _Komorniki_ who in their smocks and aprons, with baskets and hoes in hand, ranged themselves along the cabin-wall, beating their clogs against it to clean them. Presently they were at work in the fields, two and two, two couples to each strip, each turned towards her companion, digging hollows in the ground, throwing in a potato, and covering it with earth again; and so on across the patch. Old Yagustynka acted as overseer to prevent idling. The work went slowly, all the same. Their hands were stiff with cold, their clogs full of water from the soaked ground; and though the drizzle was not cold, still it was continuous and drenched them.