“Ye will find him lying in the orchard: it is too hot in the room.—Meanwhile we are boiling some milk for you ... and eggs too, if you care.” Roch was at once in the orchard, bending under the drooping branches, as he made his way to the patient, who lay in a basketwork contrivance, covered over with a sheepskin coat. Lapa, curled up at his feet, watched over him; and Vitek’s stork was strutting bravely about amongst the trees, as if on guard. In this old leafy orchard, the well-grown trees kept the sun out so completely that only a few spots of light, like golden spinners, moved about on the grass beneath. Matthias lay upon his back. The boughs waved their dark mantle over his head, murmuring softly, and only now and then, when tossed by the winds, letting a patch of blue sky peep through, and a sunbeam fall on his face. Roch sat down by his side. The patient at once turned to him. “Ah! Matthias, don’t you know me? don’t you know me?” A slight smile passed over Boryna’s face, his eyelids fluttered, and his ashen lips moved; but no sound came from them. “If it be our Lord’s will, ye may yet recover.” This he must have understood, for he shook his head, and—unconsciously, it seemed—turned his face away, to look at the tossing boughs, and the bright rays that from time to time shone into his eyes. Roch sighed, made the sign of the cross over him, and went back. “Well,” Hanka inquired, “is not Father better now?” He pondered some time; then replied, in low grave tones: “A lamp always flickers more brightly just before going out. Belike Matthias is passing away. For my part, I wonder he has held out so long.” “He eats naught: often will he not even take milk.” “Ye should be ready for the end any day.” “We should indeed.—Ambrose told me so only the other day, and advised me not to delay having a coffin made.” “Ye may,” he answered mournfully; “’twill not be empty very long.—The soul that is panting to leave this world nothing can keep back, not even our tears. Else some should remain with us for centuries.” And, supping the milk she had prepared for him, he asked her about things in the village. What she told him he had learned on his way to her; but she afterwards dilated at length and eagerly on her own troubles. “Where is Yuzka?” “In the fields, tumping our potatoes along with the _Komorniki_ and Yagustynka. Pete is off to the forest, fetching Staho timber for a new hut.” “What, is he building one?” “Aye. Mr. Yacek has given him ten trunks of pinewood.” “Given him? I heard something of that sort, but could not believe it.”