An intensely hot noontide, with the sun overhead, the sky hanging above with a whitish glow, a blasting heat around as from an oven; no breath of wind; leaves shrivelling up; birds silent; short thin shadows that scarcely shaded at all; the strong aroma of the heated grasses; corn and orchards and huts standing as if wrapped in white flame; all things, as it were, melting away in the air that trembled like water simmering on the fire. Even the river ran more slowly, its stream shining like fused glass, so transparent that beneath the surface-currents every gudgeon, every stone at the sandy bottom, every crayfish scuffing about in the luminous shadows of the banks, showed forth clear and distinct. A deep calm, spinning its slumberous web, crept over the sunlit earth; and nothing was noisy save the buzzing flies. The mowers sat down on the river-bank, beneath a clump of tall alders, eating their dinner out of the porringers brought, for Matthew by his sister Nastka, for the others by Hanka and Yagustynka. These seated themselves on the grass in the sun’s full glare, and, with their kerchiefs drawn over their heads, listened attentively to the talk. “I,” said Matthew, scraping his emptied porringer, “have always held that the Germans would take themselves off one of these days.” “The priest held so too,” Hanka remarked. “And so they will, if the Squire wills it,” growled Kobus, always ready to argue, stretching himself out under a tree. “What?” Yagustynka asked, sneeringly as usual; “did they not fear the noise ye made, and run?” Her jeer was unnoticed, and someone observed: “The smith said yesterday that the Squire would come to terms with us.” “Strange that Michael is on our side now!” “He has,” the old woman hissed, “found he would get more thereby.” “The miller too, they say, has pleaded at the Manor-house for the village.” “Those good souls! They are all on our side now!” said Matthew. “Why?—I’ll tell you. The Squire promised the smith a goodly reward for the reconciliation. The miller fears the Germans may set up a windmill on the high ground in Podlesie. And the tavern-keeper befriends the people out of fear for himself: he knows well that where a German settles, no Jew can get his bread.” “The Squire wishes to be reconciled: does he fear us peasants, then?” “Ye have hit the mark, Mother; of all of them, he is the most afraid.” Here Matthew broke off; Vitek was coming from the village at full speed. “Mistress, come at once!” he bawled from a distance. “What, is the house on fire?” she faltered, terrified. “’Tis Master, and he is crying out for something.” She ran off instantly. The fact was that, ever since morning, Matthias had been strange, plucking at his coverlet and seeming to look for something. Before setting out for the meadow, Hanka had charged Yuzka to take special care of him, and the latter had many a time gone to look; but he had lain quiet till about dinner-time, when he suddenly fell a-shouting very loud.