On Hanka’s arrival, he sat up, and called out: “My boots—where are they? Give them to me, and quickly too!” “I’ll get them from the store-room in an instant!” she said, to pacify him; for he seemed quite sensible, and looked keenly about him. “Mother of dogs! how I have overslept myself!” and he yawned wide and deep. “It is broad day, and ye are sleeping, all of you!—Let Kuba get the harrow ready,” he commanded; “we shall go out and sow.” They stood before him, hesitating, when he suddenly collapsed, falling helpless to the ground. “Fear not, Hanka, I had a fit of dizziness. Is Antek afield, hey?—Afield?” he repeated, when they had replaced him on the bed. “Aye,” she stammered. “Ever since daybreak.” For she feared to cross him. He looked about him brightly and talked much; but one word out of ten was sense, and the rest drivel. He again wanted to get up and go out, called for his boots—and then put his hands to his head and moaned pitifully. Hanka knew that the end was at hand; so she ordered him to be borne within doors, and sent for the priest in the afternoon. He came presently with the Holy Sacrament, but could only give him Extreme Unction. “His state needs nothing more,” the priest said; “in a few hours he will be with his fathers.” In the evening, many people visited the cabin, for he seemed on the point of death; and Hanka put the lighted taper of the dying in his hand. But presently he fell into a quiet sleep. The next day there was no change. He recognized people, and spoke sensibly, but lay for hours together as still as a corpse. The smith’s wife was at his bedside continually; also Yagustynka, who wanted to fumigate him! “Let alone; ye may set the place on fire,” he burst out unexpectedly. And at noon, when the smith came and looked into his half-closed eyes, he smiled strangely, and uttered these words: “Do not trouble, Michael; I shall drop off soon enough—soon enough!” So saying, he turned his face to the wall, and spoke no more. He was evidently going rapidly downhill, so they now watched him with care; especially Yagna, over whom an extraordinary change had come. “I alone shall tend him! It is my right,” she had told Hanka and Magda so peremptorily that they had not opposed her. She no longer left the cabin at all: a vague terror oppressed her. All the village was out in the meadows: the haymaking had been going on since dawn; ever since the very first faint flush in the sky, they had started for the meadows. Rows of peasants in shirt-sleeves, looking like grey storks, were now all over the lands, whetting their flashing scythes, and mowing amain all day long; all day the hammers rang upon the scythes, and the girls sang their merry impromptus as they raked up the cut grass.