“What if the priest gets to know that you have his stork?” “His? it is mine!... And who will tell him?” “Where can you put it, that it may not be found?” “I know of a hiding-place, safe from the gendarmes themselves. After a time I shall take it back to the cabin, and let them believe I have caught and tamed another stork. Who will find out that it is the same one?—Only say naught, and I’ll get you some birds—or a leveret.” “Am I a boy, to play with birds? You silly thing!—Off and dress: we shall go to church together.” “Yuzka, let me carry the palm-boughs, will ye?” “A pretty saying! Ye know that only women may take them to be blessed.” “I mean, through the village: ye shall have them back before we are in the church.” He begged her so earnestly that she consented, and turned to Nastka, who had just come in, clad in her best, and with a palm-bough in her hand. “Any news of Matthew?” Hanka asked her at once. “Only what the Voyt said yesterday: he’s better.” “The Voyt knows naught, and makes up tales to please us.” “But he told his Reverence just the same.” “Then why said he nothing about Antek?” “No doubt because Matthew is with the others, and Antek in a separate cell.” “He’s but a babbler that wants to talk.” “Did he say aught to you?” “He comes daily, but only to see Yagna. With her he has some private business, so they meet and speak of it. Apart. In the enclosure.” She had lowered her tone, and laid stress on every word, looking out of the window the while. Just then, Yagna appeared outside the porch, very well apparelled, a palm-bough in one hand, a prayer-book in the other. Hanka’s eyes followed her out. “The folk are on their way to church.” “Why, the bells have not sounded yet!” But, just as she spoke, they rang out with a clash and a roar, booming and thundering their call to church. In a few minutes, all the people had gone. Hanka, left alone, put the pots on the fire to boil, and then took the children out of doors to comb them thoroughly—a thing she had never time to do properly on work-days. She then went with them to the straw with which the potato-pits were strewn, and left them there to play. After which, having gone into the hut, and looked into every pot and pan, she said her rosary; for she had too much difficulty with her prayer-book. It was now hard upon noontide, and Lipka was plunged deep in Sunday rest, with no sounds but the chirping of sparrows, or the twittering of the nest-building swallows under the eaves, in the warm early spring weather. Over everything hung the strangely resplendent canopy of a bright blue sky; and the fruit-trees stretched out their branches, covered with big buds, and the alders fringing the pond waved their yellow catkins silently, and the rust-coloured poplar shoots swelled with viscid aromatic sprouts opening to the light, like the gaping beaks of nestlings that want food.