“Folk say they came on foot, carrying only one small bundle with them: now they could fill over four of the biggest wagons.” Ambrose tried to defend him. “Well, but he has lived and worked here for a score of years and more; and the parish is a big one; and he is hard-working, shrewd and thrifty: of course he has put money by.” “Put money by! Money wrung from the people, and as much as he possibly could! Ere the man will do a service to anyone, he must know what he’s to get thereby. Why, he is paid thirty roubles at a funeral: for what?—for thumping on the organ and bleating Latin chants!” “At any rate, he’s a skilled craftsman in his own line, and takes great pains to do his best.” “Aye, aye, he is skilled: knows when to sing shrill and when gruff—and especially how to diddle folk out of their money.” “Another would have drunk away all his earnings; and he is breeding up his son to become a priest.” “To his own exceeding glory and profit,” the rancorous beldame rejoined. At this most interesting point they broke off. Yagna had come in, and stood petrified on the threshold. “Is it our pig’s size that amazes you?” Yagustynka asked, with a laugh. “Could ye not have done this work on the other side?” she stammered, red as a peony. “My room is all befouled with it.” “Wash and scour it, then! Ye are not short of time,” Hanka replied coolly, with a stress on the last words. Yagna made an angry gesture, but said no more. She walked about the room, took up her “Rosary of the Passion,” threw a shawl over her yet unmade bed, and left the hut in silence, her lips twitching with the fury she sought to hide. Yuzka, who met her in the passage, said: “Ye might well help us, we have so much to do!” She only stormed at her in reply, and rushed away in a frenzy. Vitek, who had remarked which way she had gone, said she had stepped over straight to the blacksmith’s. “Why should she not? It will relieve her to talk of her grievance.” “But,” Yagustynka said, lowering her voice, “ye will have him here speedily ... and it will be war!” “Good woman, what’s my whole life but warfare?” Hanka answered quietly, but she felt that her words were true, and that a savage quarrel was at hand. “He will come in a trice,” Yagustynka declared, not without compassion. “Fear not—I shall stand the brunt of the battle,” she replied, smiling. Yagustynka, nodding her admiration, looked significantly at Ambrose, who had just laid his work aside. “I must look in at church and ring the Angelus,” he said. “I shall be back for dinner directly.” And so he was, and told them that the clergymen were dining, and the miller had brought them a netful of fish as a present, and they were to go on hearing confessions in the afternoon, as so many people were waiting.