It was dark outside, and irksome within. A chilly rain was pelting, and the wind lashed the walls, whistled through the orchards, made the trees rustle and murmur, and sometimes blew down the chimneys, scattering fire-brands about. It was hard upon midnight when all the work was over—and Yagustynka had not yet returned. “In such foul weather, she must have been loath to grope her way back!” Hanka thought, while she patrolled the premises before going to bed. Truly, it had been a pity to turn a dog out of doors on such a night! The roof creaked with the wild blasts; all over the sky, brown masses of rain-clouds were pouring down their heavy burden of water; and nowhere on high was there the least twinkle of starlight. Everybody else had long ago gone to sleep; the wind danced and revelled in the fields, and swept great sheets of water from off the pond. So they waited no longer for her, but went to bed. She appeared the next morning, but as louring and sullen as the swampy miry day itself. She just warmed her hands at the cabin fire, and then made for the granary, to pick out seed-potatoes from the heap which had been dumped down on the threshing-floor. She was mostly alone at that work, Yuzka having to go and scatter the dung which Pete had been carting since daybreak. Having been soundly rated by Hanka for sloth on the day before, he now, to make amends, stormed at Vitek, flogged the horses furiously, and made them splash through the mud at full speed. “The rascal!” muttered the old woman. “To punish the horses because he himself was lazy!” When Yuzka spoke to her, she gave her no answer, but sat gloomily, hiding her eyes red with tears under the apron she had thrown over her head. Hanka looked in, but only once. She was waiting for Yagna to come out, that she might have an opportunity both to take the meat over to her own side, and to examine the corn-barrels. But, as if of set purpose, Yagna never left the hut. Impatient, Hanka at last went in to see Boryna, and then—apparently seeking for something—she entered the larder. “Whatever ye want I can find for you!” Yagna exclaimed, and, seeing her go in, followed before she had done more than plunge her hand into the corn.—Fruitlessly; but the money might be lying quite at the bottom. She left the place; and, certain that Yagna was on the watch, resolved to put off the attempt to a more convenient season. “And now for the gifts we must make,” she thought, looking sorrowfully at the sausages that dangled in a row from a horizontal pole. Boryna and all the foremost husbandmen were in the habit, whenever they killed a pig, to send their next relations and best friends a sausage, or some other dainty bit. “’Tis hard, in truth; but you can do no otherwise, or they would say you grudge them,” Bylitsa advised her, guessing aright what was in her thoughts.