And there she saw the blacksmith, standing beside a corn-barrel, with his arms buried in the corn up to the elbows, and seeking something there with might and main! “What!” she cried with a gasp; “your key is hidden in the corn, is it?” And she placed herself in front of him with a threatening air. “No.... I am seeing ... whether it is not mildewed ... and whether it will do for seed-corn,” he said, stuttering, taken quite by surprise. “What business of yours is that? Say, what brings you in here?” she cried. Unwillingly, he drew his arms out, and muttered with ill-concealed anger: “Ye spy upon me as if I were a thief!” “How should I know what business brings you in here? Here’s a fellow who enters other people’s premises: why? I find him groping in the corn-barrels: why should he not also wrench the padlocks off, or break open the chests?” Her voice was rising to a scream. “Did I not tell you yesterday what we have to look for?” he answered, striving to be calm. “What ye said was all a blind. You sought to throw dust in my eyes, while you were after something else. But I saw through your plotting, you traitor, you!” “Hanka!” he shrieked, to terrify her; “stop that talk, or I will stop your mouth!” “Would ye? Lay but a finger on me, and I’ll raise such an outcry that half the village will be here in a trice, to learn what sort of a jail-bird you are!” As she uttered the threat, he cast one more glance around; then, with a blasphemous oath, he left the room; exchanging with her, as he did so, looks that—had it been possible—would have stabbed to the very heart. Hanka’s outbreak had completely upset her, but a cup of water presently brought her round again. “It must be found!—And also concealed in a safe place: for what money soever that man finds, he will make off with,” was her mental comment, going back to the granary. But, half-way there, she stopped and went back to the cottage. Opening the door, she apostrophized Yagna thus: “You who sit here in the cabin to watch over it, how do you let a stranger enter the inmost room?” Yagna answered scornfully: “Michael is not a stranger: he has as much right in there as you have.” “A dog barks, and you lie! Ye two are in league together; but mark well what I say.—If aught disappear from the cottage, then, as sure as there’s a God in heaven, I’ll bring action and denounce you as his accomplice. Remember that!” she screamed, infuriated. Yagna, snatching the first weapon at hand, leaped from her seat. “Would you fight me? Do but try: I’ll tear the beauty off your dainty face, and paint it such a scarlet that your own mother shall not know you!” And she went on upbraiding and vilifying her to the fullest powers of her voice and of her enmity.