So, all night long, it continued blowing. Few could close their eyes. It made such a terrible draught in the huts, and smote the boughs against the walls, and broke the window-panes, and tore and beat on the huts like butting rams, till they feared it might carry Lipka away bodily into space! It subsided a little before dawn; but hardly had the crowing cocks sung daybreak, and the weary inhabitants fallen asleep, when the thunders uttered their roars, the lightnings blazed across the sky with blood-red streaks, and a torrent of rain poured down. It was said afterwards that a thunderbolt had then fallen somewhere in the forest. But when morning had fully come, it cleared up gloriously; the rain ceased, warmth came steaming up from the fields, the small birds chirruped cheerily; and though the sun was hidden still, the white low-sailing clouds fell asunder and the azure sky appeared. And folk predicted fine weather. All through the village now arose lamentations and outcries. Very much harm had been done by the gale; the roads were so strewn with rows of fallen trees across them, and fences blown over the ways, with portions of torn-off roofs, that they were impassable. At the Ploshkas’, the sties had fallen, crushing all their geese to death! There was no hut but had suffered in the storm: so the enclosures were filled with women as full of tears as a showery day. Hanka had just sallied forth to inspect the farm-buildings and see what damage had been done, when she met Sikora’s wife, who came rushing into the yard. “What! have ye not heard? Staho’s hut has fallen! By a miracle, they have escaped being crushed,” she cried from afar. “Jesu Maria!” The news petrified her. “I have come for you.—Those folk are clean out of their wits!” Throwing an apron over her head, Hanka ran to the spot. It was quite true. Nothing of Staho’s cabin remained but the walls. All the roof had gone, except a few broken rafters, still hanging above. The chimney, too, had fallen: only a ruined fragment of it stood there, like the snag of a decayed tooth. The floor was covered with splinters and bits of thatch. Veronka, sitting outside the wall on a heap of fallen rubbish, was embracing her little ones, who wept aloud with her. Hanka rushed to comfort her through the crowd she was surrounded with; but she saw nothing, heard nothing, and her sobs continued, violent and convulsive. “O my poor, my miserable children!” she moaned, and several other women shed tears of compassion, to hear her. “Whither shall we wretched creatures go? where lay our heads?” she cried frantically, clasping her children in her arms. Old Bylitsa, meanwhile, shrunken, haggard, livid as a corpse, went about the ruins, now driving the fowls together, now giving a few wisps of hay to the cow, tethered to a cherry-tree, now crouching close to the wall, whistling to the dog, and staring at the people like a man demented. They thought, indeed, that he was out of his mind.