“Her goodman,” old Bylitsa thought, “must have told her many things, but she fears to speak of them.... True, the lands close to Lipka are fertile, and the meadows give an aftermath. Even so....” And he went on pondering, with his eyes fixed upon the fields adjoining the forest, and on the Manor farm-buildings—Roch had meanwhile perceived Kozlova near the pond with other women, and gone over to her in haste. Meanwhile Bylitsa thought: “We now have beaten the Squire. Now is the time for us peasants to make the most of our advantage.—Surely.—We might found another village: there would be lands enough, and hands enough willing to till it....” But the babies had got out into the road, and this put an end to his musings. The bells had sounded for Evensong. The sun was rolling down towards the forest; and over the roadway and mill-pond the shadows were growing longer. All was so quiet that, far away in the distance, a cart was heard to clatter, or a bird to cry out in the copses. Some women had come back from town, and everyone was running to hear the news they had brought. His Reverence had driven over to Volka, directly after Vespers: to a party at the Manor, Ambrose said. The organist had gone with all his people to visit the miller, and his son Yanek, in splendid attire, had accompanied his mother, saluting on his way the lasses behind their garden-palings, who peered out at him. As the evening drew on slowly, the after-glow filled half the sky with sheets of blood-red fire, scattered about like brightly burning embers; and the waters turned crimson, and the window-panes gleamed ruddily, as more wagons came back from town, and in front of the cabins the noise grew louder. Though Hanka was not yet home, there was plenty of life and din in front of her hut too. A number of little girls of Yuzka’s age had come to see her, and were all warbling and twittering around her like a bevy of finches, and laughing at Yasyek Topsy-turvy: while Yuzka was treating them to such dainties as the cabin afforded on that day. Nastka, much older than any of the others, was their leader. She was making fun of Yasyek, because, blockhead though he was, he tried to give himself rollicking airs. He stood just then before them all, wearing a brand-new spencer and a hat cocked at a considerable angle, and saying with a smiling look and arms akimbo: “All of you must respect me—me, the only man in the village!” “Not so: others as good as you are tending the kine!” said one. “Or wiping babies’ noses!” cried another. Yasyek, in no wise taken aback, answered them loftily: “Such chits as ye are—mere goose-girls as yet—are not to my taste!” “Why, the fellow kept kine last year, and he would play the man now!” “Yet he runs away from a bull so fast that his breeches come down!” “Go, marry Magda, the servant of the Jew: she’s the girl for you.” “Nurse to the Jew’s brats, she’ll wipe your nose likewise!”