“In the end, the oppressed ever triumph: therefore have ye trust.... “Man’s happiness is a field to be sown with blood and sacrifice and labour: whoso has sown it thus shall see the crop grow and shall reap the harvest.... “But he that careth only for daily bread shall not sit at the table of our Lord.... “Who only complaineth of evil, and doth no good, he maketh the evil worse.” He spoke long, but in words of wisdom hard to bear in mind; in a voice ever lower and more loving he spoke, until the darkness quite swallowed him up. Then it seemed as though some holy being were speaking from beneath the ground: as though the dead ancestors of the Borynas, graciously permitted to revisit the earth at this sacred Eastertide, were now uttering words of solemn warning to their descendants, out of those crumbling walls, those bent gnarled trees, that thick dense gloom around. Over all these utterances their minds pondered deeply; like a bell in the depth of their hearts they resounded, arousing within them dim emotions—strange, eerie, unaccountable desires. They did not so much as remark that all the dogs in the village had set to barking, nor that the feet of many people were running fast. “Fire! Podlesie is burning!” a voice cried to them from beyond the orchard. It was true. The farm buildings of the Manor domain of Podlesie were on fire, and crimson-red bushes of flame were growing in the night. “Heaven save the mark!” Yagustynka ejaculated, as the memory of Kozlova’s threats flashed through her brain. “A judgment of God upon him!” “For the wrong he has done us!” many voices cried in the dark. Doors slammed; the folk, half clad, ran out, and crowded more and more numerous on the bridge by the mill, from where the conflagration could best be seen. In a few minutes the whole village was there. The farm stood on a hill-side close to the forest, a few versts away from Lipka, whence the increase of the fire was plainly visible. On the black background of the wood, the fiery tongues now multiplied, and dark-red rolling volumes of smoke burst forth. There was no wind, and the conflagration leaped straight up, higher and higher: the buildings burned like bundles of resinous firewood; and a ruddy flickering blaze swept up into the shadows of the night, with pillars of dark, towering smoke. The air was soon rent by the sound of agonized bellowing. “Their cattle-shed is on fire: they can save but few, for there is but one door!” “Ah, the cornstacks are burning now!” Others cried out, in consternation: “So are the barns!” The priest, the smith, the Soltys, and the Voyt (though in his cups, and barely able to stand) came on the scene, crying out to the people to rush to the rescue. No one hastened to move. A savage growl ran through the multitude: “Let our lads be freed, and they will save the farm!”