They continued talking and drinking for a time, till the Soltys came round to all the cabins, ordering the people to meet the scrivener and gendarmes at the Voyt’s. This put Ploshkova in a passion. Setting her arms akimbo, she began to storm. “Not one jot do I care for the Voyt’s commands! Is it any business of ours? Have we invited them to come? Have we time for gendarme-parties, say? We do not come to heel to the first that whistles: no dogs are we! If they want to know aught, let them come and inquire.... ’Tis the only thing to do.... No, we do not go!” And with that she ran out into the road, shouting to a group of terrified women who had come together by the mill-pond: “To your work, neighbours; to the fields! whoso has to do with any goodwife should know where to seek her!—Let us not wait upon them, as if we were going to give all up at their command, and sit like dogs at their doors! The rascals!”—So she screamed, being mightily ruffled in spirit. Now as she was, after Borynova, the foremost goodwife in Lipka, the women obeyed her, and dispersed in all directions like frightened hens; and as the most part had already been in the fields since dawn, the village now seemed empty, except for the little ones playing about the pond, and the old people basking in the sun. Of course the scrivener was furious, and loaded the Soltys with a profusion of insults; but he had to go to the fields all the same. There he plodded to and fro for a long time, asking each whether they knew anything about the fire in Podlesie. They told him just as much as he himself already knew; for what he wants to keep to himself, who would let a gendarme know? The whole time till noon was lost in floundering about most villainous roads, and at times getting dirtied up to the waist with mire; for the fields were still very muddy here and there. Their exasperation was therefore at its height when the scrivener arrived at Boryna’s hut to draw up a statement of facts concerning the pit dug there. He was swearing like a trooper; and, chancing to meet Bylitsa in the porch, he rushed at him, shaking his fists and shrieking: “You hound’s face, you! Wherefore do you not watch, when robbers dig under your hut, eh?” And he proceeded to mention Bylitsa’s mother, with the foulest outrage. “Mind the business you have to do: I am no servant of yours! D’ye hear!” the old man, grievously offended, broke in. At this the scrivener roared: “Hold your tongue when you speak to an official, or I’ll jail you for contempt!” But the old man’s blood was boiling. He drew himself up, and cried in a hoarse voice, and with blazing eyes: “And who are you? A servant of the public, paid by the public! Then do what the Voyt commands you, and let us free peasants alone!—Look at him! That scribbling fellow there! He has grown fat on our bread, and now would fain ride roughshod over folk!—But you have your superiors to account to, and they can punish you!”