“Ye may cry till nightfall: we are no dogs to follow you to heel!” Saying this, and glad to be no longer under the gendarmes’ inspection, he again went about amongst the people, reminding each man apart in what sense he should give his vote. “And,” he would wind up, “fear ye not: right is on our side. As we vote, so things shall be; and what we will not have, no man can force upon us.” They had, however, not yet begun to stretch themselves in the shade, or to eat a morsel, when each village was called by its Soltys, and the Voyt came roaring: “Here’s the head!—Come quick!—We are to begin now!” “The smell of good things has wrought upon him,” they muttered in a bad temper, walking slowly towards the Office. “We are in no hurry; let him wait!” Each Soltys stood at the head of his own village; but the Voyt was seated at the table, beside the scrivener’s assistant, who whistled to frighten the pigeons, that circled round above the roof in a white fluttering cloud. One of the gendarmes suddenly stood at attention, and cried: “Silence!” in Russian. To their disappointment, however, no one came out but the scrivener, holding some papers in his hand, and edging himself to a seat behind the table. The Voyt then rang the bell, and said, majestically: “Good people! we open the meeting.—Be still there, ye men of Modlitsa!—Our secretary will read you things concerning this school: only hearken ye diligently, that ye may know all about it.” Putting on his spectacles, the scrivener began to read, very slowly and distinctly. After a short interval of breathless silence, someone exclaimed: “Why, we understand naught!” “Read it in our tongue! We cannot make it out!” repeated many voices. The gendarmes here began to fix a steady glare upon the people. The scrivener looked very black, but went on with the document, translating it into Polish. All now were still, listening to each word with the most concentrated attention. The scrivener continued deliberately: “Whereas it hath been decided to found a school in Lipka, the same being also for the use of Modlitsa, Przylek, Rzepki, and the neighbouring hamlets....” The rescript then pointed out how great a benefit education was; how the Government was night and day only thinking of means to aid the progress and enlightenment of the people, and to defend it from all evil influences ... and then passed on to reckon how much would be required for the ground, for the building itself, and (yearly) for the teacher: concluding with the estimate that they ought to vote a supplementary rate of twenty kopeks per acre.—He paused, wiped his spectacles, and added as an observation of his own: “The head of the District has assured me that, if ye vote the rate now, he will allow the building to commence this year, so that next year in autumn your children will go to school.”