There still were plenty of pools glittering on the road after yesterday’s rain; plenty of broken boughs, too, and tree-tops scattered on the ground. In some places, a slender tree had been uprooted, and lay across the way, which was quiet and cool and darksome, and smelling of mould and of mushrooms. The trees stood motionless, lost, as it were, in the contemplation of heaven; only at rare intervals did they let a few beams slip through, like golden gossamer threads, on to the banks of moss, and the wild strawberries, sprinkled about, and red as clotted blood, amongst the pallid grasses. Antek was so charmed with the cool and profound tranquillity of the wood that he sat down under a tree, and fell unawares into a doze, from which he only awoke at the sound of a galloping snorting horse. It was the Squire, out for a ride, and he went forward to accost him. They greeted one another as usual, and in neighbourly fashion. “Fearfully hot, eh?” said the horseman, soothing his restless mare. “So it is.—In a week’s time, we shall have to go reaping.” “In Modlitsa they are already cutting down the rye.” “The soil is sandy there; but this year they will everywhere be reaping earlier.” The Squire asked him about the meeting at the District Office, and stared to hear what had taken place. “Did ye actually demand a Polish school?—and so openly, and so firmly?” “I have said: my tongue tells no false tales.” “But what daring! To demand such a thing in the head official’s very presence!—Well, well!” “It is so written down in the laws, as clear can be; I had the right to demand it.” “But how did the idea come into your head to ask for a Polish school?” “How? Because I am a Pole—not a German, nor of any other nation.” “But who gave you the idea?” he asked, lowering his voice, and approaching. “Untaught, children may learn to think aright,” he answered evasively. “Ah,” he went on in the same tone, “I see that Roch’s work amongst you has borne fruit....” “Who, together with your Honour’s _kinsman_, teaches our folk as he can.” Antek had interrupted the Squire, and, laying stress on the word “kinsman,” looked keenly on him. The Squire, ill at ease, tried to turn the conversation; but Antek returned to the subject of set purpose, speaking of the peasants’ many grievances, and their benighted and friendless condition. “That’s because they will hearken to no one. I know well how the clergy work for their good, and how they urge industry upon them ... and how it is all lost labour.” “Sermons are no more good for that purpose than a thurible of incense for a dead man!” “Then what _is_ good, pray?—You have, I see, learned not a few things in prison,” he retorted. The taunt made Antek’s eyes blaze and his face flush; but he answered with calm: “So I have. And, especially, that the nobility is to blame for the evils we suffer!” “Foolish prating! What harm did they ever do to you?”