“Drive her out!—There’s no help for it! Drive her out!” they yelled, infuriated, and now wrought up to any extremity. On the proposal of the organist’s wife, they all went in a body to the Voyt’s. They found his wife bathed in tears, and so wretched, so miserably dejected, that they embraced her and wept over her, and condoled with her with the utmost tenderness. After a while, Yanek’s mother mentioned Yagna. “Ah, ’tis God’s truth,” the other lamented in despair. “She is the cause of all.... Oh, may she, for the wrong she has done, die like a dog in a ditch, eaten of worms for this my shame, for this my misery!” And she fell back on a settle, torn with fierce agony, and wrestling with a fit of sobs. They sorrowed and wept over her for a long time; but as the sun was going westward, they at last went home. Only the organist’s wife remained; and the two, shut up together, took counsel and talked over a certain measure to be taken. They then both went from cottage to cottage, canvassing the village, and preparing the secret enterprise on which they had entered. They were joined by the Ploshka women and several others, who embraced their cause, and with whom they visited the priest. He, however, stretching out his open hands before him, said: “With these doings I will have naught in common. I cannot prevent them; but I want to know nothing about the whole business, and shall be going to Zarnov to-morrow for the whole day.” The evening was noisy with quarrels and contradictions and secret plottings: when night fell, all those in the plot repaired to the tavern, where the organist stood treat to them all. There they once more set about debating and deliberating: the foremost farmers and nearly all the married women in Lipka were there. They had been conferring together for some time, when Ploshka’s wife shouted: “Antek Boryna, where is he? All are assembled here, and he is the foremost amongst us; no decision we took without him would be valid.” “Yes, we will send for him; he must come!” they shouted; “we can do nothing till he is here.” “What if he take her part?” said a voice. “Would he dare to oppose us—us, the community? For we are determined—all, all, all!” Antek was in bed, but the Soltys woke him up. “Ye must go and speak your mind. If you will not, then they’ll say you are for her, and fly in the face of our assembly! And your trespasses in the past will never be forgiven by the women!—Come now; we must put an end to all this!” He went indeed, for he could not choose but go; but with a heavy heart. The tavern was full to bursting, and resonant with a loud droning sound. The organist then got up on a bench, and made a speech like a sermon.