They replied nothing, but lashed their horses to urge them on. “Not so fast, or your breeches will come tumbling down!” Here a boy threw a stone at them, and several seized bricks to follow up the blow, but were stopped in time. “Let them alone, lads, and allow this plague to go from us.” “A sudden death carry you off, ye ungodly hounds!” And a Lipka woman stretched out her fist, screaming after them: “May all of you perish like mad dogs!” So they passed by, and vanished on the poplar road, as the clattering of their carts faded away with the column of dust they had raised. The people of Lipka were overjoyed, and could pray no more, but came clustering around the Squire in increasing numbers. This pleased him vastly, and he talked gaily with them and offered them snuff. “Ah!” he said at length; “so you have smoked them out and the swarm has flown, hey?” Gregory replied, in tone of mock pity: “Our sheepskins do not delight their nostrils. And then they are too delicate folk to dwell nigh us: if we come to loggerheads with any of them, why, down he goes straightway.” The Squire asked with curiosity: “What, have you fought together at any time?” “Why, no ... not a fight exactly ... but Matthew here just gave one of them a tap for not returning his greeting, ‘Praised be Jesus Christ!’ And behold, the fellow was at once covered with blood, and well-nigh gave up the ghost!” “They are a soft-limbed people,” Matthew explained blandly. “To the eyes they look strong as oak-trees; but put forth your fist, ’twill feel as though it had struck a feather-bed!” “And in Podlesie they had no chance. Lost their kine, it is said.” “True, they have not brought even one away with them now!” “Kobus might tell us something ...” one of them was beginning, when Klemba cut in sharply: “They died—as all know—of rinderpest.” The men shook with suppressed laughter, but kept it down well, while the smith pressed forward, and said: “If the Germans have gone, we owe it to his Honour the Squire.” “Because I prefer to sell my land to my own countrymen, no matter on what terms,” the latter asserted with great energy; and went on to assert that his grandfather and great-grandfather had always held with the peasants. Sikora grinned to hear this, and said in a lower tone: “Aye, ’tis a fact, and the Squire his father scored it on my back with a horse-whip to remember! I bear the marks yet!” But the other had apparently not heard him, and was telling what trouble he had had to get rid of the Germans. The peasants listened with civil assent; but, as to his kind feelings, they kept their own opinion. “Surely butter would not melt in our benefactor’s mouth,” Sikora sneered; and Klemba bade him hold his tongue. Whilst they were thus complimenting one another, a clergyman in surplice, with a plate in his hand, pushed his way into the group. “If ’tis not Yanek, the organist’s son!”