“Lord have mercy on all sinners, and remember not their ill-treatment of the _Dziads_!—Brought me in much, quotha!—Whoso sees a _Dziad_ must needs stare into the sky, or turn down another road. Or, drawing forth some miserable small coin, he will wish he had change for a five-kopek piece. We shall die of starvation!” “But,” Veronka objected, “this year the hard times before harvest press sorely on all of us.” “They do; but for all that, no man goes short of vodka.” Yuzka here put a porringer in his hands, and he began to sup it eagerly. Presently he said: “They tell us the Lipka folk are to come to terms with the Squire to-day: is it so?” “They may do so,” Hanka said, “if they get their rights granted.” “And do ye know,” Vitek put in, “that the Germans have gone from amongst us?” “Oh, may the plague stop their breath!” the _Dziad_ burst out, clenching his fist with fury. “Have they, then, injured you too?” “I went to them last evening: they set their dogs at me!... Scum of the earth, dog-begotten miscreants!... I hear the men of Lipka have made it too hot for them to stay.... Ha! I would flay them alive, leave not a rag of skin upon any of them!” he said, as he emptied the porringer, and, after feeding his dog, prepared to depart. “’Tis your harvest now, and ye must go and gather it in,” Pete said sarcastically. “I must, indeed. Last year we were only six in all here; now we are four times as many, and my ears tingle with the din we make.” Yuzka said: “Pray spend the night with us.” “May our Lord give you health, O you that remember the poor starveling!” “A fine starveling indeed! With such a belly that he can hardly drag it!” sneered Pete, seeing him waddle ponderously in the middle of the road, groping for obstacles with his staff. And then they all went out again: to hear Vespers, and enjoy the sweet tones of the organ, and weep their fill in church, and then visit the booths once more, were it only to feast their eyes on the splendours they displayed. Simon had bought a string of amber beads for his Nastka, and ribbons, and a bright scarlet kerchief: all of which she immediately put on. And then they went from booth to booth, arms round waists, overflowing with gladness and intoxicated with joy. Yuzka followed them, trying here and there to cheapen some article for sale, and ever more ruefully counting her money—only one wretched _zloty_ in all! Yagna, not far from them, affected not to see her brother, and walked alone, sorrowful and forlorn. All those fluttering ribbons now failed to rejoice her; and the barrel-organ’s tunes, and the crowd and the hubbub, failed too. She walked along, carried on by the multitudes, and stopping where they stopped, knowing neither why she had come nor whither she was drifting. Matthew glided up to her, and whispered softly: “Do not drive me away from you!” “And have I ever done that?” “Once surely. And with words of upbraiding!”