Vitek brought his fiddle before the _Dziad_ had done, and after first imitating him exactly, then repeated the tune with such variations as he had heard in church. The _Dziad_ was astounded. “Why, lad, you could even become an organist!” “Oh, I can play anything—from the music heard in the Manors to the songs they sing in the taverns.” So Vitek boasted, and went on playing snatches of what he had heard, till the fowls at roost set to cackling, and Hanka, who had come back, sent him off to help Yuzka with her work. Hanka then sat down in the porch, suckling her little ones, and conversing with the _Dziad_, who spun incredible yarns for her all the time; which she did not call in question, but listened, with sad eyes looking out into the night. Yagna was not back yet. She had gone out to see some girl friends; but, agitated by the spirit of unrest, she could stay nowhere. Again and again she had felt forced to leave their huts, and in the end she wandered alone about the village. She gazed long upon the waters, now dark, yet visible as they trembled to the breeze; on the gently stirring shadows; on the cottage lights that shot over the surface of the pond and died away in the distance. Then, impelled onward, she cast a glance beyond the mill at the meadows, wrapped in warm white mist, while the lapwings flapped about, flying over her head. There she gave ear to the waters that rolled through the sluices down the river’s murky throat, beneath the lofty slumberous alder-trees; and she fancied the sound was a mournful call—a tearful melodious complaint. From one end of Lipka to the other she wandered, lost like those waters that can find no outlet, and beat for ever sadly between impassable rocky walls. Something was gnawing at her heart. It was not sorrow, not yearning, nor the sensation of love. Her eyes were burning with an arid glow, and she felt an awful sob swelling her bosom as if about to tear it asunder. Now, after a time—she knew not how—she found herself close to the priest’s house. A carriage and horses were outside the porch; she heard them pawing restlessly. There was a light in one room only, where the visitors were playing at cards. On all this she gazed idly to her heart’s content; then passed along the fence between Klemba’s lands and the priest’s large garden. She slipped close to the quickset hedge, in great nervous agitation: the overhanging boughs dashed the dew from their leaves into her face. On she moved mechanically, never thinking where her steps were leading her ... till the organist’s one-storied house rose up barring the way. The four front windows were all open and lighted. She crept along, hugging the shadow of the hedge, till close enough to look in. A lamp hung from the ceiling; under it the father and mother were taking tea with their children; but Yanek was walking about the room, and talking to them.