She went back to her bed and lay down open-eyed, listening attentively, and at times quite sure that she could hear voices and distant steps. “Peradventure the folk of some cabin hard by are awake and talking,” she said, attempting to explain matters; but no sooner had the panes turned grey from black than she rose and went out again, this time with Antek’s sheepskin thrown over her. In the porch, Vitek’s stork was standing asleep, with one leg drawn up under him, and his head thrust beneath his wing; and their flock of geese, huddled together in the enclosure, formed a dim white mass. The fields beyond were flooded with low-lying greyish fogs, out of which only the highest tree-tops surged, like pillars of thick black smoke. The pond glistened in the darkness like a huge sightless eye, fringed with lashes of alders that rustled around it, while all the neighbourhood slept, wrapt in the fog’s opaque invisibility. Hanka sat down close to the house, leant back against the wall, and fell into a doze. When she again opened her eyes, she saw with astonishment that the night had gone; the clouds were all burning red like a distant conflagration. “If he has but started early enough, he will be here directly,” she said to herself, looking down the road. Her short spell of slumber had so much refreshed her that, to while the time away till sunrise, she took out the children’s clothes to wash in the pond, while the light grew stronger and stronger. The first cock crowed, quickly followed by others, making a loud noise throughout the village. Some larks too were heard, but at rare intervals, while the whitewashed walls and the empty dew-drenched roads gradually became distinct. Hanka was busy washing, when a sound of stealthy steps drew her attention; and as she looked around curiously, a shadow passed out of Balcerek’s enclosure and slung away among the trees. “Yes—’tis a visitor to Mary! who can it be?” She could by no means make sure, for the shadow had vanished directly. “Ah! So proud a girl! One so vain of herself and her beauty—to let in a sweetheart by night!—Who would have thought it?” She was scandalized. On looking about her again, she perceived the miller’s man, gliding by, at the other end of the village. “He is coming home, no doubt, from the tavern where his Magda lives!—Those men! like wolves prowling in the night!—What doings, alas!” She sighed, but a restless feeling quickened her senses now and stirred her blood. This, however, presently passed away as she went on washing in the cool water; and in a voice which, though subdued, thrilled with intense fervour, she began the hymn: “Soon as dawn blushes in the sky, To Thee, O God, my voice shall cry!” And the chant rolled over the fallen dew, and made one with the approaching daybreak. It was time now to rise: opening windows, clattering clogs, and loud cries showed that the villagers were awakening.