The latter, who had but just come home from his work, was supping a dish of sour milk outside his cabin, to cool him after the heat of the day. Antek could hear, somewhere near, a sort of trickling sound—a querulous heart-broken wailing. “Who is making that noise?” “Who but my sister Nastka? I have enough of her love affair!—Her banns are all published now, her wedding is to take place next Sunday—and lo! Dominikova has sent word to us through the Soltys that the holding had been left to her alone; that she will not let Simon have a single strip of land, nor even enter her cabin! And the old woman will keep to what she says: I know her well, that creature!” “And Simon? What has he to say to that?” “What should he say? Ever since the morning, he has been sitting in the orchard as dumb as a post, and says not one word even to Nastka. I am afraid his mind must have given way!” “Simon!” he cried out into the orchard. “Come this way. Boryna is here to see us; perchance he can give some good advice.” After a minute, he came and sat down, without any word of greeting to either of them. He looked very much broken down, and as thin as a plank of aspen wood. Only his eyes burned; and on his thin face there was a look of desperate resolve, from which nothing on earth could turn him away. “Well,” Matthew asked him in a kindly tone, “what have you made up your mind to do?” “To take an ax and kill her like a dog!” “Fool! keep such wild talk for the tavern!” “As there’s a God in heaven, I will kill her. What—what else remains for me to do? She drives me off my father’s land, turns me out of my hut, gives me no money whatever—what am I to do? I am an orphan, cast destitute on the world; and whither shall I go—whither? My own mother has wronged me so awfully!” he groaned, brushing away a tear with his sleeve. Then, suddenly starting up: “No!” he cried out; “in the name of all mothers of dogs, I will not forgive this, I will not—not if I should rot in jail for it!” They quieted him. He sat still, but sombre, and in such a state of dumb fury that he would not so much as answer Nastka’s sobbing whispers. The others conferred together, thinking how they could be of use to him; but they found no means, because Dominikova, with her hopeless obstinacy, blocked the way. But at last Nastka took her brother aside, and pointed out a plan to him. “She has hit on an excellent thing!” he exclaimed in great joy, on returning. “She says: Let him purchase six acres of the Podlesie farm from the Squire, to be paid by instalments.—Is’t not a good thought?” “As good as any, indeed—But ... whence shall the money come?” “In any case, for the outset, and as an earnest, Nastka has her thousand _zloty_ of ready money.” “True; but whence will the live stock come, and the cabin, the implements and the seed to sow?” “Whence?—From these!” Simon cried suddenly, springing up and waving both his arms.