The sun, now rising, shone straight into his eyes. “Thanks, O Lord God!” he exclaimed, blinking; and added: “We shall still have dry hot weather for some time!” For the sun rose as red as red could be. Far away, the Mass-bell rang, and the chimneys of Lipka were crowned with plumes of blue smoke. “Have you a good appetite, eh?” he said to himself, and drew his girdle tighter, sighing mournfully. “But Mother will never bring you your breakfast any more!” Other parts, too, of the Podlesie farm were now swarming with people, like him at work on their newly bought lands; and he saw Staho Ploshka, ploughing with a couple of strong horses. “Oh,” he thought; “dear Lord! if I could but have one of them!” Joseph Vahnik was carting stones to lay the foundation of his hut; Klemba and his sons were digging a ditch round their holding; and Gregory, the Voyt’s brother, was busy measuring something with a pole near the highway cross. “That,” Simon observed, “would be the very best place to build a tavern.” Gregory, having driven in stakes to mark off the places he had in mind, came up to greet Simon. “Ho, ho!” he cried, his eyes round with amazement; “you’re working as hard as ten, I see!” “Can I do otherwise? what have I in the world? One pair of breeches and these two bare hands!” He was surly, and would not interrupt his labours to talk. Gregory gave him some advice and went back to his own ground. After him came others, some to encourage him, some to gossip, some merely to smoke a cigarette and have a laugh; but they made Simon impatient, and he ended by flying out at Prychek: “Ye might as well do your own work and not hinder others! Holiday-making on work-days—too much of a good thing!” So they came no longer, and he remained alone. It was blindingly bright, broilingly hot; and the sun had wrapped the world in a shimmering haze of light. “Oh, but ye’ll not drive me away so easily!” he said, addressing the sun; and then, perceiving Nastka, who was coming with his breakfast, he went to meet her, and pounced on the porringer with greedy hands. Nastka, very far from cheerful, surveyed the fields. “Why, what can ever grow on such wastes and moorlands?” “Everything!—As you’ll see. There will even be wheat for you to bake cakes of!” “Oh, yes!—‘While the grass grows, the steed starves!’” “It will not, Nastka. We have our own land now; ’tis easier far for us.—Six whole acres!” he reminded her, eating away at full speed. “Can we eat the earth?—How shall we get through the winter?” “That’s my affair: do not trouble. I have thought it all out, and shall find means.” He thrust away the empty pot, stretched himself, and led her off to see all and hear his explanations. “This,” he cried out gaily, “shall be the site of our cottage.” “Our cottage? Built of mud, perchance, like a swallow’s nest?” “Of wood and branches, and clay and sand, and whatsoever we can get: to last for a couple of years, till we are better off.”