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Slimak promised the schoolmaster five roubles when Jendrek would be able to pray from a book and ten more when he should have learnt to write. Jendrek was therefore more and more often at the settlement, either busy with his lessons or else watching the girl through the window and listening to her voice. But this happened to annoy one of the young Germans, who was a relation of the Hamers.
Fritz pushed Slimak into the kitchen, where one of the farm-hands was asleep already. He felt stupefied; whether it was with the beer or with Knap's noisy conversation, he could not tell. He sat down on his plank bed and felt cheerful. The noise of conversation in German reached him from the adjoining room; then the Hamers left the house.
Otherwise Hirschgold will turn the Hamers out at midsummer and sell the land to Gryb. They have a heavy contract with the Jew. 'What? Gryb would buy the settlement? 'Indeed he would. He is anxious to settle his son too, and Josel has been sniffing round for a month past. So there's your chance, bargain well.
'Well, it matters a great deal to them; if Wilhelm had a windmill he could marry Miller Knap's daughter from Wolka and get a thousand and twenty roubles with her; the Hamers may go bankrupt without that money. That's why you stick in their throats. If you sold them your land they would pay you well. 'And I won't sell!
The colonists rushed to the vehicle with shouts and explanations, gesticulating wildly, pointing hither and thither, and talking in turns, for even in their excitement they seemed to preserve system and order. The Hamers remained perfectly calm, listening patiently and attentively, until the others were tired of shouting.
Slimak discovered the Hamers in the crowd. 'Nice neighbours you are! he said bitterly, going up to them. 'Here you are sending all the way to the village for carts, and you won't let me have a job. 'We will send for you when you are living in the village, Fritz answered, and turned his back. An elderly gentleman was standing near them, and Slimak turned to him and took off his cap.
They jumped to the conclusion that either the Germans had not been able to come to terms with Hirschgold, or had quarrelled with the Hamers, or that they had lost heart because of the horse-thieves. 'Why, they haven't so much as measured out the ground! cried Orzchewski, and washed down the remark with a huge glass of beer.
'It's a monstrous thing', he said, 'to heap up so much sand on the fields near the river, and narrow the bed; when the Bialka swells, it will overflow. Slimak saw that the ends of the embankment were touching the river, but as they had been strengthened by brick walls he took no alarm. Nevertheless, it struck him that the Hamers were hurriedly throwing up dams on their fields in the lower places.
But these were interrupted the next afternoon by a visit from the Hamers; their cousin, Hermann, had his head so tightly bandaged that hardly anything was visible of his face. They stood outside the gate and shouted to Maciek to call his master. Slimak hastily fastened his belt and stepped out. 'What do you want? he said.
We can't get any at the manor either; the Jews from the inn are there and won't stir from the place. Just as they were leaving, a brichka drove up containing the two Hamers, whose faces were now quite familiar to Slimak.
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