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When she reached the yard she saw Grochowski kneeling and rubbing his eyes with his sukmana and Slimak lying on the manure heap. Maciek was standing over them. 'We must do something with them, he said to the gospodyni; 'they've drunk a whole bottle of vodka. 'Get up, you drunkard, she cried, 'or I'll pour water over your head.
'Just look at him, jeered his wife: 'his sukmana is dirty and wet, he hasn't taken off his boots all night, and he scowls like a brigand. You are more fit for a scarecrow in a flaxfield than for talking to the squire. Change your clothes and go. She returned to the cowshed, and a weight fell off Slimak's mind that the matter had ended there. He had expected to be jeered at till the afternoon.
At times she began to long for freedom and her child, and then she fell into accesses of fury. Now they were sending her back under escort of two peasants; one carried the papers relating to her case, and the other had come to keep him company. She had a boot on one foot and a sandal on the other, a sukmana in holes, and a handkerchief like a sieve on her head.
'His trial does not come on till to-morrow, he said, 'but as I was driving that way, I thought he might as well come with me. Jendrek grew pale and silently put on his new sukmana and sheepskin. 'What will they do to him? his father asked peevishly. 'Eh! I dare say he'll get a few days, perhaps a week. Slimak slowly pulled a rouble out of a little packet.
No, he would not look, he need not look! He need see nothing of him, except a little bit of his sukmana...perhaps not even that! The thought of Maciek was becoming an obsession. He got up and began to busy himself with the dishes. 'What am I coming to? It doesn't do to give way! He pulled himself together, fed the cattle, ran to the river for water.
'Women are a pest! growled Slimak, when she had unfolded her carefully laid plans. 'Curse her, how she lords it over me! You can see that her father was a bailiff. He struggled into his sukmana, which was brand new and beautifully embroidered at the collar and pockets with coloured thread; put on a broad leather belt, tied the ten roubles up in a rag and slipped them into his sukmana.
He hastily ate a little soup, left the rest, and went to his night-quarters in the stable, sheltering the child under his sukmana. When he entered, one of the horses neighed, and the other turned his head and sniffed at the child in the darkness. 'That's right, greet the new stable-boy who can't even hold a whip, laughed Maciek. The rain continued to fall.
He did not rest now or rub his frozen hands; he worked as fast as he could, so that the night and the winter storms should not overtake him. The sky grew darker and darker with clouds; mists rose in the forests and froze into fine crystals which instantly covered Maciek's sukmana, the child's shawl, and the horses' manes with a crackling crust.
He and his wife consulted for the rest of the day what would be the best thing to do under the circumstances. Towards evening he put on his new sukmana lined with sheepskin and went to the inn. Gryb and Lukasiak were sitting at the table. By the light of the two tallow candles they looked like two huge boundary-stones in their grey clothes.
He put on his thick hobnailed boots and a stiff sukmana, fastened a hard strap round his waist, and put on his high sheepskin cap. The heaviness in his limbs increased, and it came into his mind that it would be more suitable to be buried in a bundle of straw after a huge bowl of peeled barley-soup and another of cheese dumplings, than to go to work.
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