call me a 'stupid great booby' and 'greenhorn.' Even now I don't like to think about it. He happened to come into the yard. Though I was at work, and he didn't see me, and I ran away from him like a hare from a dog, he at once began to shout: 'Eh, there! you stupid great booby, you greenhorn!' His voice was like himself, thin and shrill, and so penetrating it sounded like a whistle. When he called me all those names I boiled over with rage. It was only he who thought me stupid, not my own people. There wasn't a fellow in the village equal to me, either with the fiddle at the inn or at the hardest field work. For I never shirked work any more than play. And I was so strong—I'm speaking seriously—not as I am now; if there was ever anything anyone couldn't do, Maciej did it.

"And then to be insulted like that, and go on standing it—why should I? So I thought, 'There's been enough of this, and I've had enough of it, too! With God's help I'll show him I'm not so stupid, and not such a booby.' I don't know if I could do it now, but at that time there wasn't a team I couldn't have held. When I was holding them from behind, you could have beaten the horses to death, they wouldn't have stirred. I hadn't tried with the carriage horses; the coachman wouldn't allow it. 'You'll get the landau smashed, and I'm responsible,' he said. But I thought: 'Let come what may, I'll try.'

"It was a Sunday when he ordered the horses to be put to, but not to go to church, for he was driving alone, only to go to the town. He got in, sat down, shut the door, and waited. He liked the horses to start off at once at a sharp trot. But I was behind. I put my feet wide apart to stand firm. I took hold of the side of the landau with one hand, and of the back with the other. My heart was going like a mill, for I was thinking: 'Perhaps I shan't be able to hold horses in such good condition.' But you're all right after the start. I gathered all my strength together, and strained forward till my joints cracked. The horses started—they started once, twice, and—didn't move a step.

"'Go on!' a shrill voice called out from the landau, while the mistress and the young ladies stood at the window waving their handkerchiefs.

"'Go on, blockhead!' and his shrill voice went into a squeak.

"But the old coachman must have guessed what was happening, for, when he saw the horses didn't move, he didn't whip them, so that there shouldn't be an accident. He didn't slash at them, but turned to the master and said: 'How can I start while Maciej is holding on?' Olszeski jumped as if he'd been scalded, and trembled so much he couldn't get his breath. The carriage was half open, so he turned towards me, quite green with anger, and looked me straight in the face. But I held on, and when once I'd looked at him I didn't take my eyes off him; my veins swelled from holding on to the carriage, and the blood went to my head. What I was like I don't know, but my master looked and looked. I thought: 'God knows what he'll do to me.' But he must have understood, for he only laughed, and said: 'How strong you are! How strong you are! But now let go, Maciej.' I let go, and the horses started off; I thought they would bolt."

Maciej sat down tired, for he had been reproducing the whole scene of holding back the carriage as accurately as possible before us. He had stood leaning sideways, had held the carriage with his hand, been tugged at by the powerful horses, and had looked his master threateningly in the face; even his eyes had become bloodshot, and his tightly clenched hands had swelled.

If, wearing his clumsy "juntas,"[5] grey-headed, bent, and but half his weight, he looked splendid and threatening, if his eyes flashed now, what must he have been like when he faced his master in defence of his human dignity?

"From that time," Maciej continued, after a short pause, "my master was different. Not all at once, it's true; for at first he avoided me, and, though he left off scolding, he never said a word for a long time. I thought to myself: 'I'm in for something worse; he's surely thinking out something for me I shan't forget.' But no. He began to talk to me, but always good-naturedly and kindly, and a year hadn't passed before I was high in his favour. If anyone had to be sent out with money, or go with the mistress or young ladies, no one might do it but Maciej; and later, when he knew me, he didn't tell me: 'Don't get drunk, don't be too long, and don't kill the horses'; he only said I was to go, and everything he had ordered was as right as if it had been written in a book. So he got fond of me. I never heard a bad word from him all the last years I was in his house. And I was very happy. But though I was happy there, I had my future to think of, too. Though my father often talked of it, I myself certainly shouldn't have troubled to get married in a hurry, and didn't think much about it. For why think of anything better when you're happy? And no one runs away from happiness. There was work, but there was plenty of fun.

"What a happy time the harvest at home used to be! And when our Mocarze fiddler played at the inn on Sundays, even the old people couldn't keep their feet still.

"And our girls! Hah! There aren't such girls anywhere. For example, do you ever see one like them here? When they were all together, and you came up, they were like flowers—like the lilies themselves. And when you heard them tittering, 'Hi! hi! hi!' and saw their bright eyes behind their aprons, you didn't know yourself that you were calling out: 'Heh there! Go ahead, you fellows! Now then, fiddler, strike up something lively! Come along, my dear!'"

Maciej was about to start off dancing, for he burst out with the 'Heh there!' so energetically that it set our ears tingling. But a scornful remark of the shoemaker checked him.

"They hid behind their aprons? What vulgar foolishness!"

Maciej, who had already started up, sat down, but would not allow the shoemaker's words to pass.

"Vulgar? Everyone knows it's not like in a town. But don't be disagreeable. Now, among these girls the best-looking seemed to me——"

"Kaśka?" interposed the shoemaker.

"No, not Kaśka, but Marya. She was the best girl in Mocarze, and though she had no mother, and was alone at home, she was tidy and hard-working, and everything round her was clean.

"In the field she always went at the head of the mowers. She could always be seen when she was standing in the corn, it never hid her. My Marya was a fine girl, well grown, and red like a poppy or cherries in the sun. And her body was so healthy—it was as hard as a nut. When I wanted to pinch her——"

"Did you pinch her cheek?" the shoemaker interrupted impertinently.

"Don't talk bosh! Am I a gentleman, or do I come from a town, that I should pinch a girl's cheek, to say nothing of the girl being my Marya? I pinched where we are all used to pinching the girls——"

The shoemaker was triumphant and smiled ironically. Obviously this peasant did not know the most elementary rules of genteel behaviour.

"A girl like a turnip, I tell you," Maciej continued. "Strong as my fingers are—but no—nothing to be done—you couldn't pinch her, anyhow.

"I courted her, and it seemed to me that she wasn't against it; for she was always looking at me, and danced best with me. So I thought to myself: 'I'll just see how I stand in this.' So one Sunday evening I watched her going off to the dance, and she had to climb over the fence near the Wojciecks' cottage. I stood and waited