"Repa, have the fear of God! How didst thou manage them? There were seven against thee."
"Well, serene heir," answered Repa, "their legs were worn out with marching, and the moment I touched one he fell to the floor."
Pan Skorabevski quashed the affair. For a long time he had been very friendly to Repa. The peasant women even whispered into one another's ears that Repa was his son.
"That can be seen at once," said they; "he has the courage of a noble, the dog blood!"
But this was not true; though everybody knew Repa's mother, no one knew his father. Repa himself paid rent for a cottage and three morgs of land, which became his own afterward. He cultivated his land; and, being a good worker, his affairs went on well. He married, and met such a wife that a better could not be found with a candle; and surely he would have been prosperous, had it not been that he liked vodka a little too well.
But what could be done? If any one mentioned the matter, he answered right off,—
"I drink from my own money, and what's that to you?"
He feared no one in the village; before the secretary alone had he manners. When he saw from a distance the green cap, the stuck-up nose and goatee walking in high boots along the road slowly, he caught at his cap. The secretary knew also some things against Repa. During the insurrection certain papers were given Repa to carry, and he carried them.
When he came that day from the woods to his cottage, Marysia ran to him with great crying, and began to call out,—
"Oh, poor man, my eyes will not look long on thee; oh, I shall not weave clothes for thee, nor cook food long for thee! Thou wilt go to the ends of the earth, poor unfortunate!"