'How are you, gospodarz?' called the elder man to Slimak. 'Shall we come to terms yet?'
'What's the use of talking, father?' said the other; 'he will come to us of his own accord!'
'Never!' cried Slimak, and added under his breath: 'They are dead set on me—the vermin! Queer folk!' he observed to his wife, looking after the departing brichka, 'when our people are quarrelling, they don't stop to listen, but these seem to understand each other all the same and to smooth things over.'
'What are you always cracking up the Swabians for, you old silly?' returned his wife. 'You don't seem to remember that they want to take your land away from you…. I can't make you out!'
'What can they do to me? I won't let them have it, and they can't rob me.'
'Who knows? They are many, and you are only one.'
'That's God's will! I can see they have more sense than I have, but when it comes to holding on, there I can match them! Look at all the woodpeckers on that little tree; that tree is like us peasants. The squire sits and hammers, the parish sits and hammers, the Jews and the Germans sit and hammer, yet in the end they all fly away and the tree is still the tree.'
The evening brought a visit from old Sobieska, who stumbled in with her demand of a 'thimbleful of whisky'.
'I nearly gave up the ghost,' she cried, 'I've run so fast to tell you the news.'
She was rewarded with a thimble which a giant could well have worn on his finger.