While Gryb and Orzchewski sorrowfully conducted each other home, they comforted themselves with the thought that the surveyor might only be spending the night in the village on his way elsewhere.
'God grant it, I want to see that young scamp of a Jasiek settled and married, and if I let him out of my sight he goes to the dogs directly.'
'My Paulinka is a match for him; she'll look after him!'
'You don't know what you're talking of, neighbour; it will take the three of us to look after him. Lately he hasn't spent a single night at home, and sometimes I don't see him for a week.'
The surveyor started work in the manor-fields the next morning, and for several days was seen walking about with a crowd of Germans in attendance on all his orders, carrying his poles, putting up a portable table, providing him with an umbrella or a place in the shade where he could take long pulls out of his wicker flask. The peasants stood silently watching them.
'I could measure as well as that if I drank as much as he does,' said one of them.
'Ah, but that is why he is a surveyor,' said another, 'because he has a strong head.'
No sooner had he departed than the Germans drove off and returned with heavy cartloads of building materials. One fine day a small troop of masons and carpenters appeared with their implements. A party of colonists went out to meet them, followed by a large crowd of women and children. They met at an appointed place, where refreshments and a barrel of beer had been provided.
Old Hamer, in a faded drill-jacket, Fritz in a black coat, and Wilhelm, adorned with a scarlet waistcoat with red flowers, were busy welcoming the guests; Wilhelm had charge of the barrel of beer.
Maciek had noticed these preparations and gave the alarm, and all the inhabitants of the gospodarstwo watched the proceedings with the keenest interest. They saw old Hamer taking up a stake and driving it into the ground with a wooden hammer.