“Do you want to get married?”
“I haven’t made my boots yet. When I’ve made my boots I’ll think about it.”
“But I’d give you boots, and tar for them, and a hat and a belt.”
“Would you? And I’ll tell you something better still.”
“What?”
“That the cocks are already crowing in the village. Can’t you hear them going it?”
It was true. In the village, perhaps at Galya’s cottage, a shrill-voiced cock was splitting his throat shouting “cock-a-doodle-doo!”
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” answered other voices from far and near like water boiling in a kettle, and all the cracks in the wall of the little room began to gleam white, even down to the tiniest chink.
The miller yawned blissfully.
“Ah, now they are far away!” he thought. “How funny it was! He flew all the way from the city to my mill while the clock was striking twelve. Ha, ha, and so Yankel has gone! What a joke! Why, if I should tell it to any one, they’d call me a liar. But why should I lie? They’ll find it out for themselves to-morrow. Perhaps I’d better not mention it at all. They would say I ought to have—but what’s the use of arguing about it? If I had killed the Jew myself, or anything like that, I should have been responsible for what happened, but as it is, it doesn’t concern me at all. What need had I to interfere? Let sleeping dogs lie, say I. A shut mouth plays safe. They won’t hear anything from me.”