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did not remain long in Cracow, and would have remained there a shorter time had it not been for the prayer of Yasko, who wanted to look at the people and the city, for all seemed a marvellous dream to him. But the old knight was in an immense hurry to return to his domestic hearth and his fields, so even prayers did not avail much, and on Assumption Day both had returned,—one to Bogdanets, the other to Zgorzelitse.

And thenceforward life began to drag on for them rather monotonously, filled with the toil of land management and every-day work in the country. In Zgorzelitse, which was low, and especially in Yagenka's Mochydoly, the harvest was excellent; but in Bogdanets, because of the dry year, the crops turned out to be thin, and no great labor was needed to collect them. In general there was not much tilled land in Bogdanets, for the property was under forest, and because of the long absence of the owners even those plots which the abbot had fitted for ploughing by grubbing up roots were abandoned through lack of workmen. The old knight, though sensitive to every loss, did not take this to heart overmuch at that time, for he knew that with money it would be easy to introduce order and arrangement in all things,—if only there was some one for whom to work and labor. But just this uncertainty poisoned his days and his industry. He did not let his hands drop, however: he rose before day, he rode out to the herds, looked at the work in the field and the forest, he even selected a place for the castle and was choosing out timber for building; but when after a warm day the sun was dissolving in the golden and ruddy gleams of evening, a terrible yearning would seize the man, and, besides yearning, a fear such as he had never experienced till those days. "I am running about here, I am toiling," said he to himself; "while off there my poor boy is lying in some field, perhaps pierced by a spear, and wolves in packs are snapping their teeth at him." At this thought