Page:The Mantle and Other Stories.djvu/162

 "Do you really want to bait the headman?" asked Levko.

"The headman?"

"Yes, the headman. I don't know for whom he takes himself. He carries on as though he were a duke. It is not only that he treats us as if we were his serfs, but he comes after our girls."

"Quite right! That is true!" exclaimed all the youths together.

"But are we made of any worse stuff than he? We are, thank God! free Cossacks. Let us show him so."

"Yes, we will show him!" they shouted. "But when we go for the headman, we must not forget his clerk."

"The clerk shall have his share, too. Just now a song that suits the headman occurs to me. Go on! I will teach it you!" continued Levko, striking the strings of his guitar. "But listen! Disguise yourselves as well as you can."

"Hurrah for the Cossacks!" cried the stout reveller, dancing and clapping his hands. "Long live freedom! When one lets the reins go, one thinks of the good old times. It feels as jolly as though one were in paradise. Hurrah, you fellows! Go ahead!"

The youths rushed noisily through the village street, and the pious old women, aroused from their sleep, looked through the windows, crossed