isible larks. The blessing of a promising harvest lay
spread over the broad fields as far as Starydwor, and everywhere [Pg
222] as far as the eye could see. But Mr. Tiralla's heart did not
rejoice as a farmer's should have done. He did not look about him, nor
care whether the oats and wheat were getting on, and whether the rye
was beginning to turn pale. He pressed his hat further down on his
forehead and shuffled along a little more rapidly. Marianna should
bring him something at once to his room. He would lock himself in; he
had not had his daily quantity yet, those confounded fellows had
disturbed him. He still felt very out of sorts.

"Mr. Tiralla! Mr. Tiralla!" shouted somebody behind him.

He did not hear. Then somebody seized him by the coat as he reached the
Bo[^z]a m[,e]ka which stands at the cross-roads.

Mr. Tiralla turned round in terror--was it she? Ah, it was only the
schoolmaster. He gave a sigh of relief.

"Why do you hurry so, Mr. Tiralla?" said Boehnke in a breathless voice.
"You were almost running. I saw you in the distance when you left the
village, and I've been racing behind you the whole way."

"Why did you do that?" asked Mr. Tiralla. "I want to be alone, I must
be alone, I'm safest when I'm quite alone." Then he sighed again, and
his swollen eyes glimmered as he cast a restless look around.

The schoolmaster sighed too; dear, dear, the man was quite out of his
mind. It must be true what they were saying in Starawie['s], that
Becker had become Mrs. Tiralla's lover. Confound it! "May I offer you
my arm, Mr. Tiralla?" he said, going close up to him. "You're walking
badly."

"No, no--no, no!" cried the stout man, keeping the schoolmaster off as
though he were afraid of him. [Pg 223] And then he added in a gruff
voice, as he saw that he would not be repulsed, "_Psia krew_, what do
you want? Go to the devil, little Boehnke."

But the words "little Boehnke" did not have the usual effect on the
schoolmaster, for he felt sorry for the man. Besides, he wanted to
know, he must know, how far it had gone with Mrs. Tiralla and Becker.
You could not believe all the gossip of the inn, but he would get at
the truth from the man himself, the husband who had been insulted and
deceived.

So after Mr. Tiralla had stumbled several times, Boehnke took hold of
his arm. "Do let me accompany you," he said in an anxious, friendly
voice.

"All right then," he growled. The man's solicitude did him good after
a