ind his barn, where he lay quite stiff and
blue in the face; and if St. Peter's cock had not flown on to the roof
of the mill and crowed three times, [Pg 41] so that the devil thought
it was the miller's cock crowing in the early morning, the miller would
have been found as dead as a door-nail, with his face turned round to
his back; and his soul would already have been in hell.

Marianna firmly believed that ghosts were screaming in the pines
outside, and that witches were dancing in the wind that howled round
the farm; but above all she believed that the devil was running about
on the Przykop like a will-o'-the-wisp, and was longing to get into the
house, in order to fetch a soul to hell.

But even if she had not so firmly believed it, it would have amused her
to whisper all kinds of strange stories to the trembling child, who had
long ago crept into her bed and was clinging to her. Her stories became
more and more marvellous, more and more weird. The night time, the
moaning of the wind, the plaintive cry of the screech-owls perched in
the old pines in the morass; above all, the darkness of the room, the
deep silence, the loneliness, gave wings to the maid's fancy.
Everything became instinct with life: a creature sighed in every tree,
a voice spoke from every stone, something gasped for air under every
clod of earth, something lurked in every pool. The branches that tapped
against the window-panes were the fingers of the dead, the stars that
shot across the heavens were wandering souls, and the clouds and winds
were full of prophecies.

Once when she was a child, Marianna told Rosa, she had run in amongst
some corn in order to pluck some ears and make herself a wreath of the
red poppies. And there she had been seized by the "Zagak," a big man
with a cudgel in his hand and a hat full of holes on his head, and with
shoes through which all his toes were peeping. If a cart with creaking
wheels had not [Pg 42] happened to drive past at that moment, in which
a farmer was sitting, singing a hymn, the "Zagak" would not have let
her go. But she got off that time with a fright and a torn skirt. She
still shook when she thought of the "Zagak"--ugh! How fortunate it was
that he could not get at her here in her warm bed. The woman shuddered
voluptuously, and she and the child clung still more closely to each
other.

Then Roeschen's little fingers clutched hold of Marianna's coarse ones,
and both began to pray with all their mi