Here it occurred to him that Stan and Vilk would to a certainty not receive him with superfluous delight, and that perhaps he would have to fight them; but he had no fear of this, just as an old war-horse feels no fear when he must go to battle. His health had returned; he felt strength in his bones, and knew that he would manage easily those quarrellers who were dangerous, it may be, but without knightly training. He said something different, it is true, a short time before, to Zbyshko, but he said it only to restrain that young man from going.
"Hei! I am a pike, and they are gudgeons," thought he; "they would better not come near me head foremost."
But something else alarmed him immediately: "God knows when Zbyshko will come back; meanwhile he looks on Yagenka only as a sister. Now does not the girl look at him also as a brother, and will she wait for his uncertain return?"
So he looked at her and said,—
"Listen to me, Yagna: I will not talk of Stan and Vilk, for they are uncouth peasants, and not for thee. Thou art now a court lady! But as thy years—my late friend, Zyh, told me that the will of God was on thee then, and that was some time ago. For I know—they say, that when a girl feels the garland too tight on her head she seeks some one to remove it. It is to be understood that neither Stan nor Vilk—but what dost thou notice?"
"Of what are you inquiring?" asked Yagenka.
"Wouldst thou marry no man?"
"I? I shall be a nun."
"Do not say anything frivolous! But if Zbyshko comes back?"
She shook her head.
"I shall be a nun."
"But if he should love thee? If he should beg, and beg terribly?"
The girl turned her blushing face toward the field; but the wind, which was blowing from the field just then, brought to Matsko the low-voiced answer,—
"I would not be a nun."
