midday
Toward evening the news spread that the wife of the miller , the village nabob , had been drowned in the Bjela Voda , which was very swollen from the amount of rain that had fallen . The unfortunate woman had crossed the stepping-stones in order to bring back her geese , which had strayed to the other side . She had brought back two of them , one under each arm , but as she was re-crossing to fetch the third , her foot slipped , and she fell into the stream . In the morning there had been so little water there , that a goat could have drank it all in half a minute , and by midday it was swollen to such an extent that the poor woman was drowned in it . They looked for her the whole afternoon in the cellar , in the loft , everywhere they could think of , until in the evening her body was taken out of the water near Lehota . There some people recognized her , and a man was sent over on horseback to tell Mihály Gongoly of the accident . All this caused great excitement in the village , and the people stood about in groups , talking of the event .