On the Field of Glory Part 22

said Father Voynovski.

Then he commanded to bring mead which he poured out himself, and they drank with much pleasure as men do who have joy at their heart strings.

With the third gla.s.s the priest became serious.

"For the a.s.sistance, for the good word, for the honesty, let me pay,"

said he, "even with good advice."

"I am listening."

"Do not settle your son in Vyrambki. The young lady is beautiful beyond every description. She may also be honorable, I say naught against that; but she is a Sieninski, not she alone, but Pan Gideon is so proud of this that if any man, no matter who, were to ask for her, even Yakobus our king's son, he would not seem too high to Pan Gideon. Guard your son, do not let him break his young heart on that pride, or wound himself mortally like Yatsek. Out of pure and well-wishing friendship do I say this, desiring to pay for your kindness with kindness."

Pan Serafin drew his palm across his forehead as he answered,--

"They dropped down on us at Yedlinka as from the clouds because of what happened on the journey. I went once to Pan Gideon's on a neighborly visit, but he did not return it. Noting his pride and its origin I have not sought his acquaintance or friendship. What has come came of itself. I will not settle my son in Vyrambki, nor let him be foolish at Pan Gideon's mansion. We are not such an ancient n.o.bility as the Sieninskis, nor perhaps as Pan Gideon, but our n.o.bility grew out of war, out of that which gives pain, as Charnyetski described it. We shall be able to preserve our own dignity--my son is not less keen on that point than I am. It is hard for a young man to guard against Cupid, but I will tell you, my benefactor, what Stashko told me when recently at Pan Gideon's. I inquired touching Panna Anulka. 'I would rather,' said he, 'not pluck an apple than spring too high after it, for if I should not reach the fruit, shame would come of my effort.'"

"Ah! he has a good thought in his head!" exclaimed Father Voynovski.

"He has been thus from his boyhood," added Pan Serafin with a certain proud feeling. "He told me also, that when he had learnt what the girl had been to Tachevski, and what he had pa.s.sed through because of her, he would not cross the road of so worthy a cavalier. No, my benefactor, I do not take a mortgage on Vyrambki to have my son near Pan Gideon's.

May G.o.d guard my Stanislav, and preserve him from evil."

"Amen! I believe you as if an angel were speaking. And now let some third man take the girl, even one of the Bukoyemskis, who boast of such kinsfolk."

Pan Serafin smiled, drank out his mead, took farewell, and departed.

Father Voynovski went to the church to thank G.o.d for that unexpected a.s.sistance, and then he waited for Yatsek impatiently.

When at last Yatsek came, the old man ran out to the yard and seized him by the shoulders.

"Yatsek," exclaimed he, "thou canst give ten ducats for a crupper. Thou hast one hundred ducats, as it were, on the table, and Vyrambki remains to thee."

Yatsek fixed on Father Voynovski eyes that were sunken from sleeplessness and suffering, and asked, with astonishment,--

"What has happened?"

"A really good thing, since it came from the heart of an honest man."

Father Voynovski noted with the greatest consolation that Yatsek in spite of his terrible suffering, and all his heart tortures, received, as it were, a new spirit on learning of the agreement with Pan Serafin.

For some days he spoke and thought only of horses, wagons, outfit, and servants, so that it seemed as though there was no place for aught else in him.

"Here is thy medicine, thy balsam; here are thy remedies," repeated the priest to himself; "for if a man entrapped by a woman and never so unhappy were going to the army he would have to be careful not to buy a horse that had heaves or was spavined; he would have to choose sabres, and fit on his armor, try his lance once and a second time, and, turning from the woman to more fitting objects, find relief for his heart in them."

And he remembered how, when young, he himself had sought in war either death or forgetfulness. But since war had not begun yet, death was still distant from Yatsek in every case; meantime he was filled with his journey, and with questions bound up in it.

There was plenty to do. Pan Serafin and his son came again to the priest with whom Yatsek was living. Then all went to the city together to draw up the mortgage. There, also, they found a part of Yatsek's outfit; the remainder, the experienced and clear-headed priest advised to search out in Warsaw or Cracow. This beginning of work took up some days, during which young Stanislav, whose slight wound was almost healed, gave earnest a.s.sistance to Yatsek, with whom he contracted a more and more intimate acquaintance and friendship. The old men were pleased at this, for both held it extremely important. The honest Pan Serafin even began to be sorry that Yatsek was going so promptly, and to persuade the priest not to hasten his departure.

"I understand," said he, "I understand well, my benefactor, why you wish to send him away at the earliest; but in truth I must tell you that I think no ill of that Panna Anulka. It is true that immediately after the duel she did not receive Pan Yatsek very nicely, but remember that she and Pani Vinnitski were s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of the wolves by my son and the Bukoyemskis. What wonder, then, that, at sight of the blood and the wounds of those gentlemen, she was seized with an anger, which Pan Gideon roused in her purposely, as I know. Pan Gideon is a stubborn man, truly; but when I was there the poor girl came to me perfectly penitent. 'I see,' said she, 'that we did not act justly, and that some reparation is due to Pan Yatsek.' Her eyes became moist immediately, and pity seized me, because that face of hers is comely beyond measure. Besides, she has an honest soul and despises injustice."

"By the dear G.o.d! let not Yatsek hear of this; for his heart would rush straightway to death again, and barely has he begun to breathe now in freedom. He ran away from Pan Gideon's bareheaded; he swore that he would never go back to that mansion, and G.o.d guard him from doing so.

Women, your grace, are like will-o'-the-wisps which move at night over swamp lands at Yedlinka. If you chase one it flees, if you flee it pursues you. That is the way of it!"

"That is a wise statement, which I must drive into Stashko," said Pan Serafin.

"Let Yatsek go at the earliest. I have written letters already to various acquaintances, and to dignitaries whom I knew before they were dignitaries, and to warriors the most famous. In those letters your son, too, is recommended as a worthy cavalier; and when his turn comes to go he shall have letters also, though he may not need them, since Yatsek will prepare the way for him. Let the two serve together."

"From my whole soul I thank you, my benefactor. Yes! let them serve together, and may their friendship last till their lives end. You have mentioned the regiment of Alexander, the king's son, which is under Zbierhovski. That is a splendid regiment,--perhaps the first among the hussars,--so I should like Stashko to join it; but he said to me: 'The light-horse for six days in the week, and the hussars, as it were, only on Sunday.'"

"That is true generally," answered the priest. "Hussars are not sent on scouting expeditions, and it is rare also that they go skirmishing, as it is not fitting that such men should meet all kinds of faces; but when their turn comes, they so press on and trample that others do not spill so much blood in six days as they do on their Sunday. But then, war, not the warriors, command; hence sometimes it happens that hussars perform every-day labor."

"You, my benefactor, know that beyond any man."

Father Voynovski closed his eyes for a moment, as if wishing to recall the past more in detail; then he raised them, looked at the mead, swallowed one mouthful, then a second, and said,--

"So it was when toward the end of the Swedish war we went to punish that traitor, the Elector, for his treaties with Carolus. Pan Lyubomirski, the marshal, took fire and sword to the outskirts of Berlin. I was then in his own regiment, in which Viktor was lieutenant commander. The Brandenburger[4] met us as best he was able, now with infantry, now with general militia in which were German n.o.bles; and I tell you that at last, on our side, the arms of the hussars and the Cossacks of the household seemed almost as if moving on hinges."

"Was it such difficult work then?"

"It was not difficult, for at the mere sight of us muskets and spears trembled in the hands of those poor fellows as tree branches tremble when the wind blows around them; but there was work daily from morning till twilight. Whether a man thrusts his spear into a breast or a back, it is labor. Ah! but that was a lovely campaign! for, as people said, it was active, and in my life I have never seen so many men's backs and so many horse rumps as in that time. Even Luther was weeping in h.e.l.l, for we ravaged one half of Brandenburg thoroughly."

"It is pleasant to remember that treason came to just punishment."

"Of course it is pleasant. The Elector appeared then and begged peace of Lyubomirski. I did not see him, but later on soldiers told me that the marshal walked along the square with his hands on his hips while the Elector tripped after him like a whip-lash. The Elector bowed so that he almost touched the ground with his wig, and seized the knees of the marshal. Nay! they even said that he kissed him wherever it happened; but I give no great faith to that statement, though the marshal, who had a haughty heart, loved to bend down the enemy; but he was a polite man in every case, and would not permit things of that kind."

"G.o.d grant that it may happen with the Turks this time as it did then with the Elector."

"My experience, though not lofty, is long, and I will say to you sincerely that it will go, I think, as well or still better. The marshal was a warrior of experience and especially a lucky one, but still, we could not compare Lyubomirski with His Grace the King reigning actually."

Then they mentioned all the victories of Sobieski and the battles in which they themselves had taken part. And so they drank to the health of the king, and rejoiced, knowing that with him as a leader the young men would see real war; not only that, but, since the war was to be against the ancient enemy of the cross, they would win immense glory.

In truth no one knew accurately anything yet about the question. It was not known whether the Turkish power would turn first on the Commonwealth or the Empire. The question of a treaty with Austria was to be raised at the Diet. But in provincial diets and the meetings of n.o.bles men spoke of war only. Statesmen who had been in Warsaw, and at the court, foretold it with conviction, and besides, the whole people had been seized by a feeling that it must come--a feeling almost stronger than certainty, and brought out as well by the former deeds of the king as by the general desire and the destiny of the nation.

CHAPTER VII

On the road to Radom Father Voynovski had invited Pan Serafin and Stanislav to his house for a rest, after which he and Yatsek were to visit them at Yedlinka. During this visit three of the Bukoyemskis appeared, unexpectedly. Marek, whose shoulder-blade had been cut, could not move yet, but Mateush, Lukash, and Yan came to bow down before the old man and thank him for his care of them when wounded. Yan had lost a little finger, and the older brothers had big scars, one man on his cheek, the other on his forehead, but their wounds had then healed and they were as healthy as mushrooms.

Two days before they went on a hunt to the forest, smoked out a sleepy she-bear, speared her, and took her cub which they brought as a gift to Father Voynovski, whose fondness for wild beasts was known by all people.

The priest whom they had pleased as "innocent boys" was amused with them and the little bear very greatly. He shed tears from laughter when the cub seized a gla.s.s filled with mead for a guest, and began to roar in heaven-piercing notes to rouse proper terror, and thus save the booty.

On seeing that no one wished the mead, the bear stood on its hind-legs and drank out the cup in man fashion. This roused still greater pleasure in the audience. The priest was amused keenly, and added,--

"I will not make this cub my butler or beekeeper."

"Ha!" cried Stanislav, laughing, "the beast was a short time at school with the Bukoyemskis, but learned more in one day from them than it would all its life in the forest."

"Not true," put in Lukash, "for this beast has by nature such wit that it knows what is good without learning. Barely had we brought the cub from the forest when it gulped down as much vodka (whiskey) right off as if it had drunk the stuff every morning with its mother, and then gave a whack on the snout to a dog, as if saying 'This for thee--don't sniff at me'--after that it went off and slept soundly."