Selected Polish Tales Part 23

He was seized with fear at the thought of the unknown power which had ruined the ancient manor-house in a moment. An invisible cloud seemed to be hanging over the valley and the village; the first flash of lightning had struck and completely shattered the seat of its owners.

Some days later the neighbourhood began to swarm with strangers, woodcutters and sawyers, mostly Germans. They walked and drove in crowds along the road past Slimak's cottage; sometimes they marched in detachments like soldiers. They were quartered at the manor, where they turned out the servants and the remaining cattle: they occupied every corner. At night they lit great fires in the courtyard, and in the morning they all walked off to the woods. At first it was difficult to guess what they were doing. Soon, however, there was a distant echo as of someone drumming with his fingers on the table; at last the sound of the axe and the thud of falling trees was heard quite plainly. Fresh inroads on the wavy contour of the forest appeared continually; first crevices, then windows, then wide openings, and for the first time since the world was the world, the astonished sky looked into the valley from that side.

The wood fell: only the sky remained and the earth with a few juniper bushes and countless rows of tree-trunks, hastily stripped of their branches. The rapacious axe had not spared one of the leafy tribe. Not one--not even the centenarian oak which had been touched by lightning more than once. Gazing upwards, this defier of storms had hardly noticed the worms turning round its feet, and the blows of their axes meant no more to it than the tapping of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r. It fell suddenly, convinced at the last that the world was insecure after all, and not worth living in.

There was another oak, half withered, on the branches of which the unfortunate Simon Golamb[1] had hanged himself; the people pa.s.sed it in fear.

[Footnote 1: Polish spelling: _Gotab_.]

'Flee!' it murmured, when the woodcutters approached. 'I bring you death; only one man dared to touch my branches, and he died.' But the woodcutters paid no heed, deeper and deeper they sent the sharp axe into its heart, and with a roar it swayed and fell.

The night-wind moaned over the corpses of the strong trees, and the birds and wild creatures, deprived of their native habitations, mourned.

Older still than the oaks were the huge boulders thickly sown over the fields. The peasants had never touched them; they were too heavy to be removed; moreover, there was a superst.i.tion that the rebellious devils had in the first days of the creation thrown these stones at the angels, and that it was unlucky to touch them. Overgrown with moss they each lay in an island of green gra.s.s; the shepherds lit their fires beneath them on chilly nights, the ploughmen lay down in their shade on a hot afternoon, the hawker would sometimes hide his treasures underneath them.

Now their last hour had struck too; men began to busy themselves about them. At first the village people thought that the 'Swabians' were looking for treasure; but Jendrek found out that they were boring holes in the venerable stones.

'What are the idiots doing that for?' asked Slimakowa. 'Blessed if I know what's the good of that to them!'

'I know, neighbour,' said old Sobieska, blinking her eyes; 'they are boring because they have heard that there are toads inside those big stones.'

'And what if there are?'

'You see, they want to know if it's true.'

'But what's that to them?'

'I'll be hanged if I know!' retorted Sobieska in such a decided tone that Slimakowa considered the matter as settled.

The Germans, however, were not looking for toads. Before long such a cannonading began that the echoes reached the farthest ends of the valley, telling every one that not even the rocks were able to withstand the Germans.

'Those Swabians are a hard race,' muttered Slimak, as he gazed on the giants that had been dashed to pieces. He thought of the colonists for whom the property had been bought, and who now wanted his land as well.

'They are not anywhere about,' he thought; 'perhaps they won't come after all.'

But they came.

One morning, early in April, Slimak went out before sunrise as usual to say his prayers in the open. The east was flushed with pink, the stars were paling, only the morning star shone like a jewel, and was welcomed from below by the awakening birds.

The peasant's lips moved in prayer, while he fixed his eyes on the white mist which covered the ground like snow. Then it was that he heard a distant sound from beyond the hills, a rumble of carts and the voices of many people. He quickly walked up the lonely pine hill and perceived a long procession of carts covered with awnings, filled with human beings and their domestic and agricultural implements. Men in navy-blue coats and straw hats were walking beside them, cows were tied behind, and small herds of pigs were scrambling in and out of the procession. A little cart, scarcely larger than a child's, brought up the rear; it was drawn by a dog and a woman, and conveyed a man whose feet were dangling down in front.

'The Swabians are coming!' flashed through Slimak's mind, but he put the thought away from him.

'Maybe they are gipsies,' he argued. But no--they were not dressed like gipsies, and woodcutters don't take cattle about with them--then who were they?

He shrank from the thought that the colonists were actually coming.

'Maybe it's they, maybe not...' he whispered.

For a moment a hill concealed them from his view, and he hoped that the vision had dissolved into the light of day. But there they were again, and each step of their lean horses brought them nearer. The sun was gilding the hill which they were ascending, and the larks were singing brightly to welcome them.

Across the valley the church bell was ringing. Was it calling to prayers as usual, or did it warn the people of the invasion of a foreign power?

Slimak looked towards the village. The cottage-doors were closed, no one was astir, and even if he had shouted aloud, 'Look, gospodarze, the Germans are here!' no one would have been alarmed.

The string of noisy people now began to file past Slimak's cottage. The tired horses were walking slowly, the cows could scarcely lift their feet, the pigs squeaked and stumbled. But the people were happy, laughing and shouting from cart to cart. They turned round by the bridge on to the open ground.

The small cart in the rear had now reached Slimak's gate; the big dog fell down panting, the man raised himself to a sitting position and the girl took the strap from her shoulder and wiped her perspiring forehead. Slimak was seized with pity for them; he came down from the hill and approached the travellers.

'Where do you all come from? Who are you?' he asked.

'We are colonists from beyond the Vistula,' the girl answered. 'Our people have bought land here, and we have come with them.'

'But have not you bought land also?'

The woman shrugged her shoulders.

'Is it the custom with you for the women to drag the men about?'

'What can we do? we have no horses and my father cannot walk on his own feet.'

'Is your father lame?'

'Yes.'

The peasant reflected for a moment.

'Then he is hanging on to the others, as it were?'

'Oh no,' replied the girl with much spirit, 'father teaches the children and I take in sewing, and when there is no sewing to do I work in the fields.'

Slimak looked at her with surprise and said, after a pause: 'You can't be German, you talk our language very well.'

'We are from Germany.'

'Yes, we are Germans,' said the man in the cart, speaking for the first time.

Slimakowa and Jendrek now came out of the cottage and joined the group at the gate.

'What a strong dog!' cried Jendrek.

'Look here,' said Slimak, 'this lady has dragged her lame father a long way in the cart; would you do that, you scamp?'

'Why should I? Haven't they any horses, dad?'

'We have had horses,' murmured the man in the cart, 'but we haven't any now.'

He was pale and thin, with red hair and beard.