On the Field of Glory Part 43

"But if he will wriggle out?" inquired Marek. "His father is an old trickster, who has won more than one lawsuit."

"If he wriggles out, Yatsek on returning will whisper a word in his ear."

"Ye do not know Yatsek yet! He has the eyes of a maiden, but it is safer to take her young cubs from a she-bear than to pain him unjustly."

Hereupon Vilchopolski till then only listening spoke in gloomy accents,--

"Pan Krepetski has written his own sentence, whether he awaits the return of Pan Tachevski or not-- But there is another point; he will try, with armed hand, to get back the young lady, and then--"

"Then we shall see!" interrupted Pan Serafin. "But let him only try!

That is something quite different!"

And he shook his sabre, threateningly, while the Bukoyemskis began to grit their teeth straightway.

"Let him try! let him try!" said they.

"But, gentlemen," said Vilchopolski, "you are going to the war."

"We will arrange then in another way," replied Father Voynovski.

Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the butler. He had brought trunks filled with the wardrobe of Panna Sieninski which, as he said, he did only with difficulty. The Krepetski sisters tried to prevent him, and even wished to wake Martsian, and keep the trunks in the mansion, but they could not wake him; and the butler persuaded them that they should not act thus, both in view of their own good and that of their brother, otherwise an action would be brought against them for robbery, and they would be summoned for damages before a tribunal. As women who do not know law they were frightened and yielded. The butler thought that Martsian would try surely to get back the young lady, but he did not think that the man would use violence immediately.

"He will be restrained from that," said the butler, "by his father, who understands well the significance of _raptus puellae_. He knows nothing yet of what has happened, but from here I will go to him directly and explain the whole matter, for two reasons. First, so that he may restrain Martsian, and second, because I do not wish to be in Belchantska to-morrow when Martsian wakes and learns that I have helped the young lady in fleeing. He would rush on me surely, and then to one of us something ugly might happen."

Pan Serafin and Father Voynovski praised the man's prudence and, finding that he was a well-wis.h.i.+ng person, and experienced, a man who had eaten bread from more than one oven, and to whom law itself was no novelty, begged him to aid in examining the question. There were two councils then, one of these being formed of the four Bukoyemskis.

Pan Serafin, knowing how to restrain them most easily from murderous intentions, and detain them at home, sent a large demijohn of good mead to the brothers; this they were glad to besiege at the moment, and began to drink one to another. Their hearts were moved, and they remembered involuntarily the night when Panna Anulka crossed for the first time the threshold of that house there in Yedlinka. They recalled how they had fallen in love with her straightway, how through her they had quarrelled, and then in one voice adjudged her to Stanislav, and thus made an offering of their pa.s.sion to friends.h.i.+p.

At last Mateush drank his mead, put his head on his palm, sighed, and continued,--

"Yatsek was sitting that night on a tree like a squirrel. Who could have thought then that he was just the man to whom the Lord G.o.d had given her?"

"And commanded us to continue in our orphanhood," added Marek.

"Do ye remember," asked Lukash, "how the rooms were all bright from her presence? They would not have been brighter from a hundred burning candles. And she at one time stood up, at another sat down, and a third time she laughed. And when she looked at a man it was as warm in his bosom as if he had drunk heated wine that same instant. Let us take a gla.s.s now on our terrible sadness."

They drank again; then Mateush struck a blow with his fist on the table, and shouted,--

"Ei! if she had not loved that Yatsek so!"

"Then what?" asked Yan, angrily, "dost think that she would fall in love with thee right away? Look at him--my dandy!"

"Well thou art no beauty!" retorted Mateush.

And they looked at each other with ill-feeling. But Lukash, though given greatly to quarrels, began now to pacify his brothers.

"Not for thee, not for thee, not for any of us," said he. "Another will get her and take her to the altar."

"For us there is nothing but sorrow and weeping," blurted out Marek.

"Then at least we will love one another. No one in this world loves us!

No one!"

"No one! no one!" repeated they all in succession, mingling their wine with their tears as they said so.

"But she is sleeping up there!" added Yan on a sudden.

"She is sleeping, the poor little thing," responded Lukash; "she is lying down like a flower cut by the scythe, like a lamb torn by a villainous wolf. My born brothers! is there no man here who will take even a pull at the wild beast?"

"It cannot be but there is!" cried out Mateush, Marek, and Yan. And again they grew indignant, and the more they drank the oftener they gritted their teeth, first one, then another, or one of them struck his fist on the table.

"I have an idea!" said the youngest on a sudden.

"Tell it! Have G.o.d in thy heart!"

"Here it is. We have promised Pan Serafin not to cut up that 'stump.'

Have we not promised?"

"We have, but tell what thou hast to say; ask no questions."

"Though we have promised we must take revenge for our young lady. Old Krepetski will come here, as they said, to see if Pan Serafin will not give back the young lady. But we know that he will not give her, do we not?"

"He will not! he will not!"

"But think ye not this way: Martsian will hurry to meet his father on the road back, to see and inquire if he has succeeded."

"As G.o.d is in heaven, he will do so."

"On the road, half-way between Belchantska and Yedlinka, is a tar pit near the roadside. If we should wait at that tar pit for Martsian--?"

"Well, but what for?"

"Ps.h.!.+ quiet!"

"Ps.h.!.+"

And they began to look around through the room, though they knew that save themselves there was not a living soul in it, and then they whispered. They whispered long, now louder, now lower. At last their faces grew radiant, they finished their wine at one draught, embraced one another, and in silence went out of the room one after the other, in goose fas.h.i.+on.

They saddled their horses without the least noise, and each led his beast by the bit from the courtyard. When they had gone through the gate they mounted and rode stirrup by stirrup to the roadway where Yan, though the youngest, took command and said then to his brothers,--

"Now I with Marek will go to the tar pit, and do ye bring that cask before daybreak."

CHAPTER XIX

Old Krepetski, as had been foreseen by the butler, went to Yedlinka after midday on the morrow, but beyond all expectation he appeared there with so kindly a face, and so gladsome, that Pan Serafin, who had the habit of dozing after dinner, and felt somewhat drowsy, became wide awake with astonishment at sight of him. Almost at the threshold the old fox began to mention neighborly friends.h.i.+p and say what delight his old age would find in more frequent and mutual visits; he gave thanks for the kindly reception, and only after finis.h.i.+ng these courtesies did he come to the real question.