TO THE MOUNTAINS.
There is a strange legend concerning the origin of the Carpathians,
which, now towering abruptly, now rising in gentler lines, form a
mighty wall of separation between the rich lowlands where the Theiss
flows and that vast plain, of heath-country diversified with fertile
tracts, stretching away southward beyond the Pruth into Roumania. To
those blue-green domes cling the gathering clouds, and sailing away
thence they burst in storms of rain upon the Magyar or upon the Ruthen,
as the capricious winds may list; and in those forest-haunts the rivers
rise which come down from the heights, headlong at first and wondrously
clear, but flowing wearily as they reach the plain. The dwellers round
about differ in race and tongue; but they look to the mountains as to a
common centre, where the weather is born, and whence the water is given
for the lowlands; and common to all is that quaintest of legends,
whether Slav, or Magyar, or Roumanian--a legend crudely imagined, but
not without a meaning of its own, however fancifully expressed.
There was a good old time, the people will tell you, at the beginning
of things, when the earth was a fair garden, a fertile plain, with
pleasant groves here and there, and gentle hills. There were no
mountains, no ravenous beasts, no thunder storms, no bursting waters,
and the people were of one race and tongue. Men were happy in those
far-off times--tilling the soil, and living on the fruits of this
beautiful plain. And God would visit the garden He had made, and bless
the children of men. But these foolish people were not content, and,
uniting in their pride, they clamoured for golden harvests without
previous toil; in punishment whereof the Lord God ceased to visit them,
confounding their language so that they could no longer clamour in
common, and permitting, moreover, a mighty barrier to be raised between
them--the great Carpathians--to separate them into different tribes.
For the enemy of men was sent to raise the mountains, and to make them
terrible withal. The heaving earth burst upward, and there were peaks
and crags to frown at the discontented race. The evil one took seven
days to shape the Carpathians, beginning on a Sunday, on which he
heaped up the most towering parts, and finishing off with the lesser
Carpathians on the seventh day when his power was nearly spent; that
was Saturday, for which reason no doubt this part has always been a
dwelling-place of Jews.
The mountain range of seven divisions, as is plainly to be seen, was of
awful aspect, since the evil had the making of them: not a tree or
green thing would grow to clothe the riven rocks and the peaks he had
raised to spread terror upon the once smiling plain. For the Lord God
had been wroth with men.
But there was One in heaven, the good Saviour, who prayed His Father
not to be angry for ever, but to let Him add beauty to the mountains
which the evil one had made for the punishment of men.
He went, and at His touch the whole range was changed, not losing its
dread gloominess, yet gaining a wondrous beauty over and above. For the
Saviour with His pitiful hand covered the bare mountains with the
grandest forests ever seen, surrounding the rocks with spreading
verdure, and planting flowers at their feet. He made waters to spring
in every glen, and cascades leap from the crags; and though wolves and
bears went prowling, He created sheep and the dappled deer to browse in
the sylvan haunts. And ever since, the people will tell you, the
Carpathians have had a beauty of their own, but with terror combined.
It is hardly to be imagined how a man would feel who, by some magic,
were to find himself suddenly transplanted into the heart of these
mountains. For unmoved he could not be, were his perceptions never so
blunted; a sensation of awe would steal upon him with something of
wonder and dismay. Nay, such a feeling must come upon any wanderer
ascending step by step from the lowlands, though the gradual rise would
prepare him in a measure for the weird grandeur and stern beauty
unrolling before his eyes.
To such a one the range at first would appear as a gigantic ridge of
clouds heaped up on the horizon, but differing in hue according to the
time of day; of a bluish black in the morning, they fade into shades of
grey, transparently pale in the full daylight, till the sinking sun
suffuses them with a crimson blush, and they continue shining through
the long twilight like a wall of fire at the far end of the dusky
plain. But the following morning those same shapes are black again, and
all the darker if the air be clear--a wall of towering density jutting
its pinnacles into the ethereal blue.
They seem approaching, but the vast plain is delusive; they are yet
miles away. The landscape, however, has left monotony behind, growing
more changeful at every turn. The moorland has disappeared, with its
sedgy pools, instead of which there is an abundance of rivulets,
growing more limpid and more headlong as you proceed; for you are
ascending steadily, your horizon enlarging. Cornfields are few and far
between, wheat making room for the more hardy oats; while all about you
there are great tracts of brownish uplands, where juniper bushes are
plentiful and the heather will burst into sheets of bloom. Villages
are becoming scarce--mere hamlets, too poor for a manor house,
too poor almost for a church, and with cottages of the humblest, the
public-house alone retaining its undesirable dimensions. Orchards are
no longer to be seen, but beech woods increase; the forest encloses
you, and soon even the beech is crowded out by the fir. The sky,
wherever it appears through the jagged branches, is of a deeper blue,
for there are no misty vapours here as in the lowlands; but the air is
filled with a strange, crisp perfume, the resinous exhalations of pine
wood. Every sense thus is alive to the change of scenery, and if you
are a lover of your lowland home, despite its dreariness, you will be
overtaken by a haunting sensation of fear of the unknown world you have
entered.
But emerging from the pine wood presently, and looking back from the
height you have gained, the very plain behind you has assumed another
aspect, a strange loveliness enwrapping it. The old homely expanse is
aglow with an emerald hue--a giant meadow seemingly--streaked with the
silver of its flowing waters; a shining greensward, the brighter for
its cottages; and far yonder, where the blue of the heavens seems
mingling with the green of the earth, your own dwelling perchance, a
fair jewel in a radiant setting.
But the far-off wall, with its towering blackness? It has resolved
itself magically. To your right and to your left, and above you, there
are round-domed mountains and bolder peaks rising atop of one another
to an immeasurable height. That path up the pine wood has brought you
into the heart of the Carpathians, and their strange beauty, weird and
wild and unspeakably mysterious, is upon you suddenly.
Yet monotony is even here; the world seems a sea of swaying pines, and
the eye has nothing to rest it from the gloomy green save the sky, vast
and blue. The heart grows lonely and wistful, but scarcely attuned to
tender thoughts as amid the voices of the plain. The spell of the
forest wilds is upon it, bracing it up to its own sterner kind.
Resistless and tossing, each torrent dashes through its rocky glen,
breaking into clouds of spray about the boulders, and mantling the
young pines in a shower of shining drops. And from the forest deeps
strange music is heard of groaning branches and whispering tree tops,
now wild and solemn, now murmuring as in dreams, never ceasing, but
going on for ever like the song of the sea. And as you listen you are
caught in a trance, and drawn deeper still into the witching region.
Nature here does not captivate by little gifts and graces; but, having
looked at you once with eyes of kindling beauty, wild, weird, and
awful, you worship at her feet.
It is a charm both chaste and powerful, and, having known it once, you
seek to know more. But not many are admitted to that delight, which is
still reserved for the few--even as in the days when Taras Barabola
repaired up yonder to unfurl his banner. Yet occasionally some lover of
the wilder aspects of nature will quit the shores of the Theiss or the
Fruth to seek entrance into the enchanted regions of that unknown
world. The forest wilds of the Welyki Lys to this day are given over to
bears, hajdamaks, and Huzuls, and the lowland folk aver that there is
little to chose between either. But that is a libel.
Even a bear up yonder is as good-natured as a bear can be, not having
made the closer acquaintance of man. A hunter by nature, he hates being
hunted, and grows surly in consequence; nay, it must be owned that in
the more inhabited parts he has quite lost his native _bonhomie_,
growing cunning and spiteful, robbing more than his need, and killing
for mere blood-thirstiness. Not so, however, up among the wilds. He is
lord in possession there; behaving, accordingly, with a pride of his
own, and not without generosity. Of course he will have his daily
tribute, and fetches it too--now from this fold, now from that; but the
shepherds and herdsmen quite understand this. There is no help against
the lord of the soil, they say; but the bear, on the whole, is at least
a convenient landlord, fetching himself what he wants, and not
expecting you to carry it after him. Not fiercely as a robber,
therefore, nor stealthily as a thief; but leisurely and with dignity,
Master Bruin arrives at the pen, picks out his victim--the sheep, goat,
or calf which takes his fancy--and walks away with it as quietly and
unconcernedly as he came. And he behaves most fairly, not oppressing
one unfortunate subject more than another, but visiting in succession
all the pens and folds within a certain radius of his lair; so that he
may be looked for at pretty regular intervals. The herdsmen have an
idea that he acts from a positive sense of justice; while others, less
credulous, are of opinion that the bear of the Carpathians is a great
walker, and thus naturally finds himself now in this quarter, now in
that, turning to the nearest sheep-fold when it is time for his dinner.
That the queer biped he meets occasionally might also serve him for a
meal, he generously ignores. If he falls in with a herdsman, he gives a
growl: "With your leave, brother, there is room for us both." He growls
too, though more angrily, on meeting any stranger, but rarely thinks it
worth while to attack him; and if he comes across any one asleep he
will have a sniff at him, but without a thought of hurting.
While the wolf, that low, ugly creature, is hated and hunted down
everywhere, a strange feeling of respect prevents any native of the
upper mountains from killing a bear. "The poor little father has none
too easy a life of it," they say, "and it is not well to murder an
honest fellow." There is a tale preserved in the forest of an
Englishman who once arrived there with the notion of bear-hunting. But
although he had muskets of wrought silver, and held them out as
presents to any who would help him, not many were found wicked enough
to join in the chase. "Indeed," say the people, "all who went were
frozen to death, the bad Englishman first and foremost. It served him
right for wishing to hunt the poor little father." The very outlaw, the
homeless hajdamak, shares this feeling; and hunting for the pleasure of
it, whatever he falls in with in the lower forest regions, he acts
peaceably in the upper haunts. "We go shares with the bear up here," he
says, "and he behaves well to us."
The Huzul also, that hybrid of Slavonic and Mongolian blood, who lives
up yonder as a herdsman, hunting the wolf and the deer, and tilling
such bits of ground as he can, is not nearly so bad as he is believed
to be by his betters in the lowlands. His one great vice is an
ingrained want of morality, his own share, handed down from his
fathers, of original sin.
His ancestors, drifting away from the great wave of migration, unused
to a settled home and personal property, knew neither Christianity nor
the wedded estate. Their descendant has accepted all these fetters of
lawlessness, but he wears them lightly, according to his nature. He has
submitted to a settled dwelling, having a hut of his own, but he will
not live in it except when he cannot help himself. From the time the
snow begins to melt, until it lies again mountains deep for seven
months in the year, the Huzul moves about with his cattle from pasture
to pasture, from glen to glen, as though driven, not only by outward
necessity, but also by a mysterious inward need. While the world is
green--winter to him being the black time--he is never long on the soil
of his own property. He must return at times to till his field, to sow
and reap his oats--the hardest and most unwelcome of labour; he _must_
do it, else he would die for want of food, but he never thinks of
adding to his wealth by means of agriculture. Every lamb rejoices his
heart, and he is proud of his foals; but if he enlarges his oat-field,
it is only because of the downright necessity of meeting his wants, and
nothing beyond.
Neither is he greatly advanced in his notions of personal property. To
be sure there are certain fields, and pastures, and flocks, belonging
to certain settlements, these consisting of three or four, sometimes
even of ten or twelve families of the same kindred, and united under
one head who rules by birthright. This chief appoints the sowing of the
fields and the management of the sheep, but not a grain of oats, nor
solitary lambkin belongs to him any more than to another. It is all
common property. Indeed, there are even pastures and flocks which are
the joint property of several settlements, so that a single lamb may
happen to belong to several hundred owners. Such property is managed,
and the proceeds are allotted at the meeting of the married men, who,
though of different settlements, are yet related to one another; for
such common ownership always springs from the fact that their
forefathers formed one family, which, growing too large, had divided
for want of space. There is no personal property then, save wearing
apparel and arms; everything else belongs to the family, which means to
the clan. The student of political economy, it will be seen, could
enrich his knowledge among the Huzuls!
They are no favourites with the clergy. They are Catholics to be sure,
of the Greek Church, but a good deal of their ancestors' heathenism has
survived, and their lowland neighbours say of them that a cat is as
good a Christian as they when she crosses her paws. They take care to
have their children christened in the name of some saint, and they know
that there is a God Almighty living up yonder with the Virgin Mary and
their Son, and that there are lots of angels and devils, and of saints
no end. This is the extent of their catechism, except, perhaps, that
some few can repeat the Lord's Prayer after a fashion. There is no
helpful pastor to feed these poor sheep, showing them the comfort they
require as much as any. For they also are part of the groaning creation
struggling with the sore riddle of existence, and their sense of
helplessness is the greater because their lot is cast amid supremest
hardships, leaving them too often the prey of the blind forces of
nature. As much, then, as any of the striving children of men they are
in need of the assurance that there is a Compassion more than human;
but who is there to tell them the good news?
There are popes in the distant villages whose nominal parishioners they
are. "Why do they not come to church, then?" Innocent question! The
journey would take several days, even if they remembered they would be
welcome. But since there is nothing to remind them of the far-off
church and pope, how should they remember? And so Christianity to them
has resolved itself into the legendary knowledge of the heavenly
household, a poor, useless knowledge, although the Huzul does his best
to grasp the idea of the Godhead, clothing it in his own image. The
Almighty to his perception is a just Huzulean patriarch, something like
Hilarion Rosenko dwelling by the "Black Water;" the Virgin Mary a
kindly housewife; and Christ, the Saviour, a great, noble hunter, whom
the spiteful hajdamaks killed for entering their domain. They don't
quite understand why the popes should keep talking about this Saviour
as though He were alive still; for if He is, why does He not show
Himself among the mountains? But besides this "Christian" belief, they
keep up the institution of those shining divinities worshipped by their
ancestors of old--the sun, the moon, and the host of stars. These,
happily, can be seen, and their blessings felt--the light and the
warmth they shed upon the darksome wilds. But who shall save them from
the powers of evil about them; from the stormy whirlwind rushing
through the forests, uprooting the strongest trees and sweeping away
the sheltering roof of their homestead? Who shall help them against the
wicked sprites whose gambols produce snowdrifts, burying men and
cattle? or who protect them from the evil witch stealing about in the
gloaming with sickness in her train? For they are surrounded with
uncanny beings of whom they know nothing save the ill-effects they
feel, and they know but one means of pacifying them--as one pacifies an
ill-natured neighbour, by occasional bribery.
These strangest of Christians and dwellers of the mountain wilds even
manage to die without the pope's assistance. When some aged pilgrim
lies at the point of death on the couch of bear and sheepskins they
have spread for him, neither he nor his people give a thought to the
ghostly shepherd of the nearest manse. What would be the use, indeed,
if they did think of him, since it would take him at least nine days to
come and return? so it is out of the question, and it is as well that
neither the dying man nor his weeping relatives miss the spiritual
comfort. One of them says the Lord's Prayer, adding some other mystic
charm with which these poor people strive to pacify the divinities they
believe in, the sufferer repeats the words with his dying breath and
expires without anxiety on that score. When the corpse has stiffened,
they bury it beneath some forest tree, cutting a great cross into the
bole, not forgetting some mysterious signs to its right and left "for
the other gods."
If, then, they manage even to die without the aid of a parish priest,
it is scarcely to be wondered at if they do not need him to tie the
nuptial knot. When any man and woman among them, generally of riper
years, have agreed to spend their future days in common, this is a
matter, they think, which concerns no one beyond themselves except the
heads of their settlements, who never withhold their blessing unless
the bridal pair should happen to be of different settlements at
variance at the time about some bit of property or act of violence. If
such is not the case the wedding is fixed upon forthwith, and word is
sent over the mountains: "Come to the homestead of Marko, on such and
such a day, when long-legged Sefko will take curly Magdusia to wife."
And everybody is sure to come, bringing little gifts of kindness, and
taking their fill of the schnaps which the heads of the settlements
have procured in exchange for some sheep in honour of the guests. And
when the last drop has been consumed, Sefko and Magdusia are looked
upon as married, which does not always imply a change in the place of
abode of either of them.
As for the pope's blessing, it is not disregarded on principle, since
even the other gods are remembered; only there is no hurry. Sefko has
no idea that Magdusia, in order to be his really, must be given to him
by the pope, and so he takes his time about it, presenting himself for
the blessing when opportunity offers, maybe the christening of their
first offspring. If the pope be at all zealous he will, of course,
lecture them on their want of morality, the pair listening
submissively, but never understanding what should have roused the good
man's ire, or displeased the Almighty, as he tells them. As for the
infant, it is considered to belong to its mother's settlement, growing
up to the same rights as any other youth.
For the rest, the Huzul shares in all the virtues and vices of
uncivilised humanity: he is free from envy, candid, brave, and
hospitable, but also coarse in his tastes and cruel. The Emperor's
magistrates are nothing to him, he does not need their protection; and
of his free-will he is not likely to pay any tax. Let his cousins of
the lowlands do that, whom he pities and despises accordingly.
Of a similar kind are his feelings concerning the homeless hajdamaks;
he, the native of the mountains, looking upon the outlaws much as the
bear is supposed to look upon man; and, in consequence, actual enmity
between them is rare. Not unless he were really starving with hunger or
cold would a hajdamak ever think of attacking even a single herdsman up
yonder, a last remnant of generosity preventing him from wronging those
on whose soil he dwells, and who, as he but too well knows, could take
grievous revenge any moment. Not in the memory of men, therefore--which
is the only source of authentic history within the mountains--has it
ever happened that a band of outlaws dared an attack upon any
settlement.
But if the Huzul has little to fear from the hajdamaks, he may yet get
into trouble on account of them, that is, by means of the Whitecoats
who are after those ruffians. The Huzul considers it incumbent on him
to hate the soldiers; for are they not the servants of a power he
refuses to recognise? But that power will lay hold of him if it can.
There is no help for the Emperor--he must just put up with it--if the
Huzul refuses to consider himself a taxpayer; some Imperial exciseman,
however, may see his opportunity of paying the Huzuls a visit under
cover of the military. "Hang the hajdamaks!" groans the Huzul, "but for
them no confounded exciseman would have ventured up hither;" and,
overpowered with the thought of his loss in lambs and sheep, he is sure
to add: "Hang the Whitecoats! I wish the hajdamaks could teach them a
lesson and make them keep clear of the mountains for ever." He is so
wrathful, indeed, that he could scarcely tell which of the two he would
like to see hanged first.
A strict neutrality, however, is the outcome. He would rather die than
betray to the Whitecoats the hiding place of "Green Giorgi"; at the
same time he has no idea of warning the outlaw of his enemy's approach,
or of rendering him any assistance whatever. He just looks on; and
nothing would please him better than that the belligerent parties, like
the fighting lions of the fable, should devour each other bodily. And
there are other considerations, besides, inviting him to neutrality. He
knows that there are ruffians among the hajdamaks whom, even with his
notions of honour and justice, he cannot possibly approve of; but they
are a mixed lot, and there are others among them who have done nothing
a Huzul would despise. And since it is not written in a man's face why
he has become an outlaw, the Huzul behaves alike to them all, neither
loving them nor hating them, but holding aloof strictly.
The Imperial authorities, then, cannot expect the Huzuls' help against
the bandits, and need not fear their making common cause with them; but
that is all, since no one ever lifts a finger to raise the poor
dwellers of the mountains and teach them a higher standard of right and
wrong. It were quite useless to expect any better; and if regiment upon
regiment were let loose upon the Carpathians no lasting result could be
looked for; for to give chase to any outlaw in the vast forests is as
hopeless as to seek for a particular insect in a cornfield. The lawless
trade will not die out till Civilisation takes up her abode in the
mountain wilds, taming the dwellers therein; and, if unable to make
better men of them, preparing the way at least for her nobler sister,
even Justice herself, in whose fair sight men are equals, and
oppression shall not stand.
It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that all hajdamaks are
criminals and cut-throats; a distinction must be made. There is no
exact rendering for the word itself in any of the western tongues, and,
fortunately, the thing also lies beyond the experience of happier
nations. The Bulgarians only have a similar word, denoting a similar
existence, the "hajdamak" of the Carpathians and the "hajduk" of the
Balkan being akin, both revealing in strangest blending some of the
best and some of the very worst impulses of a suffering people. It is
not easy, therefore, to judge fairly.
There are three distinct types among these outlaws, or "free men" as
they call themselves. Firstly, there are those who have escaped from
the arm of justice, having committed some crime, and who are not only
guilty in the sight of the law, but of ill repute even among their
kind. These men never unite in great numbers, their own wickedness
rendering them distrustful of one another. Singly, or at most by twos
and threes, they will pursue their villainous trade of waylaying
travellers, or perpetrating what robbery they can. They avoid open
fight, being best protected by their cunning.
Secondly, and far more numerous, are those who are criminals indeed in
the eye of the law, but are looked upon by the people as martyrs to
their cause. Some may have fought the tax-gatherers in bitter despair
when they were about to be sold up; they may have been good and
peaceful men, who thus suddenly took up the evil life. But, terrible as
existence may be in the forest wilds, it is better than prison, and the
unhappy man flies thither from the wrong he has committed almost in
spite of himself. "He is gone after the sun," say his neighbours, glad
to know him safe when the constables seek him--gone westward, that is,
from lowland Podolia into the Carpathians. And others there are,
martyrs to the sad relation between the Polish landlord and the Ruthen
peasant; the landlord oppressing, till at some dark moment of wrath or
drunkenness the peasant snatches up his gun or hatchet. There are
deserters, too, from the Emperor's colours, sympathised with cordially;
for what right should the Emperor have, argue these people, to levy the
life-tax among them!
"Come join us, ye men, for life here is sweet!" are the words of a
hajdamak song. But in truth it is an awful existence, although the
miserable fellows do their best to make it bearable to one another.
They will gather in bands of a score or more, plighting their troth,
each sharing with the other the good things which are of the fewest and
the ill things that abound. The Huzul will leave them alone, and the
Whitecoats they need scarcely fear. But it is nowise easy to be an
"honest hajdamak" when hunger and cold pursue them--for they have
notions of honesty of their own, as old Jemilian suggested in his
report to Father Leo. It is "honest" in an outlaw not to commit mere
vulgar robbery, or take life save in self-defence or for revenge. He
may rob a Polish landlord or the men of the law, but he would be
disgraced by robbing a peasant or a village pope. It is quite "honest"
to stop a stage-coach, empty the postbags, and rob any Polish or
Austrian passenger; but it would be disgraceful to inquire what money a
pope might carry with him, travelling by the same coach. There was a
time when no stage-coach in those parts could be safe from an attack of
hajdamaks, unless accompanied by a strong escort of soldiers. "Great
deeds," however, grew more and more impossible, and indeed they were
never easy. It was always a miserable life in the dreary wilds, without
shelter in the rigorous winter-time, and often without food. And it
would entirely depend on what manner of man the 'hetman' (captain) was,
as to how a band would bear up through such a season of distress;
whether "dishonesty" would be had recourse to, when for the gaining of
a mere livelihood they would sink to the level of the despised
criminal, or whether their spirit would rise to some "great deed" of
despair, even if it must bring them to close quarters with the
Whitecoats. But this second alternative, as a rule, might only be
looked for if the 'hetman' was a hajdamak by deliberate choice, driven
to the life for an idea rather than as the outcome of some crime.
Men of this kind form the third class; they have always been rare, and
the history of one adopting the awful trade of his own free will has
ever made a stir. Mere love of pillage could never be an adequate
reason; for a man of this description is aware that he can rob his
neighbours with less trouble in the plain. No, there are nobler
motives--a wild passionate manliness rising against oppression, or a
yearning indignation and pitiful sympathy with the helpless despair of
the people, will urge some few to "go after the sun." These few are the
last representatives of the true hajdamak, who is fast becoming a
legend of the past. The Ruthens, now the most peaceful and the most
oppressed of Slavonic tribes, at one time were the boldest and most
belligerent of the race, the terror of their neighbours, Poles,
Russians, and Roumanians. But to-day one could only wonder why these
people in song and story should always be designated as "falcon-faced,"
if indeed such a face were not met with among them occasionally even
now--bold and clear-cut, full of energy and passion, with dark daring
eyes. And as the type is found still, so are the old dauntless courage,
and the ardent love of liberty. But he who preserves the true nature is
lonely among his kind, and the misery about him will fill his soul with
a bitter yearning for the times that are gone, the times surviving only
in their songs--wild passionate outbursts, full of bravery and
fortitude, sounding strangely enough on the lips of the humbled,
labouring peasants. And such a one by his own inward necessity is
driven forth from the plain; he takes to the mountains, and henceforth
it is his one desire to make war upon the Polish oppressors, the
murderers of his race. It is his one idea, his one resolve; and being a
man of energy and power, he will naturally rise to the leadership of a
band. He is an "honest hajdamak" at first, but does not always end so;
for it is an evil trade, hurtful to body and soul. And whether they
remain "honest," or fall away from the higher aspiration, they are sure
to end ill--they and their followers.
Truly an evil trade, and few taking to it ever reach old age; the
pitiless cold, or hunger and hardships of grimmest kind decimating the
band, while the more hardy ones fall a prey to the wild beasts, if not
brought to the gallows instead. And whatever their end may be, their
people are anxious that their memory should be wiped out--anxious it
should be forgotten that one of theirs took to the mountains. A
hajdamak while he lives is held in some respect, inasmuch as he has
gained the liberty sighed for by others--the dead man is nowhere.
But among the numbers living and dying thus sadly, there are three
whose names are not forgotten, whose memory lives in song and tale,
though dimmed with the haze of receding years; three who are famous,
moreover, as being the only "hetmen" who moved the Huzuls to take part
for or against them.
The first of these was one Alexander Dobosch, called the Black, or the
Iron-framed, a Ruthen from the Bukowina who arose towards the end of
the eighteenth century, and for several years was far more powerful
throughout Pokutia than the Emperor. He had been a well-to-do peasant,
and a boundless ambition only appears to have led him to his strange
and fearful adventures. The Huzuls adored him, and he behaved like a
king of the mountains, issuing manifestos to the "fellow at Vienna,"
making laws and levying taxes. But this was his ruin; the Huzuls were
not going to condone in the iron-framed hajdamak what they had never
approved of in the "fellow at Vienna." Their devotion gave way to
wrath, but the man was so powerful that they dared not oppose him
openly. He was poisoned by some of his followers at a drinking bout.
Of a different type was "Wild Wassilj," or, as song has it, the "great
hajdamak," a Podolian peasant youth, lithe as a sapling pine, strong as
a bear, and daring as a falcon. He had been in the personal service of
a young noble, the brother-in-law of the lord of the manor, both of
whom were the terror and detestation of every father and husband in the
neighbourhood. But Wassilj suddenly set his face against the lawless
life, growing strangely silent and anxious to be good; the fact was he
loved an honest maiden of the village. But, unhappily, his master
himself had set eyes upon the girl, and, finding her proof against his
advances, he carried her off with the help of some menials. Wassilj
thereupon waylaid and shot him, forming a band there and then, and
becoming the scourge of the nobility for miles around, his thirst for
revenge being unappeasable. It was found in those days how little it
availed to send out soldiers with a hope of crushing the bandits in
their mountains. The "great hajdamak" was not vanquished by anything
the authorities could devise against him; but the innate spark of
goodness in his wild and wayward heart overcame him in the end. For he
was not a bad man by nature, and the remorse that would seize upon him
was as poignant as it was true; but he quieted his conscience with the
delusion that he was doing these terrible things for the sake of the
suffering people. One day, however, when he had overpowered some nobles
in the castle of his native village, and had called upon the judge to
assist him in bringing them to their just doom, the latter refused,
saying he was an honest man, and could not join in the evil work of a
cut-throat. That word struck Wassilj to the heart, and the same night,
with a bullet from his own gun, he stilled that misguided heart for
ever.
But the third one, whom the Huzuls assisted--he whom in song they
called "the good judge" and "the great avenger"--was Taras Barabola.