IN THE STREET OF THE PIGEONS
St. Ann’s Street was as black as pitch when they emerged from the
habitation of the scholar-priest. He insisted on accompanying them and
carried his little candle lantern for aid, which, though it threw a
faint light upon the ground a step or two ahead, yet had not much more
light than the stars which shone down from a moonless sky. Pan Andrew
with his wife on his right arm followed Jan Kanty, and Joseph brought up
the rear. They had taken but a few steps along the narrow footwalk by
the side of the road, when something damp and clammy was forced into the
boy’s right hand; he gave a little startled jump, but reassured himself
at the next minute that it was nothing but the nose of a stray dog that
had sought his hand as a token of friendly greeting.
“And as I live,” thought Joseph as he reached down and felt a great
shaggy head, “it’s like the wolf dog that leaped at Elzbietka this very
day. Yes—it’s about the same size—and here: the collar is exactly the
same that I had my fingers through. I know its feel by those little
knobs that almost tear the flesh. Father! Father!” he called.
Pan Andrew turned about quickly. “What is it?”
“A dog,” answered the boy, “a friendly dog.”
“Bring him along with us,” said the father with a laugh, “we can’t have
too many friends just now.” And at that they continued on their way.
Now of all the creatures that God has put in the world a dog is the most
curious, and sometimes, one might think, the most discerning. For when
this same animal had broken loose in the morning, his first impulse,
which he had followed, had been that of flight. His second impulse was
to look for a friend, since no dog can live without a friend. The Tartar
boy had already departed. The dog had seen too much of him as it was.
Also by virtue of a rare instinct which dogs, and sometimes horses,
possess, the wolf dog had realized fully that the boy who had leaped at
his collar was not an enemy. Perhaps it was the boy’s touch, perhaps it
was some quality in the tone of his voice, but the animal knew that
Joseph was used to dogs and knew as well that he was just in his
treatment of them. Therefore he had searched all day throughout the city
streets, and when he came upon this little group of people in the dark
street his sense of smell told him that here was a dog lover, and marvel
of marvels, it was the same dog lover that had sprung upon him earlier
in the day!
They turned at length from St. Ann’s Street into a side lane that is
known to-day as Jagiellonska, and followed it for a short distance until
they reached the Street of the Pigeons. Here they turned to the left and
walked for a few steps until suddenly just before them rose a babel of
subdued voices. Father Jan Kanty stood stock-still. The others also came
to a halt and remained motionless except for the dog, which strained at
Joseph’s hold upon his collar.
“Stay,” said the scholar, “I will go forward to see what may be in the
air.” And holding his lantern at the height of his head, he plunged into
a crowd of black-robed figures that had formed a circle in the very
middle of the street.
“Students,” he cried aloud, as he swung his lantern first to this face
and then to that, “students. And what devilment make you here now?”
The crowd broke before him at a touch. Either he was much feared by them
or greatly respected—that Pan Andrew could see—perhaps both.
“A duel,” he exclaimed as he reached the center of the crowd, where a
space lighted by a lantern upon the ground had previously been obscured
by the bodies of the lookers-on, “and what means it?”
Two young men, both students, with their black university robes lying
beside them on the ground, stood facing each other with unfastened
underjackets. Slender Italian dueling swords or foils, held firmly in
the clasped fingers of their bared right arms, had clashed the instant
before Jan Kanty entered the arena.
“A duel,” he repeated. “Do you not know that dueling has been forbidden
I know not how many times within these streets bounding the university?
Do you not know that it is punishable by fine or imprisonment even, if
the duelers are students?”
His hands groped fearlessly for the weapons. “This is no play duel,” he
cried, as he gathered them in.
Indeed it was not! The young men were fighting with naked rapiers! In
most of the students’ duels the points of the weapons were capped with
buttons to make them less dangerous, or if the engagements were to be
with broadswords, the opponents wore breastplates and heavy gauntlets
and helmets. But here stood two young men without a single precaution
against injury, and it was quite evident that one of them would have
been badly wounded, had not the scholar brought the fight to an end.
“What means this?” he repeated. “Who may you be?”
Holding the lantern close up to the face of the nearer, he cried out
suddenly in astonishment, “Johann Tring! As much would I have thought of
seeing you here as I would have of seeing our own Lord Cardinal. You
whom I thought more a slave to a crucible than to a sword. And your
name?” he thundered at the other.
“Conrad Mlynarki of Mazovia,” answered the student, thrusting his weapon
back into his girdle and letting his eyes drop for shame.
“A Mazovian! Well, it rejoices me that you are ashamed, and there was
perhaps reason for your anger, since I hear that Mazovians are insulted
without much thought these days. Go to your room! I will hear your story
to-morrow. And you”—he turned to the remnants of the original crowd,
those few who remained, maliciously hoping to see punishment meted out
to the offenders—“betake yourselves to your bursars with all possible
speed, for if I see one of you here when I return, I will notify the
authorities in the morning.”
“As to you, Johann Tring,” he addressed the other student when he stood
alone with him in the middle of the street, “are you not ashamed at such
a public brawl?”
“I am not,” said the student quickly and without flinching at the look
which Jan Kanty gave him.
At this moment Pan Andrew and the others came up to them. In the light
of the lantern Joseph glanced at the face of the student, Johann Tring,
and received almost a shock—a feeling at least of violent repulsion. It
was not that the face was distorted, indeed it was not, the eyes were
bright and piercing, and the hair was black—the carriage of the body
was erect, and the whiteness of the skin where the collar was rolled
back stood in remarkable contrast to the hair and the blackness that lay
about him. But the nose was thin and mean, the mouth was small and smug,
and out of the eyes came a look that signified an utterly selfish spirit
behind them. For one so young this expression was strange, and even more
than strange; it was unnatural, and this unnaturalness was more
apparent, even, to a boy of Joseph’s age than it might have been to an
older and maturer man who was used to much selfishness and meanness in
the world.
“Now what caused this quarrel?” Joseph heard the scholar ask the
question rather sharply.
“It is too long to tell at once——”
“Yes, but briefly.”
“He insulted me.”
“What did he say?”
“More things than one, but chiefly chided me about my studies. Asked me
if I had learned yet how to make gold out of iron or brass or leather
and said that he would collect old shoes all over the city if I would
transmute them into precious metal.”
“And this upon no provocation?”
The young man hesitated, yet there was something compelling about Jan
Kanty that caused men to speak the truth to him. “I did ask him if the
frogs in the North country spoke Mazovian,” he answered in a rather sour
voice.
“Yes, and I thought it was something like this,” spoke Jan Kanty
quickly. “Why must one always aggravate these Mazovians to their swords?
I warn you here and now that, swordsman though you may be, the Mazovians
are much more nimble with blades than with tongue.”
“But he said further,” went on Tring in self-justification, and being
unable to express himself clearly in Polish continued in German, much to
Joseph’s distress, for he could not understand a word.
“Have more caution, Tring,” said the scholar at length. “Since you are
not enrolled as a regular student of the university you must be even
more careful in your conduct than if you were. . . . Since it is you who
have first drawn your weapon, it must be you who make peace. Go
to-morrow at dawn and kiss your opponent upon the cheek and sue him for
pardon.”
This advice sat hard upon Tring’s temper, but he was so much influenced
by the scholar that he finally bowed his head in consent.
“And further than this I might say, Johann Tring, that such occurrences
bring you no credit. I know not much of your studies these days, though
I think sometimes that you keep company more with necromancers and
astrologers of little merit than with such worthy men as Pan Kreutz and
his equals. These are dark days when men look with suspicion upon all
who engage in investigation whether it be honest or dishonorable, godly
or selfish. Are you still at Kreutz’s?”
“I am.”
“Then come with us since we are bound for his dwelling. This Pan and his
wife are taking the rooms below Kreutz’s.”
The young man tried to peer into the darkness beyond the lantern light
to see who the new tenants might be, but none of the Charnetskis were
visible.
They walked ahead a few steps until they came to the door where Joseph
had been in the afternoon. Jan Kanty reached up and pulled the wire
which hung down from above the door, and in a few minutes an old bent
woman with a lantern scrutinized their faces from the open doorway and
admitted them.
“All will be well now,” said Joseph’s father. “We need not trouble you
further.”
“It has been otherwise than trouble,” protested the scholar. “You will
be well and comfortable, I am sure, for all the arrangements have been
made. To-morrow I shall send you the man who will tell you of your new
duties. And now good night to you, Pan Andrew—Kovalski”—he hesitated a
bit over the assumed name—“and may peace be with you.”
“And with you.” They all repeated it.
The kindly figure of the gentle, loving, saintly old man passed out into
the darkness again. The woman slammed the door and bolted it heavily
when the Charnetskis—now the Kovalskis—Johann Tring, and the dog were
inside.
“At last,” said Pan Andrew, “we are at home.”
They passed through the passage with its pointed arches and emerged into
the court, the woman leading the way with her lantern. Here Tring bade
them good night and went to his room on the right-hand side of the
court. Joseph felt at parting from him something of the same dislike
that he had experienced when the lantern light had fallen upon his face
in the street; the face was one that might easily come to haunt a man in
his dreams, and yet it was in daylight but an ordinary face, like that
of a thousand other students, who possessed neither the gift of beauty
nor the curse of ugliness—yet in that yellow gleam of the lantern there
had been upon the features some indefinable threat of malignity.
The woman led them to the stairway on the left. As they ascended these
same stairs that Joseph had climbed earlier in the day, the whole
staircase seemed even more shaky and rickety than it had appeared in the
light of day. The woman moved ahead of them freely, but Pan Andrew and
his wife and Joseph clung to the railing as if for protection in case
the boards should fall away beneath their feet.
At the first landing the door stood open. Out from this door came the
welcome beam of a candle, lighted by the hands of Elzbietka Kreutz. The
father with this candle in his hand at once inspected the little
quarters. There were but two rooms, one of them fortunately large and of
good shape, so that while one end of it must serve as a bedroom for Pan
Andrew and his wife, there was ample room at the other end for the
general living quarters of the family. The smaller room at the back
Joseph would sleep in. The woman who had opened the door had been busy
all the evening preparing the place for occupancy, expending some of the
money which Pan Andrew had given her, for bare necessities, a rug,
wooden eating utensils, chairs, and beds.
He had left his name as Andrew Kovalski with the woman, the name which
had been agreed upon with Jan Kanty, a name in itself one of the most
common, since it signified a smith—and the alchemist and his niece
having been advised of the kinship with the Tenczynskis, willingly
pledged silence concerning the true name.
“Well, wife,” said Pan Andrew when they were alone and the door
fastened, “this is better than we dared hope.” Thereupon he laid down
upon the table in the large room the precious round parcel which had not
left his hands at any time since they had set out from Jan Kanty’s cell.
“Best of all we are safe here; the door is heavy, the front of the
building is of stone, and from the rear no one could climb over the wall
without danger to himself. It is, indeed, the wall of a monastery to
which none but monks have access. Above us is the alchemist, Kreutz, and
below on the ground floor are the old woman and her son, both of whom
take care of the building and watch the gate at night.
“Across the way live a few students, one of them this Johann Tring who
accompanied us. Those seeking us would never think of looking for us
here; the change in name is also a protection. Here we may stay in
comfort until such time as we may communicate with the King.”
He intended to say more, but was interrupted by a curious sound that
came from outside as if a heavy body were dragging itself along. The
mother uttered a little cry of fear; Pan Andrew reached for the handle
of his short sword, but Joseph broke into a laugh.
“It is my dog rubbing against the door,” he said. “He is tired and
hungry, and no doubt wants a little water. There is a well in the court
below from which I will draw it, and he can sleep then in the shelter of
the wall. To-morrow I must procure a chain or rope to fasten him with,
for he is nearly wild and might cause trouble if he ran about.” With
this Joseph searched in a basket for a bit of meat and a piece of bread,
and finding them, descended to the court below. It was dark there but
his mother held the lantern above him so that he could see to draw water
and settle the dog in a corner of the wall.
When they returned his father was preparing for bed. The valuable
package had been disposed of somewhere; with curious eyes Joseph scanned
every inch of the large room and came to the conclusion that the only
hiding place in the quarters was that afforded by the bed, either in the
shadowy place beneath it, or somewhere in the bedding or folded clothes
beneath the headrests.
He ceased to wonder very long about it, however, for his eyelids were
heavy, despite his sleep of the afternoon. The whole world drifted off
into oblivion, it seemed, the minute that he laid his head on the
stuffed bag that served for a pillow.
The next day all were astir early. The mother was at work polishing the
woodwork, and the father was driving nails to strengthen the cheap
chairs, or covering cracks in the wall, and later inspecting the old
staircase outside the building to see if he might mend it. The daylight
inspection brought with it some satisfaction, for while it confirmed his
belief that the staircase was shaky, yet it revealed that the
underpinnings were firmer than might be supposed. The staircase might
last for some years if it did not have rough usage, and certainly there
was no immediate danger as Pan Andrew had feared the night before.
Joseph took an early opportunity, after he had eaten the breakfast
brought by the old woman who lived below, to run forth into the Street
of the Pigeons with the dog, whom he named at once Wolf. In the daytime
the street wore little of the sinister aspect that it carried at night;
the little oval windows that had seemed then like wicked eyes peering
down, now were more like the eyes of merry gnomes or pixies. The
buildings which in the twilight, or even in the night time when lights
fell upon them, seemed grotesque or terrible, in the light of day seemed
only curiously twisted out of shape and hung out and bent inward in
every conceivable fashion. All the lower windows bore heavy iron bars;
doors carried great metal hinges that spread like trees over the surface
of the hard wood, and chains dangled and rattled when the house
occupants went in or out. From some windows hung clothes—women’s
clothing, long hose worn by men, jackets, and here and there, a
student’s black gown. The novelty of the street attracted the boy, and
for a long time he wandered through it curiously.
At the upper end, where it met a cross street that ran toward the Rynek,
the Street of the Pigeons curved quite sharply. Joseph finally ran with
the dog clear to this cross street, which bore the name Bracka, and
then, retracing his steps, bore back to the house which had now become
his home. Mounting the steps rather breathlessly, he threw open the door
to the outer room and was about to shout a merry greeting as was his
usual custom, but checked himself at sight of a stranger who stood
talking with his father. The newcomer, who had a pleasant face, was
dressed in leathers somewhat like those of the night watch when the
outer chain armor is removed. On the table in front of the men lay a
long brass trumpet, made cunningly and polished until it resembled gold.
By the side of the trumpet lay two parchment scripts, one of them
evidently a copy of a long piece of writing, the other—as Joseph could
see—a set of musical notes worked carefully in red and black.
“This,” said the stranger, pointing first to the script containing the
writing, “is a copy of the oath that you have already sworn. This other
is the music of the Heynal, the hymn which you must play from the church
tower every hour of the night. The trumpeter whom you relieve to-night
will give you the key to the tower room, and what information you may
need. It is a noble piece of work, this sounding of the Heynal, and I am
much pleased that Father Jan has been able to find so good a Pole as you
to carry out the night duties. With this he kissed Pan Andrew upon the
right cheek and departed.”
Joseph stared in frank amazement. The Heynal! The church tower. And his
father!
“I will tell you everything,” said the father as they sat down to the
noonday meal. “This oath which I have sworn is the customary oath taken
by the watchman-trumpeter of the tower of the Church of Our Lady Mary.
You may read it at your leisure. The music is the hymn with the broken
note of which I have promised to tell you the story soon. It is played
each hour from the windows in the octagon room at the top of the higher
tower.”
“And you are to be the trumpeter?” asked Joseph.
“I am, thanks to the good Jan Kanty,” the father answered. “The
trumpeter and the watchman as well, for it is from this tower that fires
throughout the city are sighted and the alarm given with the big bell.
For the present it must be for our own safety that we are known as the
Kovalski family, a name which Father Jan has given us. As plain Andrew
Kovalski I shall be a mere city dweller of Krakow. I shall be trumpeter,
succeeding the man—God rest his soul!—who died but a week ago, since
which time there has been a substitute who can play but badly.”
“But the man said each hour of the night,” exclaimed the boy. “Will you
be there all night?”
“Yes,” answered Pan Andrew. “It is for my own safety to be abroad in the
city only after nightfall. None will recognize me then—and as for you,
my son, the good father has arranged that you shall attend the Collegium
Minus here, to complete your studies which I and your tutors have
already begun with you. But there must be caution employed even by you,
for there are people who seek nothing better than to find us and despoil
us of our treasure. You may take your exercises with the other boys very
soon, however, and go abroad with discretion, for in the clothes which I
shall buy you there will be no danger, I think, that you may be
recognized. A close mouth is necessary nevertheless. Tell no one of our
adventures and be content for the time with the plain name Joseph
Kovalski.”
Thus at the direction of the good Jan Kanty, Pan Andrew became Pan
Kovalski—Joseph was to be sent to school—and the watchtower of the
Church of Our Lady Mary was to see a new trumpeter.
At the moment that the father had ceased speaking, there came running
into the room from the staircase the girl Elzbietka Kreutz, who made
straight for Joseph’s mother and was caught into her arms. “We shall be
happy here,” the woman exclaimed, “that I know, and here is one that
needs a mother’s love.” The girl turned to smile at Pan Andrew whose
face grew gentle at the sight of her eyes, and he picked up her slim,
dainty hand and kissed it—it was indeed a picture, that fragile white
hand lying in his huge brown palm.
“Uncle has told me,” she said, “that you are to play the trumpet at the
church. Often at night, when I lie awake lonely and have strange fears,
I listen for the music from the steeple. And now when I know that it is
Joseph’s father that is playing I shall go to sleep again and fear
nothing.”
“It is as if I had two children,” said Pan Andrew, slipping one arm
about the child and the other about his son. “It truly seems as if God
has once more smiled upon us.”