On entering the village, Yagna at once could see that something out of
the ordinary was going on. The dogs in the farm-yard were barking in
great excitement; the little ones, hiding in the orchards, peeped out
from behind the trees and hedges; the people, though it was yet far from
sunset, were fast coming in from the fields; women were whispering
together in groups; every face bore an expression of disquietude, and in
every eye there was a look of alarm and suspense.
“What has come about?” she asked the Balcerek girl, peering round the
corner of her hut.
“I cannot say; belike soldiers coming from the forest.”
“Jesu Maria! Soldiers!” And her knees trembled with terror.
“Young Klemba,” added the Prychek girl, as she ran by, “says they are
Cossacks from Vola.”
In great dismay, Yagna hurried on to her cabin, where her mother,
sitting on the threshold, and spinning, was in earnest talk with several
women.
“We have both seen the same thing—the men sitting in the porch, and
their leader with the priest inside the house.”
“And they have sent the organist’s lad Michael to fetch the Voyt.”
“The Voyt! then it can be no trifle. Ho, ho! something is in the wind!”
“It may be they have only come to collect the taxes.”
“With such a number of men? No, they come surely for something more than
that.”
“Perhaps; but, mark my words, they are here for no good!”
Yagustynka came up. “I,” she said, “can tell you why they have come.”
All crowded round her, stretching their necks out like so many geese.
“They have come to take us women into the army!” she cried with a
croaking laugh that no one took up; and Dominikova remarked sourly:
“Ye must always be making some wretched joke!”
“It is you that are always making mountains of molehills! You quake so,
your teeth are well-nigh falling out of your heads; yet all are greedy
to hear that something is to hap! Much do I trouble about the
gendarmes!”
Thereupon Ploshkova, pushing forward her portly figure, began telling
them how “something had come over her as soon as she saw those
carts....”
“Be quiet! Here comes Gregory and the Voyt, running at full speed
towards the priest’s house.”
Their eyes followed the two moving figures on the farther side of the
pond.
“Aha! Gregory too is wanted!”
They were wrong. Gregory only pushed his brother in, but stayed himself
to look at the carts drawn up there, and to question the drivers who
were sitting in the porch. Then, in great distress, he ran to Matthew,
who was working at Staho’s cabin, and sitting astride on one of the
roof-beams, while cutting hollows in it to fix the rafters.
“Not gone yet?” he asked, cutting away as before.
“No; and the worst is, we cannot tell for whom they have come.”
“Some evil thing is certainly at hand,” old Bylitsa stammered.
“Perchance they come about our meeting. The District Official threatened
us then, and the gendarmes have been to and fro, seeking to find out who
it is that eggs on the Lipka folk,” Matthew said, slipping down to the
ground.
“Then they are likely to have come for me!” Gregory rejoined, suddenly
breathless with apprehension.
“No, I think they mean to seize Roch!” Staho asserted.
“True, they have inquired about him once already: how could I let that
slip my memory?” He felt relieved for himself; but at once said, in
distress for the other’s fate:
“No doubt, if they have come for anyone, ’tis for him!”
“Well, but shall we let him be taken?” shouted Matthew. “Him, that is so
truly a father to us all!”
“Alas! we cannot resist them, it is not to be thought of.”
“Let him hide somewhere—and first let us warn him instantly.”
“But peradventure,” Staho remarked diffidently, “they may have come on
some other errand—the Voyt’s business, for instance.”
“He must at all events be warned,” cried Gregory; and, rushing out into
the rye, and working around several gardens, he soon reached Boryna’s
hut.
Antek was sitting in the porch, putting jagged edges to some sickles on
a small anvil. On hearing what the matter was, he started up in alarm.
“He has only just come in.—Roch!” he cried. “Here, we want you.”
“What is it?” the old man asked, putting his head out of the window; but
before they had time to speak, in dashed Michael, the organist’s lad,
panting very hard.
“Know, Antek, that the gendarmes are coming to you now, and are already
at the mill-pond!”
“For me!” Roch bowed his head with a sigh.
“Jesu Maria!” Hanka shrieked from the threshold, and burst into tears.
“Oh, be quiet!” Antek whispered; he was thinking very hard. “We must hit
upon something.”
“Roch!” vociferated Michael, breaking off a large branch and looking
daggers. “I’ll shout the news through Lipka, and we will not give you
up!”
“No fooling!—Roch! Get behind the haystack and into the rye this
instant. Wiggle into some furrow, hide yourself well, and stay till I
call you.—Quick! ere they are here!”
Roch snatched up some papers he had in the room and handed them to
Yuzka, who was in bed:
“Hide them under yourself, do not give them up,” he whispered.
And just as he was, without hat or capote, he darted into the orchard
and vanished like a stone in the waters: they could just see the rye
undulating slightly beyond the haystack.
“Now, Gregory, off with you! Hanka, to your work! Go, Michael—and not a
word of this!” Antek commanded, sitting down again to his interrupted
labour. Again he set to notching the edges of his reaping-hooks, evenly
and calmly as before. Now and again he would hold the edge up to the
light, glancing the while in every direction about him; for the barking
of the dogs was growing louder, and in a little he could hear the heavy
tread of the approaching gendarmes, the jingling of their sabres, and
the sound of their voices.
His heart was palpitating, his hands were shaking; yet he managed to go
on, notching evenly, regularly, with rhythmical strokes, never raising
his eyes till the men were standing before him.
“Is Roch in your hut?” asked the Voyt, mortally afraid.
Antek looked around at the group, and replied with great deliberation:
“He must be in the village, I suppose: I have not set eyes on him since
this morning.”
“Open your doors!” thundered the commanding officer.
“Why, they are open!” Antek growled, getting up from his bench.
The officer and some of his men went in, while the others watched the
orchard and outhouses.
About half the village was now outside in the road, looking on in
silence, while the cottage was searched and ransacked thoroughly. Antek
had to point out and open everything, while Hanka sat by the window with
the baby at her breast.
The search was of course fruitless; but they sought everywhere, and were
so careful to overlook nothing that one of them even peered under the
bed!
Some little books, strapped together, were lying on the table. The
officer pounced upon them, and set to examine them with the utmost care.
“How have ye come by these?”
“Belike Roch has left them there ... and there they lie.”
“The mistress here cannot read,” the Voyt explained.
“Can anyone amongst you read?”
“No,” Antek returned; “they teach us at school so well that now no one
is able even to spell out the words in our prayer-books!”
The officer handed the little books to a subordinate, and passed round
to the other side of the hut.
“What’s here?—A sick child?” he said, taking a step towards Yuzka.
“Yes. She has been lying there for a couple of weeks: smallpox.”
He retired hurriedly into the passage.
“Was Roch a lodger in this cabin?” he asked of the Voyt.
“In this or any other, according as it struck him: ’tis the _Dziads’_
wont.”
They peered into every hole and corner, even looking behind the holy
images; while Yuzka followed their movements with eyes full of dread,
trembling all over. One of them having approached her, she cried out
wildly:
“Oh, have I hidden him under me? Seek him then here, do!”
When they had done, Antek went over to their officer, and said very
humbly, with a deep bow:
“Has Roch stolen aught, I should like to know?”
The other, putting his face close to Antek’s, replied with a stare, and
laying stress on each word:
“Be it but found that you have concealed him, and ye shall go on a
journey together, both of you!—Do you hear?”
“I hear indeed, but cannot think what all this means.” And he scratched
his head, as if much perplexed.
The officer shot an angry look at him, and left the cabin.
They went round to many another, looking here and there, asking
questions of many a one, until sundown; when, the roads filling with
home-driven cattle, they went back empty-handed.
Now the village breathed freely, and people began telling of the
searches—at the Klembas’—at Gregory’s—at Matthew’s—and how each had seen
things better than anybody else, and had not been frightened in the
least, but had annoyed and bantered the gendarmes to the utmost!
But Antek, once alone with Hanka, said to her, dropping his voice:
“This is a wretched business, I see: there will be no keeping him in our
cabin any longer.”
“What, turn him out? So holy a man? One that does so much good?”
“A curse on it all! I am sick of it!” he cried, unable to find any way
out of the quandary. But Gregory came presently, along with Matthew, and
they held a consultation, locked up together in the barn: the cabin,
continually full of callers for news, was no fit place.
When they came out, it was quite dark. Hanka had milked the cows, and
Pete was back from the forest. Antek got the britzka and directly, while
Gregory and Matthew went out, ostensibly to look everywhere for Roch, in
reality to mislead the people of the village.
They were indeed all surprised at the quest, having made sure that Roch
lay somewhere concealed on Boryna’s premises. But the two friends gave
out that he had left Boryna’s directly after dinner and had not been
heard of since.
“Lucky for him, or he would be journeying in chains ere now!”
So it became generally known (as they had planned) that Roch had not
been seen in Lipka since noon.
People were glad, and said amongst themselves: “He guessed what was
awaiting him, and is off ‘to the land where pepper grows.’”
“Let him not come back, I say; we do not want him,” old Ploshka growled.
Matthew snarled back at him: “Is he in your way? Has he wronged you in
aught?”
“He disturbed the peace and troubled Lipka not a little. We all may yet
suffer on his account.”
“Then why not seize on him, you, and give him up?”
“Long ago we should have done so, had we any understanding!”
Matthew uttered a curse, and would have flown at him; they held him
back, but with difficulty. And then, it being late, they went each man
to his own cabin.
Antek was awaiting this moment, when the roads were deserted, and
everybody was supping at home, and the scent of fried bacon was wafted
abroad with the sound of merry talk and the tinkling of spoons in the
dishes; then he brought Roch to the room where Yuzka lay; but he would
not have a candle lit.
The old man snatched a hasty meal, put on what clothes he had left in
the hut, and said farewell to the women. Hanka fell at his feet, and
Yuzka wept and wailed piteously.
“God be with you! we may meet once more!” he said in a tearful voice,
pressing them paternally to his breast, and kissing them on the
forehead; but, Antek urging him to make haste, he once more blessed the
women and children, crossed himself, and went out to the stile by the
haystack.
“The britzka is waiting at Simon’s hut in Podlesie, and Matthew will
drive for you.”
“But I must still pay a visit here in Lipka.—Where are we to meet?”
“At the crucifix by the forest, whither we are going at once.”
“That’s well, for I have yet many things to speak of with Gregory.”
And presently he was unseen and inaudible.
Antek put the horses to, placed a bushel of rye and a whole sack of
potatoes in the britzka, conferred for some time apart with Vitek, and
then said, for all to hear:
“Vitek! drive over to Szymek’s hut with the cart, and then come back: do
ye hear?”
The lad’s eyes blazed, and he started off at such a pace that Antek
called after him:
“Slower, you rogue, or you’ll lame the horses!”
Roch had meantime crept stealthily to Dominikova’s, where he had left a
few things, and shut himself up in the inner room.
Andrew was on the watch by the roadside, and Yagna every now and then
looked out into the enclosure, while the old woman, sitting in the front
room, listened, trembling all over.
It took him some time before he came out to talk a little with
Dominikova by herself; then he wanted to take up his bag and start off.
But Yagna insisted on carrying it for him, at least to the forest. He
agreed, and, taking leave of the others, went out into the fields, and
slowly along the narrow pathways, with noiseless caution.
The night was clear and starlit; the lands lay hushed in slumber, with
only now and then a sound of fitful barking.
They were nearing the forest, when Roch, coming to a standstill, took
Yagna’s hand.
“Hear me, Yagna,” he said in a kindly tone, “and take to heart what I am
going to say.”
She lent an ear, though agitated by an unpleasant sense of foreboding.
Then, just as a priest might speak in confession, he talked to her of
her doings ... with Antek ... with the Voyt ... and most of all with
Yanek.
She listened in deep humiliation, with averted face covered with
blushes; but when he named Yanek, she raised her head defiantly.
“With him I have done no evil whatsoever!”
He pointed out gently to her the temptations to which they were exposing
themselves ... the sins and scandals to which the Evil One might give
occasion thereby.
But she hearkened to him no longer; her mind was full of Yanek only:
unconsciously her bright red lips were murmuring with ardent and
frenzied love:
“Yanek, O Yanek!”
Her glowing eyes gazed afar, and circled in fancy over his adored head.
“Oh, I would go with him to the ends of the earth!” she declared, not
knowing what she said. At the words, Roch shuddered, cast one look at
those wide-open eyes, and held his peace thenceforward.
At the edge of the wood, just by the crucifix, several capotes were seen
to glimmer white. Roch stopped, full of misgiving:
“Who is there?”
“Only we—your friends!”
“I am tired, and must rest awhile,” he said, sitting down amongst them.
Yagna gave up the bag to him, and seated herself not far off, at the
foot of the crucifix, in the deep shadow of the branches.
“Well, may your troubles at least come to an end here!”
“The worst of all will come,” said Antek, “now that you go from us.”
“But it may be, it well may be, that I shall return one day!”
Here Matthew exploded. “Blood of a dog!” he cried; “to hunt men down so
... as if they were mangy curs!”
Gregory moaned. “And why, Lord God, why?”
“Because,” Roch declared with solemn emphasis, “I want truth and
righteousness for the people!”
“Hard is every man’s lot; but that of the righteous is harder!”
“Do not mourn, Gregory; evil will be changed into good.”
“So I think; ’tis hard to fancy that all we do is in vain.”
“While we’re awaiting the summer, the wolves will eat up our horses,”
Antek sighed, peering into the darkness at the white blot which was
Yagna’s face.
“But I say unto you: ‘Whoso plucks up the weeds and sows good seeds,
great riches shall win, when harvest comes in!’”
“And if he fail?—Such things have been.”
“Yea, but he that sows, sows in the hope of gathering in a hundredfold.”
“Surely, for who would care to lose his toil?”
And they pondered these things deep in their hearts.
The wind was up now, the birch-trees murmured above them; a rustling
sound came out of the forest, while the voice of the waving corn rose up
to them from the fields. The moon floated along a pathway in the sky,
made up of a double row of white clouds; the trees flung shadows mingled
with patches of brightness; goatsuckers passed over their heads with a
noiseless circling flight. Their hearts were very full of sadness.
Yagna shed tears in silence: she could not have said why.
“Wherefore do you sorrow?” he asked, laying his hand paternally on her
head.
But the others too, all gloomy and cheerless, sat with their eyes fixed
upon Roch, whom they now held for a man of God. He was sitting beneath
the cross, from which the Crucified seemed to bend forward to bless his
white weary head.
Then he spoke these words to them, full of hope and confidence:
“Fear naught for me. I am only a unit—one blade of corn in a fruitful
field. If they take me, and I perish, what of that?—So many more
remain!—each of us ready to die for the Cause!... And the time cometh
when there will be thousands of them, from town and country, from
cottage and from manor, all incessantly giving up their lives, one after
another, piled and heaped together, the stones that are to form into the
Holy Church of our desire! And that Church, I say unto you, shall stand
and last for ever; and no power of evil shall prevail against it,
because it will be built up completely with blood and loving sacrifice!”
Then he told them how no drop of blood, nay, not one single tear, would
fall in vain, nor any endeavour be without its fruit; and how on every
side, as from a soil abundantly manured, new forces, new defenders, and
new victims would spring forth, until that blessed day should dawn—that
sacred day, the day of resurrection and of justice and of truth for all
the nation!
He spoke with glowing enthusiasm; often, too, of such high matters that
they could not understand all that he said; but his fire inflamed them
also, and their hearts leaped up and were exalted by his words in mighty
faith and longing. Antek said at last:
“O God!—Be ye our leader: I will follow you even to death!”
“We all will follow you and trample down whatever may resist us!”
“Who can withstand us and prevail? Let him but try!”
So they all spoke, till he was forced to hush their violent words and,
drawing them still closer, and whispering, say what that longed-for day
would be, and how its coming would be hastened by their labours.
He told them many a thing they had not dreamed of, and they listened
breathless, full of dread and joy at once; and every word of his gave
them the thrill of faith which one feels at the Communion Table. He
opened heaven before them, and made Paradise appear visibly to their
eyes; their souls fell prostrate in deep ecstasy, their eyes beheld
ineffable wonders, and in their hearts the sweet, sweet hymn of Hope was
heard.
“And it is in your power to realize all this,” he ended, when quite
tired out. The moon was just eclipsed behind a cloud; the sky was grey,
the landscape murky; the woods gave forth their inarticulate utterances,
and the cornfields rustled and shook as if with fear. Afar there was a
noise of dogs that barked. And still they sat there, silent and subdued,
listening in rapt attention, inebriated with the words he had said, and
feeling as one who has just taken some great vow may feel.
“It is time: I must go!” he said, and, rising, embraced each of them,
pressing them to his heart. They could hardly keep back their tears when
he knelt down, said a short prayer, and prostrated himself with both
arms on the breast of that holy mother—the land which he might perhaps
never see again. Yagna sobbed aloud, and the others were struggling with
deep emotions.
Such was their parting.
Antek alone went straight back to Lipka, along with Yagna; the others
disappeared in the shadows at the edge of the forest.
They long walked on in silence. Then he said: “Beware and say naught to
anyone of that which you have heard.”
“Am I, then, a pedlar of news from hut to hut?” She was offended.
“And,” he added, with stern significance, “God forbid that the Voyt
should hear anything of this!”
She answered only by hurrying on; but he would not let her go, and
strode on by her side, again and again glancing at her indignant face,
bedewed with tears.
The moon shone out again, silvering the narrow pathway where they walked
abreast, and throwing across it the black distorted shadows of the
trees. Suddenly his heart throbbed fast; his arms quivered with a sense
of greedy desire, and he took a step nearer to her side.—He might have
gathered her to his breast with a sweeping grasp. But he did not—he
durst not. Her stubborn and disdainful silence held him back, and he
only said to her bitterly:
“You seem as if you wanted to get away from me.”
“Because I do! Someone might see us together, and tongues would wag.”
“Are you in a hurry to fly to anyone else?”
“I am. What is to prevent me? Am I not a widow?”
“They say (no idle talk, I see) that you prepare to keep house for a
certain priest.”
Swift as the wind, she rushed away, her tears falling in torrents down
her cheeks.