Complete works of henryk.., p.552
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz, page 552
Those immense forests began at that period a good way before Yedlina, and continued far beyond Kozenitse to the Vistula, and toward the other side of the Stenjytsa, and northward to Rytchivol.
It had seemed to Pan Gideon that, if he left Radom before midday, he would reach home very easily at sunset. Meanwhile he had been forced in a number of places to open the road close to fences; some hours were lost at this labor, so that he came to Yedlina about twilight. Men there gave the warning that he would better remain for the night in the village; but since at the blacksmith’s a pitch light had been found to burn before the carriage, Pan Gideon commanded to continue the journey.
And now night had surprised him in the wilderness.
It was difficult to go faster because of increasing snowdrifts; hence Pan Gideon was more and more disquieted and at last fell to swearing, but in Latin, lest he frighten the two ladies who were with him, Pains Vinnitski his relative and his ward Panna Anulka Sieninski.
Panna Anulka was young and high-hearted, in no degree timid. On the contrary, she drew aside the leather curtain at the window, and, commanding the horseman at the side not to stop the view to her, looked at the drifts very joyfully, and at the pine trunks with long strips of snow on them over which played reddish gleams from the pitch pot, which with the moonlight made moving figures very pleasant to her eyesight. Then rounding her lips to the form of a bird bill she began to whistle, her breath became visible and was rosier than firelight, this too amused her.
But Pani Vinnitski, who was old and quite timid, fell to complaining.
Why leave Radom, or at least why not pass the night in Yedlina since they had been warned of the danger? All this through some person’s stubbornness. To Belchantska there was a long piece of road yet, and all in a forest, hence wolves would meet them undoubtedly, unless Raphael, the Archangel and patron of travellers, would pity them in their wandering, but alas, of this they were quite undeserving.
When he heard this opinion, Pan Gideon became thoroughly impatient. To speak of being lost in the wilderness was all that was needed to upset him.
The road for that matter was straight, and as for wolves, well, they would or would not come. He had good attendants, and besides, a wolf is not anxious to meet with a warrior — not only because he fears him far more than a common man, but also because of the love which the quick-witted beast has for warriors.
The wolf understands well that no dweller in towns and no peasant will give him food gratis; the warrior alone is the man who feeds wolves, and at times in abundance, hence it is not without reason that men have called war “the wolf’s harvest.”
But still Pan Gideon speaking thus, and praising the wolves in some small degree, was not quite convinced of their affection; hence he was thinking whether or not to command an attendant to slip from his horse and sit next the young lady. In such case he himself would defend one door of the carriage, and that attendant the other, while the freed horse would either rush off ahead or escape in the rear, and thus draw the wolves after him.
But the time to do this had not come, as it seemed to Pan Gideon. Meanwhile he placed near his ward on the front seat, a knife and two pistols; these he wished to have near him since he had only his right hand for service.
They advanced some furlongs farther in quiet, and the road was growing wider. Pan Gideon, who knew the way perfectly, drew breath as if relieved somewhat.
“The Malikov field is not far,” said he.
In every case he hoped for more safety in that open space than in the forest.
But just then the attendant in front turned his horse suddenly, and, rushing to the carriage, spoke hurriedly to the driver and to others, who answered abruptly, as men do when there is no time for loitering.
“What is it?” asked Pan Gideon.
“Some noise in the field.”
“Is it wolves?”
“Some outcry. God knows what!”
Pan Gideon was on the point of commanding the horseman with the torch to spring forward and see what was happening, when he remembered that in cases like this it was better not to be without fire and to keep all his people together, and, further, that defence in the open is easier than in a forest, so he commanded to move on with the equipage.
But after a while the horseman reappeared at the window.
“Wild boars,” said he.
“Wild boars!”
“A terrible grunting is heard on the right of the road.”
“Praise God for that!”
“But perhaps wolves have attacked them.”
“Praise God for that also! We shall pass unmolested. Move on!”
In fact the guess of the attendant proved accurate. When they had driven out to the field they saw, at a distance of two or three bow-shots on the right near the road, a dense crowd of wild boars, and a circle of wolves moving nimbly around them. A terrible grunting, not of fear but of rage, was given out with growing vigor. When the sleigh reached the middle of the plain, the men, watching from the horses, observed that the wolves had not dared yet to rush at the wild boars; they only pressed on them more and more eagerly.
The boars had arranged themselves in a round compact body, the young in the middle, the old and the strong on the outside, thus, as it were, forming a moving and terrible fortress, which gleamed with white tusks and was impervious to attack or to terror.
Between the garland of wolves and that wall of tusks and snouts a white, snowy ring was clearly visible, since the whole field was in moonlight.
Some of the wolves sprang up to the boars, but they sprang back very quickly, as if frightened by the clash of the tusks and the more terrible outbursts of grunting. If the wolves had closed in battle with the boars the struggle would have then held them completely, and the sleigh might have passed without notice; but since this had not happened, there was fear lest they might stop that dreadful onset and try then another one.
Indeed after a while a few dropped away from the pack and ran toward the party, after them followed others. But the sight of armed men confused them; some began to follow the sleigh, others stopped a few tens of steps from it, or ran around with mad speed, as if to urge themselves on to the equipage.
The attendants wished to fire, but Pan Gideon forbade them, lest gunshots might bring the whole pack to his people.
Meanwhile the horses, though accustomed to wolves, began to push to one side and turn their heads to their flanks with loud snorting, but soon something worse happened, and this raised the danger a hundredfold.
The young horse which the torchbearer was riding reared suddenly once, and a second time, and then rushed madly sidewise.
The rider, knowing that were he to fall he would be torn to bits the next moment, seized hold of his saddle-bow, but dropped his pot the same instant; the light sank in the snow deeply; the flame threw out sparks and was extinguished. The light of the moon was alone on that plain then.
The driver, a Russ from Pomorani, began to pray; the Mazovian attendants fell to cursing.
Emboldened by darkness, the wolves pressed on with more insolence, and from the direction of the wild boars some fresh ones ran up to them. A few came rather near, with snapping teeth, and the hair standing straight on their shoulders. Their eyes were all bloodshot, and a greenish light flashed from them.
A moment had come which was really terrible.
“Shall we shoot?” inquired one of the escort.
“Frighten them with shouts,” said Pan Gideon.
Thereupon rose with keenness, “A-hu! a-hu!” The horses gained courage, and the wolves, impressed by the voices of men, withdrew some tens of paces.
Then a still greater wonder was manifest.
All at once forest echoes from behind repeated the shouts of the attendants, but with rising force, ever louder and louder, as it were outbursts of wild laughter; and some moments later a crowd of dark horsemen appeared at both sides of the carriage and shot past with all the speed of their beasts toward the wild boars and the wolves which encircled them.
In the twinkle of an eye neither wolves nor boars held the snow plain; they had scattered as if a whirlwind had struck them. Gunshots were heard, also shouts, and again those strange outbursts of laughter. Pan Gideon’s attendants rushed after the horsemen, so that there remained at the sleigh only the postilion and the driver.
Inside the sleigh there was such mighty amazement that no one dared move a lip for some moments.
“But the word became flesh!” called out Pani Vinnitski, at last. “That must be help from above us.”
“May it be blessed, whencesoever it came. Our plight was growing evil,” said Pan Gideon.
“God sent those young knights!” said Panna Anulka, who wished to add her word.
It would have been difficult to divine how this maiden could have seen that those men were knights and young, in addition, for they shot past like a whirlwind; but no person asked for her reasons, since the older man and woman were occupied overmuch with what was happening before them.
Meanwhile, on the plain the sounds of pursuit were heard yet for the space of some Our Fathers, and not very far from the sleigh was a wolf with its back broken, evidently by a sling-shot. The beast was on its haunches and howling so dreadfully that every one shivered.
The man on the leading horse slipped down to kill the beast, for the horses were plunging with such violence that the sleigh-pole was cracking.
After a time the horsemen seemed black again on the snow field. They came in a crowd, without order, in a mist, for though the night was cold and the air very clear, the horses had been driven unsparingly, and were smoking like chimneys.
The horsemen approached with loud laughter and singing, and when they had drawn near, one of them shot up to the sleigh, and asked in glad, resonant accents, —
“Who is travelling?”
“Pangovski from Belchantska. Whom am I to thank for this rescue?”
“Stanislav Tsyprianovitch of Yedlinka!”
“The Bukoyemskis!”
“Thanks to your mightinesses. God sent you in season. Thanks!”
“Thanks!” repeated a youthful voice.
“Glory to God that it was in season!” continued Pan Stanislav, removing his fur cap.
“From whom did ye hear of us?”
“No one informed us, but as the wolves are now running in packs, we rode out to save people; since a person of such note has been found, our delight is the greater, and the greater our service to God,” said Pan Stanislav, politely.
But one of the Bukoyemskis now added, —
“Not counting the wolf skins.”
“A beautiful deed and a real knightly work,” said Pan Gideon. “God grant us to give thanks for it as promptly as possible. I think, too, that desire for human flesh has left those wolves now, and that we shall reach home without danger.”
“That is by no means so certain. Wolves might be enticed again easily and make a new onrush.”
“There is no help against that; but we will not surrender!”
“There is help, namely this: to attend you to the mansion. It may happen that we shall save some one else as we travel.”
“I dared not ask for that, but since such is your kindness, let it be as you say, for the ladies here will feel safer.”
“I have no fear as we are, but from all my soul I am grateful!” said Panna Anulka.
Pan Gideon gave the order and they moved forward, but they had gone only a few tens of paces when the cracked sleigh-pole was broken and the equipage halted.
New delays.
The attendants had ropes and fell to mending the broken parts straightway, but it was unknown whether such a patched work would not come apart after some furlongs.
Pan Stanislav hesitated somewhat, and then said, removing his fur cap a second time, —
“To Yedlinka through the fields it is nearer than to Belchantska. Honor our house then, your mightiness, and spend the night under our roof tree. No man can tell what might meet us in that forest, or whether even now we may not be too few to resist all the wolves that will rush to the roadway. We will bring home the sleigh in some fashion, and the shorter the road is the easier our problem. It is true that the honor surpasses the service, but the case being one of sore need a man may not cherish pride over carefully.”
Pan Gideon did not answer those words at the moment, for he felt reproach in them. He called to mind that when two years before Pan Serafin Tsyprianovitch had made him a visit, he received the man graciously, it is true, but with a known haughtiness, and did not pay back the visit. Pan Gideon had acted in that way since Pan Serafin’s family was noble only two generations, he was a “homo novus,” an Armenian by origin. His grandfather had bought and sold brocades in Kamenyets. Yakob, the son of that merchant, had served in the artillery under the famous Hodkievitch, and at Hotsim had rendered such service that, through the power of Pan Stanislav Lyubomirski, he had been ennobled, and then received Yedlinka for a lifetime. That life estate was made afterward the property of Pan Serafin, his heir, in return for a loan given the Commonwealth during Swedish encounters. The young man who had come to the road with such genuine assistance was the son of Pan Serafin.
Pan Gideon felt this reproof all the more, since the words “cherish pride over carefully” had been uttered by Pan Stanislav with studied emphasis and rather haughtily. But just that knightly courage pleased the old noble, and since it would have been hard to refuse the assistance, and since the road to his own house was in truth long and dangerous, he said to Pan Stanislav, —
“Unless you had assisted us the wolves would perhaps be gnawing our bones at this moment; let me pay with good-will for your kindness. Forward then, forward!”
The sleigh was now mended. The pole had been broken as if an axe had gone through it, so they tied one end of each rope to a runner, the other to a collar, and moved on in a large gladsome company, amid shouts from attendants and songs from the Bukoyemskis.
It was no great distance to Yedlinka, which was rather a forest farm than a village. Soon there opened in front of the wayfarers a large field some tens of furlongs in area, or rather a broad clearing enclosed on four sides by a pine wood, and on this plain a certain number of houses, the roofs of which, covered with straw, were gleaming and sparkling in moonlight.
Beyond peasant cottages, and near them, Pan Serafin’s outbuildings were visible stretching in a circle around the edge of a courtyard, in which stood the mansion, which was much disproportioned. The pile had been reconstructed by its latest owners, and from being a small house, in which dwelt on a time the king’s foresters, it had become large, even too large, for such a small forest clearing. From its windows a bright light was shining, which gave a rosy hue to the snow near the walls of the mansion, to the bushes in front of it, and to the wellsweep which stood on the right of the entrance.
It was clear that Pan Serafin was expecting his son, and perhaps also guests from the road, who might come with him, for barely had the sleigh reached the gate when servants rushed out with torches, and after the servants came the master himself in a coat made of mink skin, and wearing a weasel-skin cap, which he removed promptly at sight of the equipage.
“What welcome guest has the Lord sent to our wilderness?” inquired he, descending the steps at the entrance.
Pan Stanislav kissed his father’s hand, and told whom he had brought with him.
“I have long wished,” said Pan Gideon, as he stepped from the carriage, “to do that to which grievous need has constrained me this evening, hence I bless the more ardently this chance which agrees with my wish so exactly.”
“Various things happen to men, but this chance is for me now so happy, that with delight I beg you to enter my chambers.”
Pan Serafin bowed for the second time, and gave his arm then to Pani Vinnitski; the whole company entered behind him.
The guests were seized straightway by that feeling of contentment which is felt always by travellers when they come out of darkness and cold into lighted, warm chambers. In the first, and the other apartments, fires were blazing in broad porcelain chimneys, and servants began to light here and there gleaming tapers.
Pan Gideon looked around with a certain astonishment, for the usual houses of nobles were far from that wealth which struck the eye in Pan Serafin’s mansion.
By the light of the fires and the tapers and candles he could see in each apartment a furnishing such as might not be met with in many a castle: carved chests and bureaus and armchairs from Italy, clocks here and there, Venetian glass, precious bronze candlesticks, weapons from the Orient, which were inlaid with turquoise and hanging from wall mats. On the floors soft Crimean rugs, and on two long walls were pieces of tapestry which would have adorned the halls of any magnate.
“These came to them from trade,” thought Pan Gideon, with well-defined anger, “and now they can turn up their noses and boast of wealth won not by weapons.”
But Pan Serafin’s heartiness and real hospitality disarmed the old noble, and when he heard, somewhat later, the clatter of dishes in the dining-hall near them, he was perfectly mollified.
To warm the guests who had come out of cold they brought heated, spiced wine immediately. They began then to discuss the recent peril. Pan Gideon had great praise for Pan Stanislav, who, instead of sitting in a warm room at home, had saved people on the highroad without regarding the terrible frost, and the toil, and the danger.
“Of a truth,” said he, “thus, in old days, did those famous knights act, who, wandering through the world, saved men from cannibals, dragons, and various other vile monsters.”
“If any man of them saved such a marvellous princess as this one,” added Stanislav, “he was as happy at that time as we are this minute.”
“No man ever saved a more wonderful maiden! True, as God is dear to me! He has told the whole truth!” cried the four Bukoyemskis with enthusiasm.
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