“Those were the times of Kosciuszko; my lord supported the Constitution of the Third of May,[40] and was already gathering the gentry in order to go to the aid of the Confederates, when suddenly the Muscovites encircled the castle by night; there was barely time to fire an alarm signal from the mortar, and to close the gates below and fasten them with a bar. There was no one in the whole castle except the Pantler, myself, and [pg 44] the lady; the cook and two turnspits, all three drunk; the parish priest, a servingman, and four footmen, all bold fellows. So to arms and to the windows! Here a throng of Muscovites came streaming across the terrace to the door, shouting ‘Hurrah!’ But we met them with bullets from ten guns, ‘Back with you!’ Nothing could be seen; the servants shot without cessation from the lower stories, and my lord and I from the balcony. All went finely, although amid such great alarm. Twenty guns lay here on this floor; we shot one and they handed us another; the parish priest attended diligently to this task, and the lady and her daughter, and the serving maids: there were but three marksmen, yet the fire was unceasing. The Muscovite boors showered on us a hail of bullets from below; we replied from above sparsely, but with better aim. Three times that rabble pressed up to the door, but each time three of them bit the dust: so they fled behind the storehouse. It was already early dawn; with a cheerful face the Pantler came out on the balcony with his gun, and whenever a Muscovite thrust forth his brow from behind the storehouse he at once fired—and he never missed; each time a black helmet fell on the grass; so that at length scarcely a man crept out from behind the wall. The Pantler, seeing his enemies in confusion, thought of making a sally; he seized his sabre, and, shouting from the balcony, gave orders to the servants; turning to me he said: ‘Follow me, Gerwazy!’ At that instant there was a shot from behind the gate; the Pantler's speech faltered, he turned red, turned pale, tried to speak, spat blood. Then I perceived that he had received the bullet full in the breast; my lord, tottering, pointed towards the gate. I recognised that villain Soplica, I [pg 45] recognised him! by his stature and by his mustaches I By his shot the Pantler had perished; I saw it! The villain still held his gun raised aloft; smoke still came from the barrel! I sighted at him; the brigand stood as if petrified! Twice I fired, and both shots missed; whether from hatred or from grief, I aimed ill. I heard the shrieks of women; I looked around—my lord was no longer living.”
Here Gerwazy paused and burst into a flood of tears; then he concluded:—
“The Muscovites had already broken down the door, for after the death of the Pantler I stood helpless and did not know what was going on around me. Luckily to our help came Parafianowicz, bringing from Horbatowicze two hundred of the Mickiewiczes, who are a numerous and a valiant family of gentry, every man of them, and nourish an immemorial hatred of the Soplicas.
“Thus perished a powerful, pious, and just lord, whose ancestors had held seats in the Senate, worn badges of honour, and carried the hetman's staff of office; a father to his peasants, a brother to the gentry—and he had no son left after him to vow vengeance on his grave! But he had faithful servants; with the blood of his wound I wet my broadsword, called the penknife—you have surely heard of my penknife, famous at every diet, market, and village assembly—and swore to notch it on the shoulders of the Soplicas. I pursued them at diets, forays, and fairs; two I hewed down in a brawl, two others in a duel; one I burnt in a wooden building, when with Rymsza we sacked Korelicze—he was baked like a mudfish; but those whose ears I have cut off I cannot count. One only is left who has not yet received a reminder from me! He is the own dear [pg 46] brother of that mustachioed bully; he still lives, and boasts of his wealth; the edge of his field borders on the Horeszkos' castle; he is respected in the district, he has an office, he is a judge! And you will yield the castle to him? Shall his base feet wipe the blood of my lord from this floor? No! While Gerwazy has but a pennyworth of spirit, and enough strength to move even with one little finger his penknife, which still hangs on the wall, never shall a Soplica get this castle!”
“O!” cried the Count, raising his hands on high, “I had a fair foreboding that I loved these walls, though I knew not that they contained such treasures, so many dramatic memories, and so many tales! When once I seize from the Soplicas the castle of my ancestors, I will establish you within its walls as my burgrave: your tale, Gerwazy, has mightily affected me. I regret that you did not lead me here at the hour of midnight; draped in my cloak I should have sat upon the ruins and you would have told me of bloody deeds. I regret that you have no great gift of narration! Often have I heard and often do I read such traditions; in England and Scotland every lord's castle, in Germany every count's mansion was the theatre of murders! In every ancient, noble, powerful family there is a report of some bloody or treacherous deed, after which vengeance descends as an inheritance to the heirs: in Poland for the first time do I hear of such an incident. I feel that in me flows the blood of the manly Horeszkos, I know what I owe to glory and to my family. So be it I I must break off all negotiations with the Soplica, even though it should come to pistols or to the sword! Honour bids me!”
He spoke, and moved on with solemn steps, and [pg 47] Gerwazy followed in deep silence. Before the gate the Count stopped, mumbling to himself; gazing at the castle he quickly mounted his horse, and thus in distraction he concluded his monologue:—
“I regret that this old Soplica has no wife, or fair daughter whose charms I might adore! If I loved her and could not obtain her hand a new complication would arise in the tale; here the heart, there duty! here vengeance, there love!”
So whispering he applied the spurs, and the horse flew towards the Judge's mansion, just as the hunters came riding out of the wood from the other direction. The Count was fond of hunting: hardly had he perceived the riders, when, forgetting everything, he galloped straight towards them, passing by the yard gate, the orchard, and the fences; but at a turn of the path he looked around and checked his horse near the fence—it was the kitchen garden. Fruit trees planted in rows shaded a broad field; beneath them were the vegetable beds. Here sat a cabbage, which bowed its venerable bald head, and seemed to meditate on the fate of vegetables; there, intertwining its pods with the green tresses of a carrot, a slender bean turned upon it a thousand eyes; here the maize lifted its golden tassels; here and there could be seen the belly of a fat watermelon that had rolled far from its parent stalk into a distant land, as a guest among the crimson beets.
The beds were intersected by furrows; in each trench there stood, as if on guard, ranks of hemp stalks, the cypresses of the vegetable garden, calm, straight, and green; their leaves and their scent served to defend the beds, for through their leaves no serpent dares to press, and their scent kills insects and caterpillars. [pg 48] Farther away towered up the whitish stalks of poppies; on them you might think a flock of butterflies had perched, fluttering their wings, on which flashed, with all the colours of the rainbow, the gleam of precious stones; with so many different, living tints did the poppies allure the eye. Amid the flowers, like the full moon amid the stars, a round sunflower, with a great, glowing face, turned after the sun from the east to the west.
Beside the fence stretched long, narrow, rounded hillocks, free from trees, bushes, and flowers: this was the cucumber patch. They had grown finely; with their great, spreading leaves they covered the beds as with a wrinkled carpet. Amid them walked a girl, dressed in white, sinking up to her knees in the May greenery; stepping down from the beds into the furrows, she seemed not to walk but to swim over the leaves and to bathe in their bright colour. Her head was shaded with a straw hat, from her brow there waved two pink ribbons and some tresses of bright, loose hair; in her hands she held a basket, and her eyes were lowered; her right hand was raised as if to pluck something: as a little girl when bathing tries to catch the fishes that sport with her tiny feet, so she at every instant bent down with her hands and her basket to gather the cucumbers against which she brushed with her foot, or of which her eye caught sight.