The trumpeter of Krakow

by Eric P. Kelly

Pan Andrew, however, stood motionless for a few seconds. The thoughts fairly burned in his brain. His friends, protectors, gone! The King away, he himself a fugitive here no less than in the Ukraine. From every side enemies pressed upon him, and what had he done to deserve such a fate? He was in a predicament even without this complication, for here he was in a great city where he had not a single friend. He had but little money, for what he had gathered had been invested year by year in his house and lands in the Ukraine. There were his wife and his son to be put in a place of shelter, and not only were the means lacking but there was even peril at every hand. Behind him at the gates of the city had appeared one foe—here in the city there were apparently many others. What to do? . . . Well. . . . Let God give. . . . There would be something.

Aimlessly he got into the wagon, turned it about, and made for the market again. There at least they might spend the day, procure water for the horses, and buy a little of something to eat. He found a place near one of the springs, unloosed the horses with the help of his son, and let them crop the short grass that grew near one edge of the market place, watering them with buckets that he filled at the spring.

Not until then did he seek comfort and counsel from his wife, who had always been his solace at such times; throwing himself down beside her on the wagon seat he told her the story of his late discoveries, the absence of the King, the death of his kinsman. For a second the woman’s heart quailed before the fresh difficulties, but she forgot self at the look in her husband’s face. Her quiet reply, “We will wait, for God is in the waiting,” filled him with courage again.

Joseph, however, was at that age when no sky remains long clouded. His heart had been beating fast with excitement ever since the sight of the city’s towers had loomed before them in the early morning, and his legs had been itching to get out of the wagon and explore the place. He began by taking a short excursion over to a little building near by, which at first glance had seemed to be a market building, but, when he approached it, proved to be a church with a low dome and round side windows. Although the church was of much interest to those who favored historical lore as being one of the oldest churches in Poland, it did not interest the boy greatly. He scrutinized the beggars at the door, a young boy with but one leg, a woman with a back bent to a curve, an old man with sightless eyes, praying continually, and many other wretched alms seekers. Crossing himself and muttering a prayer for God’s helpless creatures, Joseph turned and marched down Grodzka Street in the direction of the Wawel.

He had just come to a cross lane which led on the left to the Church of the Dominicans, and on the right to the Church of All Saints, when he noticed a Tartar boy in the street leading and constantly beating a large Ukrainian wolf dog. The wolf dog was on a leash—he had a strong hand-wrought collar about the neck—and he was turning now and then to glance back at his tormentor who was plying a short Cossack whip. Joseph watched the boy in amazement, wondering why he had the dog and why he was beating him—as a matter of fact the boy was acting out of pure viciousness—but neither of these questions found satisfactory solution in Joseph’s mind. In a very few minutes, however, another question rose with the suddenness of lightning, a question which required action for a solution, and this action Joseph was able to supply.

For at the moment that the boy and dog were crossing the church lane, there emerged from the farther footwalk a man dressed all in black like a priest, but wearing a collar which was not clerical since it opened in the front. He did not, however, for the moment attract Joseph’s attention; it was his companion that caught and held the boy’s gaze. For the companion was a girl of perhaps the same age as Joseph—she was walking by the side of the man in black and now and then grasping at his hand.

Joseph saw the dog no longer. His eyes were riveted on the girl. She seemed to him like an angel taken out of a Christmas play, or a spirit from a Festival of the Three Kings—in truth she might have been one of those beautiful figures come to life out of the wondrous stained glass windows in the church. Her hair was light—Joseph’s was dark. Her skin was as white as the finest linen, her eyes as blue as the skies above the Vistula; she wore a cloaklike garment of red that fell from her shoulders to her ankles and was girdled at the waist. It was embroidered in blue, with lace at neck and wrists; in front it did not meet completely but showed the second garment that she wore beneath, a mantle of blue that fell in folds even below the outer coat. And as she looked up, the country boy thought that he had never seen anything prettier on earth—so daintily she tripped along that she seemed to walk on clouds. Then for a moment he looked down at his hands, dirty, hard, and grimy; he looked at his clothes and found them dusty and worn after the long journey.

But if he had been in heaven at the sight of the girl, he came back to earth quickly. For the Tartar boy with the dog and the man in black with the girl were close together at the crossing of the roads when suddenly the maddened dog turned desperately at bay upon his tormentor and crouched for a powerful spring. Joseph shouted and rushed forward just as the dog leaped. The Tartar boy dropped the leather thong in a flash and darted down the walk out of reach of the dog’s jaws, but leaving directly in his path the man in black and the girl Blind with fury the dog sprang again, and in an instant he would have come down upon the girl who happened to be on the outside, had not Joseph at the same moment leaped and caught at the dog’s heavy collar.

He had dealt with dogs many times in the Ukraine, and he knew that no dog is vicious if healthy and well treated; therefore there had been no fear in this effort that he made, save for the peril, perhaps, that the dog might mistake him for the boy who had been beating him, and sink his teeth into his flesh.

His fingers caught the collar squarely. The grip held, and he went hurtling through the air like the tail of a skyrocket, as the dog’s leap, weighted by this unexpected load, fell short, and the girl drew back with a cry. But Joseph and the infuriated animal went rolling to and fro in a wild embrace on the hard surface of the road, he striving to make the beast pay attention to his words, the dog only becoming more and more frightened. But the boy knew, after the first second when all depended upon whether his grip held or not, that everything was safe and he could successfully avoid the paws and teeth of the dog. Thus at a favorable moment he released his hold quickly upon the animal’s collar, and scrambled to his feet, while a very dusty and possibly ashamed wolf dog tore off like a streak of lightning in the direction of the Franciscans’ church.