The trumpeter of Krakow

by Eric P. Kelly

They climbed and climbed, past five levels of windows, glassed in with small white globes of solid crystal. Up and up went father and son until they reached the level where there was a room for the watchman. This octagonal room was divided into two sections, one being the room where the trumpeter might keep warm between watches, the other being the open space around it from which the turret windows looked out over the city. Here hung extra trumpets, here were the ropes which connected with the great bell hanging in the lower tower, and here were the red flags and the lanterns which were hung out when a fire was perceived from the tower.

For it was the duty of the trumpeter to watch constantly for fires. He was to watch also for troops approaching the city, for tumults or disturbances of any kind, but he was especially the guardian against fires. Conflagrations had done the city much harm in the past; many of the older buildings were of wood, although fronted with stone, and roofs were often of thatch or soft wood that easily caught fire from sparks. When a fire was discovered, the trumpeter or watchman, for he was both, hung a red flag from the window which faced the direction in which the blaze lay. At night he would hang out a lantern with a red-glass front instead of the flag.

It was his duty also to sound the alarm bell if any danger whatever came to threaten the lives of citizens. In the very month previous to the coming of Pan Andrew and his family to Krakow, the watchman had rung loud and long upon the bell to alarm the watch and the city when the riot against the Tenczynski family took place. In the coming year the bell was to be tolled at the execution, in the town square just below the tower, of the four men charged with causing the riot. The tower was indeed the very center of Krakow activity.

Pan Andrew fitted his key to the lock of the door leading into the inner room and threw back the bolt. Entering after his father, Joseph found himself in a small, comfortable room, containing a table, a bed, a small stove, and a lighted lantern hanging on the wall. About the table were three chairs, wedged rather tightly because of the lack of space, and upon the table was a huge hourglass, one of the largest that Joseph had even seen. The sand pouring through it in a fine stream had filled the lower section almost to a level graded on the glass with a Latin “X” to designate the tenth hour. The glass was in reality a twelve-hour glass, and lines and Latin numerals had been marked upon it just after the maker had blown it into shape, when the material was still soft. This was the trumpeter’s official clock. There was on the south side of the nave roof, where the sun touched at all hours of the day, a large sundial which was read each noon, and on the north wall of the tower was a clock with one hand. This hand, which indicated the hours, was in truth a hand—a piece of metal shaped like a doubled fist—with fingers curled and the index pointing out to the hours.

When the sand had reached the level of the glass at which the “X” was cut, Pan Andrew hastened out to the open section of the tower and released a coil of rope that hung on a pillar in the center of the space. This rope ran down through a hole in the flooring until it reached the level of the lower tower, when it swung about over a piece of round wood that served as a pulley and leaped from there to the lower tower through an aperture that was originally designed as a narrow window through which to shoot arrows in time of defense. In the lower tower the rope was connected with one end of an iron hammer that was suspended above the great bell. When the rope was pulled the hammer descended, but it sprang quickly back to its original position when the rope was loosed, a spring of twisted metal and leather serving to draw it back. Pan Andrew pulled once—the hammer descended—boom—the stroke of the bell sounded over the whole city. He pulled again and again until the full quota of ten strokes was made.

Next he went to the side of the tower nearest the entrance to the little room, and swung back a small glass window. Through this space he thrust the trumpet and began to play. It was on the west side, the side toward the Cloth Hall, with the university in the distance. Then he moved to another window but one and began to play toward the south. Likewise he played toward the east, and finally toward the north, according to the instructions which he had received. Lights were twinkling now all over the city below him, the air was soft and smelled of the freshly cut grass which the peasants gather into piles. In the direction of the university a group of men were chanting a hymn. A clashing of iron hoofs on the stones of Grodzka Street betokened the presence of some armed men, perhaps the servitors of some nobles’ houses at the castle, or perhaps members of the royal guard. Men of the night watch could be heard banging at doors of shops with the butts of their spears to be sure that no careless apprentice or servant had left the door ajar. Down below in the graveyard the white stones were just perceptible, dim and gray in the dusk, and over the way the lamplighter was enkindling the huge wicks of the lamps that hung under the Cloth Hall roof. The stars were coming out, one after another, in the sky where a touch of blue still lingered—across this world rang the notes of the hymn which Pan Andrew had just played exquisitely, the Heynal or Hymn to the Holy Mother.

“It is wondrous sweet,” said Joseph.

“It is so, my son,” replied the father. Thereupon he told the boy of the morning, years before, when the square below them had been full of hostile Tartars; of the lad who had kept his oath, even with the last breath of life itself; and of the honor paid him from that day to this by the tower trumpeters who end the Heynal at the broken note.

And Joseph, listening, with eyes shining and heart throbbing, realized more at that moment than ever before how dear to him was his native land and all the customs that had been bequeathed by brave men and women who had made it great forever among all nations; it seemed as if tears were forcing themselves to his eyes as he thought of the sacrifice of that young life so many years before, but a thrill of pride drove back the tears when he thought of the nobility of the deed, as he stood silently gazing out of the little tower window.

They reëntered the inner room.