Father Voynovski blushed as does a maiden when a young man confesses on a sudden that for which she is yearning beyond all things; but the blush flew over his face as swiftly as summer lightning through the sky of evening; then he looked at Pan Serafin, and asked,--
"Why do you take it?"
Pan Serafin answered with all the sincerity of an honest spirit:
"I want it since I wish, without loss to myself, to render an honorable young man a service, for which I shall gain his gratitude. And, Father benefactor, I have still another idea. I will send my one son to that regiment in which Pan Yatsek is to serve, and I think that my Stashko will find in him a good friend and comrade. You know how important a comrade is and what a true friend at one's side means in camp where a quarrel comes easily, and in war where death comes still more easily. God has not, in my case been sparing of fortune, and He has given me only one son. Pan Yatsek is brave, sober, a master at the sabre, as has been shown--and he is virtuous, for you have reared him. Let him and my son be like Orestes and Pylades--that is my reckoning."
Father Voynovski opened his arms to him widely.
"God himself sent you! For Yatsek I answer as I do for myself. He is a golden fellow, and his heart is as grateful as wheat land. God sent you! My dear boy can now show himself as befits the Tachevski escutcheon, and most important of all, he can, after seeing the wide world, forget altogether that girl for whom he has thrown away so many years, and suffered such anguish."
"Has he loved her then from of old?"
"Well, to tell the truth, he has loved her since childhood. Even now he says nothing, he sets his teeth, but he squirms like an eel beneath a knife edge. Let him go at the earliest, for nothing could or can come from this love of his."
A moment of silence followed, then the old man continued,--
"But we must speak of these matters more accurately. How much can you lend on Vyrambki? It is a poor piece of land."