To the cloister storehouses, which were already well filled, came supplies from the town, from Chenstohovka and other villages belonging to the cloister.
The report went like thunder through the whole neighborhood. Townspeople and peasants began to assemble and take counsel. Many were unwilling to believe that any enemy would dare to attack Yasna Gora.
It was said that only Chenstohova itself was to be occupied; but even that excited the minds of men, especially when some of them remembered that the Swedes were heretics, whom nothing restrained, and who were ready to offer a purposed affront to the Most Holy Lady.
Therefore men hesitated, doubted, and believed in turn. Some wrung their hands, waiting for terrible signs on earth and in heaven,—visible signs of God’s anger; others were sunk in helpless and dumb despair; an anger more than human seized a third party, whose heads were filled as it were with flame. And when once the fancy of men had spread its wings for flight, straightway there was a whirl of news, ever changing, ever more feverish, ever more monstrous.
And as when a man thrusts a stick or throws fire into an ant-hill, unquiet swarms rush forth at once, assemble, separate, reassemble; so was the town, so were the neighboring hamlets, in an uproar.
In the afternoon crowds of townspeople and peasants, with women and children, surrounded the walls of the cloister, and held them as it were in siege, weeping and groaning. At sunset Kordetski went out to them, and pushing himself into the throng, asked,—
“People, what do you want?”
“We want to go as a garrison to the cloister to defend the Mother of God,” cried men, shaking their flails, forks, and other rustic weapons.
“We wish to look for the last time on the Most Holy Lady,” groaned women.
The prior went on a high rock and said,—