The crowd began to sway; all heads were turned at once toward the door.
With that there was a throng in the door, and a body of armed men appeared in the church. At the head of them marched with a clatter of spurs Volodyovski and Zagloba. The crowd opened before them; they passed through the whole church, knelt before the altar, prayed a short time, and then entered the vestry.
The Lauda men halted half-way, not greeting any one, out of respect for the place.
Ah, what a sight! Grim faces, swarthy from winds, grown thin from toils of war, cut with sabres of Swedes, Germans, Hungarians, and Wallachians! The whole history of the war and the glory of God-fearing Lauda was written on them with swords. There were the gloomy Butryms, the Stakyans, the Domasheviches, the Gostsyeviches, a few of all; but hardly one fourth returned of those who on a time had left Lauda.
Many women are seeking in vain for their husbands, many old men are searching in vain for their sons; therefore the weeping increases, for those too who find their own are weeping from joy. The whole church is filled with sobbing. From time to time some one cries out a beloved name, and is silent; and they stand in glory, leaning on their sabres, but over their deep scars tears too are falling on their mustaches.
Now a bell, rung at the door of the vestry, quieted the weeping and the murmur. All knelt; the priest came to finish Mass, and after him Volodyovski and Zagloba.
But the priest was so moved that when he turned to the people, saying, “Dominus vobiscum!” his voice trembled. When he came to the Gospel, and all the sabres were drawn at once from the scabbards, as a sign that Lauda was ever ready to defend the faith, and in the church it was bright from steel, the priest had barely strength to finish the Gospel.
Then amid universal emotion the concluding prayer was sung, and Mass was ended; but the priest, when he had placed the sacrament in the tabernacle, turned, after the last Gospel, to the people, in sign that he wished to say something.
There was silence, therefore, and the priest with cordial words greeted first the returning soldiers; then he gave notice that he would read a letter from the king, brought by the colonel of the Lauda squadron.
The silence grew deeper, and after a while the voice from the altar was heard through the whole church,—