For the Right

by Karl Emil Franzos

"As far as I may need your help," returned Anusia, "I shall accept it gratefully." And therewith she resumed issuing orders to the servants about the place.

Father Leo did not learn the good news till about noon, when he returned from the parish, and, not waiting to eat his dinner, he hastened to the farm to see with his own eyes that Anusia indeed had recovered. He found her very quiet and self-possessed, and there was nothing to make him doubt the soundness of her mind, save the occupation he found her engaged upon. She had had the great barn cleared and the floor was being spread with straw. "What for?" he inquired, wonderingly.

"To sleep the soldiers," she replied, with a bitter smile.

"The soldiers! What soldiers?"

"I am surprised your reverence should require me to explain," she said. "Is it unknown to you that he who but lately was master here has declared war against his Emperor, and that the wife and children of that man are here unprotected? Will it not be the most natural thing to take possession of this farm in order to make it impossible for him to visit his family secretly? And, moreover, it might be supposed that his wife could be so questioned that from her his whereabouts could be learned; at any rate, it might be useful to make sure of her and her children as hostages, in case ..."

"No, no!" cried Leo, "this latter, most certainly not. The Emperor will never wage war upon women and children."

"Well, we shall see," she continued; "thus much is certain, that we shall have the Whitecoats quartered here before long; that coward of a mandatar will take care we shall, if no one else will. Did not Taras inform him plainly that with him the beginning should be made? I am only sorry for the village. It is hard that the neighbours should suffer, and it will turn them against us. It will be but natural if they do, and I cannot help it."

"They shall not, if I can prevent it," cried the pope, eagerly. "Now I know what to preach about to-morrow!"

"Well, I shall be grateful to you, whether you succeed or not, but one thing you must promise me"--she held out her hand, drawing herself up proudly. "You shall not ask them to pity me or my children. We do not need it, please God, while I have health and am able to keep house and home together."

He gave her his word, and kept it as far as his own compassion would let him. But his wife, in her own heart, was proudly happy, for never had she heard him preach with a fervour more tender and soul-stirring; not noticing in her wifely gladness that this sermon of his differed somewhat from his usual discourses, inasmuch as he never mentioned either the wisdom or the justice of the Almighty, being taken up entirely with the one message to his hearers, the one exhortation of "loving our neighbour as ourselves!" And as he strove in his simple, yet impressive way to make it plain that an act of true love to one's neighbours, mistaken, even, though it might be, was none the less worthy of grateful acknowledgment, and that at all events it could never deserve the ill-will of those for whose sake it had been done, even though they might have to suffer in consequence--they all knew whom and what he meant, and felt moved accordingly. And emotion deepened when he spoke of the common sorrow making all men as brethren, since none was fully happy here below, and that there was no surer salvation from our own misery than being loving and good to other sufferers, especially to the weak and forsaken, the widows and orphans about us. And taking up an example to hand, he spoke of the sad lot of a poor woman, named Josephka, whose husband they had lately buried. "Do not let us imagine," he cried, "that we are doing more than our bounden duty if we remember her trouble, aiding her with our alms, which she hath need of sorely. Yet, poor as Josephka is, it is not she that is the most sorrow-stricken widow among us; there being a balm to her grief in the blessed thought that the husband she mourns has gained that rest to which we ourselves are journeying, that he has attained beyond the sorrow which remains with us still. There is another one among us, widowed, I say, and more grief-bowed than she, to whom this consolation is denied, and our most sacred duty is to her! Our alms then to Josephka, for she has need of them, but give ye your tenderest love, your most helpful sympathy, to that other most sorrowful widow in this village, whose children in their father's lifetime are as orphans in our midst!"