For the Right

by Karl Emil Franzos

"Light the torches! Mount, and let us be off! By the Pruth we will leave him to his own devices."

The signals sounded, the procession formed, vanishing in the deeper shadows of the cleft which leads to the river in the direction of Kossowince....

CHAPTER XV.

[AN EYE FOR AN EYE.]

Starting from the little wooden bridge which spans the Pruth near Zulawce, and following the river, about an hour's ride will bring you to the village of Kossowince. It is a well-favoured spot, the fertile wheat-fields of the plain spreading round about; yet the village is near enough to the rich green slopes of the rising uplands to obtain considerable returns from cattle-rearing as well. This flourishing place in our own days is known again as the "rich village," its much-envied inhabitants going by the name of the "wheat lords," but there have been times when the poorest cottager of the heath-country would not have exchanged his miserable cabin for the finest homestead at Kossowince. For rivers of tears and streams of blood have flowed here for religion's sake. In the days when Poland held sway, nearly all the inhabitants of the district had forsaken the Byzantine orthodox creed, turning Catholics, if not of their own free will, yet under the combined influence of Romish Jesuits and tyrannical waywodes; very few of the peasantry had courage enough to withstand such persuasion, but of these few were the people of Kossowince. Trusting in their numbers and wealth, the "wheat lords" clung to their ancient faith, although every decade brought them a bitter experience of persecution. The Austrian supremacy eventually put an end to these troubles, and in the days of the good Emperor Joseph the people of Kossowince might cross themselves from the right to the left, or from the left to the right, as they pleased. But when that monarch had been gathered to his fathers, this important difference once more appeared to trouble the ruling powers, most of all his Grace of Lemberg, and the villagers soon had proof that their heresy was being dealt with. Doubtfully they looked into the threatening future, and their horizon grew darker still when they learned that all of a sudden they had fallen under spiritual sway. The lady of the manor, a widowed countess, had seen fit to bequeath the "rich village" for purposes of Romish endowment, and their new mandatar proved to be a secular priest, a certain Victor von Sanecki, sent thither to collect the revenues. He was received with unbounded hatred; yet within the space of a few months he had known how to gain the confidence, even the goodwill, of the people. For this ghostly steward was thoroughly conversant with agriculture; he proved a good counsellor, and appeared not to take the slightest notice of the heretical tendency of the village. So tolerant was he, that when the elders one day uttered complaints against their pope, Miron Aganowicz, describing him as a worse drunkard than need be, he did his best to find excuses for his reverend brother, the result, of course, being that Miron, who so far had stood in some awe of spiritual censure, drank worse than ever, providing the means by various methods of extortion. But the parish was possessed of some spirit, and the sheep turned against the shepherd; whereupon the pope complained to the civil authorities and was victorious in the contest. The aggrieved peasantry carried their trouble to the ghostly mandatar, but he pointed out to them that the courtesy of his sacred calling did not permit him to interfere, making a similar statement to his brother Miron, who, on the strength of it, oppressed the people more than ever. Matters grew to such a pass that the parish petitioned for another pope, and, being refused, declared themselves willing to be rid of Miron at any price, assuring the authorities that they had come to see how foolishly prejudiced they had been in opposing the ruling faith, and that they were quite ready now to profess themselves Roman Catholics, provided that the reverend Sanecki, that excellent man, might be their priest and mandatar in one. This offer was accepted speedily, and on Easter Sunday, in the year of grace 1837, the Greek church of Kosso wince was solemnly dedicated to the Romish rite, Sanecki entering on his functions as the pastor of this converted people.

The event made a stir far and wide; it was evident that the benign wisdom of an amiable priest, within the space of two short years, had succeeded in overcoming the stubborn resistance which had braved the tyranny of centuries. Not many had the clear-headed judgment, or, indeed, sufficient acquaintance with Sanecki himself, to temper their surprise, seeing he was as unprincipled as he was clever. Victor von Sanecki was the scion of a decayed family of rank, a native of Posen. As a mere youth, iron-willed and indefatigable, sharp-witted and full of ambition, he had striven hard to reclaim his hopelessly mortgaged inheritance. But no saving and no diligence of his could make up for the failings of his spendthrift ancestry. He gave it up, and, entering the Prussian civil service, turned Protestant for the sake of advancement; nor was he without prospect of gaining his end, and he might have risen to power had not his over-zealous chase after prosperity overstepped the lines of rectitude marked out in that country for a servant of the State. He was dismissed; upon which, repairing to Cracow, he resolved to read for holy orders. He was barely thirty when he thus entered the Church, and upon his consecration was appointed to the somewhat anomalous charge at Kossowince. His wondrous success there failed not to strike the Archbishop, who meditated work for him at Lemberg itself, but Sanecki submitted his earnest request "that he might be left to lead the converted flock in the way they should go"; for he believed that he could gather wealth while so engaged. His ambition sated, he was anxious now to satisfy that other craving of his debased soul, the love of riches.

And success appeared to attend his efforts; but the means he had recourse to were appalling. Not many weeks passed before the people of Kossowince discovered that the shepherd they had chosen was not nearly so gentle as they supposed, and before the year was out they had come to the conviction that a very fiend was addressing them from the pulpit and lording it over them at the manor. For it is a fact that the fate of every Galician village in those days was in the hands of two men--viz.: the mandatar and the parish priest. And here this power was vested in one and the same--Victor von Sanecki literally could do what he pleased. If a peasant refused an unjust tithe he as mandatar could send to prison; if he refused an oppressive tribute to the mandatar it was the priest that could inflict the lash of ecclesiastical punishment. The people naturally struggled hard against the injustice, appealing to the law; but it was no less in the nature of things that they found no redress, since before the civil authorities Sanecki claimed the privileges of the clergy, while to his spiritual superiors he pleaded his position as mandatar and steward of the revenues. Moreover, the stubborn character borne previously by the converted parish was remembered, and Sanecki was not slow to point out that having adopted the Catholic faith for outward reasons merely, they naturally were unwilling to meet the demands of the Church. So everything went against them, for the Romish creed was in the ascendant, and fines were imposed to teach them submission. A military detachment was quartered upon the refractory parish to enforce payment, and when the uttermost farthing had been wrested from them their goods were seized; not till a man had been brought to hopeless penury was he left alone by the priest. It seemed as though Sanecki could commit the vilest wrongs with impunity; but he cared to inflict punishment on those only who could offer money or money's worth to evade it, and his direst means of extortion, the refusal of Church burial, always fell on the wealthy.

Such was the man against whom Taras in the first instance lifted the avenger's arm. As it was close upon midnight when he with his followers started from the Crystal Springs, the Pruth was not reached till after two o'clock. And when the river had been forded, and the shivering Kapronski left to himself, the band in headlong gallop dashed onward through the plain. Kossowince was reached, and in spite of the surrounding darkness Taras perceived a horseman stationed at the entrance. He was appointed by the villagers to act as the avenger's guide.

Taras and his men drew up. "How many soldiers are there in the place?" he inquired; "and how are they quartered?"

"There is an officer with fifty men," reported the peasant; "Whitecoats from Lombardy with green facings. Thirty of them are at the parsonage, for the fiend himself lives at the manor, allowing the manse to be used as a barracks, for which we must pay him a rental of five hundred florins....."