He drew the coin from his belt. They all were anxious to see it, and agreed that the Emperor had a pleasant, good-natured face. "And now you were ready to start for home?" they said.
"Oh, no," said Taras, with a sigh; "for though my object was accomplished, my heart was no wise at ease. I wanted to wait for the Emperor's answer. My petition prayed for a re-examination of the witnesses, and thus much the Emperor might command on the spot, I thought. Mr. Broza tried to dissuade me--it might be months before I should hear, he said, and it would be a waste of time and money. But I clung to my desire, entreating him till he pitied my distress and promised to inquire at the Imperial Chancery whether the Emperor's decision had been received. It was a week after the private audience. The reply was hopeless--not even the petition itself had as yet been filed. 'I must look up that Uncle Ludwig,' I cried in my despair, and had some trouble in finding the captain who had acted as my interpreter--his name is Eugene Stanczuk, and his home is at Kossow, a few miles from Ridowa. I wanted him to take me once more to the Emperor's uncle. 'That is quite impossible,' he said, 'and moreover the Archduke has departed for his residence in Styria; he will not return here for months.' When I heard this I knew that further waiting was vain. I strapped my bundle--honest Frantisek brushing my boots for the last time sadly, and I went to Mr. Broza to thank him for all his kindness and--should he trust me--to borrow some money of him, for I had only ten florins left. 'That shall not trouble you,' he said, counting out a hundred florins to me without even a witness, as though I were his brother. 'Let us hope for a favourable answer in time,' he added, 'but if I have any claim on your gratitude, as you say, promise me one thing--do not let it break your heart if it turns out a denial!' Much as I owed him, this was more than I could promise; I had gone to Vienna with a hopeful mind, and was coming away now broken-hearted."
He ceased, the sadness gathering in his face.
"I do not see that!" cried Father Leo, "there is every room for hope since you have the Emperor's own promise!"
"Have you seen him?" said Taras, rising. "Have you been to Vienna? You have heard my tale, but you have not been there to see!... It is getting late--it must be near midnight. Kind thanks to you, friends. Come, wife, let us be gone!"
CHAPTER VIII.
[DESPAIR.]
The days followed one another, and winter was at hand; Taras, in silence, had taken up the old, changeless village life. He found plenty to do on his own farm in spite of the care bestowed upon it by Simeon during his absence; and, labouring with his men, the most diligent of them all, he could forget at times that one thought which kept burrowing in his brain. But for other reasons, too, it was well he was thoroughly occupied, for intercourse with the villagers could have comforted him little.
Ill-humour against him had risen to its height, since his journey to Vienna also had proved a fruitless errand. He had but two friends left besides the priest--his former colleagues, Simeon and Alexa. The others either openly hated him, or treated him with unkind pity as the fallen village king. As for his re-election to the judgeship, it was not so much as thought of. Simeon, true to his word, had resigned his vicarious honours at All Saints', rather expecting, however, the public confidence would turn to him; yet not even he was elected, but a certain Jewgeni Turenko.
The man thus chosen was a harmless individual, rather poor, who never could have aspired to such luck had the freaks of fortune not singled out his younger brother, Constantine, lifting him to the giddy height of a corporal in the Imperial army. It had never been dreamt of in the village, that any peasant lad of theirs could be more than a private, and now this hero of Zulawce had actually returned as a corporal, a live corporal, sporting the two white stars on his crimson collar. All the village felt itself honoured in this favoured soldier, entertaining the wildest hopes for his future. He has two years of service yet to come, they said; who knows but that he may be a sergeant before he has done? The young hero was ready enough to avail himself of the good opinions thus showered upon him. By his own account, he was one of the bravest of the brave, and as he could scarcely invent a great war as a background to his exploits, he devised some minor fancies, laying the scene in rebellious Lombardy--"Corpo di Bacco! where the heat of the weather is such that an ox in the fields is roasted alive in two hours." How could the good people of Zulawce have thought little of a man who, in such a temperature, had saved a province to the Emperor? And more especially, how should their womankind not have admired a soldier who, to say nothing of his splendid moustache, had by his own showing been proof against the allurements of the very countesses in those parts--"devilishly handsome creatures, to be sure, but with the enemy's females I have nothing to do!" It was a fact, then, that within a few weeks, Constantine Turenko had the upper hand in the village; and as he could not be judge himself, being only on furlough, he managed that his brother Jewgeni should be elected, while two other friends of his, equally humble as regarded their wealth and wit, were chosen as elders. Thus aristocracy was laid low, the middle class rising.