Commands, that going forth tumultuously,
At once from lips so many, hastened yet
All to one common aim. “Send to the village!”
The Judge exclaimed; “to horse! the setnik102 call.
To-morrow is the beating, but we want
Some volunteers. Who comes forth with a spear,
To him two days of road-work be excused,
And five days of forced labour.”103 “Quick!” exclaimed
The Chamberlain; “and saddle the grey horse,
And gallop to my house; bring those two bulldogs
Renowned throughout the neighbourhood; the male
Is Sprawnik called, the female is Strapczyna.104
Muzzle their jaws, and tie them in a bag.
Bring them on horseback here for greater haste.”
“Wanka!” the Assessor cried unto a lad,
In Russian, “pass my Sanguszkowa cutlass
Upon the grindstone; thou dost know that cutlass,
I had as present from the prince; look well
Unto the belt, that each charge have a ball.”
“Rifles!” cried all; “have them in readiness.”
The Assessor kept on shouting, “Lead! lead! lead!
I have a mould for bullets in my pouch.”
“Let notice to the parish priest be given,”
Added the Judge, “that he to-morrow morning
Shall say mass in the chapel by the forest.
For hunters a short offertory be it.
St. Hubert’s customary mass.” When given
These orders, silence followed; every one
Fell deep in thought, and cast his eyes around,
As though he sought for some one; gradually
All eyes the Wojski’s venerable face
Draws to itself, and all unanimous.
This was a sign that they a leader sought,
To head the coming expedition; they
Unto the Wojski did confide the staff.
The Wojski rose, he understood their will,
And striking solemnly upon the board,
He from his bosom drew a great gold chain,
Whereon a heavy watch hung like a pear.
“To-morrow,” said he, “half-past four, beside
The forest chapel meet the brother hunters
The force of beaters.” Thus he spoke, and left
The table; after him the forester;
Both must think over and direct the hunt.
Like generals, when battle is ordained
Upon the morrow, while throughout the camps
The soldiers clean their arms, and ride about,
Or sleep on cloaks and saddles, void of care;
But in their silent tents the generals
Awake and meditate. They broke off dinner,
And all that day in shoeing horses past,
And feeding dogs, gathering and cleaning arms.
At supper hardly any came to table.
And even the partisans of Kusy and
Of Sokol ceased to-day to agitate
The great dispute. The Regent and Assessor
Went, arm in arm, a-seeking out the lead.
The others with their labours wearied out,
Went to sleep early to awake at dawn.
Book IV
Diplomacy and the Chase
An apparition in curl-papers awakes Thaddeus—The mistake discovered too late—The tavern—The emissary—The skilful use of a snuff-box turns the discussion into the right channel The Matecznik—The bear—The danger of Thaddeus and the Count—Three shots—The quarrel of the Sagalasowka with the Sanguszkowna, decided infavour of the single-barrelled Horeszkowska—The Bigos—The Wojski’s story of the duel between Dowejko and Domejko, interrupted by the hunting of a hare—The end of the story of Dowejko and Domejko.
O ye contemporaries of our great
Litvanian princes, trees of Bialowiez,
Switez, Ponary, and of Kuszelew,
Whose shadow fell upon the crowned heads
Of threatening Witenez and great Mindowe,105
And Gedymin, when on the Ponar mount,
Beside the hunter’s fire, upon a bear-skin
He lay, and heard the song of sage Lizdejko.
And lulled by sight of Wilia,106 and the murmur
Of the Wilejka, had the dream concerning
The iron wolf,107 and waking, by the god’s
Expressed commands, the city Wilna built,
Which sitteth ’mid the forests, as a wolf
Among the bisons, wild-boars, bears. And from
This city Wilna, as the Roman she-wolf,
Came Kiejstut, Olgierd, and the sons of Olgierd,108
As great in hunting as renowned in war,
The foe pursuing, or the savage game.
The hunter’s dream to us the secrets showed
Of future times, that ever unto Litva
Forests and iron shall be necessary.
Forests to hunting in you rode the last,
The last king, who the kolpak109 wore of Witold,
The last of the Jagellons, happy warrior,110
And the last hunter-monarch in Litvania.
My native trees! if Heaven yet permit
That I return to gaze on you, old friends,
Shall I yet find you there? do you still live,
You, whom I crept about once as a child?
Lives the great Baublis,111 with the mighty trunk,
Hollowed by years, wherein, as in a house,
Some twenty guests might at a table sup?
Does Mendog’s thicket flourish yet hard by
The parish church?112 and thither in the Ukraine,
Before the mansion of the Holowinskis,
Upon the banks of Ros, stands yet that elm
So widely spreading, that beneath its shade
A hundred youths, a hundred maidens might
Stand up to dance? Our monuments! how many
The Russian’s or the merchant’s axe each year
Devours! nor leaves unto the woodland singers
A refuge, nor unto the bards, to whom
Your shade was dear as ’twas unto the birds.
Witness that linden-tree in Czarnolas,
Responsive to the voice of John,113 that formed
The inspiration of so many rhymes.
Witness that oak that sings so many wonders
Unto the Cossack bard.114 O native trees,
How much I owe to you! Indifferent sportsman,
Escaping from my comrades’ mockery,
For missing game, I in your silence chased
Imaginings; forgetting all the hunt,
I sat within your close. The greybeard moss
Spread silvery round me, mingled with deep blue,
And black of rotten berries; and with red
The heathery hills were glowing, decked with berries,
As though with beads of coral. All around
Was darkness; overhead the branches hung
Like green, thick-gathering, low-lying clouds.
The storm somewhere above their moveless arch
Was raging, with a groaning, murmuring,
Howling, and rattling loud, and thunder-peal,
A wondrous deafening roar. To me it seemed
A hanging sea was raging overhead.
Below, like ruined cities, here stood up
The o’erthrow of an oak from out the ground,
In likeness of a mighty hulk; thereon
Leaning, like fragments of old walls and columns,
There, branchy trunks, and there half-rotten boughs
Enclosed by pale of grasses.
