Olenka looked at him with sidelong glance, glad that he was eating and drinking. When he had appeased his first hunger, she began again to inquire—
“Then you are not direct from Orsha?”
“Scarcely do I know whence I come—here today, tomorrow in another place. I prowled near the enemy as a wolf around sheep, and what was possible to seize I seized.”
“And how had you daring to meet such a power, before which the grand hetman himself had to yield?”
“How had I daring? I am ready for all things, such is the nature within me.”
“That is what my grandfather said. Great luck that you were not killed!”
“Ai, they covered me with cap and with hand as a bird is covered on the nest; but I, whom they covered, sprang out and bit them in another place. I made it so bitter for them that there is a price on my head—A splendid half-goose!”
“In the name of the Father and the Son!” cried Olenka, with unfeigned wonder, gazing with homage on that young man who in the same moment mentions the price on his head and the half-goose. “Had you many troops for defence?”
“I had, of course, my poor dragoons—very excellent men, but in a month they were all kicked to bits. Then I went with volunteers whom I gathered wherever I could without question. Good fellows for battle, but knave upon knave! Those who have not perished already will sooner or later be meat for the crows.”
Pan Andrei laughed, emptied his goblet of wine, and added: “Such plunderers you have not seen yet. May the hangman light them! Officers—all nobles from our parts, men of family, worthy people, but against almost every one of them is a sentence of outlawry. They are now in Lyubich, for where else could I send them?”
“So you have come to us with the whole squadron?”
“I have. The enemy took refuge in towns, for the winter is bitter. My men too are as ragged as brooms after long sweeping. The prince voevoda assigned me winter quarters in Ponyevyej. God knows the breathing-spell is well earned!”
“Eat, I beg you.”
“I would eat poison for your sake! I left a part of my ragged fellows in Ponyevyej, a part in Upita, and the most worthy officers I invited to Lyubich as guests. These men will come to beat to you with the forehead.”
“But where did the Lauda men find you?”
“They found me on the way to winter quarters in Ponyevyej. Had I not met them I should have come here.”
“But drink.”
“I would drink even poison for you!”
“Were the Lauda men the first to tell you of my grandfather’s death and the will?”
“They told of the death.—Lord, give light to the soul of my benefactor!—Did you send those men to me?”
“Think not such a thing! I had nothing but mourning and prayer on my mind.”
“They too said the same. They are an arrogant set of homespuns. I wanted to give them a reward for their toil; instead of accepting it, they rose against me and said that the nobility of Orsha might take drink-money, but the Lauda men never. They spoke very foully to me; while listening, I thought to myself: ‘If you don’t want money, then I’ll command to give you a hundred lashes.’ ”
Panna Aleksandra seized her head. “Jesus Mary! and did you do that?”
Kmita looked at her in astonishment. “Have no fears! I did not, though my soul revolts within me at such trashy nobility, who pretend to be the equal of us. But I thought to myself, ‘They will cry me down without cause in those parts, call me tyrant, and calumniate me before you!’ ”
“Great is your luck,” said Olenka, drawing a deep breath of relief, “for I should not have been able to look you in the eyes.”
“But how so?”
“That is a petty nobility, but ancient and renowned. My dear grandfather always loved them, and went with them to war. He served all his life with them. In time of peace he received them in his house. That is an old friendship of our family which you must respect. You have moreover a heart, and will not break that sacred harmony in which thus far we have lived.”
“I knew nothing of them at that moment—may I be slain if I did!—but yet I confess that this barefooted nobledom somehow cannot find place in my head. With us a peasant is a peasant, and nobles are all men of good family, who do not sit two on one mare. God knows that such scurvy fellows have nothing to do with the Kmitas nor with the Billeviches, just as a mudfish has nothing to do with a pike, though this is a fish and that also.”
“My grandfather used to say that blood and honor, not wealth, make a man; and these are honorable people, or grandfather would not have made them my guardians.”
Pan Andrei was astonished and opened wide his eyes, “Did your grandfather make all the petty nobility of Lauda guardians over you?”
“He did. Do not frown, for the will of the dead is sacred. It is a wonder to me that the messengers did not mention this.”
“I should have—But that cannot be. There is a number of villages. Will they all discuss about you? Will they discuss me—whether I am to their thinking or not? But jest not, for the blood is storming up in me.”
“Pan Andrei, I am not jesting; I speak the sacred and sincere truth. They will not debate about you; but if you will not repulse them nor show haughtiness, you will capture not only them, but my heart. I, together with them, will thank you all my life—all my life, Pan Andrei.”
Her voice trembled as if in a beseeching request; but
