“Have found no husband yet, lass?—A rope’s end you shall get, lass!”
The noise in the room, with the racket and scampering and squealing, waxed louder and louder; and the merriment grew to its height, when the bear began to frolic wildly, rolling on the floor, roaring, leaping for fun, and catching at the girls with his long wooden arms, making them dance to the tunes played on Michael’s fife: the two bear-leaders, meanwhile, and the lads who accompanied them, making such an uproar that the old cabin might well have fallen to pieces with the horseplay and the din and fun of it.
Then, Klemba’s wife having treated them very bountifully, they left the place; but far along the road came the sound of shouting men and barking dogs.
“Who played the bear?” Sohova asked, when they had quieted down.
“Could ye not find out? Why, Yasyek Topsy-turvy.”
“How could I know him, with that shaggy head of fur?”
“My dear,” Kobusova observed, “for such games as that, the doodle has quite enough sense.”
“Yasyek is not such a fool as ye make him out to be!” said Nastka, taking his part. No one contradicted her; but sly significant smiles flickered on many faces. They again sat down and began chattering merrily. The girls, headed by Yuzka, who was the least shy of them all, crowded round the fireplace where Roch sat, coaxing and teasing him to tell them some such story as he had told at Boryna’s in the autumn.
“Well, Yuzka, do you remember the tale I told you then?”
“Certainly: ’twas about the Lord Jesus and His dog Burek.”
“If ye care, I will tell this evening about our kings of old.”
They placed a stool for him beneath the lamp, made a circle round him, and he sat in their midst like an old hoary oak in a clearing, compassed about with a clump of many bushes. He spoke deliberately and in a quiet voice.
A hush fell upon them all; only the spindles hummed on, and the logs crackled now and again upon the hearth. And Roch told them many a marvellous tale: of the kings and the bloody wars of old; of the mountains amidst which there now sleeps an army of enchanted warriors, awaiting but the sound of the trumpet to start up and fall on the foe and purge the land of evil; of the great castles, in whose golden chambers white-clad enchanted princesses, expecting their deliverer, mourn in the moonlit nights; and of those where music is heard nightly in the empty rooms, and multitudes assemble there to dance, who at cockcrow vanish and go back to their tombs. They listened; the spindles no longer twisted under their fingers; their minds went forth into that world of marvels, and their eyes flashed, and tears of ineffable rapture welled up, their hearts well-nigh bursting their bosoms with longing and amazement.
Roch wound up by telling them of a king nicknamed by his nobles the “Peasant King,” because he was humane, just and good to all folk alike; of his terrible wars, and of his wanderings in the disguise of a peasant, when he went about the land and lived with his people as a brother, so that he knew of the evil things done, and could redress the wrongs; and how, after that, that he might be yet more at one with the peasants, he married a husbandman’s daughter, Sophia by name, who dwelt nigh Krakow; and, taking her to the castle in that city, he reigned there for many years, the father of his people, and the best husbandman in the country.
To all this they listened with rapt attention, not missing one word, and even holding their breath for fear of interrupting the stream of wonders told them. As to Yagna, she was now quite unable to spin any more; her hands had fallen to her sides, and with head bowed and one cheek pressed on the top of her distaff, she fixed her turquoise-blue eyes on Roch’s face. He seemed to her like a saint, come out of a picture-frame; so holy he looked, with his grey hair, his long white beard, and those pale eyes of his that seemed to be gazing at something far away. She listened with all her might—the might of an exceedingly impressionable heart—so earnestly taking in all he said, that emotion hardly suffered her to breathe. His words brought everything plainly before her mind’s eye; and where he led, she too followed in spirit.—What struck her most of all was his tale about the king and his peasant queen; oh, how beautiful she thought it!
“And did the king himself live so—together with the peasants?” Klemba asked, after a long silence.
“He did.”
“Lord!” whispered Nastka; “if a king spoke to me, I should die of fear!”
“And I would follow him all over the world to get one word from him … one word!” Yagna cried, passionately.
They then put many a question to Roch. Where could those castles be found? and that army? and those great riches and beautiful things? and those kings, so mighty?—where?
He answered, somewhat sadly, but with wisdom, pointing out to them so many a deep truth and holy maxim that they all sighed, and fell to reflecting on the ways of God’s providence in this world.
“Yes,” said Klemba, “today is ours; tomorrow belongs to the Lord!”
But Roch was tired, and needed some rest. As all were highly interested in the wonderful tales told, each began, at first in whispers, and then aloud, to tell of such things as they too had heard.
One told one tale, another a second, and this reminded a third of something else, each bringing in a fresh point of interest. So the tales glided on like spun threads, and softly as the moonbeams that
