On the Field of Glory: An Historical Novel of the Time of King John SobieskiSienkiewicz, Henryk
History
On the Field of Glory: An Historical Novel of the Time of King John Sobieski
Sienkiewicz, Henryk
Poland -- History -- John III Sobieski, 1674-1696 -- Fiction
And he shook his sabre, threateningly, while the Bukoyemskis began to
grit their teeth straightway.
"Let him try! let him try!" said they.
"But, gentlemen," said Vilchopolski, "you are going to the war."
"We will arrange then in another way," replied Father Voynovski.
Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the butler. He
had brought trunks filled with the wardrobe of Panna Sieninski which,
as he said, he did only with difficulty. The Krepetski sisters tried to
prevent him, and even wished to wake Martsian, and keep the trunks in
the mansion, but they could not wake him; and the butler persuaded them
that they should not act thus, both in view of their own good and that
of their brother, otherwise an action would be brought against them for
robbery, and they would be summoned for damages before a tribunal. As
women who do not know law they were frightened and yielded. The butler
thought that Martsian would try surely to get back the young lady, but
he did not think that the man would use violence immediately.
"He will be restrained from that," said the butler, "by his father, who
understands well the significance of _raptus puellae_. He knows nothing
yet of what has happened, but from here I will go to him directly and
explain the whole matter, for two reasons. First, so that he may
restrain Martsian, and second, because I do not wish to be in
Belchantska to-morrow when Martsian wakes and learns that I have helped
the young lady in fleeing. He would rush on me surely, and then to one
of us something ugly might happen."
Pan Serafin and Father Voynovski praised the man's prudence and,
finding that he was a well-wishing person, and experienced, a man who
had eaten bread from more than one oven, and to whom law itself was no
novelty, begged him to aid in examining the question. There were two
councils then, one of these being formed of the four Bukoyemskis.
Pan Serafin, knowing how to restrain them most easily from murderous
intentions, and detain them at home, sent a large demijohn of good mead
to the brothers; this they were glad to besiege at the moment, and
began to drink one to another. Their hearts were moved, and they
remembered involuntarily the night when Panna Anulka crossed for the
first time the threshold of that house there in Yedlinka. They recalled
how they had fallen in love with her straightway, how through her they
had quarrelled, and then in one voice adjudged her to Stanislav, and
thus made an offering of their passion to friendship.
At last Mateush drank his mead, put his head on his palm, sighed, and
continued,--
"Yatsek was sitting that night on a tree like a squirrel. Who could
have thought then that he was just the man to whom the Lord God had
given her?"
"And commanded us to continue in our orphanhood," added Marek.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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