CHAPTER XLI.
The following day peace reigned at the foot of Yasna Gora; takingadvantage of which, the monks were occupied the more earnestly inpreparations for defence. The last repairs were made in the walls andthe curtains, and still more appliances were prepared to serve inresisting assault.
From Zdebov, Krovodja, Lgota, and Grabuvka a number of tens of peasantsvolunteered, who had served before in the land-infantry. These wereaccepted and placed among the defenders. Kordetski doubled and trebledhimself. He performed divine service, sat in council, neglected thesick neither day nor night, and in the interval visited the walls,talked with nobles and villagers. Meanwhile he had in his face andwhole person a calm of such character that one might almost say itbelonged to stone statues only. Looking at his face, grown pale fromwatching, it might be thought that that man slept an easy and sweetsleep; but the calm resignation and almost joy burning in his eyes, hislips moving in prayer, announced that he watched, thought, prayed, andmade offerings for all. From his spirit, with all its powers intentupon God, faith flowed in a calm and deep stream; all drank of thisfaith with full lips, and whoso had a sick soul was made well. Whereverhis white habit was seen, there calm appeared on the faces of men,their eyes smiled, and their lips repeated: "Our kind father, ourcomforter, our defender, our good hope." They kissed his hands and hishabit; he smiled like the dawn, and went farther, while around him,above and before him, went confidence and serenity.
Still he did not neglect earthly means of salvation; the fathers whoentered his cell found him, if not on his knees, over letters which hesent in every direction. He wrote to Wittemberg, the commander-in-chiefat Cracow, imploring him to spare a sacred place; and to Yan Kazimir,who in Opola had made the last effort to save a thankless people; toStefan Charnyetski, held by his own word as on a chain at Syevyej; toCount Veyhard; and to Colonel Sadovski, a Lutheran Cheh, who servedunder Miller, but who, having a noble soul, had endeavored to dissuadethe fierce general from this attack on the cloister.
Two conflicting councils were held before Miller. Count Veyhard,irritated by the stubbornness which he had met on November 8, used allefforts to incline the general to a campaign; he promised him untoldtreasures and profit, he asserted that in the whole world there werescarcely churches which could be compared with Chenstohova or YasnaGora. Sadovski opposed in the following manner:--
"General," said he to Miller, "you who have taken so many famedfortresses that you have been justly named Poliorcetes by cities inGermany, know how much blood and time it may cost to take even theweakest fortress, if the assaulted are willing to resist unto death.
"But the monks will not resist?" asked Miller.
"I think just the contrary. The richer they are, the more stubborn adefence will they make; they are confident not only in the might ofarms, but in the sacredness of the place, which the Catholicsuperstition of this whole country considers inviolable. It is enoughto recall the German war; how often have monks given an example ofdaring and stubbornness, even in cases where soldiers themselvesdespaired of defence! It will take place this time too, all the moresince the fortress is not so insignificant as Count Veyhard would liketo consider it. It is situated on a rocky eminence difficult for theminer, the walls which, if they were not indeed in good condition, havebeen repaired before this time; and as to supplies of arms, powder, andprovisions, a cloister so rich has inexhaustible supplies; fanaticismwill animate their hearts and,--"
"And do you think, gracious colonel, that they will force me toretreat?"
"I do not think that, but I believe that we shall be forced to remainlong under the walls, we shall have to send for larger guns than thosewe have here, and you must go to Prussia. It is necessary to calculatehow much time we can devote to Chenstohova; for if his Grace the Kingof Sweden summons you from the siege for the more important affairs ofPrussia, the monks will report without fail that you were forced toretreat. And then think, your grace, what a loss your fame asPoliorcetes will sustain, not to speak of the encouragement which theresisting will find in the whole country. Only [here Sadovski loweredhis voice] let the mere intention of attacking this cloister be noisedabout, and it will make the worst impression. You do not know--for noforeigner, not a papist, can know--what Chenstohova is to this people.Very important for us are those nobles, who yielded so readily; thosemagnates; the quarter troops, who together with the hetmans, have comeover to our side. Without them we could not have done what we havedone. With their hands we have occupied half the country,--nay, morethan half; but let one shot fall at Chenstohova,--who knows? perhapsnot a Pole will remain with us. So great is the strength ofsuperstition! A new most terrible war may flame up!"
Miller recognized in his soul the justice of Sadovski's reasoning, allthe more since he considered monks in general, and the Chenstohovamonks in particular, wizards,--that Swedish general feared enchantmentsmore than guns; still wishing to irritate, and maybe prolong thedispute, he said,--
"You speak as though you were prior of Chenstohova, or as if they hadbegun to pay you a ransom."
Sadovski was a daring soldier and impulsive, and because he knew hisvalue he was easily offended.
"I will not say another word," answered he, haughtily.
Miller in his turn was angry at the tone in which the above words werespoken.
"I will make no further request of you," said he; "Count Veyhard isenough for me, he knows this country better."
"We shall see!" responded Sadovski, and went out of the room.
Count Veyhard in fact took his place. He brought a letter, which he hadreceived from Varshytski with a request to leave the cloister in peace;but from this letter the obstinate man drew counsel directly opposed.
"They beg," said he to Miller; "therefore they know that there will beno defence."
A day later the expedition against Chenstohova was decided upon atVyelunie.
It was not kept a secret; therefore Father Yatsek Rudnitski, provost ofthe monastery at Vyelunie, was able to go in time to Chenstohova withthe news. The poor monk did not admit for one moment that the people ofYasna Gora would defend themselves. He only wanted to forewarn them sothat they might know what course to take and seek favorable conditions.In fact, the news bowed down the minds of the monks. In some soulscourage weakened at once. But Kordetski strengthened it; he warmed thecold with the heat of his own heart, he promised days of miracle, hemade the very presence of death agreeable, and changed them so muchthrough the inspiration of his own soul that unwittingly they began toprepare for the attack as they were accustomed to prepare for greatchurch festivals,--hence with joy and solemnity.
The chiefs of the lay garrison, Zamoyski and Charnyetski, also madetheir final preparations. They burned all the shops which were nestledaround the walls of the fortress and which might lighten an assault forthe enemy; the buildings near the mountain were not spared either, sothat for a whole day a ring of flame surrounded the fortress; but whenthere remained of the shops merely the ashes of timbers and planks, theguns of the cloister had before them empty space, unhedged by anyobstacles. Their black jaws gaped freely into the distance, as ifsearching for the enemy impatiently and wishing to greet them at theearliest moment with ominous thunder.
Meanwhile winter was drawing near with swift step. A sharp north windwas blowing, swamps were turned into lumps of earth; and in themornings, water in shallow places was congealed into frail icy shells.The prior, Kordetski, making the rounds of the walls, rubbed his handsblue from cold, and said,--
"God will send frost to assist us. It will be hard to intrenchbatteries and dig mines; meanwhile you will take rest in warm rooms,and the north wind will soon disgust them with the siege."
But for this very reason Miller was anxious to finish quickly. He hadnine thousand troops, mostly infantry, and nineteen guns. He had alsotwo squadrons of Polish cavalry, but he could not count on them; first,because he could not employ the cavalry in taking the lofty fortress;and second, because the men wen
t unwillingly, and gave noticebeforehand that they would take no part in the struggles. They wentrather to protect the fortress, in case of capture, against the greedof the conquerors,--so at least the colonels declared to the soldiers;they went finally because the Swedes commanded, for the whole army ofthe country was in their camp and had to obey.
From Vyelunie to Chenstohova the road is short. On November 18 thesiege was to begin. But the Swedish general calculated that it wouldnot last above a couple of days, and that he would take the preciousfortress by negotiation.
Meanwhile Kordetski, the prior, prepared the souls of men. They went todivine services as on a great and joyous festival; and had it not beenfor the unquiet and pallor of some faces, it might have been supposedthat that was a joyous and solemn thanksgiving. The prior himselfcelebrated Mass; all the bells were ringing. The services did not endwith Mass, for a grand procession went out on the walls.
The prior, bearing the Most Holy Sacrament, was supported under thearms by Zamoyski and Pan Pyotr Charnyetski. In front walked young boysin robes, they carried censers with myrrh and incense; before and afterthe baldachin marched ranks of white-habited monks, with eyes and headsraised toward heaven,--men of various years, from decrepit old men totender youths who had just begun their novitiate. The yellow flames ofthe candles quivered in the air; but the monks moved onward and sang,buried altogether in God, as if mindful of naught else in the world.Behind them appeared the shaven temples of nobles, the tearful faces ofwomen, but calm beneath their tears, inspired with faith and trust;peasants marched also, long-haired, wearing coarse coats, resemblingthe primitive Christians; little children, maidens, and boys mingledwith the throng, joining their thin voices with the general chorus. AndGod heard that pouring forth of hearts, that fleeing from earthlyoppression to the single defence of His wings. The wind went down,the air grew calm, the heavens became azure, and the autumnal sunpoured a mild pale golden, but still warm, light on the earth. Theprocession passed once around the walls, but did not return, did notdisperse,--went farther. Rays from the monstrance fell on the face ofthe prior, and that face seemed golden and radiant from their light.Kordetski kept his eyes closed, and on his lips was a smile not ofearth,--a smile of happiness, of sweetness, of exaltation; his soul wasin heaven, in brightness, in endless delight, in unbroken calm. But asif taking orders from above, and forgetting not this earthly church,the men, the fortress, and that hour then impending, he halted atmoments, opened his eyes, elevated the monstrance, and gave blessing.
He blessed the people, the army, the squadrons, blooming like flowersand gleaming like a rainbow; he blessed the walls, and that eminencewhich looked down and around upon the land; he blessed the cannon, theguns, smaller and greater, the balls, iron and lead, the vessels withpowder, the planking at the cannon, the piles of harsh implements usedto repel the assaults of the enemy; he blessed the armies lying at adistance; he blessed the north, the south, the east, and the west, asif to cover that whole region, that whole land, with the power of God.
It had struck two in the afternoon, the procession was still on thewalls; but meanwhile on those edges, where the sky and the earth seemedto touch, a bluish haze was spread out, and just in that haze somethingbegan to shimmer, to move,--forms of some kind were creeping. At firstdim, unfolding gradually, these forms became every moment moredistinct. A cry was heard suddenly at the end of the procession,--
"The Swedes are coming; the Swedes are coming!"
Then silence fell, as if hearts and tongues had grown numb; bells onlycontinued to sound. But in the stillness the voice of the priorthundered, far reaching though calm,--
"Brothers, let us rejoice! the hour of victories and miracles isdrawing near!"
And a moment later he exclaimed: "Under Thy protection we take refuge.Our Mother, Our Lady, Our Queen!"
Meanwhile the Swedish cloud had changed into an immeasurable serpent,which was crawling forward ever nearer. Its terrible curves werevisible. It twisted, uncoiled; at one time it glittered under the lightwith its gleaming steel scales, fit another it grew dark, crawled,crawled on, emerged from the distance.
Soon eyes looking from the walls could distinguish everything indetail. In advance came the cavalry, after it infantry in quadrangles;each regiment formed a long rectangular body, over which rose a smallerone formed of erect spears; farther on, behind, after the infantry,came cannon with jaws turned rearward and inclined to the earth.
Their slowly moving barrels, black or yellowish, shone with evil omenin the sun; behind them clattered over the uneven road the powder-boxesand the endless row of wagons with tents and every manner of militaryappliance.
Dreadful but beautiful was that advance of a regular army, which movedbefore the eyes of the people on Yasna Gora, as if to terrify them. Alittle later the cavalry separated from the rest of the army andapproached at a trot, trembling like waves moved by wind. They brokesoon into a number of greater and smaller parties. Some pushed towardthe fortress; some in the twinkle of an eye scattered through theneighboring villages in pursuit of plunder; others began to ride aroundthe fortress, to examine the walls, study the locality, occupy thebuildings which were nearest. Single horsemen flew back continually asfast as a horse could gallop from the larger parties to the deepdivisions of infantry to inform the officers where they might disposethemselves.
The tramp and neighing of horses, the shouts, the exclamations, themurmur of thousands of voices, and the dull thump of cannon, camedistinctly to the ears of the besieged, who till that moment werestanding quietly on the wall, as if for a spectacle, looking withastonished eyes at that great movement and deploying of the enemy'stroops.
At last the infantry regiments arrived and began to wander around thefortress, seeking places best fitted for fortification. Now theystruck, on Chenstohovka, an estate near the cloister, in which therewere no troops, only peasants living in huts.
A regiment of Finns, who had come first, fell savagely on thedefenceless peasants. They pulled them out of the huts by the hair, andsimply cut down those who resisted; the rest of the people driven fromthe manor-house were pursued by cavalry and scattered to the fourwinds.
A messenger was sent with Miller's summons to surrender; he had alreadysounded his trumpet before the gates of the church; but the defenders,at sight of the slaughter and cruelty of the soldiers in Chenstohova,answered with cannon fire.
Now, when the people of the town had been driven out of all the nearerbuildings, and the Swedes had disposed themselves therein, it behoovedto destroy them with all haste, so that the enemy might not injure thecloister under cover of those buildings. Therefore the walls of thecloister began to smoke all around like the sides of a ship surroundedby a storm and by robbers. The roar of cannon shook the air till thewalls of the cloister were trembling, and glass in the windows of thechurch and other buildings was rattling. Fiery balls in the form ofwhitish cloudlets describing ill-omened arcs fell on the Swedish placesof refuge, they broke rafters, roofs, walls; and columns of smoke weresoon rising from the places into which balls had descended.
Conflagration had enwrapped the buildings. Barely had the Swedishregiments taken possession when they fled from the new quarters withall breath, and, uncertain of their positions, hurried about in variousdirections. Disorder began to creep among them; they removed the cannonnot yet mounted, so as to save them from being struck. Miller wasamazed; he had not expected such a reception, nor such gunners on YasnaGora.
Meanwhile night came, and since he needed to bring the army into order,he sent a trumpeter with a request for a cessation. The fathers agreedto that readily.
In the morning, however, they burned another enormous storehouse withgreat supplies of provisions, in which building the Westland regimenthad taken its quarters. The fire caught the building so quickly, theshots fell, one after another, with such precision that the Westlanderswere unable to carry off their muskets or ammunition, which exploded,hurling far around burning brands.
The Swedes did not sleep that nigh
t; they made preparations,entrenchments for the guns, filled baskets with earth, formed a camp.The soldiers, though trained during so many years in so many battles,and by nature valiant and enduring, did not wait for the following daywith joy. The first day had brought defeat.
The cannon of the cloister caused such loss among the Swedes that theoldest warriors were confounded, attributing this to careless approachto the fortress, and to going too near the walls.
But the next day, even should it bring victory, did not promise glory;for what was the capture of an inconsiderable fortress and a cloisterto the conquerors of so many famed cities, a hundred times betterfortified? The greed of rich plunder alone upheld their willingness,but that oppressive alarm with which the allied Polish squadrons hadapproached this greatly renowned Yasna Gora was imparted in amysterious way to the Swedes. Some of them trembled at the thought ofsacrilege, while others feared something indefinite, which they couldnot explain, and which was known under the general name of enchantment.Miller himself believed in it; why should not the soldiers believe?
It was noticed that when Miller was approaching the church of SaintBarbara, the horse under him slipped suddenly, started back, distendedhis nostrils, pricked up his ears, snorted with fright, and refused toadvance. The old general showed no personal alarm; still the next dayhe assigned that place to the Prince of Hesse, and marched himself withthe heavier guns to the northern side of the cloister, toward thevillage of Chenstohova; there he made intrenchments during the night,so as to attack in the morning.
Barely had light begun to gleam in the sky when heavy artillery firingbegan; but this time the Swedish guns opened first. The enemy did notthink of making a breach in the walls at once, so as to rush through itto storm; he wanted only to terrify, to cover the church and thecloister with balls, to set fire, to dismount cannon, to kill people,to spread alarm.
A procession went out again on the walls of the fortress, for nothingstrengthened the combatants like a view of the Holy Sacrament, and themonks marching forward with it calmly. The guns of the cloisteranswered,--thunder for thunder, lightning for lightning, so far as thedefenders were able, so far as breath held out in the breast. The veryearth seemed to tremble in its foundations. A sea of smoke stretchedover the cloister and the church.
What moments, what sights for men who had never in their lives beheldthe bloody face of war! and there were many such in the fortress. Thatunbroken roar, lightnings, smoke, the howling of balls tearing the air,the terrible hiss of bombs, the clatter of shot on the pavement, thedull blows against the wall, the sound of breaking windows, theexplosions of bursting bombs, the whistling of fragments of them, thebreaking and cracking of timbers; chaos, annihilation, hell!
In those hours there was not a moment of rest nor cessation; breastshalf-suffocated with smoke, every moment new flocks of cannon-balls;and amid the confusion shrill voices in various parts of the fortress,the church, and the cloister, were crying,--
"It is on fire! water, water!"
"To the roof with barefooted men! more cloth!"
"Aim the cannon higher!--higher!--aim at the centre of thebuildings--fire!"
About noon the work of death increased still more. It might seem that,if the smoke were to roll away, the Swedes would see only a pile ofballs and bombs in place of the cloister. A cloud of lime, struck fromthe walls by the cannon, rose up, and mingling with the smoke, hid thelight. Priests went out with relics to exorcise these clouds, lest theymight hinder defence. The thunders of cannon were interrupted, but wereas frequent as the breath gulps of a panting dragon.
Suddenly on a tower, newly built after a fire of the previous year,trumpets began to sound forth the glorious music of a church hymn. Thatmusic flowed down through the air and was heard round about, was heardeverywhere, as far as the batteries of the Swedes. The sound of thetrumpets was accompanied by the voices of people, and amidst thebellowing and whistling, amidst the shouts, the rattle and thunder ofmuskets, were heard the words,--
"Mother of God, Virgin, Glorified by God Mary!"
Here a number of bombs burst; the cracking of rafters and beams, andthen the shout: "Water!" struck the ear, and again the song flowed onin calmness.
"From Thy Son the Lord Send down to us, win for us, A time of bread, a time of plenty."
Kmita, who was standing on the wall at the cannon, opposite the villageof Chenstohova, in which Miller's quarters were, and whence thegreatest fire came, pushed away a less accurate cannoneer to begin workhimself; and worked so well that soon, though it was in November andthe day cold, he threw off his fox-skin coat, threw off his vest, andtoiled in his trousers and shirt.
The hearts grew in people unacquainted with war, at sight of thissoldier blood and bone, to whom all that was passing--that bellowing ofcannon, those flocks of balls, that destruction and death--seemed asordinary an element as fire to a salamander.
His brow was wrinkled, there was fire in his eyes, a flush on hischeeks, and a species of wild joy in his face. Every moment he bent tothe cannon, altogether occupied with the aiming, altogether given tothe battle, thinking of naught else; he aimed, lowered, raised, at lastcried, "Fire!" and when Soroka touched the match, he ran to the openingand called out from time to time,--
"One by the side of the other!"
His eagle eyes penetrated through smoke and dust, and when among thebuildings he saw somewhere a dense mass of caps or helmets, straightwayhe crushed it with an accurate shot, as if with a thunderbolt. At timeshe burst out into laughter when he had caused greater or lessdestruction. The balls flew over him and at his side,--he did not lookat anything; suddenly, after a shot he sprang to the opening, fixed hiseyes in the distance, and cried,--
"The gun is dismounted! Only three pieces are playing there now!"
He did not rest until midday. Sweat was pouring from him, his shirt wassteaming; his face was blackened with soot, and his eyes glittering.Pyotr Charnyetski himself wondered at his aim, and said to himrepeatedly,--
"War is nothing new to you; that is clear at a glance. Where have youlearned it so well?"
At three o'clock in the afternoon a second Swedish gun was silent,dismounted by Kmita's accurate aim. They drew out the remaining gunsfrom the intrenchments about an hour later. Evidently the Swedes sawthat the position was untenable.
Kmita drew a deep breath.
"Rest!" said Charnyetski to him.
"Well! I wish to eat something. Soroka, give me what you have at hand."
The old sergeant bestirred himself quickly. He brought some gorailka ina tin cup and some dried fish. Kmita began to eat eagerly, raising hiseyes from time to time and looking at the bombs flying over at no greatdistance, just as if he were looking at crows. But still they flew inconsiderable number, not from Chenstohova, but from the opposite side;namely, all those which passed over the cloister and the church.
"They have poor gunners, they point too high," said Pan Andrei, withoutceasing to eat; "see, they all go over us, and they are aimed at us."
A young monk heard these words,--a boy of seventeen years, who had justentered his novitiate. He was the first always to bring balls forloading, and he did not leave his place though every vein in him wastrembling from fear, for he saw war for the first time. Kmita made anindescribable impression on him by his calmness, and hearing his wordshe took refuge near him with an involuntary movement as if wishing toseek protection and safety under the wings of that strength.
"Can they reach us from that side?" asked he.
"Why not?" answered Kmita. "And why, my dear brother, are you afraid?"
"I thought," answered the trembling youth, "that war was terrible; butI did not think it was so terrible."
"Not every bullet kills, or there would not be men in the world, therewould not be mothers enough to give birth to them."
"I have the greatest fear of those fiery balls, those bombs. Why dothey burst with su
ch noise? Mother of God, save us! and they woundpeople so terribly."
"I will explain to you, and you will discover by experience, youngfather. That ball is iron, and inside it is loaded with powder. In oneplace there is an opening rather small, in which is a fuse of paper orsometimes of wood."
"Jesus of Nazareth! is there a fuse in it?"
"There is; and in the fuse some tow steeped in sulphur, which catchesfire when the gun is discharged. Then the ball should fall with thefuse toward the ground, so as to drive it into the middle; then thefire reaches the powder and the ball bursts. But many balls do not fallon the fuse; that does not matter, however, for when the fire burns tothe end, the explosion comes."
On a sudden Kmita stretched out his hand and cried, "See, see! you havean experiment."
"Jesus! Mary! Joseph!" cried the young brother, at sight of the comingbomb.
The bomb fell on the square that moment, and snarling and rushing alongbegan to bound on the pavement, dragging behind a small blue smoke,turned once more, and rolling to the foot of the wall on which theywere sitting, fell into a pile of wet sand, which it scattered high tothe battlement, and losing its power altogether, remained withoutmotion.
Luckily it had fallen with the fuse up; but the sulphur was notquenched, for the smoke rose at once.
"To the ground! on your faces!" frightened voices began to shout. "Tothe ground, to the ground!"
But Kmita at the same moment sprang to the pile of sand, with alightning movement of his hand caught the fuse, plucked it, pulled itout, and raising his hand with the burning sulphur cried,--
"Rise up! It is just as if you had pulled the teeth out of a dog! Itcould not kill a fly now."
When he had said this, he kicked the bomb, those present grew numb atsight of this deed, which surpassed human daring, and for a certaintime no one made bold to speak; at last Charnyetski exclaimed,--
"You are a madman! If that had burst, it would have turned you intopowder!"
Pan Andrei laughed so heartily that his teeth glittered.
"But do we not need powder? You could have loaded a gun with me, andafter my death I could have done harm to the Swedes."
"May the bullets strike you! Where is your fear?"
The young monk placed his hands together and looked with mute homage onKmita. But the deed was also seen by Kordotski, who was approaching onthat side. He came up, took Pan Andrei with his hands by the head, andthen made the sign of the cross on him.
"Such men as you will not surrender Yasna Gora; but I forbid exposing aneedful life to danger. When the firing is over and the enemy leave thefield, take that bomb, pour the powder out of it, and bear it to theMost Holy Lady. That gift will be dearer to Her than those pearls andbright stones which you offered Her."
"Father," answered Kmita, deeply moved, "what is there great in that?For the Most Holy Lady I would--Oh! words do not rise in my mouth--Iwould go to torments, to death. I know not what I would not do to serveHer."
Tears glistened in the eyes of Pan Andrei, and the prior said,--
"Go to Her with those tears before they dry. Her favor will flow tothee, calm thee, comfort thee, adorn thee with glory and honor."
When he had said this he took him by the arm and led him to the church.Pan Charnyetski looked after them for a time. At last he said,--
"I have seen many daring men in my life, who counted no danger tothemselves; but this Lithuanian is either the D----"
Here Charnyetski closed his mouth with his hand, so not to speak a foulname in the holy place.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Means "On the sea."]
[Footnote 2: Pereyaslav will be remembered by the readers of FIRE ANDSWORD as the place where the Polish commissioners with Adam Kiselbrought the baton and banner from the king to Hmelnitski.]
[Footnote 3: "Two-bridges." the Bipont of page 523, Vol. II.]
[Footnote 4: This word means technically "villages inhabited by pettynobles:" etymologically it means "behind walls,"--hence, "beyond oroutside the walls," as above.]
[Footnote 5: This war was carried on by the Tsar Alexis, father ofPeter the Great and son of Michael Romanoff. Set Introduction.]
[Footnote 6: The speech of the main body of the people in Jmud isLithuanian to this day.]
[Footnote 7: Lithuanian forms, with nominative ending in _s_ and _as_.]
[Footnote 8: The diminutive or more familiar form for Aleksandra. It isused frequently in this book.]
[Footnote 9: The diminutive of Andrei.]
[Footnote 10: A barber in those parts at that time did duty for asurgeon.]
[Footnote 11: Marysia and Maryska are both diminutives of Marya = Mariaor Mary, and are used without distinction by the author. There are inPolish eight or ten other variants of the same name.]
[Footnote 12: It is the custom to put a watermelon in the carriage ofan undesirable suitor,--a refusal without words.]
[Footnote 13: Deest = lacking.]
[Footnote 14: The name Grudzinski is derived from gruda = clod.]
[Footnote 15: See Daniel v. 25-28.]
[Footnote 16: Helena.]
[Footnote 17: The war against Russia.]
[Footnote 18: This Polish saying of striking out a wedge with a wedgemeans here, of course, to cure one love with another.]
[Footnote 19: "Others" here = "Russians."]
[Footnote 20: Prince Yeremi Vishnyevetski.]
[Footnote 21: Volodyovski was from the Ukraine.]
[Footnote 22: Charnyetski was pock-marked.]
[Footnote 23: The Russians.]
[Footnote 24: Saturday.]
[Footnote 25: Friday.]
[Footnote 26: Russians.]
[Footnote 27: Tsargrad = Tsar's city, Constantinople.]
[Footnote 28: "A boat and a carriage" means you can go by either,--thatis, by land or water: you have your choice.]
[Footnote 29: So called because they wore shoes made from the innerbark of basswood or linden trees.]
[Footnote 30: Bright Mountain.]
END OF VOL. I.
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