There is a strange legend concerning the origin of the Carpathians, which, now towering abruptly, now rising in gentler lines, form a mighty wall of separation between the rich lowlands where the Theiss flows and that vast plain, of heath-country diversified with fertile tracts, stretching away southward beyond the Pruth into Roumania. To those blue-green domes cling the gathering clouds, and sailing away thence they burst in storms of rain upon the Magyar or upon the Ruthen, as the capricious winds may list; and in those forest-haunts the rivers rise which come down from the heights, headlong at first and wondrously clear, but flowing wearily as they reach the plain. The dwellers round about differ in race and tongue; but they look to the mountains as to a common centre, where the weather is born, and whence the water is given for the lowlands; and common to all is that quaintest of legends, whether Slav, or Magyar, or Roumanian--a legend crudely imagined, but not without a meaning of its own, however fancifully expressed.
There was a good old time, the people will tell you, at the beginning of things, when the earth was a fair garden, a fertile plain, with pleasant groves here and there, and gentle hills. There were no mountains, no ravenous beasts, no thunder storms, no bursting waters, and the people were of one race and tongue. Men were happy in those far-off times--tilling the soil, and living on the fruits of this beautiful plain. And God would visit the garden He had made, and bless the children of men. But these foolish people were not content, and, uniting in their pride, they clamoured for golden harvests without previous toil; in punishment whereof the Lord God ceased to visit them, confounding their language so that they could no longer clamour in common, and permitting, moreover, a mighty barrier to be raised between them--the great Carpathians--to separate them into different tribes.
For the enemy of men was sent to raise the mountains, and to make them terrible withal. The heaving earth burst upward, and there were peaks and crags to frown at the discontented race. The evil one took seven days to shape the Carpathians, beginning on a Sunday, on which he heaped up the most towering parts, and finishing off with the lesser Carpathians on the seventh day when his power was nearly spent; that was Saturday, for which reason no doubt this part has always been a dwelling-place of Jews.
The mountain range of seven divisions, as is plainly to be seen, was of awful aspect, since the evil had the making of them: not a tree or green thing would grow to clothe the riven rocks and the peaks he had raised to spread terror upon the once smiling plain. For the Lord God had been wroth with men.
But there was One in heaven, the good Saviour, who prayed His Father not to be angry for ever, but to let Him add beauty to the mountains which the evil one had made for the punishment of men.
He went, and at His touch the whole range was changed, not losing its dread gloominess, yet gaining a wondrous beauty over and above. For the Saviour with His pitiful hand covered the bare mountains with the grandest forests ever seen, surrounding the rocks with spreading verdure, and planting flowers at their feet. He made waters to spring in every glen, and cascades leap from the crags; and though wolves and bears went prowling, He created sheep and the dappled deer to browse in the sylvan haunts. And ever since, the people will tell you, the Carpathians have had a beauty of their own, but with terror combined.
It is hardly to be imagined how a man would feel who, by some magic, were to find himself suddenly transplanted into the heart of these mountains. For unmoved he could not be, were his perceptions never so blunted; a sensation of awe would steal upon him with something of wonder and dismay. Nay, such a feeling must come upon any wanderer ascending step by step from the lowlands, though the gradual rise would prepare him in a measure for the weird grandeur and stern beauty unrolling before his eyes.
To such a one the range at first would appear as a gigantic ridge of clouds heaped up on the horizon, but differing in hue according to the time of day; of a bluish black in the morning, they fade into shades of grey, transparently pale in the full daylight, till the sinking sun suffuses them with a crimson blush, and they continue shining through the long twilight like a wall of fire at the far end of the dusky plain. But the following morning those same shapes are black again, and all the darker if the air be clear--a wall of towering density jutting its pinnacles into the ethereal blue.
They seem approaching, but the vast plain is delusive; they are yet miles away. The landscape, however, has left monotony behind, growing more changeful at every turn. The moorland has disappeared, with its sedgy pools, instead of which there is an abundance of rivulets, growing more limpid and more headlong as you proceed; for you are ascending steadily, your horizon enlarging. Cornfields are few and far between, wheat making room for the more hardy oats; while all about you there are great tracts of brownish uplands, where juniper bushes are plentiful and the heather will burst into sheets of bloom. Villages are becoming scarce--mere hamlets, too poor for a manor house, too poor almost for a church, and with cottages of the humblest, the public-house alone retaining its undesirable dimensions. Orchards are no longer to be seen, but beech woods increase; the forest encloses you, and soon even the beech is crowded out by the fir. The sky, wherever it appears through the jagged branches, is of a deeper blue, for there are no misty vapours here as in the lowlands; but the air is filled with a strange, crisp perfume, the resinous exhalations of pine wood. Every sense thus is alive to the change of scenery, and if you are a lover of your lowland home, despite its dreariness, you will be overtaken by a haunting sensation of fear of the unknown world you have entered.
But emerging from the pine wood presently, and looking back from the height you have gained, the very plain behind you has assumed another aspect, a strange loveliness enwrapping it. The old homely expanse is aglow with an emerald hue--a giant meadow seemingly--streaked with the silver of its flowing waters; a shining greensward, the brighter for its cottages; and far yonder, where the blue of the heavens seems mingling with the green of the earth, your own dwelling perchance, a fair jewel in a radiant setting.
But the far-off wall, with its towering blackness? It has resolved itself magically. To your right and to your left, and above you, there are round-domed mountains and bolder peaks rising atop of one another to an immeasurable height. That path up the pine wood has brought you into the heart of the Carpathians, and their strange beauty, weird and wild and unspeakably mysterious, is upon you suddenly.
Yet monotony is even here; the world seems a sea of swaying pines, and the eye has nothing to rest it from the gloomy green save the sky, vast and blue. The heart grows lonely and wistful, but scarcely attuned to tender thoughts as amid the voices of the plain. The spell of the forest wilds is upon it, bracing it up to its own sterner kind. Resistless and tossing, each torrent dashes through its rocky glen, breaking into clouds of spray about the boulders, and mantling the young pines in a shower of shining drops. And from the forest deeps strange music is heard of groaning branches and whispering tree tops, now wild and solemn, now murmuring as in dreams, never ceasing, but going on for ever like the song of the sea. And as you listen you are caught in a trance, and drawn deeper still into the witching region. Nature here does not captivate by little gifts and graces; but, having looked at you once with eyes of kindling beauty, wild, weird, and awful, you worship at her feet.
It is a charm both chaste and powerful, and, having known it once, you seek to know more. But not many are admitted to that delight, which is still reserved for the few--even as in the days when Taras Barabola repaired up yonder to unfurl his banner. Yet occasionally some lover of the wilder aspects of nature will quit the shores of the Theiss or the Fruth to seek entrance into the enchanted regions of that unknown world. The forest wilds of the Welyki Lys to this day are given over to bears, hajdamaks, and Huzuls, and the lowland folk aver that there is little to chose between either. But that is a libel.
Even a bear up yonder is as good-natured as a bear can be, not having made the closer acquaintance of man. A hunter by nature, he hates being hunted, and grows surly in consequence; nay, it must be owned that in the more inhabited parts he has quite lost his nativebonhomie, growing cunning and spiteful, robbing more than his need, and killing for mere blood-thirstiness. Not so, however, up among the wilds. He is lord in possession there; behaving, accordingly, with a pride of his own, and not without generosity. Of course he will have his daily tribute, and fetches it too--now from this fold, now from that; but the shepherds and herdsmen quite understand this. There is no help against the lord of the soil, they say; but the bear, on the whole, is at least a convenient landlord, fetching himself what he wants, and not expecting you to carry it after him. Not fiercely as a robber, therefore, nor stealthily as a thief; but leisurely and with dignity, Master Bruin arrives at the pen, picks out his victim--the sheep, goat, or calf which takes his fancy--and walks away with it as quietly and unconcernedly as he came. And he behaves most fairly, not oppressing one unfortunate subject more than another, but visiting in succession all the pens and folds within a certain radius of his lair; so that he may be looked for at pretty regular intervals. The herdsmen have an idea that he acts from a positive sense of justice; while others, less credulous, are of opinion that the bear of the Carpathians is a great walker, and thus naturally finds himself now in this quarter, now in that, turning to the nearest sheep-fold when it is time for his dinner. That the queer biped he meets occasionally might also serve him for a meal, he generously ignores. If he falls in with a herdsman, he gives a growl: "With your leave, brother, there is room for us both." He growls too, though more angrily, on meeting any stranger, but rarely thinks it worth while to attack him; and if he comes across any one asleep he will have a sniff at him, but without a thought of hurting.
While the wolf, that low, ugly creature, is hated and hunted down everywhere, a strange feeling of respect prevents any native of the upper mountains from killing a bear. "The poor little father has none too easy a life of it," they say, "and it is not well to murder an honest fellow." There is a tale preserved in the forest of an Englishman who once arrived there with the notion of bear-hunting. But although he had muskets of wrought silver, and held them out as presents to any who would help him, not many were found wicked enough to join in the chase. "Indeed," say the people, "all who went were frozen to death, the bad Englishman first and foremost. It served him right for wishing to hunt the poor little father." The very outlaw, the homeless hajdamak, shares this feeling; and hunting for the pleasure of it, whatever he falls in with in the lower forest regions, he acts peaceably in the upper haunts. "We go shares with the bear up here," he says, "and he behaves well to us."
The Huzul also, that hybrid of Slavonic and Mongolian blood, who lives up yonder as a herdsman, hunting the wolf and the deer, and tilling such bits of ground as he can, is not nearly so bad as he is believed to be by his betters in the lowlands. His one great vice is an ingrained want of morality, his own share, handed down from his fathers, of original sin.
His ancestors, drifting away from the great wave of migration, unused to a settled home and personal property, knew neither Christianity nor the wedded estate. Their descendant has accepted all these fetters of lawlessness, but he wears them lightly, according to his nature. He has submitted to a settled dwelling, having a hut of his own, but he will not live in it except when he cannot help himself. From the time the snow begins to melt, until it lies again mountains deep for seven months in the year, the Huzul moves about with his cattle from pasture to pasture, from glen to glen, as though driven, not only by outward necessity, but also by a mysterious inward need. While the world is green--winter to him being the black time--he is never long on the soil of his own property. He must return at times to till his field, to sow and reap his oats--the hardest and most unwelcome of labour; hemustdo it, else he would die for want of food, but he never thinks of adding to his wealth by means of agriculture. Every lamb rejoices his heart, and he is proud of his foals; but if he enlarges his oat-field, it is only because of the downright necessity of meeting his wants, and nothing beyond.
Neither is he greatly advanced in his notions of personal property. To be sure there are certain fields, and pastures, and flocks, belonging to certain settlements, these consisting of three or four, sometimes even of ten or twelve families of the same kindred, and united under one head who rules by birthright. This chief appoints the sowing of the fields and the management of the sheep, but not a grain of oats, nor solitary lambkin belongs to him any more than to another. It is all common property. Indeed, there are even pastures and flocks which are the joint property of several settlements, so that a single lamb may happen to belong to several hundred owners. Such property is managed, and the proceeds are allotted at the meeting of the married men, who, though of different settlements, are yet related to one another; for such common ownership always springs from the fact that their forefathers formed one family, which, growing too large, had divided for want of space. There is no personal property then, save wearing apparel and arms; everything else belongs to the family, which means to the clan. The student of political economy, it will be seen, could enrich his knowledge among the Huzuls!
They are no favourites with the clergy. They are Catholics to be sure, of the Greek Church, but a good deal of their ancestors' heathenism has survived, and their lowland neighbours say of them that a cat is as good a Christian as they when she crosses her paws. They take care to have their children christened in the name of some saint, and they know that there is a God Almighty living up yonder with the Virgin Mary and their Son, and that there are lots of angels and devils, and of saints no end. This is the extent of their catechism, except, perhaps, that some few can repeat the Lord's Prayer after a fashion. There is no helpful pastor to feed these poor sheep, showing them the comfort they require as much as any. For they also are part of the groaning creation struggling with the sore riddle of existence, and their sense of helplessness is the greater because their lot is cast amid supremest hardships, leaving them too often the prey of the blind forces of nature. As much, then, as any of the striving children of men they are in need of the assurance that there is a Compassion more than human; but who is there to tell them the good news?
There are popes in the distant villages whose nominal parishioners they are. "Why do they not come to church, then?" Innocent question! The journey would take several days, even if they remembered they would be welcome. But since there is nothing to remind them of the far-off church and pope, how should they remember? And so Christianity to them has resolved itself into the legendary knowledge of the heavenly household, a poor, useless knowledge, although the Huzul does his best to grasp the idea of the Godhead, clothing it in his own image. The Almighty to his perception is a just Huzulean patriarch, something like Hilarion Rosenko dwelling by the "Black Water;" the Virgin Mary a kindly housewife; and Christ, the Saviour, a great, noble hunter, whom the spiteful hajdamaks killed for entering their domain. They don't quite understand why the popes should keep talking about this Saviour as though He were alive still; for if He is, why does He not show Himself among the mountains? But besides this "Christian" belief, they keep up the institution of those shining divinities worshipped by their ancestors of old--the sun, the moon, and the host of stars. These, happily, can be seen, and their blessings felt--the light and the warmth they shed upon the darksome wilds. But who shall save them from the powers of evil about them; from the stormy whirlwind rushing through the forests, uprooting the strongest trees and sweeping away the sheltering roof of their homestead? Who shall help them against the wicked sprites whose gambols produce snowdrifts, burying men and cattle? or who protect them from the evil witch stealing about in the gloaming with sickness in her train? For they are surrounded with uncanny beings of whom they know nothing save the ill-effects they feel, and they know but one means of pacifying them--as one pacifies an ill-natured neighbour, by occasional bribery.
These strangest of Christians and dwellers of the mountain wilds even manage to die without the pope's assistance. When some aged pilgrim lies at the point of death on the couch of bear and sheepskins they have spread for him, neither he nor his people give a thought to the ghostly shepherd of the nearest manse. What would be the use, indeed, if they did think of him, since it would take him at least nine days to come and return? so it is out of the question, and it is as well that neither the dying man nor his weeping relatives miss the spiritual comfort. One of them says the Lord's Prayer, adding some other mystic charm with which these poor people strive to pacify the divinities they believe in, the sufferer repeats the words with his dying breath and expires without anxiety on that score. When the corpse has stiffened, they bury it beneath some forest tree, cutting a great cross into the bole, not forgetting some mysterious signs to its right and left "for the other gods."
If, then, they manage even to die without the aid of a parish priest, it is scarcely to be wondered at if they do not need him to tie the nuptial knot. When any man and woman among them, generally of riper years, have agreed to spend their future days in common, this is a matter, they think, which concerns no one beyond themselves except the heads of their settlements, who never withhold their blessing unless the bridal pair should happen to be of different settlements at variance at the time about some bit of property or act of violence. If such is not the case the wedding is fixed upon forthwith, and word is sent over the mountains: "Come to the homestead of Marko, on such and such a day, when long-legged Sefko will take curly Magdusia to wife." And everybody is sure to come, bringing little gifts of kindness, and taking their fill of the schnaps which the heads of the settlements have procured in exchange for some sheep in honour of the guests. And when the last drop has been consumed, Sefko and Magdusia are looked upon as married, which does not always imply a change in the place of abode of either of them.
As for the pope's blessing, it is not disregarded on principle, since even the other gods are remembered; only there is no hurry. Sefko has no idea that Magdusia, in order to be his really, must be given to him by the pope, and so he takes his time about it, presenting himself for the blessing when opportunity offers, maybe the christening of their first offspring. If the pope be at all zealous he will, of course, lecture them on their want of morality, the pair listening submissively, but never understanding what should have roused the good man's ire, or displeased the Almighty, as he tells them. As for the infant, it is considered to belong to its mother's settlement, growing up to the same rights as any other youth.
For the rest, the Huzul shares in all the virtues and vices of uncivilised humanity: he is free from envy, candid, brave, and hospitable, but also coarse in his tastes and cruel. The Emperor's magistrates are nothing to him, he does not need their protection; and of his free-will he is not likely to pay any tax. Let his cousins of the lowlands do that, whom he pities and despises accordingly.
Of a similar kind are his feelings concerning the homeless hajdamaks; he, the native of the mountains, looking upon the outlaws much as the bear is supposed to look upon man; and, in consequence, actual enmity between them is rare. Not unless he were really starving with hunger or cold would a hajdamak ever think of attacking even a single herdsman up yonder, a last remnant of generosity preventing him from wronging those on whose soil he dwells, and who, as he but too well knows, could take grievous revenge any moment. Not in the memory of men, therefore--which is the only source of authentic history within the mountains--has it ever happened that a band of outlaws dared an attack upon any settlement.
But if the Huzul has little to fear from the hajdamaks, he may yet get into trouble on account of them, that is, by means of the Whitecoats who are after those ruffians. The Huzul considers it incumbent on him to hate the soldiers; for are they not the servants of a power he refuses to recognise? But that power will lay hold of him if it can. There is no help for the Emperor--he must just put up with it--if the Huzul refuses to consider himself a taxpayer; some Imperial exciseman, however, may see his opportunity of paying the Huzuls a visit under cover of the military. "Hang the hajdamaks!" groans the Huzul, "but for them no confounded exciseman would have ventured up hither;" and, overpowered with the thought of his loss in lambs and sheep, he is sure to add: "Hang the Whitecoats! I wish the hajdamaks could teach them a lesson and make them keep clear of the mountains for ever." He is so wrathful, indeed, that he could scarcely tell which of the two he would like to see hanged first.
A strict neutrality, however, is the outcome. He would rather die than betray to the Whitecoats the hiding place of "Green Giorgi"; at the same time he has no idea of warning the outlaw of his enemy's approach, or of rendering him any assistance whatever. He just looks on; and nothing would please him better than that the belligerent parties, like the fighting lions of the fable, should devour each other bodily. And there are other considerations, besides, inviting him to neutrality. He knows that there are ruffians among the hajdamaks whom, even with his notions of honour and justice, he cannot possibly approve of; but they are a mixed lot, and there are others among them who have done nothing a Huzul would despise. And since it is not written in a man's face why he has become an outlaw, the Huzul behaves alike to them all, neither loving them nor hating them, but holding aloof strictly.
The Imperial authorities, then, cannot expect the Huzuls' help against the bandits, and need not fear their making common cause with them; but that is all, since no one ever lifts a finger to raise the poor dwellers of the mountains and teach them a higher standard of right and wrong. It were quite useless to expect any better; and if regiment upon regiment were let loose upon the Carpathians no lasting result could be looked for; for to give chase to any outlaw in the vast forests is as hopeless as to seek for a particular insect in a cornfield. The lawless trade will not die out till Civilisation takes up her abode in the mountain wilds, taming the dwellers therein; and, if unable to make better men of them, preparing the way at least for her nobler sister, even Justice herself, in whose fair sight men are equals, and oppression shall not stand.
It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that all hajdamaks are criminals and cut-throats; a distinction must be made. There is no exact rendering for the word itself in any of the western tongues, and, fortunately, the thing also lies beyond the experience of happier nations. The Bulgarians only have a similar word, denoting a similar existence, the "hajdamak" of the Carpathians and the "hajduk" of the Balkan being akin, both revealing in strangest blending some of the best and some of the very worst impulses of a suffering people. It is not easy, therefore, to judge fairly.
There are three distinct types among these outlaws, or "free men" as they call themselves. Firstly, there are those who have escaped from the arm of justice, having committed some crime, and who are not only guilty in the sight of the law, but of ill repute even among their kind. These men never unite in great numbers, their own wickedness rendering them distrustful of one another. Singly, or at most by twos and threes, they will pursue their villainous trade of waylaying travellers, or perpetrating what robbery they can. They avoid open fight, being best protected by their cunning.
Secondly, and far more numerous, are those who are criminals indeed in the eye of the law, but are looked upon by the people as martyrs to their cause. Some may have fought the tax-gatherers in bitter despair when they were about to be sold up; they may have been good and peaceful men, who thus suddenly took up the evil life. But, terrible as existence may be in the forest wilds, it is better than prison, and the unhappy man flies thither from the wrong he has committed almost in spite of himself. "He is gone after the sun," say his neighbours, glad to know him safe when the constables seek him--gone westward, that is, from lowland Podolia into the Carpathians. And others there are, martyrs to the sad relation between the Polish landlord and the Ruthen peasant; the landlord oppressing, till at some dark moment of wrath or drunkenness the peasant snatches up his gun or hatchet. There are deserters, too, from the Emperor's colours, sympathised with cordially; for what right should the Emperor have, argue these people, to levy the life-tax among them!
"Come join us, ye men, for life here is sweet!" are the words of a hajdamak song. But in truth it is an awful existence, although the miserable fellows do their best to make it bearable to one another. They will gather in bands of a score or more, plighting their troth, each sharing with the other the good things which are of the fewest and the ill things that abound. The Huzul will leave them alone, and the Whitecoats they need scarcely fear. But it is nowise easy to be an "honest hajdamak" when hunger and cold pursue them--for they have notions of honesty of their own, as old Jemilian suggested in his report to Father Leo. It is "honest" in an outlaw not to commit mere vulgar robbery, or take life save in self-defence or for revenge. He may rob a Polish landlord or the men of the law, but he would be disgraced by robbing a peasant or a village pope. It is quite "honest" to stop a stage-coach, empty the postbags, and rob any Polish or Austrian passenger; but it would be disgraceful to inquire what money a pope might carry with him, travelling by the same coach. There was a time when no stage-coach in those parts could be safe from an attack of hajdamaks, unless accompanied by a strong escort of soldiers. "Great deeds," however, grew more and more impossible, and indeed they were never easy. It was always a miserable life in the dreary wilds, without shelter in the rigorous winter-time, and often without food. And it would entirely depend on what manner of man the 'hetman' (captain) was, as to how a band would bear up through such a season of distress; whether "dishonesty" would be had recourse to, when for the gaining of a mere livelihood they would sink to the level of the despised criminal, or whether their spirit would rise to some "great deed" of despair, even if it must bring them to close quarters with the Whitecoats. But this second alternative, as a rule, might only be looked for if the 'hetman' was a hajdamak by deliberate choice, driven to the life for an idea rather than as the outcome of some crime.
Men of this kind form the third class; they have always been rare, and the history of one adopting the awful trade of his own free will has ever made a stir. Mere love of pillage could never be an adequate reason; for a man of this description is aware that he can rob his neighbours with less trouble in the plain. No, there are nobler motives--a wild passionate manliness rising against oppression, or a yearning indignation and pitiful sympathy with the helpless despair of the people, will urge some few to "go after the sun." These few are the last representatives of the true hajdamak, who is fast becoming a legend of the past. The Ruthens, now the most peaceful and the most oppressed of Slavonic tribes, at one time were the boldest and most belligerent of the race, the terror of their neighbours, Poles, Russians, and Roumanians. But to-day one could only wonder why these people in song and story should always be designated as "falcon-faced," if indeed such a face were not met with among them occasionally even now--bold and clear-cut, full of energy and passion, with dark daring eyes. And as the type is found still, so are the old dauntless courage, and the ardent love of liberty. But he who preserves the true nature is lonely among his kind, and the misery about him will fill his soul with a bitter yearning for the times that are gone, the times surviving only in their songs--wild passionate outbursts, full of bravery and fortitude, sounding strangely enough on the lips of the humbled, labouring peasants. And such a one by his own inward necessity is driven forth from the plain; he takes to the mountains, and henceforth it is his one desire to make war upon the Polish oppressors, the murderers of his race. It is his one idea, his one resolve; and being a man of energy and power, he will naturally rise to the leadership of a band. He is an "honest hajdamak" at first, but does not always end so; for it is an evil trade, hurtful to body and soul. And whether they remain "honest," or fall away from the higher aspiration, they are sure to end ill--they and their followers.
Truly an evil trade, and few taking to it ever reach old age; the pitiless cold, or hunger and hardships of grimmest kind decimating the band, while the more hardy ones fall a prey to the wild beasts, if not brought to the gallows instead. And whatever their end may be, their people are anxious that their memory should be wiped out--anxious it should be forgotten that one of theirs took to the mountains. A hajdamak while he lives is held in some respect, inasmuch as he has gained the liberty sighed for by others--the dead man is nowhere.
But among the numbers living and dying thus sadly, there are three whose names are not forgotten, whose memory lives in song and tale, though dimmed with the haze of receding years; three who are famous, moreover, as being the only "hetmen" who moved the Huzuls to take part for or against them.
The first of these was one Alexander Dobosch, called the Black, or the Iron-framed, a Ruthen from the Bukowina who arose towards the end of the eighteenth century, and for several years was far more powerful throughout Pokutia than the Emperor. He had been a well-to-do peasant, and a boundless ambition only appears to have led him to his strange and fearful adventures. The Huzuls adored him, and he behaved like a king of the mountains, issuing manifestos to the "fellow at Vienna," making laws and levying taxes. But this was his ruin; the Huzuls were not going to condone in the iron-framed hajdamak what they had never approved of in the "fellow at Vienna." Their devotion gave way to wrath, but the man was so powerful that they dared not oppose him openly. He was poisoned by some of his followers at a drinking bout.
Of a different type was "Wild Wassilj," or, as song has it, the "great hajdamak," a Podolian peasant youth, lithe as a sapling pine, strong as a bear, and daring as a falcon. He had been in the personal service of a young noble, the brother-in-law of the lord of the manor, both of whom were the terror and detestation of every father and husband in the neighbourhood. But Wassilj suddenly set his face against the lawless life, growing strangely silent and anxious to be good; the fact was he loved an honest maiden of the village. But, unhappily, his master himself had set eyes upon the girl, and, finding her proof against his advances, he carried her off with the help of some menials. Wassilj thereupon waylaid and shot him, forming a band there and then, and becoming the scourge of the nobility for miles around, his thirst for revenge being unappeasable. It was found in those days how little it availed to send out soldiers with a hope of crushing the bandits in their mountains. The "great hajdamak" was not vanquished by anything the authorities could devise against him; but the innate spark of goodness in his wild and wayward heart overcame him in the end. For he was not a bad man by nature, and the remorse that would seize upon him was as poignant as it was true; but he quieted his conscience with the delusion that he was doing these terrible things for the sake of the suffering people. One day, however, when he had overpowered some nobles in the castle of his native village, and had called upon the judge to assist him in bringing them to their just doom, the latter refused, saying he was an honest man, and could not join in the evil work of a cut-throat. That word struck Wassilj to the heart, and the same night, with a bullet from his own gun, he stilled that misguided heart for ever.
But the third one, whom the Huzuls assisted--he whom in song they called "the good judge" and "the great avenger"--was Taras Barabola.
THE "good judge!" ... the "great avenger!" ...
It was not only after his death, not in commemorating song only, that Taras was first so designated. These appellations dated from the spring-time of 1839. When Palm Sunday had come and gone they were echoed from mouth to mouth, while the strange declaration of war that had been uttered beneath the linden of Zulawce was fresh in the minds of all. His mission was believed in, though as yet unaccredited by deed. As on the wings of a mighty wind the news sped from village to village, from district to district. Not a week passed before all the people had heard it--in Pokutia, in the Marmaros, in Podolia, and in the Bukowina; and gathering in groups after the morning service on Easter Sunday, it was the one topic with them everywhere: "To-day Taras will be unfurling his banner.... Could there be a surer proof of our misery? He, a Christ-like man, and yet driven to turn hajdamak!... But it is well for us--Taras has ever been a good judge, and he will prove a mighty avenger!"
This opinion had formed rapidly. A whole people stirred to its depth is almost always a righteous judge, a true prophet. Every man and woman understood that unheard-of things were passing. True, it was within the experience of most of them that some one or other had taken to the mountains; but such volunteers to the desperate trade had been young fellows without home ties, or men of a turbulent character breaking away from the restraints of the law. But how different with this peace-loving peasant, who had everything to make his home attractive, this man who once pointed a pistol at his own forehead to prevent violence from being met with violence! That phrase of Mr. Broza's which Taras himself had repeated reluctantly, and only because he was a "dying man," had taken hold of the people's imagination--a Christ-like man. And truly there was a breath of the Divine sweeping the senses of the oppressed peasantry as they strove to understand his motives. It could not be the love of revenge with him, for he had not been wronged personally; it could not be that he sought to defend his own property, for it had not been touched. He must be doing it, then, simply because "in this unhappy country justice was not to be found," and "because the people had sore need of one to avenge them." And if there is anything that will move the heart of man to its inmost depth, filling it with holy reverence, it is the unselfish deed done for love of a cause which is sacred to all and believed in by each.
With similar enthusiasm Taras was greeted in the mountains. The rude men who dwell there had been gained so thoroughly during his former sojourn, that one and all they welcomed the news of his returning to be among them for good. Was he not a victim of the oppression they hated? its sworn enemy, who henceforth would live to oppose it? Every glen on either side of the Black Water was alive with sympathy, and Taras had a staunch ally in every man far and wide in the forest.
In his own village, too, opinion had rallied round him entirely, though it would have been difficult to say whether this was due chiefly to the impression he had made upon his hearers on that Sunday, or to the selfish vanity of the people. The hearts of some had certainly been touched, and a natural pity for his forsaken wife roused others; while others, again, were merely glad that Taras had come to see the folly of trusting in the law, and it flattered their pride that from among themselves an avenger should rise who would make the country ring with his valour. A man of Zulawce in those days was welcome wherever he went, because he could tell of the hero of the hour. The people round about seemed to be insatiable of news concerning this Taras, and were ready to stand any amount of drink to him who could gratify them, for which reason the men of Zulawce, nothing loth, invented story upon story to glorify the pure-hearted man whose life they had embittered all along. Yes, the outlaw once more had risen to be the great favourite of his adopted village.
Yet there were few, even in his own village, who felt for him truly or mourned his loss, and the one man whose sorrow was most deeply sincere carefully avoided the very mention of his name. The good pope had not breathed a word concerning Taras since that saddest of partings beneath the linden. His wife only guessed how he suffered, but even she was mistaken in believing that his heart ached for the loss of his friend alone. He was battling with another sorrow, a deeper trouble overshadowing his pious mind. And the moment came when the popadja understood it.
It was on the evening of Good Friday. Not till nine o'clock, and weary with the many services of the day, had the priest returned home, eating a mouthful of supper, and retiring to his study. Thither his wife followed him presently, establishing herself with her needlework in silence. He was pacing the room, murmuring to himself, as was his wont in preparing his sermon, and she refrained from speaking, but gave a furtive glance at him now and then. She had often thus watched him occupied in holy meditation, and the inward peace radiating from his countenance at such times would sink into her own heart with a loving content. Not so now, for an unspeakable grief was reflected in the face she gazed upon, and the bitterness seemed overflowing till she trembled and took courage to interrupt him.
"Husband," she said, with a beating heart, "are you now busy with the sermon for Easter Day?"
He started, looking before him gloomily. "I am utterly unfit!" he whispered hoarsely, as though speaking to himself ... "utterly unfit!" He groaned aloud, covering his face with his hands.
The good wife was by his side in a moment. "Leo," she sobbed, "what is it? ... Ah, yes, I know; but you must not thus give way to your grief. You could not prevent it!"
He shook his head, and then caught her hand like a drowning man. "No, wife," he groaned, "it is not merely grief for his loss! But since that man has gone to ruin, I seem a hypocrite whenever I turn to my prayers ..."
"Good God!" she cried, aghast.
"I seem such, indeed," he continued, hastily; "it is more than I can bear, and I cannot help it! Have I not been teaching and preaching the justice of God? And now to see this man gone to ruin--this man!"
"But, husband, dear," she cried, anxiously, "have you not often tried to make us see that the true recompense is in the life to come? Will you doubt it yourself now?"
"In the life to come; yes, yes," he repeated in the same husky voice; "it is the one thing to hold by.... But why should it all go wrong in this world? I mean, so terribly wrong? This man!... his wife gone out of her mind, his children orphaned, and he himself making straight for the gallows, just because, in a wicked, self-seeking world, he has within him the heart of a child that will trust his God and believe in justice ... oh, it is awful ... awful!"
She clung to him, but he freed himself from her embrace, and once more walked to and fro excitedly. The faithful wife could but retire to her corner, sharing his trouble apart.
Some minutes passed.
And presently he stood still before her, lifting her tearful face, and stroking her hair gently. "Fruzia," he said, with quivering voice, "I promise you to try and bear it. I shall battle it out; but it is a sore thing, and needs time.... Go to bed now and be comforted.... I shall battle it out."
The wife obeyed, but found little sleep, and her soul kept crying through the darkness of that night: "Oh, God, pity my husband--he, the priest, to lose faith in Thee!" Many a wiser prayer may rise to the ear of the Giver of all things; yet none, perhaps, ever was more touching.
When daylight returned she felt comforted, and drew courage from her husband's quiet face on his bidding her good-bye for early service. She, too, left the house, but not to go to church, for a duty no less sacred directed her steps to Anusia's house.
Poor Anusia, indeed! It was not without reason that her friends sorrowed for her, for she was doubly stricken. The last articulate sound that had crossed her lips had been her husband's name--that cry of despair wrung from her as he departed. Her grief since then had found vent in wild ravings only, night and day, day and night. Not a prayer, not a complaint had she uttered, and her eyes were tearless; but she would give a shriek and continue moaning with parched lips. Those that watched her believed her out of her mind, and no hope seemed left, save with Father Leo, who clung to it. "It will pass away," he said, well-nigh despairing himself; "hers is a more passionate nature than ours, and her grief is the wilder." Her ravings, indeed, appeared to lessen, the feverish agony grew calmer, and she began to take food; but to her friends the supervening apathy seemed worse than what had gone before. There she lay in a kind of living death, uttering not a sound, large-eyed and white-faced, wearing the expression of a helpless agony. But when her friends or the children attempted to rouse her, she waved them off, or cried huskily: "Leave me alone, I must think it over." And Father Leo would say: "No one can help her, she must battle through it; but the children must be seen to, having lost both father and mother." And he arranged with his wife that twice a day she should go over to the farm to see to the needs of the household; while outdoor matters found a willing helper in Hritzko Pomenko, the eldest of Simeon's lads. "If I work for Taras I shall perhaps bear it that he left me behind," said the honest youth.
That had been on the Thursday. Anusia appeared to take no notice that things were seen to by friends and neighbours, and she continued the whole of Good Friday in the same dull stupor. But when the popadja entered the sick-chamber early on the Saturday a happy change, evidently, had taken place. The bed was vacated, and a servant-girl came running in explaining: "The mistress is looking after the dairy, she is scolding poor Hritzko grievously because he brought over his father's new churn."
And, indeed, the startled popadja even now could hear the so-called scolding. "I know you meant kindly, Hritzko," Anusia was saying, in a voice both firm and clear; "but just take your things home with you, I can manage my own business." And the priest's lady herself presently received a similar greeting. "It is most kind of you"--Anusia made haste to address her friend as soon as she beheld her--"I am pleased to see you any time; but leave me now. And this kerchief must be yours, I think; I found my Tereska wearing it. But my children are no poor orphans, thank God, requiring friends to clothe them."
The good lady was only too willing to be reproved. "Say what you like," she cried, "I am happy to find you up again!"
"Yes," said Anusia, with perfect composure, "I know you all thought I had gone mad. But my mind was right enough; only, you see, I had to satisfy my own judgment that my husband had done well. I had always looked upon him as the most perfect man on earth, so that the need was great to find an answer to my questioning, and everything besides had to give way."
"Then you arrived at the conclusion that nothing else was left for him?" broke in Hritzko, vehemently.
"I have," she assented. "I saw it was his heart that laid it upon him to act as he has done, and he is a man that cannot go against the behest of his own heart. I know that, and it must be enough for me. As to whether he is otherwise in the right or not, I, a woman, am unable to decide. My mind says 'Yes,' but the heart keeps crying 'No.' I can but wait and see. If he is in the right the Almighty will own him and let him be a helper to many. But if he is on the path of wrong, God will turn from him, and his end will be the gallows. Be that as it may; he is lost to us, my children are fatherless, and henceforth I must be to them father and mother in one."
"And we all will help you!" cried the popadja, warmly.
"As far as I may need your help," returned Anusia, "I shall accept it gratefully." And therewith she resumed issuing orders to the servants about the place.
Father Leo did not learn the good news till about noon, when he returned from the parish, and, not waiting to eat his dinner, he hastened to the farm to see with his own eyes that Anusia indeed had recovered. He found her very quiet and self-possessed, and there was nothing to make him doubt the soundness of her mind, save the occupation he found her engaged upon. She had had the great barn cleared and the floor was being spread with straw. "What for?" he inquired, wonderingly.
"To sleep the soldiers," she replied, with a bitter smile.
"The soldiers! What soldiers?"
"I am surprised your reverence should require me to explain," she said. "Is it unknown to you that he who but lately was master here has declared war against his Emperor, and that the wife and children of that man are here unprotected? Will it not be the most natural thing to take possession of this farm in order to make it impossible for him to visit his family secretly? And, moreover, it might be supposed that his wife could be so questioned that from her his whereabouts could be learned; at any rate, it might be useful to make sure of her and her children as hostages, in case ..."
"No, no!" cried Leo, "this latter, most certainly not. The Emperor will never wage war upon women and children."
"Well, we shall see," she continued; "thus much is certain, that we shall have the Whitecoats quartered here before long; that coward of a mandatar will take care we shall, if no one else will. Did not Taras inform him plainly that with him the beginning should be made? I am only sorry for the village. It is hard that the neighbours should suffer, and it will turn them against us. It will be but natural if they do, and I cannot help it."
"They shall not, if I can prevent it," cried the pope, eagerly. "Now I know what to preach about to-morrow!"
"Well, I shall be grateful to you, whether you succeed or not, but one thing you must promise me"--she held out her hand, drawing herself up proudly. "You shall not ask them to pity me or my children. We do not need it, please God, while I have health and am able to keep house and home together."
He gave her his word, and kept it as far as his own compassion would let him. But his wife, in her own heart, was proudly happy, for never had she heard him preach with a fervour more tender and soul-stirring; not noticing in her wifely gladness that this sermon of his differed somewhat from his usual discourses, inasmuch as he never mentioned either the wisdom or the justice of the Almighty, being taken up entirely with the one message to his hearers, the one exhortation of "loving our neighbour as ourselves!" And as he strove in his simple, yet impressive way to make it plain that an act of true love to one's neighbours, mistaken, even, though it might be, was none the less worthy of grateful acknowledgment, and that at all events it could never deserve the ill-will of those for whose sake it had been done, even though they might have to suffer in consequence--they all knew whom and what he meant, and felt moved accordingly. And emotion deepened when he spoke of the common sorrow making all men as brethren, since none was fully happy here below, and that there was no surer salvation from our own misery than being loving and good to other sufferers, especially to the weak and forsaken, the widows and orphans about us. And taking up an example to hand, he spoke of the sad lot of a poor woman, named Josephka, whose husband they had lately buried. "Do not let us imagine," he cried, "that we are doing more than our bounden duty if we remember her trouble, aiding her with our alms, which she hath need of sorely. Yet, poor as Josephka is, it is not she that is the most sorrow-stricken widow among us; there being a balm to her grief in the blessed thought that the husband she mourns has gained that rest to which we ourselves are journeying, that he has attained beyond the sorrow which remains with us still. There is another one among us, widowed, I say, and more grief-bowed than she, to whom this consolation is denied, and our most sacred duty is to her! Our alms then to Josephka, for she has need of them, but give ye your tenderest love, your most helpful sympathy, to that other most sorrowful widow in this village, whose children in their father's lifetime are as orphans in our midst!"
There was a great sobbing among the women, and a stirring among the men. One only in all that congregation sat unmoved, even shaking her head in disapproval--Anusia herself; and when the service was ended she quitted the building composedly. They all made room, and none dared address her, the popadja only joined her in silence and saw her home.
And when the men had gathered in groups without, the one topic was Taras, as, indeed, was the case all over the country that morning. Some had heard that already more than a hundred men had joined his banner; others had been told that his native parish of Ridowa had sent him word how, one and all, they were ready to rise in rebellion at his command; others again had certain information that the district governor at Colomea had fainted right away on hearing of Taras's now famous declaration of war ... all of which tidings were believed in as faithfully as though the pope himself had announced them as gospel truth from the pulpit. And not a soul present doubted but that Taras would swoop down on the arch-villain in their midst to judge him.
What difference of opinion there was concerned the time only when the avenger might be expected.
"I say he will come to-night," said Wassilj, the butcher; "for to-day he unfurls his banner, and he told us it would be his first deed."
But others opposed this opinion. "Taras is a God-fearing man," said the sexton, "I'll never believe he will thus spend the blessed Easter."
"Nor should I think he would act foolishly," added Red Schymko; "why the mandatar is safe away at Zablotow, hiding with the military. I know it for certain."
"You know it for a falsehood then," retorted Giorgi Pomenko, "the coward is hiding in the iron closet he has had built for himself at the manor house. I rather think, therefore, we shall hear of Taras this very night."
"So do I," chimed in Marko the smith, the giant with the infant voice; "what should he be waiting for? Has he not men enough with the hundred about him, being sure also of every honest, brave one among us?"
"Ho! ho!" rejoined Wassilj, the butcher, "am I not honest, or as brave as any? yet, would I lend a hand to the deed? I doubt if many will assist him!"
"Do you?" snarled the corporal. "Can it be a matter of doubt, indeed, when it is a question of aiding your own great hero?"
"Hold your wicked tongue," burst in the sons of Pomenko. "The time is gone when Taras could be insulted with impunity. Whoever would do so is a scoundrel--and a scoundrel is every one that will not stand by him against the mandatar!"
At which Jewgeni, the judge, grew alarmed. "Hear me," he cried.
"A scoundrel?" interrupted the butcher. "You had better hold your tongues, youngsters; this axe of mine has silenced many a bullock!"
"Hear me," pleaded Jewgeni "A hajdamak----" and there he stopped.
"Nay, hearme," broke in Red Schymko; "I know what is best to do. I make no promises either way, but shall just wait and see! If the mandatar offers resistance, to the shedding of blood even, I were a fool to risk life in opposing him. Is it my quarrel? Have I prevented the parish from getting back the field by force? It was Taras's doing. Have I lost the law suit? No, but Taras has. Have I turned outlaw, calling myself an avenger, and having my praises sung by all the land? No, not I; but Taras. Then, I say, let him bear the brunt. But when the mandatar and his men are worsted, and there is a chance of repaying ourselves, let us not be such fools as to stand by and look on. As he robbed us, so let us rob him--that is what I think..."
"For shame!" cried Giorgi Pomenko; and Wassilj, the butcher, added: "Yes, for shame! Are you addressing a parcel of thieves?"
"Well, hear me then--a hajdamak--and I your judge----" But Jewgeni again stopped short, the butcher being bent on a further hearing.
"Listen to me, you men, and I will show you that I am no scoundrel," he cried, lifting up his powerful voice, "I am all for Taras, and whoever speaks ill of him shall answer for it to me. He is a grand hero, and far from being a hajdamak. He has undertaken the sacred duty of being an avenger, of righting the wrong. But in this great work we may not help him, because we have wife and child to consider. If he has risen above any such consideration it is in virtue of his own magnanimity. For my part, I am unable to equal it. Whoever joins Taras openly has to choose between going to prison or taking refuge in the mountains. I shall keep the peace, therefore, and so will every conscientious man here, for the sake of his family."
"Yes! yes!" cried the men, one after another, "Wassilj has said well, Taras has our best wishes. More is the pity that we cannot openly join him."
"Pity!" sneered the corporal; "but you may look on, at a safe distance!"
"Yes, indeed, and we will," was the unanimous retort. "It is you and Schymko that disgrace the village. No honest man will go to sleep to-night."
And therewith the consultation ended.
Not long after, Halko, the servant lad of Anusia's farm, rushed into his mistress's presence. "Is it true"--he cried, "it is being spoken of all over the village--that Taras, with a hundred men, will attack the manor to-night? The people mean to watch for it, but will not join him for fear of the law. Is it true?"
Anusia stood trembling violently, a burning glow and a death-like pallor succeeding one another rapidly in her face.
"How should I know?" she said presently, with a stony look. "I and my family belong to the village, and have nothing to do with the 'avenger.' And just because he has been the master of this house there is henceforth no communion between him and us! Let the others watch for him; we shall retire as usual. Let no one dare to disregard my orders!"