The Pobratim: A Slav Novel

CHAPTER XV

A COWARD'S VENGEANCE

When the pobratim returned to Budua they found the whole town divided into two camps, and, consequently, in a state of open war. Since the evening of the karvarina two parties had formed themselves, the Vranites and the Radonites. The first, indeed, were few, and did not consist of friends of Vranic, but simply of people who had a grudge, not only against Radonic, but against Bellacic and the twenty-four men of the jury, who were accused of peculation. On the whole, public opinion was bitter against the tailor, for, after having made peace with his enemy, he had tried to murder him; then – as if this had not been enough – he had gone on the morrow and given warning to the police that Radonic, who had cowardly murdered his brother, had returned to Budua, and was walking about the streets unpunished; moreover, that the heyduk had threatened to murder him, so he came to appeal for protection.

This happened when Budua had just been incorporated with the Austrian empire, and the people, jealous of their customs, looked upon the protection of the government as an officious intermeddling with their own private affairs, and strongly resented their being treated as children unable to act for themselves.

Although a few crimes had been left unpunished, simply not to rouse at once the general feeling against its present masters, still the new jurisdiction was bent upon putting a stop to the practice of thekarvarina; and to make this primitive country understand that, under a civilised form of government, people paid taxes to be protected by wise and just laws; therefore, it was the duty of a well-regulated police to discover and punish equitably all offences done to any particular man.

In the present case, where notice was brought to the police of facts that had happened, and aid was requested, steps had to be taken to secure the person of the offender, and, therefore, to have Radonic arrested at once for manslaughter.

Friends, however, came at once to inform Radonic of what had taken place, advising him to take flight, and put at once the border mountains of Montenegro between himself and the Austrian police.

The officials gave themselves and, what was far worse, everybody else no end of trouble and annoyance with Vranic's case. They went about arresting wrong persons, as a well-regulated police sometimes does, and then, after much bother and many cross-examinations, everyone was set free, and the whole affair dropped.

Milena, who was slowly recovering from her long illness, was the first to be summoned to answer about her husband's crime. Bellacic was after that accused of sheltering the murderer, and threatened with fines, confiscation, imprisonment and other such penalties; then he was also set free. The twenty-four men of the jury were next summoned; but, as they had only acted as peacemakers on behalf of Vranic, they, too, were reprimanded, and then sent about their business.

After this Vranic's partisans dwindled every day, till at last he found himself shunned by everyone. Even his customers began to forsake him, and to have their clothes made by a more fortunate competitor. At last he could not go out in the streets without having the children scream out after him:

"Spy! spy! Austrian spy!"

The clergy belonging to the Orthodox faith looked upon the new law against the karvarina as an encroachment on their privileges. A tithe of the price of blood-money always went to the Church; sundry candles had to be lighted to propitiate, not God or Christ, but some of the lower deities and mediators of the Christian creed. The law, which took from them all interference in temporal matters, was a blow to their authority and to their purses. Even if they were not begged to act as arbitrators, they were usually invited as guests to the feast, so that some pickings and perquisites were always to be got.

Vranic obtained no satisfaction from the police, to whom he had applied; he was only treated as a cur by the whole population, was nearly excommunicated by the Church, and looked upon as an apostate from the saintly customs of the Iugo Slavs.

Taunted by his own family with having made a muddle of the whole affair, treated with scornful disdain by friends and foes, the poor tailor, who had never been very good-tempered, had got to look upon all mankind as his enemies.

Thus it happened, one day, that Bellacic was at the coffee-house with Markovic and some other friends, when Vranic came in to get shaved.

"What! do you shear poodles and curs?" he asked.

The loungers began to laugh. Vranic, whose face was being lathered, ground his teeth and grunted.

"I say, has he a medal round his neck?"

"What! do they give a medal to spies?" asked one of the men.

"No," quoth Bellacic; "but according to their law, no dog is allowed to go about without a medal, which proves that he has paid his taxes."

"Keep quiet," said the barber and kafedgee, "or I'll cut you!"

"Do government dogs also pay taxes?" said another man, smiling.

"Ask the cur! he'll tell you," replied Bellacic.

"Mind, Bellacic!" squeaked out Vranic, who was now shaved; "curs have teeth!"

"To grind, or to grin with?"

"By St. George and St. Elias! I'll be revenged on all of you, and you the very first!" and livid with rage, grinding his teeth, shaking his fist, Vranic left the coffee-house, followed by the laughter of the by-standers, and the barking of the boys outside.

"He means mischief!" quoth the kafedgee.

"When did he not mean mischief," replied Markovic, "or his brother either?"

"Don't speak of his brother."

"Why, he's dead and buried."

"The less you speak of some dead people, the better," and thekafedgee crossed himself.

"He's a sly fox," said one of the men waiting to be shaved.

"Pooh! foxes are sometimes taken in by an old goose, as the story tells us."

Everybody knew the old story, but, as the barber was bent upon telling it, his customers were obliged to listen.

Once upon a time, there was a little silver-grey hen, that got into such an ungovernable fit of sulks, that she left the pleasant poultry-yard where she had been born and bred, and escaped on to the highway by a gap in the hedge. The reason of her ill-humour was that she had seen her lord and master flirt with a moulting old hatching hen, and she had felt ruffled at his behaviour.

"Surely, the only advantage that old hen has over me," she soliloquised, "is a greater experience of life. If I can but see a little more of the world, I, too, might be able to discuss philosophical topics with my husband, instead of cackling noisily over a new-laid egg. It is an undeniable fact that home-keeping hens have only homely wits, and cocks are only hen-pecked by hens of loftier minds than themselves, and not by such common-place females who think that life has no other aim than that of laying a fresh egg every day."

On the other side of the hedge she met a large turkey strutting gravely about, spreading out his tail, making sundry gurgling noises in his throat, puffing and swelling himself in an apoplectic way, until he got of a bluish, livid hue about his eyes, whilst his gills grew purple.

Surely, thought the little grey hen, that turkey must be a doctor of divinity who knows the aim of life; every word that falls from his beak must be a priceless pearl.

The little silver-grey hen looked at him with the corner of her eye, just as coquettish ladies are apt to do when they look at you over the corners of their fans.

"I say, Mrs. Henny, whither are you bound, all alone?" said the old turkey, with his round eyes.

"I am bent upon seeing a little of the world and improving my mind," said the little hen.

"A most laudable intention," said the turkey; "and if you'll permit me, young madam, I myself will accompany, or rather, escort you in this journey, tour, or excursion of yours. And if the little experience I have acquired can be of some slight use to you – "

"How awfully good of you!" said the gushing little hen. "Why, really, it would be too delightful!"

As they went on their way the old turkey at once informed the little hen that he was a professor of the Dovecot University, and he at once began to expatiate learnedly about adjectives, compounds, anomalous verbs, suffixes and prefixes, of objective cases and other such interesting topics. She listened to him for some time, although she could not catch the drift of his speech. At last she came to the conclusion that all this must be transcendental philosophy, so she repeated mechanically to herself all the grave words he spouted, and of the whole lecture she just made out a charming little phrase, with which she thought she would crush her husband some day or other. It was: "Don't run away with the idea that I'm anomalous enough to be governed by objective cases, for, after all, what's a husband but a prefix?"

"And are you married?" asked the little hen, as soon as the turkey had stopped to take breath.

"I am," said the old turkey, with a sigh, "and although I have a dozen wives, I must say I haven't yet found one sympathetic listener amongst them."

"Are they worldly-minded?" asked she.

"They are frivolous, they think that the aim of life is laying eggs."

"Pooh!" said the little hen, scornfully.

As they went along, they met a gander, which looked at them from over a palisade.

"I say, where are you two off to?"

"We are bent upon seeing the world and improving our minds."

"How delightful. Now tell me, would it be intruding if I joined your party? I know they say: Two are company, and three are not, still – "

"They also say: The more the merrier," quoth the little hen.

The turkey blushed purple, but he managed to keep his temper.

They went on together, and the gander, who was a great botanist, told them the name of every plant they came across; and then he spoke very learnedly with the turkey about Greek roots and Romance particles.

A little farther on they met a charming little drake with a killing curled feather in his tail, quite an accroche-cœur, and the little hen ogled him and scratched the earth so prettily with her feet that at last she attracted the drake's notice.

After some cackling the little drake joined the tourists, notwithstanding the gurgling of the turkey and the hissing of the gander.

As they went on, they of course spoke of matrimony; the gander informed them that he was a bachelor, and the little drake added that he was an apostle of free love, at which the little hen blushed, the turkey puffed himself up until he nearly burst, and the gander looked grave. The worst of it was, that the little drake insisted on discussing his theories and trying to make proselytes.

They were so intently attending to the little drake's wild theories, that they hardly perceived a hare standing on his hind legs, with his ears pricked up, listening to and looking at them.

The hare, having heard that they were globe-trotters, bent upon seeing the world and improving their minds, joined their party at once; they even, later on, took with them a tortoise and a hedgehog. At nightfall, they arrived in a dense forest, where they found a large hollow tree, in the trunk of which they all took shelter.

The little hen ensconced herself in a comfortable corner, and the drake nestled close by her; the hare lay at her feet, and the gander and turkey on either side. The tortoise and the hedgehog huddled themselves up and blocked up the opening, keeping watch lest harm should befall them.

They passed the greater part of the night awake, telling each other stories; and as it was in the dark, the tales they told were such as could not well be repeated in the broad daylight.

Soon, however, the laughter was more subdued; the chuckling even stopped. Sundry other noises instead were heard; then the drowsy voices of the story-tellers ceased; they had all fallen fast asleep.

Just then, while the night wind was shivering through the boughs, and the moon was silvering the boles of the ash-trees, or changing into diamonds the drops of dew in the buttercups and bluebells, a young vixen invited a shaggy wolf to come and have supper with her.

"This," she said, stopping before the hollow tree, "is my larder. You must take pot-luck, for I'm sure I don't know what there is in it. Still, it is seldom empty."

The wolf tried to poke his nose in, but he was stopped by the tortoise.

"They have rolled a stone at the door," said the wolf.

"So they have; but we can cast it aside," quoth the vixen.

They tried to push the tortoise aside; but he clung to the sides of the tree with his claws, so that it was impossible to remove him.

"Let's get over the stone," said the wolf.

They did their best to get over the tortoise, but they were met by the hedgehog.

"They've blocked up the place with brambles and thorns," said the vixen.

"So they have," replied the wolf.

"What's to be done?" asked the one.

"What's to be done?" replied the other.

"I hear rascally robbers rummaging around," gurgled the turkey-cock, in a deep, low tone.

"Did you hear that?" asked the wolf.

"Yes," said the vixen, rather uneasy.

"We'll catch them, we'll catch them," cackled the hen.

"For we are six, we are six," echoed the drake.

"There are six of them," said the vixen.

"And we are only two," retorted the wolf.

"So they'll catch us," added the vixen.

"Nice place your larder is," snarled the wolf.

"I'm afraid the police have got into it," stammered the vixen.

"Hiss, hiss, hiss!" uttered the gander, from within.

"That's the scratch of a match," said the vixen.

"If they see us we are lost," answered the wolf.

Just then the turkey, who had puffed himself up to his utmost, exploded with a loud puff.

"Firearms," whispered the wolf.

"It's either a mine or a bomb," quoth the vixen.

"Dynamite," faltered the wolf.

They did not wait to hear anything else; but, in their terror, they turned on their heels and scampered off as fast as their legs could carry them. In a twinkling they were both out of sight.

The travellers in the hollow tree laughed heartily; then they returned to their corners and went off to sleep. On the morrow, at daybreak, they resumed their wanderings, and I daresay they are travelling still, for it takes a long time to go round the world.

A few days afterwards Bellacic went to visit one of his vineyards. This, of all his land, was his pride and his boast. He had, besides, spent much money on it, for all the vines had been brought from Asia Minor, and the grapes were of a quality far superior to those which grew all around. The present crop was already promising to be a very fair one.

On reaching the first vines, Bellacic was surprised to perceive that all the leaves were limp, withering or dry. The next vines were even in a worse condition. He walked on, and, to his horror, he perceived that the whole of his vineyard was seared and blasted, as if warm summer had all at once changed into cold, bleak, frosty winter. Every stem had been cut down to the very roots. Gloomy and disconsolate he walked about, with head bent down, kicking every vine as he went on; all, all were fit for firewood now. It was not only a heavy loss of money, it was something worse. All his hopes, his pride, seemed to be crushed, humbled by it. He had loved this vineyard almost as much as his wife or his son, and now it was obliterated from the surface of the earth.

Had it been the work of Nature or the will of God, he would have bowed his head humbly, and said: "Thy will be done"; but he was exasperated to think that this had all been the work of a man – the vengeance of a coward – a craven-hearted rascal that, after all, he had never harmed, for this could be only Vranic's doing. In his passion he felt that if he had held the dastard at that moment, he would have crushed him under his feet like a reptile.

As Bellacic slowly arrived at the other end of the vineyard, he felt that just then he could not retrace his steps and cross the whole of his withering vines once more. He stopped there for a few moments, and looked around; then it seemed to him as if he had seen a man crouch down and disappear behind the bushes.

Could it be Vranic coming to gloat over him and enjoy his revenge? or was it not an image of his over-heated imagination?

He stood stock-still for a while, but nothing moved. He went slowly on, and then he heard a slight rustling noise. He advanced, crouching like a cat or a tiger, with fixed, dilated eyes and pricked-up ears. He saw the bushes move, he heard the sound of footsteps; then he saw the figure of a man bending low and running almost on all fours, so as not to be seen.

It was Vranic; now he could be clearly recognised. Bellacic ran after him; Vranic ran still faster. All at once he caught his foot on a root that had shot through the earth; he stumbled and fell down heavily. As he rose, Bellacic came up to him.

"Villain, scoundrel, murderer! is it you who – ? Yes, it could be no other dog than you! Moreover, you wanted to see how they looked."

"What?" said Vranic, ghastly pale, trembling from head to foot.

"What? – I really don't know what you mean."

"Do you say that you haven't cut down my vines?"

"I cut your vines? What vines?"

"Have, at least, the courage of your cowardly deeds, you sneak."