iW>>t)Wt»i>W?fW>itf(llW«WW<WWt

LI B RAR.Y

OF THL

UNIVLRSITY

Of ILLINOIS

Q311V,

i

BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR

"Die Kunst reich zu werden, ist im Grunde nichts Anderes, als die Kunst sich des Eigenthums anderer Leute mit ilirem guten Willen zu bemachtigen. " — Wieland.

BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR

A NOVEL

BY

E. D. GEEAED

AUTHOR OF * REATA : WHAT'S IN A NAME '

IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. IL

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLXXXII

All Rights reserved

%2^

Cr3l\i-

CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME,

PART J.— (continued.)

CHAP.

XV.	CLUBS AND HEARTS,				3
XVI.	FOLLOWING SUIT, .				16
XVII.	TRUMPED,				30
XVIII.	OVERTRUMPED,				58
XIX.	A "BUMPER,"				81
XX.	WHOSE TURN,				100
XXT.	THE TRICK DISPUTED,				123
XXII.	THE LOSING SUIT, .				140
XXIII.	PARTNERS PARTED,	•			155
XXIV.	THE WINNING SUIT,	•			. 164
	PART 11.
I.	UNDERPLAY, 171
11.	OUT OF THE GAME,				. 179

Yl

CONTENTS.

III. LUCYAN PLAYS HEARTS, .

IV. LUCYAN PLAYS DIAMONDS, V. A SMALL CARD,

VI. A SINGLETON, VIL PAY TWO TO MY QUEEN,

198 220 233

244 269

PART I.

{CONTINUED.)

BEGGAE MY NEIGHBOUR

CHAPTEE XY.

CLUBS AND HEARTS.

Herr, dunkel war der Rede Sinn."

—Schiller.

" A Collier, who had more room in his house than he wanted for himself, proposed to a Fuller to come and take up his quarters with him.

" Thank you," said the Fuller, " but I must decline your offer ; for I fear that as fast as I whiten my goods you will blacken them again."

Marcin laid down the book from which he had been reading, and leant back exhausted.

" Well ? " said Janina, looking up with a broad stare.

" Well ? " repeated Marcin, " don't you see ? "

" Well ? I say : what about it ? "

4 BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR.

" But it is exactly like us ; doesn't it strike you ? "

"I don't feel struck at all."

" How strange ! It struck me at once when I came across this book, and so I brought it with me, although my memory is usually very good for these things, but this was rather long to learn by heart."

He leant back again on the wooden bench, and stared up through the wooden trellis-work at the pale- blue sky above. There was a promise of spring in that sky, though it was still so early in March ; there was a whisper of unborn violets in the breeze, a pro- phecy of apple-blossoms in the sunshine. But as yet it was but prophecy and promise ; tantalising visions which awakened vague yearnings ; poetry hovering through the air, while prose clung to the earth.

In the little back-yard of the apothecary's, there was nothing but prose and mud. The geese stalked about through mud, instead of over frozen ground; the rickety arbour in which Marcin sat opposite to Janina, looked as if it had been steeped in mud. The rosy - faced cherub who ushers in the Polish spring is a very muddy cherub indeed; even the flower - bunches which fill his chubby hands are mud-bespattered and dripping.

" Ptead that again," said Janina, who was busy smashing up old seltzer-water bottles with a hammer. " I didn't understand half you said." Bound the foot

CLUBS AND HEARTS. 5

of the rickety arbour there was a half-finished decora- tive border, the exact nature of which would at first sight have defied conjecture. An outsider could scarcely of his own unaided faculties have discovered that these round and shining brown ornaments were nothing more than the turned-up bottoms of seltzer- water bottles, driven side by side into the ground. Janina's ingenuity had by no means been exhausted here ; evidences of her inventive genius were visible everywhere. Not a bottle or box discarded by the apothecary was allowed to sink into inaction. It was pain to this irrepressible creature to see anything about her, if it were only a pill -box, stand idle. Stone jars which had once stared down from the shelves in the front shop, but had fallen from their high estate through some mishap, were pressed into the service of the ravenous geese, who now ate their mashed corn out of a broken vessel marked Arseni- cum album, and drank their water out of another designated as Opium purum. It might have been thought, for instance, that a pair of old cracked scales, the balance of whose mind was no longer to be trusted as ^sculapian oracles, should have been allowed to rust away their old age in peace ; but not so Janina. She had found work even for this crazy old pair, who now dangled with a tolerably bad grace from the ceiling of the arbour — a periwinkle plant drooping

G BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR.

from one, and a stunted fuchsia peering out of the other. Even the rustic dog-kennel, which stood in one corner of the yard (Jan Wronski always kept a dog, in hopes that it would one day go mad), betrayed, on close inspection, its medicinal origin ; being no- thing more or less than a pensioned medicine- chest turned on its side.

Marcin read the fable again, to an accompaniment of vigorous crashes. Each crash was a torture to Marcin and a deliGjht to Janina : each time the ham- mer came down she laughed and he shuddered, and she, seeing the shudder, laughed the more and crashed the louder. At the end of the fable came an explosion of laughter.

" Ha, ha ! that is capital ! "

" Yes, I think it is a capital story," agreed Marcin.

" But it is just the contrary."

''The contrary of what?"

" Why, of us, of course," said Janina, bringing down her hammer again and drinking in with absolute plea- sure the ear-rending crash which followed, just as a hardened general might enjoy the thunder of the cannon which is to create havoc among the enemy.

Marcin began to explain his views. " It struck me as being just like us; the first part of it, at least. You are the Collier, and I am the Fuller."

" Thank you for a pretty compliment 1 "

CLUBS AND HEARTS. 7

" I am sure a collier could not make more noise than you do, at any rate."

" And do you imagine tliat I am requesting you to take up your quarters here ? "

" No, I don't suppose so," he admitted, beginning to lose his footing ; " your answers always come smash upon me, just as if I was a seltzer-water bottle. That is not it ; I saw it quite clearly yesterday, but I can't remember it to-day. I assure you it applies to the situation, if one can only find out how. I think it is you who must be the Fuller, and I the Collier."

" Very well, then, it is I who have to say : Thank you, but I must decline your offer."

Marcin pulled his moustache pensively. " That does not seem ris^ht either. I wish I could find the application. Colliers and fullers are opposite ex- tremes, are they not ? Well, we are opposite extremes also, and extremes meet, — you can't deny that ? That's it!"

He folded his arms, and gazed at her triumphantly, but she did not look in the least conquered. She threw down the hammer, and snatched up the book.

" Let me have a look ; I am sure you are making a mess of it. There, listen to this : —

" ' Moral : There can he little liking where there is no likeness ! ' Why did you not read the moral aloud ? "

" Oh, I never attend to morals \ but is that really

8 BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUE.

there?" asked Marcin, in some distress. "Then I think the story must be stupid, after all; it works quite the wrong way."

" Didn't I tell you so ? " she said, with a shrug and a pout, flinging down the volume of ^sop's Fables, face downwards.

" Well, it does not really matter," said Marcin, calmly possessing himself of the hand which had just flung down the volume ; " there is a proverb, you know, which says, ' Birds of a feather flock together,' that applies. It,is the opposite of the other, you know; so one of the two must be right."

" Yes ; only that birds that are not of a feather don't flock together. What are you doing with my hand ? "

"Comparing it to mine; they seem to suit very well."

" They couldn't be more different ; there, let me go," she said, tearing herself away from him. " Ha ! look what you have made me do ! " as a button cracked off Marcin's cuff. " Now I wonder who is going to sew it on again for you, — that I really do."

" Never mind," said Marcin, contentedly ; " life is a great deal too short to trouble one's head about shirt- buttons."

" A great deal too long to go through without them. Now, if you had behaved more civilly, I might have sewed it on for you."

CLUBS AND HEARTS. 9

" Can you sew ? " he asked, gazing at her.

Janina put her hand into her pocket, and drew out a neat little card-board box. " No, that is papa's powders," she said, pushing ^it aside ; " he never lets me go about without them, in case of my meeting a mad dog." A second box was produced, inscribed, " Camomile Tea," but which might just as well have been marked " Necessaire," as it held Janina's scis- sors, thread, and thimble.

" How clever you are ! " said Marcin, looking on in 'limp admiration, as, after a preliminary prick to his wrist, by way of brightening him up, she began fastening on the button. The compliment was ac- knowledged by another playful prick.

" How sharp your needle is ! " he said, wincing ; " sharp enough to go through a camel's eye, I should fancy."

" I wish you would not say such absurd things."

" And I wish you would not prick me."

" You need rousing," said Janina.

" I am sure you rouse me quite enough as it is," he sighed plaintively. "You ill-use me in such a dreadful manner ; you smash bottles close to my ear, you pound my nerves with that club of yours, and you prick my wrist ; and I am sure " — he looked apprehensively towards the bag of hydrophobia powders on the table — "I am sure you mean

10 BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR.

to make me swallow some of those horrible powders presently."

" That's a capital idea," said Janina. " I had not thought of it before,"

" "Well, look here — I don't want to be ill-used any longer. I took a whole lot of bitter pills the other day, only to please you, and they gave me a most awful headache; and I don't want to be frightened any more with these salt-smelling things put under my nose. I hope you haven't got any about you at this moment. I say that I am ill-used, and I have enough of it. The jug goes to the well till it breaks the camel's back, don't you see ? "

" Camels again," remarked Janina, biting off the thread.

" Well, don't you see what I want is that you should become my Collier, or my Fuller, or whatever it is ? "

" Leave the fable alone," she said coquettishly, dart- ing him a glance of fire ; " can't you explain yourself properly ? "

" I don't think I can ; will you not help me ? "

Janina pretended to be gazing at the stunted fuchsia overhead, which had apparently been weighed in the balance and been found wanting, for it brushed the ceiling, while the periwinkle trailed on the table.

" Help you ? Why, you never help anybody."

CLUBS AND IIEAETS. 11

"Did I not help you to pound alum the other day?" said Marcin, reproachfully.

" Oh, clichit you? and hadn't I a world of trouble in pounding it all over again ? and then, after all, it had to be thrown away, because you had mixed up a lot of soda with it. My father begins to doubt whether you have the making of a medical student after all." She darted him another glance. " ISTo, thank you ; no more help do I accept from you."

" But I am not asking you to take, I want you to give ; it is so difficult to explain one's self. I tell you that I want to put an end to all this."

" An end ! " repeated Janina slowly, looking down deep into half a seltzer-bottle.

" When I say an end, of course I mean a beginning," elucidated Marcin.

" A beginning of what ? " Janina's fingers w^ere ner- vously squeezing some of the sharp brown fragments, and Janina's heart was thumping almost as loud as that dull thud of the mortar which reached them through the back-door of the house.

"Well, that is just what I want you to tell me."

She hesitated a moment, and squeezed the sharp fragment so hard that it cut her finger. Perhaps it was the pain of the cut which sent that red wave to her face.

12 BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR.

" How can I tell you anything, when I don't know what you want to be told ? "

" I want to be told how I can see you every day, often, always, you know "

He waited a minute, and then she looked up boldly, though she was flushed to her very eyes.

" That can only be if you marry me. Is that what you mean ? "

When she had said it, she plunged her hot face somewhat abruptly into the periwinkle -plant which hung so conveniently low, for she was a little fright- ened at herself.

" Yes, that is what I mean, I suppose ; how clever you are ! You have such good ideas," said Marcin, admiringly. "Yes, that is just what I mean; they expect it, don't they, usually ? You see I was right, after all, about the Fuller and the Collier."

" ' Thank you, but I must decline your offer,' — is not that what the Fuller says ? " A pair of roguish black eyes were flashing at him through the periwinkle trails.

" But it is you wdio made the offer, you see, and I don't decline it. It was entirely your own idea."

" Lucky for you that I have got ideas ; you never have got one of your own."

" I have got an idea at this moment, though," said Marcin, " and it is a good one too. Oh, nonsense ! you

CLUBS AND HEARTS. 13

cannot get away, you know, and you are only frighten- ing the geese."

Tlie mud-bespattered cherub just then hovering through the air, laughed with delight at w^hat he saw through the chinks of the rickety arbour-roof. A solitary thrush, busy trying his voice, just to see if he had not got hoarse during the winter, saw as much as the muddy cherub saw, and remembered, with a start, that he ought to be turning his mind to such things as twigs and straw-wisps, to soft hay and wool.

" You are very fond of me, are you not ? " suggested Marcin, at the upshot of the last ten minutes.

"Yes; but I should like you better if you could manage to make a little more noise."

" But I think you make enough for two ; and there is so much noise already in the world."

Janina shook her head. " Not half enough for my taste. I'll tell you what would make me quite happy. I should like to live in a big town, where carriages pass all day and all night ; where there are plenty of bells, and drums, and music ; and all the men in the house would need to have loud voices, and to wear good thumping, creaking boots, and all the women have their petticoats starched like paper."

"Well, that is not my way at all; my motto is, ' anything for a quiet life.' All the same, I will try to wear creaking boots when we are married; but.

14 BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUll.

look here, won't it be troublesome to get married ? How do they manage it ? "

" I'm sure I have never tried before," said Janina, with her nose in the air.

"I know what I will do," said Marcin, after a minute's reflection. *' I'll ask my mother ; she has been married, so of course she will know all about it."

The thrush, still practising his notes hard by. gave a sagacious nod, as much as to say : " I have tried it before, and I know all about it too ; it's the simplest thing in the world, I tell you ! "

" Your mother," repeated Janina, and she looked at him curiously; " perhaps your mother will not like the idea at all."

" Why not ? Because you make too much noise ? You would have to be quiet when she is there, of course. I don't know anybody else whom I could ask, unless you asked your father."

" That I certainly shall not. I won't tell him a word until it is all settled. He is quite contented now with the idea that you are a medical student; but if he took fright, he might become difficult to manage. Luckily he is deep in the composition of a new remedy just now."

Before the arbour was abandoned that evening, Marcin's handkerchief became adorned with a visjor-

CLUBS AND HEARTS. 15

ous knot. " That is to remind you to speak to your mother," said Janina, as she jerked the knot tight.

" I suppose he ought to speak to his mother," she muttered to herself, for she was a girl who much pre- ferred getting what she wanted by fair and honest means.

" Mind you are here to-morrow to tell me what she says."

With these words ringing in his ears, Marcin went home.

16

CHAPTER XVI.

FOLLOWING SUIT.

'Rosalind. Then you must say,— I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. Orlando. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife."

— As You Like It.

It was on Thursday evening that this conversation had taken place. Friday and Saturday passed, and Marcin did not reappear. The thrush, having begun to collect flakes of cotton, wool, strips of medicine-labels, morsels of coloured twine, with here and there a shred of sticking-plaster, was much sur- prised, while proceeding to build a highly medicinal nest, to see no more signs of billing and cooing in the arbour.

Sunday came, and no member of the Bielinski family drove over to the Tarajow church. On Mon- day Madame Bielinska appeared to be weaker than usual. Some medicine that had been ordered had not come, and Mademoiselle Eobertine looked out anxiously for it during the day. It was late in the

FOLLOWING SUIT. 17

afternoon when Marcin, lounging about the passage with both his hands in his pockets, was aroused by the sound of rapid and resolute steps on the gravel outside ;— click, click, click they came through the wet. He seemed to know that sound, and in the next moment he was thoroughly startled by the bursting open of the door.

Janina, with a medicine-bottle in one hand, an umbrella in the other, a scarlet petticoat tucked up above her ankles, and a warlike stare upon her face, stood straight before him.

Marcin gazed at her fixedly and helplessly, opposing to her warlike stare nothing but a pale and harassed countenance.

" The medicine for your mother," she said, holding out the bottle. The silent house seemed to quake at the sound of her voice. Since Kazimir had gone away the week before, no such tone had been heard under this roof. She put the bottle into his hand. " There, take it, and come back to me here ; do you under- stand ? " She shook out her wet umbrella, and stamped about to get rid of the rain-drops. Marcin mechani- cally obeyed her, and returned to where she waited.

"And now," she beiijan, "be so kind as to tell me what all this means."

"i^ot so loud," said Marcin; "my mother is asleep."

" Well, I cannot talk any other way — so just put on

VOL. II. B

18 BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR.

your hat and let us have it out on the road ; you can walk back a bit with me towards Tarajow. Where is your hat ? There 1 " She clapped it down on his head, and dragged the bewildered Marcin out of the house.

As soon as they were at a safe distance from the windows, Janina spoke.

" Well, let us have your explanation now : where is that handkerchief with the knot upon it ? "

" Gone to the wash," said Marcin.

" And I suppose your memory is gone with it ; of course you forgot to speak to your mother ? "

"Not I," said Marcin, with an air of offended dignity, "but I almost wish I had. I hate knots on handkerchiefs."

Janina snorted. " And why so, may I ask ? "

" Because they are the beginning of misery."

" Make an effort to talk sense, if you please. You spoke to your mother, you say ? "

" Unluckily I did."

" And what did she say ? "

" She said that I was not."

"Was not what?"

" That I was not to do it."

" I understand." Janina audibly clenched her teeth. " She was angry, then, was she ? "

" No, I should not call it angry," said ^farcin, re- ectively ; " I think I should call it furious."

FOLLOWING SUIT. 19

" Did she say anything else ? "

'•' Oh, lots ; " he shuddered, as if at some terrible recollection.

" Tell me what ; speak, can't you ? " she said, with a stamp on the wet ground. Her hand was on his arm, and all this time she w^as drawing him along the road towards Tarajow.

" Oh, she said that I would break her heart, and my father's heart, and my brother's heart, and my aunt's heart, and, in fact, everybody's heart ; and that I would disgrace the family."

" She said that ? " repeated Janina, turning very pale.

" Yes ; and she would not see at all that it was a good idea, although I told her that it was your own idea "

" Go on," said Janina, with bated breath.

" She said that you were an artful, designing girl."

'' And you listened to all this quietly ? "

" Well, what else could I do ? especially as my mother fainted in the middle with agitation, and they thought she was dying, and sent for priests and doctors to finish killing her."

Janina w^alked on a minute in complete silence, which was a strange and alarming symptom.

" It would have been better," she said half to her- self, *' if we had got married first, and asked for her consent afterwards."

20 BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR.

*' Oh, but it is not my mother alone," said Marcin, " it is everybody else too, — it's Lucyan more than any- body ; they all cursed and abused me, and left me no peace. I am sure," and he gave a rueful sigh, " I never before knew that marriage was such a terribly troublesome thing, or I should not have broached the subject at all."

Janina tramped on for another minute in silence. " And what did you say in answer to all this ? "

" I said that I would not."

" That you would not marry me, you mean ? "

" Of course ; I cannot help it, you know. It is a pity, for it was a very good idea."

" And you meant what you said ? "

'' Well, yes, I suppose so."

" And what do you intend to do now ? "

" Nothing," said Marcin, serenely.

She stood stock-still in the mud, wrenched her hand from his arm, and without warning or preparation, she burst into a storm of tears. It was a perfect thunder- plump of tears, so abruptly and heavily did it fall. At the sight of it Marcin stood still also, bewildered, dis- tressed, and terrified.

" Look here ; I really cannot help it, you know," he said, plaintively. " Surely you are not going to begin and abuse me too; I have had such a hard time of it at home; you have no notion how unpleasant it

rOLLOWIXG SUIT. 21

is to be cursed ; and just after they had all begun to forgive me, and I was hoping for a quiet life again."

" Get away ! don't touch me ! " screamed Janina, as he attempted to pull away her hands.

" Please, don't be in a passion ; I am not going to give you up. Lucyan said I might go and see you as often as I liked, and that there was no harm in my amusing myself."

" He did not say that ? " and her black eyes flashed fire upon him.

" Yes, he did ; and he said that if I married you, you would never be allowed to come into the house, and that they would turn me out of it, and give me no money : and I could not live anywhere else but at home, you know ; I am so used to it."

" You shall never see me again, if you do not marry me," gasped Janina, choking with sobs.

" Oh, but you cannot mean that, you know," and he began pulling down one of her hands. " You always say such violent things ; you foam up just like one of those effervescing drinks, and you are as hot and sharp as a"

" Mustard-plaster," suggested Janina grimly, through the midst of her tears.

"Yes, that is just it; how clever you are, and how lovely too ! Your cheeks are quite white to-day. You

22 BEGGAK UY NEIGHBOUR.

have been letting concealment, like a worm in a bud, feed on your damask cheek ; I declare I have quoted it quite correctly. There, you must let me kiss you ; there is nobody on the road."

" You shall not kiss me until you say that you did not mean all you said. Oh, Marcin, how could you!"

With the same abruptness that her tears had begun, they also ceased. She had dried her eyes vigorously, but her breast was still heaving as she turned her face up to him. She had never looked so pretty as at this moment, with her baby-mouth quivering, her face pale with excitement, and her black eyes clouded with tears. Marcin kissed her first, and then began to explain. " What is the use of talking about that ? We had better drop the subject, don't you think ? '"'

" How dare you " — she was beginning with another flash of passion ; but she checked herself, before she had said — " how dare you insult me ? " The man standing before her did not look in the least as if he meant to insult her. He only looked limp and helpless, and thoroughly scared. His mother had frightened him, and his brother had frightened him. That immovable limpness would be proof against any amount of fire and passion. He must be managed some other way.

'■ I don't see why we need make such a fuss about

FOLLOWING SUIT. 23

it," Marcin was saying ; " life is too short for all these fusses. It only makes people curse you and say uncomfortable things; and I think, after all, that we were very comfortable as we were before."

" And you imagine that we could go on just as before ? "

" Of course ; why not ? All I ask for is a quiet life ; and if I am to have scenes every day, it would be exactly like living with a drawn sword round one's neck."

" Your life would be very quiet if you had never to come to Tarajow again."

" Oh, but that will not do at all ; you can't have meant what you said."

" I did mean it," said Janina, " and I am as good as my word. Now, what do you intend to do ? "

" Nothing," said Marcin ; " I only ask for a quiet life, and to see you as often as I like ; it is rather like sitting between two stools, isn't it ? or else like having your cake and eating it."

Janina looked at him and sighed with discourage- ment. This passive obstinacy was far more baffling than any active obstinacy. She walked on some paces, with a fixed frown on her face, making snatches at the twigs in passing. Click, clack, went the reso- lute steps ; swish, swash, went the swinging petticoats — and now, bim, bam, bom, broke in another sound

24 BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR.

over the scene. It was a distant sound, floating dis- mally across the wet and cheerless fields : the bell of the Tarajow church was tolling.

" There is one way," said Janina, slowly, " only one way I can think of by which you can both eat your cake and have it."

Marcin looked at her admiringly. " I always said you were clever — I knew I was right."

" But it is not very easy."

" Shall I have to take much trouble ? " he asked, apprehensively.

"If there is any trouble, I will take it. Listen." She stood still again on the road and laid her hand on his arm. There was no one within sight at the moment; if there had been, even a distant spectator would have been struck by the energy of her gestures and the rapid movements of her head. There was no one within sight ; but just round the bend of the road there was a fissure comimy alonc^, striding^ with long steps through the mud.

Marcin listened with a dawning smile on his face.

" How clever you are ! " he said again. " Do you think it is really worth while 1 "

" I have told you the alternative."

" But will it not be very hard work ? "

" Leave that all to me, I do not mind hard work."

" Very well ; but you must not let yourself get

FOLLOWING SUIT. 25

pale and look like a Avorm in a bud. And then, do you think it will be safe? Women cannot keep secrets."

" I will swear it to you on the crucifix if you like ; but, Marcin, you must promise me something in ex- change."

" Must I ? What sort of thing ? What an uncom- fortable sound that bell has ! " said Marcin ; " it makes me feel quite shivery."

She raised her head sharply and listened — bim, bam, bom, it tolled across the fields. " That is the passing-bell," she said. " Somebody must be dying, or is dead ; I wonder who ? We have had no medi- cines sent for to-day."

" It is not my mother, I hope," said Marcin, turning pale.

" Nonsense ! how could it be ? We have only just left the house. Never mind that bell now, but listen to me. We may be interrupted any moment ; " and so in truth they were. Before the last word had been said between them, and while the passing-bell still tolled out mournfully, Janina's quick eyes had espied a black figure through the bushes. "A Jew," she whispered. " No Jew should see us together. Do not forget!" She was gone before Marcin had realised that she was going, and had vanished between the thick bushes.

•26 BEGGAll MY NEIGHBOUR.

Marcin looked about him, cast one glance at the approaching Jew, and turned his face languidly home- wards. That tolling bell awoke in him a feeling of vague uneasiness. He felt an indistinct curiosity to know who it was that was dying. Should he ask that Jew who was abreast of him now at the other side of the road ? Marcin looked at him ; the Jew made an abject inclination, and Marcin recognised the factor, who had been absent for many weeks. Aitzig Majulik always knew everything. He would be sure to know for whom that bell was ringing. Marcin was half inclined to put the question, because of his curiosity, and half reluctant, because of his native indolence. It was always an effort for him to address anybody, and just now he was exhausted with talking. In the end the reluctance had the upper hand, and Aitzig Majulik was suffered to pass on ahead in silence.

Aitzig Majulik was walking fast, and he reached the Wowasulka house long before Marcin. He wiped his boots and entered, opened a door, and looked in. When he had opened several doors in succession, he opened the one of the room where Lucyan was sitting.

Lucy an looked up and was surprised at the sight of the Jew, though he never betrayed surprise in his face. '•' You are back from the Bukowina, Aitzig ; your business has taken you long."

" Yes, gracious Pan, I am back ; but there is no rest

FOLLOWING SUIT. 27

from business for poor old Aitzig. It is not as if Aitzig were a fortunate man like Naftali Tauben- kiibel," and the factor gave a jealous sigh. " All the horses to be stabled, and the hay to be bought ; and when I went off to Lodniki with the three pair of work-horses ordered, there was no rest for me there, and I was sent off at once to have the passing-bell rung (and only twenty kreuzers for my trouble !) Ah, you don't hear it ringing from here ! "

" Has any one died at Lodniki ? " asked Lucyan, indifferently ; " a workman, an overseer ? "

" The gracious Pan is pleased to appear ignorant," said the Jew, with a stare of astonishment. " Who is Aitzig Majulik, that he should know better of such things ? "

" None of your whining rubbish. Who is dead, I ask you ? "

" Who else should be dead but the noble gentleman himself, the noble Pan Eogdanovics, to be sure ? "

" Eogdanovics dead ! " repeated Lucyan, incredu- lously.

" He died this afternoon, if it so please you."

"When?"

" Two hours ago. Time enough to have put him under ground," added Aitzig, accustomed to the tele- graphic rapidity with which his own nation dispose of their dead. 'No doubt two hours, instead of shock-

28 BEGGAE MY NEIGHBOUE.

ingiy short, seemed to liim an indecently long time for the soulless clay to linger above ground.

" Was it illness or accident ? " asked Lucyan.

" Accident more than illness, gracious Pan. Pan Eogdanovics was as strong as the great Samson this morning, and this afternoon he broke a blood-vessel over his new machine for the tree-roots. They were just closing his eyes as I left the house."

Aitzig spoke in a business tone ; and Lucyan, who thought that he had come here merely to impart the intelligence, expected to see him slink out again. But Aitzig stood there still, picking at his ragged sleeve, and shuffling about his bony feet.

" That is all, then ? " said Lucyan, stunned in spite of himself by the sudden shock of the news.

" That is all," repeated Aitzig, in a tone which con- vinced Lucyan that that was not all.

" You can go, then."

Aitzig coughed, and offered another remark. " It is a very melancholy piece of news that poor Aitzig has had to give, and the gracious Pan was well acquainted w^ith the family."

"Well, what of it?"

"The gracious Pan has visited that house often during the last weeks."

" People are talking, then," said Lucyan, coolly. Then, as Aitzi^i coudied again, — "Don't make a

FOLLOWING SUIT. 29

mystery of it, Aitzig. I know what people say. They say that I am paying my addresses to Eog- danovics's daughter. Supposing they are right, what then?"

" Oh, nothing then. Who is Aitzig, that he should "

" If you have anything of importance to say," re- marked Lucyan, sternly, " shut the door, and come here."

" It is of no importance to me, gracious Pan."

" Shut the door and come here," repeated Lucyan. His secret thought was : " That old sinner has some- thing to disclose. Surely the father's death cannot have affected the dauQ-hter's fortune ? "

Aitzig slank towards the door, closed it softly, and returned to where Lucyan sat.

30

CHAPTEE XVII.

TRUMPED.

Listen, O Cyclops, for I am well skilled In Bacchus, whom I gave thee of to drink."

— Shelley.

The bell of the Tarajow church was hard worked in these days. It was not more than a week after it had been muffled in an old fur cap, and tolled for Eogdano- vics, that the fur cap was put on again, and the rope Avas pulled for poor Madame Bielinska. It had rung out between whiles also, without the fur cap, but in a quiet, discreet fashion, as if half ashamed of the sound of its own tongue ; and none had troubled themselves to inquire the reason. The neighbourhood had quite enough to talk about with the two deaths that had occurred within one week. Eogdanovics's death was by far the most grateful subject for gossip : it was a warning example held up by all pessimists for the edification of all sanguinists ; it was a lesson to all persons with progressive ideas — a lesson v*'hich taught

TRUMPED. 31

them the folly of attempting to do otherwise than as their forefathers had done. The choleric old gentle- man was particularly grim. Had Kogdanovics broken a blood-vessel in a good, respectable, old-fashioned style — as he might have done in lifting a heavy sack of potatoes, for instance — then his death would deserve to be called a lamentable accident ; but as it had hap- pened over a new-fangled machine for pulling roots out of the ground (instead of setting a dozen peasants, with pick-axes, to the job), it could only be looked upon as the finger of Providence, w^ho had decreed that the adventurous man should go to his grave with all his unhatched, hatching, and half-hatched schemes in his brain, and without setting eyes upon even a single white post to mark the future railway. Popular opinion, on the whole, approved of the conduct of the orphaned daughter, who, although she gave up the lease of Szybalin, went on living in retirement at Lod- niki, in company with her cousin and her aunt, come from Krakow to join her.

The second death was by no means as interesting. Everybody had known all winter that Madame Bie- linska was dying ; the only surprising point about the matter was that slie should have lived longer than her robust neighbour Ko^rdanovics. Neither was there anything especially interesting about the way in which her property was distributed : it could only interest

32 BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR,

the heirs themselves. The way in which Madame Bielinska had disposed of her property was very simple : she had left Wowasulka in equal shares to her three sons. It was her formally expressed wish that her eldest son, Kazimir, should take the manage- ment of the estate, paying to his brothers their share of yearly profit. Failing Kazimir, the reins were to fall to Lucyan. Clearly it was Lucyan's duty to put the state of the case before his brother, transmitting their mother's wishes. This duty Lucyan fulfilled to the very letter. In the note which announced the death, there was no mention of business ; but scarcely another fortnight had elapsed when a long business letter reached Kazimir. He was urgently exhorted to abandon his military career, and come home to take the management of the estate, which, at this spring season, was particularly in want of careful administra- tion. He, Lucyan, did not wish to take any