From Blackwood's Magazine.
MAGDA'S COW.
CHAPTER I.
THE TWO REAPERS.
"Es ist ein Schnitter der heisst Tod
Hat Gewalt vom höchsten Gott.
Heut wetzt er das Messer
Es schneid't schon viel besser.
Bald wird er drein schneiden,
Wir müssen es leiden.
Hüte dich, schön's Blümelein!
Hüte dich!"
Old Church Chant.
It was harvest-time, and the reapers were busy at work in the fields cutting and binding together into sheaves the golden corn-ears; carts drawn by oxen or horses were plying unceasingly to and fro, conveying the grain to the stackyard behind the great house.
Never before, since the oldest inhabitants of the village remembered, had the promise of the harvest been so rich, never had the corn-ears grown so equal and so straight, standing one near the other in close ranks like well drilled soldiers. No gaps to be seen anywhere, no deserters from this army; for this year no untimely hailstorms had stepped in to beat down their forces, no vicious rains to foster canker and mildew: each single ear stood perfect and intact, ready to burst and let fall the treasure it contained in a golden rain.
Men and women, old and young, had turned out alike to hasten the garnering of the wheat; but there was no sound of mirth or gaiety heard in the fields. Silently and sullenly the reapers plied their work, only pausing now and then to sign themselves with the cross, as the renewed tolling of a bell reached their ears.
The harvest-time is for the Polish peasant girls what the carnival season is for city damsels. Their smartest neckerchiefs, their brightest ribbons, are donned on these occasions, with here and there an autumn marigold or aster stuck in the carefully braided plaits; and thus adorned, in hand the sickle which takes the place of a fan, the Polish lass issues forth arrayed for conquest.
The corn-field offers many opportunities for rural flirtations; the rustic swain can often melt a fair one's heart by sharing her task; a draught of fresh water offered to parched lips earns grateful smiles; and while bending together over an obstreperous sheaf which cannot be fastened without assistance, many a bond for life is tied as well.
In autumn, when the garners are full, and the work is over, it is no imprudence to take a wife, least of all on such a year as this when there is bread in plenty to spare; and thus it comes that the autumn time is a harvest-time as well for the village priest, who has plenty to do in forging the links which are to bind together for better or worse many more or less loving couples.
Yes, there would be bread in plenty this year, there was no doubt at all about that. But of what use is bread if you are not sure to be there to eat it? Viewed from the churchyard, overflowing garners seem wonderfully uninteresting; and loaves of bread, even the largest and the whitest, wake little appetite among the dead.
For another reaper was at work in this goodly harvest season, and the name of this reaper was Death.
That foul spectre called cholera had been creeping about the country, making havoc in castle and cottage, till it had reached the village of Rudniki; and once arrived here, it was in no hurry to leave the place, for this village and its surroundings seemed to please this foul spectre exceedingly well. It settled itself down here in quite a leisurely fashion, and made itself entirely at home in this village; for Rudniki was a large and well-populated village, and there was plenty of work to be done here — a goodly harvest to be reaped of swarthy men and comely women, of curly-haired children and smiling babes.
Every day the bell tolled for some new victim; strong men were stricken down in the midst of their work; mothers saw their little ones torn from their very arms: there was weeping and desolation everywhere.
A proclamation had lately been issued ordering that each corpse should be removed from the dwelling-house within a few hours of the decease, and this under pain of heavy fine. To comply with this injunction, a temporary shed had been erected on a piece of waste land outside the village, and hither the dead were carried to await their burial. As this extempore dead-house stood alone, adjoining the corn-fields, it was in full sight of the working peasants, and the tolling bell which ushered in every fresh arrival grated harshly on their ears. Small wonder then if among the reapers there was no merriment and no singing, no joyous harvest-songs to be heard this year, no tender dramas played among the sheltering corn-sheaves.
The lady of the great house, Madame
