Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/185

Rh "Do I tell you that they are better? A nicer girl to people than Yagenka could not be found, I think."

"Neither do I say anything against Zbyshko; he can draw a crossbow without a crank."

"And will prop up a bear himself alone. Have you seen how he cut him? Split off his head and one paw."

"He knocked off his head, but he did not prop him alone. Yagenka helped him."

"Did she help him? He did not tell me that."

"For he promised her—because the girl was ashamed to go at night to the forest. She told me right away how it was. Others would be glad to invent, but she will not hide the truth. Speaking sincerely I was not pleased, for who knows— I wanted to shout at her, but she said: 'If I cannot guard myself, you, papa, will not guard me;' but never fear, Zbyshko knows also what knightly honor is."

"That is true."

"They have gone alone to-day."

"But they will come back in the evening. The devil is worse at night; girls need not be ashamed then, for it is dark."

Matsko thought a while, then said, as if to himself,—

"But in every case they are glad to see each other."

"Oh, if he had not made a vow to that other one!"

"That, as you know, is a knightly custom. Whoso among young men has not his lady is looked on by others as a simpleton. He has vowed peacock-plumes, and he must get them, for he has sworn on his knightly honor; he must also get Lichtenstein, but the abbot may free him from other vows."

"The abbot will come any day."

"Do you think so?" inquired Matsko. "But what is such a vow when Yuraud told him directly that he would not give the girl. Whether he had promised her to another, or devoted her to the service of God, I know not, but he said directly that he would not give her."

"I have told you," said Zyh, "that the abbot loves Yagenka as if she were his own. The last time he spoke thus to her: 'I have relatives only by the distaff, but by that distaff there will be more threads for thee than for them.'"

At this Matsko looked with alarm, and even suspiciously, at Zyh, and answered only after a while,—

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