Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/702

 264 will not move to help Vitold, though his hands are itching, for I know this, that he hates the Knights of the Cross as he does leprosy."

By such speeches Matsko acquired for himself the reputation of being a keen man who could lay everything out, as it were, on the table. So in Kresnia people gathered around him in a circle after Mass every Sunday, and afterward it was customary for this or that neighbor, when he heard news, to turn in at Bogdanets, so that the old knight might explain to him what an ordinary noble head could not analyze. Matsko received all with welcome, and spoke to each of them willingly; and when at last the guest, having said what he wanted, was departing, the host never forgot to take farewell of him in these words,—

"You may wonder at my reason, but when Zbyshko, with God's will, comes back here, you will begin to wonder really! He might sit even in the king's council, such a wise and ingenious man is he."

And by persuading guests of Zbyshko's greatness he persuaded himself of it at last, and also Yagenka. Zbyshko seemed to them both from afar like the king's son in a fairy tale. When spring appeared they could hardly remain in the house. Swallows returned, storks returned, land-rails were playing in the meadows, quails were heard in the green growth of grain; earlier than all, flocks of cranes and teal had come. Zbyshko alone did not return to them. But after the birds had flown back from the south, a winged wind from the north brought news of war. Men spoke of battles and numerous encounters in which the clever Vitold at one time was victor, at another the vanquished; they spoke of great disasters, which winter and diseases had wrought among the Germans. Till at last the joyful news thundered throughout the country, that Keistut's valiant son had taken New Kovno, or Gotteswerder; he had destroyed it, he had not left one stone on another, or one beam on another. When this news reached Matsko, he mounted his horse and flew off to Zgorzelitse without halting.

"Ha!" said he, "those places are known to me; for Zbyshko and I with Skirvoillo beat the Knights of the Cross there,—beat them mightily. There it was that we captured that honest De Lorche. Well, it was God's will to sprain the German foot this time, for that castle was hard to take."

But Yagenka had heard before Matsko came of the