"No, and you will be lucky if more of your patience is not required. It will not be my fault, but you see the gentlemen of the court like to take it easy."
"Take it easy!" echoed Taras, as one in a dream, staring at the lawyer in helpless wonder. "Take it easy!" he repeated wildly. "Oh, sir, this is not right! Justice should flow like a well which all can reach, for it is hard to be athirst for it."
Starkowski looked at the peasant, first with a kind of professional interest only, but with human sympathy before long. He smiled--"I will really do my best for you," he said, and his voice was that of a man comforting a grieving child.
And he did his best, using his every influence to expedite the matter. In most lawsuits at that time in Galicia six months would slip away before even a writ was served upon the defendant, but Mr. Hajek, in the present case, received his within a week. To be sure, he was entitled to a three months' delay to get up his defence, and he availed himself of it to the day--for what purpose, the poor peasants presently had reason to suspect. On the very last day of the term allowed to him he sent in his reply, pleading in exculpation the reasons he had given to Taras, and demanding in his turn that a commission should be appointed for the examining of witnesses on the spot.
Taras's counsel was not a little surprised. To examine the peasants upon their oath was the one means within the reach of the law for arriving at the truth concerning the alleged removing of the cross which marked the boundary. It plainly was in the mandatar's interest to prevent this if possible, and to take his stand on the ocular evidence in his favour, as given in the title deeds. Strange that he should propose the very means of settling the contest which of all was most likely to go against him! Dr. Starkowski could not make it out. "He is a fool," he thought, "unless, after all, he is sure of his claim, or, indeed, has bribed his witnesses." And both conjectures appeared to him equally unlikely, the former because of the solemn soul-stirring manner with which Taras had invoked his help; the latter because of the good opinion Mr. Wenceslas enjoyed in the district town. For his Parisian antecedents were not known there, and society had admitted him to its bosom as an amiable gentleman of irreproachable character.