The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-09-25

youth once went to the steppes he went to a life from which home had been
 eliminated.
 Drunk as Taras had been the night be-
 fore he had not failed to give all the necessary orders for the departure before daybreak the next morning. and so he rode away with his sons into the first blush of the sunrise the day after their arrival home, and kind retainers tore the old woman from the stirrups of her youngest son, where she clung with hys- terical despair, and carried her back to the house. At first the boys were rather thoughtful and sad, but the brisk ride in the early morning across the wonderful seas of green flecked with howers-those Russian prairies, the steppes-soon brought to them the joy of youth abound ing in this first venture into the world of their people, the world of revel and battle of which they had dreamed all through their youth at the university.
 How many .Cossacks were there out on the steppes? Nobody could say. The Sultan. once asking the question, received for reply from a Cossack chief: Who knows? We are scattered all over the steppes; wherever there is a hillock there is a Cossack." Their land was a land de- serted by princes because of the invasion of the Asatic hordes. In place of the original provinces with petty towns, in place of the warning and bartering princes, there had arisen great colonies or kurens of Cossacks, and districts bound together by-a common danger and common hatred toward the heather robbers. And their incessant fighting and restless activity saved Europe from the merciless hordes of Asia, which threat ened to overwhem her. There was no trade which the Cossack did not know and follow in times of peace in the vil- lages. But when war was in the wind there could be raised, beside the enrolled Cossacks of the military villages, a whole host of volunteers. An officer, the osaul, had only to go from village to village shouting out Here, ye brewers of beer you have brewed enough! Here, ye bak- CTS. you have lolled enough beside your ovens. Ye plowmen, ye buckwheat reap CTS, ye tenders of sheep, ye danglers after women-arouse yourselvesl The hour has come to win knightly fame for the Cossack" And the husbandman broke his blow. the brewers and distillers threw away their casks, the mechanics and the merchants sent their trade and their shops to the devil, mounted their horses and followed the standard of the nearest hetman.
 There was no war on when Taras brought his two strapping sons to the great military village of the Zaporozhians. It was by the waters of the Dnieper and was city of barracks. No women were admitted there, and all the shops were in the suburbs. There 5000 enrolled Cossack soldiers feasted and reveled, drinking long and deep, dancing and sing ing and leading a life care free and wild until the trumpet of war should call them to the field. When war called, the drinking and the feasting ceased. Even in barracks the officers kept strict discipline in everything except the eat ing and drink-which were allowed to soldiers In time of peace as being their right.
 It was a great matter of regret to Taras when he proudly brought his two sons to the setch of the Zaporozhians that there was no war on. Why the kosche- vol. the headman of the setch, should keep the peace he had sworn with the infidel Turk was a mystery to Bulba. Were the Turks not heathens? But the headman would not declare war, even to please Taras and give a breathing and a little blood-letting to his sons. The two boys entered into the life of the camp with avidity. and soon took place among the young Cossack nobles who swarmed there. Both longed for war, but while Ostap had only war and revelry in his mind. Andril had something else-a sen timent stronger and more compelling than any other known to man-love! The memory of a fair face, of dark hair and black eyes. haunted him day and night
 When he had been a-student in Kief there had come to the city Polish mo- Andril had been mud-bespattered by a cart in the narrow and filthy streets of the city, he had looked up to see girl laughing at him out of window He was a bold youth. as fertile in ex- pedients as he was susceptible. That night he scaled a garden wall, descended chimney and obtained an interview with the daughter of the voivode of Koven. With the giddiness common to the Poles. the girl laughed at the amorous youth, made sport of him, and finally, calling an old and trusty servant, a Tar tar slave woman, she had the boy guid- ed to the garden gate and sent forth But some of the yoivode's men servants caught him just as he was making his escape and beat him. And the next day they caught him looking at the house and beat him again. The next time An- drii went to look at the house strange faces gazed from the windows-the vio- vode had departed with his family This was the little romance over which An drIi brooded.
 Various schemes did old Taras concoct to get the setch on the warpath, but all in vain. For months the brothers lived the life of single men in barracks" But one day there came some tattered and | wayworn fugitives in a boat across the river to the military city. They declared that they had escaped from massacre; that the Poles had been burning and plundering Worse than all, they had | outraged the "orthodox"-that is, the Greek-faith and told vague and hair raising stories of their cruelties and sac rieges. Taras had been seduously stir