LITMIR.BIZ

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went the gigantic Pan Yaromir Kokosinski, with the seal of Pypka, a famous soldier and swaggerer, with a terrible scar across his forehead, his eye, and his cheek, with one mustache short, the other long, the lieutenant and friend of Kmita, the "worthy comrade," condemned to loss of life and honor in Smolensk for stealing a maiden, for murder and arson. At that time war saved him, and the protection of Kmita, who was of the same age; and their lands were adjoining in Orsha till Pan Yaromir had squandered his away. He came up holding in both hands a great-eared bowl filled with dembniak.

      Next came Ranitski, whose family had arms, – Dry Chambers (Suche Komnaty). He was born in the province of Mstislavsk, from which he was an outlaw for killing two noblemen, landowners. One he slew in a duel, the other he shot without an encounter. He had no estate, though he inherited his step-mother's land on the death of his father. War saved him, too, from the executioner. He was an incomparable hand-to-hand sword-slasher.

      The third in order was Rekuts-Leliva, on whom blood did not weigh, save the blood of the enemy. But he had played away, drunk away his substance. For the past three years he had clung to Kmita.

      With him came the fourth, also from Smolensk, Pan Uhlik, under sentence of death and dishonor for breaking up a court. Kmita protected him because he played beautifully on the flageolet.

      Besides them was Pan Kulvyets-Hippocentaurus, in stature the equal of Kokosinski, in strength even his superior; and Zend, a horse-trainer, who knew how to imitate wild beasts and all kinds of birds, – a man of uncertain descent, though claiming to be a noble of Courland; being without fortune he trained Kmita's horses, for which he received an allowance.

      These then surrounded the laughing Pan Andrei. Kokosinski raised the eared bowl and intoned: -

      "Drink with us, dear host of ours,

      Dear host of ours!

      With us thou mightst drink to the grave,

      Drink to the grave!"

      Others repeated the chorus; then Kokosinski gave Kmita the eared bowl, and Zend gave Kokosinski a goblet.

      Kmita raised high the eared bowl and shouted, "Health to my maiden!"

      "Vivat! vivat!" cried all voices, till the window-panes began to rattle in their leaden fittings. "Vivat! the mourning will pass, the wedding will come!"

      They began to pour forth questions: "But how does she look? Hei! Yendrus,9 is she very pretty, or such as you pictured her? Is there another like her in Orsha?"

      "In Orsha?" cried Kmita. "In comparison with her you might stop chimneys with our Orsha girls! A hundred thunders! there's not another such in the world."

      "That's the kind we wanted for you," answered Ranitski. "Well, when is the wedding to be?"

      "The minute the mourning is over."

      "Oh, fie on the mourning! Children are not born black, but white."

      "When the wedding comes, there will be no mourning. Hurry, Yendrus!"

      "Hurry, Yendrus!" all began to exclaim at once.

      "The little bannerets of Orsha are crying in heaven for the earth," said Kokosinski.

      "Don't make the poor little things wait!"

      "Mighty lords," added Rekuts-Leliva, with a thin voice, "at the wedding we'll drink ourselves drunk as fools."

      "My dear lambs," said Kmita, "pardon me, or, speaking more correctly, go to a hundred devils, let me look around in my own house."

      "Nonsense!" answered Uhlik. "To-morrow the inspection, but now all to the table; there is a pair of demijohns there yet with big bellies."

      "We have already made inspection for you. This Lyubich is a golden apple," said Ranitski.

      "A good stable!" cried Zend; "there are two ponies, two splendid hussar horses, a pair of Jmud horses, and a pair of Kalmuks, – all in pairs, like eyes in the head. We will look at the mares and colts to-morrow."

      Here Zend neighed like a horse; they wondered at his perfect imitation, and laughed.

      "Is there such good order here?" asked Kmita, rejoiced.

      "And how the cellar looks!" piped Rekuts; "resinous kegs and mouldy jugs stand like squadrons in ranks."

      "Praise be to God for that! let us sit down at the table."

      "To the table! to the table!"

      They had barely taken their places and filled their cups when Ranitski sprang up again: "To the health of the Under-chamberlain Billevich!"

      "Stupid!" answered Kmita, "how is that? You are drinking the health of a dead man."

      "Stupid!" repeated the others. "The health of the master!"

      "Your health!"

      "May we get good in these chambers!"

      Kmita cast his eyes involuntarily along the dining-hall, and he saw on the larch wood walls, blackened by age, a row of stern eyes fixed on him. Those eyes were gazing out of the old portraits of the Billeviches, hanging low, within two ells of the floor, for the wall was low. Above the portraits in a long unbroken row were fixed skulls of the aurochs, of stags, of elks, crowned with their antlers: some, blackened, were evidently very old; others were shining with whiteness. All four walls were ornamented with them.

      "The hunting must be splendid, for I see abundance of wild beasts," said Kmita.

      "We will go to-morrow or the day after. We must learn the neighborhood," answered Kokosinski. "Happy are you, Yendrus, to have a place to shelter your head!"

      "Not like us," groaned Ranitski.

      "Let us drink for our solace," said Rekuts.

      "No, not for our solace," answered Kulvyets-Hippocentaurus, "but once more to the health of Yendrus, our beloved captain. It is he, my mighty lords, who has given here in Lyubich an asylum to us poor exiles without a roof above our heads."

      "He speaks justly," cried a number of voices; "Kulvyets is not so stupid as he seems."

      "Hard is our lot," piped Rekuts. "Our whole hope is that you will not drive us poor orphans out through your gates."

      "Give us peace," said Kmita; "what is mine is yours."

      With that all rose from their places and began to take him by the shoulders. Tears of tenderness flowed over those stern drunken faces.

      "In you is all our hope, Yendrus," cried Kokosinski, "Let us sleep even on pea straw; drive us not forth."

      "Give us peace," repeated Kmita.

      "Drive us not forth; as it is, we have been driven, – we nobles and men of family," said Uhlik, plaintively.

      "To a hundred fiends with you, who is driving you out? Eat, drink! What the devil do you want?"

      "Do not deny us," said Ranitski, on whose face spots came out as on the skin of a leopard. "Do not deny us, Andrei, or we are lost altogether."

      Here he began to stammer, put his finger to his forehead as if straining his wit, and suddenly said, looking with sheepish eyes on those present, "Unless fortune changes."

      And all blurted out at once in chorus, "Of course it will change."

      "And we will yet pay for our wrongs."

      "And come to fortune."

      "And to office."

      "God bless the innocent! Our prosperity!"

      "Your health!" cried Pan Andrei.

      "Your words are holy, Yendrus," said Kokosinski, placing his chubby face before Kmita. "God grant us improvement of fortune!"

      Healths began to go around, and tufts to steam. All were talking, one interrupting the other; and each heard only himself, with the exception of Rekuts, who dropped his head on his breast and slumbered. Kokosinski began to sing, "She bound the flax in bundles," noting which Uhlik took a flageolet from his bosom and accompanied him.

      Ranitski, a great fencer, fenced with his

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