“From fair to fair, to sell horses.”
“If you stay here all night, I’ll see, perhaps I’ll pick out something. Meanwhile will you permit me to join you at the table?”
The unknown lord asked, it is true, if they would let him sit with them, but in such a tone as if he were perfectly sure that they would; and he was not mistaken. The young horse-dealer said—
“We beg your grace very kindly, though we have nothing to offer but sausage and peas.”
“There are better dainties in my bags,” answered the lordling, not without a certain pride; “but I have a soldier’s palate, and sausage with peas, if well cooked, I prefer to everything.” When he had said this—and he spoke very slowly, though he looked quickly and sharply—he took his seat on the bench on which Kmita pushed aside to give convenient room.
“Oh, I beg, I beg, do not incommode yourself. On the road rank is not regarded; and though you were to punch me with your elbow, the crown would not fall from my head.”
Kmita, who was pushing a plate of peas to the unknown, and who, as has been said, was not used to such treatment, would certainly have broken the plate on the head of the puffed up young man if there had not been something in that pride of his which amused Pan Andrei; therefore not only did he restrain his internal impulse at once, but laughed and said—
“Such times are the present, your grace, that crowns fall from the loftiest heads; for example, our king Yan Kazimir, who by right should wear two crowns, has none, unless it be one of thorns.”
The unknown looked quickly at Kmita, then sighed and said, “Times are such now that it is better not to speak of this unless with confidants.” Then after a moment he added: “But you have brought that out well. You must have served with polished people, for your speech shows more training than your rank.”
“Rubbing against people, I have heard this and that, but I have never been a servant.”
“Whence are you by birth, I beg to ask?”
“From a village in the province of Trotsk.”
“Birth in a village is no drawback, if you are only noble; that’s the main thing. What is to be heard in Lithuania?”
“The old story—no lack of traitors.”
“Traitors, do you say? What kind of traitors?”
“Those who have deserted the king and the Commonwealth.”
“How is the prince voevoda of Vilna?”
“Sick, it is said; his breath fails him.”
“God give him health, he is a worthy lord!”
“For the Swedes he is, since he opened the gates to them.”
“I see that you are not a partisan of his.”
Kmita noticed that the stranger, while asking him questions as it were good-naturedly, was observing him.
“What do I care!” said he; “let others think of him. My fear is that the Swedes may take my horses in requisition.”
“You should have sold them on the spot, then. In Podlyasye are stationed, very likely, the squadrons which rebelled against the hetman, and surely they have not too many horses.”
“I do not know that, for I have not been among them, though some man in passing gave me a letter to one of their colonels, to be delivered when possible.”
“How could that passing man give you a letter when you are not going to Podlyasye?”
“Because in Shchuchyn one confederate squadron is stationed, therefore the man said to me, ‘Either give it yourself or find an opportunity in passing Shchuchyn.’ ”
“That comes out well, for I am going to Shchuchyn.”
“Your grace is fleeing also before the Swedes?”
The unknown, instead of an answer, looked at Kmita and asked phlegmatically, “Why do you say also, since you not only are not fleeing from the Swedes, but are going among them and will sell them horses, if they do not take your beasts by force?”
At this Kmita shrugged his shoulders. “I said also, because in Leng I saw many nobles who escaped before the Swedes; and as to me, if all were to serve them as much as I wish to serve them, I think they would not warm the places here long.”
“Are you not afraid to say this?”
“I am not afraid, for I am not a coward, and in the second place your grace is going to Shchuchyn, and there everyone says aloud what he thinks. God grant a quick passage from talking to action.”
“I see that you are a man of wit beyond your station,” repeated the unknown. “But if you love not the Swedes, why leave these squadrons, which have mutinied against the hetman? Have they mutinied because their wages were kept back, or from caprice? No! but because they would not serve the hetman and the Swedes. It would have been better for those soldiers, poor fellows, to remain under the hetman, but they preferred to give themselves the name of rebels, to expose themselves to hunger, hardships, and many destructive things, rather than act against the king. That it will come to war between them and the Swedes is certain, and it would have come already were it not that the Swedes have not advanced to that corner as yet. Wait, they will come, they will meet here, and then you will see!”
“I think, too, that war will begin here very soon,” said Kmita.
“Well, if you have such an opinion, and a sincere hatred for the Swedes—which looks out of your eyes, for you speak truth, I am a judge of that—then why not join these worthy soldiers? Is it not time, do they not need hands and sabres? Not a few honorable men are serving among them, who prefer their own king to a foreign one, and soon there will be more of these. You come from places in which men know not the Swedes as yet, but those who have made their acquaintance are shedding hot tears. In Great Poland, though it surrendered to them of its own will, they thumbscrew nobles, plunder, make requisitions,
