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Suddenly, our ears caught the sound of bells and laughing voices, and in a few minutes up drove the Lorenski sledge in its gayest trappings, with Constanza, the Russian countess, and the young cousins, all looking blithe, and rosy in the frosty air, while Emerich and Theodore sat in true hunter's trim, and Father Cassimer himself in charge of the reins, with the well-covered pork beside him.

All the young and brave hearts among us were pledged to it, and my cousins did not hesitate to tell me in confidence that Count Emerich and his sister were its chief promoters in that district. They had a devoted assistant in Father Cassimer.

The distant howlings continued and came nearer; and then from every glade and alley, down the frozen streams, and through the wide openings of the forest, came by scores and hundreds such a multitude of wolves as we could not have believed to exist in all Lithuania. 'Hand me my gun, and take the reins, Metski, cried Father Cassimer.

Then Stuyvesant crossed over and, near the site of New Castle in Delaware, built a fort, which he called Fort Cassimer. Governor Printz protested in vain. The two magistrates held friendly personal intercourse, and they mutually promised to "keep neighborly friendship and correspondence together." This strange friendly conquest was in the year 1651.

Our hunting-gear was donned in a trice; and with my uncle's most trusty man, Metski, to assist in driving, away we went at full speed to the forest. Father Cassimer was an experienced general in expeditions of the kind; he knew the turns of the woods where the wolves scented best; and when we had got fairly among the tall oaks, down went his pork.

That was in his youth; but Father Cassimer never denied the tale, and the peasants who remembered it had no less confidence in his prayers, for they knew he loved his country, and looked after the sick and poor.

'Fire now, friends! cried Father Cassimer. 'We are like to have skins enough for Christmas; and bang went all our barrels. I saw five fall; but, contrary to expectation, the wolves did not retire they stood for an instant snarling at us.

In some respects, the man did deserve a century, being a good Pole and a worthy priest, notwithstanding one weakness which beset him, for Father Cassimer took special delight in hunting.

My uncle was not at first willing that we should go; but the merry company now at his door, the unequivocal countenance which Father Cassimer gave to the proceeding, and the high spirits of the young Russians, who were, as usual, wild for the sport, made him think that, after all, there was no harm in the young people taking an hour or two in the woods before mass, which on Christmas-eve begins always at midnight.

He landed his force on the beach between Fort Cassimer and Fort Christina near Wilmington, and an ensign with a drum was sent to the fort to demand the surrender. The warlike Schute complied next day, and in the presence of Stuyvesant and his suite he drank the health of the governor in a glass of Rhenish wine. So ended the bloodless conquest.