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The people said that it could not be avoided; but he had heard the prince himself say to Mikolaj of Dlugolas, that the Knights of the Cross were very peaceable now, and if the king only insisted, they would restore the province of Dobrzyn to Poland; or they would try to delay the whole affair, until they were well prepared,
This much is sure, that he knew with precision the changes of the weather, and could guess them oftener than the farmer’s almanac. It is no marvel then that, whether it was a question of beginning the sowing, or of sending out the river barges, or of reaping the grain; whether it was a matter of going to law, or of concluding a compromise, nothing was done in Dobrzyn without the advice of Maciek.
At daybreak there had appeared in Dobrzyn a mounted messenger; he galloped from cottage to cottage and awoke them as if to work for the manor: the gentry arose and filled with a crowd the streets of the hamlet; cries were heard in the tavern, candles seen in the priest’s house.
The fool took the two skojce given to him by the Krzyzak, and taking advantage of the license granted at all courts to the fools, answered: "There is plenty of honey in the province of Dobrzyn; that is why it is beset with the drones. Drive them, King Wladyslaw!"
“Not at all,” shouted the Warden, “I follow the old fashion. Of great things great men should think; for them there is an Emperor, and there will be a King, a Senate, and Deputies. Such things, my boy, are done in Cracow or in Warsaw, not here among us, in the hamlet of Dobrzyn.
Therefore we must finish with them once for all, or they will destroy us." Others said: "Crazy monks! They are not satisfied with Plowce! Death is over them, and still they have taken the land of Dobrzyn."
Petersburg from the famous Silbermann.” Through the whole book runs a humour not often found elsewhere in Mickiewicz; the reports of the debates in Jankiel’s tavern and in Dobrzyn hamlet are masterly in their blending of kindly pleasantry with photographic fidelity to truth.
In order to distinguish themselves amid such confusion, they took various nicknames, from some merit or defect, both men and women. Sometimes they would give a man several surnames, as a mark of the contempt or of the regard of his compatriots; sometimes the same gentleman was known by one name in Dobrzyn, and by a different title in the neighbouring hamlets.
But we must not look for them in the peasant villages, but through the hamlets of the gentry, in Dobrzyn, in Rzezikow, in Cientycze, in Rombanki;99 the gentry of ancient lineage, in whom flows knightly blood, are all well disposed to the family of the Horeszkos, and are all mortal enemies of the Soplicas! Thence I will collect some three hundred mustachioed gentlemen; that is my affair.
Perhaps I have been too active in stirring up the insurrection! They may have understood me ill! The Warden has spoiled all! That crazy Count, I hear, has rushed away to Dobrzyn; I could not head him off, for an important reason: old Maciek has recognised me, and if he betrays me I must needs bow my neck beneath the penknife. Nothing will restrain the Warden!
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