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It was once powerful and populous, for when King Jan III. Sobieski had summoned the general militia by the “twigs,”113 the ensign of the wojewodeship had led to him from Dobrzyn alone six hundred armed gentry. The family had now grown small and poor; formerly at the courts of the magnates or in their troops, at forays, and at the district assemblies the Dobrzynskis used to find an easy living.
There the partisans of the Soplicas vied with each other in setting free the Dobrzynskis by tearing apart the beams. Seeing this, the yagers seized their arms and made for them; a sergeant rushed ahead and transfixed Podhajski with a bayonet; he wounded two others of the gentry and was shooting at a third; they fled: this was close to the log in which Baptist was fastened.
“After that victory, General,” said the Judge, “almost all the Dobrzynskis took refuge in the Grand Duchy, and must have entered one or other of the legions.” “Why certainly,” answered a young squadron commander, “I have in the second company a mustachioed scarecrow, Sergeant-Major Dobrzynski, who calls himself Sprinkler, but whom the Masovians call the Lithuanian bear.
For you old men remember, and you young men have heard, that the Pantler was the father and benefactor of you all. Whom did he send as manager to his Pinsk estates? A Dobrzynski. Who were his accountants? Dobrzynskis. He chose none for majordomos and none for butlers except Dobrzynskis; his house was full of Dobrzynskis.
Again the Dobrzynskis and the other Lithuanians vied with one another in pressing forward, and, despite the former disagreements of the two factions, they fought like brothers, each urging on his comrade. The Dobrzynskis, seeing how a Podhajski was prancing before the line of yagers and slashing them with his scythe, shouted joyfully: “Long live the Podhajskis!
Opposite him stood Baptist, resting his hands on his club, and, moving his head, which was supported on the end of the club, like a pumpkin stuck on the end of a long pole, he nodded it, now forward and now backward, and cried incessantly, “Sprinkle, sprinkle!” Up and down the room the mobile Razor ran constantly from Sprinkler to Maciej’s bench, but Bucket slowly walked across the room from the Dobrzynskis to the other gentry, as if he were trying to reconcile them.
Yes, at the foray of Mysz the Dobrzynskis alone fought with the Muscovites, who were led by the Russian general Voynilovich, and that scoundrel, his friend, Pan Wolk of Logomowicze. You remember how we took Wolk captive, and how we were going to hang him to a beam in the barn, because he was a tyrant to the peasantry and a servant of the Muscovites; but the stupid peasants took pity on him!
Well, finally we have gathered, and have called in our neighbours by messengers. You Dobrzynskis are not the only men here; from various other hamlets there are about two hundred of us here; so let us all consult together. If we need a marshal, let us all vote, with an equal voice for each; long live equality!”
So Matyasz Dobrzynski, who was at the head of the whole family, had been called Cock-on-the-Steeple. Later, after the year seventeen hundred and ninety-four, he changed his nickname and was christened Hand-on-Hip; the Dobrzynskis themselves also called him Bunny our King,117 but the Lithuanians styled him the Maciek of Macieks.
As he over the Dobrzynskis, so his house ruled over the village, standing between the tavern and the church. To all appearances it was rarely visited and mere trash lived in it, for at the entrance stood posts without gates, and the garden was neither fenced nor planted; in the vegetable beds birches had grown up.
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