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"But look here, gentlemen, you don't want to do his honour, the squire, any harm?" he inquired of Ivan, with a foolishly smiling face. "No, old 'un, no." "Nor the young squire either?" "No, nor him either, not for all the world." "Nor the heyduke? He is my godson, you know." "No, nor him either, old 'un, but do look sharp."
At the arched entrance of the vaults stood a heyduke, with a moustache trimmed in three layers: the upper layer was trained backwards, the second straight forward, and the third downwards, which made him greatly resemble a cat. The Jew shrank into nothing and approached him almost sideways: "Your high excellency! High and illustrious lord!" "Are you speaking to me, Jew?"
It was therefore with a very surly look that Master Boltay, standing outside his door one day, beheld a handsome carriage stop in front of his house, and a heyduke assist an elderly Hungarian gentleman to descend therefrom. The old gentleman approached Master Boltay with a very amicable air, and, bidding the heyduke remain behind, said to the artisan "Sir, is this the house of Mr. Boltay?"
Here the heyduke twirled his upper moustache. "If you don't, I will shout at once." "Why so much?" said the Jew, sadly, turning pale, and undoing his leather purse; but it was lucky that he had no more in it, and that the heyduke could not count over a hundred. "My lord, my lord, let us depart quickly!
The lord no doubt rides a horse as fleet as the wind and commands the troops!" The heyduke twirled the lower tier of his moustache, and his eyes beamed. "What a warlike people!" continued the Jew. "Ah, woe is me, what a fine race! Golden cords and trappings that shine like the sun; and the maidens, wherever they see warriors Ai, ai!" Again the Jew wagged his head.
His moustache was clipped close to save trouble, but all the more care had he bestowed upon his marvellous powdered top-knot itself a survival which respectable elevation the worthy fellow revealed to the light of day, neatly bound up with a black ribbon. Behind him stands the old heyduke Palko in a laced dolman. He is just as old as they are.
Nay, better still, some young countess or other might fall over head and ears in love with the handsome youth, and what a capital jest it would then be to exhibit the fellow in the scarlet livery of a heyduke, whose duty it is to climb up behind the carriage when his master goes out for a drive!
"Yes, I did." "And three years ago you met three Hungarian gentlemen in the Ermenouville Forest, did you not?" "Yes, I did meet them," replied Alexander, surprised that anybody should bear in mind such minutiæ of his past life. "Then this letter will be meant for you," said the heyduke, delivering the letter. "Be so good as to read it. I await a reply."
The advent of foreign counts and barons was common enough in Poland: they were often drawn thither by curiosity to view this half-Asiatic corner of Europe. They regarded Moscow and the Ukraine as situated in Asia. So the heyduke bowed low, and thought fit to add a few words of his own. "I do not know, your excellency," said he, "why you should desire to see them.
And, indeed, his honour, the steward, and the heyduke made up an odd-looking trio between them.
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