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The side of Sprinkler was supported by Bartek, called Razor from his thin sabre; and likewise by Maciej, known as Bucket, from a blunderbuss that he carried, with a muzzle so broad that from it as from a pail a thousand bullets poured in a stream.
That’s the whole question. Maciej is our marshal and his little switch is his baton of office.” “Long live Cock-on-the-Steeple!” shouted Baptist. The gentry answered, “Vivant the sprinklers!” But in the corners a murmur had arisen, though it was stifled in the centre; evidently the council was dividing into two sides.
In one week our people so whipped and banished the Prussians that you couldn’t have found a German to make medicine of!128 What if we could turn the trick just as briskly and smartly now, and here in Lithuania give the Muscovites just such another sweating? Hey? What think you, Maciej?
Maciek, I thought that you were more of a fighting man: if you do not seize your sabre and mount your horse, at least you will gaily drink with your colleagues to the health of Napoleon and the hopes of Poland!” “Ha!” said Maciej, “I have heard and I see what is going on! But, sir, two eagles never nest together! Lords’ favour, hetman, rides a piebald steed!216 The Emperor a great hero!
As for our ancient quarrels with the Soplicas, for them I have a little penknife that is better than a lawsuit; and, if Maciej gives me the aid of his switch, then we two together will chop those Soplicas into fodder.” “Bravo!” said the Count, “your plan, of Gothico-Sarmatian stamp, pleases me better than the wrangling of advocates. See here!
While he was still laughing and fencing, Rembajlo had kneeled and embraced him about the knees, and was groaning out between his tears, at every turn of the sword:— “Beautiful! General, were you ever a confederate? Beautiful, splendid! That is the Pulawskis’213 thrust! Thus Dzierzanowski214 bore himself! That is Sawa’s thrust! Who can so have trained your arm except Maciej Dobrzynski! But that?
Meanwhile the Podhajskis and the Isajewiczes, the Birbaszes, Wilbiks, Biergels, and Kotwiczes, seeing the Dobrzynskis under so severe constraint, began slowly to cool down from their former wrath; for the Polish gentry, though beyond measure quarrelsome and eager for fighting, are nevertheless not vindictive. So they ran to old Maciej for counsel.
He was a man well advanced in years, who on his distant travels had learned much of the world; a diligent reader of gazettes, well versed in politics, he could cast no little light on the subject under discussion. Thus he concluded his speech:— “This is not, Pan Maciej, my brother, and revered father of us all—this is not aid to be despised.
Maciej disappointed the general expectation; he only frowned and again dropped his head on his breast. Finally he spoke out, pronouncing every word slowly and with emphasis, and nodding his head in time with them:— “Silence! Whence comes all this news? How far off are the French? Who is their leader? Have they already begun war with Moscow?
Is not this so?” “As true as if you were reading it out of a book,” they said. “It is true!” repeated Baptist, “drop after drop, every bit.” “I am always ready to shave!” exclaimed Razor. “Only make an agreement,” courteously begged Bucket, “under whose leadership Baptist and Maciej shall proceed.” But Buchmann interrupted him: “Let fools agree; discussions do not harm the common weal.
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