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This began to be annoying to Pan Rejtan, who, being a quick-tempered man, smote his sword and said: ‘My Lord Prince, whoever looks boldly, fights boldly; wild boars are equal to tigers, and sabres to spears.’ Then the German and he began somewhat too lively a discussion.
Have also due regard for my grey hairs, for I have known greater sportsmen than you, and I have often judged between them as an arbitrator. In the Lithuanian forests who has been equal to Rejtan, either in stationing a line of beaters, or in himself encountering the beast? Who can compare himself with Jerzy Bialopiotrowicz?
On his way he visited the gentry, partly for amusement, and partly to win popularity; so he called upon Pan Thaddeus Rejtan,152 to-day of holy memory, who was later our deputy from Nowogrodek, and in whose house I grew up from childhood. So Rejtan, on the occasion of the Prince’s coming, had invited guests, and the gentry had gathered in large numbers.
“Have something to eat with your mead, and I will tell you a curious story of a quarrel that seemed likely to end in a bloody fight, when Rejtan, hunting in the depths of the forests of Naliboki, played a trick on the Prince de Nassau. This trick he nearly atoned for with his own life; I made up the gentlemen’s quarrel, as I will tell you.”
Of that wild boar and of the shot I will tell you as an eyewitness, for the incident was similar to that of to-day, and it happened to the greatest sportsmen of my time, to the deputy Rejtan and the Prince de Nassau.” But then the Judge spoke up, pouring out a beaker:— “I drink the health of Robak; Seneschal, clink your glass with mine.
What would the hunters of old times say of this, if they should see that amid so many gentlemen, in so large a gathering, disputes over a hound’s tail had to be debated? What would old Rejtan say of this were he to come to life again? He would go back to Lachowicze and lay himself in his grave.
I myself, though I have been carrying a gun ever since I was a child, have often missed; that famous sportsman Tuloszczyk used to miss, and even the late Pan Rejtan did not always hit the mark. Of Rejtan I will speak later.
Farther on sat Rejtan,6 in Polish costume, mourning the loss of liberty; in his hands he held a knife with the point turned against his breast, and before him lay Phaedo and The Life of Cato.
The disagreement seems to have arisen from the bear’s hide, and if my friend the Judge had not hindered me, I should have reconciled the two adversaries right at the table. For I should have liked to tell a curious incident, similar to what occurred at our hunt yesterday, which happened to the foremost sportsmen of my time, the deputy Rejtan and the Prince de Nassau.
In our country, at that time, they were hunting wild boars; Rejtan had killed with his musket an immense sow, at great risk to himself, for he shot from close by.
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