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I’ll pay you up right off over your pretty earrings. Get out of the door, draw your sword! Thomas, my sabre!” Then friends rushed to the Chamberlain, and the Judge seized his hand. “Hold, sir, this is our affair; I was challenged first. Protazy, my hanger! I will make him dance like a bear on a pole!” But Thaddeus checked the Judge:—

Thus clad he took his cane and set out on foot, for apparitors before a lawsuit, as spies before battle, must hide under various forms and costumes. Protazy did well in hastening to depart, for he would have had no long comfort from his summons. In Soplicowo they changed their plans of campaign. Robak, thoughtful and perplexed, suddenly broke in upon the Judge and said:—

Protazy, though a bold fellow, felt some terror, for the very smell of the leaves called to his mind various of his former adventures as apparitorone after anotherof which the hemp had been a witness: how once a gentleman of Telsze, Dzindolet, whom he had summoned to court, had put a pistol against his breast, and bidden him crawl under the table and from there bark out a recantation of that summons with a dog’s voice,111 so that the Apparitor had to run full speed for the hemp; how later Wolodkowicz,112 a haughty and insolent grandee, who used to break up district diets and violate courts of justice, receiving his official summons, had torn it into bits, and stationing footmen with clubs at the doors, had with his own hand held a bare sword over the Apparitor’s head, crying: “Either I will cut you down or you will eat your paper.” The Apparitor, like a cautious man, had pretended to begin to eat it, until, stealing up to the window, he had plunged into the hemp garden.

The old one rightfully belonged to the owner of the castle; the new one Judge Soplica had built to spite the castle. In the former, as in his own inheritance, Gerwazy ruled supreme; in the latter Protazy occupied the highest place at the table. The new tavern was not peculiar in its appearance.

To be sure, at this time it was no longer the custom in Lithuania to defend oneself from a summons with the sabre or the whip, and an apparitor only got cursed now and then for his pains; but Protazy could not know of that change of customs, for it was long since he had carried any summons.

Bucket shot at the hat, but missed his aim; then there was a crackling of polesProtazy was already in the hop patch. “I protest,” he shouted; he was sure of escape, for behind him he had swamps and the bed of the stream. After this protest, which resounded like the last cannon shot on conquered ramparts, all resistance subsided in the mansion of the Soplicas.

You know the formula; so bark it out: don’t leave out anything.” “Mr. Warden, wait awhile,” said Protazy boldly, thrusting his hands into his belt. “I am ready to carry out all the orders of the contending parties, but I warn you that the act will not be valid, being extorted by violence and proclaimed by night.” “What violence?” said the Warden. “There is no assault here.

Well, it was an omen prophetic of her fate,” Protazy concluded; “I beheld the omen with my own eyes. A year ago our servants were sitting here on a holiday, drinking mead, and we sawwhack! there fell from the eaves two sparrows fighting, both old males.

As an experienced fox, when the scent of bacon allures it, runs towards it but bears in mind the secret tricks of hunters; it runs, stops, sits up frequently, raises its brush, and with it as with a fan waves the breeze to its nostrils, and asks the breeze whether the hunters have not poisoned the food: so Protazy left the road and circled over the meadow around the house; he twirled his stick in his hand and pretended that he had somewhere seen some stray cattle; thus skilfully manœuvring he arrived close to the garden; he bent down and ran so that you would have said that he was trailing a land rail; then he suddenly jumped over the fence and plunged into the hemp.

But the guests were already leaving the hall in a throng; the terrified servants did not dare to hold their ground, but, seizing some of the platters, ran out after their masters; they left behind even the plates and a part of the service. Who last, caring not for the threats and blows, retired from the scene of battle? Protazy Brzechalski.