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after supper,—
    "I will tell you a thing that not every mind could hit upon. I trust in God that our Michael will come out of this trouble more easily than we thought at first."
    "God grant! but whence did that come to your head?" inquired Kmita.
    "H'm! Besides an acquaintance with Michael, it is necessary to have quick wit from nature and long experience, and the latter is not possible at your years. Each man has his own special qualities. When misfortune strikes some men, it is, speaking figuratively, as if you were to throw a stone into a river. On the surface the water flows, as it were, quietly; but the stone lies at the bottom and hinders the natural current, and stops it and tears it terribly, and it will lie there and tear it till all the water of that river flows into the Styx. Yan, you may be counted with such men; but there is more suffering in the world for them, since the pain, and the memory of what caused it, do not leave them. But others receive misfortune as if some one had struck them with a fist on the shoulder. They lose their senses for the moment, revive later on, and when the black-and-blue spot is well, they forget it. Oi! such a nature is better in this world, which is full of misfortune."
    The knights listened with attention to the wise words of Zagloba; he was glad to see that they listened with such respect, and continued,—
    "I know Michael through and through; and God is my witness that I have no wish to find fault with him now, but it seems to me that he grieves more for the loss of the marriage than of the maiden. It is nothing that terrible despair has come, though that too, especially for him, is a misfortune above misfortunes. You cannot even imagine what a wish that man had to marry. There is not in him greed or ambition of any kind, or selfishness: he has left what he had, he has as good as lost his own fortune, he has not asked, for his salary; but in return for all his labors and services he expected, from the Lord God and the Commonwealth, only a wife. And he reckoned in his soul that such bread as that belonged to him; and he was about to put it to his mouth, when right there, as it were, some one sneered at him, saying, 'You have it now! Eat it!' What wonder that despair seized him? I do not say that he did not grieve for the maiden; but as God is dear to me, he grieved more for the marriage, though he would himself swear to the opposite."
    "That may be true," said Pan Yan.
    "Wait! Only let those wounds of his soul close and heal; we shall see if his old wish will not come again. The danger is only in this, that now, under the weight of despair, he may do something or make some decision which he would regret later on. But what was to happen has happened, for in misfortune decision comes quickly. My attendant is packing my clothes. I am not speaking to dissuade you from going; I wished only to comfort you."
    "Again, father, you will be a plaster to Michael," said Pan Yan.
    "As I was to you, you remember? If I can only find him soon, for I fear that he may be hiding in some hermitage, or that he will disappear somewhere in the distant steppes to which he is accustomed from childhood. Pan Kmita, your grace criticises my age; but I tell you that if ever a courier rushed on with despatches as I shall rush, then command me when I return to unravel old silk, shell peas, or give me a distaff. Neither will hardships detain me, nor wonders of hospitality tempt me; eating, even drinking, will not stop me. You have not yet seen such a journey! I can now barely sit in my place, just as if some one were pricking me from under the bench with an awl. I have even ordered that my travelling-shirt be rubbed with goats' tallow, so as to resist the serpent."

CHAPTER IV.
    Pan Zagloba did not drive forward so swiftly, however, as he had promised himself and his comrades. The nearer he was to Warsaw, the more, slowly he travelled. It was the time in which Yan Kazimir, king, statesman, and great leader,