B. was the senior captain of his regiment. Some time before he
had been made head of the remount establishment quartered outside

the kingdom in our southern provinces, whence almost all the
horses for the Polish cavalry were drawn. For the first time

since he went away from home at the age of eighteen to begin his
military life by the battle of Friedland, Mr. Nicholas B.

breathed the air of the "Border," his native air. Unkind fate
was lying in wait for him amongst the scenes of his youth. At

the first news of the rising in Warsaw all the remount
establishment, officers, vets., and the very troopers, were put

promptly under arrest and hurried off in a body beyond the
Dnieper to the nearest town in Russia proper. From there they

were dispersed to the distant parts of the Empire. On this
occasion poor Mr. Nicholas B. penetrated into Russia much farther

than he ever did in the times of Napoleonic invasion, if much
less willingly. Astrakhan was his destination. He remained

there three years, allowed to live at large in the town but
having to report himself every day at noon to the military

commandant, who used to detain him frequently for a pipe and a
chat. It is difficult to form a just idea of what a chat with

Mr. Nicholas B. could have been like. There must have been much
compressed rage under his taciturnity, for the commandant

communicated to him the news from the theatre of war and this
news was such as it could be, that is, very bad for the Poles.

Mr. Nicholas B. received these communications with outward
phlegm, but the Russian showed a warm sympathy for his prisoner.

"As a soldier myself I understand your feelings. You, of course,
would like to be in the thick of it. By heavens! I am fond of

you. If it were not for the terms of the military oath I would
let you go on my own responsibility. What difference could it

make to us, one more or less of you?"
At other times he wondered with simplicity.

"Tell me, Nicholas Stepanovitch"--(my great-grandfather's name
was Stephen and the commandant used the Russian form of polite

address)--"tell me why is it that you Poles are always looking
for trouble? What else could you expect from running up against

Russia?"
He was capable, too, of philosophical reflections.

"Look at your Napoleon now. A great man. There is no denying it
that he was a great man as long as he was content to thrash those

Germans and Austrians and all those nations. But no! He must go
to Russia looking for trouble, and what's the consequence? Such

as you see me, I have rattled this sabre of mine on the pavements
of Paris."

After his return to Poland Mr. Nicholas B. described him as a
"worthy man but stupid," whenever he could be induced to speak of

the conditions of his exile. Declining the option offered him to
enter the Russian Army he was retired with only half the pension

of his rank. His nephew (my uncle and guardian) told me that the
first lastingimpression on his memory as a child of four was the

glad excitement reigning in his parents' house on the day when
Mr. Nicholas B. arrived home from his detention in Russia.

Every generation has its memories. The first memories of Mr.
Nicholas B. might have been shaped by the events of the last

partition of Poland, and he lived long enough to suffer from the
last armed rising in 1863, an event which affected the future of

all my generation and has coloured my earliest impressions. His
brother, in whose house he had sheltered for some seventeen years

his misanthropical timidity before the commonest problems of
life, having died in the early fifties, Mr. Nicholas B. had to

screw his courage up to the sticking-point and come to some
decision as to the future. After a long and agonising hesitation

he was persuaded at last to become the tenant of some fifteen
hundred acres out of the estate of a friend in the neighbourhood.

The terms of the lease were very advantageous, but the retired
situation of the village and a plain comfortable house in good

repair were, I fancy, the greatest inducements. He lived there
quietly for about ten years, seeing very few people and taking no

part in the public life of the province, such as it could be
under an arbitrary bureaucratic tyranny. His character and his

patriotism were above suspicion; but the organisers of the rising
in their frequent journeys up and down the province scrupulously

avoided coming near his house. It was generally felt that the
repose of the old man's last years ought not to be disturbed.

Even such intimates as my paternalgrandfather, a comrade-in-arms
during Napoleon's Moscow campaign and later on a fellow-officer

in the Polish Army, refrained from visiting his crony as the date
of the outbreak approached. My paternalgrandfather's two sons

and his only daughter were all deeply involved in the
revolutionary work; he himself was of that type of Polish squire

whose only ideal of patriotic action was to "get into the saddle
and drive them out." But even he agreed that "dear Nicholas must

not be worried." All this consideratecaution on the part of
friends, both conspirators and others, did not prevent Mr.

Nicholas B. being made to feel the misfortunes of that ill-omened
year.

Less than forty-eight hours after the beginning of the rebellion
in that part of the country, a squadron of scouting Cossacks

passed through the village and invaded the homestead. Most of
them remained formed between the house and the stables, while

several, dismounting, ransacked the various outbuildings. The
officer in command, accompanied by two men, walked up to the

front door. All the blinds on that side were down. The officer
told the servant who received him that he wanted to see his

master. He was answered that the master was away from home,
which was perfectly true.

I follow here the tale as told afterwards by the servant to my
grand-uncle's friends and relatives, and as I have heard it

repeated.
On receiving this answer the Cossack officer, who had been

standing in the porch, stepped into the house.
"Where is the master gone, then?"

"Our master went to J--" (the government town some fifty miles
off), "the day before yesterday."

"There are only two horses in the stables. Where are the
others?"

"Our master always travels with his own horses" (meaning: not by
post). "He will be away a week or more. He was pleased to

mention to me that he had to attend to some business in the Civil
Court."

While the servant was speaking the officer looked about the hall.
There was a door facing him, a door to the right and a door to

the left. The officer chose to enter the room on the left and
ordered the blinds to be pulled up. It was Mr. Nicholas B.'s

study with a couple of tall bookcases, some pictures on the
walls, and so on. Besides the big centre table, with books and

papers, there was a quite small writing-table with several
drawers, standing between the door and the window in a good

light; and at this table my grand-uncle usually sat either to
read or write.

On pulling up the blind the servant was startled by the discovery
that the whole male population of the village was massed in

front, trampling down the flower-beds. There were also a few
women amongst them. He was glad to observe the village priest

(of the Orthodox Church) coming up the drive. The good man in
his haste had tucked up his cassock as high as the top of his

boots.
The officer had been looking at the backs of the books in the