to the door of the mansion, shouted:--

"Surrender, Judge, or I will order your house to be burned!"

"Burn it," cried the Judge, "and I will roast you in that fire!"

O mansion of Soplicowo! if thy white walls are still whole and glitter
beneath the lindens; if a throng of the neighbouring gentry still sit at
the Judge's hospitable board, they surely often drink the health of
Bucket, for without him Soplicowo would to-day be no more!

Bucket had so far given few proofs of valour. Though he was the first of
the gentry to be freed from the stocks, and though he had straightway
found in the waggon his darling bucket, his favourite blunderbuss, and
with it a pouch of bullets, he did not care to fight. He said that he did
not trust himself when dry, and so he went to a cask of spirits standing
near, and, using his hand as a spoon, dipped up a stream into his lips.
Only when he had well warmed and strengthened himself did he adjust his
cap, take up his bucket from his knees, ram home a charge, sprinkle the
pan, and gaze at the battlefield. He saw that a glittering wave of
bayonets was smiting and dispersing the gentry, and he swam to meet that
wave; he bent down and dived through the dense grass, across the centre of
the yard, until he paused in ambush where the nettles were growing; with
gestures he summoned Buzzard.

Buzzard, who was on guard at the mansion, was standing with his
blunderbuss by the threshold, for in that mansion dwelt his dear Zosia,
whom he loved eternally (though she had scorned his courtship), and in
whose defence he was glad to perish.

The line of yagers was already entering the nettles, on the march, when
Bucket touched the trigger, and from the broad mouth of his blunderbuss
let fly a dozen chopped bullets into the midst of the Muscovites; Buzzard
let fly another dozen, and the yagers fell into confusion. Dismayed by the
ambuscade, the line folded back into a disorderly mass, retreated, and
abandoned the wounded; Baptist finished their slaughter.

The barn was already far off; fearing a long retreat, Rykov made for the
garden fence, and there checked his fleeing company in its course. He drew
them up, but changed their formation; instead of a line he made a
triangle, with its point to the front and its base protected by the garden
fence. He did well, for the cavalry descended on him from the castle.

The Count, who had been in the castle under the guard of the Muscovites,
when his terrified g