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 granduncle 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 among 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 bookcases. Then he perched himself on the edge of the centre table and remarked easily:
“Your master did not take you to town with him, then?”
“I am the head servant, and he leaves me in charge of the house. It’s a strong, young chap that travels with our master. If—God forbid—there was some accident on the road, he would be of much more use than I.”
Glancing through the window, he saw the priest arguing vehemently in the thick of the crowd, which seemed subdued by his interference. Three or four men, however, were talking with the Cossacks at the door.
“And you don’t think your master has gone to join the rebels maybe—eh?” asked the officer.
“Our master would be too old for that, surely. He’s well over seventy, and he’s getting feeble, too. It’s some years now since he’s been on horseback, and he can’t walk much, either, now.”
The officer sat there swinging his leg, very quiet and indifferent. By that time the peasants who had been talking with the Cossack troopers at the door had been permitted to get into the hall. One or two more left the crowd and followed them in. They were seven in all, and among them the blacksmith, an ex-soldier. The servant appealed deferentially to the officer.
“Won’t your honour be pleased to tell the people to go back to their homes? What do they want to push themselves into the house like this for? It’s not proper for them to behave like this while our master’s away and I am responsible for everything here.”
The officer only laughed a little, and after a while inquired:
“Have you any arms in the house?”
“Yes. We have. Some old things.”
“Bring them all here, onto this table.”
The servant made another attempt to obtain protection.
“Won’t your honour tell these chaps. . . ?”
But the officer looked at him in silence, in such a way that he gave it up at once and hurried off to call the pantry-boy to help him collect the arms. Meantime, the officer walked slowly through all the rooms in the house, examining them attentively but touching nothing. The peasants in the hall fell back and took off their caps when he passed through. He said nothing whatever to them. When he came back to the study all the arms to be found in the house were lying on the table. There was a pair of big, flint-lock holster pistols from Napoleonic times, two cavalry swords, one of the French, the other of the Polish army pattern, with a fowling-piece or two.